Beating their weapons into ploughshares

Mennonite self-defence units (Selbstschutz) did not simply arise through the encouragement and training of German military units leaving southern Ukraine in Fall 1918. This has sometimes been suggested to explain the unprecedented armed Mennonite response to the anarchy that followed.

One Selbstschutz chaplain, and later elder in Waterloo, Canada (Jacob H. Janzen) turned blame away from 1918 Selbstschutz participants and pointed instead to the parents: they “were only what we had brought them up to be” (note 1).

A 1914 list of firearms confiscated from Mennonites by the state helps us to reconstruct the roots of one of the most problematic chapters in Mennonite history. Self-defence with a weapon was real option for some Mennonites long before the days of terror.

Suspicious about Mennonite loyalties in an impending war with Germany, 2,350 firearms were seized from 1,850 Russian Mennonite households—including 600 handguns or revolvers—in 1914 (note 2).

These three villages in Molotschna are representative:

• 2 six-shot revolvers were seized in Marienthal--a small and simple Molotschna village--plus 9 single-barreled muzzleloaders, 2 Berdan guns, a double-barreled centre-fired shotgun.
• 4 six-shot revolvers, 1 twelve-shot revolver, 1 five-shot revolver, and 1 pistol were seized in Rudnerweide, a medium size village with church, distillery and some small businesses.  3 double-barreled centerfire guns, 10 Berdan guns, 3 double-barreled muzzleloaders, and 4 single-barreled muzzleloaders were also seized there.
• 8 revolvers were seized in the larger village of Gnadenfeld, the administrative centre of eastern Molotschna, together with many other firearms.

Estate owners and industrialists in particular had become familiar with the security advantages of owning a revolver. In the Bakhmut District (Memrik, Ignatyevo, and the Borissovo settlements) of the 36 revolvers seized from Mennonites, at least 16 were from estate owners, and 8 from industrialists, including millers. At the Mennonite estate of Zachariasfeld, for example, brothers Wilhelm, Gerhard and Isaac Zacharias each had one or two revolvers confiscated plus another one or two further weapons. Revolver ownership in these circles was not unusual.  (note 3).

Similarly on the largely lawless frontier territory of the Caucasus, Mennonites employed Cossack guards and relied on government sponsored and mandated violence for protection —and at least one estate owner was carrying a revolver when he was kidnapped in 1908—“and the churches said nothing.” We have multiple stories of Mennonite estate owners who grabbed for their revolver when being robbed, years before the anarchism of Nestor Makhno (note 4).

Notably after the legal reforms of the 1860s, “foreign-settlers” like Mennonites became landowners and their communities (formerly “colonies”) were “obliged to the provide the following community services … maintenance of watchmen in the villages” (note 5).

The data gives some context and some plausibility to odd stories, like the 1902 complaint of a poorly treated ethnic Russian principal employed in the larger Molotschna village of Gnadenfeld.

After six years in the school, the principal charged the "Mennonite preacher Janzen” for verbal and physical abuse and for turning the village population against him—even poisoning his well.

“My family and I used to feel safe, at least in the yard and in the house; [only] on the street did I have to go with a revolver[!!]. But now even at home I no longer feel safe.” (Note 6)

As the war with Germany began in 1914, A. A. Khvostov, Chair of the Russian Council of Ministers, wrote in a report forwarded to the Tsar his concern that “such large quantities of revolvers [seized] suggest that Mennonites intend to use their weapons for purposes other than hunting …” (note 7).

His rationale was somewhat dubious; he supported his assumption with data showing an annual increase in the volume of Mennonite letters, parcels and telegraphs to and from Germany, from 1911 to 1913. 

For years, firearms had been easily accessible from a gun shop in Halbstadt owned by the Mennonite Schröder (note 8). The revolvers of choice for Mennonites seemed to be “Smith and Wesson” and the British “Bull Dog.” Revolvers like these are not used for hunting. Even on the eastern edge of the Molotschna in Rudnerweide, wolves were a rarity as late as 1880 (note 9).

It was not a secret that some (or many) Mennonite estate or factory owners had revolvers for self-defence. At a larger denominational gathering 1910, Bakhmut Mennonite Brethren Elder Hermann Neufeld admonished those brethren who fail to “put their trust in the Almighty God, but go to bed with a loaded revolver” (note 10).

Some of the rare incidents of suicide or murder with firearms were likely with hunting rifles. On December 16, 1913, the well-educated son of a wealthy Mennonite man (“Janzen”) went to the home of Gerhard Willems in Fürstenwerder armed with a gun and straight blade. Janzen forced Willems out of the barn where he was cleaning his cows, and shot at him three times. Willems was operated on in Muntau and survived; Janzen was arrested by district police (note 11).

The confiscation of  2,350 firearms from Mennonites in 1914 is surprising perhaps—just as thousands of Russian Mennonite young men began "Alternative-State-Service-without-weapon" in World War I. But maybe it is not so surprising. There were only a minority of ministers/elder (e.g., in Tiege and Rudnerweide), for example, that spoke against the self-defence units in 1918.

Mennonites on estates outside of  Brasol–Schönfeld had an abundance of wealthy farmers and were among the first to be attacked by the anarchist Makhno and his forces. On Sunday, October 28, 1918 the community and congregation decided to arm themselves in preparation for the approaching intruders. The pastor asked for advice and a vote. A man in his forties got up and said that ...

“since many of the inhabitants had plenty of rifles and ammunition in their homes the best procedure would be to have everyone go home, pick up his weapons and return to Schönfeld and be prepared for self-defence … the pastor asked for those in favour of the suggestion to rise. The majority of the men did. … The meeting was closed without any attempt to hold a service.” (Note 12)

During the period of anarchy, those Mennonite estate owners who fled to the colonies from the atrocities they had witnessed were largely supporters of the Selbstschutz. They had, according to one contemporary, “a much too one-sided influence” on teachers, ministers, and colony administrators. “They were now, quite frankly, obsessed with thoughts of vengeance” (note 13).

In February 1918 the First Mennonite Infantry Regiment Molotschna was formed. Before one battle a leading minister prayed on his knees together with his own sons and the young men from the Halbstadt unit billeted in his home. After the prayer, according to one billet, the minister looked at his sons and said: “I hope you will do your duty” (note 14).

After the Revolution, one of the tasks of the new village committees was to collect a quota of machine guns, bombs, revolvers, and even some cannons hidden in the Mennonite villages and to get them out of circulation. A tribunal judged non-compliance as resistance, and six Mennonite prisoners from different villages were randomly selected and executed in November 1921.

“[Then] the weapons came. Even the wells were searched, and not without success. The streams in the area were combed with iron rakes. In the girls’ school young people were stripped, thrown headlong upon the benches and deplorably beaten until bloody—and the revolvers and weapons came.—In this fashion the Mennonites were again made nonresistant.” (Note 15)

One later propaganda volume recorded that 278 swords, 228 bombs, 728 rifles, 170 sabers, 171 revolvers, and 40,849 rounds of ammunition were seized from Mennonites in 1921 in the Tokmak (Molotscha) region (note 16).

            ---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: Henry Paetkau, “Jacob H. Janzen: ‘A Minister of Rare Magnitude,’” Mennogespräch: Mennonite Historical Society of Ontario 6, no. 1 (March 1988), 3, http://www.mhso.org/sites/default/files/publications/Mennogesprach6-1.pdf.

Note 2: Glen Penner, extractor, “Weapons Confiscated from Russian Mennonites in 1914,” St. Petersburg Archives: Fond 821 Opis 133, Delo 322, http://www.mennonitegenealogy.com/russia/Confiscated_Firearms_1914.pdf. A second file of weapons confiscated in 1914 and 1915 from 2,199 Mennonites (mostly) has been identified in the St. Petersburg Archives. Cf. Wilhelm Friesen and Glenn H. Penner, translators, “Weapons Confiscated from Russian Mennonites in 1914 and 1915: Part 2,” St. Petersburg Archives, Fond 821, Opis 133, Delo 323, https://www.mennonitegenealogy.com/russia/Confiscated_Firearms_1914_and_1915.pdf.

Note 3: Compare Glen Penner, “Weapons Confiscated from Russian Mennonites in 1914” with Viktor Petkau, “Guts und Gutbesitzer im Ujesd Bachmut, Gouvernement Jekaterinoslaw,” https://chortitza.org/FB/vpetk32.html, and Willi Vogt, “Liste der mennonitischen Industrie- und Handelsunternehmen in Russland,” https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/Pis/Indust.pdf. On Zachariasfeld, see Friesen and Penner, translators, “Weapons Confiscated from Russian Mennonites in 1914 and 1915: Part 2."

Note 4: On the revolver incident, Terek Settlement in the Caucasus, cf. Katharina Duerksen, “Die Entführung unseres Principals Hermann Neufeld, wohnhaft in Halbstadt,” August 30, 1942, 3, 7, 11, https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/pdf/nfast1.pdf. See also the stories of Peter Lepp (1905) https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/vpetk389.pdf. For a larger examination of the use of armed night watchmen, guards, and especially Cossacks to protect life and property, especially on estates, cf. Helmut-Harry Loewen and James Urry, “Protecting Mammon. Some dilemmas of Mennonite Non-resistance in late Imperial Russia and the origins of the Selbstschutz,” Journal of Mennonites Studies 9 (1991), 34–53, https://jms.uwinnipeg.ca/index.php/jms/article/view/327/327. Cf. also above, Paetkau, “Jacob H. Janzen.”

Note 5: In A. Rasin, ed. and trans., Sammlung der Gesetze und Verordnungen der Staatsregierung bezüglich der Organisation der Lebensverhältnisse der auf Kronsländereien angesiedelten Landbesitzer (bisherigen Kolonisten) (St. Petersburg, 1871), par. 179.5, 111.1, https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/vpetk232.pdf.

Note 6: Dmytro Myeshkov, Die Schawarzmeerdeutschen und ihre Welten: 1781–1871 (Essen: Klartext, 2008), 292f.

Note 7: Cited in Abraham Friesen, In Defense of Privilege: Russian Mennonites and the State Before and During World War I (Winnipeg, MB: Kindred, 2006), 236,  https://archive.org/details/InDefenseOfPrivilegeOCRopt. Cf. experience of estate owner Jacob Toews (“Biography of Jacob Cornelius Toews, 1882–1968,” 15.

Note 8: Cited in A. Friesen, In Defense of Privilege, 236.

Note 9: A wolf was shot in Rudnerweide 1880 and reported as a rarity; cf. Nebraska Ansiedler 2, no. 12 (May 1880). On types of revolvers, see Friesen and Penner, translators, “Weapons Confiscated from Russian Mennonites in 1914 and 1915: Part 2."

Note 10: Neufeld’s sermon from May 10, 1910 at the Annual Conference of Mennonite Brethren in Russia, at Tiege, Sagradovka, is quoted by the Russian government official appointed by the Minister of Internal Affairs to track religious affairs in Molotschna, S. D. Bondar, Sekta mennonitov Rossi, v sviazi s istoriei nemetskoi kolonizatsii na iuge Rossii [The Mennonite sect in Russia: In the context of the history of German colonization in South Russia] (Petrograd, 1916), 181; also 79, https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/Buch/Bondar.pdf. On the May 1910 gathering of Mennonite Brethren in Russia, cf. John B. Toews, Perilous Journey. The Mennonite Brethren in Russia 1860–1910 (Winnipeg, MB: Kindred, 1988), 69, https://archive.org/details/PerilousJourneyBookocr/page/n77/mode/2up. On Bondar, see Friesen, In Defence of Privilege, 142.

Note 11: Mennonitische Rundschau 37, no. 10 (March 11, 1914), 15, https://archive.org/details/sim_die-mennonitische-rundschau_1914-03-11_37_10/page/14/mode/2up.

Note 12: John B. Toews, ed., Mennonites in Ukraine amid Civil War and Anarchy (1917–1920): A Documentary Collection, translated by John B. Toews (Fresno, CA: Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies, 2013), 29.

Note 13: See B. Dick, “Something about the Selbstschutz of the Mennonites in South Russia (July 1918–March 1919)," Journal of Mennonite Studies 4 (1986), 137f., https://jms.uwinnipeg.ca/index.php/jms/article/view/238/238.

Note 14: “Nonresistance on Trial, or Selbsterlebtes und Selbstschutz: Molotschna Mennonite Settlement, 1918–1919,” no date. From Mennonite Library and Archives-Bethel College, North Newton, KS, https://mla.bethelks.edu/books/289_74771_Se48.pdf.

Note 15: B. B. Janz memoirs, cited in John B. Toews, With Courage to Spare: The Life of B. B. Janz, 1877–1964 (Winnipeg, MB: Christian, 1978), 29f., https://archive.org/det.../WithCourageToSpareOCRopt/page/n39.

Note 16: Boris P. Kandidov, Religious Counter-Revolution of 1918–20 and Intervention [Религиозная контрреволюция 1918–20 гг. и интервенция] (Moscow: “Atheist,” 1930), 108, https://rusneb.ru/catalog/000199_000009_008685391/.