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do not give up yet their hope of subjugating the Ukrainian masses. By
provocations for which they are spending enormous sums of money they want
to divide us from within, hiring criminal elements who are inciting our
soldiers to all sorts of outrages and pogroms against the innocent Jewish
population; in this way they want to stamp our soldiers as
pogrom-mongers, although these soldiers are bringing liberty to all
peoples of the Ukraine.
Our enemies intend thus to split the Ukrainian and Jewish laboring masses
whose ways, in fact, have been bound together by three hundred years of
Russian tsarist yoke.
Our national army must bring equality, brotherhood and freedom to the
Ukrainian as well as the Jewish citizens who are also supporting actively
the government of the Ukrainian Democratic Republic. All their parties,
i.e.: Bund, Obyednantsi, Poalej-Zion and People's Party are standing on
the principles of the independence of the Ukraine, and are participating
in the reconstruction of the republic.
I know myself how the representatives of the Jewish population have
helped our army and supported our legal republican government.
The enemies of our state, the Bolshevists, are shooting down not only the
Ukrainian but also the Jewish people, depriving the others of the barest
means of living.
I have the highest esteem for the sacrifices made during this war upon
the altar of the fatherland by the Jewish population.
From the reports by the commanders of our brave divisions and corps as
well from reports by State Inspectors I have already learned that the
Jewish population brought help to our wounded and sick soldiers, in the
hospitals which had been built hastily 3-5 kilometers behind the
battlefronts.
I have been touched deeply by tears of thankfulness in the eyes of our
soldiers for the loving care and human aid given them by Jews, and I have
noted with satisfaction how the soldiers of our army were standing guard
at the shops and stores of Jews in order to protect them against
plunderers.
The restoration of a bridge at Starokonstantyniv - which had been
destroyed by the Bolshevists - by the Jewish population in an exceedingly
short time, as well as their help with foodstuffs and underwear testify
also to the loyal conduct of Jews in relation to our army.
I am convinced and I ardently hope that in the future such help on the
part of Jews will occur ever more frequently and that they will continue
to further the cause of peace in our country.
The Minister for Jewish Affairs has by a series of measures already
exercised some influence upon the Bolshevist circles of Jews so that many
of them no longer support Bolshevism, since they consider it now to be
their ruin.
Together with you I call upon the Jewish citizens to go with us and to
support wholeheartedly our army and our government; then we shall be able
to affirm that the government of the Ukrainian Democratic Republic and
you, its army, will finish that great responsible work which you are now
doing - destroying the power of the Bolshevists and building up our
independent republic in which each nationality enjoys full rights and a
peaceful life.
Officers and soldiers of the Ukrainian Army! The Ukrainian-Jewish
laboring masses see in you their liberation, and future generations will
not forget your services rendered to them; history will with pride record
on its pages your achievements in this struggle. Beware of provocations,
and have no mercy on provocateurs or on those who execute pogroms, or
incite the weakest among you to this action.
Let the death sentence overtake the perpetrators of pogroms and
provocateurs. I demand the strictest discipline from you so that not
even a hair of an innocent's head be touched.
Bear in mind that you are the elite sons of your great nation which wants
to live its independent life and to be subjugated by no one, and
therefore keep an unflinching watch on its interests as well as on the
interests of all those who help you and are well-disposed to you and to
the liberation of your people.
Those who are guilty before the Ukrainian people and before the republic,
no matter what their nationality, shall suffer the severest punishment
according to law prevailing in the territory of the Ukrainian republic;
to the innocent, however, you must bring liberation from the hated
Bolshevist yoke.
The Republic's and my own cordial thanks to and high esteem for your
martial bravery, devotion, and self-sacrifice which your offer upon the
altar of the fatherland, while liberating our Ukraine and the
nationalities living there - including the Jews - from the Bolshevists.
May God help us in the great and sacred cause of liberating the nations
from the heavy yoke of the Bolshevists!
August 27, 1919
Commander-in-Chief: Petlura.
(Ukraina, September 2, 1919.)
F. Pigido (ed.), Material Concerning Ukrainian-Jewish Relations during
the Years of the Revolution (1917-1921): Collection of Documents and
Testimonies by Prominent Jewish Political Workers, The Ukrainian
Information Bureau, Munich, 1956, pp. 70-72.
HOME DISINFORMATION PETLIURA 836 hits since 23Mar99
Arnold Margolin The Ukraine and the Policy of Entente 1921 Russian and Ukrainian pogroms compared
If the beginning of the demoralization of the Ukrainian army was at its tail,
by Denikin's army the poison of demoralization came from the head.
EXTRACTS
from the book by Arnold Margolin
"The Ukraine and the policy of the Entente"
(Memorandum by a Jew and a citizen).
Publisher C. Efron. Berlin, 1921. Chapter XXIV. Pages 310-315.
Pogroms of the period of the Directorate, and of Denikin's Army. Parallels.
- Nations and Governments.
I have before me the report on pogroms, prepared by the Relief Committee
for the Victims of Pogroms, at the Russian Red Cross in Kiev. It is
stated in the report that there were no pogroms during the rule of the
Central Council, or of Skoropadsky, or during the first two months of the
Directorate's rule. Pogroms began after defeats that had been inflicted
upon the troops of the Directorate by the Bolsheviks. The heavier the
defeats and the farther Petlura's army was compelled to retreat, the more
cruel was their vengeance upon the innocent Jewish population whom they
identified with Communists. The slogan: "down with Jews and Communists,"
or "all Jews are Communists" were raised throughout the Ukraine and
provoked pogroms everywhere.
This explanation of the origin of pogroms is quite identical with the
statement made in Temnytsky's and Vasylko's telegram of August 1, 1919.
In the course of centuries the entire population of Russia had been
listening to accusations by the government of Jews being responsible for
all the evils in the world. The ignorant masses believed even the
legends about the ritual murder of Christian children by Jews, while even
the "specialists" in this subject were declaring that Jews kill only
boys. Karab-Tchevsky tells us in the first part of his memoirs ("What My
Eyes Saw") that his mother had already in his childhood read to him the
New Testament, and when it came to the torturing of Jesus Christ, his
nurse or housemaid would exclaim: "the hideous Jews, they surely killed
Christ by torture!" (p. 23).
The pogroms of the years 1880 in Kishinev and Homel, came as the result
of false rumors and of promises of exemption from punishment for
plundering during three days. This time, however, the participation of
Jews in the Bolshevist movement was no more a rumor, but a fact which it
was very easy to exaggerate. On the other side, the impunity for
plundering lasted this time not only three days, but indefinitely on
account of the absence of any authority that could stop the plundering.
For, what authority could exist during the panic of retreat before
Trotsky's army? ... Under such conditions a favorable atmosphere was
created for the rapacious instincts of the demoralized segments of the
army, as well as for the development of the ideological barbarity of
Semesenko and for the provocateurs from the Russian Black-Hundred camp,
who were pogrommongers by conviction and wished at the same time to
discredit the Ukrainian movement by branding it as being guilty of
pogroms.
All this, of course, is not justification, but only one of many
explanations of the origin of pogroms during the period of the
Directorate.
Quite a different picture is displayed by the comparison of this period
of pogroms with the pogroms by Denikin's army. Here is no question of
retreat and of chaos that is connected with retreat. On the contrary,
the more successful the advance, the more organized and stronger is the
propaganda from above and the more according to plan the pogroms are
developed. If the beginning of the demoralization of the Ukrainian army
was at its tail, by Denikin's army the poison of demoralization came from
the head. As we have seen already, the Denikin officers openly declared
that they were fighting not against the Bolsheviks, but against the Jews.
To be sure, there were also in Denikin's army many persons of a purely
rapacious type. But the most horrible thing was the deeply rooted
anti-Semitism of the chiefs that surrounded Denikin, and their sadistic
hate of Jews. I, personally, am not inclined to assume that Denikin
himself wanted pogroms. Even to Denikin, in spite of his anti-Semitism,
it was impossible not to see the fatal results of pogroms for his army.
But he, too, was powerless on the question of pogroms, nor had he any
inclination to come forward in defense of the Jews.
The second characteristic feature which distinguishes the very course of
the pogroms in one area from the other consists in the fact that in
Petlura's army, we surely find cases when some individual persons or
groups succeeded in preventing or stopping pogroms. Two such cases are
cited by Temkin in his report, the other two cases are given in the
report of the Relief Committee for the Victims of Pogroms. Red Army
soldiers arranged an anti-Jewish pogrom in the city of Korosten in March
13, 1919. When the soldiers of Petlura's army which was at that time
advancing, reached the city, they stopped the pogroms. In Bila Tserkva
the Ukrainian army - having expelled in August the Denikin troops of Gen.
Shkuro and then the Red troops, who one after another plundered and
massacred the population - behaved in full dignity until in turn they
were substituted by Zeleny's bands that immediately arranged a pogrom.
Later the unfortunate town was attacked by Sokolov's bands, after which
the Ukrainian troops again succeeded in restoring order for a short time.
Lubny escaped a pogrom thanks to the fact that a hundred men were found
in the Ukrainian ranks, who with their arms stood in the way of the
pogrommakers. Fourteen of the defenders fell in the fight but the town
was saved. While reading the story about Lubny in this part of the
report, I recalled the year 1905 when a City Committee of Defense was
organized in Lubny, which also saved the city from a pogrom.
Such facts were unknown in Denikin's army. Here the "guilty" of such
patronage and defense of Jews were punished with dismissal from their
posts.
The third feature, a very disadvantageous one for Denikin's army and
government, appears as a result of the comparison of the declarations by
the Ukrainian government on the Jewish question, of laws concerning
personal-national autonomy and Jewish Communities on the one hand, with
the clauses restricting the number of Jews in educational institutions as
well as in civil and military services in Denikin's empire - on the other
hand. Here, on the part of the Ukrainian government, an effort to draw
on representatives of Jews in all levels of government posts, and over
there - in Denikin's camp - removal of Jewish officers from the army, and
of Jewish officials from district and city offices. And this - in spite
of the fact that so many Jews joined voluntarily at the very beginning
Koltchak's and Denikin's armies. And how many Jews having been brought
up with a Russian culture died for Russia that had been always a
stepmother to them? On the other hand, how small a group of us, Jews,
joined the Ukrainian movement at the beginning of the second revolution!
Of course, there was nothing strange in it. Wilson's points had been
declared but recently, and the realization of the right of
self-determination by the Ukrainian people wa such a new and fresh event
that not only the average Jewish citizen, but also the intellectuals,
with few exceptions, did not digest or understand all that had happened.
But the fact remains, Jews were represented by a very considerable number
in the ranks both of the Bolsheviks and, at the beginning, of Denikin's
army. The Ukrainian movement was joined only by a few Jews.
The representatives of Russian and Jewish capital and heavy industry were
marching hand-in-hand with the Volunteer Armies of Denikin, Yudenitch,
and Koltchak. And even after all those pogroms committed by Denikin's
army, the Jewish capitalists and industrialists followed the call of his
successor Wrangel, and joined him
Finally, one more feature out of many others that distinguish the
Ukrainian Movement from that of Denikin: An anti-Jewish pogrom was openly
carried on in Kiev in the presence of Denikin's generals, Drahomirov and
Bredov. Never did happen anything like that, wherever the Directorate
set up headquarters, neither in Kiev, nor in Vynnytsia, nor in
Kamanets-Pololsk. The Kiev population knows from bitter experience the
difference between those two regimes.
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