Norwich bulletin., 1920-04-17
RUSSIAN JEWS AGAINST BoISHEvIST RULE

population. You find upon investiga ,tion in a city like Gomel, where there are thirty-fve or forty thousand Jews less than two hundred Jewish com munists. Yoy find most of them are waiting for some miracle to happen that would change the soviet govern ment so as to strike a medium be- tween Denikin and the soviet and evolve. democratic government as it is understood in this country. al- lowing the individual the opportunity to develop his own genius, particu-
 larly in the field of commerce.
 The Jew will not stand the unlimit
 ed power of the state, the pressure | from the top. The Jew is individual
 He has his own strivings and ambi- tions, whether in business or in any
 other line. And the present state of Russia is a condition approaching a
 dictatorship in which Individual en- terprise in business is suppressed. Now. why are the Jews against the bolshevists? The bolshevists have
 made no programs; and Denikin has Of course, they are against Denikin. | Take that for granted. They are
 against all those indulging in mas sacres. You ask why are they at the same time against bolshevist Russia?
 There are some very convincing caus- es. The first is that the Russian Jew 1 is against capital puniShment, against I any dictatorship. It goes against the l grain, the makeup. of the Jew, and
 many Americans know, it from. con 1 tact with the Russian Jews in this l country. The soviet government was
 responsible for quite number of ex- l cautions. I am not speaking of the red
 terror of which people in this coun- l try have very crude and distorted ideas. I am speaking of executions
 after tribunal had passed upon the cases. There were numerous exc
 cutions of that type.
 Some of the executed were Jews. In l most cases the executed are bandits;
 to be sure, many former officials of
 the czar and some members of the
 communist party found guilty of cor
 ruption are executed. Many of the
 Jews could not stand capital pun
 ishment in a government which pro-
 fesses to be socialist. This affected
 the younger Jews, those of radical tendencies. A far more potent req
 son is the fact that the mass of the
 Jews in Russia were small business
 people. They were commissioners
 brokers, trades people of variou.
 descriptions, and shopkeepers And
 the societ government has closed
 nearly all the private shops; has dis | continued all the brokerage businesse; of various types and has deprived th' | Jews of Russia of their means O.
 livelihood. I am speaking of the ma
 jority of the Jews.
 The soviet government is essen
 tially a, government of the peasants , Now these Russian peasants are tn
 majority of the people; and in spit [ of their dislike of the communist gov ernment or the communist theories I they are for the soviet government , and we, who believe in majority gov l ernment, cannot help facing this sit
 uation. Here is a more or less lesiti
 mate government, peasant govern ment, which aims to eliminate tn Jew as the middleman from tn, economic field, which means from If itself.
 5 Now when you find this out, whe you discover that the Jews are simpl l deprived of their source of income, Q } their shops, which are either confis cated or sold out, you are not sur :. priSed at finding that the bulk of tn l Jewish population of Soviet Russia against the government. They appre ciate that there have been no massa 5 cres in Soviet Russia. They appre l ciate the efforts of such people a [ Maxim Gorky, Lumarcharsky and tn : wife of Lenine, who have constitute } themselves into a committee to com T bat anti-semitism.
 But, here is the situation Here ], a government which seeks to be pro T letarian. In the ~-stem which the So 3 viet government seeks to erect ther r is no place for middle class; an o the Jewish people, it must be ack s nowledged, arc . r7''9le class elemer n almost everywhere in Europe, espec = ially everywhere 1 saw them. An g when you come to the prospects fc c the future of the Jewish people e Russia, you arN against this dea ' wall, w"~- any nlaSSacreS,
 wall of reality. that there is no pIac e for the Jew in the Russia of toda ' and in the Russia which the Sovi, e leaders are trying to erect.