Did Joseph Stalin Speak Yiddish?
It isn’t uncommon to hear the claim that Joseph Stalin is jewish despite these having been debunked in detail by several nationalist historians such as myself (1) and Kerry Bolton. (2)
One of the commonly-cited fall-back positions for those who continue – contrary to the evidence – that Stalin was jewish is the – as far as I am aware - unsourced claim that Stalin spoke Yiddish.
However, the website ‘Death of Communism’ does try and back this claim up – it also claims Vladimir Putin is jewish which I have also debunked – (3) when they claim that:
‘This explains how it just was Stalin spoke perfect Yiddish his whole life. Yiddish is the common language Jews speak in most places next to Hebrew.’ (4)
The evidence for this statement they cite is as follows:
‘David Weissman, in an article in the B’NAI B’RITH MESSENGER (Mar. 3, 1950), stated that Stalin is a Jew. Stalin spoke Yiddish, & had three Jewish wives,’
I’ve validated this as real and because I am honest, I include the page actually being cited: (5)
The problem with this is that while the citation is real. It is also very evident that Weisman is writing an opinion piece called ‘Here’s the Point’ and what is being cited is David Weisman’s opinion that Stalin had jewish ancestry, spoke Yiddish and had three jewish wives.
It simply isn’t evidence of anything other than the fact that a jew named David Weisman believed these things in March 1950. It certainly doesn’t mean his claims were actually true.
Next, we read ‘Death of Communism’ claiming that:
‘“Lots of sources describe Beria as a Jew, and state, he was talking Yiddish with Stalin’s children.”
Makes sense since Stalin spoke Yiddish and was married to Jewesses who spoke the same. That Jewish Beria would communicate with Stalin’s children in Yiddish as well.’ (6)
The first quote was taken from ‘Metapedia’ which is a Nationalist version of Wikipedia and hasn’t historically been the most accurate, but also not longer includes this historically dubious claim.
The entry cited now states that: (7)
We can thus safely dispose of this piece of evidence and assertion since it isn’t true anymore and we don’t what (if any) source was used to make this claim.
Next ‘Death of Communism’ claims that:
‘Stalin frequently attended the Yiddish theater as well.
“In 1921 the GOSET troupe moved into a theater less than a mile from the Kremlin. For 28 years, through purge, terror, and paranoia, they presented world-class theater in Yiddish.”[4]
This makes sense as the top People in Moscow where Jews who could also speak Yiddish.
Stalin his wife and children and even Beria where sitting around the dinner table speaking Yiddish with each other.’ (8)
The source cited for the quote is YIVO so is a reasonable source (although the original article is no longer available even on Archive), (9) but the interpretation is simply awful and provided without any historical context.
Firstly, GOSET stands for ‘Gosudarstvennyi evreiskii teatr’ (literally ‘Moscow State Yiddish Theater’) so it was Yiddish theatre and it was near Moscow although it was but one of many Yiddish theatre groups with the four principal/permanent Yiddish theatres/theatre companies being Moscow, Minsk, Odessa and Chernowitz with many additional amateur theatres as late as 1948 (10) (there were twelve four principal/permanent Yiddish theatres/theatre companies in the late 1930s) (11) and this was probably greater in 1921. Since in 1926 70 percent of Soviet jews spoke Yiddish (12) due to the significant cultural flourishing of the Yiddish language in the early years of the Soviet Union. (13)
‘Death of Communism’ attempts to make this seem more like an anomaly than it was because that fits his argument but just simply isn’t accurate.
Secondly Stalin attending Yiddish theatre isn’t remotely surprising given that he was the Soviet Union’s ‘Nationalities Commissar’ between 1918 and 1922 (14) and part of the Soviet Union’s nationalities policy was the state sponsorship of Yiddish cultural institutions (like Yiddish theatre) as well as literature and newspapers. (15)
It is rather like how Opera is not infrequently in Italian but just because you don’t understand Italian doesn’t mean you cannot enjoy Opera nor does attending the Opera in Italian mean that you are Italian.
The same applies to Stalin in this case: it is a ‘guilt by association’ argument not one based on actual evidence.
Thirdly there is no source cited by ‘Death of Communism’ for their claim that Stalin spoke Yiddish with Beria so thus we cannot admit that claim either because no evidence of such is provided.
Having thus disposed of what evidence has been adduced for Stalin’s being able to speak Yiddish. Let’s turn to the literature on Stalin which – as regards what languages Stalin spoke – is relatively thin, but we do know from Stephen Kotkin’s recent multi-volume biography of Stalin that he spoke Georgian and Russian fluently, Armenian conversationally, could speak bad German (and possibly bad French) and had some level of knowledge of Old Church Slavonic, Greek and Latin. (16)
We also know from his daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva that he didn’t speak or understand English at all. (17)
Addressing this question Thomas Weir and Timothy Blauvert concluded slightly differently to Kotkin that:
‘So a definitive list of Stalin’s language skills would be:
Georgian and Russian (reading, writing, speaking and hearing, full fluency);
German (some reading and speaking, beginner’s level);
Latin, Ancient Greek, Old Georgian, perhaps Old Church Slavonic (exclusively reading and singing)
a mere smattering of other languages but no genuine fluency in any sense.’ (18)
So, while Stalin could speak or at least understand several languages: Yiddish is universally held not to be one of them. He may have known a few basic words in Yiddish – which wouldn’t be surprising in the same way this present writer for example knows some basic Japanese – but that neither is evidence he could read, write or speak Yiddish let alone be evidence that he was jewish.
References
(1) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/was-joseph-stalin-jewish
(2) See Bolton’s article: https://archive.is/2015.05.17-052220/http://www.counter-currents.com/2012/11/was-stalin-jewish-and-does-it-matter/
(3) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/is-vladimir-putin-jewish
(4) https://www.deathofcommunism.com/stalin-the-jew/
(5) Available here: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/91f2b1e0-d20d-0134-ccb3-00505686d14e#/?uuid=92517f30-d20d-0134-5267-00505686d14e
(6) https://www.deathofcommunism.com/stalin-the-jew/
(7) https://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Lavrentiy_Beria
(8) https://www.deathofcommunism.com/stalin-the-jew/
(9) https://web.archive.org/web/20150711175152/http://www.yivo.org/blog/index.php/2015/05/08/limited-run-at-theater-80-making-stalin-laugh/
(10) Schneier Levenberg, 1989, ‘From Czar to Glasnost: Yiddish in the Soviet Union’, 1st Edition, Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies: Oxford, p. 11
(11) Bernard Wasserstein, 2012, ‘On the Eve: The Jews of Europe Before the Second World War’, 1st Edition, Profile: London, p. 292
(12) Levenberg, Op. Cit., p. 9
(13) Ibid., pp. 7-9
(14) Cf. Jeremy Smith, 2005, ‘Stalin as Commissar for Nationality Affairs, 1918–1922’, pp. 45-62 in Sarah Davies, James Harris (Eds.), 2005, ‘Stalin: A New History’, 1st Edition, Cambridge University Press: New York
(15) Wasserstein, Op. Cit., pp. 228-234
(16) Stephen Kotkin, 2014, ‘Stalin’, Vol. I, 1st Edition, Penguin: New York pp. 1-3
(17) http://russianhistoryblog.org/2011/11/stalins-daughter/
(18) https://theeducationalblog.quora.com/How-many-languages-did-Stalin-speak-https-www-quora-com-How-many-languages-did-Stalin-speak-answer-Thomas-Wier