Semyon Dimanstein
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Semyon Dimanstein in the 1930s |
Semyon Dimanstein(in Russian "иманштейн Шим‘он (Семен Маркович) (
1886(uncertain)- August
1938) was a
Soviet state activist, publisher, theorist of national issue in the
USSR, one of the founders of the Soviet Oriental studies. He was cosidered to a representative of Soviet
Jews.
Dimanstein was born in Sebezh,
Pskov oblast in a Jewish family of a comivoyager. He studied in a
Lubavich yeshiva where an eighteen-year Semyon ordained his rabbinate. Nevertheless, he suffered of
poverty and
homelessness.
In
1904 Dimanstein became a member of the RSDP in
Vilno, where his major objective was to dispute with Jewish Socialist Party,
Bund and
Zionism parties. After the range of the government repression in
1908, he was sentenced to life settlement in the
Irkutsk region. Dimanstein escaped and left the
Russian Empire for
France till
March Revolution 1917.
At that time Russia was at
WWI and Dimanstein was a propagandist of peace treaty. He was one of the editors of "Trench Truth" ("Окопной правды"). Dimanstein played a significant role during the Bolshevik
November Revolt. He was appointed a head of
Yevsektsiya in January, 1918 (Russian: ЕвСекция, the abbreviation of the phrase "Еврейская секция"). It was a Jewish section of the Soviet Communist party created to challenge and eventually destroy the rival Bund and Zionist parties, suppress Judaism and "bourgeois nationalism" and replace traditional Jewish culture with "proletarian culture", as well as to impose the ideas of Dictatorship of the proletariat onto the Jewish worker class. An important aim of the Yevsektsiya was to mobilize the world Jewry in favor of the Soviet regime. In
1920 Dimanstein was sent to
Bukhar People's Soviet Republic where he established Soviet institutions and supported creation of local elite. In
1922-
1924 Dimanstein worked in
Agitation Deparment of Ukraine. In 1924 he returned to
Moscow where Dimanstein headed different agitation departments which the objectives were to spread Soviet
ideology among non-Russian peoples. Dimanstein was an editor of "New East" and "Revolution and Nationality". He was a steady supportor of Stalin's policy. His last appointment was a head of the Central Committee of Jewish Workers Settlement on Earth. Dimastein was one of the promotors of
Birobijan project. In 1930 he was against the
collectivization on Jewish settlements in
Jewish national districts of South
Ukraine and Northern
Crimea. In 1935 Dimanstein was an editor of a
propaganda book "Idn in FSSR" (Jews in the Soviet Union). Since October
1936 Dimanstein was one of the editors of Birobijan's newspapers "Forpost".
On
21 February,
1938 Dimastein was arrested and got
death sentence on
20 August, 1938. He was rehabilitated on
13 August,
1955.
*
The Jewish Encyclopedia on the Internet in Russian*
List of repressed Soviet politicians in Russian
