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In 1917, my aunt Cila returned from school with the news that in Moscow a revolution broke up against the Tsar. …Tzar Nicolas II and family were arrested and the government changed frequently depending on who was in power…The prominent one was Alexander Krensky, a lawyer, who was elected to Duma (concept, thought, idea) which was the Russian parliament, then was Prime Minister…He lasted in that position only three-and-a-half months… the main reasons for his downfall: 1.Kerensky preached to continue the war against Germany – entirely contrary to the will of the public- and this was taken advantage of by the radical-Bolshevik opposition. 2. His political moderate concepts differed completely from those of the Bolsheviks… To avoid a death sentence – the usual fate of opponents of Bolshevism, he fled from Russia and eventually died in the States in 1967.
….Lenin arrived in Russia and changed the slogan "Democratic Revolutionist Dictatorship" to the more radical "the proletarian Dictatorship". All political parties except the communists, were persecuted and in 1921 liquidated and so was the independent press ….
His attitude to Zionism was negative but he was not an anti-Semite.
Meantime, heavy battles continued between the Bolshevik forces and white army faithful to the old regime. England and France, arch-enemies to Bolshevism supported the white forces…
Accounts of Red vs. White (Bolshevik vs. Menshevik) battles omitted here.
…The list of arch-actors in the Russian revolution in 1917 included…Trotsky, who adopted this name, replacing his very Jewish surname…He was an intellectual and outstanding organizer and turned the Red Guards into a severely disciplined regular army. He was an inspiring speaker. At the age of ten-and-a-half I listened to his 4 hour speech in Chernigov and I was enchanted…
That time I regarded Bolshevism as a guardian of citizens and not their enemy, in particular keeping the Jews safe from pogroms carried out by the White army…
My mother joined a workshop where they learned how to sew shoes form old used materials. Towards winter my mother supplied us with her product. I remember that half a year, during summer, I walked barefoot and the soles of my feet became hard like shoe soles….
Biographical information about Trotsky.
Stalin gradually undermines Trotsky, using the fact that Trotsky was Jewish.
My Father in Exile
…My father's commercial centers in Poland were paralyzed as a result German's occupation of Ukraine and were moved to Moscow and Charbin. A short time before the revolution started, my father went to Moscow and from there continued to Harbin, Manchuria. The revolution blocked the return way. In Harbin he supported himself by teaching mathematics to 11th and 12th graders in a high school. Russian was then the official language.
He became famous as an excellent teacher. After their matriculation, the students gave him a present – a golden watch. When he returned to the family in Kobryn, through the USA, he gave me this watch which I brought with me to Israel and then lost it, to my great sorrow.
While my father was stuck in Harbin…heavy battles and much bloodshed reigned in Russia between the Red and White forces. The White forces were composed of officers of various ranks. Their heavy defeats convinced them they could not return the former regime. Desperate, they started launching attacks [using tactics] completey outside the essential laws of combat – [for example] using straight, compact lines that caused them many deaths… Death was an escape… Whole areas passed from side-to-side, frequently. Chernigov, the city where we dwelt, passed in short battles to Generals Petlura, Denikin, Kolchak, and the Ukrainian army.
The Jewish community suffered most heavily from the Pogroms launched by Denikin's troops. A Russian family, friends of ours, hid us. We stayed in a room, the entrance to which was hidden by a closet. We sat in isolation, whispering, careful not to be revealed. My little sister Shulamit (Shirley), two years old, behaved exceptionally well feeling or aware of the seriousness of the situation. Denikin's officers came from time to time to ask our friends whether any Jews were there… From our hiding place we heard the horrible cries of Jews being caught and led to telephone poles to be hanged. That continued for a week.
Due to the victories of the Red Army all over Russia, the Bolsheviks became the rulers.
There was also hunger. I remember that once my mother sent me to the shoemaker with a bottle of ink, for which he gave me 10 potatoes. Our adults proposed a deal to the peasants - food in exchange for the textiles we brought along from Kobryn. It worked out successfully.
We Move Again
At the beginning of 1920 the adults planned to leave the USSR and steal into Poland illegally. Except for Oscar, we moved westward to a village close to Minsk which was then under Polish rule… We contacted illegal smugglers. They suggested that we wait for spring when the ice in the river started melting and the Bolsheviks guard was weaker. We had to cross the river by boat.
We started this dangerous adventure when at dusk –- half darkness. We had to drive in a cart through part of the forest. On the way our horse snorted and the smugglers had to calm it down before we were revealed. We reached the river at night in complete silence. One of the smugglers took Shirley on his shoulder and put her in the boat and the rest of us mounted the boat on our own. On the other bank, the colleagues of the smugglers were waiting for us with a horse and a coach. They took us to their home. The next morning we went to the Polish police in Minsk. We showed our documents and they called up the police in Kobryn to ascertain that a Zaritsky family was living there. They allowed us to continue. We took the first Minsk-Warsaw train and got off at the Kobryn station….
We found our relatives in Kobryn. A few days later we traveled to Chomsk to my maternal grandparents and their 5 children and enjoyed staying there for a few days…
The Bolsheviks Invade Poland
In Autumn, half a year after our return to Kobryn from Ukraine, the Bolshevik invasion of Poland took place… They were pushed backwards from the Vistula River, at Warsaw. This war ended in a non-typical way "No war and no peace" which was written on the walls of the fortress of Brisk (40 km. from Kobryn) in huge letters…
Asher (Oscar) my father's youngest brother came from Russia to Kobrin with the Red Army. When they retreated he decided to remain in Kobrin. His aim was to be admitted by the mathematical faculty in Rome, Italy. This was his destiny. If he returned to Russia, he would not get permission to leave it. Suitable to comment that Asher (Oscar) Zaritsky finishing high school with distinction was admitted and studied one year philosopy at Kiev university. During the first days of the Revolution 1917, walking in the street in Kiev, he was injured by a wandering rifle bullet.
Later history of Asher Zaritsky in Israel and the U.S.
