Antisemitism existed in the Soviet Union and its satellite Communist states and may have played a role in the Soviet foreign policy. Antisemitism was employed as a tool by Stalin and some other Soviet leaders while it was opposed by Lenin and the founders of the Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks opposed anti-semitism which had been prevalent in Russia prior to the Russian Revolution. Under the Czars, Jews had been confined to a Pale of Settlement and had often been the victims of pogroms, many of which are thought to have been organized by the Tsarist authorities.