Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction: The beginnings of Russian–Jewish radicalism, 1790–1868
- Part 1 The Chaikovskii circles: Jewish radicals in the formative stage of revolutionary Populism, 1868–1875
- Part 2 The Land and Freedom Party: Jews and the politicization of revolutionary Populism, 1875–1879
- Part 3 The Party of the People's Will: Jewish terrorists of socialist conviction, 1879–1887
- Appendix
- Abbreviations
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction: The beginnings of Russian–Jewish radicalism, 1790–1868
- Part 1 The Chaikovskii circles: Jewish radicals in the formative stage of revolutionary Populism, 1868–1875
- Part 2 The Land and Freedom Party: Jews and the politicization of revolutionary Populism, 1875–1879
- Part 3 The Party of the People's Will: Jewish terrorists of socialist conviction, 1879–1887
- Appendix
- Abbreviations
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
That Jews played a significant role in nineteenth and early twentieth-century socialist movements in Europe and particularly in Russia has long been recognized – and demagogically exploited by antisemites of every stripe and country. One only need recall the pseudo-scholarly endeavour of Nazi historians and politicians to equate Bolshevism with Judaism to realize the degree to which the question of Jewish revolutionary involvement has been perverted to serve ideological and political ends. As for Russia, blaming the Jews for undermining established authority through the propagation of socialism and terrorism was already current in the late 1870s. Antisemitism gained momentum in the eighties, remained a force until the revolution of 1917, reemerged in the guise of Soviet anti-Zionism, and regained its nationalist complexion in post-Communist Russia. This has not augured well for serious scholarship. Due to the exaggerated antisemitic claim that Jews were the leading element in all Russian revolutionary parties, Jewish historians have apologetically minimized the role of Jews by ‘de-Judaizing’ this unpalatable phenomenon. Revolutionary Jews, in other words, were considered ‘non-Jewish Jews’ whose supposedly Jewish self-hatred disqualified them as Jews and proper subjects of Jewish history. The same approach, also born out of an unwillingness to recognize the revolutionary contribution of Jews, has been prevalent in Soviet Stalinist and post-Stalinist historiography. Here the prominent presence of Jews, in both Russian Populism and Marxism, has been conveniently ignored by transforming them into Russians, Belorussians, or Ukrainians.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Jews and Revolution in Nineteenth-Century Russia , pp. xi - xviPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995