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7 .THE SOU THERN ISRAELITE The Inside Story Of R J ussian Jewry Stalin s Biographer Discusses Jewish Problems In The U. S. S. R. By ISAAC DON LEVINE As Told to FLORENCE ROTHSCHILD Recently Isaac Don Levine, noted Rns- inn correspondent of the Hearst papers, h ns come very much into the limelight he- ‘iiusc of his biography of Joseph Stalin, Dictator of Soviet Russia. In this article \lr. Levine speaks his mind on the Jewish situation in the U. S. S. R. Mr. Levine has tmt been in Russia for several years, and some of his views may appear a bit out moded. I'hey are, however, reproduced here without comment, because of Mr. Levine’s snnding as one of the best American ob servers ever to have occupied himself with the political and economic problems of the l \ S. R. R. > iiimiiimmniiiiMimiimiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiHiiiiiiiimMimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiimiiimiiiiimii. You want to know the inside story of the Jewish situation in Russia? That is rather a large order. Rut I shall try to give an idea of it regarding the problem from two points of view, the subjective and the objective. Subjectively the attitude of present-day Russia toward the Jew is more favorable than otherwise. Official prejudice against the Jew does not exist; Jews still occupy high positions in the councils of the So viets; the Jew is regarded as a citizen equal to any other. Objectively, however, the situation is dif ferent. The Bolshevist movement has lost much of its intellectual element in the last few years, and its mass is now made up of Russian workers and peasants for whom the original ideology of the Revo lution is quite incomprehensible, whose efforts are consecrated upon the carrying through of the Five ear Plan and who have no use for a group which, like the Jews, essentially intellectual in its outlook on the Bolshevist aims und purposes. Add to this the fact that a good part of the Russian population is none too enthusiastic ver the Five Year Plan—after all, the Communist Party in Rus sia has only about a million mem- >( rs —that the overwhelming ma- ority is forced to endure priva- m because of the Plan, that the nouzhiks have for generations K ’ en used to vent upon the Jews ieir anger against conditions in eneral, and—well, it doesn’t au- ur well for the Jews of Russia. It is true, of course, that the v iet Government is making enuous effort to stamp out anti- mitism. But why? I think it is ar that if the Government is *ing more and more stringent easures it is because anti-Jewish eling is growing among the Rus- an masses. Not in official circles, course. Though Stalin has re- aced many Jewish Soviet officials md foreign representatives with Georgian friends and countrymen ISAAC DON LEVINE Author of Stalin. Portrait from lift' by the well-known Berlin art ist, Hass. iiimimimiimiiiimimniiHimnmmimmmiimmimmimmmimimimiiimmmiimHmimiiiiimniiHiiii of his, this is merely an instance of natural clannishness to which even Bolshevist lead ers are subject. The high position of a man like Kaganovich shows that there is no anti-Semitism in the Russian Government. But among the people the old habit of anti- Semitic violence is merely dormant, and the danger of its breaking out is great. TSE?—1 TouJarS bF ' KrzrriLVt'jV..' ; P}oSGo\A, t^OSSiO-^ The Jews of Russia know this. If the gates of Russia were opened and if there were any place where the Russian Jews could go a good many of them would leave at once. An interesting sidelight is thrown by the Soviet Government’s disbanding of the Yevsektsia, the Jewish Communists’ organ ization, some time ago. This was done largely because the Yevsektsia was making a nuisance of itself. The Bolshevist policy is anti-religious, of course; but the Yev sektsia became too militant in its drive against Judaism. There has been a general let-up in the anti-religious campaign in Russia—possibly because of pressure from abroad—and it was in this process of re laxation that the Yevsektsia was dis banded. It was felt, moreover, that the organization’s activities were not of a nature to win over many Jewish con verts to the Bolshevist creed. As a matter of fact, the role of the Jew in the Bolshevist movement has diminished considerably in the last few years. Imme diately after the Revolution there were many Jewish leaders among the Commu nists. Their idealism and enthusiasm had been fired by the broad, liberating program of the Revolution. As time went on, how ever, and the Revolution had to devote it self to the solution of economic problems, evolving such offshoots as the New Eco nomic Policy and the Five Year Plan, these idealists gradually began to lose their enthusiasm. It is the course which the Revolution took that made it lose its intellectual ele ment—which included the Jews— and has now made the Communist Party merely a passive mass led by the dictator Stalin and a few of his aides. As for the present economic status of Russian Jewry—it could hardly be worse. There is, actual ly, no room for the Jew in mod ern industrial Russia. Russia— probably because of her need to prepare for war—is concentrating every effort upon the development of her heavy industries. The Jew has two handicaps here. In the first place, he rarely is fit or train ed to work in industries; how many Jewish coal-miners or foun- drymen are there in any country? Secondly, the centers of Jewish settlement are mostly at a con siderable distance from the places where Russia’s natural resources are located; and naturally the men selected for work in a mine or steel-plant will be those who origi nally come from the neighborhood. It is only in the Ukraine where natural resources and Jewish set tlements coincide in some measure. And this (Continued on Page 17)