Following the October Revolution, the Jews entered positions in the Soviet government in numbers far exceeding their proportion in the country's population. But their relative role began to decline from the late twenties, in part because members of other nationalities, previously under-represented, rose to responsible positions, and in part because of specific discrimination against Jews. This process accelerated in the second half of the thirties when the waves of purges that engulfed the Communist Party resulted in the veteran Bolshevik leadership being virtually wiped out: the Jews, who still constituted a disproportionately high percentage of that leadership, suffered far more than the other nationalities. However, until after World War II, the decline in the Jewish role was basically a decline in influence, to be measured in relative rather than absolute numbers.

We shall examine here the process which reduced the role of the Jews in Soviet government. We shall also endeavour to determine whether the factors operative in the twenties and thirties continued to play a role, together with the new factors that emerged, in the period under discussion.

The Jews in the Communist Party and its central institutions

The Party, the sole source of rule in the Soviet Union, executes its numerous and complex functions either directly, by determining general policy and through the resolutions passed by its supreme institutions, or indirectly, through the important posts occupied by its members at every level in all governmental institutions.