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Jewish Social Mobility under Late Stalinism: A View from the Newly Sovietizing Periphery

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2020

Diana Dumitru
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Abstract

This article expands our knowledge of nationality policies, center-periphery relations, and Jewish life under late Stalinism, a period which has heretofore been viewed predominantly through the lens of Stalin's terror and marginalization. By focusing on Soviet Moldavia, the article demonstrates that developments in this region followed a different trajectory from those displayed in the center. Local expediencies, derived from the needs of a newly Sovietizing territory with “suspect” locals, encouraged the professional advancement of ethnic Jews to positions of power and prestige previously unmatched in this region. The study explores both the opportunities and limitations faced by Jews in this peripheral region, while placing these phenomena inside the framework of Soviet nationality policies and its accompanying policy toward government professionals. Simultaneously, the article highlights both the legacy of Romanian official antisemitism within this region of postwar Soviet society and the role of the “neo-korenizatsiia” program in displacing Jews within Soviet state structures.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 78 , Issue 4 , Winter 2019 , pp. 986 - 1008
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 2020

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Footnotes

The research and writing of this article was supported in part by the Imre Kertész Kolleg's Fellowship. I would like to thank Arkadi Zeltser, Lynne Viola, Carter Johnson, Friederike Kind-Kovács, Andrei Cușco, Joachim von Puttkamer, and Michal Kopecek for their critical readings of earlier drafts. In addition, I would like to thank the editor and the anonymous readers of Slavic Review for their helpful comments and suggestions.

References

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11 Arhiva Organizațiilor Social-Politice din Republica Moldova (the Archive of Social-Political Organizations from the Republic of Moldova, henceforth AOSPRM), F. 51, inv. 4, d. 186, f. 44–48 (Information about leading officials of the party apparatus). The list identified 348 Jews out of the total of 1,569 people. In further usage “f” stands for page (fila or “sheet” in Romanian, rather than “l” or list in Russian).

12 Ibid., f. 130–137. There were 1,667 Jews out of 11,720.

13 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 3, d. 87, f. 22.

14 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 7, d. 186, f. 19–36 (Statistical information about the employees of prosecutors’ offices). There were 46 Jews out of 269 employees in 1947.

15 The MIA should not be confused with the Ministry of State Security, which was the Soviet intelligence agency from 1946 to 1953. The MIA was assigned regular police functions and did not include departments concerned with secret political activity.

16 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 8, d. 509, f. 26 (The composition of the nomenklatura of the MIA of the MSSR).

17 Negură, Petru, Nici eroi, nici trădători: Scriitorii moldoveni și puterea sovietică în epoca stalinistă (Chișinău, 2014), 309Google Scholar.

18 Ursu, Valentina, Politica culturală în RSS Moldovenească, 1944–1956 (Chișinău, 2013), 29–30Google Scholar, 92. By 1953, 47.6 percent were Jewish, up from 44 percent.

19 AOSPRM. F. 51, inv. 19, d. 255, f. 74–74a; F. P-2906, inv. 1, d. 90, f. 1a.

20 See more on the situation of Jews in interwar Romania in Dumitru, Diana, The State, Antisemitism, and Collaboration in the Holocaust: The Borderlands of Romania and the Soviet Union (New York, 2016), 53–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 4, d. 168, f. 44–47. The later infusion of new cadres into the legal profession in the MSSR reduced the Jewish presence, yet in 1949 this presence still constituted a weighty 46 percent. We could not find the relevant data for subsequent years.

22 Ibid.

23 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 4, d. 154, f. 192–199.

24 Gortolum, Inna, “Vklad evreev v razvitie meditsiny goroda Bel΄tsy,” in Anikin, Vladimir, ed., Evrei Moldovy i ikh vklad v razvitie moldavskogo gosudarstva (Chișinău, 2013), 166Google Scholar.

25 Ibid., 169.

26 Radu Ioanid examined the lists of deportees from the MSSR in 1940–41 and found that 1,178 (10.4 percent) were Jews. The latter were mostly accused of “membership in bourgeois parties [Zionist included],” or being “merchants,” or “proprietors.” Radu Ioanid, “‘Cartea memoriei.’ 80.000 de nume ale victimelor stalinismului din Republica Sovietică Moldova,” Adevărul, May 10, 2006, at adevarul.ro/news/societate/cartea-memoriei-80000-nume-victimelor-stalinismului-republica-sovietica-moldova-1_50ac26e47c42d5a6638551e6/index.html (accessed 10/16/2019).

27 The artels were cooperatives organized for the production of goods, or for purpose of trading. For an analysis of postwar Jewish artels see: Anna Kushkova, “An Essay on Jewish Ethnic Economy: The Case of Belz, Moldova,” East European Jewish Affairs 43, no. 1 (May 2013): 84–87.

28 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 5, d. 72, f. 186–194.

29 The 1930 census indicated a 61.9% illiteracy rate among ethnic Moldovans. See Livezeanu, Cultural Politics in Greater Romania, 38.

30 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 3, d. 242, f. 3–8, 41–42.

31 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 4, d. 186, f. 175–177.

32 Viacheslav Konstantinov, Evreiskoe naselenie byvshego SSSR v XX veke (sotsial΄no-demograficheskii analiz) (Jerusalem, 2007), 150.

33 Ibid., 151.

34 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 4, d. 154, f. 160.

35 More on these policies in: Igor Caşu, Politica naţională în Moldova sovietică (1944–1989) (Chişinău, 2000); Valeriu Pasat, RSS Moldovenească în epoca stalinistă, 1940–1953 (Chişinău, 2011).

36 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 3, d. 267, f. 142.

37 Ibid.

38 The MASSR was an autonomous republic of the Ukrainian SSR between 1924 and 1940 and included modern breakaway Transnistria and some territories that are today part of Ukraine.

39 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 4, d. 57, f. 1.

40 Ibid. At the time, David Gershfeld was the head of the Union of Composers of the MSSR, the head of the Chișinău Conservatorium, and the artistic director of the MSSR Philharmonic.

41 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 4, d. 57, f. 8.

42 Ibid, f. 9.

43 Gazun had to make the final decision on the volume, which was coordinated by Kornfeld and Gershfeld, who was responsible for the musical part. Gazun excluded Kornfeld’s texts, which formed the biggest number of songs.

44 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 4, d. 57, f. 12.

45 Maia Feldman, Interview, Chișinău, April 4, 2017.

46 Ibid.

47 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 4, d. 111, f. 16.

48 Ibid., f. 16–17.

49 Ibid., f. 35.

50 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 8, d. 93, f. 41–55. The investigation launched by this petition concluded that most of the facts mentioned in the letter were untrue.

51 Maia Feldman, Interview, Chișinău, April 4, 2017.

52 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 8, d. 184, f. 18–24, 50–52, 56, 100, 115, 288, 298, 300.

53 Shnirelman was a Bessarabian Jew. Importantly, in 1941 he evacuated to Krasnodar and later Bukhara, where he worked until 1944.

54 Katz, Elena M., “The Literary Developments of Yekhiel Shraybman: A Jewish Writer in Soviet Clothing,” East European Jewish Affairs, 38, no. 3 (December 2008): 290CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 Sarra Shpitalnik, interview with Centropa, Chișinău, June 2004.

56 Zlata Tcaci, interview with Centropa, Chișinău, March 2004.

57 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 4, d. 41, f. 35–46.

58 For example, Sarra Burd, a Jewish resident and secretary of the local council and head of the Komsomol organization from the village of Hoginești, was killed in 1947. AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 5, d. 72, f. 141.

59 The Russian State Archive of Social-Political History (RGASPI), F. 573, op. 1, d. 19, l. 41–42.

60 Ibid.

61 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 8, d. 114, f. 22–27.

62 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 5, d. 373, f. 47–49.

63 Pasat, Valeriu, Surovaia pravda istorii. Deportatsii s territorii Moldavskoi SSR, 40–50gg. (Chișinău, 1998)Google Scholar.

64 Igor Cașu, “Stalinist Terror in Soviet Moldavia, 1940–1953,” in Kevin McDermott and Matthew Stibbe, eds., Stalinist Terror in Eastern Europe: Elite Purges and Mass Repression (Manchester, 2012), 49.

65 RGASPI, F. 573, op. 1, d. 19, l. 60.

66 The accompanying note to the forwarded letter (signed by Turkin, the plenipotentiary of the USSR CP CC in charge of the MSSR) paraphrased the complaint as ousting Russians and Ukrainians and replacing them with “Jews and illiterate Moldovans.” Ibid., l. 57.

67 Ibid.

68 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 11, d. 154, f. 41–45. The letter prompted an investigation into the activity of the head of the “Moldavefirmaslo,” but we did not find the investigation’s results.

69 More than 320,000 Soviet citizens were arrested as a result of this effort. Tanja Penter, “Collaboration on Trial: New Source Material on Soviet Postwar Trials against Collaborators,” Slavic Review 64, no. 4 (Winter 2005): 783.

70 The files related to the investigation of these cases were preserved in the KGB archive of the MSSR. Today they are inherited by the Security and Intelligence Service of the Republic of Moldova.

71 “Iz zala suda. Prigovor proiznesen,” Izvestiia, December 14, 1947, p. 4.

72 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 5, d. 70, f. 26.

73 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 4, d. 51, f. 69.

74 Arhiva Ministerului Afacerilor de Interne a Republicii Moldova (AMAIRM), the minutes no. 4 of the Commission of the MSSR for the review of the penal cases of those convicted for counterrevolutionary crimes, July 5, 1954, f. 134–139.

75 Ibid.

76 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 8, d. 510, f. 32–33.

77 Ibid, f. 33.

78 Ibid. We do not know how Golubenko’s case ended.

79 AMAIRM, the minutes no. 1–2 of the Commission of the MSSR for review of the penal cases of those convicted for counterrevolutionary crimes, June 8–18, 1954, f. 105.

80 Ibid., f. 104–107.

81 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 7, d. 29 (I), f. 240–276.

82 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 3, d. 90, f. 185–186; d. 121, f. 8–20.

83 The official name of the party was Liga Apărării Național Creștine (National-Cristian Defense League). It was a far-right political party of Romania formed in 1923 by A.C. Cuza (hence the sobriquet “Cuzist”).

84 RGASPI, F. 573, op. 1, d. 29, l. 23.

85 The letter mentioned that the person’s father committed suicide in 1940, upon “the Bolsheviks’ arrival in Kishinev,” and that his mother flew to Bucharest in 1944. AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 8, d. 358, f. 62.

86 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 9, d. 52, f. 8.

87 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 11, d. 110, f. 8.

88 Kostyrchenko, Stalin protiv “kosmopolitov.”

89 Juliane Fürst, Stalin’s Last Generation: Soviet Post-War Youth and the Emergence of Mature Socialism (New York, 2010), 82.

90 Negură, Nici eroi, nici trădători, 203–6.

91 Ibid., 204–5.

92 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 4, d. 154, f. 110.

93 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 8, d. 30, f. 39.

94 Ibid., f. 49.

95 Ibid., f. 100. It was a widespread practice during WWII to destroy one’s party membership card, in order to avoid being identified as communist by the Nazi allies.

96 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 8, d. 34, f. 64, 66.

97 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 8, d. 34, f. 155.

98 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 7, d. 31, f. 448.

99 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 11, d. 158, f. 7.

100 Ibid., f. 4.

101 Ibid., f. 6.

102 Ibid., f. 3.

103 Ibid., f. 8.

104 Ibid., f. 12.

105 During the Russian Civil War, Petliura’s army fought against the Red Army and was infamous for slaughtering Jews in Ukraine in 1918–19.

106 Ibid., f. 14.

107 Ibid., f. 14–16.

108 AOSPRM, F. 51, inv. 11, d. 127, f. 246.

109 Ibid., f. 247–250.

110 Ibid., f. 261.

111 Ibid., f. 262.

112 Lehmann, Maike, “The Local Reinvention of the Soviet Project Nation and Socialism in the Republic of Armenia after 1945,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 59, no. 4 (2011): 481–508Google Scholar; Hansen, Claus Bech, “Power and Purification: Late-Stalinist Repression in the Uzbek SSR,” Central Asian Survey 36, no. 1: 148–169CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Weeks, Theodore R., “Remembering and Forgetting: Creating a Soviet Lithuanian Capital: Vilnius 1944–1949,” Journal of Baltic Studies 39, no. 4: 517–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

113 Yuri Slezkine depicted a quick advancement of Jews as political, cultural, and professional elites in the Soviet state after the October Revolution. See Slezkine, Yuri, The Jewish Century (Princeton, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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