Table Of ContentSOVIET-JEWISH EMIGRATION AND SOVIET NATIONALITY
POLICY
This monograph is a study of the causes, dimensions and consequences of
Jewish emigration from the USSR since 1971. Its focus is analytical, not
descriptive. Using published research reports, memoirs and original survey
and in-depth interview data the authors explicate and examine critically the
sometimes unstated assumptions and theories that have been adopted in
trying to make sense of this remarkable event.
The various explanations of the movement found in the literature often
appear to contradict one another. But Victor Zaslavsky and Robert J. Brym
demonstrate that they are in fact not wholly incommensurable. Moreover,
the authors add fresh explanations where available approaches fail to explain
what they purport to. Specifically, their discussion of the historical
development of Soviet nationality deepens the Western observer's under
standing of the emigration movement's sources and significance.
Zygmunt Bauman, Professor of Sociology at the University of Leeds, writes:
I have read the book and found it deserving the highest praise. This is a rare
example of contemporary history captured in the making. One of the most
extraordinary events of our time has been forced to reveal its mysteries.
'The authors employ a unique blend of deep knowledge and thorough
understanding of the Soviet social and political scene with high-level
expertise in the modern methods of sociological investigation. The result is a
document with an air of finality about it; it is a definitive account of a vital
historical episode which combines an authoritative, scholarly description
with a fully successful attempt to re-create the subjective experiences of its
voluntary and involuntary actors. On both accounts the story as told by
Victor Zaslavsky and Robert J. Brym can be hardly improved.
'In short-a necessary reading for political sociologists, contemporary
historians and, indeed, anybody seriously wishing to understand the
complexity of the world we live in.'
Victor Zaslavsky was born in Leningrad in 1937 and studied at Leningrad
Mining University, the University of Leningrad and Humboldt Universitat in
East Germany. He taught sociology at various universities in Leningrad and
participated in many social science seminars and working groups-both
official and unofficial-in that city and in Moscow. In 1974 he was dismissed
froll} work and blacklisted for 'political unreliability'. He emigrated from the
USSR in 1975 and since 1976 has been on the staff at the Memorial
University of Newfoundland, where he is now Associate Professor of
Sociology.
Victor Zaslavsky has contributed a great many articles to scholarly
journals in the UK, the USA and Italy. He is the author of The Organised
Consensus: Soviet Society in the Brezhnev Era (1981; in Italian) and The
Neo-Stalinist State: Class, Ethnicity and Consensus in Soviet Society (1982).
Robert J, Brym was born in Canada in 1951 and studied sociology at
Dalhousie University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Uni
versity of Toronto. He was on the staff at the Memorial University of
Newfoundland from 1976 to 1978, and since then has taught and done
research at the University of Toronto, where he is now Associate Professor
and Associate Chairman of the Department of Sociology.
Dr Brym has contributed numerous articles to scholarly journals and is the
author of The Jewish Intelligentsia and Russian Marxism (1978), Intellectuals
and Politics (1980) and co-editor (with R. J. Sacouman) and contributor to
Underdevelopment and Social Movements in Atlantic Canada (1979).
Soviet-Jewish Emigration
and Soviet Nationality Policy
Victor Zaslavsky
Memorial University of Newfoundland
and
Robert J. Brym
University of Toronto
© Victor Zaslavsky and Robert J. Brym 1983
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1983 978-0-333-33627-4
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without permission
First published 1983 by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
London and Basingstoke
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
ISBN 978-1-349-06438-0 ISBN 978-1-349-06436-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-06436-6
Contents
List of Tables vi
Preface vii
1 Introduction 1
2 The Soviet-Jewish Anomaly 9
3 Motivations and Precipitants 31
4 Basic Causes 64
5 The Structural Context 77
6 Size and Direction 118
7 Some Consequences of the Movement 137
Appendix 154
Bibliography 158
Index 175
v
List of Tables
2.1 The Jewish population of the USSR, 1970 13
2.2 Jews and urban population of other national groups
1n the USSR by level of education, 1970 13
2.3 Jews in the USSR by republic and indices of
assimilation 23
2.4 Jews in the USSR by republic and summary index
of assimilation 25
3.1 Motivations for emigration 51
3.2 Principal motivations for emigration 51
3.3 Soviet emigrants going to Israel and to
Western countries, 1971-81 53
3.4 Dropouts assisted, and not assisted, by HIAS,
1976-9 55
3.5 Principal motivations for emigration of
IRC-assisted emigres 55
3.6 Motivations by socio-demographic variables: corrected
X2 and significance levels 58
3.7 Verbal representation of Table 3.6 59
6.1 Hypothetical effects of aid restriction on
emigration and neshira 130
6.2 Destination of Soviet emigrants by region of
origin 130
A.1 Sample and population characteristics
and t-tests for means 155
A.2 Sample characteristics from Lippe (1978) survey 157
vi
Preface
This monograph is a study of the causes, dimensions and
consequences of Jewish emigration from the USSR since 1971.
Its focus is analytical, not descriptive. Using published
research reports, memoirs and our own survey and interview
data, we have sought to state explicitly, and examine
critically, the sometimes unstated assumptions and theories
that have been adopted in trying to make sense of this
remarkable event.
The various explanations of the movement found in the
literature often appear to contradict one another. But they
are in fact not wholly incommensurable and we have tried to
specify their ranges of applicability. We have also found
it necessary to add fresh explanations where available
approaches fail to explain what they purport to.
Specifically, our discussion of the historical development
of Soviet nationality policy is intended to deepen the
Western observer's understanding of the emigration
movement's sources and significance.
In preparing this work we profited from discussions with
Professors Alexandr Chudnovsky, Olimpiad Ioffe, Yuri Luryi,
Vladimir Shliapentokh, Baruch Kimmerling, Dr Serge Luryi and
Yehudit Rosenbaum. For these talks we are greatly indebted.
However, we bear full responsibility for the contents of
this book and, having participated equally in its
production, share that responsibility equally.
Research for this study was funded in part by the
Structural Analysis Programme at the University of Toronto
(funded, in turn, by the University's Connaught Foundation);
the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of
Canada; and the Office for Research at the Memorial
University of Newfoundland. To all these agencies we are
very grateful indeed.
v.z.
R.B.
vii
1 Introduction
The sudden departure since 1971 of over 250,000 citizens
from the USSR is surely one of the most unlikely events in
post-revolutionary Soviet history. For the USSR is often
viewed as a 'closed society', a nation situated
enigmatically behind an 'iron curtain', an area of the globe
where the practice, begun in Tsarist times, of issuing
internal passports makes even a move between countryside and
city a matter that can scarcely be taken for granted. It is
therefore understandable that the emigration movement took
Westerners by surprise, forcing them to scurry about
searching for credible explanations of the anomaly. They
often echoed the words of Boris Khazanov (1976: p. 137), a
Soviet underground author, who remarked that his 'generation
has grown up with the conviction that it is as difficult to
leave the Soviet Union as it is to throw a stone so high
that it will not return to the earth'. Nor have the causes
of the movement been the exclusive focus of the Western
observer's attention. He has been equally concerned with
explaining its dimensions, i.e. the rate of emigration and
the extent to which ~migr~s choose one country over another
as their new homeland. Moreover, understanding the
consequences of the movement - its significance for the USSR
and for the major 'receiving' countries, Israel and the
USA - has become an engaging topic of research, speculation
and debate.
Our principal intention in this book is not merely to
describe the current Soviet emigration (although we shall of
necessity devote a considerable amount of space to that
task), but to evaluate existing analyses of its causes,
dimensions and consequences. This will require our entering
into some pretty murky political waters because one's
interpretation of these issues inevitably affects one's
judgement of Soviet, American and Israeli policies regarding
Soviet Jewry and a whole range of related topics. This
becomes evident once we discern what we think are the two
basic modes of analysing the movement that have emerged over
the past decade.
(1) The first of these may be termed 'extrinsic' in the
sense that those who adhere to this school of thought tend
to locate the main forces shaping Soviet emigration outside
the USSR itself. Thus, the movement is often said to be
partly an indirect consequence of Israel's victory in the
Six Day War of 1967, an event which allegedly gave rise to a
revivified sense of national consciousness on the part of
1
2 SOVIET-JEWISH EMIGRATION AND SOVIET NATIONALITY POLICY
many Soviet Jews and eventually prompted them to translate
their identification with the state of Israel into a demand
for exit visas to that country. Also important 1n this
regard was the pressure exerted by the Israeli and American
governments, and by Western public opinion in general, on
the Soviet regime. These external exigencies heightened the
resolve of Soviet Jews to leave the USSR and reduced their
government's ability to maintain intact its exceedingly
restrictive emigration policy, at least with respect to
Jews. This argument is well summarised by the following
quotations, the first from an official Israeli source, the
second from a scholarly discussion.
Until 1970, Russia's three million Jews were denied aliyah
[immigration to Israel], save for a trickle permitted to
JOln kinfolk in Israel. The barrier was pushed open by a
massive revival of Jewish nationalism inside the Soviet
Union, aided by pressure from Jewish and human rights
groups in the West. In the years after the Six Day War,
the Jews of the Soviet Union began to petition the Soviet
authorities, the UN, and world leaders, asking that they
be granted the right to emigrate, as guaranteed by the
Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations
Charter.
This revival of identification with Israel had been
sparked by the Kremlin's vicious anti-Israel stand at the
time of the Six Day War, and by national pride in the
prowess of the Israel Defence Forces. (Israel Information
Centre, 1978: p. 94)
What were the reasons for the 'collectivization' of Jewish
appeals [for exit visas] during the last months of 1969?
Besides the mood of national revival which has prevailed
among sections of Russian Jewry since the Six Day War, a
number of direct causes .•• should be considered. Soviet
policies on emigration to Israel underwent a significant
shift in late 1968 .... In the autumn of 1969 a widely
publicized campaign by the Israeli government began,
calling for free emigration of Soviet Jews to Israel ..•.
With the growth of Jewish activities in the West on behalf
of the Soviet Jews' right to emigrate to Israel, Jewish
protests inside the USSR increased. (Redlich,
1974: p. 28)
It follows that the rate of emigration is often considered
by followers of this line of argument to be basically a
result of how much pressure is placed by external forces on
the Soviet regime: presumably, more powerful Western
