Making Anti-Semitism Respectable

Korey, William

MAKING ANTI-SEMITISM RESPECTABLE NEW1Y AVAI1AB1E DOCUMENTS SHOW HOW THE SOVIET ACADEMY OF SCIENCES HAS BEEN RECRUITED TO PROVIDE LEGITIMACY TO...

...Nonetheless, because Zionism "has been and remains a reactionary movement," no distinction is possible between "good and bad Zionists...
...No more attention to the niceties of distinction between Jews and Zionists...
...The book's introduction announces its intent: "the exposure of the ideology of Zionism, of its theory and practice...
...The point of the conference was to provide an intellectual backdrop to the political endorsement of anti-Semitism...
...Having thus established his fairness and objectivity, Kiselev went on to aver that the "top clique" of the "Jewish monopolistic bourgeoisie" was "guilty of the death of millions of people...
...In particular, American-Jewish capital dominates the "military-industrial complex...
...it is "the most important tool...
...It carries the imprimatur of the Soviet Academy of Sciences...
...But as intensive and extensive as the anti-Semitic campaign was, it lacked one key component: intellectual or ideological sanction rooted in the Marxist-Leninist tradition...
...Byrnes' position has been vigorously endorsed by, among others, the prominent Soviet dissenter Zhores Medvedev...
...Nonetheless, it includes a supplement which indicates some of the sources its authors have drawn from, and there it praises the operation of two "scientific research centers" which specialize in studying and publishing material on "international Zionism": the Palestine Research Center, established by the PLO in 1965, in Beirut, and the Scientific Center of Palestinian Research, attached to the University of Baghdad...
...The book also introduced Lev Korneyev to the public, through his essay on the World Zionist Organization...
...It is an official publication of the Academy, of an institution with a distinguished international reputation...
...Nor did the fans of arch-anti-Semite V. Begun have cause for disappointment...
...This remarkable book was not intended for a limited academic audience...
...Everything is clear about Zionism—it is our enemy and we must implacably fight it...
...A second major theme of International Zionism is the Jewish concept of the Chosen People...
...Zionism is responsible, to a considerable degree, for "the formation of imperialist policies," especially in the USA...
...hence the annual agreement, initiated in 1974, "On Cooperation and Exchange Between the National Academy of Sciences of the USSR...
...By 1971, Zionism had been labeled "an enemy of the Soviet people...
...The Academy already had an Israeli Studies section, established in 1971...
...American scientists are aware, of course, that the Communist Party exercises significant authority over the Soviet Academy...
...In context, however, Kiselev does indeed emerge as a relative moderate...
...Korneyev has since emerged as the most prolific of the Soviet hate propagandists...
...For those who take ideology seriously—including Party members outside the Soviet Union—an ideological foundation had to be provided, and the Academy was its most auspicious source...
...Such sanction is indispensable in order to legitimize so massive a mobilization of effort as the leadership intended...
...National Academy of Sciences accords the Soviet Academy the respect due an equal partner...
...Zionism had a close working relationship with Hitlerism and was, therefore, responsible for the Holocaust...
...Perhaps instead we must draw the line and clearly announce that there are limits to our tolerance of bigotry, limits to our readiness to sip tea and exchange wisdom with bigots and their accomplices...
...The first volley was fired by E. D. Mordzhinskaia, who announced that "We, in the Institute of Philosophy, we trust (Yevseev) as an active Communist as an experienced writer...
...Narsky took elaborate pains in his letter to chart a genealogical tree demonstrating that his parents were pure Great Russian...
...The 176-page work consists of articles by Academy "scholars," and, especially in the principal essay (by Kiselev) the central theme is the Jewish aspiration to world domination through control of the international banking system...
...The Zionists seek to establish a "super-government," and Jews are encouraged to become a "fifth column" all over the world...
...Zionism is intimately linked with the principal Western crime syndicates, especially the Mafia...
...The targets of that particular critique were a notoriously anti-Semitic book by Vladimir Begun and an equally vulgar review of the book by Dmitri Zhukov...
...the attack is directed at the Rothschilds, and, in the US, at Lazard Freres, Lehman Brothers, Kuhn-Loeb, Bache & Co., Goldman-Sachs...
...Maoism "works more crudely than Zionism...
...His most recent article for moment appeared in January 1978...
...Agreements politely negotiated and enthusiastically executed may well suggest to the Soviet Academy that their endorsement of and, by this time, responsibility for anti-Semitism is a matter of very minor concern to their colleagues abroad...
...III...
...And the tragic fact is that, for reasons best known to the Soviet leadership, anti-Semitism has become a major commitment of the Soviet government—and the Soviet Academy of Science has become one of its primary disseminators...
...Kislov was followed in turn by the notorious Yvgehii Yevseev, who described Zionism as "the storm unit of imperialism," and who brushed aside charges of anti-Semitism on the grounds that "in the class struggle, Zionism is a greater enemy than anti-Semitism...
...The "Jewish bourgeoisie," using Zionism as a cover, have sought "the expansion of their positions in the economy of the largest capitalist states...
...In 1972, stepping up the tempo, the Politburo caused the Academy to create a "Permanent Commission Attached to the Section of Social Sciences of the Praesidium of the Academy of Sciences on the Coordination of Studies to the Exposure and Criticism of the History, Ideology and Practice of Zionism...
...Among the Jewish bourgeoisie," Kiselev contends, "the use of all sorts of extra-market kinship relations through 'one's own...
...it does not taint them...
...Can one overlook such a damning development in the name of "scientific cooperation" or "the relaxation of international tension...
...Byrnes argues that "every Soviet scholar abroad and every American and other foreign scholar in the Soviet Union helps break down the wall that has isolated that country from the rest of the world...
...Both the book and the review echo themes found in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion...
...This it accomplished, despite the efforts of the moderates...
...Once again imitating the Protocols, the Soviet authors contend that Judaism considers the "goy" as the "enemy" against whom "violence" is required...
...Samizdat (underground) reports of that conference, closed to the public, have recently become available—and they are both shocking and frightening...
...Dadiani, the next speaker, tried to restore a more balanced approach, he was interrupted by Gafurov, who authoritatively announced that it was unacceptable to emphasize the divergent trends within Zionism...
...Gafurov was largely (he died in 1977) a political functionary rather than a scholar...
...worse, it is responsible for abstractionist art in the USSR, and induces vile property instincts among Soviet citizens...
...The argument is not easily resolved...
...But what if a distinguished institution, such as the Soviet Academy, an institution with a distinguished tradition and a record of substantial achievement, is also a principal vehicle for the propagation of virulent anti-Semitism...
...Cohn shows clearly how the Protocols became, in the hands of the Nazis, a "warrant for genocide...
...She concluded with an appeal to mobilize a unified struggle against Zionism, "one of the most fascist, man-hating forms of anti-Communism...
...Does that not suggest the possibility that it helps remove such modest restraints as may yet inhibit the anti-Semitic behavior of a ruthless Soviet leadership...
...And key anti-Semitic Academicians in the field of mathematics use their positions to exclude Jews from major institutions, from publishing, from participation in international conferences...
...International Zionism is little more than an updated version of the Protocols...
...both—for the first time in Marxist literature—justify nineteenth century peasant pogroms against the Jews on the grounds that they were legitimate expressions of the class struggle...
...Written by I. S. Narsky, a Professor of Philosophical Sciences at Moscow State University, the letter complains that in connection with efforts to promote him for election as a corresponding member of the Academy, rumors were being deliberately spread that he was really a "Polish Jew...
...As early as 1968, Andrei Sakharov had called attention to a new "appointments" policy whereby the Academy discriminated against Jews, and he had sharply criticized the then President of the Academy, M. V. Keldysh, for justifying such a policy...
...Thus, he proposed that the formulation "Jewish monopolistic bourgeoisie" be replaced by the phrase "monopolistic bourgeoisie of Jewish origin...
...A letter written on October 10, 1970 and circulated in samizdat form offered curious documentary evidence of the Academy's new policy...
...This rather delicate critique caused a noisy din on the floor and set in motion a full-scale attack on the "moderates...
...And has not the recent behavior of the Soviet Academy already exceeded those limits...
...As the Kiselev paper progressed, it blurred the distinction between Zionism and Jewry, imputing to Zionism the kind of demonic power which only the most outrageous bigots would normally endorse...
...The "new" anti-Semitism began in the USSR in 1967...
...The most important study of Soviet-American exchange programs, prepared by Professor Robert Byrnes, concludes that scientific exchanges serve "as a liberating force that may lead to a mellowing and moderating of Soviet policy...
...It was printed in an edition of 26,000, priced inexpensively (76 kopeks), and strongly endorsed by Tass...
...More, Maoism has but one locus while Zionism "fights us everywhere...
...The stage was now set...
...And it was he who organized, in February of 1976, a major conference on Zionism...
...Through Israel and by means of Zionist influence, the Jewish financiers have acquired "additional possibilities for the expansion" of their sphere of investment and control in Asia, Africa and Latin America...
...Zionism is espionage which seeks to subvert the entire Socialist world...
...Kiselev (who knows no Hebrew) sought to present himself as a dispassionate scholar...
...After criticizing Kryvelev, he gave the floor to G. P. Nikitina, one of the most prominent members of the Oriental Institute, who expressed ardent support for Yevseev, and added an endorsement of Begun as well...
...Hear me, a member of the Academy of Sciences...
...V. All this necessarily raises very directly the serious moral question of whether our own National Academy should collaborate with the Soviet Academy...
...And he proposed that criticism of nationalism be "tactful," specifically singling out for reproach Yevseev, the author of what Braginsky called "unsuccessful articles...
...Any relationship with any institution in a totalitarian society must take into account the fact that all such institutions are infused with politics, are extensions of the state...
...Although he was not cited in the book, in 1978 the Kremlin authorized the publication of his scurrilous new book, Invasion Without Arms, in an edition of 150,000 copies...
...When L. Ya...
...And by 1974, the full range of the media was brought to bear on the drive against Zionism, now equated with every conceivable evil—racism, imperialism, capitalist exploitation, colonialism, militarism, crime, murder, espionage, terrorism, prostitution, even Hitierism...
...And it was in pursuit of such sanction that the Kremlin turned to the Academy...
...Just as the Protocols propagated the canard that Jewish magnates were intimately linked through family connections in giant conspiracy, so does the new study pander to the classic anti-Semitic belief that Jewish "clannishness" is a grave threat...
...You are fascists...
...And several months later, in July 1977, the curtain went up on the publication, by the Academy, of a volume entitled International Zionism: History and Politics...
...Four themes dominate his work: Zionism is rampant militarism, and seeks to incinerate the globe (158 of the 165 largest "death concerns" in the West are controlled directly or owned by "the pro-Zionist bourgeoisie of Jewish origin...
...In her view, no one could say "anything bad about Yevseev...
...The voice is the voice of Leninism, but the ideas are straight from the Protocols of the Elders ofZion...
...Thus the general public was to learn that there is no room for moderation on the problem of Zionism: (Three of the Soviet Union's most notorious hate-peddlers—Ivanov, Yevseev and Bol-shakov—are among the principal sources cited in the footnotes...
...But at what point does participation in a joint program become a tacit toleration, perhaps even endorsement, of flagrant evil...
...Prominent Jewish mathematicians who had been corresponding members of the Academy for years have been repeatedly put forward for election as Academicians, and have been rejected each time...
...But the moderates fought back...
...And the Judaic belief in the Messiah is allegedly inculcated so that Jews will aspire to "mastery over all mankind...
...Morzhinskaia was followed by L. Y. Mordzhorian, a Doctor of Juridical Sciences, who was even more shrill in her denunciation...
...Among the names mentioned are I. M. Gel-fand, M. G. Krein, S. P. Novikov and I. R. Shafarevich...
...It was N. A. Suslov, for example, the powerful Politburo member, who proposed the nomination of A. P. Alexan-drov as President of the Academy, a post Alexandrov now holds...
...Other "internationally recognized mathematicians," (such as V. I. Arnold, O. A. Ladyzhenskaia, Ga...
...Gafurov would have none of it...
...Zionism, Kiselev proposed, "has no equal among the other units of imperialism and of bourgeois nationalism...
...The conference proceeded, the floor returning to Yevseev who ardently defended Begun, angering the moderates and forcing Gafurov to take over once again and to summarize the discussion before closing the meeting...
...Zionism is thus a "cover" for "neo-colonialism...
...Indeed, the U.S...
...MAKING ANTI-SEMITISM RESPECTABLE NEW1Y AVAI1AB1E DOCUMENTS SHOW HOW THE SOVIET ACADEMY OF SCIENCES HAS BEEN RECRUITED TO PROVIDE LEGITIMACY TO THE KREMLIN'S ANTI-SEMITIC CAMPAIGN WILLIAM KOREY I. There is probably no Soviet institution of greater prestige, either within or outside the Soviet Union, than the Soviet Academy of Sciences...
...It is no coincidence that the saintly Andrei Sakharov, screaming furiously at the police who were roughing up Shcha-ransky's supporters outside the courtroom where the young computer scientist was being tried, shouted, "You are not humans, you are fascists...
...International Zionism, Gafurov pronounced, is a perfidious enemy that must be fought without mercy for it is not just another tool of world imperialism against the USSR...
...Israel is characterized as the "connecting link" in the vast and monumental effort of "the big Jewish bourgeoisie" to achieve "the consolidation of their positions in the world of capital" and for acquiring "super-profits...
...Academician I. M. Vinogradov, head of the Steklov Mathematical Institute, takes special pride in the fact that, under his leadership, his important institute has become "free of Jews...
...International Zionism is not a tract published in an obscure Ukra-nian city...
...The Chairman of the Permanent Commission was the Director of the Academy's Institute of Oriental Studies, Bobodzhan G. Gafurov, who came to that position after having served as First Secretary of the Party in Tadzhikistan and a member of the Ail-Union Party Central Committee...
...A new samizdat document which has only recently become available reveals that in the field of mathematics, anti-Jewish discrimination has become pervasive...
...A. Kislov, who followed Kiselev to the podium, was considerably more balanced in his presentation, arguing against "thinking about Zionism as a monolith," and pleading that "noisy propaganda campaigns" be avoided...
...Does that not suggest the possibility that the Soviet Academy of Sciences, wittingly or not, has provided an important tool—a warrant, if you will—in the hands of the most primitive anti-Semites...
...In the view of the key bureaucratic leaders, then, Zionism is nothing less than the single greatest danger confronting the Soviet Union...
...What then...
...The hope, in the case of the Soviet Academy, is that broad areas of scientific inquiry remain free of political management, and that such management, where it does occur, is not distinctly immoral or evil...
...and in the economic system of world capitalism as a whole...
...Neither then nor later would any of the many scholars associated with the section know, or take the time to learn, Hebrew...
...for the Soviet Academician, Gafurov asserted, Zionism is chauvinism and racism...
...The first "learned" paper presented at the 1976 conference was by V. I. Kiselev, who is in charge of the Israeli section of the Academy's Institute of Oriental Studies...
...And while caution must be taken not to lapse into anti-Semitism, it must be recognized that Zionism is an even more sinister enemy than Maoism...
...There may have been some opposition within the Academy to its exploitation for the base anti-Semitic purposes of the Soviet regime, but by now it has become clear that the Academy's willingness to be used as a vehicle for the most vile and contemptible propaganda is reflected in its own internal procedures as well...
...G. Sinai) have been voted down even as corresponding members simply because they are Jewish...
...That was to come later in the conference...
...Thus he observed that "One cannot equate absolutely Zionism and fascism," and he criticized those who would present Zionism as "the main enemy of the USSR and of the entire progressive mankind...
...Unhappily, there is no reason to believe that mathematics is an exception...
...Finally, the laudatory reviews of International Zionism which have appeared in numerous Soviet journals indicate that it is now to be regarded as the authoritative work on the subject...
...Having thus restored the conference to its evident purpose, Gafurov yielded the floor to I. S. Bra-ginsky, chief editor of the journal Peoples of Asia and Africa Bra-ginsky, himself of Jewish origin, was critical of phrases which might be interpreted as reflecting bigotry...
...William Korey is Director of the B'nai Brith International Policy Research Council...
...Is there to be no point at which we set aside the hope that continuing contact among scientists will lead to increased moderation in Soviet behavior (a hope which has, in some measure, been realized...
...His fantastic imputation of power to the Zionists notwithstanding, he sought in some degree to avoid the most extreme language...
...Professor I. A. Kryvelev of the Institute of Ethnography complained about the ignorance and tactlessness of equating Zionism and fascism, and he was followed by M. N. Korostovstev, who sharply attacked the "spreaders of cheap, journalistic anti-Semitism," denouncing Begun's book as simply "anti-Semitic...
...Nor was it an accident that when the Academy celebrated its 250th anniversary in 1976, distinguished scientists from all over the world came to participate in the proceedings...
...has always been practiced in a particularly wide manner...
...One is entitled to wish, however, that those who are at least aware that there is a moral issue here were aware as well of Professor Norman Cohn's meticulous study of the Tsarist Protocols of the Elders of Zion...

Vol. 4 • December 1978 • No. 2


 
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