Our Notes & References

The guide-report to resettling impoverished Jews in Crimea and converting them into farmers, “one of the largest plans ever undertaken to economically restratify Jews through colonization” (Kagedan).

Rare first edition, written by an active member of the project, and including the map of Jewish agricultural settlements in Crimea. OCLC records only two holdings (Hoover Institution, Dalhousie University), to which can be added three in Russia; no copies at auctions in the West, and only a couple in Russia.

The early Soviet leadership, “eager to integrate Jews into the construction of socialism and to attract funding and expertise from the influential diaspora” (Pasik), promoted agricultural colonisation in Crimea, owing to its sparse population, expanses of underused land, and proximity to traditional Jewish communities. From 1925 an organised resettlement campaign was conducted under the Committee for the Land Settlement of Jewish Workers (KOMZET), with support from the Society for the Land Settlement of Jewish Workers (OZET) and the American Agro-Joint, which provided funding and machinery.

In 1926 Politburo member Mikhail Kalinin articulated the ideological basis of the project, arguing that Jewish national development in the USSR required territorial consolidation in agricultural communities—the so-called “Kalinin Declaration”. By 1930, 97 settlements had been established, with thousands of houses and communal buildings; “the scheme was also intended to demonstrate the resolution of antisemitism in the USSR and to discredit the Palestinian option” (Kondratiuk, our translation here and elsewhere).

From 1932, however, the project declined under the pressures of collectivisation, urban migration, the competing Birobidzhan initiative, and reduced foreign support during the global economic crisis. The Soviet government began combating “nationalism”, and in 1938 Agro-Joint was forced to cease operations, while KOMZET and OZET were dissolved as “nests of enemies of the people”, their personnel persecuted. Of the 47,740 Jews resettled in Crimea, only about 18,000 remained in agriculture by 1939 (Pasik). The Crimean scheme ended in “utter, complete, black tragedy” (Rosenberg, quoted by Kagedan). Of roughly 17,000 Jews in rural Crimea in 1941, about half evacuated; those who remained were murdered during the German occupation (Pasik).

A surprising survivor of the mentioned Stalinist purges, the engineer Iulii Golde (1882–after 1956) was a leading advocate of the Crimean project and an active member of KOMZET and OZET. In the mid-1920s he played a key role in surveying land and negotiating its allocation to settlers. In this guide for the colonisers and resettlers, he gives an overview of Crimea’s geography, population, and economy, outlines the organisation and goals of the resettlement programme—targeted chiefly at the poorest Jews—and details practical matters such as land distribution, assistance, employment opportunities, and cultural initiatives. It also discusses challenges, gives data of the positive results of the first six years of the project, presents plans for 1931, and concludes with a description of resettlement procedures and the rights and benefits afforded to settlers, including loans, tax relief, and military exemptions.

Printed by the principal Soviet Jewish publishing house “Der Emes”, it was reissued in Russian and Yiddish the following year, and reprinted in Tel Aviv in 1973.

Bibliography

Kagedan, Allan L. “American Jews and the Soviet Experiment: The Agro-Joint Project, 1924-1937.” Jewish Social Studies, vol. 43, no. 2, 1981, pp. 153–64.

Kondratiuk G. N. “Evreiskaia agrarnaia kolonizatsiia v Krymskoi ASSR kak element natsionalnoi politiki (20-e–nach. 30-kh godov XX veka)” // Voprosy dukhovnoi kultury – istoricheskie nauki.

Pasik, Iakov. “Evreiskie naselennye punkty v Krymu do 1941 g.”. Evreiskie zemledelcheskie kolonii iuga Ukrainy i Kryma, 2006.