Before There Was a State of Israel, There Was Birobidzhan

When the State of Israel was declared in the Middle East in 1948, it was dubbed the first independent Jewish state since the reigns of kings like Saul, David and Solomon in the 10th century. That’s because very few people, then or now, are aware of an area that, in August of 1936, was declared as the site where “For the first time in the history of the Jewish people, its burning desire for a homeland, for the achievement of its own national statehood has been fulfilled.”

Alina Adams explains.

A 1933 Soviet stamp depicting the Jewish people of Birobidzhan, available here.

How It Started

That site was and still is known as Birobidzhan, a strip of land between the Biro and the Bidzhan rivers, located on the border of Russia and China.

How did that happen? Well, it began as many Jewish stories begin….

In 1926, the still-fledgling government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was advised that “Jewish agricultural settlements (have) called forth a sharply heightened anti-Jewish mood.”

Translation: Communism took away land from Russian/Ukrainian/Slavic peasants and redistributed it among all Soviet citizens, which included Jews. Also, Jews who did not want to farm, came pouring into the cities, competing with other unskilled laborers for the already limited pool of menial work. 

This annoyed both the farmers and the non-farmers. Since antisemitism had been officially outlawed by the newly formed workers paradise of the USSR, it annoyed those in charge that it still existed. It was an embarrassment to them. Something needed to be done!

The solution? Well, if you got rid of Jews, then you also got rid of Jew-hatred. Sure. Let’s pretend it works that way.

But where to get rid of them to?

The Committee for the Settlement of Toiling Jews on Land filed an 80 page report saying they would accept any piece of land the Soviet Union decided to put them on… except for Birobidzhan.

Why not Birobidzhan? Well, first, the territory was mostly swamp, covered in gadflies and mosquitos. Locals burned fires to keep insects away from the cattle, and covered themselves in repelling ointment and netting. Second, the area was populated by native Koreans who likely wouldn’t appreciate the newcomers, as well as Chinese warlords who periodically crossed the border to check on their poppy (opium) fields. Oh, and Cossacks. Did we mention Cossacks? After the revolution, many fled East. They likely wouldn’t appreciate the Jewish interlopers either.

Naturally, after reading the report, the Soviet government decided their newly created Jewish Autonomous Region would be… in Birobidzhan.

How It’s Going

In April 1928, 540 families and 150 single people made the trek to the Far East. There was no infrastructure for them. They literally lived in holes in the ground, dealing with the tail end of the rainy season. By May 1928, two-thirds of the settlers had turned back home.

Nonetheless, that same summer, Birofeld, the first Jewish collective farm in the East was established. It subsumed the Cossack village of Alexandrovka; the first recorded incident of a Jewish community overtaking a Russian one. 

In May 1934, the Communist Party granted Birobidzahn its official status as the Jewish Autonomous Region.

And they all lived happily ever after.

Except they did not.

The 1930s were a most precarious time in the USSR. That was when Stalin unleashed his Great Terror Purges, arresting, exiling, and executing all those who he believed were against him. And he believed almost everyone was against him. Alliances could change on a whim, with no warning. 

For instance, Lazar Kaganovitch, secretary of the Central Committee, Commissar of Communications, and colloquially known as the most powerful Jew in the USSR, visited Birobidzhan in February of 1936. He had dinner with the local party head, and praised his wife’s delicious Jewish cooking.

Where It Went Wrong

By August of 1936, that same party head was removed on charges that he’d been “unmasked as untrustworthy, counterrevolutionary, and a bourgeois-nationalist conspiring to create a murderous, Bundist, Nazi-Facist organization.”

Oh, and his wife had tried to poison Kaganovitch. With gefilte fish. Possibly the most Jewish criminal charge ever filed.

In 1940, after The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that partitioned Central and Eastern Europe between the Soviet Union and Germany, the USSR found itself overseeing a portion of the over three million Jews living in Poland. Officials visited Birobidzhan to investigate whether it might be a good option for deporting them to, before opting to go with their tried and true destination of Siberia. 

In the run-up to World War II, Birobidzhan’s Korean population was also exiled to Siberia, for fear they might prove a fifth column more loyal to Japan than to the Allies powers. After the war, Birobidzhan saw a slight uptick in population, as Jewish survivors, unable to face returning to the villages and cities where their own neighbors turned them over to the Nazis and Rumanians, trickled into what they hoped might prove a safe haven.

However, those truly dedicated to the cause of an independent Jewish state made their way to Israel by the end of the decade, and the Jewish population of Birobidzhan continued shrinking. Currently, they number around 4,000 people, roughly 5% of Birobidzhan’s 75,000 citizen population. 

However, the buildings and street signs still bear the traces of Hebrew letters spelling out Yiddish place names. Officially, Birobidzhan is still The Jewish Autonomous Region, whether the Jews of the world know it or not.

Alina Adams is the NYT best-selling author of soap opera tie-ins, figure skating mysteries, and romance novels. Her latest historical fiction, “My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region” chronicles a little known aspect of Soviet and Jewish history. Alina was born in Odessa, USSR and immigrated to the United States with her family in 1977. Visit her website at: www.AlinaAdams.com.

Why did the USSR Collapse? Chernobyl, Gorbachev and Glasnost

The death of the last “Old Bolshevik” General Secretary of the Soviet Union, Konstantin Chernenko, in March of 1985 gave way to the rise of the young, liberal, and ultimately final General Secretary of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev. But just over one year after Gorbachev became General Secretary the Chernobyl nuclear explosion took place. Here, Brenden Woldman argues that it was this explosion that was the most important element that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Chernobyl. Last Day of Pripyat by Alexey Akindinov. Source: Alex Akindinov, available here.

Mikhail Gorbachev, newly crowned leader of the USSR in 1985, was a product of the communist system and a firm believer in Soviet ideology. Nevertheless, Gorbachev understood that the USSR was at a crossroads and liberal reforms were necessary for the survival of the Soviet empire.

Gorbachev thought that the enactment of glasnost (openness and a new era of honesty between the government and the people) and perestroika (restructuring of the Soviet economic and political system) would spark a golden age of Soviet ingenuity and would reignite the USSR as a super power. However, the USSR was not ripe for the backlash that would come with glasnost’s emphasis on openness. The reason for Gorbachev to double-down on glasnost was the failed cover-up that came from the Chernobyl disaster. Within a year of Gorbachev’s ascension to power, one of the greatest man-made environmental disasters the world had ever seen placed the Soviet Union in the global spotlight and showed the hypocrisy of the Soviet Union’s new “reformer”.

 The Blast

All was quiet on the morning of April 28, 1986 when Swedish monitoring stations showed an unnaturally sparked heightening of radioactive activity near northern Kiev at the Chernobyl nuclear electricity-generating plant.[1] The Soviet Union did little to confirm reports of the accident or the danger of it. Pravda, the official newspaper of the CPSU, did not report the accident until two weeks after it had occurred and Gorbachev himself did not publically acknowledge the disaster until May 14, nearly three weeks after the initial incident.[2] The reason for this silence was the attempted cover-up of the Chernobyl disaster by Gorbachev and the CPSU, even though the radioactive cloud released was ten times more hazardous than that of the radiation discharged by the nuclear bomb at Hiroshima.[3] However, those two weeks in which the Soviet Union tried to cover-up the severity of the accident showed the fragility and unwillingness of the USSR to implement the so-called media “openness” that was to come with Gorbachev’s glasnost.

The problems with the Chernobyl nuclear power plant were well documented before the accident. Government reports dating back to the initial building of the power plant in 1979 showed the brittleness of the structure with a KGB memorandum stating that the Chernobyl plant, “could lead to mishaps and accidents”.[4] The poor quality of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was not shocking to those who had inspected the quality of the structures around the USSR. An accident involving one of the power plants was not a surprising revelation due to their poor quality. Nevertheless, in the early morning of April 26 the Chernobyl nuclear power plant erupted, causing the CPSU to begin plans for a cover-up.

The Failed Cover-Up

After the extinguishing of the fires and the securing of the scene, in depth urgent reports about the nature of the incident were sent to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.[5] When questioning began on the severity of Chernobyl from Europe and the west, the CPSU began to intensify their cover-up plan by sending statements to ambassadors of the Soviet Union throughout the globe. These statements explain that a minor accident had occurred at Chernobyl and that the level of contamination may have exceeded norms, but “not to such a degree that it requires special measures to protect the population” and that the USSR did not need foreign aid as “no foreign nationals in the Soviet Union (particularly specialists or tourists) have made application to relevant Soviet organizations in connection with the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident”.[6]

However, readings from radioactive stations across Western Europe showed that the Chernobyl accident was far more severe than initially expected, as journalists, foreign and domestic, reported on the severity of the calamity after the USSR allowed press to come to the scene. As one Pravda journalist reported, the low quality standards, lack of safety equipment, lack of evacuation of public citizens, and the overall “silence of the leaders of the republic” proved the unwillingness of the CPSU to report on the severity of the Chernobyl calamity.[7] It became clear that Gorbachev and the CPSU attempted to downplay the disaster which occurred at Chernobyl. The result was not only an environmental disaster but a political one as well, as the Soviet citizenry doubted the claim that Gorbachev was to be a new and honest General Secretary.

For Gorbachev, the calamity at Chernobyl came from two fronts. The first was the physical, environmental destruction that had occurred and the cleanup that was going to take years and require a lot of money. Yet the second hurt Gorbachev the most, as the attempted cover-up hurt Gorbachev’s reputation as a reformer and the legitimacy of glasnost. It also did not help that this reinforced the view among some of the Soviet citizenry of the poor infrastructure within the USSR in comparison to the west, which sparked the fall of the “Soviet façade”.[8] The embarrassment that came from Chernobyl left Gorbachev more decisive in implementing glasnost rhetoric, but it was too late for many as Soviet citizens began questioning the validity of glasnost.[9]

Life After Chernobyl

Chernobyl was the perfect storm of all the problems that were to come with Gorbachev’s reforms. However, the Chernobyl accident occurred in 1986, five years before the Soviet collapse. In short, there were more trickle down effects to come from glasnost and perestroika. However, the Soviet government was uneasy about granting complete open expression for the first time in the USSR’s history. Yet the embarrassment that followed the Chernobyl accident led Gorbachev to become more decisive and hardheaded with his implementation of glasnost and perestroika.[10]

Open expression became a staple of glasnost. Individuals connected to media began showing the gritty, more realistic portrayal of Soviet life instead of the utopian society depicted in propaganda. Crime, child abuse, suicide, prostitution, homelessness, declining health standards, poverty, and corruption were detailed extensively.[11] TV exposé’s like the news program Fifth Wheel filmed and broadcast the luxurious homes of the party elite in comparison to the impoverished living conditions of the working-class.[12] Soviet history was rewritten to show for the first time that Stalin was a mass murderer who killed millions of innocents and former General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev lived an extravagant, corrupt, and materialistic life. Glasnost opened up a variety of new problems that angered and humiliated many of the Soviet citizenry. The dissolving of the “Soviet façade” intensified.

Soviet essayist Alexander Tsipko summed up the feelings that many citizens felt during the era. True, glasnost created more opportunities for freedom of speech and of the press, but the revelations that came with glasnost on Soviet history completely demoralized the Soviet populace. Tsipko wrote the following to define the shocking feeling that many Soviet citizens had from glasnost’s “therapy by truth”:

No people in the history of mankind was ever enslaved by myths as our people was in the 20th century… We thought that building communism in the USSR was the greatest deed of our people, but we were purposefully engaging in self-destruction…We thought that our national industry, organized like one big factory…was the ultimate achievement of human wisdom, but it all turned out to be an economic absurdity which enslaved the economic and spiritual energies of…Russia.[13]

This powerful sentiment mirrored the feelings to the majority of Soviet citizenry. The heartbreak felt by Tsipko echoed throughout the Soviet Union, as it seemed that everything that Soviet citizens had learned and believed in were all lies fabricated by the CPSU. The feeling of confusion and loss of the Soviet ideology was quickly replaced by open protest and rage against the system that many Soviets had spent their entire lives trusting. Consequently, glasnost allowed open expression of anti-communist and anti-Soviet views that ultimately gained momentum as organized social movements led to public protest against the CPSU.[14] Between the Chernobyl meltdown and the collapse of the USSR was five years of brutal honesty that destroyed many Soviet citizens’ belief in the Soviet system. What sparked this doubt toward the system and the intensification of glasnost was Chernobyl.  

Gorbachev in Retrospect

In a 2006 interview Gorbachev saw Chernobyl as the real reason the Soviet Union collapsed. Chernobyl showed the hypocrisy of glasnost, the CPSU’s unwillingness to be honest with the Soviet people, the economic and environmental devastation on the USSR, and the embarrassment of admitting a cover-up. Combined, they proved to the Soviet people that Gorbachev was not the reformer he claimed to be. Gorbachev states, “The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl 20 years ago this month, even more than my launch of perestroika, was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later”.[15] Chernobyl was a moment that represented all the problems and hypocrisies that were to come with Gorbachev’s reforms. Yet this loosening of media relations led to more complications than the Soviet Union could swallow, as the policy of glasnost became more of a problem than a solution. Without the intensification of glasnost the Soviet Union could have survived longer than its collapse in 1991. However, if it was not for the Chernobyl meltdown and its failed cover-up, Gorbachev would not have felt obligated to intensify his policy of glasnost.

Why do you think the Soviet Union collapsed? Let us know below…

 

[1] Diane Koenker and Ronald D. Bachman, Revelations from the Russian Archives: Documents in English Translation, 499.

[2] Ibid. 499.

[3] Ibid. 499.

[4] Yuri Andropov. “KGB memorandum from Andropov to the Central Committee, February 21, 1979, on construction flaws at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant”, in Revelations from the Russian Archives: Documents in English Translation, 501.

[5] The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, “Urgent report on the Chernobyl accident from the first deputy minister of energy and electrification, April 26, 1986” in Revelations from the Russian Archives: Documents in English Translation, 501.

[6] The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, “Resolution of the Central Committee, April 29, 1986, on additional measures to be taken concerning the damage caused by the Chernobyl accident” & “Central Committee resolution of April 30, 1986, concerning progress in repairing damage caused by the Chernobyl accident” in Revelations from the Russian Archives: Documents in English Translation, 505-508.

[7] Vladimir Gubarev. “Report by Pravda journalist Gubarev on his observations at the site, May 22, 1986” in Revelations from the Russian Archives: Documents in English Translation, 509-511.

[8] Malia, The Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia, 1917-1991, 421.

[9] Strayer, Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse?: Understanding Historical Change, 99.

[10] Ibid. 99.

[11] Ibid. 100.

[12] Ibid. 100.

[13] Alexander Tsipko. “Novy Mir 4”, in Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse?: Understanding Historical Change, 105.

[14] Ibid 105.

[15] Green Road Journal Writing Staff, "Gorbachev; Chernobyl Nuclear Accident Was Real Cause Of The Collapse of Soviet Union, But It Took 20 Years For The Truth To Come Out, Just Like TMI And Fukushima, Denial Plus Cover Up Is The Norm," A Green Road Journal, April 15, 2016, , accessed October 24, 2016, http://www.agreenroadjournal.com/2012/12/gorbachev-chernobyl-nuclear-accident.html.

Cold War History - The Complete History – From World War 2 to the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Vietnam War to Reagan and Gorbachev – 1945-1991 (Required History)

Do you know why the world nearly destroyed itself in a catastrophic nuclear war?

Two words – ‘Cold War’.

Get the book on Amazon

The Cold War was international affairs for the second half of the 20th century. Nuclear weapons testing, civil wars in all corners of the globe and the race for economic dominance were all key spheres of the Cold War, although they were just a few elements of an intriguing global puzzle. More so than the great battles between Carthage and Rome in Ancient times or the Napoleonic Wars, the Cold War defined our world. But, there was one key difference between the Cold War and earlier major wars. Due to advances in technology and communications, the Cold War touched most countries on earth.

This introduction to the Cold War tells the story of the great clash between the communist Soviet Union and the capitalist USA. It covers the period from 1945 to 1991 in one combined edition, neatly breaking the Cold War up into three parts.

Get the book on Amazon

The book starts by describing how two super-powers emerged out of the rubble of World War Two and includes the following:

·      How the Soviet Union and the USA quickly went from war-time allies to enemies

·      Events in East Asia - the Chinese Civil War and the Korean War

·      The most dangerous event of the early Cold War years, the Cuban Missile Crisis

·      The Vietnam War and its impact on the Cold War

·      The shocking power of nuclear weapons – and attempts to control them

·      Uprisings on the eastern side of the Iron Curtain

·      The super-powers as friends? Détente, Richard Nixon, and Leonid Brezhnev

·      The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

·      The rise of Ronald Reagan and his aggression in the early 1980s

·      How Mikhail Gorbachev became Soviet leader

·      Glasnost, Perestroika, and how the Cold War ended

The approximately 250-page book is the perfect complement to the Cold War History audio series that is available as part of the ‘History in 28-minutes’ podcasts.

So come and join the past – get the book now!

Required History

The aim of the 'Required History' book series is to create approachable, succinct written introductions to some of the most interesting topics in history. They are designed for those:

·      That want to quickly learn about some of the world’s major historical events

·      Studying history. The books act as a perfect complement and overview to those undertaking high school and introductory college courses in history

·      Who enjoyed the audio podcasts and want to reinforce and further their knowledge

·      Learning English. The language and level of detail in the books are perfect for those in advanced English classes

All of the Required History books are designed to build on the audio podcasts available on the publisher’s website. They provide an extra layer of detail to the major historical events that the audio podcasts cover.

Cold War History - Brave New World – Reagan, Gorbachev and the end of the Cold War – Part 3: 1979-1991 (Required History)

Just how did the Cold War end?

We reveal all in the fascinating conclusion to the Cold War series.

The Cold War was international affairs for the second half of the 20th century. Nuclear weapons testing, civil wars in all corners of the globe and the race for economic dominance were all key spheres of the Cold War, although they were just a few elements of a very complex global puzzle. More so than the great battles between Carthage and Rome in Ancient times or the Napoleonic Wars, the Cold War defined our world. But, there was one key difference between the Cold War and earlier major wars. Due to advances in technology and communications, the Cold War touched most countries on earth.

Get the book on Amazon

This introduction to the end of the Cold War tells the story of the great clash between the communist Soviet Union and the capitalist USA. It considers events at a time of ever-faster change. Following the relative calm of the Détente years, the world became much more dangerous. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan a new and very assertive US president arrived who would seek to radically alter the international order. And soon enough a new Soviet leader would arrive and lead a great change in the international system. The biggest change since World War Two…

Get the book on Amazon

The topics in the book include:

·      The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

·      The rise of US President Ronald Reagan and his aggression in the early 1980s

·      How Mikhail Gorbachev became Soviet leader

·      The most important nuclear treaties made during the Cold War

·      The surprising friendship between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev

·      Great internal changes in the Soviet Union and wider Eastern Bloc

·      How the Cold War ended

The approximately 90-page book is the perfect complement to the Cold War History audio series that is available as part of the ‘History in 28-minutes’ podcasts.

So come and join the past – get the book now!

Required History

The aim of the 'Required History' book series is to create approachable, succinct written introductions to some of the most interesting topics in history. They are designed for those:

·      That want to quickly learn about some of the world’s major historical events

·      Studying history. The books act as a perfect complement and overview to those undertaking high school and introductory college courses in history

·      Who enjoyed the audio podcasts and want to reinforce and further their knowledge

·      Learning English. The language and level of detail in the books are perfect for those in advanced English classes

All of the Required History books are designed to build on the audio podcasts available on the publisher’s website. They provide an extra layer of detail to the major historical events that the audio podcasts cover.