By the final years of the Russian Civil War, the position of Jews as reliable allies, or even as a counterinsurgent nationality had solidified in the fledgling Soviet order. At any rate, such a status was (or should have been) accorded to “good Jews” – that is, Jews who were not nationalist (Zionists) or members of the “bourgeoisie.” Well over a thousand pogroms took place in Ukraine in in 1917-1921, claiming tens – if not hundreds – of thousands of Jewish lives. Ukrainian nationalists and insurgents figured prominently among the perpetrators, therefore, Soviet authorities desperate to pacify the rebellious Ukrainian countryside identified Jews as potential allies for strengthening the tentative Soviet hold over Ukraine.
A telltale issue where the comparative advantage of Jewishness and the special treatment accorded to shtetls (townlets) came to the fore was that of otvetchiki (literally, ‘defendants’). Otvetchiki were selected from among the groups accused of being potentially sympathetic to the “bandits” – such as their relatives, kulaks, or influential locals. Remaining in their localities, otvetchiki had to report on suspicious individuals, bandits and bands, relations between the villagers and anti-Soviet groups or individuals, on the criminal behavior of amnestied bandits, as well as on counterrevolutionary agitation or provocative rumors directed at undermining or supplanting Soviet power, its organs and officials. Thereby, otvetchiki were held personally responsible for the security of their locality and its surroundings, with harsh punishments meted out to those who failed to report threats.[1]
As Robert Eideman, at the time commander of the Kharkov Military District and aide-de-camp of the commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and Crimea later recalled, the intention behind the institution of otvetchiki was to advance the policy of stratifying villages along class lines in order to combat banditism, placing the onus of maintaining order on propertied groups while relating leniently to bedniak (‘poot’) and seredniak (‘middling’) bandits, victims of ignorance and economically dependent on kulaks.[2] In contrast to Imperial Russian practices of hostage-taking or placing collective responsibility on the residents of a locality (krugovaia poruka), in the case of otvetchiki it was in theory individuals belonging to certain social strata who were singled out as “hostages,” but they were left in place.
The Soviet perception of “banditism” as a political phenomenon is of particular significance in this respect. Suppressing banditism emerged as a crucial objective of Soviet authorities in Ukraine, and bandits – more often than not common criminals – were painted as anti-Soviet elements subverting Soviet rule, as an organized political force. Whereas during World War One the Imperial Russian Army routinely employed the practice of hostage-taking against Jewish communities generally suspected of disloyalty to the Tsarist Russian state, in the eyes of Soviet authorities Jews were considered to be a reliable element of the population, and were thus regularly exempted from being appointed otvethchiki.[3] It seems that it was only in late 1922 that Soviet authorities began to appoint Jewish otvetchiki, doing away with the protection that Jewishness and its implied opposition to banditism had accorded to Jews.
As the main Soviet organ in charge of counterinsurgency – and consequently of Jewish self-defense paramilitaries –, the network of so-called military convention (voennoe soveshchanie) branches was heavily involved in the implementation, overseeing, and regulation of the otvetchiki system as well. As the Zolotonosha Uezd Military Convention (UVS) put it in 1923, strict control had to be exercised over otvetchiki, to remind them that there was a “strong revolutionary power to which they are responsible,” and to make them conscious of the fact that they would be the first victims of any “disturbance of the strong revolutionary order.”[4]
The institution of otvetchiki seems to have existed since at least 1921; in January of that year, there were 175 localities where otvetchiki had been appointed in Kiev Uezd alone, and the Kiev UVS expressed its satisfaction with the institution.[5] In September, the Zvenigorodka UVS and the Uezd Party Executive Committee decided to institute the measure in every village.[6] At times, otevetchiki indeed seem to have contributed to counterinsurgent operations: in one case in May 1922, otvetchiki tipped off the Rakitno Jewish self-defense unit to the presence of bandits in a nearby forest, and an operation involving 50 self-defense members indeed discovered the nest of the band.[7] However, relations between Jewish units and otvetchiki were hardly rosy: in June 1922, Jewish self-defense representatives in Zvenigorodka Uezd decided to tax otvetchiki to finance their units[8] and, in June 1923, the reconnaissance group of the Zlatopol’ Jewish self-defense unit lost two of its members in a firefight, since the otvetchiki had failed to alert them to presence of bandits in the area.[9]
Jews in general and Jewish self-defense groups in particular were adamant about professing the inapplicability of the otvetchiki policy to themselves. In a petition from September 1922 – signed by 60 people – the Jews of Zhabokrich (Podoliia Guberniia), argued that appointing them as otvetchiki would achieve nothing in the way of deterring bands, but “on the contrary, would arouse among the bands a great bestial instinct.”[10] In those regions of Ukraine where Jewish self-defense units were the strongest – with thousands of self-defense activists in a network of dozens of localities – similar arguments were advanced even more forcefully.
At the end of April 1923, the Zvenigorodka Jewish self-defense unit’s committee protested to guberniia, and central authorities against the appointment of Jewish otvetchiki, declaring that every Jewish male aged 18-45 had been a member of the self-defense unit for two years, carrying out garrison and patrol duties in the town and its environs and partaking in anti-banditry operations.[11] A month later, the Zvenigorodka residents issued a similar protest to the Kiev Guberniia Military Convention (GVS) stating that the population had never been sympathetic to bandits, and “indeed, how could it have been, when more than half of the population is Jewish, among whom there are many refugees from townlets destroyed by bandits?”[12]
Following the Zvenigorodka residents’ appeal, the People’s Commissariat for Military Affairs also addressed the Kiev GVS, reminding them that an attempt in December 1922 to introduce the institution of otvetchiki in Zvenigorodka by the Shevchenkovo Okrug Military Convention (OVS) had already been refused. The Commissariat declared that otvetchiki could only be appointed in rural areas (where Jewish residents had been few and far between even prior to the pogroms and whence they fled to larger localities due to the pogrom wave) and added that criminal banditism on the outskirts of Zvenigorodka or other towns and townlets could not serve as a basis for applying the measure in the town. Echoing the words of the Zvenigorodka residents, the Commissariat declared that “in Zvenigorodka, the majority of the population is Jewish, who have never and nowhere taken any active part in political banditism, nor sympathized with it.”[13]
Shevchenkovo Military District, 1923. See original here.
On June 11, the Kiev GVS duly ordered to cancel the institution of otvetchiki in every townlet.[14] The Shevchenkovo OVS, however, made another attempt at carrying through with its intentions a week later, petitioning the Kiev GVS to allow leaving in force the measure in their okrug (‘military district’), and in particular in the towns of Zvenigorodka, Kanev, and Shpola – which all had major self-defense units – in order to suppress the political banditism purportedly on the rise in the okrug in general and in these towns in particular.[15] Nevertheless, on July 7, the Kiev GVS refused the request – although it did allow the application of the measure in smaller localities.[16]
Meanwhile, however, the Shevchenkovo OVS charged ahead, and on July 3 appointed some members of the Shpola Jewish self-defense unit as otvetchiki, including the chairman of the committee, Bronshtein, his deputy, and more than ten rank-and-file members.[17] The self-defense committee complained to the Kiev Guberniia Military Committee (GVK) that in the past four years it had “demonstrated both its commitment to Soviet power and persistence on the front of fighting banditism in numerous and very dangerous expeditions,” and thus appointing self-defense members and leaders was an “unjust and inexpedient measure, since thereby the achievements of the active fighters against bands is belittled, and it demoralizes the psychological state the self-defense masses, and also distracts them from their everyday self-defense duties.” Apart from referring to its active participation in counterinsurgency, the Shpola self-defense unit also stated that, as Jews, they were an inherently inappropriate choice for the position of otvetchiki. As the committee wrote: “appointing as otvetchiki Jews, who belong to a nation [natsiia] that is particularly persecuted by bandits is entirely impermissible, since all the motivations calling for the establishment of this institution are in this case entirely misplaced, not to mention that mortal danger that threatens a Jew when fulfilling his functions as an otvetchik.”[18] Based on its decision from July 7, the Kiev GVS ordered that the Shevchenkovo OVS cancel the measure in Shpola,[19] but the OVS again seems to have dragged its feet at least until the end of August, prompting the GVK to appeal to the GVS so that it instructed the OVS to implement the decision.[20]
The Shevchenkovo OVS was reluctant to entirely exempt Jewish residents of townlets from being appointed otvetchiki in several other cases. In Steblev, at least three of the 50 otvetchiki and 25 candidates were Jewish in the summer of 1923, and so were about the same number among the 54 otvetchiki and 25 candidates in Shenderovka.[21] Following the GVS ban on otvetchiki in townlets – and backed by the Raion Executive Committee – Jewish otvetchiki of Steblev and Shenderovka appealed to the OVS in late July, stating that not only were Jews not involved in banditism but they, in fact, were its primary target, while Jewish self-defense groups “waged the most merciless fight against banditism.” As the otvetchiki wrote, a self-defense unit maintained by Jewish communities effectively “entirely replaces the institute of Jewish otvetchiki, since day and night it vigilantly watches every suspicious individual, every bandit.” That is, not only could Jews not be relegated to the social groups designated as potentially hostile to Soviet power, but were actively fighting banditism on their own accord, without prodding on the part of the authorities. In addition, the Jewish otvetchiki pointed out that their non-Jewish counterparts – kulaks in particular – were hostile to them and would thus make every effort to blame Jews for any security breach.[22]
The issue of Jewish otvetchiki was soon raised at the highest rungs of Soviet power, and considering the similarity of the arguments advanced, the outcome may well have been influenced by the appeal from Steblev and Shenderovka. In mid-August 1923, the main Soviet counterinsurgency authority, the Standing Convention for Combating Banditism (PSBB) sent out a letter to all guberniia military conventions, cascaded to the okrug military conventions. Signed by Vsevolod Balitskii, chairman of the Military Soviet of the PSBB and of the State Political Directorate (GPU –the Soviet secret police) of Ukraine, the letter stated that, on August 14, the PSBB had decided that appointing Jewish otvetchiki “cannot in the least influence the alleviation of banditism or make the fight against it easier, since its participants are Ukrainian chauvinists, and by their essence [po sushchestvu] cannot in any way be interested in the preservation of the life of the Jewish population on their territory. To the contrary, cases are entirely possible when the bandits of a certain area will act with the intention to place the Jewish otvetchiki under the blow of our organs.” At the same time, the PSBB noted that exceptions could be made in case local Jews were hostile to Soviet power, had ties to bands, or supported banditism morally or materially – or if they were Zionists.[23]
The conspicuous privileges accorded to Jews and heavily Jewish towns did evoke envy and complaints. There were no Jewish otvetchiki in Ol’shana[24] – also in the Shevchenkovo okrug –, and in late July the otvetchiki of the town petitioned the Kiev GVS, claiming that while Ol’shana was a city-type settlement (poselenie gorodskogo tipa), and thus not covered by GVS decision against appointing otvetchiki in townlets, Ol’shana did not differ from the localities of the same type where the institution had been cancelled.[25] In parallel, acting upon the principle of “stratifying the village,” wealthier Jews were at times taken hostage on account of purportedly colluding with kulaks and bandits.[26] Overall, however, the evolution of and the discourse around the institution of otvetchiki demonstrates how Soviet central authorities in particular were prone to classify Jews as a counterinsurgent nationality, juxtaposing them to “rebellious” Ukrainians.
The military band of the Steblev Jewish self-defense group.[27]
[1] Illia Havrylovych Shul'ha, Hirka pravda: narysy z istorii podil's'koho selianstva 1920-1932 rokiv (Vinnytsia: VAT Vinobldrukarnia, 1997), 131-133 [Bitter Truth: Essays on the History of the Peasantry in Podoliia in 1920-1932]; Oleh Leonidovych Tupytsia, “Instytut vidpovidachiv na Katerynoslavshchyni u 1922-1924 rokakh: Movoiu dokumentiv,” Pivdenna Ukraina 2 (2000): 258-259 [The Institute of Otvetchiki in Ekaterinslav Guberniia in 1922-1924: In the Language of Documents]; Oleh Leonidovych Tupytsia, “Instytut vidpovidachiv na Katerynoslavshchyni u 1922-1924 rokakh: Movoiu dokumentiv,” Naukovi pratsi istorychnoho fakul'tetu Zaporiz'koho derzhavnoho universytetu 17 (2004): 82-83 [The Institute of Otvetchiki in Ekaterinslav Guberniia in 1922-1924: In the Language of Documents]; Roman Krutsyk, Narodna viina: Putivny do ekspozytsii (Kyiv: Ukrains'ka vydavnycha spilka, 2011), 118, 120-121 [People's War: Guide to the Exhibition].
[2] Robert Petrovich Eideman, “Banditizm,” in Sovetskaia voennaia entsiklopediia, ed. Robert Petrovich Eideman, 2 vols., vol. 2 (Aerodromnaia sluzhba - Varta) (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe slovarno-ensiklopedicheskoe izdatel'stvo 'Sovetskaia entsiklopediia' - OGIZ RSFSR, 1933), 190 [Banditism]. On this point, see also: Vladimir N. Brovkin, Behind the Front Lines of the Civil War: Political Parties and Social Movements in Russia, 1918-1922 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 348,349. To be sure, the principle of lenience toward lower social strata was often violated. As the Berdichev Okrug Ispolkom reported to the Kiev Guberniia Ispolkom in September 1923, the majority of otvetchiki on its territory were in fact seredniaki (‘middling peasants’) or nezamozhniki (‘poor peasants’): HDA MOU 3773/19823/61/54.
[3] On hostage-taking during World War One, see: Peter Gatrell, A Whole Empire Walking: Refugees in Russia during World War I (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 17-18; Eric Lohr, Nationalizing the Russian Empire: The Campaign Against Enemy Aliens during World War I (Cambridge: Harvard Uniersity Press, 2003), 99, 138, 142-145, 148; Lohr, “The Russian Army and the Jews: Mass Deportation, Hostages, and Violence during World War I,” Russian Review 60, no. 3 (2001): 406, 412-414, 417; Lohr, “1915 and the War Pogrom Paradigm in the Russian Empire,” in Anti-Jewish Violence: Rethinking the Pogrom in East European History, ed. Israel Bartal, et al. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011), 43; Polly Zavadivker, “Blood and Ink: Russian and Soviet Jewish Chroniclers of Catastrophe from World War I to World II” (PhD Diss., UC Santa Cruz, 2013), 66-67.
[4] Haluzevyi derzhavnyi arkhiv Ministerstvo oborony Ukrainy (Departmental State Archive of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, hereafter: HDA MOU) 3831/20277/4/22ob-23; Derzhavnyi arkhiv Cherkas’koi oblasti (State Archive of Cherkasy Oblast’, hereafter: DAChO Cherkasy) R-546/1/10/19 = 24; quote from ll. 19 = 24. See also: Shul'ha, Hirka pravda, 12, 137-138.
[5] HDA MOU 3773/19823/12/417ob. It seems that the practice officially began with an instruction by Kiev Military District PSBB Chairman Zatonskii, from May 30, 1921: Oksana Ivanivna Ganzha, “Ukrains'ke selianstvo v period stanovlennia totalitarnoho rezhymu (1917-1927 rr.),” in Sutnist' i osoblyvosti novoi ekonomichnoi polityky v ukrains'komu seli (1921-1928 rr.), ed. Stanislav Vladyslavovych Kulchyts'kyi (Kyiv: Instytut Istorii Ukrainy NAN Ukrainy, 2000), 39 [Ukrainian Peasantry in the Period of the Creation of the Totalitarian Regime (1917-1927)]; Oksana Ivanivna Ganzha, “Selians'kyi povstan'skyi rukh,” in Istoriia Ukrains'koho selianstva: Narysy v 2-kh tomakh, ed. V. T. Beregovyi, et al., 2 vols., vol. 2 (Kyiv: Naukova dumka, 2006), 15 [Village Insurgent Movement]; V. Vasil'ev, P. Kravchenko, and R. Iu. Podkur, “Politychni represii na Vinnychchyni,” in Reabilitovany istorieiu: Vinnyts'ka oblast', ed. I. S. Gamretskii, V. P. Latsiba, and S. S. Neshik (Vinnytsia: DP 'DKF', 2006), 17 [Political Repressions in Vinnytsia Province]. The PSBB confirmed the instructions on otvetchiki on July 26, 1921 (not 1922, as Shapoval and Zolotar’ov have it); see, e.g.: Iurii Ivanovych Shapoval and Vadim Anatol'evich Zolotar'ov, Vsevolod Balits'kyi: Osoba, chas, otochennia (Kyiv: Stylos, 2002), 54 [Vsevolod Balitskii: Person, Period, Milieu]; Krutsyk, Narodna viina, 117. In 1920 in the Don Host, the term was apparently used for hostages: Brovkin, Behind the Front Lines, 332.
[6] Derzhavnyi arkhiv Kyivs’koi oblast (State Archive of Kyiv Oblast, hereafter: DAKO) R-1/3/15/5ob.
[7] HDA MOU 3773/19823/37/34. For a similar case in July 1923 that involved the Ol’shana self-defense, see: DAChO Cherkasy R-185/1/22/19.
[8] “Khronika: Zvenigorodskii raion: Voennoe soveshchanie nachsamooboron Zvenigorodskogo uezda,” Samooborona 1 (July 1922): 14 [Chronicle: Zvenigorodka Raion: Military Congress of Heads of Self-Defense Units of Zvenigorodka Raion].
[9] DAChO Cherkasy R-184/1/18/157.
[10] Shul'ha, Hirka pravda, 138-139; quote from p. 139.
[11] HDA MOU 3773/19823/71/13.
[12] HDA MOU 3773/19823/71/7-7ob; quote from l. 7ob.
[13] HDA MOU 3773/19823/71/6.
[14] YIVO Archive (hereafter: YIVO) RG80/27/2291 = 2292 = 2293 = DAChO Cherkasy R-185/1/24/103; see also: DAChO Cherkassy R-184/1/33/196; HDA MOU 3773/19823/71/14.
[15] DAChO Cherkasy R-185/1/18/316.
[16] YIVO RG80/27/2297 = 2298 = 2299 = DAChO Cherkasy R-185/1/24/89.
[17] On Bronshtein, see footnote 19 in this blog post: https://www.yiddish-translations.com/post/jewish-refugees-and-self-defense-in-ukraine-no-1
[18] YIVO RG80/27/2276-2277 = 2278-2279 = 2280 = 2281 = 2282.
[19] YIVO RG80/27/2294 = 2295 = 2296 = DAChO Cherkasy R-185/1/24/116 = 127.
[20] DAChO Cherkasy R-185/1/24/183.
[21] DAChO Cherkasy R-185/1/23/23, 42 = 43 = 44, 76 = 77 = 78.
[22] DAChO Cherkasy R-185/1/23/82-83; quote from l. 82ob.
[23] HDA MOU 3773/19823/59/35, 41-41ob; HDA MOU 3773/19823/77/14; DAChO Cherkasy R-184/1/1/84; Derzhavnyi arkhiv Chernihiv’koi oblasti R-4615/1/13/58, the latter republished as: Uri Miller, “Rossiiskoe ‘Makkabi’ (istoricheskii ocherk),” Paralleli 10-11 (2009): 90 [The Russian “Makkabi” (Historical Overview)] Natal’ia Panasenko, “Svidetel’stvo epokhi” Moriia 6 (2006): 9 [Testament to the Era]; “Movoiu dokumentiv,” in Reabilitovani istorieiu: Chernihivs'ka oblast', ed. O. B. Kovalenko, et al., 5 vols., vol. 1 (Chernihiv: RVK 'Desnians'ka pravda', 2008), 195-196 [In the Language of Documents].
[24] DAChO Cherkasy R-185/1/23/96 = 97, 103.
[25] DAChO Cherkasy R-185/1/22/67-67ob. The OVS had lifted the measure in Zlatopol’, Chigirin, and Cherkassy: DAChO Cherkasy R-184/1/33/196. For similar petitions by otvetchiki, see: A. T. Kapustian, “Ukrainskoe krest'ianstvo i vlast' v pervye gody NEPa,” Otechestvennaia istoriia 5 (2001): 168 [Ukrainian Peasantry and State Power in the First Years of the NEP]; Tupytsia, “Instytut vidpovidachiv (2000),” 86; Tupytsia, “Instytut vidpovidachiv (2004),” 263.
[26] See a case from 1922-1923 in Khabno: M. Libes, “«Kamchatka» Kievskoi gubernii,” in Evreiskoe mestechko v revoliutsii, ed. Vladimir Germanovich Tan-Bogoraz (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo, 1926), 50 [The "Kamchatka" of Kyiv Province].
[27] Z. Ostrovskii, Evreiskie pogromy: 1918-1921 (Moscow: Shkola i kniga, 1926), 129 [Jewish Pogroms 1918-1921].
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