Antisemitism and the Russian Revolution

Book Talk Admission: Free Watch the video

When the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917, they announced the overthrow of a world scarred by exploitation and domination. In the very moment of revolution, these sentiments were put to the test as antisemitic pogroms swept the former Pale of Settlement. The pogroms posed fundamental questions of the Bolshevik project, revealing the depth of antisemitism within sections of the working class, peasantry and Red Army.

Brendan McGeever’s new book Antisemitism and the Russian Revolution offers the first book-length analysis of the Bolshevik response to antisemitism. Contrary to existing understandings, it reveals this campaign to have been led not by the Party leadership, as is often assumed, but by a loosely connected group of radicals who mobilized around a Jewish political subjectivity. By examining pogroms committed by the Red Army, McGeever also reveals the explosive overlap between revolutionary politics and antisemitism, and the capacity for class to become racialized in a moment of crisis.

Join YIVO for a presentation on this new book by Brendan McGeever. The evening will include an introduction by Jack Jacobs, and be capped off with a panel discussion with McGeever, Jacobs, Andrew Sloin, Polly Zavadivker, and YIVO’s Jonathan Brent. 

Purchase the book.

About the Author

Brendan McGeever is a Lecturer in Sociology at the Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism at Birkbeck, University of London, where he teaches in the Department of Psychosocial Studies. His work focuses on racism, antisemitism and anti-racism. In particular, he is engaged in the study of the former Soviet Union.