AHC: Non-antisemitic White Army during the Russian Civil War

Pretty self-explanatory. Create an anti-Bolshevik "White" resistance movement in the Russian Civil War that is not antisemitic and does not perpetrate pogroms against Jews. What would be the implications of a pro-Jewish resistance movement against the Bolsheviks?
 

trurle

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Pretty self-explanatory. Create an anti-Bolshevik "White" resistance movement in the Russian Civil War that is not antisemitic and does not perpetrate pogroms against Jews. What would be the implications of a pro-Jewish resistance movement against the Bolsheviks?
Antisemitic Red Army. The wartime polarization work this way.
Regarding long-term consequences, the civil war is likely to end sooner. Antisemitism was on the rampage on the early 20th century Russia, while Jewish communities contribution to civil war was not decisive.
 

raharris1973

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Antisemitic Red Army. The wartime polarization work this way.
Regarding long-term consequences, the civil war is likely to end sooner. Antisemitism was on the rampage on the early 20th century Russia, while Jewish communities contribution to civil war was not decisive.

So Communist Russia gets born quickly amongst "Red pogroms"

- could encourage a minimal degree of Russian interfaith understanding....amongst exiled Russian communities.
 
I can buy the Red Army committing pogroms as well, but the idea of the White Armies not being antisemitic seems implausible. The idea of Russian exiles not being antisemitic even more so.


It is an incredibly widespread prejudice, and far more so in early twentieth century Russia. To believe that the culture that produced The Protocols, that became the pre-nazi byword for antisemitic cruelty, that had been overthrown by socialist groups with highly visible Jewish members would not engage in pogroms and propaganda beggars belief.

I think people forget the extent to which antisemitism was a regular and normal part of people's belief systems in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, from the anti-Dreyfusards of France to the antisemitic beliefs of Bakunin. And Russia was really the nadir- it's just not going to go away.
 
Antisemitic Red Army. The wartime polarization work this way.
Regarding long-term consequences, the civil war is likely to end sooner.

As far as near-term consequences go, would this mean that folks such as Trotsky are purged from the Bolshevik ranks much earlier?
 
I can buy the Red Army committing pogroms as well, but the idea of the White Armies not being antisemitic seems implausible. The idea of Russian exiles not being antisemitic even more so.


It is an incredibly widespread prejudice, and far more so in early twentieth century Russia. To believe that the culture that produced The Protocols, that became the pre-nazi byword for antisemitic cruelty, that had been overthrown by socialist groups with highly visible Jewish members would not engage in pogroms and propaganda beggars belief.

I think people forget the extent to which antisemitism was a regular and normal part of people's belief systems in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, from the anti-Dreyfusards of France to the antisemitic beliefs of Bakunin. And Russia was really the nadir- it's just not going to go away.
If we butterfly away the Protocols (maybe have Golovinski die or something happens to him so that he doesn't create the document), would that make much of a difference?
 
As far as near-term consequences go, would this mean that folks such as Trotsky are purged from the Bolshevik ranks much earlier?

Considering he was a late addition to their ranks, it could easily be that he doesn't join them at all.

If we butterfly away the Protocols (maybe have Golovinski die or something happens to him so that he doesn't create the document), would that make much of a difference?

Protocols coincided with a wave of pogroms in Russia, so it itself was as much a symptom as a cause.
 
AHA! Russians in the early 20th century who are not antisemitic. Surely they can be found, probably among native Siberians in the arctic who have no word for "Jew" in their language. I doubt the Whites were any more antisemitic than the Reds, just at least at the higher levels "true" believers were willing mostly to accept the atheism of communism and therefore mostly, sort of, ignore the background of various other senior Bolsheviks. I would be willing to bet a good deal of money that the average soldier in the Red army was just as antisemitic as his counterpart in the White army. IMHO the reason there were fewer outrages against Jews per se by the Reds compared to the Whites is that discipline was better in the Red Army, and outrages against "workers and peasants" even if they were Jews was contrary to policy.
 
The Russian Army was institutionally anti-semitic. It was forbidden for Jews to serve as officers and between 1874 and 1917 only nine Jews were ever commissioned none of them, as far as I'm aware, reaching above the rank of Captain. Jews (and Polish Catholics) were forbidden from becoming scribes, telegraph operators, draftsmen, foremen, train conductors, engineers, millers, gunsmiths, or members of the engineering corps. They were also not allowed to work at depots or to practice medicine in the western military districts. In 1912, a survey was conducted amongst 50 serving senior officers and all of them concluded that an excess of Jews in the military would be harmful. The War Minister Sukhomlinov concluded a report about the composition of the army in 1913 by saying, "The desired solution to the problem is the complete and total removal of Jews from the army." There was a suspicion of Jews amongst the officers of the army, and amongst the Military institution, and as such when the White Armies were formed they were formed from an officer corps that at best mistrusted Jews and at worst actively hated them due to their association with the Soviet. By contrast, the Soviet allowed Jews to reach never before seen positions of authority both in state institutions and in the Red Army. It was not that Jews had a particular affiliation with Bolshevism, although there were also significant figures of importance amongst the Bolsheviks such as Yakov Sverdlov, but the Soviet state apparatus allowed Jews opportunities they had been denied under Tsarism.
 

raharris1973

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It was forbidden for Jews to serve as officers and between 1874 and 1917 only nine Jews were ever commissioned none of them, as far as I'm aware, reaching above the rank of Captain.

Hah - My great grandfather was one of the nine. And reached the apex rank (for a Jew) of Captain, and had a residency permit for St. Petersburg. Where did you get your figure on nine commissioned Jews?
 
Hah - My great grandfather was one of the nine. And reached the apex rank (for a Jew) of Captain, and had a residency permit for St. Petersburg. Where did you get your figure on nine commissioned Jews?
It's from 'Russian Jews: Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920' by Oleg Butnitskii (translated by Timothy Portice). "Jews faced a large number of restrictions when it came to military service. As a rule, Jews were forbidden from serving as officers in the armed services. Starting from the time of D. A. Miliutin’s 1874 military reforms up until 1917, only nine Jews were commissioned as officers. Eight of these were the scions of influential Jewish banking families. From the very beginning it was clear to everyone involved that none of them would actually serve in the army. The only Jewish officer to come from more humble beginnings was Herzl Yankl Tsam, a former cantonist, who in 1876 was allowed to take the first- level officer’s exam. Already past 30 at the time of his commission, Tsam ascended through the ranks remarkably slowly despite his excellent record of service. Tsam was promoted to Captain only upon his retirement some 20 years later. Of these nine Jewish officers the last to be commissioned was Avraam- Alfred Gintsburg, the fifth son of the Baron G. O. Gintsburg."
 

raharris1973

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It's from 'Russian Jews: Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920' by Oleg Butnitskii (translated by Timothy Portice). "Jews faced a large number of restrictions when it came to military service. As a rule, Jews were forbidden from serving as officers in the armed services. Starting from the time of D. A. Miliutin’s 1874 military reforms up until 1917, only nine Jews were commissioned as officers. Eight of these were the scions of influential Jewish banking families. From the very beginning it was clear to everyone involved that none of them would actually serve in the army. The only Jewish officer to come from more humble beginnings was Herzl Yankl Tsam, a former cantonist, who in 1876 was allowed to take the first- level officer’s exam. Already past 30 at the time of his commission, Tsam ascended through the ranks remarkably slowly despite his excellent record of service. Tsam was promoted to Captain only upon his retirement some 20 years later. Of these nine Jewish officers the last to be commissioned was Avraam- Alfred Gintsburg, the fifth son of the Baron G. O. Gintsburg."

Very interesting. I looked up the book you referenced. The price on Amazon is rather expensive. Over 60 USD. I see you listed two names of the nine Jews commissioned as officers by the Tsarist regime, Herzl Yankl Tsam and Avraam-Alfred Gintsburg. Did the book list the names of any others? Perhaps all of them? If so, would you mind sharing? I never thought of my great-grandfather as "a scion of an influential Jewish banking family" but did hear of some family lore that he had multiple real estate investments and paying tenants in Jersey City in addition to a picture-framing business.

A "cantonist" would be someone who grew up in a military colony/school ?
 
Very interesting. I looked up the book you referenced. The price on Amazon is rather expensive. Over 60 USD. I see you listed two names of the nine Jews commissioned as officers by the Tsarist regime, Herzl Yankl Tsam and Avraam-Alfred Gintsburg. Did the book list the names of any others? Perhaps all of them? If so, would you mind sharing? I never thought of my great-grandfather as "a scion of an influential Jewish banking family" but did hear of some family lore that he had multiple real estate investments and paying tenants in Jersey City in addition to a picture-framing business.

A "cantonist" would be someone who grew up in a military colony/school ?
As far as I remember the book doesn't list them. Certainly there was an autocratic military culture that would have prevented Jews from having authority over Orthodox Russians unless there was some sort of secondary influence, as in a family with links to the rich and powerful through finance or business, but I don't really have a way to check the veracity of a claim that 8/9 Jewish officers were from banking families (as an off hand comment, and the more I think about it, it actually sounds like an anti-semitic trope). A canton school was a Russian military school. Most often Jews would be educated in their own Jewish education system.
 

raharris1973

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As far as I remember the book doesn't list them. Certainly there was an autocratic military culture that would have prevented Jews from having authority over Orthodox Russians unless there was some sort of secondary influence, as in a family with links to the rich and powerful through finance or business, but I don't really have a way to check the veracity of a claim that 8/9 Jewish officers were from banking families (as an off hand comment, and the more I think about it, it actually sounds like an anti-semitic trope). A canton school was a Russian military school. Most often Jews would be educated in their own Jewish education system.

Thanks. I went ahead and emailed the authors to ask. Hopefully I will hear something.
 
I can buy the Red Army committing pogroms as well, but the idea of the White Armies not being antisemitic seems implausible. The idea of Russian exiles not being antisemitic even more so.


It is an incredibly widespread prejudice, and far more so in early twentieth century Russia. To believe that the culture that produced The Protocols, that became the pre-nazi byword for antisemitic cruelty, that had been overthrown by socialist groups with highly visible Jewish members would not engage in pogroms and propaganda beggars belief.

I think people forget the extent to which antisemitism was a regular and normal part of people's belief systems in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, from the anti-Dreyfusards of France to the antisemitic beliefs of Bakunin. And Russia was really the nadir- it's just not going to go away.

Remember both the Reds and the Whites were NOT two huge separate groups for most of the RCW. They were made up of a large number of smaller groups. I would not be surprised in the slightest if there was one OTL.
 
Both Red and White armies committed the pogroms, White far more so than Red - I believe the statistics goes that 8.5% of pogroms in the Russian Civil War can be attributed to Red Army forces, largely at the start of the conflict. I don’t think it’s possible to create non anti-Semitic White Armies - both armies committed pogroms because they were obviously made up of individual Russians who at this time in history were by and large anti-Semitic since Russia has a long history with anti-semitism. The reason the Reds were able to cut down on such behavior was that their ideology was expressly against racism in this regard and so ideologically they had an incentive to clamp down on these massacres against Jews - the same incentive does not exist within the White Armies. Unless you fundamentally change the politics of the individuals that make up the White Armies or some of the leaders decide to harshly repress pogroms for one reason or other, then I don’t see how. The historian Oleg Budnitsky even writes on how some White Army leaders condemned pogroms but were unable to stop them:

“As a rule, the White leadership refrained from making antisemitic statements. In fact, on several occasions they would declare their disapproval of antisemitic pogroms. The ideology of the movement was considerably influ- enced by the Constitutional Democratic Party (the Kadets), which had con- tinually agitated for Jewish equality. Kadets were among the most important members of Denikin’s inner circle, and two Kadets (first N. E. Paramonov and, later, K. N. Sokolov) were put in charge of Denikin’s propaganda efforts. Thus it would seem that the Jewish population would have less to fear from Denikin’s Volunteer Army than from any other anti-Bolshevik force. On a few occasions, Denikin’s forces were even greeted as liberators in Jewish areas they had captured from Bolshevik forces or from Petliura’s army. Tragically, the very same Jews who were the first to welcome the Whites often became the first victims of the ensuing pogroms.
Such bitter contradictions abound in the events of the period. Why, for example, did some politically active Jews support and participate in the White movement at the beginning of the Civil War? Moreover, why did some Jews continue to support the movement even after the Volunteer Army began to carry out pogroms? How did the Whites, who had begun the conflict with liberal political slogans, turn into a band of pogromists? What role was played by the liberal members of the Russian intelligentsia (the Kadets in particular), who had always stood for Jewish equality, but who in supporting the White movement tacitly approved of antisemitism? And finally, was there any real choice between the Reds and the Whites for Russia’s Jews? Or to put the same question in a slightly different fashion, what was the “correct” course of action for Jews to take in a country that had been torn asunder by internal contradictions, a place where Jews were an undesired and unwanted minority?“


The quote comes from Budnitsky’s excellent book called Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920, it’s great if you want a more nuanced picture of Russian Jews in the Civil War. Let it suffice to say that they associated with both sides but the views of the White Russian forces on Jews was a deeply ingrained societal prejudice that would require a far reaching PoD to solve.
 
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It is worth noting that in Soviet Russia, after the civil war, once internal passports became standard, Jews were specifically identified with "Zhid" (Jew) on theirs. Stalin's last purge, in progress when he died, the so-called "doctors purge" was heavily antisemitic. In between, in spite of the examples of early Bolshevik leadership and specific individuals in various academic fields, having "Zhid" on your passport was a significant impediment to university acceptance, better jobs, etc. Unlike most other countries with antisemitic restrictions, this was extrajudicial, the visible Soviet law forbid racial discrimination, however...

IMHO whatever the policies that came down from the top were, both the red and white armies were made up of people who had been raised in a virulent and sponsored regime of antisemitism and there was a long and storied tradition of pogroms.
 
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