The pogroms during the Russian Civil War were a wave of mass murders of Jews, primarily in Ukraine, during the Russian Civil War. From 1918 to 1920, there were 1,500 pogroms in over 1,300 localities, in which 35,000-250,000 died. All armed forces operating in Ukraine were involved in the killings, in particular the anti-Communist Ukrainian People's Army and Armed Forces of South Russia. Jewish sources of the time estimated that more than a million people were affected by material losses, 50,000 to 300,000 children were orphaned, and half a million were driven out from or fled their homes.
Background From 1791, Jews living in the Russian Empire were largely restricted to the Pale of Settlement in the western part of the country. There was also a ban on holding state and public positions. From 1881 to 1884 and 1903 to 1906, many pogroms took place.
During World War I, almost half a million Jews fought in the Imperial Russian Army. However, the command of the Russian army was prejudiced against the Jews. Academy officers were convinced that Jews undermined the power of the tsar, blamed them for not recognizing God in Jesus and stigmatized them as foreigners. During the war, much of the Russian population blamed Jews for causing food shortages and price inflation, or for spreading rumors about the lack of weapons, despite it being one of the most widely known public secrets. The situation was complicated by the establishment of the "German Committee for Freeing of Russian Jews" in Germany, whose founders saw the war with Russia as a method of liberating Russian Jews from the Tsarist autocracy.
During the withdrawal of Russian troops in 1915 from Congress Poland, under pressure from the Central Powers, the military command deported 250,000 Jews deep into Russia. 350,000 more refugees joined this number. Their property was plundered frequently. The newcomers did not receive legal security in their new homes.
The dispersion of the population across the territories of several countries and the division of forces during World War I meant that Jews found themselves on different sides of the front. On each side, they were collectively accused of favoring the enemy, including spying on behalf of the opposing army. Espionage suspects were usually hanged without a trial. According to the historian Peter Kenez, most of the accusations of desertion, after being executed, turned out to be false. A rising atmosphere of antisemitism caused pogroms to break out in Stanyslaviv, Chernivtsi and Tarnopol, during the withdrawal of Russian troops from the region.
After the tsar was overthrown on 2 April 1917, Alexander Kerensky's Provisional Government abolished the Pale of Settlement and repealed the restrictions on national and religious minorities, thereby granting Jews full civil equality in the Russian Republic.
The first major pogroms (1917–1918) Antisemitic violence increased dramatically during the First World War in 1914. With the start of the Russian Civil War pitting Bolshevik Red Army forces against the anti-Bolshevik White Army forces, large numbers of weapons fell into the hands of irregular armed forces, and both civil authorities and traditional social ties weakened. In this context, Jews became a particular target of attacks. Antisemitic canards, such as a belief in an international Jewish conspiracy or that prominent Jews such as Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Kamenev supported the Red Army, were widely propagated.
Nearly all military or political initiatives against the Bolsheviks in Ukraine adopted antisemitic rhetoric. Historian Peter Kenez has argued that antisemitism was a focal point of the anti-Bolshevik White movement's ideology, reaching a fanaticism during the revolutionary and civil war period comparable to that of the later Nazi movement. Disagreeing, historians Richard Pipes and Orlando Figes have argued that the White's movement antisemitic activity was above all motivated by nationalist sentiment and greed. Historian has stated that civil war antisemitic activities were inflamed by years of antisemitism in the army during the First World War; acting on the view of Jews as disloyal outsiders, imperial Russian authorities deported hundreds of thousands of Jews from areas near the front line, prompting frequent pogroms against those being deported.
Antisemitism increased further after the 1917 February Revolution, and did not abate after the October Revolution. Between November and December 1917, there were antisemitic pogroms in sixty towns, including Bender, Tiraspol, Kharkiv, Kiev and Vitebsk.
In January 1918, Central Council of Ukraine promulgated a declaration of independence of the Ukrainian People's Republic. Of the territory that would later become part of the Soviet Union, the largest number of Jews lived in Ukraine (1.6 million out of 2.6 million). The General Jewish Labour Bund, which had supported Ukrainian autonomy, this time opposed separation from Russia. Other socialist parties abstained from support for the declaration. The Ukrainian national movement was infuriated by the lack of support for independence.
Already by the middle of the month there were pogroms in Bratslav, combined with looting and arson. On 20 January in Kiev, during the fights between Ukrainian nationalist and Soviet forces, over a hundred Jews were killed and Jewish shops were plundered. Ukrainian nationalists arrested members of the First All Russian Congress of Jewish Fighters, and shot an organizer for the Ukrainian Union of Jewish Fighters, I. Gogol.
In some cases, the communists saw the Jewish community as the bourgeoisie, their class enemies. During its withdrawal from Chernigov Governorate in the spring of 1918, the Red Army, motivated by "fighting against the bourgeoisie", committed pogroms against Jews. Retreating Soviet forces are believed to have been responsible for a brutal 7-8 March pogrom in Chernihiv and Hlukhiv, where about 400 Jewish residents, including many children, were murdered within two days. During the civil war period, Bolsheviks are estimated to have been responsible for 9% of pogroms, White movement forces for 17%, Ukrainian nationalists for 50%, and unaffiliated groups for the remainder.
In April 1918, as a result of a coup d'état in agreement with the Central Powers, the military leader Pavlo Skoropadskyi seized power and established the Ukrainian State. At that time, the authorities issued proclamations that collectively blamed Jews for spreading anti-German sentiment and participating in the black market. In March 1918 in Kiev, during the takeover of the city by the Ukrainian-German forces, haidamaks of the captured and shot Jews. There were also murders in Kremenchuk and Hoholeve.
In November 1918, the Polish–Ukrainian War broke out. After the Polish Army captured Lviv (then Lwów or Lemberg), 72 Jews were killed by a Polish mob that included Polish soldiers. The report states that in Lviv "disreputable elements [from the Polish Army] plundered to the extent of many millions of crowns the dwellings and stores in the Jewish quarter, and did not hesitate to murder when they met with resistance."David Engel. Poles, Jews, and Historical Objectivity. Slavic Review, Vol. 46, No. 3/4 (Autumn - Winter, 1987), pp. 568-580. See also Mission of The United States to Poland, Henry Morgenthau, Sr. Report Some other events in Poland were later found to have been exaggerated, especially by contemporary newspapers such as the New York Times, although serious abuses against the Jews, including pogroms, continued elsewhere, especially in Ukraine.Andrzej Kapiszewski, Controversial Reports on the Situation of the Jews in Poland in the Aftermath of World War Studia Judaica 7: 2004 nr 2(14) s. 257-304 (pdf) The result of the concern over the fate of Poland's Jews was a series of explicit clauses in the Versailles Treaty protecting the rights of minorities in Poland.Norman Davies. "Ethnic Diversity in Twentieth Century Poland." In: Herbert Arthur Strauss. Hostages of Modernization: Studies on Modern Antisemitism, 1870-1933/39. Walter de Gruyter, 1993.David Engel. "Lwów, 1918: The Transmutation of a Symbol and its Legacy in the Holocaust." In: Joshua D. Zimmerman, Contested Memories: Poles and Jews During the Holocaust and Its Aftermath, Rutgers University Press, 2003, , Google Print, p.33–34 In 1921, Poland's March Constitution gave the Jews the same legal rights as other citizens and guaranteed them religious tolerance.Jacob Goldstein, Abraham Cahan, Jewish Socialists in the United States: The Cahan Debate, 1925–1926, Sussex Academic Press, 1998, , Google Print, p.11
In total, during the years of 1917 and 1918, there were 90 pogroms, most of which occurred between August and October 1917 and between March and May 1918.
Ukrainian pogroms (January-July 1919) In November 1918, the Ukrainian Hetmanate was replaced by Directorate of Ukraine, and on 22 January 1919, the re-established Ukrainian People's Republic carried out a unification with the West Ukrainian People's Republic. In February, Symon Petliura became the president of the Directorate. At the same time, starting in January 1919, the Red Army initiated an invasion of Ukraine from the east. In order to internally integrate its own troops, the Directorate used antisemitic agitation. Pogroms were launched on a massive scale in places where Ukrainian nationalists felt threatened. By the summer of 1919, various Ukrainian forces had murdered over 30,000 Jewish civilians.
In mid-January 1919, the troops of stationed in Ovruch killed 80 inhabitants and plundered approximately 1,200 houses. The otaman blamed the Jews who had gathered in the market square "for Bolshevism" and demanded a large ransom. Despite collecting tribute, the order to stop the pogrom was not obeyed. The events ended only with the withdrawal of the otaman's troops under the pressure of the Bolsheviks. At that time, in Zhytomyr, soldiers, joined by peasants from nearby villages, started a pogrom, killing 80 people and plundering property. Two months later, during the takeover of the city by the Ukrainian People's Army, a rumor was spread among the soldiers that 1,300 Christians had allegedly been murdered by Jews. It was a rumor based on the killing of 22 people by the Bolsheviks, which had actually included Jewish victims. A delegation of city officials managed to convince the commanders that the accusation was false, but it was too late to convince the rank-and-file. Despite the escape of many Jews from the city, during the pogrom that lasted five days, 317 people were murdered and many injured. Many Jews were saved by some of the city's Christian inhabitants, who provided them with shelter. The pogrom ceased with the recapture of the city by Bolshevik troops on 24 March.