Anti-Semitism – age-old and many-faceted – is one of the most complex phenomena of historical and sociological research. It is therefore not at all surprising that it has been defined and redefined so many times in recent years alone. Its complexity stems, of course, from the fact that it is engendered by a wide range of causes – religious, national, ideological, economic, social and psychological – which work side by side and in various combinations. But this is not all, since at different historical periods now one factor exerted a decisive influence, now another.

Lenin and the Bolsheviks were hostile to anti-Semitism even before the October Revolution, and immediately after their October 1917 victory, they took a firm line of opposition to it. A special order of the Soviet of Peoples' Commissars, issued on 27 July 1918, sharply condemned anti-Semitism and outlawed the organisers of pogroms. In the same year, Lenin recorded a special speech to be used in combating anti-Semitism among the people;4 extensive propaganda activity was also conducted and a voluminous propaganda literature published to this same end. However, it must be emphasised that none of the criminal codes approved from 1922 onwards in any of the Soviet republics contained a specific paragraph prohibiting anti-Semitism or prescribing punishments for its practice; there was only a general paragraph forbidding propaganda aimed at inciting enmity among the peoples living within the USSR's borders.