Two Hundred Years Together

Two Hundred Years Together

Author	Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Translator	not translated (English)
Language	Russian
Publication date	2002
Publication place	Russia
ISBN	ISBN 978-5969703728

"Two hundred years together" is a 2-volume historical essay by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Solzhenitsyn published this two-volume work on the history of Russian-Jewish relations in 2001 and 2002. The book stirred controversy and is viewed by many historians as unreliable in both factual data and ideological approach, and antisemitic . The book was published in French and German in 2002-2003, but there is no English translation to date (2009).

Summary

In it, Solzhenitsyn emphatically denies that Jews were responsible for the revolutions of 1905 and 1917. At the end of chapter nine, Solzhenitsyn denounces "the superstitious faith in the historical potency of conspiracies" that leads some to blame the Russian revolutions on the Jews and to ignore the "Russian failings that determined our sad historical decline."

Solzhenitsyn criticizes the "scandalous" weakness and "unpardonable inaction" that prevented the Russian imperial state from adequately protecting the lives and property of its Jewish subjects. But he claims that the pogroms were in almost every case organized from "below" and not by the Russian state authorities. He criticizes the "vexing," "scandalous", and "distressing" restrictions on the civil liberties of Jewish subjects during the final decades of the Russian old regime. On that score, in chapter ten of the work he expresses his admiration for the efforts of Pyotr Stolypin (Prime Minister of Russia from 1906 until 1911) to eliminate all legal disabilities against Jews in Russia.

In the spirit of his classic 1974 essay "Repentance and Self-Limitation in the Life of Nations", Solzhenitsyn calls for the Russians and Russian Jews alike to take responsibility for the "renegades" in both communities who supported a totalitarian and terrorist regime after 1917. At the end of chapter 15, he writes that Jews must answer for the "revolutionary cutthroats" in their ranks just as Russians must repent "for the pogroms, for...merciless arsonist peasants, for...crazed revolutionary soldiers." It is not, he adds, a matter of answering "before other peoples, but to oneself, to one's consciousness, and before God."

Solzhenitsyn also takes the anti-Communist White movement to task for condoning violence against Jews and thus undermining "what would have been the chief benefit of a White victory" in the Russian Civil War: "a reasonable evolution of the Russian state."

While some have criticized Solzhenitsyn for highlighting Jewish involvement in the Bolshevik regime, especially in its early period, few commentators have noticed his praise of Russian Jews for their disproportionate involvement in the "dissident" movement of the 1960s and 70s. As Solzhenitsyn notes, the activity of Jewish dissidents played a major and salutary role in undermining the legitimacy of Soviet communism.

Reception

The reception of Two Hundred Years Together has been quite varied. A distinguished historian Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern of Northwestern University have published a refutation of Solzhenitsyn's claims and has bluntly accused him of anti-Semitism. On the other hand, distinguished historians such as Geoffrey Hosking and Robert Service have defended Solzhenitsyn against his detractors. Service has argued (before he actually read the book in question) that Solzhenitsyn is "absolutely right" that Jews were disproportionately represented in the early Soviet bureaucracy. Service also notes that Solzhenitsyn is very far from the anti-Semitism of the extreme Russian Right and addresses this issue in a moderate and responsible manner. In a review of volume 1 of Two Hundred Years Together that appeared in The New Republic Harvard historian Richard Pipes, a longtime critic of Solzhenitsyn, argues that the book exonerates Solzhenitsyn from any suspicion of anti-Semitism. Two Hundred Years Together has yet to appear in English although significant excerpts from the work can be found in The Solzhenitsyn Reader: New and Essential Writings: 1947-2005.

Critics focus on Solzhenitsyn's insistence that Jews were as much perpetrators as victims in the communist repression, and that both Russians and Jews need to acknowledge their share of sin. Questions related to Jewish participation in the three Revolutions have been controversial. As Vassili Berezhkov, a retired KGB colonel and historian of the secret services and the NKVD (the precursor of the KGB), said: "The question of ethnicity did not have any importance either in the revolution or the story of the NKVD. This was a social revolution and those who served in the NKVD and cheka were serving ideas of social change. If Solzhenitsyn writes that there were many Jews in the NKVD, it will increase the passions of anti-semitism, which has deep roots in Russian history. I think it is better not to discuss such a question now." Others feel that Jews were not implicated enough to warrant a comparison with Russian antisemitism, or that any notion of the Collective Responsibility should not be brought up.

Solzhenitsyn purports to document the overrepresentation of Jews in the early Bolshevik leadership and the security apparatus, claiming, for instance, that of the 22 ministers in the first Soviet government three were Russian, one Georgian, one Armenian and 17 Jews. However, the first Bolshevik government, the Sovnarkom was composed of 15 People's Comissars (ministers), of whom only one (Trotsky) was Jewish, and of the 25 individuals who held that position between 1923 and 1930 only 5 were Jewish. Vadim Abramov's monograph "Jews in the KGB" demonstrated that although Jews were trusted by the early communist authorities because as formerly disenfranchised they were not expected to harbor any loyalties to Tsarist regime: their number in the security services at no point in history exceeded 9%, and from 1927 never exceeded 4%.

Solzhenitsyn also accused Jews of wartime cowardice, and evasion of active duty, stating "I had to bury many comrades at the front, but not once did I have to bury a Jew." while ignoring both the Jewish frontline casualties and the high number of Jews decorated for bravery in battle. He also claimed that Jews had a much easier life in the GULAG camps .

Similarities between Two Hundred years together and an antisemitic essay titled “Jews in the USSR and in the Future Russia”, attributed to Solzhenitsyn, has led to inference that he stands behind the anti-Semitic passages. Solzhenitsyn himself claims that the essay consists of manuscripts stolen from him, and then manipulated, forty years ago. However, according to the historian Semyon Reznik, textological analyses have in fact proven Solzhenitsyn's authorship.

Richard Pipes review

The book has been described by historian Richard Pipes of Harvard University as "a conscious effort to show empathy for both sides." and exonerating Jews for responsibility for the revolution: "No, in no way can it be said that Jews 'made' the revolution of 1905 or 1917 as it was not made by another nation taken as a whole". At the same time Pipes notes that Solzhenitsyn is "too eager to exonerate czarist Russia of mistreating its Jewish subjects, and as a consequence is insensitive to the Jews' predicament".. In Richard Pipes' opinion, the book absolves Solzhenitsyn from the taint of antisemitism, although he thinks the author’s nationalism prevents him from being fully impartial, and that Solzhenitsyn is using outdated and inadequate sources. Pipes also takes with indignation Solzhenitsyn's refusal to consider "poisonous atmosphere in which Jews lived for generations in the Russian empire (an atmosphere originating in Russian Orthodox and nationalist circles)". Pipes writes, "If there is a discussion in Solzhenitsyn's book of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a Russian forgery that for a century now has been fomenting murderous anti-Semitism worldwide, including in Nazi Germany, I missed it."

John Klier review

John Klier, a historian at London's University College, describes the charges of anti-Semitism as "misguided" , but at the same time writes that in his account of the pogroms of the early 20th century, Solzhenitsyn is far more concerned with exonerating the good name of the Russian people than he is with the suffering of the Jews, and he accepts the czarist government's canards blaming the pogroms on provocations by the Jews themselves.

Petrovsky-Shtern critique

Subsequently Solzhenitsyn was criticized by the Northwestern University historian Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern for using unreliable and manipulated figures, while ignoring evidence unfavorable to his own point of view.. Petrovsky notes that Solzhenitzyn claims that Jews promoted alcoholism among the peasantry, flooded retail trade with contraband, "strangled" Russian merchant class in Moscow (pp. 39–41, 47). Jews lack industriousness ("непроизводительный народ" (pp. 52, 59), that they refuse to engage in factory labor (с. 244-245). They are averse to agriculture, and are unwilling to till the land either in Russia, or in Argentina, or in Palestine (pp. 73, 76, 157, 256, 258, 267-268) and blames Jews' own behavior for pogroms (pp. 210, 483, 120). Solzhenitsyn claims further that Jews use Kabbalah to tempt Russians into heresy (p. 20), seduce them with rationalism and fashion (p. 21), provoke sectarianism and weaken the fiscal system (p. 70), commit murders on kahal's orders (p. 87), exert undue influence on the prerevolutionary government (p. 57). Petrovsky summarizes his critique that "200 years together is destined to take the place of honor in the canon of russophone antisemitica."

Zinaida Gimpelevich review

A detailed analysis of 200YT and an overview of critical opinion thereon was published by the University of Waterloo professor Zinaida Gimpelevich. According to Gimpelevich the critical opinion worldwide overwhelmingly tilts against Solzhenitsyn .

Vladimir Voynovich critique

In his interview another Russian dissident writer, Vladimir Voinovich, specifically describes Two Hundred Years Together as a work that is "long, tedious, and slanderous."

When interviewed for Radio Liberty on the first anniversary of Solzhenitsyn' death, Vladimir Voynovich has stated that Solzhenitshyn harbored antisemitic sentiment all his life, as attested by the 1964 manuscript he later developed into "200 Years Together", and that he deliberately concealed it, because he knew it would have prevented him from receiving the Nobel Prize.

Grigory Baklanov critique

Grigory Baklanov (a Russian novelist) in his critical study described "200 years" as "worthless as historical scholarship". Baklanov, himself a Second World War veteran, focuses on Solzhenitsyn's insistence on Jews' supposed wartime cowardice and unwillingness to face the enemy, which is contradicted both by the statistics of Jewish frontline casualties and high number of Jews decorated for bravery in battle.

Semyon Reznik review

Another critical analysis was published by the Russian-American historian Semyon Reznik. According to Reznik Solzhenitsyn is careful in his vocabulary, generous in compliments toward Jews and maintains neutral tone throughout, but at the same time he not only condones repressive measures against Jews, but justifies them as intended for protection of the rights of Russians as the titular nation that supposedly "greatly suffered from Jewish exploitation, alcohol mongering, usury and corruption of the traditional way of life". Moreover Reznik notes that Solzhenitsyn uncritically used writings of antisemitic pseudo-historian Andrey Dikiy for his statistical data of Jewish participation in early Soviet government and the security apparatus.

External links

• Interview with Solzhentisyn about "200 Years Together"
• Dimensional Spaces in Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Two Hundred Years Together. By Zinaida Gimpelevich.