Post by patricksmcnally on Feb 12, 2023 19:17:17 GMT
I came upon this piece of nonsense recently
inconvenienthistory.com/14/4/8205
and the amount of either outright false misinformation or misleading innuendo was so great that I had to write out something. But it soon became obvious that one simple statement would not cover all of the fallacies. So I'm hoping to use this format to go through things piecemeal bit by bit.
The foundation for Wear's tract, with some other tidbits to be addressed later, is a set of claims originating from the White propagandist Robert Wilton. Wilton was a London Times journalist who joined the White forces in the Russian Civil War and worked to promote White propaganda. Many of the more vulgar lies from that time originate from Wilton. Anyone who wishes to critically examine Wilton's own original propaganda and compare it with historical data may start by looking up the edition of his book The Last Days of the Romanovs which was republished by the IHR back in 1993. I'll draw from this edition to see what Wilton was promoting and how does it compare with historical facts.
In Appendix D of the 1993 edition, it reproduces a bunch of fake lists of names which Wilton seems to have just invented out of whole cloth. While I have the paperback text in front of me, a website reproduction is given here for anyone who wants to look things up and compare:
wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:The_Jewish_role_in_the_early_Soviet_Regime
Although the website reproduced the text, its page numbering is off from the 1993 edition. It references "pages 136-138" for stuff which appears in the 180s range. Anyway, the text on the above link and on page 185 in the 1993 edition of Wilton's tract tells us that:
"Effective governmental power is in the Central Committee of the Bolshevik party. In 1918 this body had twelve members, of whom nine were of Jewish origin, and three were of Russian ancestry. The nine Jews were: Bronstein (Trotsky), Apfelbaum (Zinoviev). Lurie (Larine), Uritsky, Volodarski, Rosenfeld (Kamenev), Smidovich, Sverdlov (Yanitel), and Nakhamkes (Steklov). The three Russians were: Ulyanov (Lenin), Krylenko, and Lunacharsky."
This is a bogus fabrication. The actual listing of the Central Committee members (along with much pertinent data) can be found here:
holocaust.skeptik.net/misc/party.htm
"8 March 1918 (VII Congress of RKP(b))
"TsK: Members: Artem F. A., Buharin N. I. (Russian), Vladimirskij M. F. (Russian), Dzerzhinskij F. E. (Pole), Zinovjev G. E. (Jewish), Krestinskij N. N. (Ukrainian), Lashevich M. M., Lenin V. I. (Russian), Sverdlov Ja. M. (Jewish), Smilga I. T., Sokol'nikov G. Ja. (Jewish), Stalin I. V. (Georgian), Stasova E. D. (Russian), Trotskij L. D. (Jewish), Shmidt V. V. (German)
"Candidates: Berzin Ja. A., Ioffe A. A. (Jewish), Kiselev A. S., Lomov-Oppokov G. I. (Russian), Petrovskij G. I. (Ukrainian), Stuchka P. I. (Lett), Uritskij M. S. (Jewish), Shlyapnikov A. G. (Russian)"
"TsK" stands for Central Committee. If one scans through this list one can easily find some prominent Jewish names, but the proportions are very different from Wilton's 9 out of 12. Out of 15 members I count 4 Jews. Out of 8 candidates I count 2 more Jews. Even if one managed to verify that a few others were of Jewish stock, Wilton's list is just an invention. This was one of many fake lists which Wilton simply concocted for White propaganda.
To go on, Wilton provides another fake list of names for the Council of People's Commissars and announces "Out of these 22 'Sovnarkom' members, there were three Russians, one Georgian, one Armenian. and 17 Jews." The actual text of the document which announced the formation of the Council on October 26 (old style), 1917, is given here:
alphahistory.com/russianrevolution/decree-forming-soviet-government-1917/
This list of 15 on the original announcement matches with that given on page 500 of Richard Pipes, The Russian Revolution. Of this correct original list, Leon Trotsky is the only identifiable Jew who matches with Wilton's imaginary list of 17 out of 22 (fake numbers altogether).
I should mention that in this fake list, Wilton includes a "Schimdt V" whom he brands as "Jew". There was a Vasily Schmidt who was not part of the original Council of People's Commissars, but who belonged to the version of the Council that was approved on July 6, 1923. He was of German-Russian extraction, not Jewish.
Similarly, Wilton lists a "Schlikter AG" as "Jew." Alexander Grigorievich Schlichter was three-fourths Ukrainian and one-fourth German, not Jewish. He replaced Milyutin from the original Council as People's Commissar for Agriculture.
Wilton lists an "Anvelt" as holding a position of "Hygiene" on the Council and marks the name as "Jew." There was a Jaan Anvelt born of Estonian peasant origin in Oorgu whom I have not been able to trace to the Council at any time. It's not clear at all which "Anvelt" Wilton means to include within his hoax list.
One can find some references which mention Alexandra Kollontai (daughter of an Imperial Russian Army general and not Jewish) as the People's Commissar for Social Welfare on the Council in the early days, though she is not included in that original announcement of October 26 (November 8 in new style). Kollontai was appointed briefly as such, but quit over opposition to Lenin's advocacy that Russia should sign a peace with Germany at all costs. Kollontai is included in this Wikipedia listing:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_People%27s_Commissars
"Lenin, Bonch-Bruyevich, Trotsky, Milyutin, Krylenko, Dybenko, Nogin, Lunacharsky, Teodorovich, Rykov, Oppokov, Shlyapnikov, Stalin, Avilov, Skvortsov-Stepanov, Kollontai."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Kollontai
"She was appointed People's Commissar for Social Welfare in the first Soviet government, but soon resigned due to her opposition to the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk..."
The latter Wiki-list also includes Vladimir Bronch-Bruyevich who was of Lithuanian extraction. In that Wikipedia listing Bonch-Bruyevich occurs as the head of administration of the Council of People's Commissars.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Bonch-Bruyevich
"Bonch-Bruyevich was head of administration for the Council of People's Commissars (equivalent to head of Lenin's private office) from November 1917 to October 1920."
There are also some listings of the Council which include Mark Yelizarov as People's Commissar for Railways, a position which was left vacant in the original listing of 15.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Yelizarov
"After the October Revolution, Yelizarov was appointed at the vacant position of People's Commissar of Railways of the RSFSR..."
Yelizarov was born from Russian peasant stock. He appears in the listing of the Council which Wikipedia gives when correcting Solzhenitsyn's repetition of Wilton's hoax:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Hundred_Years_Together
"Solzhenitsyn ... without citing his sources ... wrote that 'from 20 ministers in the first Soviet government one was Russian, one Georgian, one Armenian and 17 Jews'. This assertion has been discredited, as the number of Commissars in the first Soviet government on 7 November 1917 was 15, not 20, of whom 11 were ethnic Russians (Milyutin, Yelizarov, Skvortsov-Stepanov, Lomov [Oppokov], Rykov, Lenin, Lunacharsky, Shlyapnikov, Nogin, Krylenko, and Avilov), two Ukrainians (Antonov-Ovseyenko and Dybenko), one Pole (Teodorovich), and only one Jew (Trotsky)."
For some reason, the last Wiki-list does not include Stalin who was certainly on the original announcement. The Council clearly did fluctuate a bit in members over time such as in this listing of members that was approved at the 2nd session of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union on July 6, 1923:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_People%27s_Commissars_of_the_Soviet_Union
"Chairman Lenin ... Vice-chairmen: Kamenev, Rykov, Tsiurupa, Chubar, Ordzhonikidze, Orekhaleshvili ... foreign affairs Chicherin, military/maritime Trotsky, foreign trade Krasin, communications Dzerzhinski, posts/telegraphs Smirnov, Supreme Council of the National Economy Rykov, food Bryukhanov, labor Schmidt, finance Sokolnikov, Workers' and Peasants' Inspection Kuybyshev."
Trying to find more instances of someone of Jewish stock being part of the Council of People's Commissars at some time, I ran across references to the Left SR Isaac Steinberg who was part of the Council from December 10, 1917, until March 15, 1918.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Steinberg
Steinberg spent most of his time on the Council complaining about Felix Dzerzhinsky and the Cheka's handling of prisoners. He resigned in protest of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. This was something which the Left SRs were against, although their opposition was pretty childish since most Russians were tired of the war. Apart from that, however, the Left SRs had a lot of appeal among Russian peasants. The Left SRs could have made a more intelligent choice of issues over which to break with the Bolsheviks.
Although the original list was made up of 15 names, you will sometimes find articles which give the number 16:
forward.com/opinion/179038/putin-jews-ruined-russia-but-now-were-pals-eh/
"16 names on the first Council of People’s Commissars under the Bolsheviks..."
-- J.J. Goldberg, "Putin: Jews Ruined Russia – But Now We’re Pals, Eh?," Forward, June 21, 2013.
That appears to be the result of sometimes counting the position of Railways Commissariat which was left vacant in the original announcement of Council membership, but then filled by Yelizarov.
As indicated in Goldberg's editorial, this Wilton lie has in the last 2 decades been regurgitated by Vladimir Putin, much in the same way that Alexander Solzhenitsyn had already recycled the story in chain-mail fashion. It deserves emphasis here that neither Putin nor Solzhenitsyn was making any statement based upon new confirmatory evidence. They were simply repeating the old fraudulent rumor which traces back to Wilton:
web.archive.org/web/20130618091544/echo.msk.ru/programs/interception/1095292-echo/
"V.DYMARSKY – Let's end with this, historical – as I have already said – incident. I think it was yesterday when Vladimir Vladimirovich spoke at the Jewish Centre? ... And so, I quote him, 'You know what I'm thinking right now? The decision to nationalize this library was taken by the first Soviet government; and about 80-85% of its members were Jews. They, guided by false ideological considerations, then went to arrests and repressions. And Jews and Orthodox, representatives of other faiths, Muslims – they all rowed under one comb.' Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich and his advisers, dear listeners, please open the list of the first Soviet government, which includes 16 people. Of course, maybe someone was hiding under some names, but you can look, and you will see that this is not the case. There is one person there, one Jew– Leon Davidovich Trotsky. Well, those who doubt Lenin's origins...
"V.RYZHKOV – I think that Vladimir Vladimirovich read the tabloid press during the years of perestroika, because this theory was very common – that there were only Jews there – in such nationalist tabloid literature it was low-grade."
-- Interception, Vitaly Dymarsky interviewing Vladimir Ryzhkov, June 15, 2013.
In any event, no historical investigations by any independent source have ever yielded anything which remotely resembles the fake list of 22 names which Robert Wilton made up. This is the source for many subsequent tall tales, such as when John Wear repeats the nonsense promoted by Ernest Elmhurst about "the Council of Commissaries consisted of 20 members, of which 17 were Jews." That was the version which Solzhenitsyn had been recycling in his tract 200 Years Together. It should be emphasized that nowhere does Solzhenitsyn produce any citation of evidence to indicate that he somehow verified this phony claim from actual historical sources.
Another phony claim by Wilton appears within the same appendix of the same book The Last Days of the Romanovs. Wilton asserts about the Bolshevik members of the Central Executive Committee (it was not initially all made of Bolsheviks, but included other parties at the onset before such parties were banned) "out of 61 members, five were Russians, six were Latvians, one was a German, two were Armenians, one was a Czech, one was an Imeretian, two were Georgians, one was a Karaim, one was a Ukrainian, and 41 were Jews." This is another fake list of names concocted by Wilton.
"The All-Russian Central Executive Committee ... included 62 Bolsheviks (out of 101 members) . Among them were 23 Jews, 20 Russians, 5 Ukrainians, 5 Poles, 4 'Balts,' 3 Georgians, and 2 Armenians."
-- Yuri Slezkine, The Jewish Century, p. 175, Princeton University Press, 2004.
Unlike the case with the Council of People's Commissars, one can at least maintain here that Jews were over-represented at 37%. Though this is obviously far from being a majority, it was something which concerned top leaders such as Trotsky and Lenin. But Wilton's fake list implies that Jews held more than 67% of the Bolshevik membership on the Central Executive Committee. Just another blatant fabrication by Wilton.
inconvenienthistory.com/14/4/8205
and the amount of either outright false misinformation or misleading innuendo was so great that I had to write out something. But it soon became obvious that one simple statement would not cover all of the fallacies. So I'm hoping to use this format to go through things piecemeal bit by bit.
The foundation for Wear's tract, with some other tidbits to be addressed later, is a set of claims originating from the White propagandist Robert Wilton. Wilton was a London Times journalist who joined the White forces in the Russian Civil War and worked to promote White propaganda. Many of the more vulgar lies from that time originate from Wilton. Anyone who wishes to critically examine Wilton's own original propaganda and compare it with historical data may start by looking up the edition of his book The Last Days of the Romanovs which was republished by the IHR back in 1993. I'll draw from this edition to see what Wilton was promoting and how does it compare with historical facts.
In Appendix D of the 1993 edition, it reproduces a bunch of fake lists of names which Wilton seems to have just invented out of whole cloth. While I have the paperback text in front of me, a website reproduction is given here for anyone who wants to look things up and compare:
wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:The_Jewish_role_in_the_early_Soviet_Regime
Although the website reproduced the text, its page numbering is off from the 1993 edition. It references "pages 136-138" for stuff which appears in the 180s range. Anyway, the text on the above link and on page 185 in the 1993 edition of Wilton's tract tells us that:
"Effective governmental power is in the Central Committee of the Bolshevik party. In 1918 this body had twelve members, of whom nine were of Jewish origin, and three were of Russian ancestry. The nine Jews were: Bronstein (Trotsky), Apfelbaum (Zinoviev). Lurie (Larine), Uritsky, Volodarski, Rosenfeld (Kamenev), Smidovich, Sverdlov (Yanitel), and Nakhamkes (Steklov). The three Russians were: Ulyanov (Lenin), Krylenko, and Lunacharsky."
This is a bogus fabrication. The actual listing of the Central Committee members (along with much pertinent data) can be found here:
holocaust.skeptik.net/misc/party.htm
"8 March 1918 (VII Congress of RKP(b))
"TsK: Members: Artem F. A., Buharin N. I. (Russian), Vladimirskij M. F. (Russian), Dzerzhinskij F. E. (Pole), Zinovjev G. E. (Jewish), Krestinskij N. N. (Ukrainian), Lashevich M. M., Lenin V. I. (Russian), Sverdlov Ja. M. (Jewish), Smilga I. T., Sokol'nikov G. Ja. (Jewish), Stalin I. V. (Georgian), Stasova E. D. (Russian), Trotskij L. D. (Jewish), Shmidt V. V. (German)
"Candidates: Berzin Ja. A., Ioffe A. A. (Jewish), Kiselev A. S., Lomov-Oppokov G. I. (Russian), Petrovskij G. I. (Ukrainian), Stuchka P. I. (Lett), Uritskij M. S. (Jewish), Shlyapnikov A. G. (Russian)"
"TsK" stands for Central Committee. If one scans through this list one can easily find some prominent Jewish names, but the proportions are very different from Wilton's 9 out of 12. Out of 15 members I count 4 Jews. Out of 8 candidates I count 2 more Jews. Even if one managed to verify that a few others were of Jewish stock, Wilton's list is just an invention. This was one of many fake lists which Wilton simply concocted for White propaganda.
To go on, Wilton provides another fake list of names for the Council of People's Commissars and announces "Out of these 22 'Sovnarkom' members, there were three Russians, one Georgian, one Armenian. and 17 Jews." The actual text of the document which announced the formation of the Council on October 26 (old style), 1917, is given here:
alphahistory.com/russianrevolution/decree-forming-soviet-government-1917/
This list of 15 on the original announcement matches with that given on page 500 of Richard Pipes, The Russian Revolution. Of this correct original list, Leon Trotsky is the only identifiable Jew who matches with Wilton's imaginary list of 17 out of 22 (fake numbers altogether).
I should mention that in this fake list, Wilton includes a "Schimdt V" whom he brands as "Jew". There was a Vasily Schmidt who was not part of the original Council of People's Commissars, but who belonged to the version of the Council that was approved on July 6, 1923. He was of German-Russian extraction, not Jewish.
Similarly, Wilton lists a "Schlikter AG" as "Jew." Alexander Grigorievich Schlichter was three-fourths Ukrainian and one-fourth German, not Jewish. He replaced Milyutin from the original Council as People's Commissar for Agriculture.
Wilton lists an "Anvelt" as holding a position of "Hygiene" on the Council and marks the name as "Jew." There was a Jaan Anvelt born of Estonian peasant origin in Oorgu whom I have not been able to trace to the Council at any time. It's not clear at all which "Anvelt" Wilton means to include within his hoax list.
One can find some references which mention Alexandra Kollontai (daughter of an Imperial Russian Army general and not Jewish) as the People's Commissar for Social Welfare on the Council in the early days, though she is not included in that original announcement of October 26 (November 8 in new style). Kollontai was appointed briefly as such, but quit over opposition to Lenin's advocacy that Russia should sign a peace with Germany at all costs. Kollontai is included in this Wikipedia listing:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_People%27s_Commissars
"Lenin, Bonch-Bruyevich, Trotsky, Milyutin, Krylenko, Dybenko, Nogin, Lunacharsky, Teodorovich, Rykov, Oppokov, Shlyapnikov, Stalin, Avilov, Skvortsov-Stepanov, Kollontai."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Kollontai
"She was appointed People's Commissar for Social Welfare in the first Soviet government, but soon resigned due to her opposition to the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk..."
The latter Wiki-list also includes Vladimir Bronch-Bruyevich who was of Lithuanian extraction. In that Wikipedia listing Bonch-Bruyevich occurs as the head of administration of the Council of People's Commissars.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Bonch-Bruyevich
"Bonch-Bruyevich was head of administration for the Council of People's Commissars (equivalent to head of Lenin's private office) from November 1917 to October 1920."
There are also some listings of the Council which include Mark Yelizarov as People's Commissar for Railways, a position which was left vacant in the original listing of 15.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Yelizarov
"After the October Revolution, Yelizarov was appointed at the vacant position of People's Commissar of Railways of the RSFSR..."
Yelizarov was born from Russian peasant stock. He appears in the listing of the Council which Wikipedia gives when correcting Solzhenitsyn's repetition of Wilton's hoax:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Hundred_Years_Together
"Solzhenitsyn ... without citing his sources ... wrote that 'from 20 ministers in the first Soviet government one was Russian, one Georgian, one Armenian and 17 Jews'. This assertion has been discredited, as the number of Commissars in the first Soviet government on 7 November 1917 was 15, not 20, of whom 11 were ethnic Russians (Milyutin, Yelizarov, Skvortsov-Stepanov, Lomov [Oppokov], Rykov, Lenin, Lunacharsky, Shlyapnikov, Nogin, Krylenko, and Avilov), two Ukrainians (Antonov-Ovseyenko and Dybenko), one Pole (Teodorovich), and only one Jew (Trotsky)."
For some reason, the last Wiki-list does not include Stalin who was certainly on the original announcement. The Council clearly did fluctuate a bit in members over time such as in this listing of members that was approved at the 2nd session of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union on July 6, 1923:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_People%27s_Commissars_of_the_Soviet_Union
"Chairman Lenin ... Vice-chairmen: Kamenev, Rykov, Tsiurupa, Chubar, Ordzhonikidze, Orekhaleshvili ... foreign affairs Chicherin, military/maritime Trotsky, foreign trade Krasin, communications Dzerzhinski, posts/telegraphs Smirnov, Supreme Council of the National Economy Rykov, food Bryukhanov, labor Schmidt, finance Sokolnikov, Workers' and Peasants' Inspection Kuybyshev."
Trying to find more instances of someone of Jewish stock being part of the Council of People's Commissars at some time, I ran across references to the Left SR Isaac Steinberg who was part of the Council from December 10, 1917, until March 15, 1918.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Steinberg
Steinberg spent most of his time on the Council complaining about Felix Dzerzhinsky and the Cheka's handling of prisoners. He resigned in protest of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. This was something which the Left SRs were against, although their opposition was pretty childish since most Russians were tired of the war. Apart from that, however, the Left SRs had a lot of appeal among Russian peasants. The Left SRs could have made a more intelligent choice of issues over which to break with the Bolsheviks.
Although the original list was made up of 15 names, you will sometimes find articles which give the number 16:
forward.com/opinion/179038/putin-jews-ruined-russia-but-now-were-pals-eh/
"16 names on the first Council of People’s Commissars under the Bolsheviks..."
-- J.J. Goldberg, "Putin: Jews Ruined Russia – But Now We’re Pals, Eh?," Forward, June 21, 2013.
That appears to be the result of sometimes counting the position of Railways Commissariat which was left vacant in the original announcement of Council membership, but then filled by Yelizarov.
As indicated in Goldberg's editorial, this Wilton lie has in the last 2 decades been regurgitated by Vladimir Putin, much in the same way that Alexander Solzhenitsyn had already recycled the story in chain-mail fashion. It deserves emphasis here that neither Putin nor Solzhenitsyn was making any statement based upon new confirmatory evidence. They were simply repeating the old fraudulent rumor which traces back to Wilton:
web.archive.org/web/20130618091544/echo.msk.ru/programs/interception/1095292-echo/
"V.DYMARSKY – Let's end with this, historical – as I have already said – incident. I think it was yesterday when Vladimir Vladimirovich spoke at the Jewish Centre? ... And so, I quote him, 'You know what I'm thinking right now? The decision to nationalize this library was taken by the first Soviet government; and about 80-85% of its members were Jews. They, guided by false ideological considerations, then went to arrests and repressions. And Jews and Orthodox, representatives of other faiths, Muslims – they all rowed under one comb.' Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich and his advisers, dear listeners, please open the list of the first Soviet government, which includes 16 people. Of course, maybe someone was hiding under some names, but you can look, and you will see that this is not the case. There is one person there, one Jew– Leon Davidovich Trotsky. Well, those who doubt Lenin's origins...
"V.RYZHKOV – I think that Vladimir Vladimirovich read the tabloid press during the years of perestroika, because this theory was very common – that there were only Jews there – in such nationalist tabloid literature it was low-grade."
-- Interception, Vitaly Dymarsky interviewing Vladimir Ryzhkov, June 15, 2013.
In any event, no historical investigations by any independent source have ever yielded anything which remotely resembles the fake list of 22 names which Robert Wilton made up. This is the source for many subsequent tall tales, such as when John Wear repeats the nonsense promoted by Ernest Elmhurst about "the Council of Commissaries consisted of 20 members, of which 17 were Jews." That was the version which Solzhenitsyn had been recycling in his tract 200 Years Together. It should be emphasized that nowhere does Solzhenitsyn produce any citation of evidence to indicate that he somehow verified this phony claim from actual historical sources.
Another phony claim by Wilton appears within the same appendix of the same book The Last Days of the Romanovs. Wilton asserts about the Bolshevik members of the Central Executive Committee (it was not initially all made of Bolsheviks, but included other parties at the onset before such parties were banned) "out of 61 members, five were Russians, six were Latvians, one was a German, two were Armenians, one was a Czech, one was an Imeretian, two were Georgians, one was a Karaim, one was a Ukrainian, and 41 were Jews." This is another fake list of names concocted by Wilton.
"The All-Russian Central Executive Committee ... included 62 Bolsheviks (out of 101 members) . Among them were 23 Jews, 20 Russians, 5 Ukrainians, 5 Poles, 4 'Balts,' 3 Georgians, and 2 Armenians."
-- Yuri Slezkine, The Jewish Century, p. 175, Princeton University Press, 2004.
Unlike the case with the Council of People's Commissars, one can at least maintain here that Jews were over-represented at 37%. Though this is obviously far from being a majority, it was something which concerned top leaders such as Trotsky and Lenin. But Wilton's fake list implies that Jews held more than 67% of the Bolshevik membership on the Central Executive Committee. Just another blatant fabrication by Wilton.
