Les gardiens yiddish du léninisme

From the mid-1950s onward, “Lenin,” “Leninism” and “restoration of Leninist norms” were invocations reiterated by communists in many countries in an attempt to draw a line between their utopian beliefs and the Soviet reality. Yiddish-speaking Polish communists, who are in the center of this article, also viewed the 1920s as a highpoint of the Leninist approach to the nationalities problems, whereas Stalinist “deviations” from Leninism spelt doom for Jewish culture in the Soviet Union. Adoration of Lenin and Leninism remained an important part of their selves even when they were forced to live in emigration

The Soviet Narrative of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Soviet ideological overseers did not consider the Warsaw Ghetto uprising an utterly taboo topic. However, on their general scale of notable events of the Second World War, the uprising belonged to the category of relatively minor episodes, worth mentioning mainly in the context of ‘more important’ themes, such as the presence of former Nazis in state institutions of West Germany or the collaboration of some Jews, most notably Zionists, with the Nazis. At the same time, the Soviet Yiddish periodicals, first Eynikayt [Unity, 1942–8] and then Sovetish Heymland [Soviet Homeland, 1961–91] did not treat the uprising as an event of secondary importance. Instead, they emphasise the heroism of the ghetto fighters