The Pete Quiñones Show - Reading Solzhenitsyn's '200 Years Together' w/ Dr Matthew Raphael Johnson - Part 88

Episode Date: November 22, 2025

59 MinutesPG-13Dr. Matthew Raphael Johnson is a researcher, writer, and former professor of history and political science, specializing in Russian history and political ideology.Pete and Dr. Johnson continue a project in which Pete reads Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's '200 Years Together," and Dr' Johnson provides commentary.Dr Johnson's PatreonDr Johnson's CashApp - $Raphael71RusJournal.orgTHE ORTHODOX NATIONALISTDr. Johnson's Radio Albion PageDr. Johnson's Books on AmazonDr. Johnson's Pogroms ArticleThe Unmentionable Genocide: New Khazaria, the Russian Revolutions and Soviet Legality in the 1920s by Dr. Matthew Raphael JohnsonWith Friends Like These. . . Patriarch St. Tikhon, General Anton Denikin and the Defeat of the White Armies, 1917-1922 by Dr. Matthew Raphael JohnsonThe Orthodox Nationalist: Karl Marx “On the Jewish Question” (1844)Pete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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And if you do that, you will get access to the audio file. So head on over to the Picanuos show.com. You'll see all the ways that you can support me there. And I just want to thank everyone. It's because of you that I can put out the amount of material that I do. I can do what I'm doing with Dr. Johnson on 200 years together and everything else. The things that Thomas and I are doing together on continental philosophy, it's all because of you.

And, yeah, I mean, I'll never be able to thank you enough. So thank you. The Pekignano Show.com. Everything's there. I want to welcome everyone back to our reading of Alexander Solzhenycin's 200 years together. This is episode 88, Dr. Johnson. Dr. Johnson, how are you doing today? Actually, I'm doing exceptionally well.

I'm kind of back to normal. We were talking about Burma, which is where Johnson's law came from when I was studying it for the very first paper I ever wrote when I was at the Barnes Review many years ago. And now it's kind of back in the news again. So I have a new paper coming out entitled, Will Someone Just Shoot, Aung Suu Kyi already. So, you know, it's just I'm sick of her. and she causes so much trouble for that country and it's a you know a national socialist government they years ago they called themselves that um military government uh the slork government i have their

flag somewhere uh believe it or not it looks like Taiwan but it's not um and um she is such a puppet and now the civil war is raging and god will someone just just just knock her off my lord that's that's the subtitle is a good thing the burmese don't have an apache here or else you might be in a lot of trouble yeah yeah um that's yeah that's definitely going to be this i you know she's just yeah and it shows you it's the military government so evil why haven't they just uh dumped her by now but um she's not even a burmese citizen hmm all right let's move on episode 88 incredible that we got here. Indeed. However, American Zionists subjected to the OZET plan and saw in the, quote,

propaganda for the project of widespread Jewish agricultural colonization in the Soviet Union, a challenge to Zionism and its idea for the settlement of Eretz Israel, end quote. Ozette falsely claimed its plans did not contradict at all the idea of colonization of Palestine. I think, I haven't, I haven't checked this. out since we did it last time. I think you're talking about the colonization of Crimea. And we discussed this whole thing. They didn't call it that, but essentially the new Khazaria project in its earlier manifestations. Great hope was placed on Crimea. There we go. There were 455,000 hectares given over to Jewish colonization in Ukraine and Belarusia, 697,000 hectares set aside in

Crimea for that purpose. According to the 10-year plan for the settlement of Jews in Crimea, the Jewish proportion of the population was to grow from 8% in 1929 to 25% in 1939. It was assumed that the Jews would substantially outnumber the Tataris by that time. Quote, there shall be no obstacles to the creation of the Crimean-A-S-S-R, a northern Crimean Autonomous Jewish Republic or Oblast. end quote. So 700,000 hectares, which I just discovered, not that long ago, was actually a metric system term. I could have sworn it was imperial. That's, that's, you know, so you multiply roughly by three. That's how many acres. Well, where did that land come from? Crimea is not very big. Peasants were just thrown out of it. God knows what they did. As we know, that's not really a big problem. I've already discussed, and I have paper after paper out on the new Khazaria idea, which concerns, you know, much of, you know, southern Ukraine and Crimea that has nothing in common with the rest of Ukraine.

And Putin's invasion, thank God, the Almighty, the Lord of hosts, that had put the kibosh on that permanently, I think. The settlement of the Jews in the Crimea provoke the hostility of Tatar's. are they giving Crimea to the Jews and dissatisfaction of local landless peasants laran writes quote evil and false rumors are circulated throughout the country about removal of land from non-Jews the expulsion of non-Jews and the particularly strong support the authorities have given to Jewish settlers end quote it went so far that the chairman of the CIC of the Crimean ASSR Vely Ibrahimov published an interview in the Simferopol paper Red Crimea, September 26, 1926, which Lauren does not quote from, but which he claims was a manifestation of evil bourgeois chauvinism

and a call for a pogrom. Well, the land came from somewhere, and it's exactly what they did. They threw out, God knows how many peasants. and when people complained I mean there were plenty of Russians there too Russians and Tartars Tartars were known for their tremendous loyalty to Russia

not in the Middle Ages but as time went on and they still are they voted massively to join Russia a few years ago and then when someone complains about it it's a call for a pogrom and I have the feeling it was actually registered

as a pogrom that to complain about Jewish, and again, it's more admission that this is a Jewish movement, that to complain about Jewish colonization, and hence the removal of Russian and tartar farmers, who God knows how long they've been there, is itself bourgeois chauvinism, which is another word they use for nationalism. And not even that, a call for a pogrom. Now, prior to the war, Russo-Ukrainian War, There was a Mossad finance movement to settle, and now, you know, they're going to the UAE, since Crimea is out of the question, to settle a bunch of Jews there.

And it didn't go very far. There weren't that many, but they took over. They created their own, you know, sections. but it didn't go, you know, the war interrupted at all. So, and of course, the referendum, which they were opposed to. So this has been going on for a long time. And it shows you that even with a Jewish party or a heavily Jewish party, they still didn't see the USSR as their country.

It had to be purely Jewish. But this is, you think we'd be used to this by now? the absurd reactions they have to things they throw people off the land they settle these Jews who don't know what a farm looks like who have never held a hole or a scythe in their entire lives of course they were going to be hiring a surf labor no doubt if that ever went through

and if you know any any you know this is not a good idea is bourgeois chauvinism and a call for a program and in fact, an anti-Semitic act. You would figure we'd be used to that, but I'm not. Ibrahimov also promulgated a resolution in projects, which were, quote, not yet ready for publication, also not quoted by Laren. For this, Laren denounced Ibrahimov to the Central Control Commission of CK of VKPB,

recounting the incident with pride in his book. As a result, Ibrahimov was removed and then shot, after which to, Jewish colonization of Crimea gained strength. As was typical for the communist regime, the closed trial of Abramov resulted in a political conviction for connections with a Kuulak bandit gang, officially for banditry. A certain Mustafa, the assistance of the chair of the CIC, was also shot with Ibrahimov as a bandit. Now, I want to take this opportunity to point out that this was on.

under, this was under Lenin, maybe the very end of his life, but this was under Lenin. Stalin did not create this stuff. All of this nonsense, all this shooting for no reason, on behalf of the Jews, no less, Stalin simply was able to perfect it because he had far more resources at his, had his disposal. This sort of thing was done. long before Stalin, and I say this only because it's a very common theme, especially for academics, saying that that Stalin ruined the socialist experiment. It would have been wonderful, but Stalin, that royalist Russian nationalist and all this other nonsense was such a tyrant. That's kind of the official concept right now. But this and a trillion other things that we've discussed show that this, exact same kind of thing was done under Lennon and Trotsky. Rumors of the effective assistance given to the Jewish settlers did not die down. The authorities tried to counter them.

A government newspaper 1927 wrote, The generous assistance to Jewish settlers is coming from Jewish community organizations without mentioning they were Western organizations and not from the government, as is rumored. To refute the rumors, Schlichter, the young brawler from Kiev's Duma in October, in 1905, now Narcom of agriculture in Ukraine, toured over the south of Ukraine. Rumors that the Jews were not working the land given to them, but were renting it out or hiring farm laborers, were met with, quote, we haven't observed this behavior, but the Jewish settlers must be forbidden to rent out their land, and the unhealthy atmosphere surrounding

the Jewish resettlement must be countered with the widest possible education campaign. Yeah, education and huge quotes. No, this is not the first time we've come across this. In the Tsarist era, we came across many times where Jews were settled voluntarily in a certain agricultural area, given excellent land that actual farmers would have would have liked. And of course, either they speculated on the land, they borrowed money based on it. They certainly took all the government subsidies that this evil Tsarish regime was was handing out or they were hiring um what amounted to be serfs now i don't care what schlichter says they're not renting it out they're simply using surf labor because the people who

and they probably were people who had been on the land already that now were removed and had nowhere to go unless they were sent somewhere else or whatever but um because if you remember in the in the czarist era there was a program that the evil czarist government created where peasants would be used to teach the jews how to how to work the land how even what land is so far into them and they turned out to be served labor or worse and this is this is really no different than that they're not renting it out um they don't have um individual title to it So technically he's correct. They're not renting it now, but they're simply using locals to do the work.

And because this kind of work, or really any kind of work with their hands, it's just out of the question. It's beneath them, even in what they thought was going to be a purely Jewish piece of the Soviet Empire. The article allows one to judge about the scale of events. It states a 630 Jewish households moved into Kersan province, between the end of 1925 and July of 1927. In 1927, there were 48 Jewish agricultural settlements in Ukraine, with a total population of 35,000. In Crimea, 4,463 Jews lived in Jewish agricultural settlements in 1926.

Other sources implausibly claim that by 1928, 220,000 Jews lived in Jewish agricultural colonies. Similarly, Lauren mentioned 200,000 by the end of 1929. where does the order of magnitude discrepancy come from laran here contradicts himself saying that in nineteen twenty nine the share of jews and agriculture was negligible less than point two percent and almost 20 percent among merchants and two percent in population in general well keep in mind london was dead at this point um between 25 27 uh he had this horrible death he thought he was being electrocuted and you know demons were coming to get him but um yeah they may have lived in agricultural colonies, but leadership at the top was, I don't want to say chaotic,

but there was no one person quite yet in charge, and they took advantage of this. But Laren is trying to defend this idea, but he's also trying to be semi-honest about it, so that's why he contradicts himself. Now, I notice this all the time, you know, when I was a young man and I started reading about Russian history, these big survey history books that, certainly, things just didn't add up in their descriptions. They couldn't be correct. And it's the same thing here.

They try to be somewhat honest, but they also have an agenda. So what they did is what they did in the Zoroast era. They speculated on it. They used slave labor, surf labor, whatever it was. They use it for God anything,

but working on it. and you know and you could see why Zionists didn't like the idea now today you have the whole the new new Khazaria idea which is now gone from Kolomoisky was that the promised land truly is Krami in southern Ukraine which is why he built that massive menorah foundation in the big big synagogue and everything this massive multi-billion dollar thing not in Crimea but very close to it It was the same kind of idea. But the promised land was going to be actual Khazardia, or at least a piece of it. You know, Khazars didn't really work either. I mean, the Jewish elite didn't work. They charged tolls on, you know, that was the same kind of thing. They were known for their brutality.

It was a slave system. And, you know, who could have predicted this? Now, the actual number we probably will never know, maybe it's around 4,000, I don't know. But clearly, this is not working out, just like in the czarist. It's not going to work out then. It's not going to work out now. And thanks to Putin, it didn't work out when Kudomoyski was in charge of Ukraine. Mayakovsky saw it differently.

Quote, a hard toiling Jew tills the rocky land, end quote. However, the program of Jewish land colonel. for all practical purposes was a failure. Really? Wow. I'm shocked. I get to leave the room. For many of the settlers, there was little motivation to stay.

It didn't help that the resettlement and the building project had come from on high, and the money was from Western organizations. A lot of government assistance for Jewish settlers didn't help. It was little known that tractors for neighboring collective farms were ordered to till Jewish land. despite the flow of 2 to 3,000 resettling Jewish families by the end of the five-year work Jewish settlements in Crimea listed only around 5,000 families

instead of the pre-planned 10 to 15,000. That's still a lot. The reason was as settlers frequently returned to their place of origin and moved to the cities of Crimea and other parts of the country. The mass departure of Jews from agriculture in the 1920s and 30s resemble similar

Jewish withdrawal from agricultural colonies in the 19th century, albeit now there were many new occupations available in industry and an administration, a prohibited field for Jews and Tsarist Russia. Yeah, well, administration, not anything, not normal trades. You know, we've been through that. We've been through that already. Yeah, of course, he's going to make that connection. He talked about it at length. But I guess the party must have, I mean, the party is, is heavily Jewish anyway. They must have thought that non-elite Jews, knowing that their people were, in essence, running the country, especially now that Lenin had died, would see it as their country and hence till the land, like they did, or sort of, kind of what they did in Israel with the kibbutzim.

But even that didn't work. You know, they, you know, it's just, They think they could change people, which, by the way, is the Marxist idea, a Marxist idea that the human nature is completely malleable, coming from Rousseau and many others. But, you know, when it comes to this kind of thing, it clearly isn't. They're not used to it. They don't like it. And for centuries, they look down on it.

They're not going to now start doing it. You know, there were too many Russians and tartars around anyway, even in their own party. Eventually, collectivization arrived. Suddenly, in 1930, Semyon Demonstein, for many years the head of the Jewish section of CK and VKPB, a staunch communist who bravely put up with all Soviet programs in the 20s, came out in the press against universal collectivization in national regions. He was attempting to protect the Jewish colony from collectivization, which he had been warned about. However, collectivization came, not sparing the fresh shoots of Jewish land stewardship.

At almost the same time, the Jewish and non-Jewish Kolkazzois were combined under the banner of internationalism, and the program of Jewish settlement of Ukraine and Crimea was finally halted. I'm noticing in the next paragraph that they're talking about Bitabizdan, and that surprises me because that, you know, there came a little bit later. I wasn't expecting it. I have a lengthy paper out on it, which I can also send to you. But now we're just starting the era of collectivization. This is where the millions were slaughtered. Russian peasants, not necessarily in Siberia, not in, well, actually in Siberia, too, not in Ukraine, though, had their communes going back to the, practically the beginning of time.

And, but these were not that. These were just random people thrown together, usually in large numbers, and given, you know, targets and they didn't know each other. There was no, it's a collective, not a community. There's a big difference between a collective and a community. A community is organic. A collective is not. And Jews were heavily in charge of this. And again, having no clue, you know, what goes into farming or, you know, what goes into farming or,

what you do. And it was forced. Peasants resisted, more warfare, more uprisings, and more famine. So, now I think we'll get into that a bit later, I think, with when Stalin is firmly in power. But the beginnings of collectivization were talked about under Lenin. I want to make that very clear. and but collectivization was so radical it was it wasn't so much halted but it was just simply forgotten about the principal Soviet project of Jewish colonization at bureau bids on a territory nearly the size of Switzerland between the two branches of the Amur River near the Chinese border it had been variously it had been described variously in 1956 Khrushchev bragged in conversations with Canadian communists that the soil was rich the climate was southern

Southern. There was much sun and water and rivers filled with fish in vast forests. The socialist Vesnik described it as covered with wild taiga, swamp land made up a significant portion of the territory. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, a plain with swamps and places, but a fertile land along the Amur. Now, I don't know how in depth you're going to get into this. I, you know, I always wondered, and a lot of people do, why all the way out there in the middle of, you can't get any more obscure than the area, a bit of Beeston, just on the Chinese border. Why in heaven's name would that be the place? And I discovered the reason, and I am the very first person to discover the reason.

And I discovered in both American and in Russian journals dealing with mining, very obscure, one is from the, from the 40s, that the prediction was there was a huge amount of gold here. No one gave a dam about the soil being rich or anything else. And the Chinese could get their hands on it or we can get our hands on it. Well, who knows more about gold than Jews? Now, God knows they weren't going to be the miners. But that's why Bilibir's Don was chosen. It failed because it wasn't. Both Soviet and American expeditions were wrong.

Now, there is a small mine there. It's owned by a Chinese company. I think it's still an action. And there's still a small. There's a handful of Jews out there. It never, the Jewish population never was more than, what, 10% of the population anyway. You had all kinds, you had Asians out there, and so they were in their glory because it was no Russians, but, or very few Russians. But that's the, that's the reason.

That's the reason why it was done. And it was just such a bizarre, a bizarre thing. And it was such a difficult thing to do. I mean, why? Why? And you're talking to the guy who discovered why, because I've searched in every language, and no one else had mentioned this, that mining expeditions said that this was going to be the, it's like the gold rush in California, 1848.

This was going to be the incredibly wealthy area. It still didn't. It was such a bizarre place that it still still. you know but had it had actually been this explosive they maybe would have succeeded a little bit now it is a beautiful part of the world the wildlife out there they're not used to any of this none of us are but that was the initial impetus later on when it was actually became policy it was a Stalinist idea and it was supposed to be a Jewish outpost but

why there, and that's the reason why. And it turned out to be completely false, which is at least part of the reason why it failed. So you hear it here. You're talking to the guy who discovered it. The project came about in 1927 from the Comset, a committee of the CIC, and was intended to, quote, turn a significant part of the Jewish population into a settled agricultural people in one location, from Kalinin. Also, the Jewish Autonomous Republic was to serve as a counterweight to Zionism, creating a national homeland with at least half a million population. One possible motive behind the plan, which cannot be excluded, to wedge a loyal Soviet population into the hostile Cossack frontier. OZet sent a scientific expedition to Birobidzin in 1927 and,

before large settlements of Jews began arriving, in 1928 started preparations and building for settlement using laborers from the local populace and wandering work crews of Chinese and Koreans. Well, that's going to make them real popular out there. Yeah, it just was, there's still actually there's a synagogue out there that still functions. I don't know the exact number of Jews. I know there's been every once in a while I come across an article on them, the handful that are left. But I'm not, you know, saying that they're having this loyal population in Chinese, but that is relevant. That's not the main reason, but it is an important reason. A lot of people have speculated. Very good scholars have speculated. But the main reason is, as I've explained it,

because in and of itself, I mean, of all places, and even if there was this huge mind, I can't imagine it working, you know, they had to go out there and somehow hack their way to a to a civilization in very difficult terrain technically would be i guess would be southern siberia so the whole thing is that's why i dig i just began digging uh no pun intended until until i found something because the whole thing doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me older residents of the area trans bikal cossacks exiled there between the 1860s and the 1880s and already tested by the hardship of the frontier woods remember being concerned about the Jewish settlement.

The Cossacks needed vast tracts of land for their farming methods and feared they would be crowded out of lands they used for hunting and hay harvesting. The Comzat Commission report was a preliminary plan for the possible gradual resettlement of 35,000 families.

But reality was different. The C.I.K. of VKPB in 1928 assigned Bidobizan for Jewish colonization in preparation of first settler trains began immediately, quote, for the first time ever, city dwellers from Ukraine and Belarusia, without any preparation for agricultural labor, were sent to farm the land. They were lured by the prospect of having the status of Lishinets removed.

Can you imagine just being thrown out there? I mean, of course, everything was free. You know, Zard Nicholas II, others had the same idea with Siberia, Russians who wanted to move out there. everything was free. Certain parts land is wonderful. You know, the wildlife can be brutal. But I don't think the Cossacks had to worry too much. Although calling them Cossacks as iffy, Cossacks didn't normally farm.

These were much later Zaris designated, probably from the Urales, I guess. There were a few of these. They weren't Cossacks in the sense that I would never call them that. for many reasons. They were actually created by the state, the Tsarist state, that is. And, but they certainly aren't farmers either. They're, you know, they're, they're, they're raiders. They're like orthodox bikers, I've said many times before.

But I don't think, you know, they had to wait. So, I guess if, at very, at the very best, given what they knew at the time, these Jews would use Chinese, Korean there's a whole bunch of other ethnicities that no one it's ever heard of before out there as surf labor at best to create some kind of a life

the mining issue of course is the dominant one they certainly weren't going to be out going out there with picks but again even they're getting equipment out there was going to be a very very difficult thing and so no preparation. Can you imagine? They're Jews. So, yeah, the whole thing was very absurd. And this is, I guess it's some of the reason why Stalin was considered anti-Semitic, even though this was a Jewish concept. Oh, and by the way, the Budubist on flag is the rainbow. Just figured I throw that in there. Except it's horizontal, not curved. The Kamsamal published the monthly OZet and pioneer delegations traveled around the country collecting for the Biodobizan re-settlement. The hastily dispatched Jewish families were horrified by the conditions they met upon arrival.

They moved into barracks at the Tikuncaya Railroad Station in the future town of Biodo Bidzon. Among the inhabitants were some who never left the barracks for the land, living off the loans and credit they, managed to obtain for making the move, others less nimble lived in abject poverty. During the first year of work in Berto Bidzon, only 25 huts were built, only 125 hectares were plowed and none were planted. Many did not remain in Bidon. 1,000 workers arrived in the spring of 1928, and by July, 25% of all those who arrived in 1928 had left. By February, 1929, more than half of the population had abandoned Bidobizan. From 1928 to 1935, more than 18,000 arrived, yet the Jewish population grew only by 6,000. By some calculations, only 14% of those Jews

who resettled remained in 1929. They returned either to their homes or moved to Kavrovsk or Vladivostok. So, I wrote this a long time ago. I wrote that the resources that were sent along with them, there were few, but they were substantial. They were sent with enough timber, graphite, copper iron. Everyone thought, legitimately, it had tremendous potential. At the time, China was in such a state of disrepair. And, you know, economically speaking, they weren't going to do much about it,

especially in the distance, very sparsely populated far north. the the you know as I said the official propaganda didn't make a whole lot of sense you know of all places the far east the border of China this Jewish Renaissance Yiddish never Hebrew Yiddish Renaissance was supposed to take place I mean there was also a sense if it grew large enough security buffer against China although I don't know how a tiny handful of Jews would act as a buffer against anyone but it was the official position of the Soviet government at the time. Actually, the mining issue goes back to the late 19th century. American mining firms were exploring the Far East for gold, and several American firms, it should report in 1905 that stated that that precise area, there's a huge gold vein that when cultivated would make whoever owned it extremely powerful. several reports were submitted to Moscow in the 1920s

the lowest estimate was 8 million tons that was the reason that was the main reason there were not only a trip wire for any action against the gold mines they could act almost as a international alarm system for Jews internationally if anything ever happened to them Charles Janine was the point man

of the American mining interest of the USSR and even the Tsar's empire before that He was also in contact this same man with Meyer Rothschild, who was somewhat connected with this idea. Let me read from someone else here. In June of 1918, the British firm Hooper Speaking Company, acting for Orsk Goldfields, requested the war trade board in Washington permit them to export dredge parts from the U.S. to Siberia. The situation outlined by the firm was typical of several on which Zennian was involved. The company operated two dredges in Colchon, each of Siberia, with G.S. Dyer of Oakland, California, in charge.

Both dredges were of American manufacture, one made in Yuba, California. The district was free of German influence and remote from Bolshevik armies. The dredge parts in question would be shipped from San Francisco to Kobe Japan, then to a lot of Ostokk, and then there. And then Charles Janine from San Francisco would handle all the arrangements. I had forgotten entirely that Rothschild was. a part of this to some extent. Now, it's also true that Chinese miners were expelled from the area.

So, you know, now when if they didn't realize, you know, Japan conquered the area. Any action from Japan or national, China would create this international outcry that would mobilize governments the world over if anything happened to the Jews there. It was pretty diabolical. But the companies at different times were

Booker's company in Milwaukee, the American Goldfields development company, Orsk Goldfield, Colchann, Gold Dredging Company, Lenny Goldfields, we've talked about already, Tihui Mining Company, the Iron Corporation and Karga Goldfield. Now, most of these, of course, were foreign, and some of them made the statement to the American government and elsewhere that the Russians, quote unquote, will become big players and gold production and in fact even dominate the field. That is why they chose this speck of southern Siberia to be the Jewish state.

Now, I found something from January 6, 1912. I won't quote it, but essentially saying this is going to be incredible. Hundreds of millions of tons of gold, they're saying this was the elite, as I listed, the elite of the mining world. By the way, this is the same mining companies that helped the Soviet Union build their own mining, not just out there, but in more populated parts of the empire. But once they got everything out there, they found very little gold.

I mean, they found a little gold, but not in large amounts. This was estimated by, again, that elite group, those were the top mining firms in the world. but even by 1939, 25% lived outside of cities. They simply refused to work the land, and we all know, we all know that. They use local mining experts, but Soviet Union had gotten rid of its, you know, its best miners and technicians, you know, the brain drain from the, from the Civil War and afterwards, they needed to bring the West in. So mining is just one of many areas where Western Capital helped create the USSR. this case it failed um so um but ultimately its foundation was 1934 on under stalling um so you know in terms of numbers it was a total total total disaster the so we're going to pay for everything

land transportation farming implements all that were free i said the same thing you know zarniglas you know but I think there were a tiny handful of Jews that that had surf labor farming the land out there they simply didn't know how there were 18,000 Jews a few years later in the reason at this point and then half of those are leaving and of course as we all know but preparations were terrible the housing stock was even worse than the Soviet norm transportation was spotty at best In 1941, there were 100,000 people in the autonomous area. Jews made up no more than 16% of that figure. And that was the peak.

That was the highest point of their Jewish presence in that area. So of 100,000 people, 16% was our highest. In 1959, it was 9%. 1970, it was 7%. By the fall of the Soviet Union, there were about 9,000 Jews in the area of a bit of Bizdon Argentina, Lithuania, the U.S., they were the biggest foreign donors to help build socialism in the far east

at the time it wasn't such an obscure issue and every Jew knew about it, every Jew was debating its merits at the time. You know, they wanted to make the place seem like paradise in their propaganda. But even there, there were a few takers. Soviet propagandists had to figure out a way of communicating the idea that this would be a promised land once the gold mines get going and Soviet jewelry could dictate the price of gold

to the world. Now, yeah, 1926 was the first to express the formal proposal for a bureau based on a project, but also said that outside of the mining, the land was unsuitable for most people. And it just goes to show, whether it be Crimea or Bidivistan, even though Jews dominated the party in many ways, they still, it wasn't enough for them. They still needed their own totally racially pure center. You know, what is the big promoter, Lazare Kaganovich, the man who slaughtered, God knows how many, the man who dominated the purges, one of the most prolific genocidal maniacs in history. you know Stalin was no

were not anti-Jewish by any means he was a big promoter of the idea so you know and that's you know I could keep going on I don't want to

you know take up too much time but I wanted to bring up my paper and talk about it because it is such a bizarre experiment that failed miserably

but that is the reason And I am the very first, I'll repeat myself here, I am the very first to discover the real cause to the point where all those mining companies, and I mentioned, you know, they went so far as to say, whoever's in this area, they're going to be able to dictate the world, that there's so much gold here, whoever controls it can dictate the world's gold price. kind of like how the beers dictates the diamond price in southern Africa. Lauren, who devotes no small number of reasoned and impassioned pages to the building of Jewish agriculture, sniffs that an unhealthy fuss had been raised about Bidobizan, a utopian settlement of a million Jews. Resettlement was practically presented as a national obligation of Soviet Jews. Zionism turned inside out, a kind of back-to-the-provence movement. while international Jewish organizations provided no finances for a bid of bids on, from the beginning, considering it too expensive and risky for them.

More likely, the Western Jewish organizations, agrojoint O.R.T. and E.K.O. could not support the distant project beyond the Ural's. It wasn't a Jewish plan, but a scheme of Soviet authorities eager to tear down and build life anew in the country. to the extent that it ever reached your typical Jew in Kiev or Gomel, whatever, it was popular because it was a place to escape if the Soviet Union turned on them, or if it was overthrown. No, it's not its main purpose. The so-called religious elements, the synagogue system, they were perfectly fine there. There were synagogues everywhere at their peak.

they were not penalized for observing the Sabbath or feast days, anything else. I've seen police reports of rabbis performing all the services, even out in public on holy days. Nothing's ever done. The Soviet was atheistic for everyone but them. But of course, Judaism is perfectly consistent with atheism. Now, we already talked about this irrational anti-Semitism within the party. And that's another reason that being so far away,

might be a nice nice place to escape because Crimea was too was too close so there was a after after 1945 there was a small boom of immigration roughly I don't know 40% of the Soviet economy was destroyed mostly by Stalin himself so escaping European Russia was not the worst idea in the world so if an anti-gebras Jewish government could invade the USSR, living near the borders might not be such a great idea. You know, and it was, you know, this was, and what they created, the propaganda, I've seen some of it. You know, this is the paradise. This is maybe where the Messiah may come. You know, but remember, there was 100% freedom of movement for Jews in the USSR, the only group that had this privilege.

their internal passports throughout the Soviet era allowed them to go wherever they please so there is no way no way that anyone would consider Stalin to be anti-Jewish he was a part of this however the key issue was that Yiddish was the Jewish language never Hebrew and this is why Hebrew began to die out if it wasn't for the the establishment of Israel largely by Soviet pressure in 1948, that language may well have died out. Let me see. This next section on the Yvesek is only about a page long. You want to knock it out?

Or do you want to wait for the next episode? Well, we've been going. How long have you been going now? 45 minutes. Okay. All right. From the October revolution to the end of the 20s, the lives of ordinary Jews were affected by the actions of Yevsecs, members of the Yevsec, the Jewish section of the CK of VKPB. Besides the Jewish commissariat, an active Jewish organization grew up in the VKPB, as well from 1918, local organizations were formed in the Gubernayas. They created an environment fanatically inspired with the idea and ideas of communism, even more so. than was Soviet authority itself, and at times, these organizations even oppose Soviet projects. For example, at the insistence of the Yevsec, the Jewish commissariat decreed Hebrew to be a language of

reaction and counter-revolution in early 1919, requiring Jewish schools to teach in Yiddish. The Central Bureau of the Yevsek was part of the CK of VKPB, and local Yevsecs operated in the former Palis settlement. quote, the purpose of the YevSex was communist education and Sovietization of the Jewish population in their native language of Yiddish. You know, I don't read ahead. I don't know what's coming. This is all off the top of my head. But it's incredible how many times the next paragraph has what I just said. But Hebrew, because of the Old Testament, all this stuff, even though it had been modernized, yeah, it was supposed to die out.

Yiddish was a revolutionary language, Hebrew, the reactionary one. From 1924 to 1928, responsibility for all Jewish education and culture was under the Jewish bureaus of the Republic-level administrative bodies, but these were abolished for excesses and forced Yiddishization and more power accrued to the Yvesic. The activities of the Yves'cs in the 20s were contradictory. Quote, on one hand, they carried out active action. project prop work in communist education and Yiddish and mercilessly battled against Judaism, traditional Jewish education, Jewish social structures, independent Jewish organizations,

political parties and movements, Zionism, and Hebrew. On the other hand, it opposed assimilation with its support of the Yiddish language and a Yiddish culture and organizations of Jewish education, Jewish scientific research, and activity to improve the economic status of Soviet Jews. In this, The Yevsek often held a more radical position than even the central party bodies. Now, I know we all know this, but everyone listening or reading has to keep in mind that at this point was the height of the slaughter of Orthodox clergy and the burning down and destroying of churches. Tens of thousands of clergy were sent to the camps and died in forced labor, especially, way up north here's the here's you know this stuff is being subsidized and yet the orthodox are being slaughtered um and as i said the religion so-called religion was not was not

banned um uh yeah sometimes they didn't like it but it certainly was consistent with um uh sovietian ideas and so they kind of left it alone. It was some of the more radical Jews themselves, as we read here, that fought it. But it continued to have full freedom, and God knows how many rubles they got in subsidies while Orthodox churches and monasteries were burning all over the empire. The anti-Zionist Yevsec was made up to a large degree of former Bundist and socialist territorialists who were thought of as traitors or neophyte communists in VKPB. The purpose of the YevSSEC was to develop communist influence on Russian Jewry

and to create a Jewish Soviet nation isolated from world Jewry. But at the same time, its actions paradoxically turned it from a technical apparatus urging the Jewish population to build socialism into a focal point for Jewish life in the USSR. A split arose in the YevSek between supporters of forced assimilation and those who thought it works was a, its works, its work was a necessary means of preservation of the Jewish people. Does any of that make sense? How, to develop communist influence on Russian Jewelry?

Well, you know, we've been over this already. This is ridiculous. And they were not isolated. Preaching to the choir. Yeah, what are they talking about here? And how in the hell would Yiddish mean assimilation? Doesn't sound like Russian or Ukrainian to me. And then at the same time, then they say,

this is a necessary means of the preservation of the Jewish people. Well, the Soviets never said that about anybody else. This is just absolutely bizarre. Yeah, it's true. So many of the Soviet Union, especially in the era of decolonization once the state of Israel turned on them they got a much better meaning

Soviet Union was still practically burning and after World War II in the U.S., who's going to make them a better deal? So Zionism, as time went on, became more and more attractive but to create a Jewish-Soviet nation I don't know if that's propaganda for the outside world?

I mean, this was a huge, hugely Jewish project. Now, of course, we can't say entirely so. Jews were a massive part of this. You can't separate the two. So I don't know what these people are talking about. The only thing I could see is that once the Zionist idea began to build, it was still post-Balfour Declaration, there was still a movement.

to go to the Middle East, clearly after World War II, you know, things changed. And the Soviet Union was pretty much consistent, consistently anti-Zionists, except for that period of time after World War II for the, under the Stalinists, under Stalin. I don't think, I don't think he thought they would lose so many people that it was going to be a very small project, but, you know, urging the Jewish population to build socialism into a focal point for Jewish life in the USSR. But, you know, this, you know, I could see this. I'm wondering, what year is this? This is almost, I'm thinking this was almost a, a propaganda operation for Westerners. Oh, Jews must not control the USSR if this is what they're doing. You know,

That's the most sense I could make out of this garbage. The book of Russian Jewry observes with sympathy that the activity of the Yevsec still carried a clear and expressly Jewish stamp under the banner of the proletariat. For instance, in 1926, using the slogan to the countryside, the Yevsec came up with to the Stettel. This activity resonated widely in Jewish circles in Poland and in the U.S. the author further calls it a many-faceted Jewish nationalism and communist form. That's in quotes. But in 1926, the CP halted the activity of the Yevsec and turned it into the Jewish Bureau. In 1930, the Jewish Bureau was closed along with all national sections of the VKPB.

After that, the activity of the Yevsecs continued under the banner of communism. Quote, Russian Jewry lost all forms of self-expression, including communistic forms. Oh, boy. The end of the Yevsec symbolized the final dissolution of the Bund movement to allow a separate nationalistic existence even if it went against strict social democratic theory. However, after the Yevsec was abolished, many of the former Yevsecs and Jewish socialists did not come to their senses and put the building of socialism higher than the good of their own people or any other good, staying to serve the party government apparatus.

And that overflowing service was evident more than anything. whether statistically or using a wealth of singular examples it is obvious that Jews pervaded the Soviet power structure in those years and all this happened in the state that persecuted freedom of speech freedom of commerce and religion not to mention it's denigration of human worth and and the church the the traditional church of the of the uh Russian Ukrainian peoples. And any church, wherever they went, Judaism, in this sense, anyway, was, what, Russian Jewelry lost all forms of self-expression. This was their self-expression. They were not harmed in any way. It was only when Jews separated from the Soviet Union, like say in the

or late, very late 60s or early 70s, did the USSR really start, you know, wondering that maybe, maybe, you know, Zionism is a, it really is a bad idea and Jews aren't our friends. And it fell shortly after that, although Endropov, head of the KGB was a Jew. It's not exactly a Jewish name, but he is, was. this is just

you know I think what they were looking for is some place where Jews can be 100% of the population anything else was a pogrom to them

the people who abolish the sex were Jews you know all Yiddish speakers It didn't just abolish itself. It said, you know, Stalin was surrounded by Jews, and we'll get into this later in the book, which this is probably one of the best sections. We get into the Stalinist era that the man was surrounded by Jews, his daughters married Jews,

and Jews thrived and prospered throughout the Stalinist, R-R-R-up to 1953. It was a far better time for them than much later when they simply left and then took over the country again in 1991. So this is really, it's contradictory, it's confusing, and Jews are receiving tons of money and subsidies. It's all these people talked about half the time. and what was going on with with the orthodox a handful of Catholic churches too especially because they had a foreign head you know we're being burned to the ground this is and and they think that a pogrom is when is when they can't have a racially pure

area this is this is the mentality here in early early 30s USSR Jews Soviet Jews All right We'll pick up right from this break On the next episode I encourage everybody to go over to the show notes And go over to the descriptions in the videos And donates his doctor Johnson's work

It looks like he's finishing up one book And I think he's working on four or five others at the same time I don't even know I couldn't tell you That's hardly an exaggeration either it's not so so please go donate to dr johnson's work and um we'll be back in a couple days with uh part 89 thank you dr johnson talk to you soon my friend I don't know.