Paul Goble
Staunton, July 27 – Whenever Russian leaders have become especially arrogant despite increasing problems, they have sought to blame the Jews for their problems, a tactic that may make them feel better but presages their demise by isolating them from the world and depriving Russia of valued citizens, Andrey Nikulin says.
That was true at the end of the tsarist regime; it was true in the last years of Stalin’s rein; and it is true once again today, even if Putin has backed down on plans to shutter the Jewish Sokhnut repatriation agency office in Russia, the Moscow commentator continues (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=62E216F8101FC§ion_id=50A6C962A3D7C).
The Putin regime has appeared slower than its predecessors to adopt this approach, but the reason is less any sympathy for Jews than because the number of Jews in Russia has declined so far that they are no longer as large and thus effective target as far as the powers that be in the Kremlin are concerned.
According to Nikulin, as a result of the rising tide of anti-Semitism, “we are actually losing one of the last windows leading to the wider world and the remnants of technological and financial times and at the same time we are mobilizing against ourselves a powerful international and extremely successful community.”
In so doing, he continues, Russia is once again “walking along a well-trodden path and will receive at most the applause of the Iranians and the Syrians as well as give some grim satisfaction to the darkest part of the Russian electorate.”
The dynamics of all this is quite clear, Nikulin concludes. “And one can only console oneself with the fact that struggles against cosmopolitans were one of the last gasps of former gloomy regimes, foreshadowing their fairly quick end.” That at least is something to look forward to.
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