Speculators, swindlers and other Jews: regulating trade in revolutionary White Russia
2010; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 40; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/13501674.2010.494042
ISSN1743-971X
Autores Tópico(s)Eastern European Communism and Reforms
ResumoAbstract The Bolshevik Revolution introduced sweeping campaigns for social and economic regulation in the geographic region of the former Pale of Settlement. Focusing on the policing and rhetorical construction of the economic crime of "speculation," this article examines the effort to reconstruct Jewish economic practices in the early Soviet period of the New Economic Policy. Based on archival material from the National Archive in Minsk, Belarus, and from the contemporaneous Yiddish Press in Minsk, the article concludes that the campaign to regulate speculation and economic practices constituted a primary front in the attempt to construct post‐revolutionary Soviet Jewish culture. At the same time, this article suggests that campaigns to regulate speculation served to reinscribe Jewish actors as socially alien elements in post‐revolutionary society. Keywords: Soviet BelorussiaMinskeconomytradelawcrime and criminality Acknowledgements The author would like to thank Leora Auslander, Sheila Fitzpatrick, Moishe Postone, Golfo Alexopopulous, Elizabeth Heath, Mark Loeffler, Jason Dawsey, Venus Bivar and the members of the Social Theory Workshop at the University of Chicago for their kind feedback on variations of this article. The author would also like to thank the Fulbright‐Hays fellowship programme and the United States Department of Education for support for this research. In addition, the author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their very helpful suggestions and corrections. Notes 1. Ushakov, Tolkovyi slovar' russkogo iazyka, vol. 4, 429. 2. Slovar' sovermennnogo russkogo literaturnogo iazyka, vol. 14, 490. 3. Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Minskoi Oblasti (GAMO) fond 413, opis' 1, delo 321, listy 14–14 ob., 19. 4. GAMO f. 413, op. 1, d. 321, ll.12, 29–30. 5. On 18 February 1922, the Third District court released Fitershtein from custody early, in accordance with the general amnesty announced in November of the previous year. 6. Throughout this article, I use the terms "Belorussia" or "White Russia" interchangeably to designate the territory of the Soviet Republic of Belorussia. 7. GAMO f. 413, op. 1, d. 689, l. 6–6 ob., 12. The bilingual Russian–Hebrew Ketubah is preserved as supplemental material in the fond. 8. GAMO f. 413, op. 1, d. 689, l. 17–17 ob. 9. This thesis lies at the heart of Slezkine, The Jewish Century. 10. Soviet authorities in Minsk do not seem to have compiled reports on criminal activity by nationality. Observations about patterns of criminal activity are based, therefore, on a broad analysis of the opisi of the Second, Third and Fourth District People's Courts in Minsk. 11. The records for the First District court in Borisov suggest a similar, if even more pronounced pattern. See GAMO f. 431, op. 1. 12. The one major exception to this trend seems to be the crime of contraband smuggling, which, while undeniably an "economic crime," seems to have been an equal‐opportunity transgression for inhabitants of the borderlands. 13. The importance placed upon the struggle against speculation is discernible from the full title of the Cheka: the Extraordinary Commission to Fight against Counter‐Revolution, Speculation and Official Malfeasance (Chrezvychainaia komissiia po bor'be s kontr‐revoliutsiei, spekuliatsiei i prestupleniiami po dolzhnosti). 14. The sense of randomness and irrationality is quite strikingly captured in the reminiscences, recorded by Anna Shternsis, of one Jewish woman from a Ukrainian shtetl: "There was a song which people in Kasatin sang about Moyshe Stoliar (a Jewish soldier from her town). The GPU took him because he did not pay his taxes or something. At that time people were arrested for nothing, they called it 'speculation' … So he probably sold something wrong." Recorded in Shternsis, Soviet and Kosher, 127. 15. The right‐wing assault on Jews as malignant economic actors, which found its truest reflection in pogromist violence, found harmonic reverberations within certain strains of pre‐revolutionary left‐wing socialist thought. As Jonathan Frankel examined in his path‐breaking work on Jewish radicalism, the articulation of antisemitic discourses conflating Jews with trade was particularly pronounced within provincial cells of the narodniki movement (Frankel, Prophecy and Politics). For the question of antisemitic tendencies within populist cells, also see Haberer, Jews and Revolution in Nineteenth‐Century Russia. 16. Zvi Gitelman's account remains the definitive work on the extremely influential role the Evsektsii played in Soviet attempts to reconstruct Jewish social and economic life. See Gitelman, Jewish Nationality and Soviet Politics. 17. Recent scholarship has stressed the primacy of the cultural realm as a contested site of post‐revolutionary Jewish transformation. See, most notably, Shneer, Yiddish and the Creation of Soviet Jewish Culture; Veidlinger, The Moscow State Yiddish Theater; and Shternsis, Soviet and Kosher. While agreeing in part with the emphasis on the importance of "culture," this article suggests that the cultural realm extended well beyond the Yiddish theaters and presses, and into the market stalls, workshops and all corners of everyday Jewish life. 18. As David Sorkin argued, the effort to "productivise" Jews constituted a central tenet of the projects for Jewish Emancipation throughout the Germanic lands. See Sorkin, The Transformation of German Jewry. For a more recent and forceful articulation of this argument, see Penslar, Shylock's Children. 19. For a consideration of the economic reformist tendencies within the Russian Haskalah, see Raisin, The Haskalah Movement in Russia, esp. 144–5. The social reform aspect of early maskilim, including Nota Notkin and Hersh Peretz, is elucidated in Fishman, Russia's First Modern Jews. For a consideration of the place that discourses concerning "productivisation" played in pre‐revolutionary philanthropic work in Russia, see Estraikh, "Changing Ideologies of Artisanal 'Productivisation'." 20. On the retroactive construction of the idea of War Communism, see Siegelbaum, Soviet State and Society between Revolutions, chapter 1. 21. Nove, An Economic History of the USSR, 23. 22. Natsional'nyi Akrkhiv Respubliki Belarus' (NARB) f. 5, op. 1, d. 2, l. 2. 23. Protocol of Minsk Guberniia Revolutionary Committee, 10 December. NARB f. 5, op. 1, d. 3, l. 2. 24. TsB KP(b)B Protocol No. 5, 9 January 1919, in NARB f. 4‐P, op. 1, d. 2, l. 6 ob., and TsB KP(b)B Protocol No. 7, 15 January 1919, NARB f. 4‐P, op. 1, d. 2, l. 19–19 ob. 25. From the dedication of his book Paper Money in the Epoch of the Proletarian Dictatorship, quoted in Arnold, Banks, Credit, and Money in Soviet Russia, 95. 26. NARB f. 4‐P, P: 1, d. 19, l. 38 ob. 27. This in comparison with his own heroic, relentless and indubitably successful efforts in nearly single‐handedly bolshevising Koidanov. See NARB f. 4‐P, op. 1, d. 19, l. 37 ob. – 38 ob. 28. NARB f. 4‐P, op. 1, d. 19, l. 39 ob. 29. Der shtern, no. 28, 31 January 1919, 4. 30. TsB KP(b) Protocol No. 16, 10 February 1919, in NARB f. 4‐P, op. 1, d. 3, l. 49 ob. – 50. 31. Reports of speculation were, by contrast, rather rare and subdued in the pages of the Russian‐language party organ, Zvezda. 32. "Di pogrom agitatsie un di spekulyatsie," Der shtern, no. 40, 14 February 1919, 2. 33. During a TsB KP(b)B meeting on 16 February, then party secretary Aleksandr Miasnikov urged the party to adopt new emergency measures to combat speculation, noting that "in the past few days, some bandits and speculators were shot." As a result, he reported, "the situation in Minsk has eased." TsB KP(b)B Protocol No. 19, 16 February 1919, in NARB f. 4‐P, op. 1, d. 3, l. 76 ob. 34. "Der kampf mit spekulyatsie," Der shtern, 19 February 1919, 2. Khaykin himself fell victim to the atmosphere of totalising violence. On 20 May 1919, Der shtern reported that he had been captured by Polish troops while in Vilna and immediately shot. Der shtern, no. 90, 20 May 1919. 35. It remains unclear how many of the nine speculators were Jewish. The fact that the episode received prime coverage in the Yiddish press, but transpired without fanfare in the Russian Zvezda, suggests that most, if not all, of the accused were Jews. The Minsk edition of Der veker, the organ of the Jewish Socialist Bund, apparently published an article explicitly condemning the execution of Jewish civilians on the charge of speculation, provoking Khaykin's impassioned response on 19 February. I have, unfortunately, been unable to locate extant copies of Der veker from this period. 36. Zvezda, no. 390, 6 March 1919, 4. 37. Levin's wife received a three‐year prison sentence "on account of her age." Zvezda, no. 393, 9 March 1919, 3. 38. Zvezda, no. 395, 12 March 1919, 4. 39. "Ver iz shuldik?", Der shtern, 16 March 1919, p. 3. 40. In general, archival materials pertaining to the Cheka prior to 1921 are extremely rare. Most were likely destroyed during the evacuation of Minsk in 1919 or are currently housed in the closed archives of the Belarus KGB. 41. TsB KP(b)B Protocol No. 11, 20 September 1920, NARB f. 4‐P, op. 1, d. 109, l. 20. 42. Of the 812 inmates whose records remain in place, 61 were incarcerated for speculation; of these, 53 were Jews. See GAMO f. 146, op. 1. Jews constituted a similarly high proportion of all those incarcerated for economic crimes in general. 43. Der veker, no. 16, 14 May 1921, 3. Keter – an ornamental crown, usually forged of silver, used to cover the top of the Torah scroll. 44. Ball, Russia's Last Capitalists. 45. Hessler, A Social History of Soviet Trade. 46. TsB KP(b)B Protocol No. 23, 15 May 1921, NARB f. 4‐P, op. 1, d. 243, l. 65. 47. Ibid. 48. Der veker, no. 16, 14 May 1921, 2. 49. Der veker, no. 70, 19 July 1920, 1. 50. This trend was not absolute, as indicated by an article blaming speculators for an ongoing famine in southern Belorussia published in the late summer. See Der veker, no. 120, 15 September 1921. 51. Shapiro's rather self‐satisfied description of the good life in Minsk clearly caught the eye of the censors; the letter was detained en route and sent to the TsK KP(b) for review and possible disciplinary action. NARB f. 4‐P, op. 1, d. 252, l. 409–410 ob. 52. NARB f. 4‐P, op. 1, d. 252, l. 191–191 ob. 53. GAMO f. 413, op. 1, d. 322, l. 15. 54. GAMO f. 413, op. 1, d. 322, l. 1 ob. 55. GAMO f. 413, op. 1, d. 322, l. 27, 27 ob. 56. While violations for the sale of sugar, saccharin and other items are common, salt speculation remained the most common non‐monetary form of speculation throughout 1920–2. 57. NARB f. 192, op. 1, d. 77. On leather speculation, also see GAMO f. 412, op. 1, d. 613, 1865. 58. GAMO f. 413, op. 1, d. 764, ll. 11–11 ob., 27–28 ob., 31–31 ob. 59. No law prohibiting speculation appeared on the books until a 1927 addendum added the infamous Article 107 prohibiting speculation, which would come to be used as a tool in the offensive against traders and kulaks in the late 1920s. 60. In doing so they introduced a whole series of excise taxes that had been abolished by the Russian Empire in 1881. See Carr, Socialism in One Country, vol. 1, 465. 61. Code 139a, referred to euphemistically as the controlling of "private business activities" (Chastnopredprinimatel'skaia deiatel'nost'), policed various forms of tax evasion, including the selling of loose or unbranded (and hence untaxed) cigarettes and the sale of tobacco, sugar, coffee, tea and the like without a licence in shops or kiosks (Rayner, The Criminal Code). 62. Based on the opis's records, Jews made up roughly 70% of the hundred or so people accused under Article 139a from 1922 to 1923 in the Third District, which, compared with the Second District (which included the Nemiga), contained a far higher number of non‐Jewish shops. 63. Rayner, The Criminal Code, 33. See, for example, the case against 36‐year‐old Aron Borshch, who was arrested and fined for selling unstamped playing cards in the lower market. GAMO f. 413, op. 1, d. 1926. 64. Quoted in Carr, The Russian Revolution, vol. 2, 345. 65. V.I. Lenin, "O znachenii zolota," in idem, Sochineniia, vol. 33, 89. 66. The Soviets were, of course, not alone in turning back to the gold standard in the hopes of miraculously reconstructing the pre‐1914 economy. As Karl Polanyi long ago noted, the attempted return to the gold standard became the socially general trend that guided macro‐economic policy throughout interwar Europe (Polanyi, The Great Transformation). 67. GAMO f. 414, op. 1, d. 2252. 68. GAMO f. 414, op. 1, d. 2127. 69. GAMO f. 414, op. 1, d. 2238. 70. GAMO f. 414, op. 1, d. 2242. 71. NARB f. 192, op. 1, d. 64, l. 5–19, 36, 36 ob. 72. See GAMO f. 414, op. 1, d. 2513–2530, 2608, 2617–2618. 73. GAMO f. 414, op. 1, d. 2526, l. 11. 74. GAMO f. 414, op. 1, d. 2518. 75. GAMO f. 414, op. 1, d. 2524. 76. NARB f. 192, op. 1, d. 71, l. 65–66, 92–93 ob. 77. For examples of the rather rare instances of speculation cases involving non‐Jewish actors, see the cases of Elena Mitskevich and Nikolai Suchkin, both Russians, who were nabbed for holding 90 and 145 gold rubles, respectively. See GAMO f. 414, op. 1, d. 2519, 2617. 78. The monopoly was briefly lifted in April 1922 but gradually restored beginning in October of that year. See Goland, "Currency Regulation in the NEP Period," 1251–9. 79. Official discourse, following Trotsky, asserted that the breakdown in exchange and market paralysis resulted exclusively from the so‐called "scissors crisis" – referring to the sharp separation of prices between high‐priced commodities and low‐priced grain. Trotsky's diagnosis has been widely accepted in the historiography, most notably in the works of E.H. Carr. See, for example, the discussion in Carr's extremely influential short history of the revolution, The Russian Revolution. 80. From 1921 until 1922, the amount of paper sovznak rubles in circulation increased from 16 trillion roubles to two quadrillion roubles, indicating the rate of hyperinflation. Arnold, Banks, Credit, and Money in Soviet Russia, 126. 81. Arnold, Banks, Credit, and Money in Soviet Russia, 180. 82. See GAMO f. 412, op. 1, d. 3582, 3670, 3732, 3771, 3793, 3797, 3799, 3801, 3817, 3828, 3901, 3952, 3977, 4019, 4020, 4038, 4070, 4109, 4135, 4197, 4290, 4318, 4359, 4447. 83. All of those sentenced to death, save Kozerski, were Jews. Der veker, no. 85–105, 13 April–8 May 1923. 84. Der veker, no. 30, 7 February 1923, 3. 85. Der veker, no. 8, 10 January 1924, 3. 86. Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society, 62–3.
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