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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. iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiHiiiiiimmiiumiimmnMiMiimiMmnniiMmmmiMiiiiiiiiiimiiMitiimimiiiMMitm 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)