Jewish dominated Soviet Union

Phyrx

Banned
Actually that would give Hitler all legitimacy he needs
The issue with this perspective is that, as best as I can tell, the idea that the Russian revolution was in actuality a Jewish one was more or less accepted by all sides before WWII. I assume we're all familiar with Churchill's article on the subject, and I've never encountered any evidence that this view was controversial at the time (I'm legitimately interested, if anyone else has). This opinion doesn't seem to have dampered his generally philosemitic outlook, so I suspect that having an openly/undeniably Jewish Bolshevik elite wouldn't make any difference.
 
Well, i see your point. While Alawite regime from OP isn't overly found of human rights, its atrocities do not reach nowhere near those that leaders of USSR devised IOTL to terrorize its population. It can be that under other regime we would see Soviet Russia as still oppresive but with no Great Purge, or Ukraine famine.
That would make Nazis look even worse in comparison, and make their claims look even more ridiculous.

Yes, that too.

But I mean to say, I see no reason to think a Jewish dominated regime would be any better or worse than the other regimes, they may have a great purge, or a holodomor, in their own fashion. Their behavior would not vindicate the Nazis one iota. Every group of every kind of group of humanity contains people who may run a regime like that, history is full of examples, and the exceptions haven't had a good chance to try.

I find this thread rather disturbing, as a New Zealander with well recorded Jewish-Scot roots. Remember that Jews were persecuted after the war by Stalin with the same absurdity of that of Hitler. With a personality of Stalin, including his extraordinary paranoia and hypertension I would assume any revelations about Jews within the Communist Party would elicit immediate suspicion, and probably a purge. Antisemitism was a commonly held view since the pogroms.

Maybe Trotsky would have the opposite paranoia. It does seem unlikely that a Jewish-Communist regime would take power in Russia given the history there. If Germany and Russia were weakened by the War, but were not taken by a socialist regime, it is possible that Poland could have a Jewish-Communist regime. They were a larger minority there, and there was no recent history of a Polish government harassing and scapegoating Jews.
 
Choose one. This is your thread so we need to know what you feel counts as a person being Jewish. I remember reading on here once that someone said Lenin was Jewish because a grandparent or great-grandparent was Jewish, despite him never practicing the religion or taking part in Jewish Russian culture. The Holocaust did so many horrible things. One of the least bad (compared to vivisections, mass murders, etc) was getting it where the Nazi definition of having a single grandparent made a person a Jew, even if they had another religion, culture, etc they thought of themselves as part of. Not saying you are suggesting anything like that, it is just something that came into my head a few days back. Anyways, Lenin is probably out as (if what I once read is correct) Trotsky didn't consider him a jewfish. Apparently Lenin once suggested to Trotsky that he be in charge of a council/soviet, but Trotsky declined, saying that a Russian like Lenin should be in charge, given how many in Europe felt about Jews back then.

I expect that if we go with a secular, partially culturally Jewish leadership that they will- now that I think of it, the Pale (where Jews were supposed to live) would go out of Soviet hands with the Poles and their expansive territories. Which could have been bigger, as the Poles apparently declined the offer of more territory in their peace treaty with the Soviets, as they wanted to keep things man angle Polish and not get too many Belarusians and Ukranians.

Maybe things are less Stalinisn and more multi-party socialism? Lots of autonomous areas, let the peasents and various villages around the union keep autonomy, remove the main landlords, have villages continue to vote locally as they would have on communal matters in the past... Anarchists woudl like that. I mean the original types, not those in movies wanting to destroy all order.
 
What was the common definition for Jew in the soviet union and the Russian empire
Really odd you focus on the one part I did that wasn't related to Russia. I don't know, though I imagine religious Jews or those with Jewish parents. People who converted to Christianity in that generation or a previous one might not be considered Jewish. You can't really have a Soviet Union that is religious in character. It would make for a fascinating discussion on what religious groups might go for socialist practices in a union of Soviets, but the USSR of Lenin and his successors would not be much for it, no matter the religion.
 
Honestly it's impossible for one the Jews are a far smaller groups as percent of the population than the Alawites. Next the Alawites dominance in Syria build on the fact that under cFrench rule they came to be over represented in the armed forces, thanks to their poverty and the like w prestige of soldiers in the Arab world. Next because the Alawites was less backstabby against each other than was usual, the Alawite officer tended to promote other Alawite, because he could trust them more, also in the early republic the Alawites stayed out of politics, so as the Sunni officer fell to political infighting, the Alawite slowly began to dominate the army. The Alawite also had a excellent relationship with the Otyer religious minorities, so these preferred Alawites.

The Jews on the other hand was a hated minority (even by the other minorities) with little influence in the army.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Where the analogy with Alawites breaks down is that the Jews who had leading positions in the CPSU were "non-Jewish Jews." By that I don't merely mean that they rejected Judaism as a religion (along with all other religions) but that they felt no nationalistic or cultural affinity with their fellow Jews. (They rejected both Zionism *and* the Bund's call for Jewish "cultural autonomy" within the USSR). Quite frequently they would indulge in anti-Semitic stereotypes: "Mendelssohn and Rothschild were for the constitution; the laws of the stock exchange, like those of Moses, forbid the consumption of fresh blood." https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1907/1905/ch11.htm There is no reason to think their policies would be more favorable to Soviet Jews than Stalin's were--in fact, some of them wanted an earlier assault on the "Nepmen" (traders)--who were disproportionately Jewish.
Is it fair to say that the Jews who were in leadership positions in the Soviet Union were stuck in a sort of middle position--specifically, neither being fully assimilated into the Jewish community nor being fully assimilated into the larger, non-Jewish community?
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Honestly it's impossible for one the Jews are a far smaller groups as percent of the population than the Alawites. Next the Alawites dominance in Syria build on the fact that under cFrench rule they came to be over represented in the armed forces, thanks to their poverty and the like w prestige of soldiers in the Arab world. Next because the Alawites was less backstabby against each other than was usual, the Alawite officer tended to promote other Alawite, because he could trust them more, also in the early republic the Alawites stayed out of politics, so as the Sunni officer fell to political infighting, the Alawite slowly began to dominate the army. The Alawite also had a excellent relationship with the Otyer religious minorities, so these preferred Alawites.

The Jews on the other hand was a hated minority (even by the other minorities) with little influence in the army.
Good point about Alawi control of Syria's military; indeed, here are a couple of interesting and insightful articles about this for anyone who is interested:

http://www.mepc.org/roots-alawite-sunni-rivalry-syria

http://www.danielpipes.org/191/the-alawi-capture-of-power-in-syria
 
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