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

“Zydokomuna” w aparacie wladzy “Polskiej Ludowej” Mit czy rzeczewistosc? by Miroslaw Szumilo. 2018

Judeo-Bolshevism Examined: Zydokomuna Factual. Overall Jewish Privileges in Communist-Ruled Poland

This Polish-language research article, translated “Judeo-Communism” in the Power Apparatus of “People’s Poland”. Myth or Reality?, is published in the journal PAMIEC I SPRAWIEDLIWOSC 2(32)27-60. The author is a historian affiliated with IPN.

ZYDOKOMUNA FACTUAL: JEWS IN COMMUNISM WERE IN NO SENSE MARGINAL

The author comments, “The quantitative and qualitative participation of communist Jews in the power apparatus of ‘People’s Poland’ was exceptionally large, and in some segments (the central party apparatus, secret police, propaganda) even dominating.” (p. 59). Let’s examine some facts and figures provided by Szumilo. (p. 31).  It turns out that the leadership of major Communist government institutions was overwhelmingly Jewish–in the 34%–49% range. (This should not be confused with the overall membership of such institutions, which was much less Jewish.) Let us bear in mind that only about 0.4% of Poland’s population was Jewish.

ZYDOKOMUNA FACTUAL: POLAND’S JEWS AS A WHOLE OVERWHELMINGLY SUPPORTED COMMUNISM

What about the rank and file of Poland’s Jewish population? Jews massively participated in voting in the Referendum of June 30, 1946, and in the sham elections of January 1947 that officially brought the Communists to power. All indicators are that Jews overwhelmingly voted in support of the Communist government. (p. 49).

POLAND’S COMMUNIST GOVERNMENT CURRIED FAVOR WITH THE JEWS

In trying to dispel the connection between Jews and Communism, Jan T. Gross had argued that most Holocaust-surviving Jews left Poland because they could not stand the new Communist government. (p. 49). Szumilo very much disputes this, and points to many other reasons that most of Poland’s Jews soon left Poland.

(More recently, Andrew Kornbluth, in his THE AUGUST TRIALS, in attempting to spin the August Decree trials as ones that were Polish-whitewashing and had little regard for Jewish lives, has also argued that the Communist government had scant sympathy for Jews. This flies in the face of evidence to the contrary.)

Szumilo shows how Jews were privileged under the Communist government. Jews had considerable cultural and political autonomy, greater than that of the Poles themselves, and which was not true of other minorities. (pp. 47-48). The Jewish privileges continued for some time. No such thing happened in Poland, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, that paralleled the cases of Rudolf Slansky in Czechoslovakia or the removal of Ana Pauker in Romania. (p. 50).

ZYDOKOMUNA FACTUAL: JEWISH COMMUNISTS WERE REALLY JEWS

Zydokomuna deniers remind us that most Jews who were Communists (allegedly) had few ties to Judaism. Against this subterfuge, Szumilo (p. 28) reminds us that a Jew is one who was born to a Jewish mother (and has not converted to another religion). Whether or not this person closely follows Judaism, or is observant, is irrelevant.

Szumilo (p. 30) rejects Pawel Spiewak’s contention that Jews were murdered for no other reason than they were born Jews. At least some were killed because they were Communists, while others were killed in ordinary acts of banditry.

JEWS, TOO, MUST COME TO TERMS WITH THE PAST

The author quotes the Polish Jew, Stanislaw Krajewski. He points out that the influence of Jewish Communists was considerable, not marginal, and that Jews must accept the fact that Jews had been victimizers as well as victims in the 20th Century. Owing to the fact that some Jews had made a virtual deity out of Joseph Stalin, the Jews must accept some moral responsibility for this fact. (p. 54).