ABSTRACT
The letter of the Jewish frontoviks stated that the overall and pronounced Ukrainian anti-Semitism led to an anti-Jewish pogrom in Kiev in early September 1945. The liberated Western territories of the USSR were most heavily affected by the massive evacuation and re-evacuation. Tensions between the representatives of the nachal’stvo and the population, especially among the Red Army soldiers, have been shown to have run high during and right after the war. The conflicts and contradictions in certain cases could temporarily take the form of anti-Semitism but even in these cases the form does not necessarily equal the possible historical content. The perception of the pogroms as well as of anti-Semitism itself needs to be understood within its contemporary cultural code. The case of Trotsky shows the narrow limits to the use of anti-Semitism in the description of the social, political processes and phenomena of the Soviet Union.
