How should Mennonites organize politically? There’s a pamphlet for that!

When revolutionary riots broke out in Moscow in February 1917, large numbers of young Mennonite medics (alternative service units) were stationed in Moscow. The government was overthrown, and a new a democratically elected Russian Constituent Assembly was promised with elections in the Fall. The level of political awareness and debate was high.

Back home, the Halbstadt Commerce School teacher Benjamin H. Unruh and Johann A. Willms penned a longer brochure entitled “How do we Mennonites Organize for a National Assembly?” (March 3, 1917) (note 1; pics).

Unruh and Willms were concerned about Mennonite self-preservation, self-protection and the advancement of group-interests in a competitive environment if Mennonites were not to be crushed, swept away or simply self-destruct.

During the war, the state had moved to expropriate all farmlands owned by ethnic Germans; use of German in public places was restricted and even after the February Revolution they lacked freedom of the press.

Unruh was an advocate for a constitutional monarchy as in Great Britain, in contrast to Willms and his younger colleagues at the Halbstadt Commerce School—which included some socialists—who “awaited everything from the liberal bourgeoisie,” according to Unruh.

There was definitely a generational divide. When Unruh travelled to speak to those stationed in Moscow early in 1917, there was “…a feeling by the majority of the listeners that the speaker [Unruh] had been too voluble, pompous, assertive, too impressed with his own brilliance of mind, too defensive of the status quo at home, and too transparently obvious in his ambition to hold the position of starshii (elder or leader) in Mennonite organizations,” according to historian David G. Rempel—whose brother Johann was in the group (note 2).

On March 29, 1917, representatives of the various Russian Mennonite settlements met in Halbstadt and agreed on the need for Mennonites to organize and participate fully in the political life of the country. The goal was not to form a new party, but to create an All-Russian Union of Mennonites that was focused on electing representatives who could protect the spiritual and cultural identity of Mennonites. The goal required maximum unity and cooperation in an increasingly diversified but fragile Mennonite commonwealth that stretched from the Crimean Peninsula to the Amur River on the Chinese border.

Representatives met with other Russian Germans in St. Petersburg and agreed that an All-Russian Central Committee of Russian Germans was necessary moving forward, with the guarantee that Mennonite confessional distinctives and special interests including the right of property ownership and ethnic, confessional schools would be recognized.

The strategy required grass-roots political work in every village, verbal and print “propaganda,” created especially by teachers who were free in the summers.

The urgency of the moment brought modern rights for women to forefront for the first time: “Even our women must cast a vote if we do not wish to fall behind” (pic).

In mid-August, the first “All-Mennonite Congress” met in Ohrloff, Molotschna to organize and strategize Mennonite civil affairs (as separate from the church) with 198 representatives from various regions and interest groups. Significant debate around Mennonite non-resistance ensued, as well as around land distribution, the compatibility of Christianity and socialism, education, and justice.

The minutes capture what some have called the pinnacle of Mennonite intellectual and cultural life in Russia —though notably still without women (note 3).

An assembly of delegates representing “Russian citizens of German nationality and Mennonites” met later in the month in Neu-Halbstadt, Molotschna to develop their platform.

Ninety-eight percent of Mennonites participated in the long-delayed November elections—a sign of their willingness to cooperate with the new government, according to Unruh, who himself was a candidate for the “German Farmers of Tavrida.”

The Bolsheviks under Lenin (Unruh had met and debated Lenin a decade earlier in Switzerland, he claimed!) however seized power only three weeks prior to the elections, and then moved to dissolve the new constituent assembly after its first brief meeting in January 1918.

                                                                        --Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Benjamin H. Unruh and Johann Willms, “Wie organisieren wir Mennoniten uns für die Nationalversammlung?” 1917. In Peter J. Braun Russian Mennonite Archive, file 3603, 58-68, reel 77. From Robarts Library, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON.

Note 2: David G. Rempel, “Recollections from trip to Canada, Summer 1939.” David G. Rempel Papers. Box 36, File 29. From Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto. Toronto, ON.

Note 3: “Protokoll des Allgemeinen Mennonitischen Kongresses, August 14–18, 1917,” reprinted in Mennonitische Warte over four issues: 4 , no. 38 (February 1938) 34- 40; https://chortitza.org/pdf/vpetk362.pdf; 4, no. 39 (March 1938) 68–73, https://chortitza.org/pdf/vpetk363.pdf; 4, no. 40 (April 1938) 112–116, https://chortitza.org/pdf/vpetk364.pdf; 4, no. 41 (May 1938) 162–166, https://chortitza.org/pdf/vpetk365.pdf.