East European Jewish AffairsANDREAS UMLAND Soviet Antisemitism after Stalin William Korey, Russian Antisemitism, Pamyat, and the Demonology of Zionism (Studies in Antisemitism 2). Chur (Switzerland): Harwood Academic Publishers for the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 1995. Notes. Bibl. Ind. x+243pp. £35.00: £17.00 (pbk) Semyon Reznik, The Nazification of Russia: Antisemitism in the Post-Soviet Era. Washington DC: Challenge Publications 1996. Notes. Ind. 276pp. £14.50: $15.95 (pbk). Distributed in the UK by Gazelle Books Services Ltd, Lancaster Matthias Messmer, Sowjetischer and postkommunistischer Antisemitismus: Entwicklungen in Russland, der Ukraine und Litauen (Konstanzer Schriften zur Schoah und Judaica), With a foreword by Walter Laqueur. Notes. Append. Bibl. Ind. Konstanz: Hartung-Gorre 1997. viii+533+7pp. DM72.00 (pbk) otwithstanding the titles of these books, their principal contributions lie uniformly in the field of post-Stalinist state-sponsored Soviet Rus- sian antisemitism. All three authors claim they are covering, inter alia, the particulars of popular Russian antisemitism following the introduction of glasnost in 1987—i.e. that they are dealing with a distinctly topical issue. Not only is this claim, with regard to all three studies, refuted by their in- sufficient empirical evidence on, and insufficient depth of analysis of, con- temporary Russian antisemitism! it is, in each case, a quite unnecessary The preparation of this review was supported by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, Cologne. 1 For instance, the altogether inadequate treatment by all three authors of the emergence, tise, splits in and overall importance of the Pamyat groups appears due to, among other things, the fact that none of them seems to have been aware of the seminal analysis of these groups by Valery Solovey, ‘Pamyat: History, ideology and political practice’ in Valery Solovey and I. Erunov tele), Russkoe delo segodnya. Kniga I: Pamyat (The Russian Cause Today. Book 1, Pamyat) (Moscow: TsIMO USSR Academy of Sciences 1991). EAST EUROPEAN JEWISH AFFAIRS, vol. 29, nos. 1-2, 1999/1350-1674/159-168160 Soviet Antisemitism after Stalin avowal insofar as cach of the three authors has made, in his particular way, a valuable, lasting addition to the historiography of Soviet antisemitism, The current state of the study of contemporary Russian nationalism Since the demise of the Soviet system, one can observe the rise of two rela- tively distinct and novel bodies of literature in the general field of twenti- eth-century Russian nationalism. First, the few earlier papers, book chapters and specialized studies on Stalinist antisemitism published during the Cold War’ have, since that period, been complemented by a number of more com- prehensive re-examinations and re-interpretations of this phenomenon in several larger analytical, documentary as well as literary publications? and, at least, one important collection of essays.* Second, with the publication of the first comprehensive descriptive and conceptual book-size analyses of post-Soviet Russian right-wing extremism, an entirely new sub-field in Russian and East European studies is taking shape.‘ While it is not clear 2 Among the first book-size studies in this genre were Yehoshua Gilboa, The Black Years of Soviet Jewry, 1939-1953, translated from the Hebrew by Yosef Shachter and Dov Ben- Abba (Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown and Co./Brandeis University 1971) and Shimon Redlich, Propaganda and Nationalism in Wartime Russia: The Jewish Anti-Fascist Com- mittee in the USSR, 1941-1948, East European Monographs no. 108 (Boulder, Colorado: East European Quarterly 1982), 3. Recent book-size publications in various translations include in chronological order: Louis Rapoport, Stalin’s War Against the Jews: The Doctors’ Plot and the Soviet Solution (New York and Toronto: Free Press 1990); Gennadi V. Kostyrchenko, V plenu « krasnogo faraona: politicheskiye presledovaniya evreev v SSSR v poslednee stalinskoe desyatiletie Dokumentalnoe issledovanie (A Captive of the Red Pharoe: Political Persecution of Jews in the USSR in the Last Stalinist Decade. A Documentary Investigation) (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya 1994); Aleksandr Borshchagovsky, Obvinyaetsya krov: Dokumentalnaya povest (Blood Accused: A Documented Tale) (Moscow: Progress/Kultura 1994); Matthias Vetter, Antisemiten und Bolschewiki: Zum Verhaltnis von Sowjetsystem und Judenfeindschaft (Berlin: Metopol 1995); Arkady Vaksberg, Stalin protiv evreeu: Sekrety strashnoy epokhi (Stalin Against the Jews: Secrets of a Terrible Era) (New York: Liberty Publishing House 1995); Shimon Redlich (ed.), War, Holocaust and Stalinism: A Documented History of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in the USSR (Luxembourg: Harwood Academic Publishers 1995); Gennadi V. Kostyrchenko, Out of the Red Shad- ows: Anti-Semitism in Stalin's Russia (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books 1995); Shimon Redlich and Gennadi Kostyrchenko (eds.), Evreysky antifashistsky komitet v SSSR 1941-1948; Dokumentirovannaya istoriya (The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in the USSR, 1941-1948: A Documented History) (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya 1996); Alexander Borschtschagowski, Orden fiir einen Mord: Die Judenverfolgung unter Stalin (Berlin: Propylien 1997); Gennadii Kestyrchenko, Prisonniers du pharaon rouge: Les répressions politiques contre les Juifs en URSS dans a dernitre décennie du regne de Staline (Arles/Solin: Actes Sud 1998); Viktor Levashov, Ubiystvo Mikboelsa (The Murder of Mikhoels) (Moscow: Olimp 1998); and Arno Lustiger, Rotbuch: Stalin und die Juden. Die tragische Geschichte des Jdischen Antifaschistischen Komitees und der sowjetischen Juden (Berlin: Aufbau 1998). See also the review articles on some of these books by Robert Con- quest, ‘Stalin and the Jews’, New York Review of Books, 11 July 1996, 46-50 and David L, Brandenberger in Europe-Asia Studies (hereafter EAS), vol. 51, no. 2, 1999, 347-68. 4 Leonid Luks (ed.), Der Spatstalinismus und die ‘jidische Frage’: Zur antisemitischen Wendung des Kommunismus, Schriften des Zentralinstituts fiir Mittel- und Osteuropastudien 3 (Cologne: Bohlau 1998). 5. Most of the relevant book-size analyses as well as some periodicals published before 1996, are discussed in Andreas Umland, “The post-Soviet Russian extreme right’, Problems ofA.UMLAND 161 whether even more studies on Stalinism will be added to the already repeti- tive English, German and Russian volumes on the antisemitism of that pe- riod, it seems obvious that the still comparatively small community of students of post-Soviet ultra-nationalism will grow quickly.* In addition to the consolidation of these two new sub-disciplines, one can also recently observe a resurgence of interest in, and broader acknowledgement of, the general relevance of Russian nationalism in Sovict history’—a development which also contributes to the re-definition of the field as a whole. Thus there now exists a broad range of new analyses which suggest from various perspectives answers to the question why post-Soviet Russian ultra-nationalism has become an important ideology in the former Soviet Union. Paradoxically, one of the possibly most important sources of con- temporary right-wing extremist attitudes in Russia is sometimes entirely omitted from, or dealt with only in passing in, studics relating to today’s developments, i.e. Soviet ‘zionology’ of the 1960s-80s.* To be sure, both Stalinist Post-Communism, vol. 44, no. 4, 1997, 53-61. In that review, I have also briefly defined what I mean by ‘right.’ and ‘left-wing extremism’ as well as ‘fascism’. 6 Tomy knowledge, before 1999 only four comprehensive, analytical overviews of the post Soviet Russian extreme right in its entirety have been published in Western languages: Alexander Yanov, Weimar Russia and What We Can Do About It (New York: Slovo-Word 1995); Leonid Ivanov, Russland nach Gorbatschow: Wurzeln-Hintergriinde-Trends der sich formierenden Gruppierungen (Passau: Wissenschaftsverlag Rothe 1996); Wayne Allensworth, The Russian Question: Nationalism, Modernization and Post-Communist Russia (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield 1998); and Judith Devlin, Stavophiles and Commissars: Enemies of Democracy in Modern Russia (Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan 1999). The principal Russian-language surveys include, in addition to several comprehensive collections of documents of the new groupings and biographical data on ultra-nationalist leaders, Aleksandr Yanov, Posle Eltsina: ‘Veymarskaya’ Rossiya (Post- Yeltsin: ‘Weimar’ Russia) (Moscow: KRUK 1995); Aleksandr Verkhovsky, Anatoly Papp and Vladimir Pribylovsky (eds.), Politichesky ekstremizm v Rossii (Political Extremism in Russia) (Moscow: Panorama 1996); and Aleksandr Verkhovsky, Vladimir Pribylovsky and Ekaterina Mikhaylovskaya, Natsionalizm i ksenofobiya v rossiyskom obshchestue (Nation- alism and Xenophobia in Russian Society) (Moscow: Panorama 1998). Unfortunately, the authors of most of these studies tend to ignore each other’s works. 7 As exemplified by the publication of three major new studies: Geoffrey Hosking and Robert Service (eds.), Russian Nationalism: Past and Present (London: Macmillan/School of Sla- vonicand East European Studies 1998); Frank Golezewski and Gertrud Pickhahn, Russischer Nationalismus: Die russische Idee im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Gittingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1998); and Yitzhak Brudny, Reinventing Russia: Russian Nationalism and the Sovier State, 1953-1991 (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press 1998). 8 As will emerge more clearly below, I use ‘zionology’ here—following Reznik—when re- ferring to the paranoid, proto-racist, conspiratorial, manichean camp within Soviet ‘anti- Zionism’ of the 1960s-80s. Notably, within the general ‘anti-Zionist’ campaign of these years there was also a more moderate, largely Moscow-based branch of academics who distanced themselves from the overtly antisemitic aspects of ‘zionology’ (as defined here) and its equation of Zionism with, among others, fascism and Nazism. For an illustr&tion of the conflicts between the ‘zionologists’ and moderate ‘anti-Zionists’ see the conference report by E. L. Solmar, ‘Protocols of the anti-Zionists’, Soviet Jewish Affairs (hereafter SJA), vol. 8, no. 2, 1978, 57-66. That these two groups must be differentiated is suggested, for instance, by the about-turn of one of the moderate ‘anti-Zionists’ who has now become a critic of Russian ultra-nationalism—see Lionel Ya. Dadiani, O popytkakh sozdaniya v Rossii levo-pravogo bloka oppozitsionnykh sil, 1989-1996 gg. (Attempts to Create in Russia a Left- Right Bloc of Opposition Forces, 1989-1996)(Moscow: Izdatelstvo Instituta sotsiologii162 Soviet Antisemitism after Stalin and pre-revolutionary Russian nationalism and antisemitism play an impor- tant role in the ultra-nationalist discourse of the post-Soviet intelligentsia, Without doubt, the numerous dissident and semi-dissident tamizdat or samizdat and the few officially published, explicitly russophile writings in- form in crucial ways contemporary right-wing extremist ideologies. In addi- tion, the transformation of some literary ‘thick journals’, above all Molodaya gvardiya and Nash sovremennik, into mouthpieces of national Bolshevism and conservatism in the late 1960s and early 1970s,° and the rise of a distinct ‘village prose’ direction in Russian belles-lettres,° have rightly been identi- fied as important pre-conditions for the emergence of a broad intellectual movement of anti-Westernism and ultra-nationalism during perestroyka, and breeding grounds for post-Soviet right-wing extremist theories. ‘The lasting impact of all these factors can easily be shown by skim- ming through today’s ultra-nationalist publications. However, the sole ex- plicitly political and topical writings within this range of post-Stalinist and pre-perestroyka Russian nationalist literatures, which are freely and in large amounts available to average Russian citizens, are the numerous journalis- tic articles, booklets and books of the ‘zionologists’ Trofim Kichko, Yury Ivanoy, Vladimir Begun, Evgeny Evseev, Lev Korneev, Vladimir Bolshakov, Aleksandr Romanenko and others. Before the onset of glasnost, some of their publications even constituted required reading for certain categories of students, teachers, CPSU functionaries, and military and security per- sonnel, The peculiar mixture of anti-capitalist, anti-Western and anti-Israeli diatribes with more or less disguised antisemitic, xenophobic and ultra- nationalist messages in these publications was regarded as an appropriate means of constructing an additional mode of legitimation for the neo-Stalinist regime in power since 1964." Reznik speaks of at least fifty books falling into this gence, and estimates that altogether some 9 million copies of these publications have been distributed.” Although the quality of these writings is low, their sheer quantity, use in educational institutions, and wide distribu- tion suggest a profound impact on the post-Soviet ultra-nationalist discourse. Rossiyskoy akademii nauk 1997). In view of the below listed issues concerning ‘zionology” which require clarification, one hopes that Dadiani or another former moderate ‘anti-Zi- onist’ may one day decide to write an ‘insider's’ history of Soviet ‘anti-Zionism’. 9 Yitzhak M. Bruday, ‘The heralds of opposition to perestroika’, Soviet Economy, vol. 5, no. 2, 1989, 162-200; and Andreas Umland, ‘Die Sprachrohre des russischen Revanchismus’, Die neue Gesellschaft: Frankfurter Hefte, vol. 42, no. 10, 1995, 916-21. 10 Kathleen Parthé, Russian Village Prose: The Radiant Past (Princeton NJ: Princeton Uni versity Press 1992). 11 Hishould be mentioned, though, that Trofim Kichko's ‘seminal’ ‘zionological” work /udaizm bez prykras (Judaism Without Embellishment), published by the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, had already appeared in 1963. 12 The German weekly Der Spiegel{19 December 1977) estimated that around 200 antisemitic books had been published only within the previous six years—quoted in Howard Spies, “Zionists “unmasked”, SJA, vol. 8, no. 1, 1978, 83-6, 83. This number probably includes less overtly antisemitic ‘anti-Zionist’ and belletristic literature.A.UMLAND 163 Soviet ‘zionology’ and post-Soviet Russian ultra-nationalism There is, for instance, an apparent similarity between the idiosyncrasy of some ‘zionological’ assumptions and the eccentricity of contemporary Rus- sian xenophobia, Once one reads about the Soviet ‘zionologist’s’ grotesque denunciation of Zionism as equal with and allied to Nazism, it becomes less of an cnigma why, already in 1994, Zhirinovsky’s bizarre Liberal Demo- cratic Party of Russia was, in terms of the number of its local branches, the third largest, and Aleksandr Barkashov’s openly neo-Nazi Russian National Unity (RNU) the fourth strongest, political organizations in post-Soviet Russia (after the Communists and democrats)." Just as, in Soviet times, it was not a renowned scholar such as Academician Igor Shafarevich who dominated Russian ultra-nationalist discourse with his relatively sophisti- cated crypto-antisemitic theory," so today it is not a politician such as Omsk law school dean Sergey Baburin who leads the nationalist movement. While both Shafarevich and Baburin are, without doubt, extreme nationalists, they appear, at least in some regards, as ‘respectable’ figures with intellectual acu- men. It was rather a personage such as Valery Skurlatoy, an advocate of, among other things, sterilization of Soviet women who had sex with foreigners, or Valery Emelyanoy, the convicted murderer of his wife, who played impor- tant roles in Soviet ‘anti-Zionism’ in the 1960s-80s, enjoyed the protection of influential sections of the regime, and were given the opportunity to circu- fate their writings widely." In view of such ancestors, Zhirinovsky’s ranting and scandalous behaviour towards women, or Barkashov’s use of the swastika and the Hitler salute appear less incredible than they might have done otherwise. That the legacy of the ‘zionology’ of the Brezhnev period—along with that of pre-revolutionary, émigré, Stalinist and dissident ultra-nationalism— informs Russian party politics today is, in Barkashov’s case, especially well illustrated, The RNU founder, to be sure, draws, to some degree, on all the above sources. He has publicly acknowledged the influence of his grandfa- ther who, as an NKVD officer, participated in Stalin’s persecution of the Jews." The organization in which Barkashov began his political career in 13 Laura Beilin quoting [zvestiya in ‘Ultranationalist parties follow disparate paths’, Transi- tion, vol. 1, n0. 10, 23 June 1995, 8; see also Sven Gunnar Simonsen, ‘Aleksandr Barkkashov and Russian National Unity: Blackshirt friends of the nation’, Nationalities Papers, vol. 24, no, 4, 1996, 625-39, 626, 637. Since 1994, the relative strength of ultra-nationalist party organization in comparison to the regional spread and membership numbers of the demo- crats has farther risen, 14 See John B. Dunlop, “The “sad case” of Igor Shafarevich’, SJA, vol. 24, no. 1, 1994, 19-30, and Andrei A. Znamenski, ‘In search of the Russian idea: Igor Shafarevich’s traditional Orthodoxy’, European Studies Journal, vol. 31, no. 1, 1996, 33-48. 15 One of the reasons why some of these authors were able to get away with their, even by Soviet standards, scandalous statements and behaviour may be that one of the leaders of the “zionologists’, Evgeny Evseev, was the nephew of sometime CPSU Central Committee Secretary Boris Ponomarev. See Vladimir Pribylovsky, “The national-patriotic movement: History and personalities’ in Verkhovsky, Pribylovsky and Mikhaylovskaya, Natsionalizm iksenofobiya v rossiyskom obshchestve, 22-103, 35. 16 John B. Dunlop, ‘Alexander Barkashov and the rise of National Socialism in Rus Demokratizatsiya, vol. 4, no. 4, Autumn 199%, 519-30. a,164 Soviet Antisemitism after Stalin 1985, Pamyat, was clearly modelled on the pre-revolutionary Black Hundreds and influenced by the well known forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Also, when Barkashov split from Pamyat and founded the RNU in 1990, its ideology and symbolism apparently followed the example of the Rus- sian émigré Nazi parties in Manchuria and the USA of the inter-war period. Yet, not only was Pamyat—in which as a deputy chairman Barkashov acquired crucial political skills and which bred a number of other post- Soviet neo-fascist activists”—also an important connecting link between Soviet ‘zionology’ and post-Soviet ultra-nationalism: Pamyat members had studied and discussed the ‘anti-Zionists’ already before the group’s politicization in 1985; subsequently the prominent ‘zionologists’ Valery Skurlatoy, Evgeny Evseev, Valery Emelyanov and Vladimir Begun became involved in the activities of various Pamyat groups."* A crucial step in Barkashov’s political socialization seems to have occurred during his serv- ice in the Soviet army in 1972-4. The future neo-Nazi leader had been as- signed toa special para-troopers’ unit which was being prepared for dispatch to the Middle East in support of Egypt in its war against Israel. Although, eventually, Barkashov did not go to Egypt, he went through a specially designed brainwashing procedure in which ‘anti-Zionist’ literature played a prominent role. The karate club which Barkashov founded in 1979 and which later became the nucleus of the RNU had seemingly, since its incep- tion, been a surrogate political organization and framework within which Barkashov developed and disseminated ‘zionological’ ideas.” The contributions of Korey, Reznik and Messmer It is within this project of tracing the sources of contemporary Russian antisemitism that Korey, Reznik and Messmer substantially advance our understanding of post-Soviet Russian politics. Taken together, the three books provide, for the first time, a comprehensive picture and contextualization of the growth of ‘zionology’ following Khrushchev’s ouster, Already before their appearance, there were a number of relevant collections and papers on the subject.” Nonetheless, each of the three au- 17 Among the numerousfaright atvins who began ther pola careers in Dmitry Vasler’s original Pamyat group are Viktor M. Yakushev, a professed admirer of Hitler and chairman 1991-2 of the youth section of Zhirinovsky’s Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (which he left in 1992), Aleksandr Dugin, one of the most influential ideologists of the post-Soviet Russian new right and co-leader of the National-Bolshevik Party, and Nikolay Lysenko, chairman of the National-Republican Party of Russia and 1993-95 State Duma deputy. 18 Pribylovsky, ‘The national-patriotic movement: History ard personalities’ in Verkhovsky, Pribylovsky and Mikhaylovskaya, Natsionalizm i ksenofobiya v rossiyskom obshchestve, 43, 52-3; Howard Spier, ‘Restructuring Soviet anti-Zionist propaganda’, S/A, vol. 18, no. 3, 1988, 46-7. 19 Aleksandr Dreiling, ‘The Russian National Unity movement’, Politichesky monitoring, no. 2 (37), Part II, February 1995, 125-33, 125. 20 E.g. Ronald I, Rubin (ed.), The Unredeemed: Antisemitism in the Soviet Union (Chicago: Quadrangle Books 1968); Anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union: Its Roots and Consequences 2 vols, (Jerusalem: Centre of Research and Documentation of East-European Jewry, TheA. UMLAND 165 thors adds, at least, one important dimension to the factual knowledge and interpretative frameworks accumulated so far. Korey’s study should be singled out for its thoroughness, sharp fo- cus and use of a wide range of primary and secondary sources—mainly Israeli and other Jewish sources. On the specific subject of concern here— Soviet antisemitism in the 1960s-80s—it is the most detailed and informa- tive analysis published so far. Korey has succeeded in putting together, and relating to each other, data on all relevant aspects of post-Stalinist Soviet antisemitic policy including education, cultural matters, propaganda and foreign relations, As he rightly points out, one of the greatest successes of the Brezhnev regime’s thinly disguised antisemitic campaign was the 1975 UN resolution on Zionism—‘a form of racism and racial discrimination’ — sponsored by the delegations of the USSR. Until its eventual repudiation by the UN, this resolution played a major role in Soviet ‘anti-Zionism’ in that it seemed to lend legitimacy to the abstruse theories of the ‘zionologists’. Reznik’s study is of a different type. His account is t0 a lesser degree founded on published secondary material than on field research and use of primary sources. Before his emigration to the United States in 1982, Reznik worked as an editor in the Moscow publishing business; he also wrote his- torical novels. Through both professional contacts and private inquiry, he -was able to achieve a unique familiarity with, and perspective on, his sub- ject. A shrewd investigator and careful archivist, Reznik has produced an absorbing narrative filled with revealing observations and valuable docu- ments previously unknown to Western analysts. Just as Korey’s study would have benefitted from considering the first Russian edition of Reznik’s book of 1991," so Reznik’s analysis suffers from its neglect of previously pub- lished Western studies on post-Stalinist Soviet antisemitism such as the pa- pers quoted above or the books by Korey. Reznik’s additions to our Hebrew University 1979/80); Antisemitizm v Sovetskom Soyuze: Ego karni i posledstviya Jerusalem: Biblioteka-Aliya 1979); Theodore Freedman (ed.), Antisemitism in the Soviet Union: Its Roots and Consequences (New York: Freedom Library Press of the Anti-Defa- mation League of B’nai B’nth 1984), Theodore Fricdgut, Soviet Anti-Zionism and Anti- Semitism: Another Cycle, Research Paper no, 54 (Jerusalem: Soviet and East European Research Center, The Hebrew University 1984); Jonathan Frankel, The Soviet Regime and Anti-Zionism: An Analysis, Research Paper no. 55 (Jerusalem: Soviet and East European Research Center, The Hebrew University 1984); Robert O. Freedman (ed.), Soviet Jewry in the 1980s: The Politics of Antisemitism and Emigration and the Dynamics of Resettle- ment (Ducham, North Carolina: Duke University Press 1989); Gerd Koenen and Karla Hielscher (eds.), Die schwarze Front: Der neue Antisemitismusin der Sowjetunion (Reinbeck bei Hamburg: Rowohit 1991); as well as relevant contributions to the journals SJ and Jews and Jewish Topics in Soviet and East European Publications. The three authors re~ carer ee ee ee previously published some of their findings in, among others, the following monographs: William Korey, The Soviet Cage: Anti- Semitism in Russia (New York: Viking 1973); Semyon Reznik, Krasnoe i korichnevoe: Kniga osovetskom natsizme (Red and Brown: A Book on Soviet Nazism) (Washington DC: Vyzov 1991); and Matthias Messmer, Die Judenfrage in der Sowjetunion: Ideologische Voraussetzungen und politische Realitat 1953-1958 (Konstanz: Hartung-Gorre 1992). 21 Reznik, Krasnoe i korichnevoe.166 Soviet Antisemitism after Stalin knowledge of ‘zionology’ would have been even more pointed had they been contextualized and confronted with the previously accumulated evidence. Although unfortunately Messmer’s thick study does, in turn, also not incorporate Reznik’s important new observations, it nevertheless stands out for its comprehensiveness and the impressive array of secondary and pri- mary sources (listed in a thirty-seven-page bibliography) on which itis based. Messmer attempts here, largely successfully, no less than to present an ex- haustive history of Russian antisemitism from its beginnings until today. He begins with the first pogroms against Eastern Jews in Kievan Rus in 1113 and concludes with cursory observations on contemporary Russian ultra-nationalist politics. This not only makes his analysis a fine addition to Korey’s and Reznik’s studies in that it puts their findings in historical per- spective, and supplants them with additional evidence drawn from Ger- man, French and Russian sources. It also contributes to a better understanding of post-Stalinist Soviet antisemitism by setting it within the contexts of Soviet policy towards Israel and the so far understudied Jewish resistance to Soviet state-sponsored antisemitism—subjects to which Messmer devotes special sections in his chronologically ordered chapters. Although Messmer’s monograph is unique and constitutes a well struc- tured handbook which will be welcomed by teachers and researchers of Russian antisemitism alike, it becomes less effective when it departs from its putative purpose. This is the case in two respects. First, Messmer de- cided to append to his detailed examination of historical Russian antisemitism chapters on Ukrainian and Lithuanian antisemitism. Although a considera- tion of these phenomena is indeed of interest insofar as they also informed Soviet ‘anti-Zionism’, the respective chapters resemble annexes which, in view of their subject matter and lack of depth, do not fit into the book’s general framework. Second, Messmer’s treatment of post-Soviet antisemitism and, partly, also of late Soviet antisemitic groups, such as Pamyat, does not compare with the profundity of his outline of pre-perestroyka antisemitism. A narrower focus on the history of Russian antisemitism alone until, say, 1991 might have allowed Messmer to treat the re-emergence of manifest popular antisemitism under Gorbachev more adequately, and, perhaps, also to consider a wider range of secondary literature on generic antisemitism and fascism, as well as the varieties of historical Russian nationalism includ- ing Slavophilism, Official Nationality, pan-Slavism, Eurasianism, and So- viet patriotism (e.g. Riasanovsky, Walicki, Tsymburskii, Thaden, Kohn, Béss, Oberlinder and Tucker). This critique does not, however, question in any way the impressive factual and analytical richness of Messmer’s work, and the great service it has done to the study of Russian right-wing extremism. Conclusions It would seem that with the publication of these three studies a sound basis has been laid for supplementary research in several directions. First, it would now be interesting to have, on the one hand, more narrowly focused inves-A. UMLAND 167 tigations into the activities of individual ‘zionologists’, and, secondly, broader interpretations of the rise and fall of official ‘zionology’ within the evolu- tion of post-Stalinist Russian nationalism as a whole. A particular empirical question which requires clarification is who exactly in the Soviet political establishment promoted ‘zionology’ between 1963 and approximately 1987, for what reasons and at what cost. A further project suggested by the stud- ies of Reznik, Korey and Messmer would be to trace in greater detail the continuities and discontinuities between the personnel and ideology of So- viet state-sponsored ‘anti-Zionism’ and popular post-Soviet antisemitism.? A figure worth further research would, for instance, be the abovementioned Valery Skurlatov who has, since his emergence as a right-wing extremist in 1965, linked several branches and periods of Russian ultra-nationalism. Then a Moscow Komsomol functionary, Skurlatov acquired infamy by circulat- ing a fascist-like manifesto entitled ‘Code of Morals’. During the 1970s- 80s, he published widely in the fields of ‘zionology’, science fiction, metaphysics and pseudo-history popularizing, among other things, the mythological ancestor people of the Russian nation espoused in ‘The Book of Vles’, a forgery which has, by now, gone through several editions.” Since the period of glasnost Skurlatov has co-operated with, among others, Pamyat, Zhirinovsky and the far-right National Salvation Front, and has co-founded several micro-parties including the Russian People’s Front and the Liberal- Patriotic Party. A further issue in the study of Soviet ‘zionology’ which should be addressed is how its rise and fall can be incorporated into general interpre- tations of changes in the Soviet regime between 1917 and 1991.* How does ‘zionology’ relate to other innovations and regressions in Soviet policies in the 1960s-80s?" What does the manifest promotion of ‘anti-Zionism’ in Soviet education, media and propaganda between Khrushchev’s fall and Gorbachev’s ascent tell us about various taxa and models we have been us- ing to conceptualize the Soviet experience (c.g. totalitarianism, socialism, traditionalism, Communism)? In view of the pertinence of these and re- lated questions, one hopes that the publication of Korey’s, Reznik’s and 22 As suggested by Howard Spier, ‘Russian antisemitic propaganda from Brezhnev to Yeltsin’, SJA, vol. 24, no. 1, 1994, 131-40, 134. 23. Maya Kaganskaya, ‘The Book of Vles: The saga of a forgery’, Jews and Jewish Topics in the Soviet and East European Press, Winter 1986-7, 3-18. 24 Robert C. Tucker, ‘Towards a comparative politics of movement regimes’, American Political Science Review, vol. LV, June 1961, 281-9. 25 David L. Brandenberger has criticized some of the above mentioned writings on Stalinist antisemitism for not relating this particular phenomenon to the general ‘continuum of post- 1937 nationality policy’ and the ‘broader postwar assertion of russocentrism’. See his re- view article in EAS, vol. 50, no. 5, 1998, 349, Brandenberger makes further suggestions in that regard in “The people need a tsar”: The emergence of National Bolshevism as Stalinist, ideology, 1931-1941", EAS, vol. 50, no. 5, 1998, 873-92; and ‘The Short Course to Moder- nity: Stalinist History Textbooks and the Construction of Popular Russian National Iden tity, 1954-1955", PhD diss., Harvard University 1999.168 Soviet Antisemitism after Stalin Messmer's books will lead to the emergence of another new sub-discipline in the field of Russian nationalism, and that the study of official Soviet ‘anti- Zionism’ after Stalin will equal in size, and provide a link between, the lit- eratures on the Stalinist and post-Soviet periods.