Antisemitism and the Russian Revolution
Cambridge University Press, 9/24/2020
EAN 9781316647165, ISBN10: 1316647161
Paperback, 260 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
When the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917, they announced the overthrow of a world scarred by exploitation and domination. In the very moment of revolution, these sentiments were put to the test as antisemitic pogroms swept the former Pale of Settlement. The pogroms posed fundamental questions of the Bolshevik project, revealing the depth of antisemitism within sections of the working class, peasantry and Red Army. Antisemitism and the Russian Revolution offers the first book-length analysis of the Bolshevik response to antisemitism. Contrary to existing understandings, it reveals this campaign to have been led not by the Party leadership, as is often assumed, but by a loosely connected group of radicals who mobilized around a Jewish political subjectivity. By examining pogroms committed by the Red Army, Brendan McGeever also uncovers the explosive overlap between revolutionary politics and antisemitism, and the capacity for class to become racialized in a moment of crisis.
Acknowledgments
A note on translation
Terms and abbreviations
Introduction
1. 1917
antisemitism in the moment of revolution
2. 'Red pogroms'
Spring 1918
3. The Soviet response to antisemitism, 1918
4. Antisemitism and revolutionary politics
the Red Army in Ukraine, 1919
5. The Soviet response to antisemitism in Ukraine, February–May 1919
6. Conclusions
anti-racist praxis in the Russian Revolution
7. Reinscribing antisemitism? The Bolshevik approach to the 'Jewish question'
Epilogue
in the shadow of pogroms
Conclusions
Bibliography
Index.