You are now entering the Jewish Currents archive.
December 20: Jews and the Secret Police
lawrencebush
December 20, 2011
Cheka, the first incarnation of the Soviet secret police (NKVD), was established on this date in 1917. Many Jews played leading roles in the secret police, and even more fell victim to it. “About 40 percent of high-ranking NKVD officers had Jewish nationality recorded in their identity documents,” writes Yale University professor Timothy Snyder in Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, “as did more than half of the NKVD generals. . . . The Great Terror could be, and by many would be, blamed on the Jews.”
“At the time when the NKVD was killing members of national minorities, most of its leading officers were themselves members of national minorities.... In carrying out these ethnic massacres, which of course they had to if they wished to preserve their positions and their lives, they comprised an ethic of internationalism, which must have been important to some of them. Then they were killed anyway . . . and usually replaced by Russians.” —Timothy Snyder
I’m Arielle Angel, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents. Before you go, there’s something I need to ask.
We’ve seen over and over how the mainstream media falters in telling stories on our beats—whether it’s antisemitism, Israel/Palestine in American politics, Jewish identity, or the American left. At Jewish Currents we’re committed to uncompromising analysis and longform reporting on these issues and more—stories you won’t find anywhere else. In a media landscape that obscures injustice and flattens discussion, we’re changing the conversation. But we need you.
If you believe in this work, please consider making a donation—or even better, a recurring one—to ensure that we are able to keep publishing stories like this one. We can’t do it without you.
