One certainly feels immense sadness at the millions of lives lost in the USSR (GULAG and more), Eastern Europe, China, Vietnam, Cambodia and wherever else Communists were allowed to take the reins. It all started in my country, Russia, in 1917, when Lenin proclaimed “Let’s turn the Imperialist War into a Civil War”.  After the coup d’etat Lenin’s slogans changed to “Death to Bourgeoisie and its servants!” and “Long Live Red Terror!” (see the photograph).  Both slogans were fulfilled and over-fulfilled during the long Soviet rule. And not just in Russia and the USSR. The appeal to hatred and “terror” proved contagious world-wide.

As to Stephens’ sighing at “relief and tiredness,” both apply to Marx’s misguided condemnation of free enterprise as taught by Adam Smith (1723 – 1790)[1] among others. Certainly, the neoliberal economists, now in charge of the economy of the US and its allies, feel “relief” not to have to look back to Marx. Even Russia’s economy, tormented by the oligarchs (mostly Jewish) as it is, seems to be doing much better than in the USSR.
 
And yet, isn’t Bret Stephens making a major mistake by reducing the ongoing Marxist influence in the world to merely a “sigh”?  When one reads that in 2018 China’s government donated $200 million to have a monument to Marx erected in his birth city of Trier,[2] one is forced to emit not just “sigh”, but “awe”. The PRC government still regards Marxism-Leninism as its official ideology.[3] The PRC rulers may no longer follow the precepts of Marxist economics, but they never renounced Marx’ justification and glorification of violence. Moreover, Stephens is hardly unaware of the ongoing influence of “Cultural Marxism” world-wide, especially, in the West.[4]

It’s no secret that the first Bolshevik government under Lenin was heavily Jewish. In his 1994 article “The Jewish Role in the Bolshevik Revolution and Russia's Early Soviet Regime. Assessing the Grim Legacy of Soviet Communism”, Mark Weber argued that “most of the leading Communists who took control of Russia in 1917-20 were Jews.”[5] Ron Unz, a Jewish Internet entrepreneur, who runs The Unz Review, an alternative interactive site, posted the above article, and added more “forgotten” information on the role of the Jews in the Bolshevik government. See his article American Pravda: the Bolshevik Revolution and Its Aftermath. [6]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith

[2] Karl Marx statue from China adds to German angst. 5 May 2018 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44009621

[3] CONSTITUTION OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA/ Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the guidance of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the important thought of Three Represents, the Scientific Outlook on Development, and the Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, the Chinese people of all ethnicities will continue to adhere to  democratic dictatorship. https://npcobserver.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/PRC-Constitution-2018.pdf

[4] About Cultural Marxism controversy read The Guardian 2015 report: <<It begins in the 1910s and 1920s. When the socialist revolution failed to materialise beyond the Soviet Union, Marxist thinkers like Antonio Gramsci and Georg Lukacs tried to explain why. Their answer was that culture and religion blunted the proletariat’s desire to revolt, and the solution was that Marxists should carry out a “long march through the institutions” – universities and schools, government bureaucracies and the media – so that cultural values could be progressively changed from above. Then Nazism forced the (mostly Jewish) members of the Frankfurt School to move to America and got a chance to undermine the culture and values that had sustained the world’s most powerful capitalist nation.>>
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/19/cultural-marxism-a-uniting-theory-for-rightwingers-who-love-to-play-the-victim

[5] The Jewish Role in the Bolshevik Revolution and Russia's Early Soviet Regime. Assessing the Grim Legacy of Soviet Communism. MARK WEBER • JAN/FEB 1994 ISSUE •  
Most of the leading Communists who took control of Russia in 1917-20 were Jews. Leon Trotsky (Lev Bronstein) headed the Red Army and then, was chief of Soviet foreign affairs. Yakov Sverdlov (Solomon) was both the Bolshevik party’s executive secretary and — as chairman of the Central Executive Committee — head of the Soviet government. Grigori Zinoviev (Radomyslsky) headed the Communist International (Comintern), the central agency for spreading revolution in foreign countries. Other prominent Jews included press commissar Karl Radek (Sobelsohn), foreign affairs commissar Maxim Litvinov (Wallach), Lev Kamenev (Rosenfeld) and Moisei Uritsky. Lenin’s maternal grandfather, Israel Blank, was a Jew who was later baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church.
https://www.unz.com/pub/jhr__the-jewish-role-in-the-bolshevik-revolution-and-russias-early-soviet-regime/

[6] American Pravda: the Bolshevik Revolution and Its Aftermath. RON UNZ • JULY 23, 2018. 925 COMMENTS 
Although most of the books hardly emphasized the point, anyone with a careful eye for the occasional sentence or paragraph would surely know that Jews were enormously over-represented among the top revolutionaries, with three of Lenin’s five potential successors— Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Kamenev—all coming from that background, along with many, many others within the top Communist leadership. Obviously, this was wildly disproportionate in a country having a Jewish population of perhaps 4%, and surely helped explain the large spike in worldwide hostility towards Jews soon afterward…https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-the-bolshevik-revolution-and-its-aftermath/

The attraction of so many Jews world-wide to Marxism seems odd because Marx was no admirer of Jews as a people. He was, by all accounts a Jew-hating Jew. Read the latest discussion of the topic on the Internet:

<<Marx’s essay, On the Jewish Question, originally published in 1844, contains the following:
What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money… Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist. Money degrades all the gods of man – and turns them into commodities…. The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His god is only an illusory bill of exchange…. The chimerical nationality of the Jew is the nationality of the merchant, of the man of money in general.

Marx argues that, “In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.”[1]

Marx’s own words may sound as prejudicial toward Jews as anything that had been written about Jews from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Yet, I would not want to be unfair to the young Marx by calling him outright “anti-Semitic”, a term that should be avoid as a malicious misnomer designed to implicate all non-Jews in irrational hatred of racial or physical features common for the Jews and the Arabs. But Marx’s attitude toward the Jewish preoccupation with money-lending and other financial machinations, negative as it was, deserves attention. (At this point I would expect Stephens to fill the brackets with a word much stronger than “sigh”).

The young Marx’s aversion to a common Jewish preoccupation with money was an important factor of his hostility to Capitalism in general. Nay, it was more than hostility: it was an obsessive desire to get rid of it, once and for all, preferably by violent revolutionary means. Strange as it may seem, it was precisely this psychological need to free oneself from any association with “the Golden Calf” of Capitalism in a single stroke that attracted the young Karl Marx -- and then thousands of young, idealistic and impatient Jews-- to Communism, especially in Russia and Eastern Europe.

It seems like they badly wanted to get rid of their Jewishness, at least, of its “bad traits”, by joining The Communist International (Comintern)[2] whose members were not expected to notice, much less remark on, any physical or cultural traits of their comrades. Everybody was expected to concentrate instead on preparing for “the last and decisive battle” to free the world from Capitalism” and, by implication, from dependence on money.

There is more to Marx’s personality, and I suspect that Stephens will use the brackets again when he hears that. In my 1978 essay “Karl Marx as Dr. Frankenstein: Toward Genealogy of Communism,”[3] based on the novel of Mary Shelley, I tried to show how the young Karl was strongly drawn to Luceferian poetry[4] and dreamt of becoming a famous Devil-worshipping rebel-poet, rather than an economic scientist.

In a high-school the young Karl loved to write papers testifying to his Christian devotion (his parents, both of rabbinical families, had converted from Judaism to Lutheranism). However, as soon as he entered the University of Bonn as a student, he started carousing with his buddies and, when alone, wrote poetry full of the rebellious spirit. His favorite theme was a demonic rebellion against God. One of his poems was titled “Oulanem”, a sacrilegious distortion of Emanuel.[5]  In his letters, Marx’s father expressed concerns about his son’s obsession with “demons.”

His buddies, on the other hand, saw him as a modern Prometheus rebelling against all religions as “the opium of the people” to keep the proletariat dazed under Capitalism. However, when you analyze Karl’s poems, it becomes clear that his favorite Prometheus was not the one who just wanted to bestow on the people the gift of domesticated fire, the Prometheus Pyrphoros, but rather the Prometheus Plasticator who was the avenger of gods, filled with hatred of the world and ready to set it aflame with revolution.

Just like Shelley’s fictional Dr.Frankenstein, the young Karl is bright, knowledgeable, and full of a benevolent desire to free people from all the foibles of today by creating a New Mankind. But as Frankenstein was flabbergasted with the Monster produced in his Lab designed to produce a New Man, so Karl Marx would have been horrified seeing what his “offspring”, Marxism-Leninism, was in reality.

It was in Marx’s name that an attempt was made to create a new mankind. However, in reality the 73-years long heroic effort in Russia produced not only the horrors of Civil War,  destruction of churches, mosques and synagogues, forced collectivization, followed by Holodomor (not just in Ukraine!), the Show Trials, enormous losses in World War II, the GULAG, suppression of all dissent, but also -  new waves of Jewish emigration. Fatefully, just like Mary Shelley let Dr. Frankenstein drop his Monster in “the wilderness of Russia” where he had more space for mischiefs, so the adepts of Marx unleashed his monster on the landmass of the Russian Empire.
​
[1] MICHAEL EZRA.  23 MARCH 2015/ Karl Marx's Radical Antisemitism
Michael Ezra argues that Karl Marx's anti-Semitism is clear and unambiguous. 
https://www.philosophersmag.com/opinion/30-karl-marx-s-radical-antisemitism

[2] The Communist International (Comintern), known as the Third International (1919–1943), was an international organization that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and the creation of an international Soviet republic." 

[3] Karl Marx as Dr. Frankenstein: Toward Genealogy of Communism/ By Vladislav Krasnov (W Krasnow) https://www.academia.edu/28227073/Karl_Marx_as_Frankenstein_Toward_a_Genealogy_of_Communism_Modern_Age_WINTER_1978_-_VOL._22_NO._1._pp._72-82_Vladislav_Krasnov_-_https_home.isi.org_karl-marx-frankenstein-toward-genealogy-communism_sthash.MmTrb2DQ.dpuf
 
[4] Due to a condition referred to as a "weak chest", Marx was excused from military duty when he turned 18. While at the University at Bonn, Marx joined the Poets' Club, a group containing political radicals that were monitored by the police. He also joined the Trier Tavern Club drinking society, at one point serving as club co-president. He was also involved in serious  disputes: in August 1836 he took part in a duel with a member of the university's Borussian Korps. Although his grades in the first term were good, they soon deteriorated, leading his father to force a transfer to University of Berlin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx
 
[5] Emanuel (biblical) Immanuel whose birth is prophesied in the Book of Isaiah. A male given name from Hebrew, equivalent to English Immanuel. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Emanuel
See also https://www.amazon.com/Oulanem-Fictional-Conspiracy-Paul-Majkut/dp/0615959938 and "Was Marx a Satanist?" by  Richard Wurmbrand.

Would it not be natural in analyzing Marx’s personality to turn to the services of yet another great Jewish figure, Sigmund Freud (1856 -1939)[1] who somehow failed to make Stephens’ list? Freud’s absence from the list of famous Jews seems even more intriguing than Bret’s “sigh” in front of Marx. After all, Freud’s popularity outlived that of Marx.[2]  A younger contemporary of Marx, living in Austria and speaking the German language, Freud must have heard of Marx or read his works. What is known for sure, Freud did not invite Marx on his psycho-analytical couch.[3] He should have! After all, Marx was tormented by a number of psychological problems, and one of them was self-aggrandizement.

[1]  Sigmund Freud (1856 -1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst. Freud was born to Galician Jewish parents in the Moravian town of Freiberg. He qualified as a doctor of medicine in 1881 at the University of Vienna. Upon completing his habilitation in 1885, he was appointed a docent in neuropathology and became an affiliated professor in 1902. He set up his clinical practice in Vienna in 1886. In 1938, he left Austria to escape the Nazis and died in the UK in 1939.  Freud developed therapeutic techniques such as the use of free association and discovered transference. Freud's redefinition of sexuality led him to formulate the Oedipus complex as the central tenet of psychoanalytical theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud

[2]  If we want a different politics, we need another revolutionary: Freud. By Suzanne Moore
Marx is all very well, but to effect real change Sigmund Freud’s modern tools of self-examination hold the answers
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/26/politics-sigmund-freud-revolutionary-marx

 [3]   https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/5246/why-does-psychoanalysis-use-the-couch

The problem of self-aggrandizement was probably rooted in his problems with his father who much preferred a quiet bourgeois life to his son’s obsession with changing the world. It seems, his father bothered Karl mostly as a tangible projection of the Universal God figure that all exploitative (Karl’s language) societies like to extoll. Karl was determined to overthrow that God by reducing the amount of religion - “the opiate of the people” that the proletariat consumed, because it diverted them from joining his intellectual comrades in world revolution.
 
One might say that, as in his Oedipus complex poetic dreams, Marx wanted to slay not just his biological father, but also the Christian God Father of his youth, as well as Yahweh, the God of the Jews whom his ancestors had worshipped for centuries. In any case, his Bolshevik followers in Russia desecrated and destroyed untold numbers of houses of worship and religious relics, be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or whatever.
​
The persecution of the Russian Christians was especially vicious as Soviet leaders realized that the traditional Russian value system was a major obstacle to Marxist-Leninist ideology. One way or another, for all 73 years of Communist rule in Russia, the ideological trinity of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Vladimir Lenin not just overshadowed but virtually displaced the Christian Trinity of God Father, God Son and the Holy Spirit that had spiritually sustained Russia for a thousand years.

​It is hardly accidental that in 1943, under the pressure of Hitler’s armies, Stalin nominally restored the Russian Orthodox Patriarchy in quest for national consolidation. To keep Soviet soldiers fighting, Stalin had to counter the rumors that in the occupied territories Germans were not as harsh on Russian Christians as the Bolsheviks were.

Soviet propagandist always presented Marxist ideas not as ideological speculations but as an immutable science. The laws of surplus value, of ever increasing exploitation of the proletariat, and the concept of the inevitability of revolution as formulated by Marx, were presented as “science” on par with Newton’s or Einstein’s laws in physics. A student was called “stupid” is he disagreed. Marxism was presented as the greatest achievement of Western civilization. It was superior to the “utopian socialist dreams” of such philosophers as Henri de Saint-Simon.[1] After a number of breakthroughs in science, with the ongoing industrial revolution in England, it was only a matter of time when science would displace religion.

As I have already shown, the young Mary Shelley (1797 – 1851)[2] has noticed early on that the abolition of God and replacement of religion with science was fraught with the risk of undermining the ethical foundation of society leading to its collapse.

Marx’s followers certainly over-reached when they proclaimed Marxism-Leninism in Russia, China and elsewhere as a SCIENCE. They claimed it was founded on the most advanced developments of the most advanced countries of the time: German philosophy, French socialist theories, and the experience of the British labor movement. They predicted that a victory of the world revolution was scientifically ordained and would end with the establishment of a world order that would guarantee everybody’s happiness.

While writing about Shelley’s Frankenstein in 1978, that is about fourteen years after my defection from the USSR in October 1962, I was constantly reminded of the fate of my fellow dissidents in the USSR, as well as of the ever-increasing flow of Jewish immigrants to the USA. Around 1973 an agreement was made with Soviet leaders that would allow a legal emigration of Soviet Jews[3]  for such humanitarian reasons as joining their families in Israel. (It later became adopted as Jackson-Vanik Amendment.) However, as soon as the applicants arrived to Vienna, Austria, for sorting out their next destination, the majority claimed they had no relatives in Israel and would rather go to the United States. I had already met a number of them who came to live in Dallas, Texas, where I taught at the Southern Methodist University.

Now I wondered what would have happened to Karl Marx had he indeed settled in the country of his “scientific” dream where “there was no difference in either income or treatment due to one’s nationality or origin”. Would he have joined clandestine courses where Soviet Jews learned Hebrew before going to Israel? Or would he have joined my Russian friends Lev Krasnopevtsev, Anatoly Ivanov, Vladimir Osipov or Andrei Amalrik[4]—to name just my fellow history students from Moscow State University—all of whom landed in the GULAG or the lunatic asylum? Or would Karl Marx have preferred to immigrate to the USA and join me on the faculty of SMU where he could teach not pol sci or economics—God Forbid, IMO—but “Life in the USSR” that I was teaching?

[1] Henri de Saint-Simon (1760 - 1825), was a French social theorist and the founder of French socialism. In the wake of the French Revolution, Saint-Simon proposed a new and positive reorganization of society, controlled by the chiefs of industry, with scientists in the role of priests. Saint-Simon’s call for a “science of society” influenced the development of sociology and economics. Saint-Simon’s vision influenced French and European society throughout the nineteenth century. https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Henri_de_Saint-Simon

[2] Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797 –1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother was the philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Shelley
 

[3] Signed into law by U.S. President Gerald Ford in 1975, the Jackson-Vanik Amendment to the Trade Act of 1974 eliminated barriers to the emigration of Soviet Jewry. Officially known as the Vanik Bill in the House and the Jackson Amendment in the Senate, this amendment required that nonmarket economy countries comply with specific free emigration criteria as a prerequisite for receiving economic benefits in trade relations with the USA. These benefits included Most Favored Nation (MFN) status—now known as Normal Trade Relations—and access to U.S. government financial facilities. https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Jackson-Vanik_Amendment
​
[4] Andrei Amalrik (1938, Moscow –1980, Guadalajara, Castile-La Mancha, Spain), was a Russian writer and dissident best known in the Western world for his essay, Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Amalrik Information about other people on my list is available in the Russian version of Wikipedia.

Given the young Karl’s rebellious character, he would have tried to get out of the USSR where not all his works were allowed to be read, especially, not his article “On the Jewish Question”. I am sure he would have tried to escape from the trap he had set up for the future mankind by inspiring Lenin and his Bolshevik comrades to capture my native Russia.

Well, the world proletarian revolution did not start in the most advanced industrial countries of Europe, as Marx predicted, but in a relatively backward Russia. It would be a mistake to think that the Bolsheviks had any substantial support from either Russians or Jews in the Russian Empire when they seized power. The widely democratic general election to the Constituent Assembly which Michael II, a tsar de-jure after Nicholas II’s abdication on March 12, 1917,[1] empowered to choose the form of government, took place within weeks after the Bolshevik coup on November 7, 1917. Getting no more than 25% of the vote, the Bolsheviks dissolved the Assembly by force. The rest is history.

[1] Emperor Michael II in the Solzhenitsyn House - Author: Vladislav Krasnov
http://www.raga.org/news/emperor-michael-ii-in-the-solzhenitsyn-house-author-vladislav-krasnov
In brief, read The Last Tsar Was Michael, Not Nicholas. 18 July 2008 | Issue 3947/By W. George Krasnow
The 90th anniversary of the massacre of the Romanovs in Yekaterinburg has been raised to a new level thanks to the city of Perm. Since 1991, a growing number of Russians have argued that the last legitimate ruler of Russia was not Nicholas II, but his younger brother Michael. Their cause got a mighty boost -- from Britain: Donald Crawford, The Last Tsar: Emperor Michael II. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/the-last-tsar-was-michael-not-nicholas/369032.html#ixzz2TuIdx5nE

Not many Jews were voting for the Bolsheviks as they were happy with the abolition of the Pale of Settlement and other liberal reforms of the Provisional government. Besides, the Bolshevik “triumph” in shoving away the popularly elected Constituent Assembly was almost at once marred-- at first symbolically and eventually fatefully--by the Balfour Declaration that was made virtually at the same time.[1] Thus, now for more than 100 years the Jews of Russia—and of the world--have been drawn in opposite directions and forced to make a fateful decision: Communism or Zionism. I believe the majority of Jews would prefer never to have to make such decision between these two diametrically opposed extremist and violent positions.

Even though Jews became dominant in Lenin’s government, it does not mean they were pacified. As a matter of fact, the two most audacious terrorist acts against the Bolsheviks were carried out by Jews. Fanny Kaplan,[2] a Jewish revolutionary, attempted to kill Lenin, and Leonid Kannegisser[3] succeeded in assassinating the most hated killer Moisei Uritsky, a Jew and the head of the feared CHEKA in Petrograd.[4]

Maxim Gorky, the most famous Russian writer who was friends with Lenin and a judeophile, condemned the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly and suppression of popular protest on the streets of Petrograd with gun-fire in January 1918. One might say that this was the end of whatever popular appeal Lenin’s Marxist revolution may have had for the Russian masses, Jews and Gentiles alike. The Civil War ensued (1918-1922) in which Russia lost more people than in World War I.
​
It became apparent that the Communist revolution in Russia was made not for the benefit of the working masses but to serve as an ego trip for a cohort of intellectuals aspiring to lead the whole world into the Utopia of world communism. Nobody expressed the disillusionment with Communism better than the Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884 – 1937)[5] who as early as 1921 published the first anti-Utopian novel, symbolically titled “WE”, in which he foretold the emergence of a totalitarian state as a consequence of Bolshevik rule.  The book had to be published abroad.

[1] Please read The Balfour Declaration at 100: Remembering Its Prophetic Jewish Critics. By ALLAN C. BROWNFELD. Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November/December 2017, pp. 42-43
Israel and Judaism. 2017 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER. https://www.wrmea.org/017-november-december/the-balfour-declaration-at-100-remembering-its-prophetic-jewish-critics.html I found this article so important, that I translated it into Russian. 100-летие Декларации Бальфура: Пора вспомнить еврейских пророков http://perevodika.ru/articles/1196711.html
 
[2] Fanny Kaplan (real name Feiga Haimovna Roytblat, 1890 – 1918) was a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party who allegedly tried to assassinate Vladimir Lenin. As a member of the Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs), Kaplan viewed Lenin as a "traitor to the revolution" when the Bolsheviks banned her party. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Kaplan
 
[3] Leonid Kannegisser (1896 –1918) was a Russian poet and military cadet, known for assassinating Moisei Uritsky, chief of the Cheka in Petrograd, on 17 August 1918.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Kannegisser
 
[4] Moisei Uritsky (1873–August 17, 1918) was a Bolshevik revolutionary leader in Russia. After the October Revolution, he was Chief of Cheka of Petrograd City. Uritsky was assassinated by Leonid Kannegisser, a military cadet, who was executed shortly afterwards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moisei_Uritsky
 
[5] Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884 – 10 March 1937), was a Russian author of science fiction and political satire. He is most famous for his 1921 novel We, a story set in a dystopian future police state. Despite having been a prominent Old Bolshevik, Zamyatin was deeply disturbed by the policies pursued by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union following the October Revolution. In 1921, WE became the first work banned by the Soviet censorship. Ultimately, Zamyatin arranged for WE to be smuggled to the West for publication. The subsequent outrage this sparked within the Party and the Union of Soviet Writers led to Zamyatin's successful bid  for exile from his homeland. Due to his use of literature to criticize Soviet society, Zamyatin has been referred to as one of the first Soviet dissidents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Zamyatin

It took quite a while before the West woke up to the threat if Communism. In 1945 George Orwell published “Animal farm” and in 1949 “Nineteen-Eighty-four.” He wrote these dystopian classics in the wake of Zamyatin, but he did not have to go to the USSR: as a British Communist he joined the civil war in Spain and witnessed bloody infighting among his comrades, an experience which gave him perspective into what Communist future would likely look like. Even before Orwell, Arthur Koestler, a former Jewish Communist, described his ultimate rejection of Communism in his anti-totalitarian novel “Darkness at Noon”.

Of course, the essence of Communist rule was in plain sight since 1917. And yet, after initial assistance to the so-called “White Russian Armies” of insurgents against Bolshevik rule during the Russian Civil War (1918-1922), the United States and the rest of the Free World did little to resist the virus of Communism until the USSR fell under its own weight at the end of 1991. This was in spite of some early warnings from British journalists and even Winston Churchill himself who in as early as 1920 warned of a "worldwide (Bolshevik) conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization.” Churchill pointed out that even in the UK “In every city there are small bands of eager men and women, watching with hungry eyes any chance to make a general overturn in the hopes of profiting themselves in the confusion, and these miscreants are fed by Bolshevist money. [Cheers.] They are ceaselessly endeavoring by propagating the doctrines of communism, by preaching violent revolution, by inflaming discontent, to infect us with their disease.[1] 

To begin with, Imperial Germany helped smuggle Lenin and dozens of his comrades across German territory and Sweden to the rebellious Petrograd in April 1917, and supplied them with money. America was not far behind. In his comprehensive article “American Pravda: the Bolshevik Revolution and Its Aftermath” Ron Unz quotes Henry Wickham Steed, editor of The Times of London that “(Jacob) Schiff, Warburg and the other top Jewish international bankers were among the leading backers of the Jewish Bolsheviks, through whom they hoped to gain an opportunity for the Jewish exploitation of Russia, and he describes their lobbying efforts on behalf of their Bolshevik allies at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference following the end of the First World War”.[2]

According to Unz, “Even the very recent and highly skeptical 2016 analysis in Kenneth D. Ackerman’s 2016 book Trotsky in New York, 1917 notes that U.S. Military Intelligence reports (were) pointing to Trotsky as the conduit for the heavy financial backing of Schiff and numerous other Jewish financiers” and that Schiff “gave a refuge to Trotsky and other revolutionaries and gave them funds to foment revolution in Russia”.

Armand Hammer (1898 – 1990), also a US Jewish businessman, had provided funds for the Soviets longer than anybody else. But he did not do it just for an idea. Read about him in “The Bolshevik Billionaire” by Steve Sailer.[3]

Both the Communist Party and the Trotsky adherents operated freely in the States when I arrived here in 1966. I witnessed how the country was being torn apart by the Vietnam antiwar movement. Still, I enjoyed the year at the University of Chicago where I was free to go where I wanted, to meet people I liked, and read books unavailable in the USSR. One day I bought Hitler’s book “Main Kampf” (in English translation) at the university bookstore; then went to a lecture by Hanna Arendt (1906 – 1975), who pointed out the similarity of both the Nazi and Soviet regimes in their totalitarian essence; then approached a stand that peddled Trotsky’s books and engaged his young adherents who were glad I defected from the USSR; then visited a former White Army officer who still wore the Tsarist military cap in his tiny apartment, and we had a drink to Communism’s  defeat in Russia and elsewhere; then I spoke before a Lithuanian club whose members listened to me eagerly as they not had a Lithuanian defector for a while. Finally, I celebrated Christmas at a Ukrainian church and saw no difference with Russian churches in the USSR, except that it was full. It was a year of liberty to discover. I felt like a Columbus.

Sometime during the 1980s when I moved to California to teach Russian language and Soviet studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies I came across the book Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties by Peter Collier  and David Horowitz. As in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I witnessed insurgent activities, including bombing attacks, on the campus of the University of Washington in Seattle, and I was curious how the two would describe those events.

One chapter attracted my attention. It was about David’s family life in a provincial American town. Both his father and mother, Jewish to be sure, were members of the CPUSA. And so were virtually all of their friends. All their endless meetings were about how to defeat “American imperialism” and to advance the cause of the Communist Party. Even though for the public they projected themselves as “The New Left,” writes Horowitz, in reality they were the same “old Stalinists”. He describes his upbringing as a self-imposed ideological ghetto because his parents shunned the newspapers and did not talk to non-Communist neighbors.

As to “Second Thoughts” in the title, I remember David’s decisive rejection of the subversive Communist ideology that indeed produced the “destructive generation” in the USA. I cannot help noticing, however, that after abandoning one extreme, Communism, David has joined the other, Zionism.[4]

It took a while for the best minds of the West to recognize that Zamyatin was right in describing the Soviet regime as totalitarian and issuing a warning as early as 1921. The West simply ignored several attempt to advance the Bolshevik Revolution in Hungary (the leader was Bela Kun) and Germany (Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg), and the emergence of fascism in Italy and National-Socialism in Germany, both trying to build a right-wing totalitarian regimes as a wall against the spread of left-wing Communist totalitarianism.

Apparently, nobody paid much attention to the book The Origin of Totalitarian Democracy by Jacob Leib Talmon (1916 –1980), Professor of Modern History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Reviewing genealogy of totalitarianism, Talmon argued that Communist political Messianism stemmed from the French Revolution, and stressed the similarities between Jacobinism and Stalinism.

Even though Germany’s and Italy’s economies were more free-market oriented that that of the USSR, Western governments chose to side with the Left-Totalitarian Soviet Communism. The common denominator of the two kinds of totalitarianism was reliance on violence in domestic and foreign affairs. Not for nothing the Soviet writer Vasily Grossman (1905 – 1964) [5] summed up his World War II experience in his novel “Life and Fate,” including description of German extermination camps, by wondering about “Why is the class warfare we unleashed morally superior to the race war of the Nazis?”

Not only were Western democracy in alliance with Stalin during WWII, but they were eager to please him even when the war ended. As Julius Epstein (1901-1975) showed in his ground-breaking book “Operation Keelhaul”, they systematically violated international rules on prisoners of war and even the Yalta Accords by surrendering to Stalin thousands of former White Army soldiers and Cossacks who never were Soviet citizens as the Yalta Accords required.

One may call it a Western “democratic” contribution to keeping the GULAG filled! Few years later, Nikolai Tolstoy, a British descendant of the famed Russian writer, elaborated on Epstein’s topic in his book, Victims of Yalta, originally published in London, 1977. I suppose, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, also learned few things about the West’s cooperation with the Soviet totalitarian regime, even beyond the call of duty.

Here I must interject the name of Benjamin H Freedman, who has shed a lot of new light on the most obscure dealings between the Communists and Capitalists, who are usually thought to be mortal enemies. According to Wikipedia, <<”Benjamin Harrison Freedman (1890 –1984) was an American businessman, Holocaust denier, and vocal anti-Zionist. Born in a Jewish family, he converted from Judaism to Roman Catholicism. Outside of political activism, Freedman was a partner in a dermatological institute and investor for small businesses.”>>[6]

I first heard about Freedman some years ago, but then there were no accusations of him being a Holocaust denier. What attracted my attention was his introduction as “a Jewish Defector (who) Warns America.” Being a defector myself, and actually the author of Soviet Defectors: The KGB Wanted List[7] (though I defected in 1962 not from Judaism, but Soviet Communism), I could not help admiring that a few months before my defection, in October 1961 Freedman gave a speech before a patriotic audience at the Willard Hotel, Washington, D.C.,[8] on behalf of Conde McGinley's patriotic newspaper, “Common Sense”.

Here’s what Freedman said: “Here in the United States, the Zionists and their co-religionists have complete control of our government. For many reasons, too many and too complex to go into here at this time, the Zionists and their co-religionists rule these United States as though they were the absolute monarchs of this country. Now you may say that is a very broad statement, but let me show you what happened while we were all asleep.”

Is it not surprising, even baffling, to realize that the Jews as a people whom we, the Gentiles, often associate with the jewelry business, - that is, dealing with gold, silver, pearls and diamonds,- nonetheless seem not to strive for the Golden Mean as the goal of their own individual or national existence?

In any case, Lenin (partly Jewish) and his Jewish Bolsheviks abhorred the very word of “compromise” (компромис in Russian) as a “bourgeois trick” designed to emasculate revolutionary fervor. Methinks, this kind of ideological rigidness prevented Mikhail Gorbachev and his perestroika comrades from even seeking in the late 1980s a compromise between the then exiting socialist planned economy and collective farming, on the one hand, and the remnants of individual free enterprise which were not yet fully eradicated in the USSR, on the other. As I had lived in Sweden, I imagined that the Swedish national experience of merging free enterprise with a welfare state could serve as a model for post-Communist Russia.

Instead, after the dissolution of the USSR, Russia under Boris Yeltsin plunged, on the advice of a Harvard team of Jewish economists, into “privatization, that is whole-sale dissolution of state enterprises and transferring them into the hands of oligarchs, almost all Jewish, whose main “skill” was having accounts overseas.[9]

Just before the dissolution, I finished my book Russia Beyond Communism: A Chronicle of National Rebirth.[10] In it I took the issue with Western sovietologists who were so enthused with Gorbachev’s perestroika that saw no other but a Communist future.
​
Certainly they abhorred the idea that a new Russia would identify with its Christian roots. In fact, my book was dedicated to the thousand year anniversary of Russia’s baptism in tand he year 988. The book came out just in time for me to visit Moscow during the turbulent August 1991 give a copy to Boris Yeltsin following his victory speech after dispersing an abortive coup by Communist hardliners on August 22. It was a symbolic gift because during the speech Yeltsin announced that the Russian Federation would replace the Red flag of Communism with Russia’s national tricolor.

[1] Bolshevism and Imperial Sedition, November 4, 1920/A speech at United Wards Club Luncheon, Cannon Street Hotel in London. https://www.nationalchurchillmuseum.org/bolshevism-and-imperial-sedition.html
 
[2] “American Pravda: the Bolshevik Revolution and Its Aftermath”. By Ron Unz.. JULY 23, 2018
https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-the-bolshevik-revolution-and-its-aftermath/
 
[3] The Bolshevik Billionaire. By Steve Sailer. July 15, 2015
https://www.takimag.com/article/the_bolshevik_billionaire_steve_sailer/#axzz3g1E4AlBS
 
[4] Right-wing bomb thrower David Horowitz behind anti-SJP posters
Alex Kane on February 26, 2015 https://mondoweiss.net/2015/02/thrower-horowitz-posters/
 
[5]  Vasily Grossman (1905 –1964) was a Soviet writer of Jewish origin. He trained as a chemical engineer at Moscow State University. At the outbreak of the Second World War, he was engaged as a war correspondent by the Red Army newspaper and wrote first-hand accounts of the battles of Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk and Berlin. Grossman's eyewitness reports of a Nazi extermination camp near Treblinka were among the first accounts of a Nazi death camp. While Grossman was never arrested, his two major literary works (Life and Fate and Forever Flowing) were deemed anti-Soviet, and Grossman became a nonperson. The KGB raided Grossman's flat after he had completed Life and Fate, seizing manuscripts. He was told by the Communist Party's chief ideologist Mikhail Suslov that the book could not be published for two or three hundred years. At the time of Grossman's death in 1964 these books remained unreleased. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Grossman
 
[6] Benjamin Harrison Freedman (1890 – 1984) was an American businessman, Holocaust denier, and vocal anti-Zionist. Born in a Jewish family, he converted from Judaism to Roman Catholicism. Outside of political activism, Freedman was a partner in a dermatological institute and investor for small businesses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_H._Freedman

[7] Soviet Defectors: The KGB Wanted List (Hoover Institution Press Publication) by Vladislav Krasnov https://www.amazon.com/Soviet-Defectors-Wanted-Institution-Publication/dp/0817982329
 
[8] https://www.biblebelievers.org.au/benjamin.htm
 
[9] Would Harvard Ever Help Russia? By W. George Krasnow http://www.russialist.org/archives/2006-62-24.php
Read also  Did Shock Therapy Help Russia? About Anders Aslund’s Capitalist Revolution
http://www.russialist.org/archives/2008-88-39.php
 
[10] Russia Beyond Communism: A Chronicle Of National Rebirth (C C R S SERIES ON CHANGE IN CONTEMPORARY SOVIET SOCIETY) by Vladislav Krasnov, Bolder, CO. 1991 https://www.amazon.com/Russia-Beyond-Communism-Chronicle-CONTEMPORARY/dp/0813383617

​The book was a review of the “polyphonic choir” consisting of the voices of glasnost, that is, Soviet authors of different political persuasions searching for possible sources of national renewal.  The main focus was on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s “Letter to the Soviet Leaders”(1973) and “Rebuilding Russia”(1990). 

In both works Solzhenitsyn proposed a peaceful, gradual, and Non-Violent evolution of the country away from its Marxist-Leninist fetters. In Chapter Four I included a discussion of the role of Jews in the revolution and Jewish –Russian relations in general.

As it turned out, near the end of his career, Solzhenitsyn turned to the same topic in his two-volume book “Two Hundred Years Together” in which he put the role of Jews in the Communist revolution into a deeper historical context. Strangely, the English translation is not readily available for American readers. For the lack of it, I recommend an essay by Vladimir Moss titled “Russia and the Jews: 1856-1917.” It’s available for downloading on Academia.edu. Dr. Moss is actually a British scholar and converted Russian Orthodox Christian. He frankly admits that his book is “based largely on (Solzhenitsyn’s) research – which is derived to a great extent from Jewish sources. For it is only on the basis of such balanced and truthful historiography that real peace can be established between the nations”. I agree with Dr. Moss that the truth about the greatest tragedy of the 20th century should be sought via a dialogue between, first and foremost, Jews and Russians, for the sake of peace on earth.

Yet there are some Jews who have welcomed Solzhenitsyn’s challenge for a dialogue. One of them is Avigdor Eskin. A former Soviet Jew who now lives in Israel but often appears in talk shows on Russian TV channels. He is the author of “The Jewish View on the Russian Question” (in«Еврейский взгляд на русский вопрос»). A former Soviet dissident who fought for the right of Jews to learn Hebrew and was once arrested for distributing Solzhenitsyn's works, Eskin asks a bold, albeit paradoxical question: “What are the causes of the joint Russian-Jewish fall from Grace into the Sin of communism and liberalism?” I am prepared to agree with him about the “joint fall”, but disagree that communism and liberalism should be lumped together.

Eskin is not alone in admitting a Jewish guilt in creating and running Communism. The Israeli Rabbi Yosef Tzvi ben Porat went as far as accepting the main blame and apologizing to the Russian people: "We are to blame for everything and we must know why we are being driven away. We created Marxism and Leninism. We captured Russia. We killed 30 million educated Russians. We are wise men and sat down to rule over them." Moreover, he believes that revolutionary atheist Jews provoked Hitler's rise to power in Germany. Ben Porat is not alone. Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi,[2] the American rabbi of the Orthodox denomination has been making similar statements. (Read more in Emperor Michael II in the Solzhenitsyn House - Author: Vladislav Krasnov. http://www.raga.org/news/emperor-michael-ii-in-the-solzhenitsyn-house-author-vladislav-krasnov)

Now back to “The Secrets of Jewish Genius”. I may not have written this rebuttal to Bret Stephens had I not checked my email on January 3, 2020. There was a letter from Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) of which I have been an eager (non-Jewish) member for a number of years. The letter said:

<<Tallie Ben Daniel <info@jewishvoiceforpeace.org>
TO:  W George Krasnow <president92@gmail.com>
DATE:      January 3, 2020
Dear W George (my common American appellation),
I was appalled when I saw the latest column from New York Times writer Bret Stephens. He claims that white Ashkenazi Jews have genetically superior intellects, and backs up this claim with a bogus study from a white supremacist eugenics “expert.”

This is race science – the same ideology that has inspired violence and genocide against Jewish people – and we can’t let it stand. Sign our petition to demand The New York Times fire Bret Stephens for this gross abuse of his platform>>.

Frankly, I was a bit baffled, for I did not see in the article any reference to <<a white supremacist eugenics “expert.”>>

Then I re-read Editors’ Note which indeed says (here abbreviated)    that Stephens quoted “a 2005 paper that advanced a genetic hypothesis for the basis of intelligence among Ashkenazi Jews. Mr. Stephens was not endorsing the study or its authors’ views, but it was a mistake to cite it uncritically. The effect was…an impression with many readers that Mr. Stephens was arguing that Jews are genetically superior. That was not his intent. He went on instead to argue that culture and history are crucial factors in Jewish achievements…“What makes Jews special is that they aren’t. They are representational.”[1]

After reading the above I decided not to honor JVP’s request, even though, as a JVP member, I have signed many of its appeals, including those on behalf of Palestinians. In fact, I would recommend JVP to anyone as an organization that is both high-minded and effective. But in this case, I felt it was a mistake to punish Stephens for his free speech and for being proud of his people. I also felt he was already punished by the Editors who nearly emasculated his article.

I say so in spite of strongly objecting to Stephens’ contention that any disagreement with or critique of either Zionism or the state of Israel amounts to Jew-hatred or, as he says, “anti-Semitism”.  In this respect, I am in full agreement with Jewish Voice for Peace created to promote peace between Israel and Palestine. In effect, it also promotes peace between the USA and Russia. As president of the Russia & America Goodwill Association (www.raga.org) which I have run since 1992, I have primarily focused on the improvement of US-Russia relations after the collapse of the USSR. However, it soon became clear that the US foreign policy was high-jacked by the Neocons (several of whom were former Trotskyists)[2] whose goal is world domination for which Israel’s supremacy in the Middle East is the main linchpin.

In RAGA’s quest for peace we do not discriminate between Right or Left, Conservative or Liberal, Protestant, Catholic or Muslim, Gentile or Jew. We welcome thinking people of all persuasions as long as they are truthful, honest, and non-violent.

I have been fortunate in finding many like-minded Jewish peace activists such as Noam Chomsky; Allan Brownfeld (American Council for Judaism); Naomi Klein; Law Professor Marjorie Cohn (a former president of the National Lawyers Guild); Professor Stephen Cohan, a Russia scholar; Norman Finkelstein, the author of THE HOLOCAUST INDUSTRY: Reflections on the exploitation of Jewish Suffering and, most recently, GAZA: An inquest into its martyrdom;  Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept who assisted Ed Snowden’s escape, and denounces US religious fanaticism[3]; Dan Lieberman, my Washington DC tennis buddy who runs the indomitable Alternative Insight;  Gilad Atzmon, a jazz saxophonist who freed himself from the Zionist straitjacket; the Mondoweiss News Site; the emphatically Non-Violent branch of Judaism Neturei Karta;[4] the two of my colleagues at the conservative Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation Professor Paul Gottfried and Jon Utley, publisher of The American Conservative ; Ed Lozansky, a former Soviet nuclear scientist and dissident who immigrated to the US and now runs US-Russia.org think-tank and American University in Moscow; Gilbert Doctorow, a Russia scholar and RAGA contributor; Israel Shamir,[5] Ron Unz, who proposed a strategy to defeat mainstream media;[6] Nomi Prins, former Wall Street insider, now a geopolitical financial expert and critic of financial manipulators; and, finally,  Brother Nathanael,[7] a former New York Jew and now a hermit Christian monk who rallies on his YouTube somewhere in Iowa against corrupt Jewish media moguls and politicians with such precision, passion and Chutzpah that any Gentile “anti-Semite” could envy.

Sadly, after this article was posted on https://www.unz.com/, Jon Utley passed away. He was my dear friend and peace-loving RAGA supporter. The COVID-19 contingency does not allow me write a eulogy. But I want to share with you my recollection of how Jon and I worked together in trying to find out what happened to his Russian Jewish father after he was arrested in Moscow in 1936.

Jon Basil Utley at 80 “He is One of Us” (Memoirs of Two Trips to Russia) Tribute by W. George Krasnow at Jon’s birthday party in Washington on March 12, 2014 John Basil Utley at 80 “He is One of Us”. You may also like to see a DVD about our search for   his father’s remains Return to the Gulag: Jon Utley's Search for His Father

To come back to the list of RAGA associated and my friends of Jewish origin, I am proud to say that some of their articles I have posted or quoted in RAGA newsletter and even translated into Russian. Not all of the above are concerned with Israel or Zionism. But those who are concerned are not working in a vacuum. As early as 2001 the research of two great scholars, John Mearshimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard resulted in the book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy in which the linkage of the two was made uncontestable.

We are very fortunate to have on our side the authority of Jimmy Carter, the US president and the Nobel Peace Prize winner, the first to pay attention to human rights in the USSR and the one who brought Israel and Palestine closest to a peaceful agreement. To his great credit, after the deal failed, Carter did not fall silent but wrote a book to leave Israel with the choice, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.[8] Alas, the greatest electoral support for a short-sightred pro-Israel US foreign policy under Donald Trump comes not from US Jews but from the evangelical wing of Protestantism, the so called Christian Zionists.[9]

I believe that the strongest defense against prejudice toward Jews around the world, as well as for Israel’s statehood, comes not from Israel’s armed forces (IDF), nor from its nuclear weapons,[10] and certainly not from the US Department of Defense, but from the righteous Jews like those listed above. Because when the non-Jews meet, read or hear the people like those listed above, they know that in the search for truth and justice what counts most is not the difference in IQs between Jews and Gentiles but their commitment to decency.

While I do not wish to dispute the importance of high IQ scores for Jewish provenance in business, arts and science, I doubt that higher IQs lead automatically to higher ethical standards or wisdom. Quite to the contrary: a person of higher intelligence is more likely to succumb to excessive pride and egotism leading to the foibles of hubris and self-destruction as has been known since antiquity. On a mundane level Bernie Madoff [11] was probably a lot cleverer than the average American, but this did not prevent him from robbing his investors, Jews and Gentiles alike, including even charitable associations in Israel. Nor did his cleverness prevent him from causing a tragedy for himself and his family. And Kosher Mafia, alas, is not an “anti-Semitic” trope. I heard about it way back, from my Jewish friends in 1966 when I lived in Chicago. Now I learn more about Jewish mafia in America not from “The New York Times” but from the Israeli newspaper “Haaretz”.

However, I am amenable to Stephens’s correction, suggested by NYT editors, that “The Secrets of Jewish Genius” must be sought not so much in racial characteristics, but rather in the idea that “culture and history are crucial factors in Jewish achievements”.  But I would add “religion” as well and recommend he reads The Jewish Century [12] by Yuri Slezkine, my former Soviet countryman and now American professor. Below is the publisher’s teaser: “<<This masterwork of interpretative history begins with a bold declaration: The Modern Age is the Jewish Age -- and we are all, to varying degrees, Jews. The assertion is, of course, metaphorical. But it underscores Yuri Slezkine’s provocative thesis. Not only have Jews adapted better than many other groups to living in the modern world, they have become the premiere symbol and standard of modern life everywhere.>>”

Also to be recommended is Max Weber’s (1864-1920)[13] classic The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.[14] Weber was a German economist who wrote a number of essays in the early 1900s in which he linked levels of economic development to the prevailing religious beliefs and ethical standards of various nations. His observation was that the countries of Northern Europe (Germany, Scandinavia, and the UK) and North America – were doing much better in economic development because people there were guided by Protestant values such as individualism, entrepreneurship, and thrift to a greater extent than the countries of Southern Europe, where Catholicism did not emphasize such values.

Of course, Weber’s was a challenge to Marx’s class struggle theory that discounted the connection. For the sake of argument I would also add the book “Esau's Tears: Modern Anti-Semitism And The Rise Of The Jews”[15] by Albert Lindemann, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

If Stephens assumes that the interaction of Jews and non-Jews has involved just one guilty party, Lindemann, reviewing outbreaks of modern “Anti-Semitism”, allows that sometimes it was a reaction to certain patterns of Jewish behavior about which even Karl Marx complained. Metaphorically, Lindemann links it with the cultural habits derived from the Jewish Bible, such as the story of Jacob cheating his tween brother Esau of his first-born right by conspiring with his mother Rebecca to deceive her husband Isaac in order “to get her way.[16]
​
Where I do agree with Bret Stephens is his statement quoting Einstein: “There is a moral belief, “incarnate in the Jewish people” according to Einstein, that “the life of the individual only has value [insofar] as it aids in making the life of every living thing nobler and more beautiful.” Einstein is indeed so important for modern thinking that when I was recently writing the essay Mahatma Gandhi and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Two Giants Who Blessed the 20th Century, suggesting the need to replace Professor Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” with a Saving the Planet paradigm, I was tempted to add Albert Einstein to the duo.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/27/opinion/jewish-culture-genius-iq.html
 
[2] Neoconservatism - where Trotsky meets Stalin and Hitler. By:Srdja Trifkovic | April 02, 2015
https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/neoconservatism-where-trotsky-meets-stalin-and-hitler/
 
[3] Religious Fanaticism is a Huge Factor in Americans’ Support for Israel. By Glenn Greenwald April 15, 2015 "ICH" - "The Intercept"http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41566.htm

[4] Neturei Karta is not - as is often alleged - a small sect or an extremist group of "ultra-orthodox" Jews. The Neturei Karta has added nothing to nor has taken anything away from the written and oral law of the Torah. (We) are fighting the changes and inroads made by political Zionism during the past one-hundred odd years. https://www.nkusa.org/AboutUs/index.cfm

[5] Israel Shamir is a spiritual and political thinker. His comments are published on his site www.israelshamir.net and elsewhere. He is the author of three books, Galilee Flowers, Cabbala of Power and Masters of Discourse. Born in Novosibirsk, the USSR, he moved to Israel in 1969, served as paratrooper in the IDF and fought in the 1973 war. After the war, he turned to journalism and writing. In 1975, Shamir joined the BBC and moved to London. In 1977-79 he lived in Japan. http://www.israelshamir.com/biography/

[6] Ron Unz's Strategy for the Alt-Media to Defeat the Mainstream Media Is Brilliant. Vladislav Krasnov , Jul 25, 2019 https://russia-insider.com/en/ron-unzs-strategy-alt-media-defeat-mainstream-media-brilliant/ri27507

[7] Brother Nathanael is a New York Jew named Kappner who converted to Russian Orthodox Christianity and now runs Real Jew News in which he tears off the mask of anonymity from those Jewish Money Bags who manipulate US mass media, U.S. foreign policy or Hollywood sex–for-success industry. See his latest YouTube  January 28, 2020
The Enemies Of Free Speech http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=1421

[8]  https://www.amazon.com/Palestine-Peace-Apartheid-Jimmy-Carter/dp/0743285034

[9] Christian Zionist philo-Semitism is driving Trump’s Israel policy. By Mairav Zonszein. .Jan. 28, 2020
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/01/28/trump-thinks-supporting-israel-means-letting-it-do-whatever-it-wants/ See also Why Do Evangelical Christians Support Israel? Because they have a favorable opinion of Jews. DAVID BERNSTEIN |THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY | 1.20.2020 6:35 PM
https://reason.com/2020/01/20/why-do-evangelical-christians-support-israel/

[10] Did Israel Blow Up the Vanunu Nuclear Whistleblower Affair to Boost Its Deterrence? Thirty years after the espionage case exposed Israel’s nuclear secrets, the questions remain. By Adam Raz/ March 30, 2018. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-did-israel-rig-the-nuclear-whistleblower-affair-to-boost-deterrence-1.5961997

[11] 10 years after Madoff ripped off the Jewish world, many groups have managed to find their feet again. By BEN SALES, 21 December 2018. https://www.timesofisrael.com/10-years-after-madoff-ripped-off-the-jewish-world-a-sort-of-happy-ending/

[12] The Jewish Century by Yuri Slezkine. https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691127606/the-jewish-century

[13] Maximilian Weber (1864 –1920)-  German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist, one of the most important theorists on the development of modern Western society. His ideas profoundly influenced social theory. Weber is often cited, with Émile Durkheim and Karl Marx, as among the three founders of sociology.

[14] The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, a book by Max Weber. The original German text was composed in 1904 and 1905, and was translated into English for the first time by American sociologist Talcott Parsons in 1930. It is considered a founding text in economic sociology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism

[15] Esau's Tears: Modern Anti-semitism And The Rise Of The Jews. By Albert Lindeman. https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=980241516&searchurl=vcatn%3DJEWISH%2BHISTORY.%26sortby%3D17%26vcat%3DJEWISH___HISTORY___%26vci%3D229481&cm_sp=msrp-_-msrpdesc-_-bdp

[16] When Esau learns of his brother's thievery, he begs his father to undo the blessing. Isaac responds to his eldest son's plea by saying that he could not reverse the sacred blessing. Esau vows to kill Jacob (Genesis 27:41). Rebecca intervenes to save her younger son from being murdered by his elder twin brother, Esau. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esau

​Einstein cherished his friendship with Gandhi. Indeed, all three—Gandhi, Solzhenitsyn and Einstein—lifted themselves above one’s ethnicity, country and religion to show the ways for Saving the Planet. I also added Martin Luther King Jr., who reproached America for ignoring the Christian commandment “to turn the other cheek,” but instead rushing into unprovoked wars.

It was not accidental that Einstein befriended Gandhi: both were ardent critics of the violent roots of the Israeli state. Einstein was among those outstanding Jewish American thinkers who on December 4, 1948 signed a letter to The New York Times condemning Menahem Begin’s visit to the USA, “Lest America be fooled by post-Independence rhetoric, the Herut party Begin led was ‘closely akin to the Nazi and Fascist parties,” they wrote.[1]

Alas, the 20th century showed that, very tragically, the most dynamic young Jews of the world were attracted to two opposite extremes: either exclusive race-based Zionist nationalism or all-embracing abstract Communist internationalism. Both extremes rely on violence. Both pretend to have a strong popular mandate. It does not help that lately Zionism got a tremendous boost from the American Neocons trying to turn it into Zionist globalism.

If Israel is to continue to exist, it is only on the terms of Martin Buber, perhaps the greatest Jewish philosopher: "The task of Israel as a distinct nation (is) inexorably linked to the task of humanity in general". For starters, we all should follow the Golden Rule: “Do not do onto the other what you don’t want to be done to you”. It is expected from the Jews no less. As Hillel the Elder (c. 110 BC – 10 AD) advised someone who wanted to convert to Judaism, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn".

[1]  This Day in Jewish History. 1948: N.Y. Times Publishes Letter by Einstein, Other Jews Accusing Menachem Begin of Fascism. https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/.premium-1948-n-y-times-letter-by-einstein-slams-begin-1.5340057

Vladislav Krasnov (aka W George Krasnow), Ph.D., is the author of Solzhenitsyn and Dostoevsky: A Study in the Polyphonic Novel, Soviet Defectors: The KGB Wanted List, and Russia Beyond Communism: A Chronicle of National Rebirth.

Since 1992 he has led Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA.org).

We are now affiliated with the Global Harmony Association (GHA), founded by Dr. Leo Semashko of Sankt Peterburg, to advance Mahatma Gandhi’s ideal of Non-Violence.
https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=938
 
Peace and Justice to the World. 
миру мир и благоволение в сердцах

RAGA: "We are an association of Americans who believe it is in the U.S. national interests to foster friendship with Russia on the basis of mutual Good Will and non-interference in each other's affairs. RAGA is a gathering of people who share common interests in Russia's history, culture, religion, economy, politics and the way of life. We feel that Russian people have made outstanding contributions to humankind and are capable of greater achievements. We envision Russia as a strong, independent, proud and free nation and as a partner in achieving peace in the world."

​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org​

Dear friends of the Russia & America Good Will Association (www.raga.org) and antiwar colleagues!

We may be a bit off the precise timing, but our seasonal greetings to people of different faiths are just as cordial: Merry Christmas, Delightful Diwali, Ecstatic Eid, Happy Chanukah, and a prosperous New Year to you all! 

The more we have tried to improve the US & Russia relation, the more we realize that it can hardly be done without replacing the now prevailing paradigm of "clash of civilizations" by a realization of common destiny of humankind.

So, let me save your time for holidays celebration, by placing just two items inside RAGA Antidote 55 greeting.

First, I am delighted to forward the holidays greeting from Rich Siegel, an American musician and singer, who does his best to overcome the pernicious divide between Israel and Palestine, Jews, Muslims and Christians in the Holy Land. I got Siegel's greeting via Israel Shamir's readers list. (Shamir is my old friend who first emigrated from the USSR to Israel and then, upset about Israel's racist attitude toward Palestinians, moved back to Russia and now resides in Sankt-Peterburg). 

Rich is an American peace-loving singer and musician. As a Jew, he is nonetheless happy to say "Merry Christmas" to Christians and "Happy Hanukkah" to Jews regardless whether they are in the USA or Israel or Russia or anywhere.  But he feels especially distressed by the injustices and even terrorist attacks committed by Israeli extremists against Palestinian Muslims and Christians and even against  Archbishop Atallah Hanna of Christian Palestinian Church in Jerusalem.

Rich quotes Archbishop:
​
“I would like to remind all Christians all around the world there is no point in celebrating Christmas if you do not pay attention to what is happening in Palestine as it is the birthplace of Christ and where Christianity originated and spread its message throughout the world.” ~Archbishop Atallah Hanna~

December 2019  

Unfortunately, the Archbishop believes that in his opinion“ISRAEL” IS RESPONSIBLE FOR POISONING ME". Quds News Network. Amman, Dec. 23, 2019. http://orthochristian.com/126648.html In Russian see  https://russian.palinfo.com/news/2019/12/25/A

The second item is devoted to Professor William Brumfield of Tulane University who has done more for the restoration of the glory of Russian Christian architecture after the ravages of Soviet anti-religious campaigns than just about anybody. As RAGA friends may have noticed, just about every newsletter for the past several years ends with Professor Brumfield's photographic record of Russian Christian architectural monuments with brief and lucid commentary. Please read about Brumfield's recent trip to Moscow and his talk at The Andrei Rublev Museum ( https://www.moscovery.com/andrei-rublev-museum-of-ancient-russian-culture-and-art/  ) on December 23, 2019 in conjunction with his recent award by the Russian government.

I like to think that Siegel and Brumfield are just two American examples of cross-religious, cross-ethnic, and simply global solidarity that is so essential for the survival of the Planet. That is why lately, RAGA has become affiliated with the Global  Harmony Association, founded by Dr. Leo Semashko of Sankt-Petersburg twelve years ago and now attracting global membership. A former Marxist-Leninist, Leo is determined to turn around Marxist class-struggle into class-cooperation, solidarity and HARMONY. Please take a look at Leo's personal page https://www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=253

My own writings, both in English and Russian, can be also found there
https://www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=752  

Finally, as a non-Jewish member of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), I am just as concerned with the recent stabbing attack on five people at the home of Hasidim Rabbi in Monsey, N.Y., but I remain hopeful it was an act of a mentally unstable man rather than expression of Jew hatred in general.The governor called the violence an “act of domestic terrorism” after a suspect was arrested in Harlem. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/28/nyregion/monsey-synagogue-stabbing-anti-semitic.html  

WASHINGTON, December 6 (2019). /TASS/. Russian Ambassador to the USA Anatoly Antonov has awarded the Order of Friendship to a renowned American historian specializing in Russian architecture, professor of Slavic studies of the Tulane University William Craft Brumfield, the Embassy said on its Facebook page. https://tass.com/society/1096371 The award ceremony was held during the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Russian Cultural Center in Washington, D.C.

"Today it’s a great honor for us to present professor Brumfield with a high state award of the Russian Federation - the Order of Friendship in accordance with the Russian presidential decree signed on October 26, 2019, for achievements in strengthening friendship and cooperation between the nations, fruitful activity in conciliating and mutually enriching the cultures of our nations and peoples. Please accept our most cordial congratulations!" Antonov said. https://tass.com/society/1096371

As RAGA readers know, just about every RAGA newsletters for several years has ended with Professor Brumfield’s brief and precise photographic record of Russian religious heritage, often Orthodox Christian churches and chapels that fell apart from age, abuse and vicious desecration during anti-religious campaigns of Soviet government.  

In a sense, William Brumfield has been playing a role similar to that of Savva Yamshchikov and dozens other selfless Russian restorers of Russian religious art after decades of Soviet abuse. As Wikipedia says, Savva Yamshchikov (1938 –2009) was a leading expert on Russian provincial art, particularly medieval icon painting and of the 18th and 19th centuries. Graduated from the Moscow University, Yamshchikov worked at the All-Russian Art Restoration Center in Moscow. He went from one province to another in order to find medieval icons that required cleansing. Yamshchikov …advised Andrei Tarkovsky on the film production of “Andrei Rublev” and Sergey Bondarchuk on the film Boris Godunov.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savva_Yamshchikov

December 23, 2019, William Brumfield gave a great talk to Muscovites in the Museum of Andrei Rublev. It was the best place for him to speak. “The idea to create a museum of religious art emerged in the aftermath of the Second World War. During the years of Stalin’s fight with religion and the devastating war, a great many Orthodox churches in the Soviet Union had been looted or badly damaged. The museum staff restored the remaining works of art and searched for other artifacts. The museum’s opening took place in 1960.” https://www.moscovery.com/andrei-rublev-museum-of-ancient-russian-culture-and-art/

So here William presented his latest book “Puti k Belomu Moriu” (‘Ways to the White Sea’) which is actually a Russian translation of his book “Architecture at the End of the Earth: Photographing the Russian North” published by Duke University Press in in Durham, London, 2015. As I currently reside in Moscow, it fell upon me to say a few words about William after his introduction by the Museum rep.
 
I told the audience how I founded the Russia & America Good Will association (RAGA.org) in early 1990s. After the collapse of the USSR, all former Soviet associations of friendship also disintegrated, including the one in Washington DC.  That’s why I decided to fill the vacuum with an organization that was essentially non-political and non-partisan.  We favor neither Democrats nor Republicans, neither Capitalism nor Socialism, neither neoliberal economics nor Neo-Conservative politics.  After over 70 years of isolation from the outside world, former Soviet citizens, as well as Americans, needed People-to-People contacts. To make those contacts more rewarding we should abandon all prejudices and act always in the spirit of Good Will.

As former professor of Russian Studies and-- after moving to Washington DC in 1991-- as a free-lance interpreter and translator I knew full well that in addition to whatever cultural and language barriers, all former Soviet citizens – and I worked not just with Russian and Ukrainians, but also Georgians, Azerbaijanis and all Central Asian republics –badly needed to overcome the political prejudices and restrictions imposed on them by Soviet propagandists.  On a much smaller scale and with meager resources, RAGA had been doing the work similar to that the Open World Leadership program (https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9908/rlp.html ) founded Dr. James Billington (1929 – 2015) of the Library of Congress and Russian Academician Dmitry Likhachev (1906 – 1999), a former GULAG prisoner on the Solovky Islands , photographed by Brumfield.

Sharon Tennison’s Center for Citizen Initiatives (https://ccisf.org/) in San Francisco has also served as RAGA’s role model, as well as Eduard Lozansky’s  American University in Moscow (http://us-russia.org/)

Among RAGA’s favorite sources is The American Committee for East-West Accord, Ltd. (https://eastwestaccord.com/). RAGA relies on such perceptive authors as Dr. Gilbert Doctorow who watches the world from Brussels and Patrick Armstrong, a former Canadian diplomat, who always presents an excellent overview of US-Russia events.

In addition to RAGA, I have published my own articles on the site of Fitzgerald Friffin Foundation (as W George Krasnow), Johnson Russia List (https://russialist.org/), Veterans Today, and Antiwar.com. I have been interviewed by Dr. Kevin Barrett’s Truthjihad Radio.  Lately, The Unz Review and Russia-Insider posted a number of my articles.

Whenever I can I try to acquaint Russian people with how Americans view Russia. I have also translated into Russian a number of such outstanding American authors as Patrick Buchanan, Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, Allan Brownfeld, Chas Freeman, Charles Bausman, and Marjory Cohn.

In Russia, where I currently reside, my articles appeared in Predstavitelnaya vlast’ (http://www.pvlast.ru/archive/index.565.php), an independent State Duma magazine, and in a number of local newspapers. I was also often interviewed by RADIO RADONEZH, an independent Christian radio station that broadcasts worldwide. In Russia, RAGA closely works with the Global Harmony Association founded by Dr. Leo Semashko of Sankt Peterburg (https://www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=253) some twelve years ago. I have published my articles there too: https://www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=884

Overall, I must conclude that Professor Brumfield’s pictographic presentation of the uniqueness of Russian civilization to the outside world, especially to the Americans, constitute an important ingredient to RAGA’s peace-promoting endeavors, and I personally congratulate him on receiving a high award from the Russian government.
To see Brumfield’s pictographic art, any RAGA reader can review previous issues of RAGA Antidotes. 

​Sincerely,
W George Krasnow (http://wiki-org.ru/wiki/Краснов,_Владислав_Георгиевич)
President, RAGA
www.raga.org
Facebook

Peace and Justice to the World. 
миру мир и благоволение в сердцах

From RAGA site:
"We are an association of Americans who believe it is in the U.S. national interests to foster friendship with Russia on the basis of mutual Good Will and non-interference in each other's affairs. RAGA is a gathering of people who share common interests in Russia's history, culture, religion, economy, politics and the way of life. We feel that Russian people have made outstanding contributions to humankind and are capable of greater achievements. We envision Russia as a strong, independent, proud and free nation and as a partner in achieving peace in the world."

​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org​

Dear Dr. Leo Semashko and all GHA peace-lovers!

 I congratulate you all on Mahatma Gandhi's 150th anniversary.  We have an additional reason to celebrate  because we were able to  publish - on time! - Mahatma Gandhi: Nonviolence Starting Point. Spherons' Genetics and Statistics, a collection of outstanding articles by GHA activists including my friends, such as Rudolf Siebert, John Avery, Ela Gandhi, Rene Wadlow, Mairead Maguire, Andre Sheldon and more.

 Special thanks to you, Leo, for including my article "Mahatma Gandhi and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn" and also providing the readers with its Russian translation in the parallel Russian collection. The latter is perhaps especially timely as Russia has been lately playing the role of  the katechon (from Greek: τὸ κατέχον, "the one who withholds"), that is keeping the balance in view of the dangerously erratic policies in the USA and UK. Let us hope that since the time of Leo Tolstoy the Russians have been learning more of nonviolent philosophy and strategies of Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and other nonviolent heroes.

As to the GHA's failure to unite and consolidate its membership in search for an equitable  solution for the Kashmir problem just remember that it takes a lot more courage and perseverance to find a peaceful solution than to start a war. Gandhi's violent death, his martyrdom remind us that the cause of peace is safeguarded by the heroes.

As you wish, in November, I will take a copy of the Gandhi Book to the USA to be deposited at the Library of Congress, the largest book and digital documents depository in the world. I promise to keep celebrating Gandhi's Non-Violence the whole year!

In Peace and Harmony, 
I remain truly yours,
Vladislav Krasnov (see my GHA personal page)
https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=752  

Sincerely,
W George Krasnow (http://wiki-org.ru/wiki/Краснов,_Владислав_Георгиевич)
President, RAGA

​We are lucky being able to discuss just about anything, including such taboo topics as the Holocaust, Hitler, or Jewish influence in The Unz Review. Thanks to our host Ron Unz whom one grateful reader called “an incredibly brave human being”[1] for exploring taboo topics himself, selecting a team of independent authors and encouraging readers’ comments. I agree with this reader. That’s why I had invited Ron as a featured author for RAGA.org.
​
As to Steve Sniegoski, I have known him for years as a fellow contributor to FGF.com, a conservative site dedicated to Championing Western Civilization and the great legacies of Sam Francis and Joe Sobran.[2] At the turn of millennia, I joined a group of scholars and Washington policy wonks, some from the Reagan administration, who regularly met in the Washington DC area diners to discuss all the misadventures of US foreign policy. Jon Utley,[3] Ron Unz’s successor as the publisher of The American Conservative magazine[4] in Washington, was one of the organizers. Steve Sniegoski was among our leading presenters. Soon he published The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel

The article at hand[5] is very perceptive as it takes into account the change of demographics and of cultural and political climate in the country.  Steve wrote it not to make fun of the would-be presidential candidate’s name or sexual orientation. His thrust is rather to suggest that the eventual outcome of the election will be decided by the demographic change and influence of Big Media.

“Should Buttigieg run for president, the mainstream media would likely expand its worship of him and double down on the faults, real or imagined, of Trump. It would seem that Buttigieg is the ideal Democratic candidate, lacking the baggage afflicting Sanders and Biden. This, of course, does not guarantee that Buttigieg will be the Democrats nominee for president or vice-president but about the only thing that could derail Buttigieg’s campaign would be the discovery that he is really a straight man.”

This conclusion, made with tongue in cheek, should be enough to dissuade those readers whose thinking stops as soon as the subject’s unusual name starts. As Anon[253] • Disclaimer says: “Well l think the author is head over heels for Buttleg or whatever his name is”. Alas, he failed to see that Steve’s conclusion was made tong in-cheek.

[1] See http://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-holocaust-denial/ Comment 408. Otterboy, August 28, 2018

[2] http://www.fgfbooks.com/AboutUS.html

[3] Jon Utley http://www.fgfbooks.com/Utley/Utley-bio.html. See also my article about him
Jon Basil Utley at 80 “He is One of Us” (Memoirs of Two Trips to Russia)  Tribute by W. George Krasnow at Jon’s birthday party in Washington on March 12, 2014

[4] https://www.theamericanconservative.com/about-us/

[5] The Green New Deal, Israel, and Mayor Pete. STEPHEN J. SNIEGOSKI • MAY 11, 2019
https://www.unz.com/article/the-green-new-deal-israel-and-mayor-pete/#comments

​After perusing the flow of comments, I have two impressions. First, there are too many negative remarks about Jews in general, without indicating their specific political orientation. Second, the overall defeatist mood is evident in the alleged Jewish takeover of the formerly “WASPish” US establishment. Did we forget that Trump won the election in spite of the fact that out of 1000 largest media outlets only 50 were on his side? One does not have to admire Trump, but the lesson is: Even a small number of alternative sites can defeat the Big Media! True that even a small number of Jewish moguls on Trump’s side were able to subordinate his foreign policy to the Neocons. But the fact is: a presidential candidate can beat the Mega Media if his message is properly calibrated.
​
Can it be done in the forthcoming 2020 election? I think ‘yes’, if priorities are properly selected and duly stressed.

​ 

1. With the avalanche of information via Internet, the Cyber agreement among the super-powers is urgently needed.[1] James Cardin cogently argues in The Nation magazine, a cyber “wild west” is not in the US national interest.
2. An agreement on the limitation of nuclear arms is just as urgent, for a break-down of Internet and ensuing chaos may lead to a global nuclear holocaust even if nobody wanted to trigger it. Failing to reach such agreement, super-powers effectively abdicate their responsibility for Life on Earth.
3. Domestically, the peace dividend from the above agreements would allow the US to reduce the overblown defense budget and spend more on education and healthcare to make the country more competitive economically, more fair and socially cohesive, and worthy of emulation abroad.
4. There is a need to open new investigation of 9/11 because the official version of terrorist destruction of World Trade Center has been challenged not just by alleged political “conspiracy theorists” but also by a large group of structural engineers who deem the official explanation technically impossible. You think 9/11 was an inside job?[2]

[1] Read, e.g.  Time to Pursue an International Cyber Treaty? By James Carden, APRIL 30, 2019
The Mueller report findings show a cyber “wild west” is not in the US national interest.
https://www.thenation.com/article/international-cyber-treaty-russia-china-dnc/

[2] You think 9/11 was an inside job? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddz2mw2vaEg
See text and sign petition  https://shop.ae911truth.org/DVD-Cased-9-11-Explosive-Evidence-Experts-Speak-Out-DVD-ESO-CASED1-PP.htm

Cui bono? It looks like it was a coup d’état to put the nation on war footing for ongoing US misadventures in the Middle EAST. It cost us 2744 lives lost in New York; 1 million lost in Afghanistan and Iraq and counting; 6, ooo US troops killed in a war on terror; $4.5 trillion lost to US tax payers. Moreover, our civil liberties have been impaired by:  The Patriot Act; Military Commissions Act; Department of Homeland Security; TSA (just take your next flight!) and National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA 2012). The engineers remind us that today American citizen can be subject to search and seizure without a warrant; detained or imprisoned indefinitely without charge, without evidence, without lawyer, without a trial, and even tortured or assassinated merely for being accused. The engineers conclude: Ignoring the World Trade Center evidence is no longer an option.[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddz2mw2vaEg
See also Experts speak out. Richard Gage (a leader) Americal Institute of Architects. 1500 engineers and 10 000 other people questioned. https://911planeshoax.com/

Be it as it may, but I believe the first question any presidential candidate must be asked is this: Do you take seriously the 9/11 official story?

There is no need to elaborate before there is a candidate who would agree on the validity of the issues. But there is one person I have in mind. He is no other than Ron Unz, our open-minded and tireless host. I did not raise the issue with him when we met in April. But he would certainly qualify: excellent education, broad knowledge of history, highly intelligent, open-minded, a successful entrepreneur and skillful communicator. The declared candidates might envy Ron’s electability: ---in 1994 he was second in the race for California governor;-- in 1998 sponsored California Proposition 227, to modify the state's bilingual education by English immersion classes.
​
As California is the first state where the majority is non-white, Ron has the advantage as a conservative patriot who is nonetheless liberal enough to unite the nation across racial, ethnic, and religious lines. He might emerge as a national leader for whom indeed “there are no Jews, nor Hellenes”.

Regretfully, many comments in TUR tend to lump all Jews together, regardless of their political leanings. Even though the majority of American Jews traditionally vote Democrat, they are just as torn in several, even opposite, directions as the Gentiles are. There are ardent religious Jews, as those belonging to Neturei Karta, Orthodox Jews United Against Zionism, who oppose Israel’s violent political ideology.[1]

There are secular Jewish American groups, such as Jewish Voice for Peace[2] that bravely defend Palestinian rights and lead the BDS movement. As a non-Jewish member of JVP, I feel I am better informed about Israel and its American Jewish critics. The JVP just announced a May 19, 2019 meeting at which “forty Jews of diverse backgrounds tell a wide range of stories about the roads they have traveled from a Zionist world view to activism in solidarity with Palestinians and Israelis striving to build an inclusive society founded on justice, equality, and peaceful coexistence.”

[1] Neturei Karta opposes the so-called "State of Israel" because the entire concept of a sovereign Jewish state is contrary to Jewish Law. https://www.nkusa.org/AboutUs/index.cfm
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Voice_for_Peace

And there are other American Jews who believe that Zionism goes against the grain of Judaism as a universal religion that eschews territorial attachment.[1] One of them is Allan Brownfeld[2] of the American Council for Judaism.[3] I’ve been reading Allan’s articles on global issues since the 1980s and translated some to Russian.[4] He is one of the most astute American political thinkers.

Then there is Israel Shamir,[5] an early Soviet dissident who immigrated to Israel in 1968. After serving as paratrooper in the IDF and fighting in the 1973 war, Israel became disillusioned in Zionist reality. Now he has emerged as most persistent critic of Israel’s right-wing Zionism. A friend of Palestinians, he was baptized as an Orthodox Christian. At my invitation, in 2001 he was the distinguished speaker at the club of disenchanted Washington conservatives where both Sniegoski and I were active participants. Not an American, Shamir is nonetheless most imaginative and prolific author of TUR.

[1] See my 2012 article The World for Israel, or Jews for the World? By W. George Krasnow, January 09, 2012. http://original.antiwar.com/krasnow/2012/01/08/the-world-for-israel/.
[2] http://www.fgfbooks.com/AllanBrownfeld/aBrownfeld-bio.html
[3] http://www.acjna.org/acjna/default.aspx
[4] http://perevodika.ru/articles/1196711.html?sphrase_id=4433208
[5] http://www.israelshamir.net/Biography.htm

I have not yet exhausted my list of Jewish friends of mine and--I dare say--of Russia. But let me mention one more who just alerted us that the USA and Israel are preparing a war on Iran. “A collection of colonists plop themselves down in the middle of the Muslim world with plans to expand—into a world, mind you, not too keen about it all—and we’ve got their back? I mean, Bibzy (Netanyahu) wants to fight the Iranians down to the last American.”[1] So says Mr. Milton Kapner,[2] a New York Jew who, after converting to Orthodox Christianity became Brother Nathanael, an ardent and tireless preacher against “pernicious” influence of the “establishment Jews” on US political and cultural life.

As the founder and president of RAGA.org, I make it a policy to include in our RAGA newsletter all good writers who favor a peaceful co-existence with Russia and non-aggressive US foreign policy world-wide. I welcome them regardless of their political leanings—Left, Right, Liberal or Conservative—as long as they present facts and cogent arguments. One might say I practice political polyphony having transferred this term from Solzhenitsyn’s artistic strategy.[3] I pay no attention whether the authors are Jewish or not.

As personally I tend to be Conservative, I may favor such authors as Pat Buchanan or Paul Craig Roberts. But I am always happy to provide links to Sharon Tennison,[4] Ray McGovern, Stephen Cohen, Ed Lozansky,[5]  Gilbert Doctorow,[6] Naomi Klein, Medea of CODEPINK,[7]   Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept, and my personal friends Dan Lieberman of Alternative Insight[8] and Martin Sieff. As far as exposing US meddling in Russian reforms under Boris Yeltsyn to help create the oligarchic system, none is better than Professor Janine Wedel,[9] the author of “Collision and Collusion: The Strange Case of Western Aid to Eastern Europe”.[10] And don’t forget Gilad Atzmon,[11] a jazzman and the author of Being in Time-- A Post Political Manifesto.[12] Don’t his artistic jazz improvisations spell the same doom for the militant Zionism as jazz in the USSR[13] did for totalitarian Communism?

The same “big tent” polyphonic approach I apply in selecting authors to translate into Russian and post either on RAGA or the Russian site PEREVODIKA: Noam Chomsky, Chas Freeman,[14] Marjorie Cohn, and Allan Brownfeld appear next to Pat Buchanan, Chris Hedges, Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com, and Charles Bausman whose pioneering Russia-Insider article It's Time to Drop the Jew Taboo I immediately translated and had it posted both on RAGA.org[15] and PEREVODIKA.[16]

One translation of which I am particularly proud was that of “Six Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of His Time.”[17] I was asked to do so by Dr. John Andrew Morrow, Canadian-American scholar who researched the Arabic sources. John was so impressed with the medieval Al-Andalus in Spain and Portugal where Muslims, Christians, and Jews co-existed for over seven centuries that he learned Arabic and converted to Islam. As Amazon.com describes his book, “accepted as law for nearly 1400 years, these documents were common knowledge to educated Muslims and Christians until the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, after which they virtually disappeared from collective consciousness.” Knowing of the importance of religious tolerance in Russia today, I translated his book to Russian, and had it posted in Russian internet.[18] I also wrote a commentary for an established Russian magazine.[19] Later Mr. Adgezal Mamedov of Azerbaijan[20] had it translated and published in Azeri language. After all, we should not forget that Islamophobia in the USA often goes hand in hand with Russophobia.

I was fortunate with people who offered me their sites for free posting and interviews. Dr. Kevin Barrett interviewed me for his Truth Jihad Radio.[21] Yes, he is a Muslim convert. But for me he is, first of all, an American patriot, a scholar who insists that the First Amendment is our foremost treasure. He knows how to protect best this treasure for himself and his fellow citizens. Kevin is a rare American familiar with the work of Russian literary scholar Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975)[22] who introduced the notion of polyphony as a necessity of having competing ideological views for any country to remain free. For such unorthodox views Bakhtin was quickly hauled to the GULAG because the USSR recognized only one and only Marxist-Leninist ideology.

But the banner of polyphony and heterodoxy was soon picked up by Solzhenitsyn, Andrei Sakharov (1921-1989),[23] Andrei Amalrik (1938-1980),[24] Anatoly Ivanov, Vladimir Osipov,[25] and dozens other Soviet dissidents. The USSR refused to coexist with polyphony of different persuasions, and soon Amalrik, Solzhenitsyn, and dozen others were expelled from the country. Amalrik, who was my fellow student in History Department of the University of Moscow, was the author of the prophetic book Will the Soviet Union Survive until 1984?[26] He did not see his dream come true as he died in a traffic accident while visiting Spain in 1980.

Dr. Barrett thinks that now Russia and the USA reversed their roles. Since the time of glasnost and the fall of USSR, Russia has been moving toward a greater heterodoxy—dialog and polyphony in public discourse—whereas the Mainstream Media in the USA tries to turn it   into a monologic society in which “political correctness” rules the roost. Kevin knows what he is talking about because for he lost his academic position for sticking to the 9/11 contrarian view and encouraging others to speak up their mind. That this is not an easy task is evident in his latest articles “Sorry, Ilhan, Jews HAVE Hypnotized the World”[27] and "The Holocaust" Is a Myth That Conceals Our Shame.”[28]

Dr. Barrett is not alone to challenge the official wisdom. Ray McGovern, a former high CIA official in the Reagan administration, has been also harboring dissident thoughts. In January 2003, Ray co-created Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)—and the name “for Sanity” is just right-- to expose how intelligence was being falsified to “justify” war on Iraq. In 2011 Ray was seized and badly beaten in front of Hillary Clinton when she spoke at George Washington University about the need for freedom of expression – in Iran. It was during her speech Ray stood up with his back turned toward then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.[29] It was then I wrote for Veterans Today, a site of former military and intelligence officers turned dissidents, “A brave Man stands abuse. Vets for Peace Demands Apology from Hilliary Clinton.” [30]

Recently, March 13, 2019, Ray and his team of VIPS published their authoritative opinion that “The final Mueller report should be graded “incomplete” due to the speciousness of the story that DNC emails published by WikiLeaks came from Russian hacking”. According to the VIPS, former National Intelligence Director James Clapper’s testimony cannot be trusted because “The materials brought out by Edward Snowden in June 2013 showed Clapper to have lied under oath to the committee on March 12, 2013; he was, nevertheless, allowed to stay on as Director of National Intelligence for three and half more years. Clapper fancies himself an expert on Russia, telling Meet the Press on May 28, 2017 that…Russians are “typically, almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever.”[31]

As I myself had to escape from the USSR,[32] just to keep my sanity intact, it is natural to me to identify with US dissidents, including Edward Snowden, whose forced defection to Russia made me write a warning to the USA, To Defect or to Integrate? The USA vs Edward Snowden.[33]

It is hardly accidental that I find my fellow dissenters at Veterans Today. Lately I was interviewed by Jonas E Alexis, a Black American scholar and the author of “Zionism Vs. the West: How Talmudic Ideology Is Undermining Western Culture.”[34] He now teaches math in South Korea. Titling the interview Alexander Solzhenitsyn - Truth Can and Will Destroy the New World Order and Satanism,[35] Jonas focused our dialogue on the importance of freedom of expression.

Alexis: I remember that one of the battle cries of Soviet dissidents was the demand for glasnost, meaning giving “voice” (glas) to any subject on which Soviet leaders put a taboo.
Krasnov: Exactly so. That’s why while writing my book, Russia Beyond Communism: A Chronicle of National Rebirth, I tried to give a voice, an opportunity to speak to every brave and cogent Soviet intellectual or expat dissident who, not being satisfied with Gorbachev’s schemes to save Communism, called for a Russian future BEYOND Communism, a future which could not be gained unless Russia recovered its thousand years deep national roots, including its Christianity.

Then I went on to set up Jonas’s next question:
Krasnov: We know that William J. Burns,[36] former US Ambassador in Moscow and now president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, met with Solzhenitsyn in 2008, before the writer passed away. Here is what was reported: “According to Burns, Solzhenitsyn positively contrasted the eight-year reign of Putin with those of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, which he said had ‘added to the damage done to the Russian state by 70 years of communist rule’. Under Putin, the nation was rediscovering what it was to be Russian, Solzhenitsyn thought.”
​Alexis: Do you agree with Solzhenitsyn’s assessment of Putin?

Krasnov:  Yes, I do. Moreover, I think Solzhenitsyn would have been pleased with Putin’s performance SINCE 2008, even though Burns was right to point out that “the writer’s praise for Putin wasn’t unqualified.” Solzhenitsyn was a man who could not be subservient to anyone.
Curious of how Jonas, a born American, perceive Solzhenitsyn, I asked:
Krasnov: What do you like most about Solzhenitsyn?

Alexis: What I specifically like about Solzhenitsyn is that he was committed to the truth, regardless of where it took him. In fact, he wrote arguably the most controversial book in the twentieth century, 200 Years Together, which has yet to be translated in English. Solzhenitsyn said that the first step of a courageous man is to not take part in a lie. Shouldn’t that be an encouragement for us today?

I heartily agreed with my inquisitive, knowledgeable and honorable VT debater Jonas E Alexis.
Responding to a RAGA newsletter some years ago, Brother Nathanael asked me if I was willing to translate Solzhenitsyn’s Two Hundred Years Together.[37] I declined but learned that Brother Nathanael was determined to walk in Solzhenitsyn’s footsteps as a truth teller, a feature that he shares with Ron Unz, with all their differences.

Ron Unz is also an unabashed admirer of Solzhenitsyn. “Throughout most of my life,” admits Ron in one of his incisive articles, “Nobel Laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn was generally regarded as the greatest Russian literary figure of our modern era, and after reading all of his works, including The First Circle, Cancer Ward, and The Gulag Archipelago, I certainly concurred with this assertion.” However, as soon as Solzhenitsyn “hinted (in Two Hundred Year Together) at the very prominent role of Jews in both financing and leading the Bolshevik Revolution, and afterward staffing the NKVD and administering the Gulag labor camps,” not only was his book ignored in the USA, but “His literary star seems also to greatly waned…  I only very rarely see his name mentioned these days in any of my regular newspapers.” [38]  

I was reading the above lines when I was getting ready to go Solzhenitsyn’s Centennial conference at Northern Vermont University last September. It then emailed Ron to ask if he would want to come to our conference and share his American perception of the Russian writer. Being busy as always Ron politely declined. But then I knew that The Unz Review was the best venue for my report about the conference. As soon as it was ready, I sent it to him and it was carried in TUR as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Relevance Today. International “Reading Solzhenitsyn” Conference in Lyndon, Vermont, September 7-8, 2018.[39]

Here is the conclusion: “Solzhenitsyn, more than anybody else unites Russia and the USA in their urgent task and duty to secure a peaceful, free, fair, and harmonious global commonwealth in which every nation is a proud member”.

What is now at stake is not just the precipitous deterioration of US-Russia relations, but the survival of the Planet as we know it. Is it not childish to compete for whom is the Best, the Strongest or the Handsomest on the Planet while threatening a nuclear war? Is it not better to join forces in harmonious and mutually enriching co-operation to cope with the ever-mounting issues, such as climate warming, depletion of resources, pollution of air, earth and seas, poverty and malnutrition in many parts of the world, uncertainties of space exploration, all of that exacerbated by fake news? Clearly, a new paradigm for world relations is urgently needed, in which usual egotism of national politics must yield to the ethical imperative of global co-operation for the security and well-being of the Planet, with all its peoples, animals and plants.

As a member[40] of the Global Harmony Association,[41] founded by Leo Semasko,[42] a former Marxist and now peace-activist, I just got an email letter from Rene Wadlow,[43] President, Association of World Citizens,[44] saying: “We must restore optimism and continue to sharpen our inborn instincts for life, for the positive, for self-preservation, for survival and human fulfillment at ever higher levels of consciousness. We must conquer the duality, the dark, the bad, the negative, and the suicidal. These all contain dangerous self-feeding processes of destruction. We must turn instead to the mysterious self-generating powers of hope, creative thinking, love, life affirmation and faith.”

Clearly, the greatest need now is not for politicians as usual, but for wise men and women of different nationalities, religions convictions and ideologies whose Number One priority is the survival and welfare of the Planet. That’s why in a follow up to the Solzhenitsyn Centennial piece, I wrote Mahatma Gandhi and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Two Giants Who Blessed the 20th Century. Will Vladimir Putin, Other World Leaders Listen?[45] In addition to the two giants, I also named Nelson Mandela of South Africa and our own Martin Luther King Jr. I am sure there are other actual and potential leaders, men and women, who are among us but whom we have not yet called to full life in truth and justice.

Author: Vladislav Krasnov (aka W George Krasnow),
President of Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA.org).
Email to President92@gmail.com or president@raga.org
May 2019
​
[1] Brother Nathanael Come On Back To The War  http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=1364  Brother Nathanael May 14, 2019 @ 10:11 pm

[2] Milton Kapner https://wikiality.fandom.com/wiki/Real_Jew_News

[3] Vladislav Krasnov, Solzhenitsyn and Dostoevsky: A Study in the Polyphonic Novel. U of Georgia Press, 1980. https://www.amazon.com/Solzhenitsyn-Dostoevsky-Study-Polyphonic-Novel/dp/0820304727

[4] Sharon Tennison and her organization https://ccisf.org/

[5] https://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/edward-lozansky/

[6] http://www.raga.org/apps/search?q=Gilbert+Doctorow

[7] Medea Benjamin, https://www.codepink.org/medea_benjamin

[8] Dan Lieberman http://www.alternativeinsight.com/

[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janine_R._Wedel

[10] Janine Wedel https://www.amazon.com/Collision-Collusion-Strange-Western-Eastern/dp/0312238282  See also my companion article, Did Shock Therapy Help Russia? About Anders Aslund’s Capitalist Revolution
http://www.russialist.org/archives/2008-88-39.php #39 - JRL 2008-89 - JRL Home
Date: Tue, 6 May 2008 From: W. George Krasnow"

[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilad_Atzmon

[12] Gilad Atzmon’s book https://www.gilad.co.uk/being-in-time

[13] Generally accepted at first, jazz was soon proclaimed as a symbol of the hated West. With the onset of the Cold War, it was vilified. “Today he plays jazz, tomorrow he’ll betray his country” was a propaganda slogan in those days.https://www.rbth.com/history/329154-why-american-jazz-was-banned

[14] Charles W. "Chas" Freeman Jr. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_W._Freeman_Jr.

[15] Пора Отказаться от Табу на Еврейскую Тем. Иначе не поймёшь ни российскую геополитику, ни историю. Автор: Чарльз Баусман 1/22/2018

[16] Пора отказаться от табу на еврейскую тему. Иначе ничего не поймёшь в противостоянии США и России. http://perevodika.ru/articles/1197472.html

[17] Six Covenants https://www.amazon.com/Covenants-Prophet-Muhammad-Christians-Time/dp/1621380025

[18] John Andrew Morrow - 2018 - ‎Religion. Islām and the People of the Book Volumes 1-3: Critical Studies on ...
ШЕСТЬ ОБЕТОВ ПРОРОКА МУХАММЕДА ХРИСТИАНАМ МУХАММЕД СЫН ... ВЛАДИСЛАВ КРАСНОВ Содержание Глава 1: Обет пророка Мухаммеда ...
https://books.google.ru/books?isbn=1527509672

[19] 2016 №7, 8 (150-151) У нас в журнале «Представительная власть» уже вышла Ваша совместная статья о критике ДАИШ и Обетах пророка Мухаммеда. См. анонс по ссылку. Имам (д-р Морроу) осуждает ДАИШ http://www.pvlast.ru/archive/index.s132.php  Краснов В.Г., Ильяс Абд аль-Алим Ислам.

[20] Adgezal Mamedov https://gorchakovfund.ru/en/news/view/adgezal-mamedov-friendship-between-russia-and-azerbaijan-is-a-social-mandate-of-our-nations/

[21] JIHAD (n.) Effort, struggle, or striving to (1) be a better person, or (2) defend the community.
"The best jihad is a word of truth flung in the face of a tyrant." http://www.truthjihad.com/

[22] Mikhail Bakhtin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Bakhtin

[23] https://en.wikipedia.org/t iki/Andrei_Sakharov

[24] Andrei Amalrik  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Amalrik.

[25] About Ivanov and Osipov, the two of my friends and fellow students at the University of Moscow, read The Faces of Contemporary Russian Nationalism (Princeton Legacy Library). By John Dunlop. Paperback – 2014
https://www.amazon.com/Contemporary-Russian-Nationalism-Princeton-Library/dp/0691610789

[26] Will the Soviet Union Survive until 1984? Hardcover – 1970/by Andreĭ Amalʹrik (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/Will-Soviet-Union-Survive-until/dp/B0006CPGLA

[27] “Sorry, Ilhan, Jews HAVE Hypnotized the World”, KEVIN BARRETT • MARCH 15, 2019 http://www.unz.com/kbarrett/sorry-ilhan-jews-have-hypnotized-the-world/

[28] "The Holocaust" Is a Myth That Conceals Our Shame.”[28] KEVIN BARRETT • APRIL 15, 2019
 http://www.unz.com/kbarrett/the-holocaust-is-a-myth-that-conceals-our-shame/

[29] http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/18/ex_cia_analyst_ray_mcgovern_beaten

[30] “A Brave Man stands abuse. Vets for Peace Demands Apology from Hilliary Clinton”. By Dr. George Krasnow - February 18, 2011. https://www.veteranstodayarchives.com/2011/02/18/vets-fo r-peace-demands-apology-from-hillary-clinton/

[31] https://consortiumnews.com/2019/03/13/vips-muellers-forensics-free-findings/

[32] See my book, Soviet Defectors: The KGB Wanted List. (Hoover Institution Press Publication) by Vladislav Krasnov  (Author) https://www.amazon.com/Soviet-Defectors-Wanted-Institution-Publication/dp/0817982329

[33] To Defect or to Integrate? The USA vs Edward Snowden. 4/29/2014
http://www.raga.org/news/to-defect-or-to-integrate-the-usa-vs-edward-snowden

[34] Zionism Vs. the West: How Talmudic Ideology Is Undermining Western Culture Hardcover – April 3, 2018
https://www.amazon.com/Zionism-Vs-West-Talmudic-Undermining/dp/1546224599

[35] http://www.raga.org/news/vt-veterans-today-alexander-solzhenitsyn-truth-can-and-will-destroy-the-new-world-order-and-satanism  11/8/2018

[36] William J Burns  https://carnegieendowment.org/experts/1014

[37] Two Hundred Years Together (Complete Edition in 2 Volumes) / Dvesti Let Vmeste - v 2-h Tomah (in Rus)
By Alexander Solzhenitsyn.  It became finally available in English under the title The Crucifixion of Russia: A new English translation of Solzhenitsyn’s 200 Years Together by Columbus Falco. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36499209-the-crucifixion-of-russia

[38] “The oddities of Jewish religion” https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-oddities-of-the-jewish-religion/?highlight=Ron+Unz+Oddities+Oddities

[39] Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Relevance Today https://www.unz.com/article/aleksandr-solzhenitsyns-relevance-today/ It was also carried by Global harmony Association http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=864
 
[40] Vladislav Krasnov https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=752

[41] Global Harmony Association https://www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=home

[42] Leo Semashko personal page https://www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=253

[43] https://www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=272

[44] Association of World Citizens http://www.worldcitizensunited.org/

[45] Mahatma Gandhi and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Two Giants Who Blessed the 20th Century.http://www.unz.com/article/mahatma-gandhi-and-aleksandr-solzhenitsyn-the-two-giants-who-blessed-the-20th-century/  It was also carried by https://www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=884 and on a site in India:  Gandhi and Solzhenitsyn: Two Giants who blessed the 20th century – I.  By Vladislav Krasnov

http://vijayvaani.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?aid=4950 Gandhi and Solzhenitsyn: Two Giants who blessed the 20th century – II. http://vijayvaani.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?aid=4951
 
All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org​

“Russian literature vs. Marxist maculature”
Now we come to the alternative title of my presentation: “Russian literature vs. Marxist maculature”. I first used this juxtaposition in my next book “Russia Beyond Communism: A Chronicle of National Rebirth” published in the USA just before the fall of the USSR. This juxtaposition had a double entendre. First, it alluded to Marshall McLuhan’s notion that the medium is the message. Marx’s teaching was touted as a “science” of economics which dictated the need for a violent world revolution to conform to allegedly objective law of social development. Thus, the appeal was seemingly to reason.

Russian literature, on the other hand, like any other literature,  only more so, appealed to the heart and soul of the reader, that is to the whole, holistic, human being. It appealed to his ethical and esthetic sense, indeed to Truth, Goodness and Beauty. To be sure, it also appealed to his rational mind and imagination, the latter being an important source of scientific discoveries, as Albert Einstein testifies. Such holistic view of life has animated Russian literature. That view of life may appear less “rational,” “clever,” and more “idealist” than Marxism, but it is still much wiser because it is true to life.

Second, the “maculature” (makulatura in Russian) alludes to an overload of Soviet propaganda materials, especially the works of Marxist-Leninist “classics” (Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin), which Soviet readers simply could no longer absorb. So they turned them into a second-use, blotted paper – makulatura in Russian - to be dumped in garbage cans. However, in the waning years of the USSR, there were organized campaigns to collect the unused works of the “classics.”  They were sorted out by weight in kilograms and exchanged for a volume or two of “old-fashioned” Russian or foreign classics.

The point here is not to denigrate Marx’s economic theory or the “law of added value”. The main issue is an excessive, almost demonic obsession of Marx that he had discovered a fail-proof key to the happiness of mankind, if only the proletariat would obey the iron-clad “scientific” laws of history that dictate violent world revolution.

Dostoevsky, Bakhtin and Solzhenitsyn were familiar with both sides of the issue. Dostoevsky faced an execution squad for his sympathy for the “poor and downtrodden” and for his alleged participation in revolutionary circles. Bakhtin was active in Marxist study groups. Solzhenitsyn, during his university years regarded himself a Marxist and Communist. But all three, like thousands of their readers, came to the conclusion that the world revolution, after shedding rivers of blood, sweat and tears, failed to get rid of exploitation and injustice – and then covered up its failure by mandatory falsehoods.

Yevgeny Zamyatin, the first dystopia
One of the first Russian writers to notice that the October 1917 Bolshevik revolution went astray was Yevgeny Zamiatin (1884-1937), whom Solzhenitsyn mentioned in his Nobel Lecture as an example of Russian visionaries. Zamyatin was a prominent author before 1917 and was also active in, and imprisoned for, Bolshevik revolutionary activities. This did not prevent him from writing in1920 the novel “WE,” a vision of a sterile and inhumane totalitarian society where all individual life was suppressed. Published in Germany in 1921, “WE” became the first dystopian novel in history of Europe. Soon it was followed by such Western classics as Aldous Huxley, Brave New World;  Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon, and George Orwell’s Animal farm and Nineteen Eighty Four. Zamyatin’s novel was banned in the USSR and he barely succeeded in leaving the country.

Were Zamyarin’s novel timely published in Soviet Russia, would it not have saved millions lives in Russia allowing it evolve as a normal country where heterodoxy is tolerated? Would not the whole the 20th century have been less bloody?

Zamyatin’s favorite notion in the novel “WE” was entropy as a measure of energy that is needlessly dispersed in any given endeavor. It appears that mankind learned nothing from the bitter fate of the “rationalist” French Revolution which degenerated into revolutionary self-terror and Napoleonic wars of conquest. Alas, Lenin enjoyed his Bolsheviks to follow the French extremists, just do it “more decisively”.  The entropy of the Bolshevik dystopia in Russia was countless times higher.

Let me say a few words about my essays that Solzhenitsyn liked. One was on Marx’s poetry debut. Two others are about the role of national character in a country’s history.

Karl Marx as a romantic poet
After I chose a voluntary exile from the USSR in 1962, I tried to read as much as I could the authors who were suppressed. But what I discovered was that censored were not just the works of anti-Communists, but even “classics” of Marxism-Leninism, including Marx himself. Certainly, his Jewish origin was barely mentioned and deemed irrelevant. His article “On the Jewish question” was not known at all. Then I discovered that at youth he was an ardent Christian, more so than his newly converted parents. Later, he came to see himself as a romantic poet. That’s what Oulanem, the young Karl’s romantic hero and alter ego, proudly proclaims in his poem of the same name:

The world which bulks between me and the Abyss
I will smash to pieces with my enduring curses!
I will throw my arms around its harsh reality.
Embracing me, the world will dumbly pass away
And then sink down to utter nothingness.
Perished, with no existence - that would be really living.

As you now see, in terms of my presentation, it was Marx, not Solzhenitsyn, who imagined himself as a god, not just in youth, but also when he wrote “Manifesto of the Communist Party”.

Karl Marx as Dr. Frankenstein
I quoted these lines in my 1977 essay “Karl Marx as Frankenstein: Toward a Genealogy of Communism”.  It was based on Mary Shelly’s 1818 horror story “Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus”. My intentions was not to put the young Marx down but rather to investigate how a prima facie Romantic poet transforms himself to a modern Promethean economist and ruthless political leader ready to endow the oppressed proletarians with the “gift” of world revolution fire.

The most intriguing aspect of Shelly’s work was that she let the well-meaning German scientist, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, create an artificial human being. Successfully! To be sure, Shelly’s artistic vision was spurred by the rapid advancement of science in Europe.  However, as soon after the talented Victor celebrated his scientific victory, his creature started to misbehave turning doctor’s scientific Victory into a crushing defeat. His creature became The Monster so lavishly serialized in numerous Hollywood productions.

To be fair to Miss Shelly, she portrayed Frankenstein as a responsible man who tried to restrain his Creature. That failing, he tried to remove the Monster from densely populated centers of Europe. But where to? He found no better place than “the wilderness of Russia and Tataria” as it was known in Europe since Napoleon’s attempt to conquer it.

Russia as a Dumping ground for Western “science”
Something similar happened to Marx’s “creature”. He designed his world revolution for the most advanced countries, but no country in Europe wanted to serve as a lab. Finally, in 1917, a small group of international Bolsheviks of various ethnic backgrounds forced Russia to volunteer, in spite of the fact that the proletariat there was a small minority. Whether by a conspiracy or bad luck, Russia became the first lab for the Marxist experiment in building what was paraded as the first ever equitable and happy society since the Noah’s Ark. Thus Russia took upon itself the “Promethean”, God-fighting, theomachic, or Luciferan, if you will, task of re-making the world in defiance of any hitherto established religions, be it Christian, Judaic, Moslem or whatever.

I wrote this essay in 1976-1977, when the United States were swamped with thousands of Jewish immigrants fleeing from the USSR after a special deal between Brezhnev and Kissinger was made to allow Soviet Jews to emigrate “for family re-unification.”  I saw this as a further irony of the Marxist dystopia transplanted in Russia. Because of his own Jewish background, was it not likely that Marx himself, had he lived in the country of his dream, would seek an exit visa? To Israel?  Or the United States? In any case, Mary Shelly’s 1818 horror fiction turned into reality exactly one-hundred years later.

Max Weber undermines Karl Marx
Two other essays that Solzhenitsyn liked dealt with the role of national character in history. Of course, since I was trained as ethnologist and anthropologist in the USSR, I knew that any attention to national character was pretty much under a taboo lest it undermines the international solidarity of working people. But as soon as I defected, I hurried to read the forbidden books, including Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism . I readily agreed with much what he had to say. Indeed, national character fostered as it has been by a belief system (religion, customs, habits, geography, history etc.) of a nation had considerable bearing on its economic standing in the world. It certainly had more influence on the disparity of income levels of different groups of population than the Marxist notion of exploitation of all working people.

Even though Weber’s thesis seemed to favor Protestant nations, he did not imply any racial or religious favoritism. He was good enough to point out, for instance, that Russian Christian Old Believers on the eve of Revolution had considerably better working habits than the rest of the population. Ironically, this was due to the thrift and communal spirit they had fostered thru centuries of official persecution. As it happens, the majority of most successful Russian entrepreneurs – and arts benefactors - before 1917 were from the families of Old Believers. Had the Russians read Weber’s works on a scale of one to a thousand Marxist makulatura volumes, would they not have been better prepared to the challenges of neoliberal economics imposed on them since 1991?

Whose fault: The Russian Mind or Western Cultural Marxism?
Soon I challenged Ronald Hingley (1920 – 2010),  a prominent British historian and specialist on Russia, for suggesting in his book, The Russian Mind that Communist Totalitarianism was due to the disorderly national character of ethnic Russians whom he had observed both in the USSR and among Russian immigrants in UK.

Rather than objecting to his observations, I argued that the expansion of Totalitarian rule in Europe and elsewhere was mostly due to the defeatist state of mind of Western intellectual and media establishment who were either tacitly or openly pro-Marxist. They protected their Idol by blaming the brutishness of Communist takeovers on innate boorishness of ethnic Russian apparatchiks rather than the inherent inhumanity of Marxist ideology they followed. Did Marx not enjoined his followers to reject all existing morality, especially Christian, as rooted in “bourgeois” mentality?

Richard Pipes’s Russophobia
One of Marx’s protectors was Harvard professor of Russian history Richard Pipes (1923 – 2018). He had the reputation of anti-Communist hard-liner, but argued that Soviet leaders cannot be trusted not due to their different ideological precepts but because they were usually descendants of Russian peasants who were cheats because their ancestors were serves who could survive only by cheating. It was an ethnic slur, I thought, and challenged him in my article “Richard Pipes's Foreign Strategy: Anti-Soviet or Anti-Russian?”  

In case the link fails to download, here is its summary in my 1991 book “Russia Beyond Communism”. “A respectable historian, (Pipes) has exerted considerable influence on U. S. foreign since he was National Security adviser in the Reagan White House.  He has also been one of the chief purveyors on an essentially russophobic conception of Russian history... he blames, for instance, the brutality of Soviet regime chiefly on Russian national character as embodied in Russian peasants. Pipes is an avowed Solzhenitsyn opponent. Not only did he allege that the writer was “anti-Semitic” but ruled out any positive role for Solzhenitsyn in Russian future” (p. 281).

Earlier, on November 13, 1985, in a paper I read at the World Congress for Soviet and East European Studies in Washington, DC, I publicly defended Solzhenitsyn from the charges of “anti-Semitism” coming from Pipes and his ilk. This was duly reported by The New York Times. As the reporter Richard Grenier noted, I was not alone. “Prof. Adam Ulam of Harvard, another Soviet specialist, said Professor Pipes's characterization of Mr. Solzhenitsyn was ''very unfair.'' Grenier went on: “Conquest, author of ''The Great Terror,'' called the charge of anti-Semitism ''ludicrous.''

Grenier also pointed out that Solzhenitsyn got support also from a number of prominent people, including Jews, from the USSR and abroad: Mstislav Rostropovich, Mikhail Agursky (Soviet dissident, then professor at Hebrew Universty) and Elie Wiesel. Finally, Grenier said, “Willing to go further in his defense than Mr. Solzhenitsyn himself was his wife, Natalia, who is herself half-Jewish. The charge of anti-Semitism is ''nonsensical'' and ''absolutely absurd,'' Mrs. Solzhenitsyn wrote in a letter. Her husband was surrounded by Jewish friends in Russia, she said, both in and out of the Gulag”.
​
In 1989 I was able to arrange for an interview with Solzhenitsyn by David Aikman for Time magazine. David was my friend and colleague in the Department of Slavic and Far Eastern Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. The interview was introduced by the publisher: "One Word of Truth: A Portrait of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn… a courageous man devoted to the battle for truth in the context of the distinctive disorders of modern, post-Christian culture”. ​

​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org​

Retired Navy SEAL commander Jocko Willink and psychology professor Jordan Peterson discuss the works of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag and the nature of evil. Please share your thoughts in the comments below. 

​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org​

​All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.

RAGA News
www.RAGA.org​

​On the foggy cliffs of the Sonoma Coast on Saturday, Gov. Jerry Brown was glad to stand on dirt with a high-powered delegation of Russian officials to commemorate the restoration of a historic cemetery at Fort Ross.

While tensions between the two countries are taut after U.S. officials have accused Russia of interfering in elections and launching a global hacking campaign, the governor of California and the Russian ambassador to the United States joined church leaders, Alaska Natives, Kashia Pomo Indians and preservationists to celebrate a project of mutual interest.

“This site at Fort Ross is a good time to remember that Russia and America, together, won World War II. And we didn’t like the guy who was in charge of Russia then, but we worked with him and we defeated the Nazis,” Brown said to the crowd. “So let’s learn from the horrors of the past to create the beauty of the future.”

The cemetery restoration included a new 14-foot-tall, eight-point Russian cross structure made from redwood trees, new boulders inscribed with a description of the cemetery in multiple languages, interpretive panels, a bench and maintenance of a wooded half-mile trail between the cemetery and Fort Ross, a former Russian settlement. It’s a project that brought together a diverse range of groups with a shared history, and for many who attended the ceremony, a hope for a shared future of peace.

Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov acknowledged the area’s history — the first Russian Orthodox church in the U.S. was built at Fort Ross — and the strained relationship between his country and the United States.

“Preserving the memory of our common past has played an important role in strengthening trust and mutual understanding between Russia and the United States. We hope that this work will be continued, regardless of the current political turbulence,” Antonov said.

Antonov also mentioned he spoke with U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis about the initiative to restore the cemetery, and Mattis sent him a letter of support.

“I hope that General Mattis will not be fired tomorrow,” Antonov joked to the chuckling crowd, which included Vassily Nebenzia, Russian representative to the United Nations.

The project to restore the cemetery began in February and recently finished, according to Leslie Hartzell, chief of the cultural resources division at the state parks department.

“There are so many people who share a history to this place and their cultural traditions are still anchored to Fort Ross, and it’s very important to be a place where people can continue to come and celebrate their cultural history and carry on their cultural traditions,” said Hartzell, who facilitated cultural dialogue between the groups and got their input for appropriate improvements in the interpretive area.

About 130 people were buried from 1812 to 1840 at the Ross settlement, which included Russians, the Kashia Pomo, Miwok, Spaniards and Mexicans. The majority buried are women and children, and the different groups intermarried.

Sabrena Rosenberg, Unangax for Unalaska and Fort Ross Conservation Center board member, is from Sonoma County and has Native Alaskan ancestry, including a relative buried in the cemetery.
​
“So it’s very sacred land to me and it matters very much,” said Rosenberg, who spoke at the ceremony Saturday about her appreciation for the renovation efforts.

​Brown spoke about learning from the past. The Kashia Pomos lived in the area for more than 12,000 years. He recalled the first governor of California wanted to “exterminate” Native Americans, a dark time in the state’s history.

“In California, we believe in diversity. We believe in hospitality, and we believe in respecting our ancestors and those who got us here and we want to build on that diverse spirit for even a better future. A future of inclusion and diversity and creativity, that’s what it’s all about. And it all starts with standing on this dirt and making it all work for us,” Brown said.

Dino Franklin Jr., tribal chairmen of the Kashia Pomo Band of Indians of the Stewarts Point Rancheria, said the Russian cross at the cemetery was known to his tribe’s dreamers long before, and they saw it as an important symbol.

“I’m grateful that we, the Kashia people, have dreamed about this symbol and the power it has even before contact. It’s a symbol of hope, peace and love,” Franklin said.

Fr. Alexander Krassovsky of Saints Peter and Paul Russian Orthodox Church in Santa Rosa took part in the religious blessing of the new cross. As a Russian American raised in the Bay Area, the cemetery has special meaning to him.

“I think that Fort Ross, altogether, is an example of what Mahatma Gandhi once said, that it is possible to live in peace,” Krassovsky said. “We’ve come to this point today where it is very, very possible that we all have a great deal in common, maybe more than some of our politicians like to think.”

You can reach Staff Writer Susan Minichiello at 707-521-5216
or susan.minichiello@pressdemocrat.com.
​On Twitter @susanmini.

Source: https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/8833090-181/restored-cemetery-at-fort-ross


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