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Themes in the Historiography of Anti-Semitism in Soviet Russia from 1945 to
1953
In this literature review, I will review the main themes found in the historiography
of anti-Semitism in Russia from 1945 to 1953. One of these major themes noted by
historians such as Konstantin Azadovskii and Boris Egorov in their 2002 article, “From
Anti-Westernism to Anti-Semitism: Stalin and the Impact of the ‘Anti-Cosmopolitan’
Campaigns on Soviet Culture” is the government’s support of anti-Semitic values.
Another major theme noted by historians such as Benjamin Pinkus in The Soviet
Government and the Jews 1948-1967 (1984), is the negative and positive depiction of the
Jewish people in print media. Finally, the relation of anti-Zionism to anti-Semitism that
historians such as Harry G. Shaffer in his 1974 work, The Soviet Treatment of Jews, study
are all important themes that one finds in this historiography.
From 1945 to 1953, anti-Semitism was a constant presence in Russian society.
Historians have not only studied the overall examples of anti-Semitism in Russia, but
those encouraged and even incited by the government. Historians who have studied
government-encouraged anti-Semitism include Azadovskii and Egorov, Shaffer, Pinkus,
and Arkady Vaksberg in his 1994 book, Stalin Against the Jews. Shaffer discusses many
examples of anti-Semitism that originated because of the Russian government. He states
that Stalin discriminated against Jewish culture as a whole more than the religion itself.1
1
Harry G. Shaffer, The Soviet Treatment of Jews (New York: Praeger, 1974), 9.
2
Pinkus is of the same opinion and adds that Stalin’s anti-religious policy served to attack
the entire Jewish existence.2 Another topic broached by historians within the theme is the
treatment of Jewish people in regards to their professional lives. Shaffer explains that
many Jewish institutions, such as schools, were closed down.3 Azadovskii and Egorov
note that many Jewish people were released from positions in universities.4 Pinkus
focuses on the government a little more than Shaffer, Azadovskii, and Egorov, and
mentions that Stalin removed many Jewish people from government positions and that
after the war, Jews were not often offered new places in government.5 Shaffer goes a
little further and adds that many Jewish people were arrested, deported, and even
murdered after the war.6 Pinkus agrees and notes that, had Stalin not died when he did,
the USSR would have seen many Jews banished from its borders.7
Azadovskii and Egorov make note that, in 1949, Stalin initiated an attack on
Jewish authors, artists, and those in other professions, and he did so because he desired to
replace the intelligentsia, which was primarily Jewish, with a non-Jewish intelligentsia.8
Unlike other historians, Azadovskii and Egorov also note the effect that arresting so
many Jewish people in academia had on Russian intellectual studies. They are of the
2
Benjamin Pinkus, The Soviet Government and the Jews: 1948-1967; A
Documented Study (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 15.
3 Shaffer, The Soviet Treatment of Jews, 11.
4 Konstantin Azadovskii and Boris Egorov, “From Anti-Westernism to AntiSemitism: Stalin and the Impact of the ‘Anti-Cosmopolitan’ Campaigns on Soviet
Culture,” Journal of Cold War Studies 4:1 (2002),
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/egorov.htm.
5 Pinkus, The Soviet Government and the Jews: 1948-1967, 86.
6 Shaffer, The Soviet Treatment of Jews, 11.
7 Pinkus, The Soviet Government and the Jews: 1948-1967, 88.
8 Konstantin Azadovskii and Boris Egorov, “From Anti-Westernism to AntiSemitism: Stalin and the Impact of the ‘Anti-Cosmopolitan’ Campaigns on Soviet
Culture.”
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opinion that certain studies in the USSR suffered greatly and some even continue to do so
today.9
A significant event that Pinkus, Shaffer, and Robert S. Wistrich, in his A Lethal
Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad (2010), all make note of is
the Doctor’s Plot, which was falsified by Stalin to place unwarranted blame on Soviet
doctors, many of whom were Jewish, for attempts, also falsified, to hurt “the state,” as
well as for being “Zionist spies.”10 Although it is a prime example of Stalin’s antagonistic
attitude toward the Jews of Russia, Vaksburg is one of the few authors who did not
mention the Doctor’s Plot.
As Pinkus, Azadovskii, and Egorov state in their individual works, Stalin
definitely possessed a hatred for Jews that, although not blatantly spoken of in public or
in official statements, was spoken of among his private circle.11 Also mentioned in
private was Stalin’s hand in the murder of Solomon Mikhoels, chairman of the Jewish
Anti-Fascist Committee, in 1948. Stalin’s own daughter, as Azadovskii and Egorov
Konstantin Azadovskii and Boris Egorov, “From Anti-Westernism to AntiSemitism: Stalin and the Impact of the ‘Anti-Cosmopolitan’ Campaigns on Soviet
Culture.”
10 Pinkus, The Soviet Government and the Jews: 1948-1967; a Documented
Study, 55.
Shaffer, The Soviet Treatment of Jews, 11-12.
Robert S. Wistrich, A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the
Global Jihad (New York: Random House, 2010), 127.
11 Konstantin Azadovskii and Boris Egorov, “From Anti-Westernism to AntiSemitism: Stalin and the Impact of the ‘Anti-Cosmopolitan’ Campaigns on Soviet
Culture.”
Pinkus, The Soviet Government and the Jews: 1948-1967; a Documented Study,
88.
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explain, admitted that Stalin himself in fact orchestrated Mikhoels’ murder.12 Vaksberg
dedicates an entire chapter of his book to the murder of Mikhoels. Vaksberg writes in the
style of narrative history, unlike many other sources. I am of the opinion that other
historians, such as Pinkus and Shaffer, are able to fit much more information and detail
within each section of their works and are much more matter-of-fact than Vaksberg.
A second theme of the historiography of anti-Semitism in Russia is the positive
and negative portrayal of Jews in print media. Historians study both media written by
Jewish and non-Jewish authors, different types of media, the treatment of the authors
themselves, and the effects that the media had on society, and vice versa.
Shaffer, although having less to say about media than historians such as Pinkus
and Ainzstein when taking into account the length of each work, notes that when war
crimes were reported, the Soviets made it seem as though Jewish victims were not the
only ones to suffer, and that it was the Soviet people as a whole that had been under
attack.13 Pinkus had much more to say about Jews in relation to print media, such as how
articles published about them made them seem corrupt, lazy, greedy, and deceitful, and
he notes that Jews were often made to be the whipping boy of the Soviet Union.14
Rebecca Manley, in her 2009 work To the Tashkent Station: Evacuation and Survival in
the Soviet Union at War, agrees that Jews were seen as scapegoats after the war, and were
Konstantin Azadovskii and Boris Egorov, “From Anti-Westernism to AntiSemitism: Stalin and the Impact of the ‘Anti-Cosmopolitan’ Campaigns on Soviet
Culture”
13 Shaffer, The Soviet Treatment of Jews, 10.
14 Pinkus, The Soviet Government and the Jews: 1948-1967; a Documented
Study, 87.
12
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often ridiculed and harassed.15 She connects anti-Semitism to the evacuations of World
War Two by mentioning things such as rumors that Jews had priority in the evacuations,
as well as their treatment upon their return. Both Pinkus and Ainsztein note that many
authors and playwrights, especially after the changing of Soviet policy on media in 1946,
were accused of producing works that were “apolitical” and slandered the “Soviet man”
and “reality,” and that many were arrested.16
A major recurrence within the theme of Jews in print media is the absence of
certain topics. Although blatant, open anti-Semitism was not altogether common in
literature, there was indeed a distinct absence of writing on the Holocaust, as well as
Jewish suffering, heroism, and martyrdom.17 Pinkus even gives years in which there was
absolutely nothing published in Russia that pertained to the Holocaust.18
Pinkus makes note that changing policy regarding publications allowed for the
expression of Jewish heroism before 1946, but a shift backwards forced authors to cease
15
Rebecca Manley, To the Tashkent Station: Evacuation and Survival in the
Soviet Union at War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009), 115.
16 Pinkus, The Soviet Government and the Jews: 1948-1967; a Documented
Study, 148-150.
Reuben Ainsztein, “Jewish Tragedy and Heroism in Soviet War
Liteature,” Jewish Social Studies, 23:2 (April, 1961), 68.
17 Pinkus, The Soviet Government and the Jews: 1948-1967; a Documented
Study, 394.
Ainsztein, “Jewish Tragedy and Heroism in Soviet War Liteature,” 67.
Ibid. 79
18 Pinkus, The Soviet Government and the Jews: 1948-1967; a Documented
Study, 423.
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publishing positive Jewish themes for fear of punishment.19 He also states that many
works relating to the war and Judaism were not written by Jewish authors.20
The third and final theme discussed in this literature review is the relation of antiZionism to anti-Semitism. The easiest way to distinguish between the two is to
understand that Zionists form a section of Jewish people who wish to create a completely
Jewish state that is not assimilated into any other culture or state, such as Russia.
Timothy Snyder, in his 2010 work Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, notes
that Soviet Jews were considered Zionists when they showed a preference for the state of
Israel over their homeland.21 There is indeed a difference between being opposed to
Zionism alone and merely being opposed to Jewish people altogether. The hatred of
Jews and Zionists, however, usually stems from hatred of the people and not the religion,
as exemplified by Stalin’s hatred of the Jewish culture as a whole.22 Despite showing
signs of anti-Semitism, the USSR first supported the state of Israel after its recognition in
1948. It wasn’t until Stalin “decided that the Jews were influencing the Soviet State more
than the Soviets were influencing the Jewish State” that things began to go downhill.23
Shaffer cannot clearly state whether Stalin’s actions stemmed simply from antiSemitism or whether there were other factors that drove him to make the choices he did
regarding the Jewish people of Russia.24 He does note, however, that many Soviet
19
Pinkus, The Soviet Government and the Jews: 1948-1967; a Documented
Study, 265.
20 Pinkus, The Soviet Government and the Jews: 1948-1967; a Documented
Study, 392.
21 Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (New York,
NY: Basic Books, 2010), 349.
22 Shaffer, The Soviet Treatment of Jews, 9.
23 Snyder, Bloodlands, 346.
24 Shaffer, The Soviet Treatment of Jews, 13.
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citizens disguised their anti-Semitic feelings under the guise of anti-Zionism, as many
others in history have done before.25 Azadovskii, Egorov, and Vaksberg all mention
connections between Zionism and the murder of Solomon Mikhoels. Vaksberg states
that Stalin intended to place the blame for Mikhoels’ murder upon Zionists who were
angry that Mikhoels would not join them.26 Azadovskii and Egorov do not mention
placing blame on Zionists, but they do note that Stalin’s daughter admitted that the
murder of Mikhoels was without question incited by Stalin’s “tendency to see ‘Zionism’
and plots everywhere.”27
There are many recurring themes within the historiography of anti-Semitism in
Russia from 1945 to 1953. Three of these themes include Jews in print media,
government encouraged and incited anti-Semitism, and the relation of anti-Zionism to
anti-Semitism. A similar path of study pertaining to these themes could possibly include a
broader time frame. Another path could focus on anti-Zionism itself, rather than its
presence in anti-Semitism.
25
Shaffer, The Soviet Treatment of Jews, 140.
Arkadii Vaksberg, Stalin against the Jews (New York: Knopf, 1994), 177.
27 Konstantin Azadovskii and Boris Egorov, “From Anti-Westernism to AntiSemitism: Stalin and the Impact of the ‘Anti-Cosmopolitan’ Campaigns on Soviet
Culture.”
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