Translated material
Antisemitism in politics
Antisemitic parties and movements . Anti-Semitism is a noticeable part of the ideology and propaganda of some large and influential parties of the modern Russian Federation, belonging to three ideological directions - communist, national-patriotic and Eurasian. These parties tend to use anti-Semitic rhetoric in a simplistic and "moderate" form. In those cases where the party focuses on anti-Semitic propaganda, it condemns itself to marginality and ousting from the field of "big politics". In general, a dual situation is emerging: on the one hand, anti-Semitism is an essential part of the domestic political tradition, on the other hand, in Russia it is much more profitable to exploit other forms of xenophobia among the population. Since the latter factor is quite significant, Jews are by no means the most frequent targets of hatred for politicians. It seems that the Western stereotype of the inadmissibility of open anti-Semitism in the rhetoric of a politician who claims to be popular and respectable is gradually beginning to influence in Russia. (1) .
Actually anti-Semitic national-radical political organizations are going through hard times even in comparison with the period of the mid-1990s. The "anti-extremist" actions of the state, sometimes inconsistent, not always competent and often raising doubts about the legal validity, nevertheless, have their result. For example, the crisis and split in the largest modern Russian national-radical (if not frankly neo-Nazi) organization - the Russian National Unity (RNU) movement - was not least caused by the ban on holding the congress of the movement, the closure of the newspaper and pressure on the Moscow organization. Now the RNU no longer has a chance not only to be revived as a single organization and participate in the political process, but even to be transformed into an underground extremist group. An even tougher policy of the authorities and law enforcement agencies in relation to another national-radical (although practically not anti-Semitic) organization - the National Bolshevik Party - led to the arrest of the leadership and the virtual paralysis of its political activities. In the future, in connection with the adoption of the Law on Counteracting Extremist Activities, and to an even greater extent - in connection with the awareness by officials of the need to counteract right-wing radicalism, we can only expect the state to step up its actions in relation to the most radical organizations and, at the same time, to “tame” moderate nationalists .
However, despite some pressure on the right-wing radical parties and movements from the state, it was not this pressure, but other factors that led to the decline of national-patriotic organizations. Subjective reasons undoubtedly played a certain role. Even the new Law on political parties of the Russian Federation, which stimulates party building, could not, despite repeated attempts over the past year, force the right-wing radicals to form a powerful all-Russian organization. Any associations turned out to be loose, eclectic and narrower than they were intended from the beginning. There was no broad unification of radical nationalists. The parties that claim an independent role are objectively too weak and small in number to claim success. On the other hand, it can be noted that the new law on parties did not become the "sieve" that would weed out dwarf organizations - despite the increase in the quantitative parameters required for registration, the requirements for organizations are still formal ("paper") in nature, and in reality without special need, no one checks the information provided.
The current crisis of right-wing organizations is caused by a number of reasons, both objective and subjective. The objective reasons include the general socio-ideological climate in society, the high level of consolidation of society around the incumbent president, the fact that the Russian political elite intercepted slogans from right-wing radicals that could attract the sympathy of the general population and competently used them for advertising purposes, thereby depriving radicals their main propaganda weapon - the ability to criticize the government. The subjective causes of the crisis include an extremely low level of propaganda, a primitive ideology, a lack of a creative approach to the main problems of our time, a repetition of ideological clichés that have not corresponded to the surrounding realities for a long time, personal ambitions of leaders, etc.
This situation generally creates extremely uncomfortable conditions for the existence of right-wing political organizations and deprives them of the slightest chance of success, at least in the short term. The old nationalist organizations are increasingly losing their footing in society.
National Power Party of Russia . The greatest resonance in connection with anti-Semitism in 2002 was the fact that the frankly Judeophobic National Power Party of Russia (NDPR) received all-Russian registration. Since at the moment it is the only national-radical organization that (at least formally) has the right to take part in the elections to the State Duma in 2003, and since its registration caused such a wide public outcry, let us dwell in more detail on the history of this organization.
The NDPR was created as a broad association of nationalist forces. The idea of a single nationalist party was born in the spring of 2001, when it became clear that none of the existing national-patriotic organizations was in a position to independently register at the all-Russian level. The direct initiative for the creation of the party, apparently, came from the leader of the left-nationalist organization Union of Officers, Stanislav Terekhov.
The first Memorandum on the establishment of the Organizing Committee of a single nationalist party (the name NDPR was adopted later, the name of the Russian State Party was originally proposed) was signed on May 18, 2001 by Yuri Belyaev (Freedom Party, Nashe Obozrenie newspaper), Dmitry Dyomushkin (Slavic Union - one of the fragments of the Russian National Unity), Stanislav Terekhov (Union of Officers and newspaper of the same name), Vladimir Selivanov (newspaper Desnitsa), Alexander Aratov (newspaper Russkaya Pravda), Alexander Sevastyanov (League for the Protection of National Heritage, National Newspaper), Dmitry Rumyantsev ( newspaper "Stenka"), Andrei Arkhipov (Russian project - great Russia), Alexander Ivanov-Sukharevsky (People's National Party and the newspaper "I am Russian!"), Vladimir Avdeev (magazine "Ateney"). The memorandum called on the nationalist leaders "to cast aside their ambitions and personal grievances in the name of a common goal - the salvation of Russia."
Later, the document was signed by Viktor Korchagin (Russian Party of Russia, Russkiye Vedomosti newspaper), S. Kucherov (Derzhavny Soyuz news agency), Igor Dyakov (Empire newspaper), Vladimir Popov (Era Rossii newspaper), Mikhail Kazmin (Rubezh newspaper, Vladimir), Stanislav Terentyev (Kolokol newspaper, Volgograd), Oleg Kitter (Alex-Inform newspaper, Samara), V. Mironov (Peresvet newspaper, Krasnodar), Boris Mironov (former chairman State Press Committee of the Russian Federation), Grigory Trofimchuk (former leader of the RNU in Saratov, now heads the local association of Cossacks and nationalists Obereg). At the initial stage, Alexander Chervyakov also took part in the Organizing Committee (the magazine "Russian Host" and the movement of the same name), but he did not sign any documents and rather quickly withdrew from the activities of the NDPR. At the beginning of 2002, the President of the All-Russian Federation of Hand-to-Hand Combat Tadeush Kasyanov joined the Organizing Committee.
However, by the end of 2001, due to internal conflicts, about half of the participants left the Organizing Committee (I. Dyakov, A. Chervyakov, A. Arkhipov, D. Demushkin and A. Ivanov-Sukharevsky), by the beginning of 2002 A. Aratov left the Organizing Committee. A truly broad coalition did not work out - ideological disputes quickly began between the members of the Organizing Committee (neopagans sorted out their relationship with Orthodox fundamentalists, anti-communist nationalists - with left-patriotic participants, etc.). In addition, it also failed to discard personal ambitions, as the Memorandum called for. The situation was complicated by bad personal relations between some of the founders of the association.
As a print organ of the Organizing Committee of the NDPR, during 2001-2002, about ten issues of the newspaper "Russian Front" were published (as special issues of "I am Russian", "National Newspaper" and the newspaper "Union of Officers"; the circulation of different issues ranged from 1000 to 10000 copies ).
The founding congress of the NDPR was held on February 24, 2002 in the Sosny boarding house in Korolev near Moscow (former Kaliningrad). The congress was attended by 216 delegates from 65 regions. During the congress, the leadership frankly and cynically tried to hide the anti-Semitic and extremist nature of its ideology. The motivation was simple: according to one of the co-chairs, "if I say that Russia is under the yoke of the Jews, and this is true, we will not be registered" (2) .
The Central Political Council (CPC) of the NDPR was elected at the congress. Three co-chairs headed the CPC NDPR - S. Terekhov (direction on organizational issues, relations with the regions; statutory commission), A. Sevastyanov (direction on program and ideological issues; program commission), B. Mironov (direction on relations with official authorities and public associations).
Already after the founding congress, some of its founders and initiators were excluded from the leading bodies of the party. As a result, the NDPR, which at first promised to become the largest association of radical national and left-wing patriotic forces since the days of the Russian National Cathedral and the National Salvation Front, became more of an association of individual leaders and some regional groups. A typical example: in September 2002, two co-chairmen and less than ten activists came out to picket the party in the center of Moscow.
In September 2002, the NDPR received official registration. Amazed by this fact, democratically oriented journalists, anti-fascists and human rights activists published statements full of anti-Semitism and xenophobia by the leaders of the NDPR at the founding congress, and pointed out the illegality of registering such a party (based on the Law on Political Parties and the Law on Combating Extremist Activities) (3 ) .
According to Justice Minister Yury Chaika, although the ministry's specialists did not find violations of laws in the party's statutory documents, after the uproar raised by the press after the registration of the NDPR, the Ministry of Justice turned to the party's leadership "for clarification." The Ministry of Justice put the leadership of the party in front of the need to disavow their statements, threatening otherwise to go to court with a claim for the liquidation of the registration of the party. According to the minister, "the leadership of the party dissociated itself from the statements of individuals" (including two of the three co-chairs) (4) . The minister promised that his department would closely monitor the national sovereigns, and if such statements are repeated, then the question of revoking its registration will arise.
It is possible that as part of the ostentatious fight against extremism, the party will be liquidated in court, since the case has become public.
Regions of the Russian Federation . Although in Russia as a whole anti-Semitism is not a factor that significantly influences the political process, in some Russian regions anti-Semitic motives are quite noticeable both during local election campaigns and in “ordinary” political life. It is necessary, however, to recall that the Russian Federation includes eighty-nine subjects in total, and the cases below are single exceptions, and not rules for Russian regions.
In April 2002, elections were held for the head of the Penza regional administration, which was won by the then acting governor Vasily Bochkarev. Bochkarev's main rival was the communist Viktor Ilyukhin, known for his chauvinistic and anti-Semitic stance. According to local observers, although Ilyukhin did not use anti-Semitic rhetoric during the campaign, emphasizing his image as a fighter against corruption (a more than actual problem for the region), fences and walls of houses were covered with anti-Semitic slogans interspersed with slogans in support of the communist candidate.
However, as it turned out during the elections, although Bochkarev did not advertise his xenophobic views, in reality the head of the Penza region is an everyday anti-Semite. On April 11, Radio Liberty aired a recording of V. Bochkarev's conversation with Anton Sharonov, editor-in-chief of the communist newspaper Lyubimiy Gorod (5) .
The reason for the governor's indignation was the position of the publication on the conflict between the regional administration and the Yukos company due to the crisis in gasoline supplies: the newspaper had the imprudence to disagree with the version of the regional executive power. The governor's speech unequivocally testifies to his anti-Semitism: "The gas stations in the region were empty. What am I, the general director of Yukos? I am Russian, and there I am a Jew. Well, I know Khodorkovsky is a Jew. But did he hire you? .. "Well, it's true, the Communists have always been at one with the Jews. Yes, they have always been at the same time. And Yukos is Jews, the entire leadership is Khodorkovsky, Shakhnovsky. Well, you know what, young, handsome, smart, I warn you: don't go there." , where they don’t ask you ... The people were shaking, there was nothing to fill the ambulance. And you write, b .., which means that YUKOS is good. It always has good Jews, b ... Cancer all life is put on the country, and always good."
Skillfully using the administrative resource, on April 14, Vasily Bochkarev confidently won the election. Neither during the election campaign, when this conversation was broadcast on the radio, nor after his election did the Penza governor try to either retract his words or apologize for them. It is characteristic that the federal government, as always in such cases, despite public outrage and direct appeals to the president (in particular, from the well-known human rights organization of the Association of Committees for the Defense of Jews in the former USSR), ignored the statements of the old-new head of the administration of the Penza region. It should be noted - all observers agree on this - that anti-Semitism and xenophobia are not particularly characteristic phenomena for the region and its population, they are rather something superficial, used in the political game by both the authorities themselves and the opposition. In the mid-1990s, the Penza region was quite prosperous in terms of interethnic relations. The Volga region as a whole is economically backward. The poverty of the population, isolation on social problems and, at the same time, the underdevelopment of political parties protect the region from political national radicalism (in Russia, the highest level of xenophobia, due to the peculiarities of ethno-demographic and migration processes, is observed precisely in developed industrial and relatively wealthy regions). The xenophobia of the local population is quite abstract - the region is located away from the main migration flows, and the local national minorities (Germans, indigenous Muslims) are not perceived as an object of xenophobia, since "they have always lived here."
Upon arrival in Rostov-on-Don, the chief rabbi of South Russia, Elyashiv Kaplun, faced rather a curious (although by no means amusing) incident, rather than a manifestation of state anti-Semitism. The rabbi was detained at the airport and kept for three days under guard in a hotel. He was returning from Israel with his wife and three children. When passing through passport control at the airport in Rostov-on-Don, officials detained him and said that they had an order from Moscow for this, which did not give him the right to enter Russia. His family was allowed to leave the airport, but Kaplun himself was actually put under arrest in a local hotel and his passport was confiscated. He was there for three days under the protection of three people, after which he was released.
According to the rabbi, his Russian entry visa was in perfect order. The authorities in Rostov-on-Don gave him no explanation and did not state the reason for his detention or why he was released again. The only answer to all questions was a reference to the order of Moscow. Yury Sbrodov, head of passport control at the airport, said that even before Kaplun's arrival in Russia, he received an order not to let the rabbi into the country and that this order came from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry in Rostov-on-Don, Vladimir Salotsinsky, in turn, said that he personally did not know anything about such an order (5) .
As far as we can judge from the available information, in the case of Kaplun, it was not a targeted anti-Semitic action, but a manifestation of the phobia of Russian officials towards foreign religious figures, including those permanently residing in Russia, that has spread over the past year. If earlier such suspicion was directed only against "sectarians" and representatives of new religious movements, since the beginning of 2002, Catholic or Buddhist figures began to receive refusals of visas or a "reception" similar to Kaplun. Apparently, the incident at the Rostov airport should be regarded in this context.
1 For more information about anti-Semitism in the propaganda ideology of influential Russian parties (conditionally included in the "political mainstream"), see the series of articles by V. Likhachev "Russian political parties and anti-Semitism": Left-nationalist (communo-patriotic) parties // International Jewish newspaper, No. 18-19 (388-389), October 2002; National Patriots // International Jewish Newspaper, No. 20-21 (390-391), October 2002; Eurasianism // International Jewish newspaper, No. 22-23 (392-393), November 2002.
2 Quot. by: The other day , September 29, 2002.
3 See for example: Nezavisimaya Gazeta , October 3, 2002.
4 Kommersant , October 24, 2002.
5 The text of the conversation is available on the Internet in the archive of the Radio Liberty website and was published in Pravoslavnaya Gazeta (No. 16 (193), 2002).