These questions by themselves shatter the charge we are discussing. There is, however, an immense mass of direct and positive evidence available to all who desire to know the truth, but which is carefully and studiously ignored by the preachers of anti-Semitism. If such men as Mr. Ford are ignorant of the existence of this evidence, as we must suppose them to be, their offense against America and American ideals is not thereby appreciably lessened; their reckless and irresponsible use of the wealth and other influential agents at their command adds to the sum of their shame and wrongdoing. The greatest and strongest Jewish Socialist organization in Russia and Poland, the "Bund," has stood in solid opposition to Bolshevism and the Bolshevist regime from the very beginning until now. Not only have leaders of the right wing, or moderate section of the "Bund," such as Lieber, fought Bolshevism with their full might, but leaders of the radical left wing, such as Kossovsky and Medem, have been equally courageous and uncompromising on the same side[1]. A tiny and negligible minority split off from the "Bund" because of its anti-Bolshevist character and formed a new organization, the "Communist Bund." Similarly, the overwhelming mass of the Zionist party has consistently opposed Bolshevism and all its works, and such men as Doctor Pasmanick, the well-known Zionist leader of Odessa, have given their full support to every anti-Bolshevist movement, political and military.
I have already referred to the activity of the well-known Jewish leader, Vinaver, in the fight against Bolshevism. Mr. Vinaver is not a Socialist; on the contrary, during many years he has been a consistent opponent of Socialism and one of the foremost leaders of the Constitutional Democratic party, of whose Central Committee he was, and I believe still is, the chairman. Immediately after the March revolution of 1917, Mr. Vinaver was appointed Senator by the First Provisional Government. He was elected to the Constituent Assembly from Petrograd, and later on, after his escape from Petrograd, served as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the government of the Crimea. This prominent Jewish anti-Socialist testifies that "not a single Jewish Socialist faction has joined the Bolsheviki." From a report on this subject cabled to this country by Vinaver in July, 1919, I quote the following paragraphs, which speak for themselves.
The entire Russian Jewry struggles against Bolshevism. This is true not only with regard to the bourgeoisie, but to the democratic classes of the Russian Jewry as well. It is sufficient to say that not a single Jewish Socialist faction has joined the Bolsheviki. All political factions of the Russian Jewry are struggling against Bolshevism.
The great majority of the Jewish population, including many of the poor, are being classed by the Bolsheviki with the so-called bourgeoisie, and every place where the Bolsheviki rule, the Jewish population, not to speak of very insignificant exceptions, is suffering and starving.
The Bolshevist regime has destroyed the industries and the trade, and the Jewish population, which made its living mostly through participation in the industrial and commercial life, is suffering probably more than other nationalities. At the same time, the Bolsheviki are persecuting all religions, and the Jewish religious institutions have suffered from their despotic rule not less than the institutions of the Christian religion.
The anti-Semites are making very wide use of the fact that Trotzky is a Jew, but the participation of several Jews among the Bolshevist leaders does not nullify the fact that the Russian Jewry, in its overwhelming majority, struggles actively against Bolshevism. It is significant that Bolshevism spread mostly in central and eastern Russia where the Jews constitute an insignificant minority.
It is a significant fact that the only Socialist elected to the United States Congress in the recent election, Meyer London, a Russian-born Jew, is a vigorous opponent of Bolshevism. In view of such evidence as the foregoing, it is surely not less than ridiculous to attempt to make Bolshevism appear as a phase of Jewish Socialism, and a part of a world-wide Jewish conspiracy, instead of what it is—namely, the wild anarchical outburst of despairing and desperate masses of men. I venture to say that when the history of this tragic episode in the life of Russia is authoritatively written, it will be found that Jews have not been responsible for the most objectionable features of Bolshevism. Not even Trotzky need be excluded from this generalization, for, while it is true that his genius made Bolshevism the formidable military power it became, the brutal excesses of the Red Terror must be charged against such men as Peters, the Lett, and Dzerzhinsky, the Pole.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] see the articles published in the New York pro-Bolshevist weekly, Die Neue Welt, June 27, July 4 and 11, 1919.