“What else is communism but the imperialism of the Jews?”
– Camil Petrescu, Romanian playwright, novelist, philosopher and poet
***
A Specter Haunting Europe: The Myth of Judeo-Bolshevismby Paul Hanebrink is considered by Samuel Moyn to be “a new classic in the canon of twentieth century history.” The book examines this particularly virulent strain of anti-Semitic thought that believed Soviet Communism to be a Jewish plot. This notion continues today in a number of ethno-nationalist strains, such as the writings of David Duke, thus as a work of engaged academics – this is a welcome historical work.
In his reconstruction of the transnational European locations in which the idea of Judeo-Bolshevism first developed and describing it’s mutations – Hanebrink provides a truly compelling account of history. Following the Russian revolution of 1917 German, Polish, German, Hungarian, Romanian and British fears of Judeo-Bolshevism were pervasive.
The Bolsheviks themselves were not immune turning their Jewish comrades cultural and religious background against them. In Russia, Czech Republic and elsewhere the Communist Party culled their own or used rumors of Jewishness to destroy careers and reputations. Hanebrink describes several cases wherein Judaism becomes seen as a marker for Cosmopolitanism, which was a code for one that was likely to express disloyalty to the State in thoughts or deeds. The concept used to describe such events are “sovereignty panics” and frequently applied to anyone close to the functions of the government.
Some of the common responses to such conditions were appeals for religious or cultural renewal, the rewriting of laws, as well as the dispossession, expulsion or murder of Jews and a heightened willingness to ally with states – i.e. Germany – that expressed willingness to help combat the Jewish/Communist menace. Hanebrink’s brilliance in this work is by extensive archival research which shows that much of the handwringing over Jews, based as it was an exaggeration of the Jewishness of Communist Party activists, often related to more material interests such as desire for assurances of more territory (Poland) and the illiterate provincial’s resentment of an older, literary culture that considered themselves better equipped to govern a modern state (Hungary). Because of this elasticity and the empirically dubious methodology of identifying Judeo-Bolshevik plots – it functioned as a sort of intellectual contagion…
Immigration, Existential Fears and the Racial Other
Judeo-Bolshevism made Adolph Hitler famous in Germany, while the Nazi party’s weaponization of the idea their success helping to propagate it such that it could fit a variety of contexts helped him internationally. Their literature and the institutions that they sought to spread awareness of this identity and with it a Nationalist hysteria. Old fashioned geopolitics with this identity politics twist became especially dangerous and toxic as the European continent prepared for war.
Once war officially began, nationalist militaries and militias began to turn their hysterical fears into actions they deemed as defensive. Worries over international spy networks, espionage, racial and cultural purity, and fears of wartime food shortages turned this socio-cultural tension into the Holocaust that is well known about, as well as numerous other pogroms and forced exiles. As this was oftentimes done in the peripheral towns, the imperial capitals came to host those forced into exile. “75,000 Jews fled war-torn Galicia for Vienna… Another 25,000 sought shelter in Budapest” and almost all of them – having been forced from their land, homes and occupations with only what they could carry were marked by the bitterest poverty, trauma and desolation (55). The situation created by these reproduced what it was that criticism of this minority feared – a desperate mass of a racially “othered” people that was agitating for significant change.
Personal Reflection on the Book
Over a decade ago my father and I travelled to the village in what is now Ukraine where much of my paternal family were killed in anti-Jewish pogroms before and during World War II. The Synagogue in this small village has stayed in a ruinous state since it was firebombed. The burial grounds adjacent to it has become a path for cows to reach an adjacent pasture. The headstones that populated this once sacred space have all been broken into pieces, and the etchings of names and dates on them are filled with black moss and have largely been eroded away by weathering. As Hanebrink recounts the events which lead to the murderous melees in and around Lvov, it was hard for me not to be profoundly affected by this narrative. It made me understand all the better my now-deceased Grandmother’s combination of deeply felt progressivism views and strong aversion to communism.
It’s because of this that I found the section describing the development of “Judeo-Christian” civilization to be so personally illuminating. and the manner in which many post-WWII intellectual sought to connect Soviet Communism with Germany Nazism. While I’ve read Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianismand Domenico Losurdo’s Towards a Critique of the Category of Totalitarianism – I admit to not being very informed on many of the debates surrounding the use of the concept.
Criticisms of the Book
There are several points wherein Hanebrink makes numerical claims that beg further explanation but that aren’t developed. I understand that this may have to do with the fact that principles of data science haven’t made their way into the discipline of history writing, but if they were it would have made this book significantly better. I say this as despite making several claims that the number of Jewish people within the Communist Party by those on the Nationalist Right was vastly inflated, there’s only a few instances where he cites actual numbers. I do not believe that he is misrepresenting reality here, sources are always referenced to back up his claims, but I do feel like the inclusion of some infographics and chart that visualize the data to which he is referring would be a far superior means of making his case. If in one image, for instance, he was to organize geographic claims made on the Jewish components of the party alongside their actual numbers based on the now-publicly-available data on party membership i.e. “In Romania it was claimed that Jews were “almost all” of the party while their records indicate that they were only “20-40%” that’s a more effective means of making the point. In another point, related to this criticism, he talks about the reality effect and viral spread of Jews conceptualized as “parochial anxieties about the nation and it’s enemies (32). A timeline chart showing publication dates of the sources he’d uncovered which supported this rational claim would have effectively supported this position.
Another criticism that I had of the book, which is unfortunately typical of a lot of academic writings, is the variated repetition of important ideas. I didn’t count the number of times I read a variation of “The concept of Judeo-Bolshevism was a concept used by Religious and Nationalist communities by which to understand their current political crisis,” but if I had to guess it’d be somewhere around 50. This is admittedly a petty criticism, but I found myself getting annoyed when every few pages I read a different iteration of an already established summation.
Lastly, I was hoping that the author would draw some minor connections from the history around Judeo-Bolshevism to that around Cultural Marxism – the narrative centered around Jewish Marxists from the Frankfurt School setting up shop at New York’s New School for Social Research. But then again that would really require another book to cover…
That said, these negative assessments are minor and the book is truly a great work of history. My hardback copy is highly annotated, and the prose was crisp and insightful. I imagine I’ll come back to it again in a few years.
Also, if you’re interested, read some more in-depth reviews on the book here.