Farming the Red Land: Jewish Agricultural Colonization and Local Soviet Power, 1924†“1941

Description

This is the first history of the Jewish agricultural colonies that were established in Crimea and Southern Ukraine in 1924 and that, fewer than 20 years later, ended in tragedy. Jonathan Dekel-Chen opens an extraordinary window on Soviet rural life during these turbulent years, and he documents the remarkable relations that developed among the American-Jewish sponsors of the ambitious project, the Soviet authorities, and the colonists themselves. Drawing on extensive and largely untouched archives and a wealth of previously unpublished oral histories, the book revises what has been understood about these agricultural settlements. Dekel-Chen offers new conclusions about integration and separation among Soviet Jews, the contours of international relations, and the balance of political forces within the Jewish world during this volatile period. Contents Acknowledgments Abbreviations, Transliterated Terms, and Translation Equivalents Note on Transliteration Introduction Chapter 1 From Shtetl to Colony, 1917–1924 Chapter 2 Building a Colonization Movement: Theory to Practice Chapter 3 Colonization and Diaspora Politics Chapter 4 Soviet Power and Life in the Colonies, 1925–1929 Chapter 5 Collectivization and Its Limits, 1929–1934 Chapter 6 Soviet-Jewish Farmers, 1935–1941 Conclusion Appendixes Notes Bibliography Index