Open letter to Gennady Zyuganov from a Jewish leftist in the U.S.A. Gennady Zyuganov Russian Communist Party Dear Brother Zyuganov, Greetings. I hope my letter finds you in good health. Allow me to address you as an American Jewish leftist, as one with great concern over the suffering of Russias people, and also as one deeply concerned with the suffering of the Arab peoples of the Middle East, indeed as one who has brought medicine to Iraq in violation of the U.S. embargo and who was imprisoned by the Israeli authorities in February 1996 for attempting to nonviolently obstruct the demolition of a Palestinian home by Israeli authorities, and who remains to this day barred from Israel by the Israeli government. Let me begin my letter by expressing my deep regret for the destructive role that the United States, through its military, economic and political policies, has played in Russia, particularly for the role of the U.S., the IMF, and USAID in supporting "shock therapy" for the Russian economy, which has caused so much suffering for the Russian people. While I continue to be saddened by the suffering of the Russian people, I have been heartened by the recent moves of the Russian government to "declare independence" from the IMF and the U.S. and return to economic policies more attuned to the interests of the Russian people than to the interests of international banks and multinational corporations. However, I was quite dismayed to read recent press reports that you have recently and publicly attacked the role of "Zionist capital" in Russia, accusing it of "ruining Russias economy." I hope that these reports are not accurate. If they are not, please accept my apologies and my hope that in the future, you will bear in mind how your remarks may be distorted in the Western media and choose your words more carefully. If these reports are accurate, however, I must vigorously protest. Your remarks are being interpreted in the West a thinly veiled anti-Semitic attack. Sadly, I must agree with this assessment. In making these remarks, not only do you do a great disservice to the Jews of Russia, who must surely feel less safe today knowing that the head of the Russian Communist Party is willing to engage in anti-Semitic diatribes, you also do a great disservice to all those who struggle for more economic justice in the world and to all those who support the just demands of the Palestinian and Arab peoples for self-determination. That you do a disservice to the Jews of Russia, by making an issue of the religious or ethnic background of some of the clique around Yeltsin instead of attacking them for their specific activities, I think is obvious. That you do a disservice to those who support economic justice and Arab and Palestinian self-determination may not be so obvious to you, so let me attempt to explain. To begin, I hope that you would agree that the opinions of the newspaper-reading public in the United States are a matter of great import for the world. It should not be so; in a just and more perfect world, power would be more evenly distributed, the U.S. would not be able to push other countries around so much, and so the opinions of Americans would not matter so much. But while we should all work to reduce the power of the U.S. relative to other countries, for the foreseeable future U.S. policy will have a great impact. Now, I would not claim that we in the U.S. democratically control the U.S. government. Clearly this is not the case; our democracy is rather imperfect, to say the least. Nonetheless, public opinion does have some impact. Consider the Vietnam War as an example. The war continued long after it was deeply unpopular in the U.S. Nonetheless, popular protest shortened the war and thus saved many lives. More recently, activists opposed to the policies of the IMF succeeded in blocking the Clinton Administrations request for more money for the IMF in the U.S. House of Representatives. While the IMF eventually got the money through a backroom deal, we believe that this battle significantly weakened the IMF politically and contributed to the somewhat increased flexibility the IMF has shown recently, at least in Asia. I assume you are aware that for many years Yeltsin and his clique have been portrayed in the West as "democrats " and "reformers," who are only opposed by "remnants of the Stalinist regime" and "extreme nationalists." (The term "nationalist" in this context has the connotation not of those who defend the general public against the interests of foreign powers but of those who promote ethnic hatred and xenophobia to advance their political careers. ) With this portrayal, increasingly at odds with reality as you know, the U.S. government was able to maintain public support for its destructive policy of supporting Yeltsin at all costs and destroying the Russian economy. I hope you will see then, that by making comments like this you play into the hands of Russias worst enemies, foreign powers who would destroy Russian industry and make Russia a Third World vassal of the United States, exporting raw materials and importing industrial goods. Comments like this allow the U.S. government to portray those who oppose the rule of Russia by the U.S., the IMF, and foreign corporations as Jew-haters and racists. I would not be surprised to find out that U.S. State Department officials were secretly delighted by your remarks. Similarly, and perhaps more importantly for the fate of the world, your remarks do a great disservice to those of us who are working, against formidable odds, to change U.S. policy in the Middle East. Perhaps Russia will be able to find its own way even in the face of U.S. opposition. Perhaps Russia, with its nuclear weapons, can cancel its foreign debt and expel the IMF without fear of a U.S. military attack. The Arabs of the Middle East have no such security. Every day they live under the threat of U.S. military intervention, as we have seen demonstrated again so recently. As you know, more than a million Iraqis have died as a result of the U.S.-maintained economic embargo. You must know that those who support the current U.S. policies in the Middle East, and those who support the policies of the Israeli government which since 1948 has expelled Palestinians, confiscated their land and destroyed their houses, you must know that these forces have benefited tremendously from the lie that those who oppose their policies are anti-Jewish. I know that you said in your letter that you are not anti-Jewish. But when you use the term "Zionist" to refer to the activities of Jewish capitalists in Russia, you conflate two unrelated things to the detriment of both criticisms. Unless you have specific evidence that they are connected, which you are then obligated to place before the world, you should keep separate your criticism of the activities of capitalists in Russia, however nefarious, from your criticism of colonialists in the Middle East. If you fail to make this separation, your criticism of "Zionists" in Russia will be interpreted -- correctly -- as anti-Semitism and your criticism of "Zionism" in the Middle East will be dismissed as anti-Semitic as well, at least in the West. Lastly, Brother Zyuganov, I would ask you a question. If your remarks lead many Jews in Russia to feel more insecure, and if this insecurity leads more Russian Jews to emigrate, and if some of these Jews emigrate to Israel, and if the Israeli government settles these Russian Jews on land and even in houses that it has stolen from Palestinian Arabs; then, Brother Zyuganov, exactly whose interests have you served? Im sure, Brother Zyuganov, that you would be alarmed to discover that your criticism of "Zionism" had in fact made you an "objective ally of Zionism." Brother Zyuganov, I wish you peace and prosperity in the New Year and the same for all the peoples of the world. Lchaim. Robert Naiman 1744 Kalorama NW Washington, DC 20009