This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Good enough for Israeli Law of Return.
Given the Soviet Union’s complexity and predilection for numerous layers of bureaucracy it is a difficult to quantify the number of Jews throughout senior leadership positions during and just after the revolution of 1917. Half of the top contenders in the Central Committee of the Communist Party to take power after Lenin’s health declined in 1922 – Lev Kamenev, Trotsky and Zinoviev – were Jewish. Yakov Sverdlov, the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee from November 1917 to his death in 1919, was Jewish. Born in 1885, he had joined the Russian Social Democratic Party in 1902 and became a member of the Bolshevik faction with Lenin early on. Like others of his generation he took part in the 1905 revolution. His father converted to Russian Orthodoxy.
The Central Committee of the USSR is instructive as an indicator of the prominence of Jews in leadership positions. In the Sixth Congress of the Bolshevik Russian Social Democratic Labor Party and its Central Committee elected in August 1917, we find that five of the committee’s 21 members were Jewish. This included Trotsky, Zinoviev, Moisei Uritsky, Sverdlov and Grigori Sokolnikov. Except for Sverdlov, they were all from Ukraine. The next year they were joined by Kamenev and Radek. Jews made up 20% of the central committees until 1921, when there were no Jews on this leading governing body.
But also not enough to be sent automatically to the camps in Nazi Germany (unless there were other complicating factors, of course). Why would this be the relevant criteria, again, especially - as stated - as there is no evidence that Lenin was ever aware of his Jewish heritage?
And they lost.
Which is more than expected on the basis of demography, but hardly anywhere close to anything forming a majority, or even a commanding plurality (especially considering that Jewish Bolsheviks often fought among themselves - Zinoviev and Kamenev turning on Trotsky etc.)
To me it seems that there are fairly good neutral explanations why there were more Jews than would demographically have been expected in early stages of Bolsheviks/CPSU; it was natural for Jews to gravitate to revolutionary left-wing politics in a situation where the right wing was openly antisemitic as a matter of course and centrism often meant the tacit preservation of antisemitic structures, and as an added factor Bolsheviks had a specific need for people who knew German (Yiddish would at least offer you a good basis for this) for diplomatic purposes in the early years, with many Bolsheviks of the Jewish ethnicity having prominent diplomatic roles, and also the language factor allowing many Jewish Bolsheviks to become exiles easily, benefitting from hanging around with Lenin who was also an exile. Once those factors became less relevant, the power of such people diminished rapidly, often with fatal results.
(Of course one could also argue that exactly none of them were Jewish in the religious sense, as Bolshevik Party required strict atheism of all of its members anyhow...)
As the joke goes:
"What are you worried about? Your documents say 'Russian'!"
"So? They're gonna break my face, not my documents!"
(Lost in translation: the ambiguity between "hit in the face" and "hit according to the face")
...How many Russians and Russian speakers are here anyway?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link