Jewish Studies

The analyses that I present below are based on information in the following book written in Ukrainian, with some of its documentation presented in Russian. Yuri Shapoval, Volodymyr Prystaiko, and Vadym Zolotariov, Cheka-GPU-NKVD in Ukraine: People, Facts, Documents, Abris, Kyiv, 1997. For the sake of brevity, I will refer to the above book as the Shapoval Volume.

Sponsorship. It is possibly highly significant that this book was sponsored by the following:

National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
M. S. Hrushevsky Institute
of Ukrainian Archaeography and Fontology
Security Service of Ukraine

Nationalities in the Cheka-GPU-NKVD. One may summarize my chief finding with this succinct approximation:

Out of every 10 senior members of the Cheka-GPU-NKVD in Ukraine:
6 were Jewish,
2 were Russian,
1 was Ukrainian, and
1 was other.

Almost no mixed parentage. Given that the authors noted the instance in which only the father was Jewish, it would appear that there are no other instances of known mixed parentage in this sample.

Almost no females. In Ukrainian, the word for "a Latvian person" comes in masculine and feminine versions, and thus it was possible to note upon no more than seeing their nationality stated that six of the Latvians were male and one female. But as all the other nationality names also come in two versions, then it would also have been possible to note the presence of a female in them as well, which however I failed to do. Thus, in the sample of 200 for which nationalities were specified, there appears to be only a single female. The Cheka-GPU-NKVD in Ukraine, then, appears to have been a male-dominated occupation.

Possible under-estimate of Jewish participation. The ‘Polish/German’ above refers to a single official who was inconsistent in identifying his nationality on various documents, sometimes stating Polish and sometimes German. Two possibilities come to mind: first, that neither of these is his true nationality; second, that other officials may have misrepresented their nationality more consistently and thus avoided detection. More specifically, as Jews commonly assumed non-Jewish names and concealed their Jewish identity, it is possible that the above statistics constitute an under-estimate of Jewish presence in the Cheka-GPU-NKVD.

The Shapoval volume offers some evidence in confirmation of this hypothesis. That is, in listing the names of the 183 Cheka-GPU-NKVD officials, when the official used more than one name or changed his name, Shapoval included the aliases in parentheses. The number of names containing parentheses was 20. Of these, 14 were Jewish, 3 Latvian, 1 Russian, 1 German, and 1 unknown. Thus, it would appear that the changing of names was overwhelmingly a Jewish phenomenon. Furthermore, my impression is that the name changes tended to be in the direction of making the names less Jewish and more Slavic, though as this conclusion requires the exercise of judgment, and as in several cases I did not trust my judgment, I do not here quantify the direction of the name changes. Four examples of names that seemed to go from Jewish to Slavic were:

Declining to guess nationality from name? Among the 23 for whom nationality was not specified, I noticed a few cases in which nationality might be inferred from the name alone. For example, although no nationality was specified for Solomon Isaakovych Goldman, one might venture to guess that he is more likely Jewish than Russian or Ukrainian. I conclude that either the authors had independent evidence concerning Goldman's nationality but failed to specify it as an oversight, or else that they had insufficient biographical data to infer nationality, and followed the general rule of declining to do so from name only. Of course if the Shapoval authors declined to guess that Solomon Isaakovych Goldman was Jewish, then I decline to do so as well, leaving him uncategorized with respect to nationality and likely lowering estimates of Jewish participation in the Ukrainian Cheka-GPU-NKVD.

How unfounded was the CCCP joke? In Morley Safer's 60 Minutes broadcast The Ugly Face of Freedom of 23Oct94, the editor of the Lviv newspaper Za Vilnu Ukrainu (For a Free Ukraine) was shown relating the joke that CCCP (the Cyrillic version of USSR) stood for three Jews and a Russian (where ‘C’ is the first Cyrillic letter of a slang word for ‘Jew’, and ‘P’ is the first Cyrillic letter of the Ukrainian word for ‘Russian’). To the 60 Minutes audience, this joke must have seemed not only in bad taste, but more importantly must have seemed unfounded and inaccurate, and thus little better than an expression of anti-Semitism. When compared to the Shapoval Cheka-GPU-NKVD statistics above, however, this 75% Jewish and 25% Russian attribution of responsibility for Communism is revealed as only a small exaggeration.

Did some nationalities dominate the higher ranks? But from the above it is possible to imagine that the 6 Jews in every group of 10 were subordinate, and that the 2 Russians and 1 Ukrainian were of higher rank, so that it was the Slavs who controlled the Cheka-GPU-NKVD, and the more numerous Jews were merely underlings who followed orders. To test this hypothesis, let us examine the highest ranks achieved within the security service on or before 1941. In categorizing ranks, I am following the table on Shapoval's p. 340, which — rendered from Russian into English — gives the following:

1  Commissar, First class
2  Commissar, Second class
3  Commissar, Third class
4  Major, Senior
5  Major
6  Captain
7  Lieutenant, Senior
8  Lieutenant
9  Lieutenant, Junior
10  Sergeant

Scaling. The numbers in the above table are my own, and I will use them below in referring to the various ranks and in performing computations. Note that a smaller number indicates a senior rank. Of course the assignment of alternative numbers to designate each rank will produce different results. For example, one might know that the difference between some ranks was more important than between others, as for example the difference between a Lieutenant and a Senior Lieutenant might carry less significance than the difference between a Senior Major and a Third Class Commissar, in which case the representation of each rank by a number could be made to reflect the lesser difference in the former comparison and the greater difference in the latter comparison. This invites us into the thorny area of scaling, which it would be a digression to enter.

Ranks after 1941 ignored. It appears that the ranking system began to be altered some time in the early 1940s, with alternative ranks being introduced, such as ‘pidpolkovnyk’ and ‘polkovnyk’. However, as ranks achieved after 1941 were ignored, ranks within the revised system were ignored.

Nationality Military Rank Number
Having
Known
Rank Mean
Rank Median
Rank Mode
Rank Number
Having
Unknown
Rank Grand
Total

....

Military rank of Jews, Russians, Ukrainians. What does the above table tell us? That of the three nationalities that have sufficient representation to make their means worth looking at — Jews, Russians, and Ukrainians — the mean rank of Jews and Russians was equivalent, with Russians standing inappreciably (0.04 units) below Jews; the Ukrainians stood almost half a rank (0.46 units) lower than Jews.

The few Latvians rank high. The means corresponding to the other nationalities are not worth looking at because they are based on such small numbers of cases. Salient among these, however, might be the mean for the 5 out of 7 Latvians for whom rank was known — these five produced a mean military rank of 3.60, thus standing as a group appreciably above Jews, Russians, and Ukrainians, though of course the small number of Latvians could not have given them great influence within the security service.

The military rank of nationalities in the Cheka-GPU-NKVD. The chief conclusion to emerge from the above figures, then, is the following:

Of the three chief nationalities
comprising the Cheka-GPU-NKVD in Ukraine
— Jews, Russians, and Ukrainians —
Russians equalled Jews in military rank,
and Ukrainians averaged almost half a rank lower.

....

Note that the first Year of Birth column is 1881, and the second is 1888, and after that all year columns increase by one year. Also, the year of birth was unavailable for one Ukrainian and for two officials of unknown nationality.

The guilty are beyond prosecution. It is somewhat unfortunate that the information that the SBU is issuing concerns people born so long ago that most today are known to be dead, or must be assumed to be dead, or at best are so old as to be beyond prosecution. Better to divulge information concerning those who are not so old, so that the torturers and butchers among them can be brought to justice. One may go so far as to ask whether the Shapoval volume is not in fact part of an SBU public relations campaign aimed at giving the appearance of an open agency interested in cleaning house, when in reality it was pointing only at skeletons in order to distract attention from those who walk among us with blood on their hands.

From oldest to youngest: Latvians, Jews, Russians, Ukrainians. But to get back to the data — of the three most numerous groups, year of birth differences were small, with Russians averaging 0.2 years younger than Jews, and Ukrainians averaging 0.6 years younger than Jews. Other nationalities had too few cases to make their means worth looking at, with the possible exception of the 7 Latvians who averaged 5.1 years older than the Jews.

Of the three chief nationalities
comprising the Cheka-GPU-NKVD in Ukraine
— Jews, Russians, and Ukrainians —
Russians were almost as old as Jews
and Ukrainians averaged more than half a year younger.

The revolution devours its parents. The Cheka-GPU-NKVD seems to have been largely a Jewish creation and the revolution ate its Jewish creators first and most voraciously. Specifically, Shapoval often, but not always, lists the date of death and the cause. In many cases, the official was shot by the state. Altogether, 79 officials were shot; however, one of these was not shot until 1955. Limiting our attention to those who were shot between 1936 and 1941 — that is, shot in the course of the Great Purge — leaves us with 78 shot. Out of our total of 183 officials, that makes 42.6% known to be shot during the Great Purge. I omit from consideration any who died in prison, who committed suicide whether in prison or out, and of course any for whom no date of death is given, or no cause of death. When the date of a shooting was not given, I assumed that the year was the same as the year of being sentenced to death. One may summarize the chief finding with the statement that in the ranks of the Ukrainian Cheka-GPU-NKVD, the great purge amounted largely to Jews killing Jews, and more specifically with the following approximation:

....

Jews were disproportionately targetted during the first wave. The shootings seem to have come in two waves, with the main peak in 1938 and a secondary peak in 1940, with the intervening 1939 bringing a lull. During the 1938 peak, 19/26 = 73.1% of those shot were Jewish; however, during the 1940 peak, only 10/20 = 50% of those shot were Jewish.

Jews were shot earlier than Russians. The only two groups among whom there were sufficient executions to merit paying attention to the average year of execution are Jews and Russians, and from these it is clear that the executions of Jews took place earlier — the average year of execution for the 48 shot Jews being 1938.2 and for the 13 shot Russians being 1.3 years later, or 1939.5. The very first execution in this sample was that of a Jew in 1936, and at least 15 Jews had been executed before the first Russian was executed.

Latvians were shot even earlier than Jews. If we wanted to credit the mean year of execution for the 5 Latvians who are known to have been executed, we would say that their mean of 1937.8 antedated the mean for Jews by 0.4 years.

Proportion lost from greatest to least: Latvians, Jews, Russians, Ukrainians. If we examine the four most numerous nationalities within the Cheka-GPU-NKVD in Ukraine, we find that the Latvians fared worst, losing 71.4% (5/7) of their members; Jews fared next worst, losing 51.6% (48/93); Russians next with 38.2% (13/34); and Ukrainians best with 13.3% (2/15).

Among the four most numerous nationalities within the Cheka-GPU-NKVD in Ukraine, the proportion shot during the Great Purge was:
7 out of every ten Latvians,
5 out of every ten Jews,
4 out of every ten Russians,
1 out of every ten Ukrainians.

Jewish preponderance just slightly weakened. Despite the fact that of the three leading nationalities, Jews were shot earliest and in the largest numbers, the hierarchy of the Cheka-GPU-NKVD experienced only a slight quantitative shift as a result of the shootings, with the rank ordering of nationalities according to prevalence remaining what it had been — namely Jews, Russians, Ukrainians, Latvians. Whereas in the absence of the shootings, we summarized the ratios among every 10 members as 6 Jews, 2 Russians, 1 Ukrainian, and 1 other, the result of the shootings, rounded to the nearest digit out of 10, gives us 5 Jews, 2 Russians, 1 Ukrainian, and 2 others — in other words, Jews lost 1/10 and others gained 1/10 — such was the small quantitative shift which the Great Purge brought about in the nationalities distribution of the Cheka-GPU-NKVD. The rough approximation:

Of every 10 senior members of the Cheka-GPU-NKVD in Ukraine who remained unshot during the Great Purge:
5 were Jewish,
2 were Russian,
1 was Ukrainian, and
2 were other.

Remaining Conclusions

The Latvians stand out. Although the group characteristics of Jews, Russians, and Ukrainians within the Cheka-GPU-NKVD differ little (except for the size of the groups, of course, and except for statistics concerning purging), there is one group that does stand out on several measures, although the small size of this group in the Shapoval volume makes us wary of attributing great significance to its differences. That is, compared to Jews, Russians, and Ukrainians, the Latvians — on the average — were older, held more senior ranks, were more likely to be purged, and were purged earlier. Also, the only female in the Shapoval sample of 183 was a Latvian.

The first head of the Ukrainian Cheka was a Latvian. The salience of the Latvians in the Shapoval statistics reminds us that the first head of the Ukrainian Cheka was the Latvian, Martin Latsis or Latzis (real name, Jan Sudrabs), who has been described as "particularly ruthless" (Sergey Petrovich Melgunov, The Red Terror in Russia, London, 1925, p.23). It is surprising to not find Latsis under any of his names in the Shapoval volume.

Melgunov's comment on the Latvians. The salience of Latvians in the Shapoval volume reminds us as well of Melgunov's statement concerning the particular concentration of Latvians in the Russian Cheka (the ‘Extraordinary Commission’ referred to is the same as the ‘Cheka’ or ‘Che-Ka’ as Melgunov's translator writes it, and ‘Letts‘ are ’Latvians’):

As early as the year 1919 the All-Russian Che-Ka had come to have 2000 persons on its personal staff, with three-fourths of them natives of Latvia. Indeed, Letts, from the beginning, obtained, and retained, a special position in this regard, and would be engaged by Che-Kas in batches of whole families, and render those Che-Kas faithful service. Thus our modern Letts might be likened to the ancient mercenaries. So much was this the case that the Muscovite Che-Ka came to be known as "the Lettish Colony". A propos of the attraction which the institutions of Moscow had for Latvia's population, the Bulletin of the Left Social Revolutionary Party remarked: "Letts flock to the Extraordinary Commission of Moscow as folk emigrate to America, and for the same reason — to make their fortunes." And the fact that very few Letts knew a single word of Russian was in no way held to disqualify those immigrants from being entrusted with inquisitions and domiciliary searches, or even with the filling in of returns. Whence arose amusing anecdotes not wholly amusing to the victims.

Sergey Petrovich Melgunov, The Red Terror in Russia, London, 1925, pp. 248-249

The Shapoval biographies are not encyclopedic. One might hope that coming across the name of a prominent member of the NKVD somewhere in Ukraine, one would be able to find that name in the Shapoval sample of 183. Here, for example, is a mention of one such prominent member of the NKVD:

"We know from Stalin on down who ordered the action and who carried it out", Mr. Sniezko said. Among those directly responsible for the murders were about 200 NKVD operatives. An NKVD officer named Syromiatnikov, stationed in Kharkiv, was identified as a particularly bloody-handed officially sanctioned serial killer. He is thought to have died in the late 1940s.

Andrij Wynnyckyj, Ukrainian Weekly, 3Dec95
An attempt to find "Syromiatnikov" among the Shapoval biographies, however, fails. What is needed from the SBU, then, is work that is more thorough, biographies that are more exhaustive, more encyclopedic, more comprehensive.

Jewish conquest of the Slavs. If similar statistics apply to Russia, then it would appear that the depiction of the Russian Revolution as the Jewish conquest of Russia may have some basis in fact, and if If similar statistics apply to Russia, then it would appear that the depiction of the Russian Revolution as the Jewish conquest of Russia may have some basis in fact, and if similar statistics apply to the rest of the Slavic world (that is, not only to the Russians and Ukrainians, but also to the Belarusians, the Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians, and so on) then the Communist Revolution in the Slavic lands might be most succinctly summed up as the Jewish conquest of the Slavs. The Great Purge, in turn, was not an overthrow by the Slavs of the Jews, but a more random blood bath whose incidental effect was only the most modest of weakenings of the Jewish hold over the Slavs, at least if the above statistics concerning the Ukrainian Cheka-GPU-NKVD are representative both of other ruling bodies and of other locations.

Contribution of Jewish ideology to Jewish history? Knowing the leading role played by Jews in the bloodthirsty crimes of the Cheka-GPU-NKVD , in the torture and genocide committed after the Second World War in Poland against Germans, and in the bloodletting being committed today in the Middle East (as exemplified further in the shooting of reporters and the murder of POWs, the latter documented on the UKAR site both in my Letter 12 to Anne McLellan and in an article by Martin Cohn ) — to mention just three categories of crimes — the question has to arise of whether there is not some ideology inculcated by Judaism that predisposes its followers to participate in movements marked by oppression, ruthlessness, and sadism. I do not know enough about either Judaism or history to venture such a hypothesis on my own initiative, but as creditable students of Judaism and of history have already suggested exactly this hypothesis, I do feel bold enough merely to recommend that it not be discarded as an impossibility out of hand. Readers interested in pursuing this topic can consult my summary of some of these ideological tenets of Judaism as they have been earlier discussed by Israel Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, Pluto Press, London and Boulder Colorado, 1994, and as well my broaching of the topic to Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich of Kyiv in my Letter 5 to him of 29Sep97. Also relevant may be the acknowledgement that Jewish culture legitimizes and even commands revenge