Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- List of documents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Note on transliteration and style
- Introduction
- Part I Government ideology and the Jews
- 1 The Jewish national question in the Soviet Union
- 2 Official Soviet statements on the Jewish question
- Part II Jews as victims of Soviet policy
- Part III The Zionist issue
- Part IV Jews and the Jewish people in Soviet society
- Part V The Jewish experience as mirrored in Soviet publications
- Part VI A separate development
- Notes
- Glossary
- Select bibliography
- Index
1 - The Jewish national question in the Soviet Union
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 April 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- List of documents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Note on transliteration and style
- Introduction
- Part I Government ideology and the Jews
- 1 The Jewish national question in the Soviet Union
- 2 Official Soviet statements on the Jewish question
- Part II Jews as victims of Soviet policy
- Part III The Zionist issue
- Part IV Jews and the Jewish people in Soviet society
- Part V The Jewish experience as mirrored in Soviet publications
- Part VI A separate development
- Notes
- Glossary
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
Do the Jews of the Soviet Union constitute a nation in the same way as the other nations living in the multi–national Soviet State? Is their political and constitutional status determined by Marxist-Leninist theory on the national question or by pragmatic political considerations alone? Does the determination of this status influence the position of the Jews in the Soviet Union and the formation of their national consciousness? And, finally, can one speak of a consistent approach in the policies of the Soviet Union towards Soviet Jewry?
These are the central questions which we shall endeavour to clarify, albeit in brief, in this chapter.
The Jewish national question in Soviet theory and constitutional documents
The Soviet theory of nationality and the Jews
There is no doubt that the Jewish problem has engaged Marxist theoreticians from the times of Marx himself, who devoted one of his early works to it, until today. As a complicated problem, an anomaly which does not easily fit into rigid theoretical frameworks, the Jewish question confronts them with a serious challenge and a perpetual torment. If Marx confines his debate on the Jewish national question to the sphere of religion and the Emancipation, and to the framework of general discussions on the question of alienation, of which he considers religion to be one of the most extreme forms, Lenin and Stalin – despite their being Marx's most consistent followers in all that concerns a negative attitude towards Jewish national existence – adopt purely ethnic terminology.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Soviet Government and the Jews 1948–1967A Documented Study, pp. 11 - 48Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1984