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Themes in the Historiography of Anti-Semitism in Soviet Russia from the 1945 to
1953.
In this literature review, I will review 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-Semetic 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 studying the methodologies employed by
historians within this historiography.
From the years of 1945 to 1953, anti-Semitism was a constant presence in Russian
society. Historians of the historiography 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.
2
Shaffer discusses many examples of anti-Semitism that originated because of the
Russian government. He states that Stalin discriminated against the Jewish culture as a
whole more than the religion itself.1 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 farther 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, Russia would have seen many Jews banished from her
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
1
Harry G. Shaffer, The Soviet Treatment of Jews (New York: Praeger, 1974), 9.
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; a Documented Study,
86.
6 Shaffer, The Soviet Treatment of Jews, 11.
7 Pinkus, The Soviet Government and the Jews: 1948-1967; a Documented Study,
88.
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replace the intelligentsia, which was primarily Jewish, with a non-jewish intelligentsia.8
What Azadovskii and Egorov do that other historians do not, is that they also note the
effect that arresting so many Jewish people in academia has on Russian intellectual
studies. They are of the opinion that certain studies in Russia 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, and would have helped Vaksberg emphasize the point
(and title) of his work, the Doctor’s Plot was not included in Stalin Against the Jews.
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
Konstantin Azadovskii and Boris Egorov, “From Anti-Westernism to AntiSemitism: Stalin and the Impact of the ‘Anti-Cosmopolitan’ Campaigns on Soviet
Culture.”
9 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.”
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private was Stalin’s hand in the murder of Solomon Mikhoels in 1948. Stalin’s own
daughter, as Azadovskii and Egorov explain, admitted that Stalin himself in fact
orchestrated Mikhoels’ murder.12 Vaksberg dedicates an entire chapter of his book to the
murder of Solomon Mikhoels. Vaksberg is at times slightly unprofessional in his writing
and pays more attention to telling the story than to providing the reader with as much
information as possible. 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
Pinkus, The Soviet Government and the Jews: 1948-1967; a Documented Study,
88.
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.
12
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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
often ridiculed and harassed.15 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
14
Pinkus, The Soviet Government and the Jews: 1948-1967; a Documented
Study, 87.
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 form a completely
Jewish state that is not assimilated into any other culture or state, such as Russia. There
is indeed a difference between being opposed to Zionism alone and merely being
opposed to Jewish people altogether. The hatred of both, however, usually pertains to the
cultures and not necessarily the religious aspect, as exemplified by Stalin’s hatred of the
Jewish culture as a whole.21
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.22 He does note, however, that many Soviet
citizens disguised their anti-Semitic feelings under the guise of anti-Zionism, as many
others in history have done before.23 Azadovskii, Egorov, and Vaksberg have in common
a connection between Zionism and the murder of Solomon Mikhoels. Vaksberg states
that Stalin intended to place the blame of Mikhoels’ murder upon Zionists who were
angry that Mikhoels would not join them.24 Azadovskii and Egorov do not mention
placing blame on Zionists, but the do note that Stalin’s daughter admitted that the murder
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 Shaffer, The Soviet Treatment of Jews, 9.
22 Shaffer, The Soviet Treatment of Jews, 13.
23 Shaffer, The Soviet Treatment of Jews, 140.
24 Arkadii Vaksberg, Stalin against the Jews (New York: Knopf, 1994), 177.
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of Mikhoels was without question incited by Stalin’s “tendency to see ‘Zionism’ and
plots everywhere.”25
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.
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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