Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

The History of a False Illusion: Memoirs on the Communist Movement in Poland, 1918-1938, by P. Minc, Robert Michaels (Translator). 2002

The Zydokomuna, Along With Most Jewish Political Groupings, Opposed the Restoration of the Polish State

This book is useful in understanding the “Trotskyite” form of Communism in Poland before Stalin destroyed it. The reader should not mistakenly suppose, from the title, that this book is about someone who became disillusioned with Communism. Rather, Minc, the author, is disillusioned with the way Communism turned out. (pp. xxii-xxiii). Throughout this work, Minc persists in Communist ideation, and engages in the demonization and awfulization of pre-WWII Poland. In addition, both he (p. 179, 223), and translator Robert Michaels (p. vii) call Pilsudski a (what else?) fascist, even though he was anything but.

THE ZYDOKOMUNA HAD OPPOSED THE RESURRECTION OF THE POLISH STATE

The author confirms the fact that the main Jewish political movements, in tsarist Russia, did not support the resurrection of the Polish state (that eventually happened in 1918). With Zionists and Yiddishists, this was obvious. The so-called Social Democrats (ESDEKES, or SDKPiL) opposed a restored Poland, because it would be “bourgeois”. Having accepted the premise that Poland was an organic part of the Russian economy, the SDKPiL professed to favor an autonomous Poland within a democratic Russia. (p. 4; see also p. 16). The SDKPiL was unambiguously oriented towards Russia. (p. 35). Among the Jews of Poland, the Bund, at very least, gave tacit support to the 1920 Communist invaders by not opposing its members becoming members of “revcoms”. (p. 41).

THE 1920 POLISH-SOVIET WAR: SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

Minc confirms one important fact about the 1920 Polish-Bolshevik war. The Polish victory did not owe to the intervention of French General Weygand. (p. 37).