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FROM A POLICE STATE A Moscow Cold War Memoir |
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The Colder War for Soviet Jews |
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This is an excerpt from a book-length work in progress by Michael Johnson, presented in this form exclusively by TheColumnists.com through the courtesy of the author, who reserves all rights. |
By MICHAEL JOHNSON
for TheColumnists.com
One of the big human rights issues of the 1970s was the ban on emigration of Russians of Jewish origin. The Soviets were nervous about opening their borders, fearing a precedent that might turn into an exodus. To some in the West, it was an obscure issue that had its tragic and comic sides. Chevy Chase and Gilda Radner did a classic Saturday Night Live sketch in which Gilda ranted against all this senseless concern about “Soviet jewellery” until Chase interrupted her to say it was “Jewry, not jewellery.” “Never mind,” came the familiar punch line. But the problem was serious.
The Russians didn’t invent modern anti-semitism--the Spanish did-- but they certainly picked it up and ran with it. “Pogrom” is derived from a Russian word: “gromit,” which means to destroy. The definition of pogrom: “Organized massacre of a particular ethnic group, especially Jews in Russia and Eastern Europe.”
In the 1930s, the Soviets hatched a plan to resolve this centuries-old issue. They didn’t use guns and ovens, they carved out a piece of territory in Siberia, on the Chinese border, called it Birobidzhan, and cynically declared it a new homeland for Soviet Jews. It was far enough away that the Jews would be both contained and out of sight. How elegant. A few thousand Jews were volunteered to go there but most of them scurried back to Western Russia as soon as they could. It didn’t take them long to catch on. The settlement was a huge flop.
Jews continued to work in the mainstream Soviet economy, excelling in medicine, science and the arts despite an attitude of anti-semitism deeply ingrained in the Russian mentality. This sometimes came out in ethnic humor. For example, a typical Jewish name in Russian ends in the suffix “ovich.” The very Russian nuclear scientist Andrei Sakharov became the butt of “Sakharovich” jokes (lumping him with “troublesome” Jews) when he became a political dissident in the 1970s. Another line that always raises a laugh in Russia is: “Next train for Israel leaves from the Northern Station” (meaning of course heading for the far north labor camps).
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nuclear scientist, was the subject of "Sakharovich" jokes. |
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All Russian Jews carry identity papers stamped with their nationality as “Jew” - not Russian, not Tatar, not Ukrainian, but Jew. This affects every aspect of their life: how they get educated, where they work, where they live.
I was close to this issue because in the late 1960s and early 1970s Russian Jews were also news. I was in and out of the Moscow Synagogue and got to know the Chief Rabbi and his top aides. Visiting politicians and prominent foreign Jews always paid their respects to the rabbi, sometimes with journalists trailing behind them. I once served as unofficial translator when Ted Sorensen came to town to raise the profile of Teddy Kennedy in anticipation of his presidential candidacy. Chappaquidick put an end to those ambitions. But I translated Ted’s little speech to the rabbi, as Ted presented an Old Testament Bible to him, more a photo opportunity than a sincere gesture. The Rabbi was in his late 70s, frail and shaking, but still imposing with his deeply lined and rugged face and large, white beard. I felt slightly sullied by this low political move, but I had let myself get roped in.
Before the floodgates were opened for emigration, we heard rumblings of 16 arrests for an attempted skyjacking by a group of Jews who wanted to seek political asylum in Sweden. The plan leaked out and they were arrested and tried in Leningrad (now, once again, St. Petersburg). On Christmas Day 1970, the two leaders of the attempt, Eduard Kuznetsov and Mark Dymshits, were found guilty and sentenced to death by firing squad. The others were also convicted and given labor camp sentences ranging from 10 to 15 years.
A week later, I was assigned to be present outside the Moscow courtroom during the appeal of the harsh sentences. The foreign press corps was never allowed into politically sensitive trials. We had to stand outside the courtroom in the snow, freezing all our appendages. We would hang around the front door of court houses and hope for some scraps of information as spectators and close relatives came and went. About 95 percent of the spectators were rent-a-crowd workers who had been bussed in to fill the seats so that our requests for places could be turned down. “Sorry, every seat is taken today.”
After a couple of hours in the cold, several Jewish families came up the street to join us as a silent protest. As they approached, I noticed they had brought their children along with them, each child wearing a yellow star. This hit me in the gut and really choked me up. I had to turn away for a couple of minutes and dry my eyes. I realized then that I had been in this brutal Soviet environment too long. I couldn't bear watching humans abuse each other in the name of some dubious and discredited ideology.
Kuznetsov and Dymshits were lucky. Their death sentences were commuted to 15 years in labor camps with “special regime,” and that doesn’t mean extra potatoes. A degree of clemency was allowed the court. The commutation seemed to have been prompted by the fact that the world was watching Moscow closely in those days, and with increasing unease, because of the government’s treatment of Soviet citizenry.
Kuznetsov wrote eloquently about his trial and imprisonment in “Prison Diaries”, which he composed in tiny script on scraps of cigarette paper, then smuggled out with the help of Elena Bonner, the wife of academician Sakharov. The book was first published in France and the United States while he was still in prison, much to the annoyance of the KGB officers assigned to silence him.
Kuznetsov, who was released after nine years in labor camps and allowed to move to Israel, had an earlier conviction and prison term, which originated on the ludicrous grounds of participating in an unauthorized poetry reading. As Dave Barry would say, no, I am not making this up.
One tactic of the most daring Jews was to force their way into the offices of a correspondent, making sure the police guard saw them, then hope to get arrested, become a cause celebre, and be thrown out of the country. Sometimes it worked, sometimes he just got arrested. It always made me nervous, however, because the incident also went on our record.
By the 1970s, the Jews were getting organized to do something about their second-class status in Russia: get out of the country. They worked this strategy from several angles, including making themselves available to foreign journalists to comment on Soviet society. Some journalists, including authors of books on 1970s Russia, wrote down everything they said. New York Times correspondent Hedrick Smith’s big book “The Russians” was a commercial success but was slightly off-key. His informants were largely from the newly communicative Russian Jewish community with an axe--however legitimate--to grind.
The plight of Russian Jews was taken up by occasional celebrities, including Kirk Douglas (known to his family as Izzy, short for Issur Danielovich Demsky), son of an immigrant from Mogilev, Russia, who would occasionally stir things up. It was all very emotive stuff, and it was defused in the mid-1970s when under U.S. pressure the Soviets agreed to let thousands of Jews go. Today Brighton Beach and Coney Island in New York are virtual Russian Jewish settlements, with Russian conversation ringing in the streets and shops displaying signs and prices in Cyrillic characters.
© 2001 by Michael
Johnson. Note: This is actually Chapter 16 in Johnson's manuscript.
The photo of Sakharov is courtesy HBO.
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