Russian anti-Semitism

ChrisD(RJ) chrisd at russiajournal.com
Thu Apr 18 03:48:18 PDT 2002


From: James Heartfield <Jim at heartfield.demon.co.uk> Subject: Russian anti-Semitism

Chris Doss's post was very interesting on the topic.

I am prepared to accept that there was a lot of Cold War propaganda about anti-Semitism.

But surely under Stalin the Doctor's Plot was an anti-Semitic campaign, as alleged. Shouldn't one expect anti-Semitism to flourish where nationalism is amplified. Would Chris's informant say that anti-Semitism declined in time, or that it was not so bad in the fifties either?

CD: I haven't asked him yet. Keep in mind that the Stalin era got ellided over in Soviet history books. I have a Brezhnev-era children's history of the CPSU (which reads like an American university textbook, by the way), about 700 pages in length, which manages to mention Uncle Joe a whopping FOUR times, and treats the collectivization of the 30s as if it just kind of spontaneously happened. (Trotsky isn't mentioned at all.)

JH: I'm a little sceptical about claims that Jews would make up fifty per cent of the intelligentsia, too. Doesn't this have a ring of anti-Semitism about it? I know in the UK for example, the people who regularly over-estimate the numbers of immigrants are those who dislike them.

CD: Rest assured, the guy who wrote it isn't an anti-Semite. :)

I don't know the figures for the Soviet elite, but Jews are hugely over-represented in the contemporary Russian oligarchy.

As I've mentioned before, in the two years I've been in Russia I've encountered very little anti-Semitism (though a great deal of hostility toward Caucasians and some level of bias toward Ukrainians and Moldovans). Of course, most of the people I know are educated middle-class Russians in Moscow, by far the richest city in Russia. There's probably a lot more in the provinces -- I know Stavropol, which is impoverished, is a big center for nationalist radicalism.

JH: And while we're at it, Chris's comment on Chechenya:

'Sometimes I think Russia just should just build a giant wall around the place,' sounds curiously familiar... - --

CD: I was thinking of the Great Wall of China.

Chris Doss The Russia Journal



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