From: kosinov@ceg.uiuc.edu (Greg Kosinovsky)
Subject: Re: Reply to S. Borodin (was: Antisemitism and Verbitsky)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 16:16:24 GMT

avg@rodan.UU.NET (Vadim Antonov) writes:

>In article <Bx9L81.DIL@apollo.hp.com> goykhman_a@apollo.hp.com (Alex Goykhman) writes:
>>    By 1917, the country had been mismanaged so badly that the
>>    population revolted and, as a result, the ruling elite was 
>>    thrown out of power.  After the Civil War, and until WWII
>>    began, the country was ruled by ethnic minorities - the Jews,
>>    Georgians, Latvians, etc - and it was during that period of
>>    time that the state became considerably less chauvinistic, 
>>    and anti-semitism was all but gone.

>Gone? Dozens of millions of Russians gone by efforts of that less
>chauvinistic state. It is not entrance exams. It was genocide. 
>Or wasn't it chukcha Trotskiy who invented the "red terror"?

>Now do everybody understand WHAT racism is and WHO racist is?

>How THIS moron have a nerve to throw shit to Russia?!!

>>    The Russians returned to power after WWII, and brought with 
>>    them the traditional great-russian chauvinism, extreme racial
>>    and ethnic intolerance and, yes, anti-semitism.

>I'm still amazed by patience by people who even do not hate Jews,
>Georgians and Latvians after what the first (and i hope the last)
>non-Russian government did. Fortunately ethnical hatred and
>egotism aren't even remotely typical for Russian.
>    
>>    By 1991, the country had been mismanaged so badly that the
>>    population revolted...

>And fortunately there is now a chance that all bigots finally leave
>Russia forever. Don't lull yourselves with a "how those stupid
>Russians will live witihout us" -- Germany somehow managed, didn't it?

>Now, a quiz about opressed under-educated Jews:

>- how come that i have yet to see a Jew sweeping in Metro
>  or working in a shop for bread?

>- how come that 20% of Soviet administrative staff were Jews?
>  (source - Izvestiya '89 (this figure was also reported by
>  Ogonyok and later confirmed by Gorbachyov in interview)).

>- how come that a country which keeps illegally occupied territories
>  and whose citizenship laws discriminate people by ethnicity (well,
>  you can get a citizenship by undergoing a barbaric surgery) has
>  nuclear arms and enjoy support of American taxpayers?

>When i hear people like Alex Goykman i feel like joining Pamyat'.

>--vadim

Let me answer some of this garbage.

 Jews were indeed heavily represented in the Bolshevic party (though not
nearly as much as among Menshevics and some other Socialist opponents of
Bolshevics). But that is nearly irrelevant, Since, unlike other socialist
parties, Bolshevic philosophy and policy was completely and exclusively
defined by Vladimir Ulyanov Lenin.

  Now, let's examine the "Un- Russian" nature of Lenin's Bolshevism:

Lenin was raised in a Russian patriotic-coservative family of Ilya Ulyanov,
a States-Councelor in His Magestie's Government. (The career of Alexander 
Ulyanov is not an indication of family's radicalism. Most members of 
Narodnaya Volya came from such "enlightened-coservative" families). The
preponderance of Asian-minority blood in Ilya Ulianov's veins is also not
an argument against his patritism -- most Russian intellectuals with
his ethnic background were patriots, and he certainly had no less Russian
blood in him than The Sovereign of All the Russias himself.

  Having been raised in such a family, and having no political convictions
other than vanity, Vladimir Ulyanov went to the University, were the Narodnaya
Volya activists recognized him as their martired hero's brother and recruited
him.
  Following the dismissal from the University for involvement with Narodnya
Volya, V. Ulyanov was left with two major philosophical convictions, that
guded him for the rest of his life:
	    1) the paranoid conspiratorial-terroristic methodology of
	     Narodnaya Volya -- an inherantly RUSSIAN-NIHILISTIC phenomenon.
        and 2) a PERSONAL vendetta against the Russian State and everything
	      associated with it.

  He later went on to the study and exceptance of Marxism, and quickly
rose within the ranks of Russian Social-Democrats. But the ultimate
creation of Bolshevism came when Lenin regected the Russian (or, more 
precisely, German) Social Democracy, such as invisioned by the likes of
Plekhanov, and created his own brand of socialism -- a mixture of Marxism,
Russian Nihilism, and his own schizophrenia. Indeed, the reason Bolshevics
later got along so well with SR's and Anarchists is that they had so much more
in common with these "Russian Romantics" then whith their "Germanized" Social
Democratic brethren. And, indeed, if not for the support of Russian Peasant--
based SR's, Bolshevics could never have held on to power.

Some notes in conclusion:
 Russians have no one but themselves to blame for the Revolution and the Nightmare
 that followed. They were the only ones who could have stopped it, but didn't.
   Russians were indeed slaughtered under Lenin and Stalin, but in no greater
 proportion then Jews or other minorities.
   One of the main executors of LENIN's Red Terror was, indeed, the 'Chukcha'
   Trotsky, but the two others -- Krilenko and Dzerzhinsky -- were Slavs.
 INDEED, the only person in the Bolshevic Government who tried (unsuccessfully)
 to stop the Red Terror was another chukcha -- Isaak Steinberg.

 Now, a disclaimer:
   this post was solely intended for decent people on this network, and is not
   in any way intended to dissuade Antonov and his ilk from joining Pamyat.
   First of all, nothing can accomplish such a Herculean
   task, and secondly, Pamyat is were they belong.


					   Greg Kosinovsky
Newsgroups: soc.culture.soviet