Rossiiskie evrei mezhdu krasnymi i belymi (1917-1920) by Oleg V. Budnitskii (review)

Abstract

i68 SEER, 86, I, 2008 military schools. The private soldiers mostly joined up in September 1914 when therewas inFinland a passing feeling of sympathy towardsRussia. They were predominantly young urban labourers with a low level of education. Their enlistmentwas often a reaction to a decline in employment opportuni ties at the start of the war. Few Finns volunteered to serve in the ranks in 1915 and practically none after that.On the other hand the better educated young men who sought to become officers joined throughout the war, albeit in diminishing numbers. Hoppu claims that rather than joining the army out of loyalty toRussia theywere seeking a career, even for the ultimate benefit of Finland. This isplausible. The wartime training courses of around fourmonths for infantryand cavalry officershad the advantage of being significantly short er than the two-year peacetime courses. The numbers at military schools would have been higher had Finns possessed a better knowledge ofRussian. The Finnish private soldiers also had problems with theRussian language. They mostly undertook their brief training (between one and threemonths) in and around Petrograd and a significantnumber served in thePreobrazhen skiiGuards Regiment. Infantry service, poor training, lack of Russian and participation in heavy fighting caused high casualties. Nearly a third of the private soldiers were killed during thewar. Of thewartime officers only 6.5 per cent were killed, although it ishard to believe that, as Hoppu claims, this relatively low casualty ratewas due to a calculated avoidance of danger. High explosive ishard to avoid. The book also examines the volunteers' participation in the Finnish Civil War, inwhich 113 soldiers served on theRed side, where some were useful instructors.Almost as many served on the White side, including over seventy officers, although the hostile reception officersmet from theJ?gers and men of the White army often precluded their effectiveuse. Some officers remained in the army after thewar and the fewwho avoided bein^ purged in thewitch hunt against 'Russian' officers in the ro,20s had successful careers. The extensive sources used by Hoppu include Finnish central, local and parish records, which provide information about casualties, as well as some Russian regimental archives. Unfortunately, few contemporary letters survive to supplement the official documents. Nevertheless, this is a successful book which not only fulfilsitsaims in relation to the background and service of the volunteers but also throws light on theworkings of theRussian army during World War One and the fate of prisoners ofwar. As Hoppu comments, the service of the volunteers inRussia was long a painful subject inFinland. They deserve their rescue from oblivion. The book has a summary inEnglish. Berkhamsted J. E. O. Screen Budnitskii, Oleg V. Rossiiskie evrei mezhdu krasnymii belymi(igiy-ig2o). Rosspen, Moscow, 2005. 548 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Indexes. Price unknown. The Soviet era was a time of profoundly mixed fortunes for the Jews of Russia. Soviet Jewish history began so disastrously that it has even been REVIEWS 169 described as a rehearsal for theHolocaust. First came the geographical splin tering of the community, as territories which included large numbers ofJews were ceded to the successor states of Eastern Europe ? Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and, above all, Poland. In these countries, while essentially excluded from any significant political role, Jewish cultural lifeflourished, despite the widespread and often intense antisemitism tolerated by these new and osten sibly democratic regimes. Inside Soviet Russia, however, theJews faced an even more uncertain future. Widely perceived as the natural allies of the Bolsheviks, from the 1920s through the 1960sJews advanced up the political, scientific, economic and cultural hierarchies to emerge as the manifestly suc cessful Soviet Jewish intelligentsia, and yet their institutionsand theireconomy were devastated, as theCivil War rehearsed the first phase of class war against all forms of 'bourgeois' activity.The worst effects were felt inUkraine, where pogroms carried out by armed forces of different stripes resulted in between 60,000 to 200,000 Jewish deaths, and as many as one million lives ruined, along with theJewish economy of the region. It comes as no surprise to learn thatJewish commissars were prominent in theRed onslaught on Jewish local self-government, religious and educational institutions, and Zionist organiza tions. Even theJewish socialist parties allied to the new regime...