1920s: Those who left and those who stayed behind

The picture below is my grandmother's family in 1928. Some could leave but most stayed behind. In 1928 a small group of some 511 Soviet Mennonites were unexpectedly approved for emigration (note 1).

None of the circa 21,000 Mennonites who emigrated from Russia in the 1920s “simply” left. And for everyone who left, at least three more hoped to leave but couldn’t.

It is a complex story.

Canada only wanted a certain type—young healthy farmers—and not all were transparent about their skills and intentions
The Soviet Union wanted to rid itself of a specifically-defined “excess,” and Mennonite leadership knew how to leverage that
Estate owners, and Selbstschutz /White Army militia were the first to be helped to leave, because they were deemed as most threatened community members;
What role did money play? Thousands paid cash for their tickets;
Who made the final decision on group lists, and for which regions? This was not transparent. Exit visa applications were also regularly rejected, and applications fees not refunded;
North American Mennonite relief too had its limits. American Mennonites knew it was much cheaper to send tractors than to encourage immigration and guarantee their “keep” for 5 years;
And who would stay back with "Oma" and the infirm? Who would shepherd the church?

Yes, some chose to stay. Yet a secret police GPU report in December 1926 indicated that “ninety-percent of the Mennonite population wishes to emigrate, and in some village, fifty-percent of the Mennonites have already sold their property, largely to Russian farmers. … The situation is dire” (note 2).

In 1926 collectivization and mass persecution were still years away and there were some reasonable options—though far from ideal—for rebuilding and adjustments to the new regime.

Indeed as the doors were closing to mass migration, these were the last words of leader B.B. Janz to his congregation in May 1926 before fleeing in disguise to join his son in Canada. Janz reassured his people that he is not leaving because he sensed the worst was still to come; on the contrary:

"Nothing terrible stands before us; everything is in order. We have looked broader society and the government directly in the eye; we are not fleeing. … Look how much better things are now [in contrast to December 1921]! God cannot use a wealthy Mennonite people as effectively as a poorer people. … That we are all poor is not bad. The consequences will be positive. … Earlier, prior to 1914, there were differences between us, our churches. But in difficult times we were all one: one affliction, one God—with some doctrinal variations—but united. Everything went steadily downhill between 1914 and 1922; from 1922 until now—uphill … a common search for the path of life—a beautiful thing. In the Union we all worked together … and have decided to remain together." (Note 3)

There is lots of drama as well as tragedy to tell as Canadian Russländer celebrate 100 years in Canada. My encouragement is to write up those stories in ways that show the complexities and dilemmas and choices of the 1920s.

To that end it is exciting to see the 2011 volume of t primary materials from the 1920s online in an edited collection by John B. Toews and Paul Toews, Union of Citizens of Dutch Lineage in Ukraine (1922–1927) (note 4).

The documents of this volume can help you build-up your family immigration story with texture and context. Jacob A. Neufeld’s memories--also available in English--are an important complement to those documents (note 5).

Years later in Canada, Neufeld addressed the question of “motives.” He was as one of the leaders with Janz in the 1920s, but also lived through the Stalin years and the Trek through World War 2.

'Were those who remained back the imprudent, the simple-minded, those lacking foresight and insight, … closed to the warning of an inner voice, lacking the courage and will power to make the break?' Were those who left opportunists seeking prosperity, leaving their responsibility to church, seniors, the infirm, and others who could not farm, 'defying Christian principles and identifying with the materialistic side of life?' ... I do not believe that any of these were the strongest or only motives—if so, it would be distressing and regrettable. Nonetheless, beyond the practical impossibility of a further emigration, the psychological, immaterial motives were the weightiest" (note 6).

Indeed in the 1920s much was still in flux and unpredictable. “Although many would deny it today,” James Urry argues, “the early Mennonite emigrants to Canada in the 1920s were not really escaping an established, oppressive regime, but were economic refugees, victims of the Civil War and subsequent periods.” The motivation “was largely economic,” and “some might also be better considered as exiles who along with other sections of the massive Russian diaspora of the 1920s contemplated returning to Russia, if and when the economic and political situation improved” (note 7).

For my family, a few things happened that made for tragic decades to come. That is not to take away from celebrating the Mennonite Exodus in the next years. But our celebrations should be told as complex family, historical stories, even theologically complex: if God opened doors, others--many more--were shut.

All of these things should be discussed as we celebrate the Mennonite exodus of the 1920s and write our family stories.

---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Cf. John B. Toews, The Lost Fatherland: The Story of the Mennonite Emigration from Soviet Russia, 1921–1927 (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1967), 196, https://archive.org/details/lostfatherlandst0000toew. The photo above was taken on the departure of Heinrich and Maria [Thiessen] Bräul for Canada in 1928 (middle); cf. Canadian Mennonite Board of Colonization, Heinrich Breul, Family Registration Form No. 5208. Mennonite Leader C. F. Klassen from Neu Samara with his family also migrated in September 1928.

Note 2: “Meldung über die Emigrationsbewegung der deutschen Kolonisten” (December 1926), in Gerhard Hildebrandt, editor and translator, Die Mennoniten in der Ukraine und im Gebiet Orenburg: Dokumente aus Archiven in Kiev und Orenburg (Göttingen: Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2006), no. 53, p. 58.

Note 3: In A. A. Toews, ed., Mennonitische Märtyrer der jüngsten Vergangenheit und der Gegenwart, vol. 2: Der große Leidensweg (North Clearbrook, BC: Self-published, 1954), 484, 486.

Note 4: John B. Toews and Paul Toews, eds., Union of Citizens of Dutch Lineage in Ukraine (1922–1927). Mennonite and Soviet Documents, translated by J. B. Toews, O. Shmakina, and W. Regehr (Fresno, CA: Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies, 2011), https://archive.org/details/unionofcitizenso0000unse.

Note 5: Jacob A. Neufeld, “Memories of the former activities of the Verband by a participant in the Union of the Citizens of Dutch Origin in the Ukraine,” unpublished manuscript, translated by Lena Unger, Bethel College, North Newton, KS, 1953. From Mennonite Library and Archives, Bethel College (MLA-B), https://mla.bethelks.edu/books/289_74771_N394ea/. Original German: “Erinnerungen eines Beteiligten des ‘Verbandes der Bürger Holländischer Herkunft in der Ukraine,’” MLA-B, https://mla.bethelks.edu/books/289_74771_N394e/.

Note 6: J. Neufeld, “Erinnerungen eines Beteiligten,” 23.

Note 7: James Urry, “After the rooster crowed: Some issues concerning the interpretation of Mennonite/ Bolshevik relations during the early Soviet period,” Journal of Mennonite Studies 13 (1995), 29, https://jms.uwinnipeg.ca/index.php/jms/article/view/442. A large group of Doukhobors returned to the Molotschna / Prischib region “from America” in 1926; cf. “Bericht der Zentralkommission für nationale Minderheiten beim Allukrainischen Zentralvollzugskomitee über die fehlende Umsetzung von Direktiven des Zentralkomitees” (June 19, 1926), in Hildebrandt, Mennoniten in der Ukraine und im Gebiet Orenburg, no. 45, 54. At least one Mennonite family returned from Canada in 1926, and another inquired in 1933 how it might be done. Cf. “Anzahl der ausgewanderten Mennoniten,” (April 1926), in Hildebrandt, Mennoniten in der Ukraine und im Gebiet Orenburg, no. 42, 49; also “Ein Brief von Johann Sawadskij an die Deutsche Zentralzeitung” (September 14, 1933), in ibid., no. 83, 62f.

---

To cite this post: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, “1920s: Those who left and those who stayed behind,” History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), February 3, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/02/1920s-those-who-left-and-those-who.html.

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