Unpacking Antisemitic Myths: Genrikh Yagoda and the Fabrication of Jewish Bolshevism

Genrikh Grigoryevich Yagoda, head of Stalin’s Secret Police from 1934 to 1936, is frequently cited on social media by antisemites attempting to portray Jews as ruthless mass murderers. He is often depicted in memes as “a Jew who murdered 10 million non-Jews in the Jewish Bolshevik Revolution.”

Like all antisemitic claims, this accusation is a total fabrication.

The term “Jewish Bolshevism” is a fictional construct designed to spread antisemitic tropes. While a proportion of Jews did turn to Bolshevism, the majority of those involved in Lenin’s revolution were non-Jewish. The claim that 80% of Bolshevik leadership was Jewish is also false; out of 21 leaders, only five were Jewish.

Jews were drawn to Bolshevism by the promise of an end to years of persecution under Romanov rule, which had resulted in the murder of 150,000 Jews in pogroms in modern-day Ukraine alone. The Bolsheviks’ platform of ending antisemitism seemed to offer equality, but these were false promises. Jewish communities faced anti-religious laws that denied them the right to practice their religion and receive religious education.

Genrikh Yagoda was indeed a Jewish member of the Bolshevik party, but he only joined the Cheka, the first Soviet secret police agency, after the 1917 Revolution, rising through its ranks thereafter.

If the accusation seeks to blame Yagoda for the deaths caused by the Holodomor, the man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that led to an estimated 3.9 million deaths, it is misplaced. During this period, Yagoda was overseeing the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal and does not appear in any reputable histories of the Holodomor, confirming his lack of involvement.

The claim that Yagoda murdered “non-Jews” is equally absurd. Had he been involved in the Holodomor, tens of thousands of Jews would have perished, as Ukraine had the largest Jewish population in the Soviet Union, following forced relocations by Catherine the Great’s government.

Yagoda is best known for his role in the newly formed Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) in 1934, where he oversaw Stalin’s “Great Purge,” a series of public and secret trials against perceived political opponents.

However, within two years, Stalin lost confidence in Yagoda due to his refusal to provide fabricated evidence against detainees. When Yagoda expressed concerns about the show trials and their impact on his fellow Russians, he was removed from office. The following year, Stalin ordered his arrest, and in 1938, Yagoda became a victim of the very show trials he had overseen. Using trumped-up charges, he was tried, found guilty of treason, and executed on March 15, 1938.