how many jews are there in the soviet union

8/14/2019 How Many Jews Are There in the Soviet Union

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HOW MANY JEWS ARE THERE IN THE SOVIET UNION?By JOSHUA ROTHENBERG

Before the population census in 1959, estimates of the Jewish population inthe Soviet Union varied by as much as one million-from as low as two millionat one extreme to as high as three million at the other.Data on the Jewish population of various countries are ordinarily hard togather, since censuses in most countries do not include questions on religion ornationality. In the Soviet Union such information should be much easier to obtain, because a question on nationality status is included in the censuses, and Jewsare one of the recognized nationalities of the multi-national country.According to the Soviet census of 1959, 2,268,000 persons have declaredthat they are members of the Jewish nationality.l This has, nevertheless, not settled the controversy on the size of the Jewish population in the country.Opinions were frequently voiced that a large number of Soviet Jews have,for various reasons, declared in the census questionnaires that they belong toother than Jewish nationalities (for the most part to the Russian), and that consequently the real size of the Jewish population in the Soviet Union is larger thanthe 2,268,000 indicated in the census.For instance, Professor Salo W. Baron expressed the opinion that "it standsto reason that an unspecified number, perhaps several hundred thousands, preferred to list themselves as belonging to Russian, Ukrainian or some other nationality "'2

Mordecai Altshuler, an Israeli writer, maintained that "there are grounds toassume that in the last 1959 census at least 10-15% of the Jews concealed theirJewishness."3 Unfortunately, the assertions of these writers are based solely ona general assumption and are not deduced from specific calculations.On the other hand, many students of the Soviet scene accept unhesitantlythe findings of the 1959 census. The American lewish Year Book bases its an-

1 Itagi Vsesaiuznai Perepiski Naselenia SSR (Totals of the All-Union census of the population of USSR) (Moskva 1963); further references to the respective Soviet republics arebased on the "totals" published by the Soviet Statistical Bureau for each republic. See alsoAltshuler. Mordecai, "Kavim Ii-Demuto ha-Demografith shel ha-Qibbuts ha-Yehu:li be-Bebrith ha-Moatsoth" (Outlines of the Demographic Character of the Jewish Community inthe Soviet Union). Gesher (September 1966), nos. 47-48, pp. 9-30; also, Abramovich, Moshe,"ha-Yehudim ba-Mifqad ha-Sovyeti 1959" (The Jews in the 1959 Census), Malad (AugustSeptember 1960), pp. 320-330; also Rothenberg, Joshu'l, "Nai Bamerkungen tsu an AlterFolkstseilung" (New Remarks to an Old Census), Yiddisher Kemfer, New York (May 6,1966), pp. 5-6; also Kantor, Jacob, "Einike Bamerkungen un Oisfirn tsu di farefentlechteSach-haklen fun Folkstseilung in Ratnfarband" (Some Remarks and Conclusions Concerning the Published Totals of the Census in the Soviet Union), Bleter far Geschichte, vol. xv(1962-1963).

2 B ~ r o n , Salo W'o The Russian lew under the Tsars and Soviets (New York 1964), p. 329.3 Altshuler, op. cit., p. 13.

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Jews in the Soviet Union 235nual data of the Jewish population in the Soviet Union on the figure obtainedby the Soviet census-takers, adding each year an estimated natural increase. Salomon Schwartz, in his recent book on the post-war history of the Soviet Jews, rejects the theory that significant numbers of Jews failed to indicate their Jewishnationality. There was no reason to do so, he maintains, because no advantagecould be gained by hiding the Jewish nationality in the census when the passportsindicate the real nationality status of the person.4To answer the question which of these two conflicting opinions is correct,is of more than academic interest to us. Accurate information on the size of theJewish population in the Soviet Union is necessary and helpful for reasons thatneed no elaboration.

It seems to us that a more reliable estimate of the size of the Jewish community in the Soviet Union is, nevertheless, possible to obtain.The method to be used is to subject to a close analysis the last two Sovietcensuses, those of 1959 and 1939. However, only the areas of the Soviet Unionwhich were not occupied by the German forces during the German-Soviet Warof 1941-1945, i.e., the areas outside the great concentrations of the Jewish population in the Ukrainian and Byelorussian republics, can serve as a basis for statistical comparison. The Jewish population in the Ukraine and Byelorussia waseither annihilated by the Germans or totally displaced; in addition, the territoriesand borders of these two republics have changed very substantially between 1939

and 1959. Large provinces formerly belonging to Poland, Rumania, and Czechoslovakia were incorporated during and after the War into the Ukrainian and Byelorussian SSR's.1IBy contrast, the eastern territories of the Soviet Union have not undergonesimilar radical changes in their territories and in their populace. We will use,therefore, as the main base for our present discussion the Russian Socialist Republic (RSFSR), which was, for the most part, unoccupied by the German invaders, and had a substantial Jewish population before the War.The census of January 1939 has shown the Jewish population of the RSFSR

to number 948,000.6 It was estimated that the number has risen to ca. one million from January 1939 to June 1941, when the war with Germany had started.The natural increase in the two years, and the inner migration of Jews from westto east (which went on uninterruptedly since the 1920's), should have made upthe estimated difference of 52,000.7Only a relatively small area of the RSFSR was captured by the Germanarmy; the rest, including the two largest Soviet cities of Moscow and Leningradin which approximately half of the Jewish population of the RSFSR resided, remained uninterruptedly under Soviet rule. The highest estimate given for the num-

4 Schwartz, Salomon, Evrei v Sovetskom Soiuze, s Nachala Mirovoi Voiny, 1939-1%5(Jews in the Soviet Union, from the Beginning of World War 1939-1965) (New York 1966),pp. 176, 182 et al.IS The present western districts of the Ukraine and Byelorussia were until 1939 part ofPoland; the Bukovina district of the USSR was part of Rumania, and the Zacarpathian district part of Czechoslovakia.6 Zinger, L., Dos Banaite Folk (Moskva 1941), Appendix II.7 A similar figure was arrived at by Schwartz in his op. cit.


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236 JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIESber of Jews who had lived in the areas of the RSFSR occupied by the Germansis 250,000.8 Since these territories were among the latest to be occupied by theGerman army, the evacuation of the civil population from these areas was conducted in a more orderly fashion and was more extensive in scope than in theeastern parts of the country. It is estimated that of the 250,000 Jews in the unoccupied segments of the RSFSR, at least 150,000 managed to escape, while100,000 were killed by the Germans.D

The number of RSFSR Jews who had escaped nazi annihilation would thenamount to 900,000 (one million minus 100,000 killed by the German forces).How does this figure tally with the findings of the 1959 census which has found875,000 Jews in the RSFSR?

According to the Central Statistical Bureau of the Soviet Union, the naturalincrease of the population of the RSFSR between 1939 and 1959 amounted to8.4% (an increase from 108,379 million to 117,534 million).10 It should, however, be noted that the differential in the increase of the population between theGerman occupied and the unoccupied areas was very substantial. Whereas theincrease for the 20 years reached 28% in the unoccupied Uzbek republic and14.3% in the unoccupied Georgian republic, it was only 3.4% in the occupiedUkraine and showed even a decrease by as much as 10% in occupied Byelorussia.11

Unfortunately, there are no separate figures available for the natural increasein the occupied and unoccupied zones of the RSFSR; it is however certain thatthe increase in the unoccupied zone should be estimated to be higher than theaverage of 8.4% for the republic as a whole. Since, however, the rate of naturalincrease of the Jewish population in the Soviet Union has shown a lower indexthan that of the non-Jewish population, we shall merely accept the 8.4% figureas the increase for the Jewish population also of the unoccupied zone.

The natural increase in the 18 years, from the year 1941, when the numberof RSFSR Jews was 900,000, till the year 1959 when the last census was taken,will thus amount to ca. 68,000, and the number of RSFSR Jews in 1959 shouldhave been at least 968,000. However, the 1959 census has found only 875,000Jews, i.e. 93,000 less than it should have been expected, if to disregard for themoment migration changes.

Several possible explanations can be forwarded to explain the discrepancy:1. territorial changes in the republic which have occurred between 1939 and 1959;2. internal migration; 3. Jews not accounted for have indeed not revealed theirJ ewishness.

Let us examine the three possibilities. The territory of the RSFSR has undergone some changes in the eighteen years mentioned.12 Th district of Crimeawhich was part of the RSFSR in 1941 was incorporated after the war into theUkrainian republic. On the other hand some segments of northern Caucasus

8 See Schwartz, op. cit., pp. 182-183.D Ibid., pp. 182-183. (This is approximately the same ratio of victims killed by the Ger-man invaders as accepted for the Jewish population of the Soviet Union as a whole.)10 SSSR v Tsifrakh v 1964 Godu (SSSR in figures in 1964) (Moskva 1965), p. ! .11 Ibid.12 These changes were overlooked by many writers, including Schwartz in his op. cit.


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Jews in the Soviet Union 237(which included communities of the Oriental "Mountain Jews") part of the formerly German territory of East Prussia (now the Kaliningrad district) and somesmall segments of the Baltic republics were included into the territory of theRSFSR.These territorial changes, however, have not substantially altered the comparable sizes of the Jewish population, since the losses in the seceded Crimeawere more or less offset by the gains in the newly organized territories. (Thewhole Jewish population of Crimea in 1959 numbered no more than 26,374persons.)

As for internal migration, we know that the historic trend for migration hasbeen not from east to west but in the opposite direction, from the overcrowdedJewish communities in the former tsarist Pale of Settlement to the western areasof the RSFSR. When the restrictions on Jewish residence were abolished in 1917,the migration expanded to very substantial proportions. In the 13 years between1926 and 1939, the Jewish population in the RSFSR increased by 366,000 orby 60.3% while in the Ukrainian SSR there was a decrease of 2.6% and inByelorussian SSR a decrease of 7.8%.13

During the four years of the war, quite different migration processes tookplace in the RSFSR. A substantial number of Jews were evacuated from theirplaces of residence, deeper into the immense spaces of the republic and outsidethe confines of the republic, to Central Asia in particular. Some of them havechosen to remain after the war in their new places of residence.As we shall see later, the 1959 census shows a small increase in the Jewishpopulation of Central Asia due to the influx from outside the area (and most ofthis increase should be attributed to the more numerous evacuees from theUkrainian, Byelorussian, Mold avian, and Baltic republics).

On the other hand, a substantial number of war evacuees from the westernrepublics of the Ukraine, Byelorussia, Moldavia and the Baltic who have settledin various towns of the RSFSR, remained in the RSFSR after the war. I t is impossible to determine their number since, unfortunately, the 1959 census did notinclude a question on former residence (which, incidentally, the 1926 Soviet census did include). We know that in the Ural and in Siberia which absorbed mostof the evacuated in the war industrial plants, together with their employees andworkers, Jewish communities have considerably increased in size (particularly inthe towns of Sverdlovsk, Chelabinsk, Magnitogorsk, Irkutsk).

Salomon Schwartz, in his discussion of the size of the Jewish population inthe RSFSR, also expressed amazement at the unexpectedly low figure of 875,000Jews that the 1959 census had found in the republic. 14Since Schwartz rejects the theory that significant numbers of Jews have failed

to indicate for the census their Jewish nationality, and since he accepts the accuracy of the 1959 census information, he must find another explanation for thedecrease of the Jewish population in the republic. Schwartz maintains that thedecrease was due to a reversal in the process of inner migration in the post-war

18 Zinger, op. cit., p. 36.If Schwartz, op. cit., pp. 181-183.


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238 JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIESperiod, and that Jews have since the end of the war in 1945 moved in mass fromthe RSFSR to the Ukraine, Byelorussia and other western areas of the SovietUnion. 15 He does not, however, substantiate his theory and does not give anyreason or explanation for the alleged reversal of the perennial migration trendin the Soviet Union (which is, incidentally, not limited only to the Jewish population.). No reason is given why the RSFSR Jews would suddenly decide to leavetheir permanent places of residence in Moscow, Leningrad, and in the more industrially and culturally developed regions of the Russian republic and move intothe war-devastated, antisemitism-infested and culturally less developed regions ofthe Ukraine and Byelorussia. On the contrary, there are good reasons to believethat the traditional trend from west to east has not slackened after the war butperhaps even increased in the first post-war years. The Ukrainian and Byelorussian Jews, who were so eager "to come home," have found there conditions muchworse than expected, and there were, therefore, sufficient reasons to prompt andperpetuate the migration trend which had already existed for decades.

I f we assume, as we should, that the Jewish migration stream from west toeast was not interrupted by the war, just as the war had not reverted a similarmigration of the non-Jewish population to the east, we must provide an estimateof the numbers. This is, of course, very difficult to do. If we will, however, venture to say that the post-war rate of migration was at least one quarter of theaverage annual rate of 28,000 which prevailed in the years 1926-1939, we willcertainly be on the low side. According to that estimate, the number of Jews whomoved in the years 1946-1959 from the Ukraine and Byelorussia to the greenerpastures in the East would be 91,000.16

According to these, we believe, very cautious estimates, there were in theRSFSR in 1959 at least 184,000 more Jews (and possibly many more) than thecensus has shown.

* * * *

Let us now examine the situation in the other Soviet republics which werenot occupied by the German armies.

In the five Central Asian republics (Uzbek, Kazakh, Tadzhik, Kirgiz, andTurkmen SSR) and in the three Caucasian republics (Georgian, Azerbaidzhanand Armenian) which were not occupied by the German army, the total Jewishpopulation before the war (in 1939) was 164,200. The census of 1959 revealed240,305 Jews in this area, or an increase of 80,105 (almost 50%). The total increase of the population of the area in the same period was 7,823 million (from24,660 to 32,483) or 32%,17 For the Jewish population we should adapt a lowerrate of increase. Since the rate of increase for the Jewish population of the SovietUnion for the period of 1926 till 1939 was 18% lower than the population asa whole, as indicated in the census of 1926 and 1939,18 we must, for the lack

11\ Ibid., p. 183. . . . ..6 A similar but much smaller migration from the Moldavlan SSR and Baltic republIcsis a distinct probability, but we will disregard it in our present computations.

17 SSSR v Tsifrakh v 1964 Godu, op. cit., p. 8.18 Zinger, op. cit., pp. 35-36, Appendix I, II.


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Jews in the Soviet Union 239of similar data for the later period, adapt the same differential for the post-warperiod. H the rate of natural increase is larger in the Moslem areas than in thenon-Moslem areas of the Soviet Union, the fertility of the Jews in the former area(of whom about a half are Oriental Jews) is also higher than for the Jewish population in the European areas. We may, therefore, accept the same differential forthese areas as for the country as a whole, i.e., 18% lower than for the population as a whole (or 26.3% instead of the 32% for the areas). Consequently, thenatural Jewish increase for the area would be 43,132. The balance of the increase, 36,973, should be accounted for as the result of the war-time influx fromoutside the area. This probably includes a certain number of Jews who were evacuated from RSFSR regions, but since the prevailing number of Jewish evacueeswas from the more westerly areas of the Soviet Union, the RSFSR evacueeswould not total more than 10,000. Without doubt, the number of RSFSR Jewswho moved out of the RSFSR is more than offset by Jewish evacuees from otherrepublics who have settled in the RSFSR after the war.

* * * *I f we have come to the conclusion that significant numbers of Jews havenot divulged their Jewish identity in the RSFSR, a question will arise as to whethera similar phenomenon has not taken place in other republics of the Soviet Unionas well.It is unquestionable that the situation in the other republics, especially inthe Ukraine and Byelorussia (where almost half of the Jewish population of theSoviet Union resided in 1959) is much different than in the RSFSR, and for thefollowing reasons:First, Jews who live in the large towns of the RSFSR, like Leningrad andMoscow, are much more linguistically and culturally assimilated than the Jewsof the former Pale of Settlement. Most visibly is this demonstrated by the highproportion of writers and intellectuals of Jewish descent active in the large centers of Russian culture who consider themselves to be Russians, even if the entry

in their passports indicates diff.!rently. The estrangement from Jewishness is evenmore pronounced in the more remote regions of the RSFSR, where Jews havelived in smaller groups and werl! for a long time separated from the bulk of SovietJewry. Their Jewish descent was in many cases not even known to the townspeople who considered them to be as Russian as themselves.Secondly, many of the Jews in the non-Russian areas of the country havebeen dispatched there by the central Soviet authorities in official capacities, asadministrators and technicians. To the non-Russian population they are knownas Russians (Ruskil) which to them often means anyone who is not a native. Itwould be awkward, sometimes unpleasant for these Jews to divulge for the census-takers, who are local people, that their nationality is different from what hasbeen publicly known.For these reasons the number of Jews who have declared another nationality (in most cases that of Russian) would be higher in the RSFSR and also inthe Asian and Caucasian areas than in the Ukraine and Byelorussia, where Jewsare not as assimilated, and are usually known to their neighbors as Jews.


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240 JEWISH SOCIAL S11JDIESIt must be added here that it would be a mistake to assume, as it often is

ing assumed, that all Jews in the Soviet Union are marked as Jews in their passports. During the upheavals of the war, the bombings, hasty evacuations andfrequent dislocations, a number of people lost their passports. The receipt of anew passport was a convenient occasion for some of those who felt burdened bytheir Jewishness, to change their nationality status. Some may have even addeda little effort "to lose" their passports, especially during the "black years" of1948-1953, when antisemitism erupted into the open as never before, and theSoviet Jews expected (probably with good reason) that wagons were being prepared for the wholesale deportation of Jews to Siberia. A passport marked "Jew"was feared to be tantamount to a verdict of deportation.

It should, on all these grounds, be concluded that a certain number of Jewsin other than the Russian republic (RSFSR) have similarly eluded the census dataconcerning their Jewish origin. The proportion of Jews who have so acted in theother republics should, however, be estimated to be much lower than in theRSFSR, for the reasons expounded above. Unfortunately, the estimate must behypothetical.

I f we assume it to be only one fourth of what we have calculated for theRSFSR, the number of "hidden Jews" for the rest of the country would amountto at least 46,000.The total number of Soviet Jews who were not divulged in the 1959 censuswould thus be in the vicinity of a quarter of a million. We think this is a conservative figure, as we have always adapted the lower alternatives in our calcu-lations. (For instance, it is almost certain that there are more than 10,000 evacuated Ukrainian and Byelorussian Jews who remained in the RSFSR after thewar.)

In summing up our calculations we come to the conclusion that the numberof Jews who lived in 1959 in the Soviet Union was at least 2,500,000, and probably between 2,600,000 and 2,650,000.

how many jews are there in the soviet union

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