Condemning the anti-Semitic outbursts and activities of both Communists and ultranationalists, a liberal member of the Russian parliament has insisted that most Russians are not anti-Semitic.
Alexander Shishlov, a Duma member and head of the democratic Yabloko Party in St. Petersburg, admitted during a visit to San Francisco last week that Jews have a right to be worried.
But, he quickly added, “there is absolutely no anti-Semitic mood in the Russian people. One cannot expand the hatred towards Jews by several semi-crazy men to [the majority] of people in Russia.”
All fingers, including his own, are pointing to the economy, said Shishlov, who was in the city to address the Bay Area Council for Jewish Rescue and Renewal and the World Affairs Council of Northern California.
“The real problem is how to live and feed families, not the Jewish problem. Poverty is the best soil for communism, nationalism and anti-Semitism.”
Jews in the United States, nevertheless, are edgy over a recent spate of well-publicized anti-Semitic rallies and statements.
Duma member Gen. Albert Makashov, head of the nationalist arm of the Communist Party, is one of a handful of right-wingers who have spewed anti-Jewish rhetoric at public rallies and on television.
Members of Shishlov’s Yabloko Party tried to push a resolution through the Duma condemning the outbursts. The Communist Party defeated it.
So Shishlov’s party is lashing back. The Communists’ actions in Parliament, he said, “shows they are trying to justify in some respect this behavior. I think it was more or less state policy in Soviet times. We see even now this is the voice of Communists.”
While Shishlov, who is warming up for parliamentary elections later this year and presidential elections next year, feels free to jab the Communists, Russian Jews fear that being sucked into the political debates will only lead to trouble.
Flashes of anti-Semitism, combined with a terrible economy and a weak central government, lead to chilling recollections of Nazi Germany.
Shishlov acknowledged the Nazi analogy is also on Russian minds.
“I think the difference is now we have a historical experience” to serve as a warning, he said. “We live in the end of the 20th century, with civilization more improved. I hope this story will not repeat.”
Nonetheless, the disastrous economic situation in the country has damaged the cause of reformers — “who, by the way, were advised by Western politicians,” Shishlov said. He expects the Yabloko Party to make only modest gains in the elections.
Still, he claims to hear the death-knell of the Communists, the result of the party’s internal strife and their reduced power following the 1996 elections.
“We are at a fork in the road for the Russian state,” Shishlov said. “The choice is whether Russia will become a criminal, oligarchic state or whether it will become a democratic state with a real market economy, free media and civil rights.”
Outbreaks of anti-Semitism, unfortunately, are the country’s best gauge on how civil rights are faring, said Shishlov.
Pushing a civil rights agenda sometimes forces Shishlov to takes problematic matters into his own hands. In St. Petersburg, a high school principal recently tried to make instructors teach only “purely Russian” works. Russian Jewish writers didn’t count.
After complaints from parents and civil rights advocates brought the case to his attention, Shishlov stepped in and pressed to remove the principal. Last week Shishlov was told the principal had been fired.
In all likelihood, Shishlov will continue battling to remove bigots from high-ranking positions. Russia has hate-crime laws but they are enforced weakly, if at all. Yabloko wants to strengthen those laws.
Meanwhile, as the parties haggle over civil rights, more Jews may flee the country. Shishlov hopes they won’t feel the need to do so.
“If a friend leaves it’s a kind of frustration for me. It would be better to live together,” he said.
“But the fact that people want to leave gives me additional courage to fight for a better life in the country. My task is to create the circumstances where people will want to stay.”