History of the Russian Mennonites

In mid-August 1917--two months before the Bolshevik Revolution, but in preparation of national elections--the first “All-Mennonite Congress” met in Ohrloff, Molotschna to organize and strategize Mennonite civil affairs (i.e., as separate from the church) with 198 representatives from various regions and interest groups. Significant debate around Mennonite non-resistance and military service was on the agenda, but also questions around more equitable land distribution and the compatibility of Christianity and socialism. The minutes ( note 1 ) record that there was clearly a group of Mennonites at this meeting who were both convinced socialists and Christians, and that delegates had a longer, protracted debate on the compatibility of socialism and Christianity. First they discussed what was most critical: more equitable land distribution (this topic was "in the air") and the right to private land ownership. There was broad agreement (even with the socialist leaning Mennon...

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 help s 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 ). T...