Anti-Semitic Symptoms in the Russian Revolutionary-
Bloodbath Detailed in Angarsky's Tighty-Seven Days'

While the novel "Eighty-
Seven Days" by the late Andrew
Angarsky is written from the
viewpoint of the Whites, it is
one of the very powerful dra-
matic descriptions of the Russian
Revolution and Civil War.
Published by Knopf, this
novel, which opens in the spring
of 1918 with an account of for-
mer Czarist officers and Russian
noblemen plotting to overthrow
the Communist regime, takes the
reader through all the anguish
of internecine struggles, the
quest for power, the competition
for control of a great land.
Historical accounts intertwine
here with fictional accounts, and
the names of many of the im-
portant figures in Russia enter
into the story. Lenin, Trotsky,
Joffe—others on both sides of
the battlefronts for power—pass
in review.
Conspiracy after conspiracy,
bloodshed, the cheapening of
human lives, love affairs and the
family lives of many of the
characters are woven into this
dramatic story.
Angarsky, who wrote his novel
in English, based on many years
of research for material on
which to base his own experi-
ences in Russia, was born in
Siberia and attended secondary
schools there while Kolchak's
White Army occupied that terri-
tory. Exiled, he was for 13 years
a university lecturer, did re-
search in Manchuria and North
China, came to the United States
and taught at several universities,
• and at the time of his death in
1960 was associated with the
New York City Library System
as a librarian.
* * *
At the very outset, as the story
develops, we become aware of
anti-Jewish sentiments that
existed, and of charges, linking
Jews with Communism. One of
the characters in the story, Mme.
Ladova, is described as having
turned to her newspaper for in-
formation about "a riot in Ry-
binsk: a crowd of women there,
demanding the removal of Jewish
commissars, had almost seized
the city Soviet."
There is the description of the
appearance on a public platform
of Lenin and Trotsky: "As usual,
Lenin was simply dressed, in his
old coat and baggy trousers. But
Trotsky looked like a young god
of war in his new Red Army
uniform."
The antagonists were there,
waiting for an opportunity to
assassinate the Red leader—an
opportunity that did not present
itself. At that gathering the
British Socialist Party was repre-
sented by Comrade Feinberg.
Lenin and Trotsky joined the
applause for the British Socialist
who said that Russia had been
called 'Holy Russia' in England.
But for the Socialists of Eng-
land, only now had she become
`Holy Russia.' Your victories are
a guarantee of the victory of the
world proletariat. . . .'"
Feinberg kept orating, but
while the whole theater was ap-
plauding. Allied representatives
were not applauding, and those
of the German camp—for the
Germans had just concluded the
treaty of Brest Litovsk—and the
Allies alike presented "a strange
unity, an unexpected unity! Who
gave a passport to this humbug,
to this Jew, masquerading as a
representative of the British
workers?"
Such were the feelings of the
time. There was a shout at that
gathering: "Down with the treaty
of Brest Litovsk!" It was aimed
at Lenin, but the results are so
well known, as they develop in
this dramatic novel.
*
Meanwhile the anti-J e wish
sentiments become apparent on
numerous occasions. Thus, Col-

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Friday, August 14, 1964 11

onel von Holz had come for
vengeance. He went to Nakhim-
son, called him "Jewish snout,"
shot him in cold blood. Then he
came to the chairman of the local
Soviet, Zackheim. His apartment
was broken into without knock-
ing and when he confirmed that
he was Zackheim the following
is related in Angarsky's story:
"A little Jew, yesterday a poor
watchmaker. He should be
trembling. Jewish mug! Weren't
all Jews cowards! All those
Moishas and Solomons, trembling
for their lives and crying for
mercy, cringing and crawling.
But this one. . . . This little Jew
was different. Where did he get
self-importance, this dignity?
"The White Guards asked the
neighbors: 'Is this really Zack-
heim?'
" 'Yes, he is Zackheim. We
know him. Of course he is Zack-
heim.'
"They shot him through the
chest: four rifles firing at once.
Zackheim, a contemptible Jew!
They bayonetted him, dragged
him out, and threw him into the
street. And for several days
crowds spit on him, jeered at the
dead Jew, kicked his dead
body. . . ."
Such was the White Guardist
madness; such was the hatred of
Jews that increased with the

emergence of Communism as a
retort to the Reds.
Then, "a sorrowful meeting of
the Mensheviks and the members
of the Jewish Blind took place"
and "they all rose in memory of
Zackheim, murdered that day."
*
There was a craving for ven-
geance, and the whole atmos-
phere was full of it, on both
extremes.
Mensheviks were fighting Bol-
sheviks, the Germans still were
playing their roles, and the
country's division brought with
it its horrors, fears, tragedies.
"Eighty-Seven Days" is as
much fiction as it is history, but
it is more of the latter; and it is
a splendid sociological study. It
offers food for thought even at
this late date after the Russian
Revolution and Civil War in these
concluding paragraphs:
"Red Army reinforcements
were departing from Moscow,
Petrograd, and other centers, and
especially from Yaroslav, where
a new army and a new spirit had
been forged in the blood-soaked
street s. Reinforcements were
leaving for the wavering, sagging,
dissolving eastern front, where
the fate of the new republic, the
fate of the Revolution, was being
decided. And the Commissar of
Military Affairs, Comrade Trot-

Israeli Soldier Killed
in Clash with Syrians

TEL AVIV (JTA)—One Israeli
soldier was killed and another ser-
iously wounded during a one-hour
clash between a Syrian position
near Gonen in Upper Galilee and
an Israeli patrol which had ap-
parently entered a few yards into
Syrian territory by mistake, the
Israel Army spokesman announced
today.
The Israeli unit, on a routine
patrol, was met with fierce fire
from the Syrian position which
lasted a full hour. One member
of the unit was killed and another,
seriously wounded, was at first
reported missing but later crawl-
ed back into Israeli territory where
he was treated for his wounds.

Three British Nazis
Fined in London for
Anti-Jewish Placards

LONDON (JTA)—Three mem-
bers of Colin Jordan's British Nazi
movement were found guilty of in-
sulting behavior and fined today
for an incident last month when
they picketed businesses on fash-
ionable Regent Street wearing
swastika armbands and bearing an-
ti-Jewish placards.
During the trial. the court was
shown two placards, one with the
words "Boycott Bloom and Jewish
Business," and the other "Free
Britain from Jewish control." All
three men said they would appeal
the judgment. Gordon Callow, 30,
and William Paley, 21, were each
A living dog is better off than fined 50 pounds ($140) and 10
a dead lion.—Ecclesiastes 9.
guineas ($29,40) costs with the
alternative of three months' im-
prisonment, while Gerald Lawman,
sky, was also leaving for the
18, was fined 25 pounds ($70).
Volga, on the former Imperial
train, and the printing presses
on the train were busy running
off thousands of copies of Trot-
sky's address to all, all, all, in
which he threatened the enemies
of the Revolution with death and
extermination.
"The waves of human passions
were rolling toward the east; the
new titanic struggle was ap-
proaching, and thousands and
thousands of officers and civil-
ians were on the march to a new
encounter, to a new, bitter
fight."

end

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