God help them. The slaughter to come is probably beyond our imagining

  • JuneFall [none/use name]
    ·
    9 months ago

    Plenty of decisions of the central committee and the politburo during that time were aimed at securing the Soviet Union, which includes actions against reactionaries and white army terrorist leftovers especially in border regions and those in which power couldn't be projected well into. However the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, while having a slapping flag that would make our 2SLGBTQ* comrades proud, never was home to more than 20 000 people labeling as Jews, who remained a minority and who were also not as much in political control as the name implies.

    More Jews fought in the Red army than lived in the JAO.

    • Vncredleader [he/him]
      ·
      9 months ago

      Wasn't a large contingent of the Jewish population in the JAO Canadian Jews? The project was doomed partly because Soviet Jews already had a place in their communities more or less.

      • JuneFall [none/use name]
        ·
        9 months ago

        The project was doomed partly because Soviet Jews already had a place in their communities more or less.

        Since the worst antisemitism of the Tsar was ended with the October revolution and the years after it, that rings as if it could be true.

        • Vncredleader [he/him]
          ·
          9 months ago

          Keep in mind the resurgent antisemitism post WW2 in several Eastern Bloc countries was over a decade off at this point and the idea of Jewish nationalism had greatly diminished. For various reasons it came back and caused a huge reaction ( ie the rootless cosmopolitan campaign) and split in communist Jews. So end of the 20s they are riding high and integration and an embracing of Yiddish culture was a very clear reality for most people. The JAO had significant Canadian Jews come, and the USSR in general attracted a lot of the diaspora in this time because it was actively fighting against antisemitism.