about 1932–34, the Party demanded the widest possible use of the largest possible number of languages, the aggressive promotion of “national cadres,” and the tireless celebration of ethnic differences, peculiarities, and entitlements. Once again, however, the Jews were in a special position because, according to both anti-Semites and philo-Semites (as well as some Jews), their main peculiarity was their denial of possessing any peculiarities, and their chief entitlement was to being considered exceptionally good Russians and Soviets— and thus exceptional among nationalities. Before the mid-1930s, “Russian” and “Soviet” were the only two nationalities that were not seen as properly ethnic— or rather, as having a politically meaningful national form. Both were immune from nationality policy because both were defined exclusively in class terms. And so, mutatis mutandis, were most Moscow and Leningrad Jews. Or rather, they were supposed to be a part of the nationality policy but did not seem interested, and they were often defined in (upper-)class terms but were not supposed to be. They seemed to be a nationality without form—a caste of exemplary Soviets. But what did this mean, and why was this so? The Soviet campaign against anti-Semitism consisted of two elements: an attempt to combat anti-Jewish prejudice, jealousy, and hostility (old and new), and an attempt to explain why the Jews occupied such a peculiar place in Soviet society. The two fundamental approaches were (a) the Jews did not occupy a peculiar place in Soviet society; and (b) the Jews occupied a peculiar place in Soviet society for perfectly wholesome and understandable reasons. Approach (a) implied that anti- Semitism was a form of false consciousness inherited from the old regime; approach (b) suggested that anti-Semitism was a form of jealousy that could be cured through a combination of Jewish normalization and Apollonian modernization. Most Soviet authors used both approaches. According to Emelian Yaroslavsky, propaganda about Jewish overrepresentation among Soviet leaders was being spread by the enemies of the revolution. “What do they care that in the Communist Party, which has 1,300,000 members and candidate members, there are more than 1,000,000 Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, and other non-Jews!” And as for future leaders, “even the tsarist government allowed the Jews to make up 10 percent of all university students, but under the Soviet government that number has barely reached the average of 13 percent for all institutions of higher education.” On the other hand, argued Yaroslavsky, anti- Semitism could not be defeated unless the proportion of Jewish workers (“which is still totally insufficient”) and that of Jewish peasants (“the center of gravity in the struggle against anti-Semitism”) were increased dramatically. 67