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Seems kind of a stretch to blame communism on 'the Jews'. Like yes, Marx was a (secular) Jew, but Engels wasn't. None of the communist dictators in Russia, Europe, Asia or Latin America were Jewish. And the communist impulse (eat the rich, total power for the government) really doesn't require much theory behind it anyway.
Now examine the membership of the Bolshevik party in 1917
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The theory was critical for turning it into an ideology which can get huge chunks of third world discontent turned into a durable movement.
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Here's the test I would propose:
If you are willing to give Jews credit for modern science, you get to blame the Jews for communism.
I'm not so sure. If Jews made up 20% of communist dictators, you might be able to say that Jews are disproportionately responsible for communism in the same way they are disproportionately responsible for scientific advancement. As it is, Jews have made up 0% of communist dictators (sorry Trotsky). And the reason communism is bad is not whatever bullshit theory Marx and Engels wrote, it's all the killing, repression and poverty caused by its political implementation.
There's a reason that when we think of fascism we think of Adolph Hitler instead of Giovanni Gentile. Fascism is bad because Hitler tried to kill everyone in the world, not because of what an intellectual wrote in a book.
The reason it routinely descends into killing, repression, and poverty is the bullshit theory Marx and Engels wrote.
Also, why should we limit ourselves to top men? Surely the mid-level commissars gleefully followingz and giving out orders of their own count for something? Or is the "I was merely following orders" excuse back on the menu?
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Ironically, the area in which Jews were grossly overrepresented was in communism that didn't descend into killing, repression, or (too much) poverty. They still had to steadily reform and unwind it (the bullshit theory is bad! economics' laws are safer to ignore than physics', but not by much), but it was creditable that they did reform and unwind it rather than picking out some Kulak-type groups or vague "wreckers" to scapegoat and making things worse.
Central planning rationalized with "the weak are holding us back!" tends to have the same problems as it does rationalized with "the strong are oppressing us!"; in the end the main difference is who's in the most danger when the planners fail.
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Bela Kun was Jewish. And even still, you at people in Stalin’s circle: [not only] Trotsky; Bronstein; Genrikh Yagoda; you had quite a lot, who were part of the administrative apparatus of the dictatorship.
If you look at his main period of dominance (1930-1953), there's really only Kaganovich. Everyone else got purged. And then he instituted a bunch of antisemitic campaigns like the attacks on 'rootless cosmopolitans' or the Doctors Plot.
I guess comparing scientific advancement with 'communism' isn't really a fair comparison. The science thing has a clear mechanism. The Askenazim are extremely intelligent and therefore contribute disproportionately to scientific progress. But there's no gene for communism. And even if you argue that there's something about Jewish culture that predisposes them to communism (doubtful when looking at extremely right-wing Israel), almost all the examples of Jewish communists are atheists who have no real attachment to their ethno-religious identity, including Marx himself. The only reason anyone cares is because antisemites seek out things to blame on their hated outgroup.
Don’t know if you’ve read K-Mac’s work on the Culture of Critique series, but he performs an analysis of why so many Jews are overrepresented in leftist causes and social movements in the west, spanning across the 20th century up to today. One thing he points out is there’s an operational difference to be distinguished between Jews who ‘happen to be’ involved in various causes, and Jews who are expressly found promoting different causes as part of an attempt to “advance a Jewish interest,” as an identity. His work’s been assailed over the years, but there’s also a lot of support for the framework of his analysis. Multi-level selection hasn’t garnered widespread scientific acceptance over individual selection, but it’s still a fairly hotly debated topic in the realm of evolutionary biology.
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Also there's pretty good reasons for Jews to be overrepresented in the 'educated but not massively rich' echelons that did a lot of driving of Communism. Chinese communism has a ton of push from the Hakka subpopulation who have a similar position as a dialect group, for instance.
And of course there's just the "Jews more likely" situation where they are going to be overrepresented pretty much everywhere based on high IQ.
I still think that, without the early organizing influence of Jews on the international movement, we don't get the Soviet Union and, by extension, Red China. Low confidence though.
Sure, but I feel like people frequently assume 'There's a lot of smart Jews in positions of Academic and Bureaucratic power' equates to 'super Jew Genius illuminati' when I don't really think that's the case perse.
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