FACES AND PLACES

by Myron B. Kuropas

Symon Petliura: Pogromchik or Philosemite?

In the annals of Jewish martyrology, the name Symon Petliura, leader of Ukraine during the waning days of the first republic, ranks up there with Haman, Himmler, and Hitler as a killer of Jews.

In his 1976 book "Pogromchik: The Assassination of Simon Petlura," Saul S. Friedman reviewed the evidence presented at the trial of Sholom Schwartzbard, the Jewish anarchist who shot Petliura dead on a Paris street on May 25, 1926, and concluded that the acquittal was understandable, perhaps even just. Otaman Petliura was guilty of crimes against humanity, according to Dr. Friedman's commentary.

Dr. Friedman dismissed both Ukrainians and Jews who testified on behalf of the prosecution at Mr. Shwartzbard's trial as biased or as "lackeys of the nationalist pogromchiks." The notion that an inordinate number of Jews in Ukraine were Bolsheviks was discarded as a "canard." The certainty that Mr. Shwartzbard had once served in a Red Army unit was of no consequence; the idea that Moscow was behind the assassination was "ludicrous." The fact that most of the pogroms were committed by the White Russian armies and independent war lords in no way associated with the Ukrainian goverment was also ignored. Petliura was a mass murderer, and Schwartzbard acted "as an instrument of humanity's conscience."

Led by Henri Torres, a renowned Jewish-French jurist, the Schwartzbard defense team won acquittal by cleverly shifting the trial focus from its client to the person of Petliura, arguing that he: had orchestrated the pogroms; enjoyed the loyalty of Ukrainian troops who killed Jews while screaming "for Ukraine and Petlura"; had total control over the army. All his directives (especially Order 131), warning troops that anyone found guilty of killing innocent Jews would be executed, were ineffective, mere window dressing to impress the Western powers. Even those pogromists in the Ukrainian army who were executed, Dr. Friedman suggests, can not be attributed to Petliura. "He did nothing to prevent the killing of Jews, even when it was within his province to do so."

On February 28, 1958, the French television series "En Votre Ame et Conscience" continued the demonization process with a program devoted to the Schwartzbard Affair featuring Henri Torres. Despite vehement protests from leading Ukrainians throughout the world, no effort was made to later present the Ukrainian perspective. The program was a precursor of the infamous October 23, 1994, "60 Minutes" broadcast, "The Ugly Face of Freedom."

Over the years intrepid Ukrainian scholars have come to the defense of Symon Petliura, arguing that he was the victim of pestilential slander. Among them was Rutgers professor Taras Hunczak who somehow managed to have his views published in the journal Jewish Social Studies in 1969. In his article he reiterated two significant points: 1) Petliura was a humanist who tried to protect the Jews; 2) the various invasions of Ukraine, but especially the Bolshevik onslaught, created the kind of anarchy among the masses that made it impossible for Petliura to govern.

Today, the Hunczak perspective is finally being considered by some Jewish scholars who appear willing to reassess their views. In the recently published "A Prayer for the Government: Ukrainians and Jews in Revolutionary Times, 1917-1920", a monograph published jointly by Harvard's Ukrainian Research Center and the Center for Jewish Studies, the author, Henry Abramson, writes: "Although Hunczak did not uncover any important new sources, nor did he advance any radically new arguments, he moved the level of the debate to a higher plane as he eloquently presented the case for a reappraisal of Symon Petliura and Ukrainian-Jewish relations."

Dr. Abramson writes that, in "the spirit of adversarial scholarly debate," Jewish Social Studies invited the rebuttal of Zosa Sjakowski, a longstanding proponent of the Jewish interpretation. The latter employed "inflammatory language" in his response which forced the debate to regress "to increasingly bitter personal attacks in subsequent issues." Unfortunate, but no surprise.

With the publication of his book, Dr. Abramson has once again elevated the debate regarding Otaman Petliura to a scholarly level. After reviewing the Ukrainian leader's early life, he concludes that Petliura was hardly an anti-Semite, that "he was in no way the 'architect' of the pogroms," and that directives condemning the pogroms in 1919 were effective: "recorded pogroms dropped by 37 percent in April and 85 percent in May." Although Petliura had no personal responsibility for the Jewish massacres, he was head of state, and for that reason, Dr. Abramson concludes, "he must be held accountable for the actions of his army, despite his relative lack of control over them."

The major questions in the Petliura affair revolve around culpability and Jewish Bolsheviks. Did Petliura have control over his so-called army (which included independent otamans of the most disreputable type) at a time when his entire government was confined to a moving railroad car? Is it possible that the Jewish-Bolshevik connection is not a canard? In his book "Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War", Prof. W. Bruce Lincoln addresses both questions.

"Too much of Petliura's regime seemed artificial and contrived," he writes. "As the Directory failed to replace the strict regulations of Skoropadsky" [Petliura's predecessor as ruler of Ukraine], government control collapsed. Without any effective central government, local chiefs established petty tyrannies in Kharkov, Poltava, Ekaterinoslav, Chernobyl, Radomysl and Chernigov [sic] and these neither enforced the policies of the Directory nor even agreed with them ... all these local regimes despised outside authority and hated the Jews." So much for Petliura's influence over local anti-Semitic war lords.

As for Jewish involvement with the Soviets, Prof. Lincoln explains: "Always anxious to use hatreds to advantage, Dzerzhinskyi [Soviet head of the Cheka, the secret police], placed Jews in seven of the Cheka's 10 top positions and saw to it that Jews made up nearly 80 percent of the rank-and-file Cheka agents in the Ukraine." Cheka brutality in Ukraine is well-documented.

The Petliura puzzle comprises but a small fraction of Dr. Abramson's book. Reading it, one quickly concludes that there is much about Jewish-Ukrainian relations during the days of the first Ukrainian republic that is more positive than both Jews and Ukrainians are willing to admit. It is for that reason that Harvard has provided both communities with a true service.

Myron Kuropas' e-mail address is: [email protected]

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, December 12, 1999, No. 50, Vol. LXVII

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