
The Fifth problem: Math and Anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union - Multics
http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-Fifth-problem--math---anti-Semitism-in-the-Soviet-Union-7446
======
Jongseong
"The fifth line" on the Soviet passport which listed the bearer's
"nationality" (what we would usually call ethnicity in English) was only
removed from Russian passports in 1997. But Edward Frenkel was picked out as a
Jew because of his surname even though his nationality was listed as Russian,
like most children of mixed marriages between Russian and non-Russian parents.

What if Edward Frenkel's father had been Russian and his mother Jewish instead
of the other way round? Well, the commander of the Soviet Air Force in Ukraine
when the Soviet Union broker up was Kostyantyn Morozov, then Konstantin
Morozov. He had a Russian surname and his nationality was listed as Russian.
If it had been known that he had a Ukrainian mother and had Ukrainian
sympathies, he would never have been given such a powerful post by the Soviet
authorities. As it was, Morozov announced his allegiance to the pro-
independence cause to become the first defense minister of an independent
Ukraine and to establish the Ukrainian armed forces.

Would the breakup of the Soviet Union have gone differently if all the high-
ranking generals in control of Soviet forces in the biggest non-Russian
republic were pro-Russian? It makes you wonder how many accidents of history
can be traced to the arbitrary custom of inheriting surnames from fathers.

~~~
mjn
_" The fifth line" on the Soviet passport which listed the bearer's
"nationality" (what we would usually call ethnicity in English) was only
removed from Russian passports in 1997._

Bit of an aside, but this used to be pretty common. Religion, in practice a
proxy for ethnicity, was only removed from Greek identity cards in 2000:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_identity_card#Removal_of_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_identity_card#Removal_of_religion_and_nationality)

(It's a proxy for ethnicity in Greece because religion has traditionally been
rooted in ethnic groups in the region, so whether someone's card said "Greek
Orthodox" indicated whether they were ethnically Greek, vs. a member of the
Turkish or Albanian minorities.)

~~~
Jongseong
The Resident ID Card of the People's Republic of China still lists the
bearer's ethnicity:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Identity_Card](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Identity_Card)

------
bradleyjg
The line about how under official doctrines all nationalities were equal
reminds me of a story I learned in college.

In the early days under Lenin, Stalin was appointed to formulate the Party's
nationalities policy. One of the policies they came up with was that each of
the nationalities was supposed to have a national homeland. Under the Czars,
Jews were required to live within a "Pale of Settlement" which was in the
extreme west of their European holdings. So somewhere in that neighborhood
would have been a logical spot. Instead Stalin decided to found the Jewish
Autonomous Oblast, capital city Birobidzhan, on the border with China in far
south-east Russia about 400 miles inland from the northern Japan Sea. Many
thousands of Jews were deported to this wasteland, where needless to say they
did not prosper.

It is a sad testament to how manipulated the US communists were that when I
told this story to my grandmother who had been active in those movements, that
she had heard of Birobidzhan, and that they used to sing songs about it in
Yiddish and thought of it as a Jewish Worker's paradise.

~~~
RodericDay
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birobidzhan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birobidzhan)

This Birobidzhan? Doesn't particularly look like a wasteland.

~~~
cema

      Doesn't particularly look like a wasteland.
    

Not any longer.

But truly, the jokes about frost-resistant Jews are so old now.

------
colinbartlett
Sadly, ethnic discrimination is still pretty rampant in areas of the former
Soviet Union. Although it does seem to be getting better. I suppose it takes
more than a generation or two for that to fade away.

~~~
sspiff
It's also pretty rampant in the US and in Europe.

The odds of being hired when you have an Arab name in Western Europe is
frightening, regardless of qualifications.

For the US, just look at the ethnic distribution of death row inmates.

~~~
jokoon
Still quite more worrying in Russia, there is not that much more freedom of
speech in there nor a very good justice system.

~~~
coldtea
> _nor a very good justice system_

Compared to the government-can-do-as-it-pleases, life-in-prison-for-having-
done-3-BS-offenses, largest-incarceration-rate-in-the-world, disproportionate-
amount-of-blacks-in-prison, slap-on-the-wrist-for-rich-folks, private-prison-
racket system?

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
The US justice system is flawed but is nowhere near as bad as Russia's.

~~~
coldtea
I'm not so sure. What I hear about Russia's is mostly cronyism. That happens
in the US too, but let's say that it happens way less.

How is it for the average citizen, and normal disputes? Do they have something
like a huge minority (blacks) that they consistently discriminate against in
their justice system?

Do they have as absurd laws as the three-strikes?

------
brianpgordon
If you're interested in seeing some of these "killer questions" there's a book
of them called "You failed your math test, Comrade Einstein."

Coral CDN link (since the author's file server seems ridiculously slow):
[http://www.ftpi.umn.edu.nyud.net/shifman/ComradeEinstein.pdf](http://www.ftpi.umn.edu.nyud.net/shifman/ComradeEinstein.pdf)

------
ChrisNorstrom
Despite being messed up, there's a sort of cultural logic to it. Here's the
thing, a lot of cultures really want to keep things to themselves. The
mentally goes like this: "This land is ours, our ancestors fought for it so
our culture can have a place to flourish and live on, it's not here for you,
get out please." It's not just a European thing, Asian countries are the same
way they don't even give you the chance to become a citizen. I've learned to
understand it as a natural part of human psychology. It's also not a problem
when there's only one ethnicity in the whole country like Japan which is 98%
ethnic Japanese but a lot of European countries tend to let others in who are
different than them (Jews, Roma, North Africans, Arabs, Indians) and then have
problems with assimilation and integration.

Russia's kind of weird, didn't they just open a Jewish history museum dubbed
the "Jewish Disney Land" to try to get more Jews to move back?
[http://www.themoscowtimes.com/arts_n_ideas/article/state-
of-...](http://www.themoscowtimes.com/arts_n_ideas/article/state-of-art-
jewish-museum-opens-in-moscow/471347.html) Somehow I think leaders want Jews
back but the public doesn't.

~~~
daffodil08
I only partially agree with you. Xenophobia is everywhere and in every country
of the world, but racism and antisemitism, which are not really based on
ethnicity or national identity, seem to be a particularly European disease.

~~~
zhewei
Not true. Take the middle-east:

Racism:
[http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/sep/08/racismi...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/sep/08/racisminthemiddleeast)
[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/opinion/10iht-
edeltahawy.1...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/opinion/10iht-
edeltahawy.1.18556273.html)

Anti-semitism (too easy):
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Arab_world](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Arab_world)

Or the rest of the world:

A comparison of countries, not sure if you should trust this as an indicator:
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15/a-fascinating-
map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-racially-tolerant-countries/)

Books with anti-semitic conspiracy theories are bestsellers in China:
[http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/china-anti-
semi...](http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/china-anti-semitic-
conspiracy-theories-and-wall-street/)

Discrimination against black people in China:
[http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/24/world/asia/china-tinted-
prejud...](http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/24/world/asia/china-tinted-prejudice/)

------
cema
I have collected some of the stories and links to further reading here:
[http://www.livejournal.com/community/kerosinka/1633.html](http://www.livejournal.com/community/kerosinka/1633.html)
Majority of the material is in Russian, but a large minority in English, for
those interested.

------
altero
It is bit more complex.

Socialism discriminated 'intellectuals' in favor of 'proletariat'. For example
son of doctor had lower chances compared to son of factory worker. Jews were
perceived as intellectuals.

Similar discrimination is today in US. Jews are discriminated for being white.

~~~
Jongseong
Unless you claim that the officials of MGU went great lengths to keep young
Edward Frenkel out of the university for some other reason than his Jewish
surname, you are giving an ex post facto excuse for the continued and long-
standing discrimination against Jews that the Soviets inherited from the
Russian Empire.

Although it was nowhere as bad as in the Old World, Jews were historically
discriminated against in the U.S.—universities had Jewish quotas, for example.
This had nothing to do with "being white", even if we limit ourselves to white
European Jews. The whole "reverse discrimination" angle you try to bring in is
neither here nor there.

~~~
altero
> Unless you claim that the officials of MGU went great lengths to keep young
> Edward Frenkel out of the university for some other reason than his Jewish
> surname

That is exactly what I am saying. Examiners could got orders to fail him, if
for example his uncle lived on west. Officially there was no discrimination,
so it was mostly done by bulling people at exams.

White (perhaps even heterosexual male) has statistically lower chances to
study for free. It fits definition of discrimination as a glove.

~~~
Jongseong
What you say might have made sense if not for the fact that countless other
Jewish students were similarly denied from MGU. Did they all have uncles that
lived in the West?

In Frenkel's story, the lady from the correspondence school hears his name and
that he wants to apply to MGU, and immediately asks for his nationality. When
he replies "Russian", she keeps asking until he replies that his father is
Jewish. Then she flat-out says, "Do you know that Jews are not accepted to
Moscow University?". I think it is fairly clearly established that this is the
reason he was denied a place there.

------
ommunist
I shall tell you one name - Landau.

The "fifth line" was not a problem. What is a problem is when russian jew with
Soviet M Sc in maths goes through NARIC in the UK, he gets B Sc only. It is
the West who is discriminating Soviet degrees.

~~~
cema
Oh please. Nobody discriminated against my degree from Kerosinka, the 5-year
course of classes was admitted as equivalent of MS in Applied Math. There is
discrimination, in a very certain way, against medical degrees, for a variety
of reasons, some are good reasons, some not; that seems to be an exception.

~~~
ommunist
Oh man, you trapped. There was a special research about disproportionally high
level of Jewish students and graduates in Kerosinka.
[http://kerosinka.livejournal.com/1633.html](http://kerosinka.livejournal.com/1633.html)

~~~
cema
Do you even understand what I said? The conversation was about (alleged)
discrimination against Soviet education in Western countries. I said I
graduated from Kerosinka and was not discriminated against (in the US), on the
contrary, my 5-year course of education was counted (in the US) in as an
equivalent of an MS degree in Applied Math. Don't play a fool.

------
ommunist
For those interested in deeper understanding and more interesting facts (yes,
distribution of Jewish Math university entrants was not even, and applied
sciences in the USSR gained a lot from that) - the classy article by Mark
Saul, Kerosinka: An Episode in the History of Soviet Mathematics. Notices of
the AMS, vol.46, no.10, November 1999.
([http://www.ams.org/notices/199910/fea-
saul.pdf](http://www.ams.org/notices/199910/fea-saul.pdf))

------
jedmeyers
Propaganda at those times said that Jewish people will get "the best education
in the world" for free and then leave the USSR without paying back for it.

~~~
dominotw
Mass immigration to Israel from USSR was true though. Stalin was also irked
that Israel didn't go communist. So their fears were well founded at that time

~~~
lostinnyc
Their fears were well-founded only if you use the hateful and twisted "logic"
that the USSR used at the time.

My American university provided lots of financial aid to international
students. Need-blind! Many of these students came from countries with very un-
American political systems. And many of them simply returned to their home
countries after college.

And yet these students did not have to go through the Kafka-esque (and just
plain wrong) system that this author describes. They were treated like
everyone else.

~~~
dominotw
You have to understand the place the time this "logic" was applied. America
was not brutally attacked twice with a span of couple of decades. America did
not loose 30 million people in resource/territorial aggressions. America was
not surrounded by technologically and economically advanced nations salivating
at its riches.

------
dangoldin
Happened to my dad as well. He couldn't get accepted into a PhD for quantum
physics so ended up studying physical chemistry.

------
11001
See also: [http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1556](http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1556)

------
throwaway_yy2Di
Previous HN discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4752047](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4752047)

Top thread points out that the US obviously does the same thing.

