Anti-Semitic Attitude of the Mass Public: Estimates and Explanations Based on a Survey of the Moscow Oblast

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
In this article we examine anti-Semitism as expressed by a sample of residents of the Moscow Oblast (Soviet Union). Based on a survey conducted in 1920, we begin by describing anti-Jewish prejudice and support for official discrimination against Jews. We discover a surprisingly low level of expressed anti-Semitism among these Soviet respondents and virtually no support for state policies that discriminate against Jews. At the same time, many of the conventional hypotheses predicting anti-Semitism are supported in the Soviet case. Anti-Semitism is concentrated among those with lower levels of education, those whose personal financial condition is deteriorating, and those who oppose further democratization of the Soviet Union. We do not take these findings as evidence that anti-Semitism is a trivial problem in the Soviet Union but, rather, suggest that efforts to combat anti-Jewish movements would likely receive considerable support from ordinary Soviet people.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: