Zydokomuna Communist Party Poland Schatz

The Generation: The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Communists of Poland, by Jaff Schatz. 1991

Jews in the Communist Party of Poland. Ignores Jewish Communism Outside the CP. Exculpations Fail

Jewish author Jaff Schatz provides a great deal of information about the Zydokumuna (Jewish Communism in Poland), tracing this phenomenon from before WWI through the 1970’s. However, Jewish involvement in Communism went FAR beyond the Communist Party, and Schatz’ study is, unfortunately, largely limited to the CP.

THE CP: MASSIVE JEWISH OVERREPRESENTATION

Jaff Schatz estimates that Jews comprised as much as 70% of high and medium level functionaries in the Communist party (pp. 360-361), with overall membership commonly reaching 50-60% (p. 96), sometimes more. In fact, Schatz (p. 96) remarks: “Given this background, a respondent’s statement that “in small cities like ours, almost all Communists were Jews’ does not appear to be a gross exaggeration”. Note that a 50-70% level corresponds to Jews being five to seven times more common in the Communist Party than in the general Polish population.

NOT VOTING FOR THE COMMUNISTS PROVES NOTHING

Schatz (p. 98) allows for Polish Jews accounting for 2/5ths of the Communist vote (meaning that the Jewish popular vote for Communism was fourfold that of the Jewish share of Poland’s prewar population). He then again tries to downplay the scale of the Zydokomuna by alleging that only 5% of Polish Jews voted for the Communists. However, this ignores at least two facts. First of all, voters usually prefer to vote for parties that have a chance of winning an election, and surely the Jews knew that the Communists had virtually no hope of coming to power, via free elections, in Poland! Second, most Communist sympathy was covert in nature, only becoming manifest when Polish rule weakened. Apropos to this, Schatz neglects the large number of Jews who seemingly came out of the woodwork to attack Poles during the 1920 Polish-Bolshevik War and only superficially (and euphemistically) discusses the repeat of the same (p. 153) during the Soviet conquest of eastern Poland in 1939. The determination of the true scale of Zydokomuna is hindered by the fact that Polish Communist Jews were strongly encouraged, on numerous and successive occasions (pp. 184-185, pp. 213-214, and p. 365) to hide their Jewishness by changing their names and otherwise pretending to be ethnic Poles. Note also that this disguise began long before the Red Army had entered Poland and set up the UB terror apparatus, which eventually cost the lives of perhaps 100,000 Poles.

THE ZYDOKOMUNA WAS MUCH, MUCH BIGGER THAN MEMBERSHIP IN THE CP

Ironically, Jaff Schatz tacitly demolishes the “Few Jews were Communists” exculpatory argument as he writes (p. 82): “Western analysts who deem the membership of the Polish Communist party as insignificantly small often commit the mistake of forgetting that the movement acted underground, that membership was punishable by a severe prison sentence, that the devotion of the movement’s cadres made up for much of its quantitative weakness, and, finally, that the movement had significant influence on a relatively large group of sympathizers and supporters.”

The “Few Jews were Communists” exculpation also ignores the fact that Jewish support for Communism included other, larger, ostensibly non-Communist Jewish political parties, including part of the Bund. Finally, much Jewish support for Communism was usually completely latent until manifested under Soviet rule over Poland.

EXCULPATIONS FOR JEWS IN COMMUNISM

The author repeats a series of canned explanations for Jews in Communism, all of which are based on non sequiturs and other logical fallacies. Thus:

In common with many others, the author suggests that the desire for a better world drove Jews to Communism. and the elimination of anti-Semitism were major causes of the Zydokumuna. So Jews wanted a better world. Who didn’t want a better world? And why could the Nazis, using the same exculpatory reasoning, not argue that their participation in Nazi crimes had stemmed from a desire for a better world?

The “Jews were oppressed” exculpation, besides ignoring the fact that Jews were privileged as well as oppressed, begs the question about all the other oppressed peoples (notably the Poles) who never supported Communism in such disproportionate numbers.

More fundamentally, the “Jews were wronged” exculpation is hollow, because it is an all-purpose excuse. Virtually every group has been wronged at one time or another, and so EVERYONE can use it. In fact, the informed reader realizes that the Germans used the same “we were wronged” exculpation (Versailles, reparations payments) to rationalize their support for Hitler and Nazism. To excuse the Jewish over-involvement in the murderous movement of Communism would mean that the Germans would have to be excused for their murderous actions under Hitler and Nazism!

JEWISH COMMUNISM FROM JEWISH URBANIZATION

The “Jews were educated and urbanized” exculpation begs the question as to why education did not lead Jews AWAY from Communism. If anything, one would expect the presumably simple country folk to be the ones prone to fall for revolutionary appeals, slogans, and utopian promises, and for the educated to be in a better position to learn about the secretive, violent, and totalitarian nature of Communism.

The “Jews were educated and urbanized” exculpation is a circular argument. In many nations, Communism was a rural as well as urban movement. Why not in Poland? Precisely because nearly all the uneducated and rural peoples were Poles who did not support Communism!

WILL THE REAL EXCUSE STAND UP?

All of Schatz’ exculpatory arguments presuppose that pro-Communist motives were necessarily altruistic or at least benign. But what about selfish opportunism? Anyone who became a Communist willfully overlooked the fact that Communism was from the beginning, to anyone who looked objectively at it, a movement based on lies, violence, and totalitarianism. Instead, throughout the 1920’s, Polish Jews chose to look at the Soviet Union through rose-colored glasses.

A SELECTIVE SENSITIVITY TO ANTI-SEMITISM?

The eventual appearance and growth of anti-Semitism among Communists (p. 354), the arrests and executions of many Jewish Communists by Stalin (p. 102), the WWII deportations of Polish Jews to Siberia (p. 161), the obvious rottenness of Soviet society (p. 155), etc., all failed to permanently turn devotees away from Communism. An obvious double standard emerged: The real or imagined injustices of Polish society were cited as a ground for turning to Communism, but the much greater injustices under Communism were willfully overlooked. Perhaps becoming (and remaining) a Polish Communist had less to do with fighting injustice and more with exercising a visceral and entrenched hatred of Poland, of religion, and of free enterprise.

AFTER THE HOLOCAUST: POLES BRUTALIZED BY THE WAR AND GERMAN OCCUPATION

The killing of a few hundred Jews by Poles, partly the result of postwar property disputes, has recently gotten a great deal of one-sided media attention as a result of the publication of FEAR, by Jan T. Gross. Writing 15 years earlier, Schatz had the following take on this subject, “Thus, the stonethrowing and grudging surprise that `so many Jews are still alive’ that met many returnees on crossing the border were not accidental. The wartime German occupation resulted in a barbarization of social life, and Nazi propaganda contributed to the dehumanization of the Jew in the public mind. Against this background, the fact that Jewish Communists were conspicuous in the regime’s side of the power struggle reinforced one of the traditional elements in image of the Jew, namely, that of a servant of anti-Polish interests (to such a degree that anyone who served the new regime was liable to be suspected of being a Jew).” (p. 206).

CONCLUSIONS

Again, bearing in mind the gentile disguise of most of Poland’s Communist Jews, the true scale of Zydokomuna can only be given a minimal estimate. However, note that, unlike the fantastic anti-Polish thesis advanced by Jan T. Gross, Jaff Schatz is, to his credit, at least willing to recognize the brutalization of the war-ravaged Polish people, and the very real Zydokomuna, as factors in these killings. In conclusion the Zydokomuna was no bogeyman. It was detrimental to the Polish nation and contributed to the sufferings of Poles and Jews alike.