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THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE __ 7
The Russ ian Sphy nx Speaks
Boris Pilnyak Tells About Jews In The Soviet Union
By MICHEL KRAIKE
An Exclusive Interview
Few intra-racial questions have so con
cerned the Jews of this country as the
question of just what place the Jew holds
in the Soviet sun. Has the Russian Revo
lution lifted him out of the frying pan the
better to cook him in the open fire? Or has
he. along with the rest of Russia’s count
less working and farming masses, been
liberated from the crushing heel of auto
cratic rule by the new social and economic
plan of life Communism has been building
up for over a decade now?
For fourteen years, both favorable and
unfavorable reports have been rumored,
voiced, and published, allegedly by persons
acquainted with the U. S. S. R. at first
hand. The supporters of Capitalism, while
heralding those reports that went to prove
a greater prevalence of barbarism in mod
ern Russia than ever before, at the same
time refused to credit with any foundation
those reports that were to the contrary.
In the course of this interview with
Boris Pilnyak, the famous Soviet writer
whose latest novel, The Volga Falls To The
Caspian Sea, has just been published, had
a lot to say on the subject of Jews in the
Soviet Union that cannot be lightly poo-
poohed as the ranting of a partisan spirit.
For the man says what he believes. When
his novel, The Red Tree, was censored as
counter-revolutionary literature by his
government, he defied them and had it
published in Germany, losing his presi
dency of the All Writers Union of the
U. S. S. R., and coming dangerously close
to being exiled, on account of his action,
"'iich a man is not biased, no matter what
biased people may say.
“Has the Jew, essentially a middleman
luring the regime of the Czars, recovered
ai >y status in the new order?” Pilnyak was
asked.
He replied that the Jew had long since
recovered a status equal to that of every
ther national group included in the So-
T nion. “Like the youth of every other
ionality,” he explained, “the Jewish
uh is receiving every opportunity to fit
i*elf into the Communist scheme. He
Is voing into every field of work, and no
1 edition or clause debars him—any more
an it does non-Jewish young men and
nen—in agriculture, industry, art, sci-
c, education, or social activities.”
e went on to point out that, today,
s "ere engaging in occupational, edu-
uial, and social work which had been
utely denied to them before the Revo-
n . In the factories of today the num-
(, f Jewish workers was growing by
s and bounds; for the Jew applied him-
v ery readily to industrial labor, given
chance. In the Red Army were to be
; Jewish officers. And now that Jewish
Iment in universities was no longer
d to three per cent, as it had been
the Czar, they were taking advan-
°f the educational opportunity in
Soviet Russia's outsanding man of let
ters, now in this country, answers the
following questions:
What is the status of the Jew in the
Soviet Union?
What field of work does he engage in?
Are there Jewish officers in the Red
army?
Is Jewish enrollment limited in universi
ties?
Will Russian Jewry disintegrate?
What of the old generation of Jews?
Who fights anti-Semitism in the U. S.
S. R.?
Which Jew is the greatest poet of
Russia?
What impression did Pilnyak take from
Palestine?
Read this stimulating, unbiased article
on Jews in the Soviet Union.
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numbers proportionately greater, if any
thing, than the numbers of non-Jews.
“And so it goes, all around me, in my
country. As a whole, the Jewish race is a
highly talented one, I have found; for the
Jew is an unusually integrated person who
has acquired both wisdom and persever
ance through the ages. And long repression
and suppression has given him tremen
dous impetus to grasp and to achieve.”
“How about the possibility of the disin
tegration of Jewry as an identified group?”
was the next question.
According to Pilnyak, the Jew was in-
d sprinkling himself more thinly over a
ater portion of the land than he had
r done, or dared to do, before. But the
m “an identified group,” he considered
a euphemism for “the clan”. Clannishness
was disappearing as an instinctive gesture
of protection on the part of the Jew, due
to the fact that ghetto walls had been
broken down and he was free to mingle
amongst non-Jews who were no longer poi
soned against him. He was free to come
and go everywhere, and was invited to
do so!
Nor could the question of assimilation
be regarded a legitimate one any more.
Hitherto, the Jews had fought against as
similation in order to hold together the
nation which was encompassed in its reli
gion. Had the nation petered out, the He
brew religion would also have faded away.
In the new Russia, however, all religion
was being swept away on the grounds that
religion restrained the masses from seek
ing their reward on this earth by promis
ing them heavenly reward for their sub
mission. And the Jews—good Soviets like
the rest—preferred to contribute to a new
vigorous race of productive people, rather
than to one they considered effete. Nation-
alistically they were not dying, however,
but strengthening themselves to give as
much as their sister nationalities to the
Union.
“What of the old generation of Jews?
Many people resent your government’s ac
tion in neglecting those men and women
who grew up under Czarist rule, and are
still alive. Among these are many Jews.”
Pilnyak smiled patiently, his blue eyes
sparkling behind the shell-rimmed glasses
he wore.
“It just happens that the Soviet govern
ment has tried to help everybody, whether
born in the old or the new system. Those
first to gain by the new order were, natur
ally enough, the workers and peasants. All
those with the will to work were readily
accepted into the fold and detailed to jobs
they could fulfill. But there were many
who would not, or could not, go in for
labor, and who clung to non-productive en
terprises. Such enterprises necessarily ex
ploit the protetariat. And as ours is a pro
letarian government, it set out to dis
courage these exploiters in every way—
by imposing heavy taxes, and by other
harsh measures—and drive them out of
‘business’.”
“However!” He spoke very explicitly
now. “The Soviet government did not for
get that the Jews as a class had been
moulded into middlemen by compulsion and
not by choice, that the Czar had denied
them the right to earn a living by work
ing for it. And so they have been, since
the beginning, exempted from the harsh
measures imposed on other middlemen, so
long as they were willing' to learn pro
ductive occupations and trades. This is the
truth about the treatment of Soviet Jewry;
and those Russian Jews who have con
stantly complained are those who have re
fused to prepare (Please turn to page 15)