The whole myth is dominant

In connection with the careless statement of the vice-speaker of the Duma of Peter Tolstoy, the system liberal Leonid Gozman made a comment entitled "Our answer to the anti-Semites":

The calculations were how many Jews were among those who smashed, killed, shot after 1917 - obvious anti -Semitism. But the fact that the Jews were disproportionately among the executioners of the Cheka -NKVD is a fact. The fact that we do not want to discuss, at best, say that there were Russians, whom the majority were, and representatives of all the peoples of the empire, that these bandits had no nationality and so on. But this means that we give this topic a variety of scum, which are quite successfully parasite on it ... Of course, it doesn’t matter who the ancestors served in the Cheka, and who, like most of us, had nothing to do with the terror, except for its victims. It is important that in the culture, mentality of Russian Jews (or Jews in general?) There was something that predetermined not only a fantastic contribution to the world civilization, not only the military and technological victories of Israel and the absolute dominance in the list of Nobel laureates, but also the appearance of executioners. And this must be understood and analyzed. We, Russian intellectuals of any nationalities, and not the Black Hundreds who again began to feel so freely in our country.

As for the Jewish “interest rate” in the Cheka, everything has long been calculated and analyzed, and not at all Black Hundreds: almost twenty years ago, a thorough article by Leo Krichevsky was published (see here , here and here ). It turns out that in September 1918, out of 781 employees of the Cheka in Moscow, Jews made up only 3.7%, while according to the 1897 census, their share in the population of the Russian Empire was 4.0%. Of the national minorities among the Chekists, the Latvians certainly dominated - 278 people, or 35.6%. The fact is that the garrison of Moscow at that moment was the Latvian Rifle Division, which successfully suppressed the uprising of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries in July and considered the main support of the Bolsheviks. It is not surprising that the frames of the Cheka were largely recruited from it. But among the national minorities, as part of the Cheka in Moscow, Jews were only in third place, inferior to the Poles, whose share was 6.3%. This exactly corresponded to their share in the country's population according to the 1897 census.

Among the leading and most active employees of the Cheka, who in September 1918 had 220 people, the share of Jews and Poles increased to 8.6%, and Latvians up to 52.7%. But this was explained by both the higher educational qualifications of these nationalities and their increased representation among revolutionary parties, including the Bolsheviks and Left Socialist Revolutionaries. However, the fact that in 1922 the Jews amounted to 5.2% in the RCP (b) compared with 2.1% in the country's population, we can rather explain that by that time the main part of the "Pale of Settlement" had disappeared from the former Russian Empire. And those Jews who supported the Bolsheviks naturally chose to stay in Soviet territory, which gave their increased share in the party. For Latvians, the factor of the presence of the Latvian division in Moscow also acted.

In addition, the Jews were mainly the city people. Among the urban population of the Russian Empire, according to the 1897 census, they made up 15.6%. And the Chekists were recruited mainly from among the city residents. If we take about 50 thousand employees of the provincial Cheka at the end of 1920, then the Russians were there 77.3%, Jews - 9.1%, Latvians - 3.5%, and the Poles - only 1.7%. The proportion of Jews among the employees of the GBCHK was 2.3 times more than their share in the entire population of the country, but 1.7 times less than their share in the urban population.

Thus, we do not observe any "Jewish dominance" among the "executioners of the Cheka". And already about the historical and cultural predisposition of the Jews to the Palace, it is simply a shame to speak. And only anti -Semites reanimate the myth of the "executioners from the Pale of Pale". And it is not necessary, as Oleg Kashin suggests , to believe that the leaders of the Bolsheviks and Chekists are "not Jews, not Russians and not Georgians, they are the Bolsheviks, they should be treated as Bolsheviks the same." After all, the Bolsheviks themselves attached great importance to the national issue in the revolution and the civil war and did not hide their nationality.

A similar approach, apparently, was needed by Kashin so that God forbid, they did not pay responsibility for the crimes of the Bolsheviks in the Russian people: "No people are responsible for the crimes of the Lenin Party, and if it so happened that the most popular applicants for this responsibility are Jews and Russians, then it is necessary to refuse it together, and not transferring to others." I think that the Bolsheviks are responsible for all the peoples that were part of the Soviet state, and the Russian people, as a state -forming one, are in the first place. Without the support of Russian peasants, workers and the city poor, the Lenin party would never have won.

It is difficult to say why it took such a “repentance” by Leonid Goman. Either he so peculiarly tried to justify the vice-speaker of the Duma. Either he simply unsuccessfully simulated the struggle with the Black Hundreds of his own weapon, while agreeing to real racism. This happens when a real struggle with authoritarian power is replaced by its imitation.