Historical Context

Jewish Life in the Soviet Union:

The 1917 Russian Revolution overthrew a centuries-old regime of official antisemitism in the Russian Empire, including its Pale of Settlement.[1] However, the previous legacy of antisemitism was continued by the Soviet state, especially under Stalin, who spread anti-Jewish conspiracy theories through his propaganda network. Antisemitism in the Soviet Union reached new heights after 1948 during the campaign against the "rootless cosmopolitan", in which numerous Yiddish-writing poets, writers, painters and sculptors were killed or arrested.This culminated in the so-called Doctors' plot, in which a group of doctors (almost all of whom were Jewish) were subject to a show trial for supposedly having plotted to assassinate Stalin.

 

On February 22, 1981, in a speech, which lasted over 5 hours, Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev denounced anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union.  While Stalin and Lenin had much of the same in various statements and speeches, this was the first time that a high-ranking Soviet official had done so in front of the entire Party.  Brezhnev acknowledged that anti-Semitism existed within the Eastern Bloc and saw that many different ethnic groups existed whose "requirements" were not being met.   For decades, people of different ethnic, or religious backgrounds were assimilated into Soviet society and denied the ability or resources to get the education or practice their religion as they had previously done.  Brezhnev made it official Soviet Policy to provide these ethnic groups with these “requirements" and cited a fear of the “emergence of inter-ethnic tensions" as the reason.  The announcement of the policy was followed with a generic, but significant Party message;

 

“The CPSU [Communist Party of the Soviet Union] has fought and will always fight resolutely against such phenomena [inter-ethnic tensions] which are alien to the nature of socialism as chauvinism or nationalism, against any nationalistic aberrations such as, let us say, anti-Semitism or Zionism. We are against tendencies aimed at artificial erosion of national characteristics. But to the same extent, we consider impermissible their artificial exaggeration. It is the sacred duty of the party to educate the working people in the spirit of Soviet patriotism and socialist internationalism, of a proud feeling of belonging to a single great Soviet motherland”

 

While to most, the issue of anti-Semitism seemed to be dropped very casually and almost accidentally, it was very much calculated and planned, as was everything else the Party did.  At this time the Soviet Union was feeling pressure from around the world to solve many human rights violations that were taking place within their borders, and the statement responded to the inquiries of countries such as Australia and Belgium.  While the Party seemed to be taking a hard stance against anti-Semitism, the fact remained that anti-Semitic propaganda had long been present in the Soviet Union, making it extremely difficult to solve the problems right away.