People's Weekly World Newspaper, 03/17/05 17:59
The National Board of the Communist Party USA issued the following statement on March 11 in New York City.
In January 2005, some 500 prominent Russians calling themselves .Orthodox Christian patriots. signed a letter calling on the Russian prosecutor general to launch proceedings to ban all religious and ethnic Jewish organizations as .extremist.. Among the signatories to the letter were six members of the Russian parliament from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF).
Stating that the whole democratic world is today under the financial and political control of international Jewry, the letter claimed that the Jews themselves are responsible for fomenting ethnic strife, including the perpetration of anti-Semitic attacks against the Jewish community. Labeling Judaism as .Satanic,. it repeated the anti-Semitic accusations made in the infamous Czarist forgeries known as the .Protocols of the Elders of Zion. that the Jews practice ritual killings.
In the wake of protests inside and outside of Russia, the letter was withdrawn for redrafting and resubmission at a later date, some of the signatories denying their association with the letter. No condemnation of the letter, however, has been forthcoming from the CPRF.
The association of any members of a Russian Communist party with the scourge of anti-Semitism is a gross injustice to the heroic struggles of the Soviet people, who played the leading role in the crushing of the notoriously racist German fascism.
The Communist Party USA has long condemned any expression of anti-Semitism and other forms of racism at home and abroad as tools of reaction and crimes against humanity. The tolerance of any Communist party to its appearance within its ranks does great harm not only to the Communist movement worldwide, but to global solidarity in the struggle against all forms of racism. We call upon the leadership of the CPRF to condemn any manifestation of anti-Semitism and other manifestations of racism inside and outside its ranks.
http://pww.org/article/articleview/6645/1/258 -- Michael Pugliese