Żydokomuna ([ʐɨdɔkɔˈmuna], Polish for "Judeo-Communism")[1] is an anti-communist[2] and antisemitic canard,[3][4] or a pejorative stereotype,[5][6] suggesting that most Jews collaborated with the Soviet Union in importing communism into Poland, or that there was an exclusively Jewish conspiracy to do so.

[6] There was an upsurge in the anti-Semitic stereotype of Jews as Communist traitors; it erupted into mass murder when Nazi Germany invaded Soviet eastern Poland in the summer of 1941.

[23] Michael C. Steinlauf noted that Jewish communists, despite their small number, have gained a notorious reputation in Poland, "believed to have masterminded the enslavement [of that country]" and became "demonized" as part of the Żydokomuna canard.

According to some sources, the anti-Communist sentiment was implicated in anti-Jewish violence and killings in a number of towns, including the Pinsk massacre, in which 35 Jews, taken as hostages, were murdered.

[33][34] The concept of Żydokomuna was widely illustrated in Polish interwar politics, including publications by the National Democrats[35] and the Catholic Church that expressed anti-Jewish views.

[36][37][38] During World War II, the term Żydokomuna was made to resemble the Jewish-Bolshevism rhetoric of Nazi Germany, wartime Romania[39] and other war-torn countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

"[46] It was the disproportionately large representation of Jews in the communist leadership that led to Żydokomuna sentiment being widely expressed in contemporary Polish politics.

[11] According to some bodies of research, voting patterns in Poland's parliamentary elections in the 1920s revealed that Jewish support for the Communists was proportionally less than their representation in the total population.

While one viewpoint explains the high level of Jewish support for Pilsudski, higher than any other group, as Jews turning to him as a protector, another view holds that when faced with threats of a "nationalizing" ethnic Polish state, whereas Belarusians tended to turn to pro-Soviet "exit" strategies and Uniate Ukrainians threw their weight behind ethnic interest parties, Jews instead took a different strategy of showing their loyalty to Poland.

Kopstein concluded: "Even in the face of both public and private prejudice, ... [m]ost Jews were thus politically neither "internationalist" nor ethnically exclusionary, as a large vote for the minority parties in 1928 would have indicated.

[53][54][55] The image of Jews among the Belarusian and Ukrainian minorities waving red flags to welcome Soviet troops had great symbolic meaning in Polish memory of the period.

[63][64] Such events further strengthened Żydokomuna sentiment that held Jews responsible for collaboration with the Soviet authorities in importing communism into divided Poland.

[22] Doris Bergen writes that "it was often precisely those Polish gentiles most deeply implicated in Soviet crimes who were quicket to take the lead in attacks on Jews—attacks that would serve both to deflect the anger of their neighbors and to curry favor with the new Germans occupiers.

[74][75] Thousands of Jews returned from exile in the Soviet Union, but as their number decreased with legalized aliyah to Israel, the PZPR members formed a much larger percentage of the remaining Jewish population.

[79] According to Michael C. Steinlauf, the Polish communists who took power in Poland were mainly KPP members who sheltered in Moscow during the war, and included many Jews who thus survived the Holocaust.

These attacks were accompanied by classic blood libel, brought international notoriety to Poland, and reinforced the notion that the Communist government was the sole force that could protect the Jews.

[81][82] Regarding this period, Andre Gerrits wrote in his study of Żydokomuna, that even though for the first time in history they had entered the top echelons of power in considerable numbers, "The first post-war decade was a mixed experience for the Jews of East Central Europe.

As a result, "all or nearly all of the directors (of the widely despised Ministry of Public Security of Poland) were Jewish" as claimed by Polish journalist Teresa Torańska among others.

"[86]Among the notable Jewish officials of the Polish secret police and security services were Minister Jakub Berman, Joseph Stalin's right hand in the PRL; Vice-minister Roman Romkowski (deputy head of MBP), Dir.

After the death of Polish United Workers' Party leader Bolesław Bierut in 1956, a de-Stalinization and a subsequent battle among rival factions looked to lay blame for the excesses of the Stalin era.

"[93] "Natolin" leader Zenon Nowak entered the concept of "Judeo-Stalinization" and placed the blame for the party's failures, errors and repression on "the Jewish apparatchiks".

The political turmoil of the late 1960s—exemplified in the West by increasingly violent protests against the Vietnam War—was closely associated in Poland with the events of the Prague Spring which began on 5 January 1968, raising hopes of democratic reforms among the intelligentsia.

[96][97] The repressive government of Władysław Gomułka responded to student protests and strike actions across Poland (Warsaw, Kraków) with mass arrests, and by launching an anti-Zionist campaign within the Communist party on the initiative of Interior Minister Mieczysław Moczar, also known as Mikołaj Diomko and best known for his xenophobic and antisemitic attitude.

After Israel's victory in the war, the Polish government, following the Soviet lead, launched an antisemitic campaign under the guise of "anti-Zionism", with both Moczar's and Party Secretary Władysław Gomułka's factions playing leading roles; however, the campaign did not resonate with the general public, because most Poles saw similarities between Israel's fight for survival and Poland's past struggles for independence.

The campaign served multiple purposes, most notably the suppression of protests, which were branded as inspired by a "fifth column" of Zionists; it was also used as a tactic in a political struggle between Gomułka and Moczar, both of whom played the Jewish card in a nationalist appeal.

[104] As historian Dariusz Stola notes, the anti-Jewish campaign combined century-old conspiracy theories, recycled antisemitic claims and classic communist propaganda.

[106] Moczar's "Partisan" faction promulgated an ideology that has been described as an "eerie reincarnation" of the views of the pre-World War II National Democracy Party, and even at times exploiting Żydokomuna sentiment.

When the concept of the Jew as a "threatening other" was employed in the 1970s and 1980s in Poland by the Communist government in its attacks on the political opposition, including the Solidarity trade-union movement and the Workers' Defence Committee (Komitet Obrony Robotników, or KOR), it was completely unsuccessful.

"[18] Age-old fear of Russia coupled with anti-communist and antisemitic attitudes supported this belief,[10][14][12][15][16] and in turn amplified ideas of an alleged Jewish "conspiracy" for world domination.

[111] According to Michlic, among some Polish historians, "[the myth of żydokomuna] served the purpose of rationalizing and explaining the participation of ethnic Poles in killing their Jewish neighbors and, thus, in minimizing the criminal nature of the murder.