The Communist movement and ideology played an important part in Jewish life, particularly in the 1920s, 1930s and during and after World War II.... Individual Jews played an important role in the early stages of Bolshevism and the Soviet Regime.... The great attraction of Communism among Russian, and later also, Western Jewry, emerged only with the establishment of the Soviet Regime in Russia...

Many Jews the world over therefore regarded the Soviet concept of the solution to the "Jewish question" as an intrinsically positive approach.... Communism became widespread in virtually all Jewish communities. In some countries Jews became the leading element in the legal and illegal Communist parties and in some cases were even instructed by the Communist international to change their Jewish-sounding names and pose as non-Jews, in order not to confirm right wing propaganda that presented Communism an alien, Jewish conspiracy.¹

Trotsky's book, Stalin, written in exile, attempted to show that Stalin had played only an insignificant role in the early days of the Communist takeover. Trotsky attempted to illustrate this point by reproducing a postcard widely circulated in the months following the revolution. The postcard depicted the six leaders of the revolution. Shown are Lenin (who was at least one-quarter Jewish, spoke Yiddish in his home, and was married to a Jewess), Trotsky (real Jewish name: Lev Bronstein), Zinoviev (real Jewish name: Hirsch Apfelbaum), Lunacharsky (a Gentile), Kamenov (real Jewish name: Rosenfeld), and Sverdlov (Jewish).² Not only does the postcard show the Jewish domination of the revolution; it also illustrates the fact the Jewish Communist leaders shown had changed their names just as reported in the Encyclopedia Judaica.

Although the fact of Lenin's Jewish ancestry was kept quiet for many years, Jewish writers are now taking note of it. David Shub, author of Lenin: A Biography, stated in a letter to the Russian émigré paper Novyi Zhurnal³ that Lenin's mother was at least Jewish on her father's side and probably so on her mother's side as well.⁴

In addition, a French Jewish periodical, Review de Fonds Social Juif,⁵ reported that a Soviet novelist, Marietta Shaguinian, was prevented by Soviet censorship from publishing evidence of Lenin's Jewish ancestry. A number of Jewish publications in recent years have disclosed Lenin's Jewish heritage, including the Jewish Chronicle.⁶

The Cheka, or secret police, had a Jew, Moses Uritzky, as its first chief, and most of the other subsequent leaders were also Jews, including Sverdlov and Genrikh Yagoda (which is Russian for "Yehuda" - "the Jew") who presided over the pogroms that killed tens of millions. The Soviet propaganda minister during the war was a Jew, Ilya Ehrenburg, who notoriously distinguished himself by his Second World War exhortations of Soviet troops to rape and murder the women and children of Germany.⁷ Anatol Goldberg quoted Ehrenburg in his book, Ilya Ehrenburg as saying, "...the Germans are not human beings…nothing gives us so much joy as German corpses."⁸