19 January 1999. Thanks to Anonymous.
Source: http://russiatoday.com/rtoday/special/transition/trans04.html

Russia Today, 15 January 1999, 11:05 EST (19:05 MOSCOW)

## Trading Communism for Anti-Semitism

by Yevgenii Proshechkin

The Communist faction in the Duma has categorically refused to officially condemn the anti-Semitic statements its member Gen. Albert Makashov made in November. For many observers in Russia and especially in the West, that came as an unpleasant surprise.

Over the past few years, a lot of effort has been put into creating a myth about the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF); its leader, Gennady Zyuganov; and its place in the political system of present-day Russia. The myth went something like this: there is a big, bad Yeltsin regime in Russia. It is confronted by the opposition led by Zyuganov and his Communists.

The fact that the party is called "communist" is most likely a tribute to tradition. Since Zyuganov has repeatedly assured his audiences in the West that all forms of ownership would be maintained if he came to power, he is not a communist but more of a social democrat. He plays according to the rules of a civilized society, and one could make deals with him.

Some have even argued that one could presumably cooperate with Zyuganov in combating xenophobia and racism and in halting the proliferation of fascist organizations and ethnic conflicts. After all, the argument went, communists and social democrats were not so long ago enemies of Nazism, so KPRF, now evolving toward social democracy, could well become a bulwark against the danger of fascism.

That myth, however, has been fully exposed, precisely over such sensitive issues as fascism, Nazism, and anti-Semitism. There is only one thing in that line of reasoning one could have agreed with: Zyuganov is no communist. Just look at what he has written in his Derzhava (State Power) and Za gorizontom (Beyond the Horizon). According to Zyuganov the writer, there was no Stalin terror, there was no repression, there were no innocent victims. Nikita Khruschev's report at the 20th Communist Party Congress "On Stalin's Personality Cult" was inspired by the CIA. The world view, the culture, and the ideology of the West are increasingly influenced by the Jewish community. The latter is becoming the major shareholder of the entire economic system of Western civilization. Under these circumstances, Russia will be the only barrier against Western hegemony.

The Communists, along with the Duma faction of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, have been blocking, year after year, legislation against Nazism, fascism, and extremism. I myself submitted a draft on responsibility for publicly expressed justification of the crimes of Nazism (similar to the existing German law on the issue) a year ago. But the Communists unanimously let that bill die.

So why is Zyuganov not condemning General Makashov? The reason is simple: if he did, Communist voters, shaped by party-fanned xenophobia and anti-Semitism over recent years, would abandon their allegedly moderate leader and turn to extremists such as neo-Bolshevik Viktor Anpilov.

The truth is that the KPRF has not been preaching communism or socialism; it has been advancing the ideas of national socialism. The Makashov case illustrates yet again that the red-brown symbiosis -- about which many had been warning for years -- has become a dire reality. If a party advancing such an ideology came to power, it would bring about chaos, a chain of ethnic conflicts resembling those in former Yugoslavia (only, understandably, on a much larger scale), installation of dictatorial regimes throughout the former Soviet Union, and ultimately streams of refugees.

> Translated by Victor Kalashnikov. Yevgeny Proshechkin is the chairman of the Moscow-based Anti-Fascist Center and member of the presidential commission for countering political extremism.

> This article is reprinted from the January issue of Transitions, a monthly magazine about Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. (http://www.ijt.cz/transitions)

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