Antisemitism in Red Army: Shouts of “kill the Jews and Save Russia” Raised on March: First Appearanc

“Kill the Jews and save Russia!”, the old slogan of Czarist days, has made its appearance for the first time among the first-year soldiers serving in the Red Army, young men who have grown up under the Soviet regime.

The incidents occurred in the Northern Division stationed at Novo-Sibirsk, where there are many troops of Tatar, Jewish and Chuvash nationality.

While on the march, a Russian trooper named Ivlev, walking beside a Jewish trooper named Cherchess, suddenly shouted: “Kill the Jews and save Russia”. Another Russian soldier named Fodarenko hurled insults upon a Jewish recruit named Schuster. Several of the other troopers reported the matter to the superior officers, who ordered the two soldiers to be put on public trial. Another trooper who insulted a Chuvash soldier has also been put on trial.

The Red Army organ “Krasno Armeyskaya Zwezda” (“Red Army News”) publishes a three-column editorial article to-day demanding that every vestige of antisemitism should be rooted out from the Red Army, and insisting that its existence is due only to counter-revolutionary influence.

Complaints of antisemitism seriously invading the Red Army were made some time back in the Red Army organ “Krassny Voyn” (“The Red Soldier”) of Moscow, Many soldiers, the paper stated, are saying: We are for the Soviet, but we are against the Jews. In the summer of 1929 a big mass meeting of the entire Moscow garrison was held in view of the frequent antisemitic incidents occurring in the Red Army, for the purpose of organising a movement to combat the Red Army antisemitism. Thousands of soldiers and officers were present. Many speakers dwelt on the danger of antisemitism, denouncing it as a blot on the Red Army. One of the soldiers present, it was reported, objected that the question of antisemitism was being exaggerated. “The truth of the matter”, he said, ” is that there are no Jews in our army. They want to get out of serving in the army”. The Red Army paper, “Krasnoy Armeiskaya Pravda”, took up this allegation that “the Jews don’t go into the army”, and declared that there are actually 10 per cent. more Jews in the army than there should be according to their proportion in the population. Under the Czarist regime, it said, the number of Jews in the Russian army was 25 per cent. below what it should have been, according to their numerical proportion, but now, when there are no longer any anti-Jewish restrictions in the army, there are 35 per cent. more Jewish soldiers and officers than in Czarist days, and 10 per cent. more than according to the numbers of the Jewish population.

Antisemitic incidents in the Red Army have been reported from time to time, and on one occasion it was reported that two Jewish Red Army soldiers, travelling with their Company in Siberia, were hurled out of the moving train by their comrades, who afterwards, on alighting at the station, attacked Jews and pillaged Jewish shops. Three of the soldiers, it was stated, were candidates for membership of the Communist Party.