WHO RULES RUSSIA? (To max EDITOR or TER " SPECTATOR.")
Sia,—My attention has been called to the publication in your issue of June 25th of a short review of a pamphlet published
in New York city entitled Who Rules Russia: The Personnel of the Soviet Bureaucracy. Your review concludes with the follow- ing statement : " If these lists are inaccurate, it would be well to have the errors exposed." Perhaps I may be permitted to call attention to the fact that immediately after the publication of this pamphlet I called attention to the glaring errors con- tained in it. As I have pointed out in my little book, The Jew and American Ideals, this pamphlet was published by a group of Russian emigres residing in New York city. They are all monarchists and reactionaries, hoping for the restoration of Tearism. Like most of their kind, they are bitter Jew-baiters, and their pamphlet is entirely typical of Russian anti-Semitic propaganda. As one who is not a Jew, either by race or faith, I have regarded it as my duty to call the attention of my fellow- citizens to the danger of the vicious propaganda carried on by this group, whose members, let me say in passing, have done enormous harm to the Russian anti-Bolshevik cause.
The lists of officials published in this pamphlet, classified according to nationality and race, are in a number of instances certainly inventions of the anonymous compiler or compilers. The most complete files of Bolshevik publications in existence do not contain either the lists or the date from which it might be possible to compile them. Other lists have been distorted and tampered with, in order to present a case against the Jews. For example, on p. 5 of the pamphlet there is a list which purports to be an authentic list of members of the Councils of the Peoples' Commissars. Twenty-two names aro given, of which number seventeen are alleged to be Jews, three Russians, and two Armenians. Looking over the list I find that it omits well-known and important Commissars, such as the following : Raskolnikov (Navy), Krestineky (Finance), Krassin (Industry and Commerce and Transportation), Seroda (Agriculture), Kolontai (Public Welfare), Rykov (Supreme Economic Council), Bruchanov (Supply), Semashko (Public Health), and Bonch- Brouyevich (Secretary). These are all Russians : there is not a Jew among them. On the other hand, the list contains the names of a number of Boleheviki who are not, and who never have been, members of the Council of the Peoples' Commissars. Some of them hold positions of minor importance in the Soviet • regime or in the Communist Party. The inclusion of their names in this list as members of the Central Government is an impudent imposture.
On p. 9 Lateis, of the Extraordinary Commission, is accurately described as a Lett, but on p. 23 he becomes a Jew. Fritchie is a Lett on p. 10 and a Jew on p. 22—and neither description is correct, according to my information. On p. 25 Eerensky is described as a Jew, and it is said that his real name is Kirvia. This legend has been published before and thoroughly exposed. The anonymous Jew-baiters have simply reproduced a silly story that appeared in the reactionary anti-Semitic sheet, Novoye 1'i-colic, of Petrograd, shortly before the Revolution of March, 1917, and which was immediately exposed and ridiculed.
You call attention to the charge made in the pamphlet that the other Socialist parties, " who allege that they are in opposi- tion " to the Bolsheriki, are largely controlled by Jews, and you quote as examples the figures given in the pamphlet concerning the Central Committee of the Mensheviki and the corresponding committee of the Socialists-Revolutionists. With respect to the lists of names given in support of this charge, it is perhaps sufficient to call attention to a few of the most glaring inaccu- racies. In the list of names alleged to be a complete list of members of the Central Committee of the Social-Democratic Party Moneheviki, there are at least three names of men who are not even members of that party, lot alone of its supreme authority. Ratner, Rappoport, and Gotz do not belong to that party at all, but are prominent as leaders in the Socialists- Revolutionists Party. There are probably other errors in the list equally glaring. The list offered as a list of the members of the Central Committee of the Party of Socialists-Revolu- tionists of the Right contains fifteen names, fourteen being of Jews and only one, that of Tchaykovsky, being a Russian. But Tchaykovsky is not a member of this party at all, and there- fore does not belong to its Central Committee. As everybody knows, he belongs to the party of Peoples' Socialists. This same list contains the names of Lvovitch and Berlinrout, who like- wise do not belong to this party, and are not, and have never been, members of the committee in question. They are well- known leaders of the Zionists-Socialists. Abramovitch and Khintchouk are included in this utterly worthless list, though they do not belong to the party of Socialists-Revolutionists of the Right, but to the Social-Democratic Party. These few examples will suffice to show how utterly worthless and unreliable the pamphlet is.—I am, Sir, he., Joss &mato. Ncsticdown, Old Bennington, Vermont, U.S.A.
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