The End of Jewish Self-Government

Abstract

This chapter takes a look at how the basis of former Jewish self-government was gradually eliminated by the Soviet regime. The First World War and the Russian Revolution and civil war dramatically changed the political, social, and economic landscape of eastern Europe. Historically and culturally a part of the Jewish community of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Jews in Soviet Belarus now had to adapt themselves to new realities. Practically all Jewish political and public organisations were undermined and destroyed by the Bolsheviks after 1918. Jewish self-government could no longer exist in the Soviet state, where all spheres of life were subordinated to the control of the Communist Party.