Comrades, Here is an article that recently appeared in Sovetskaya Rossiia and was subsequently translated into English. Although in this clever recant about the recent anti-Semitic remarks of his party comrades Zyuganov asserts a basically internationalist position of the Communist Party and projects the party's socially minded vision, some comments of his invalidate his supposed internationalism. For example, in the last third of the essay, Zyuganov implicitly points to the Jews (most likely people like Koch, Uhrinson, Berezovsky, Gaidar, Nemtsov, Chubais, Kirienko, etc.) who were prominently at the forefront of privatization and corruption, or have benefited from the loot that has been taking place in the last 7 years, but he fails to illustrate how these people are Zionists. That they are Jews is clear, not only from his implicit, but from his explicit statements, as well as from some factual evidence that Nemtsov and Kirienko are part-Jewish. That they have robbed the working people of Russia is evident to any unbiased reader of newspapers, either Russian or Western. But that these people operate (behind the scenes, as Zyuganov reminds us) to aid the Zionist conspiracy, still either needs to be proved, or at least adequately illustrated. What happens is some kind of perversion where, by virtue of being Jewish (albeit Jews who caused what Zyuganov recently called "the genocide of the Russian people") these men are automatically Zionist, and not simply who they really are. The people of Russia, therefore, are offered a scanty justification for seeing in every Russian Jew a potential (if not a real) Zionist, where _real_ difference between people disappears into a kind of unitary identity, and where the possibly disastrous effects of this technique of superimposing ontologically distinct entities are not difficult to imagine (history serves as an adequate referent). Peace, Greg. **** Zyuganov Statement on 'Jewish Question' Sovetskaya Rossiya 24 December 1998 [translation for personal use only] Statement signed by G. Zyuganov: "On the National Pride of Patriots. Statement by Communist Party of the Russian Federation Central Committee Chairman" -- passages within slantlines published in boldface Each time that politicians in the ruling regime suffer a failure, they resort to an old tried-and-tested means -- they whip up anti-Communist hysteria. The distinguishing feature of the current campaign of lies and slander in the electronic media has been its provocatively Russophobic nature. Once again the thesis about "Russian fascism" and a "brownshirt Red" threat, and about "anti-Semitism" allegedly being an official Communist Party stance has once again been thrust into the limelight. The aim of this entire campaign is obvious. To divert society's attention away from the country's catastrophic position and the real culprits for it. To provoke anti-Jewish sentiment among the masses. To channel the working people's mounting social protest down a dead end -- in the direction of interethnic conflicts. I am convinced that these plans are ultimately doomed to failure. But nor can we close our eyes to the fact that the provocateurs sometimes succeed in achieving the results desired. In response to this Russophobic hysteria, certain Communists have issued ill-considered statements about the Jews, which run counter to the provisions of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Program and the decisions of the Central Committee plenum on questions of interethnic relations. These statements are based on an incorrect and harmful confusion of Zionism as a political phenomenon with the Jewish question. Zionism itself, which states that it is a "purely national" blueprint for bringing Jews together in the land of their origin, primarily has an interest in such a confusion. If its goals were indeed limited to this, no additional questions would arise. I would like to recall that it was the Soviet Union, recognizing the Jewish people's right to national and state self-determination, which actively promoted the creation of the state of Israel -- but, of course, not to the detriment of the vital interests of the Arab people of Palestine. But Zionism has actually shown itself to be one of the strains of the theory and practice of the most aggressive imperialist circles striving for world domination. In this respect it is related to fascism. The only difference between them is that Hitlerite Nazism operated behind the mask of German nationalism and strove for world domination /openly./ But Zionism, operating behind the mask of Jewish nationalism, acts /in secret,/ not least at second hand. Fascism and Zionism are the bitterest enemies primarily of the peoples whose national feelings and prejudices they exploit. Fascism and Zionism are non-national and profoundly antipeople in their essence. At the close of World War II Hitler strove to take the entire German people to the grave with him, denying them their right to exist. The great experience of the struggle between our motherland and fascism serves as our lodestar in the struggle against the various forms of imperialist aggression. As far as the peoples of the Soviet Union were concerned, the struggle against German fascism was a national liberation struggle -- a patriotic war in the true sense of the word. But under no circumstances was it a struggle against the German people. We need only recall the words that "Hitlers come and go, but the German people remain" that were spoken from the country's main rostrum 7 November 1941 at a time of deadly danger for the Soviet people. It is not inappropriate to recall that when at the close of the war, in the spring of 1945, Ilya Erenburg, a member of the Jewish Antifascist Committee, tried to call for ethnic vengeance against the Germans, he was strictly brought to heel and reproved from the pages of Pravda: "Comrade Erenburg is getting mixed up!" Today's struggle against Zionism is not and in principle cannot be a struggle against the Jewish people or the state of Israel either. We have never identified the concept of "Jew" with that of "Zionist." Advocating friendship and brotherhood among the peoples of Russia, we believe that all problems arising in this sphere should be resolved peacefully, in the course of a respectful and constructive dialogue. It is precisely such a Russo-Jewish dialogue that we have repeatedly proposed. Communists are prepared to take part in it, and /on both sides,/ since our party is international in makeup and ideology. Any manifestations of chauvinism and ethnic intolerance -- from whatever quarter and whatever their motivation -- are incompatible with Communist convictions. Including manifestations of judophobia, which insult the national dignity not only of Jews but of all the peoples of Russia. So views and statements which place Jews and Zionists on an equal footing deserve to be condemned as backward views spreading narrow-minded bourgeois prejudice, /masking the class-based essence of Zionism, and thereby making it harder to combat it./ The idea of legislatively establishing a "percentage norm" for the representation of various ethnic and religious communities in organs of state power should also be deemed a mistake. Although this principle is reinforced in the constitutions of certain states -- Lebanon, for instance -- practice shows that interethnic peace and harmony is not ensured in this way. In a democratic state, which is how we want to see Russia, equal participation in power by all communities is a matter of free choice for the people and of state wisdom and tact for our top leaders. At the same time, the Jewish community too needs to decide more clearly where it stands on a number of issues -- primarily on the question of its attitude toward Zionism. The spread of Zionist ideology in the Jewish milieu is under no circumstances /the fault/ of the Jewish people, but their /scourge./ The only question is whether the Jews intend to go on tolerating the situation whereby their ethnic feelings sometimes serve as a smoke screen for Zionist policies. We believe that the Jews -- like the representatives of any diaspora, incidentally -- have the inalienable right: to emigrate from Russia to their historic homeland of Israel or to any other country; to recognize Russia as their sole motherland, and to live and work for its benefit as part of the Jewish community as an equal member of the multi-ethnic Russian people; to be assimilated in ethnic, cultural, and linguistic terms into the Russian people or any other people of Russia. Only nobody has the right, while remaining a Russian citizen, to view Russia as an alien "host country." To be an "internal emigre" in it, acting to the detriment of its interests on behalf of another state or international corporation. There is no right to be a tool in the hands of Zionism. No state in the world can tolerate such activities and is obliged to put a stop to them with every legal means at its disposal. Communists did not invent this problem, which really exists. Our people are not blind. They cannot fail to see that the Zionization of Russian state power has been one of the reasons behind the current catastrophic state of the country, its mass impoverishment, and the extinction of its population. They cannot turn a blind eye to the aggressive, destructive role played by Zionist capital in the collapse of the Russian economy and the embezzlement of the assets of the whole people. They rightly ask how it can be that key positions in a number of economic sectors were seized predominantly by representatives of one ethic group in the course of privatization. They see how control over most of the electronic media -- which are waging a destructive campaign against our fatherland and its morality, language, culture, and beliefs -- is concentrated in the hands of those same individuals. I am convinced that Russian citizens of all ethnic groups will have the wisdom to figure out these issues calmly and in a balanced way, without giving in to provocations and without allowing themselves to be whipped up into a state of nationalistic intoxicationt. There is a growing understanding among the people that all their current woes are based on the criminal policy of the antipeople non-national [vnenatsionalnyy] oligarchy which has seized power. Only the restoration of people's power and a decisive change of socio-economic course will ensure the revival and prosperity of Russia and its entire multi-ethnic people.[Signed] G. Zyuganov -- Gregory Schwartz Department of Political Science York University 4700 Keele St. Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3 Canada tel: (416) 736-5265 fax: (416) 736-5686
