Of course not. These people consciously produced this did not sense that Russian people had changed at all, and bloody propaganda. They are unprincipled by the very this meant that some other people who were not Russians fact of their existence, and people without principles do had introduced the new qualities into life. These were the not possess and are not capable of possessing any beliefs. Jews: people who had no love for the system of Russian Their actions are guided solely by temporary circum- patriarchy, and no connection to the soil; people who stances and pragmatism. While I may disagree with were driven only by a hunger for profit, and who regarded President Roosevelt on several issues, I am absolutely the toiling masses with cold indifference. Dostoevsky saw certain that regardless of how much circumstances might these features in the Jewish merchant and developed a change, Roosevelt’s principles would remain the same. profound hatred for him. But the one thing he failed to There is infinitely greater integrity, honesty and room for understand was that by looking at the Jewish trader, Jewish partnership in this persistence of values (even regarding leaser, and Jewish middle-man, he was only gazing at a matters where there are great differences of opinion), than mirror that showed him a magnified image of the new there is in the conformism, deceit, and sudden shifts of Russian bourgeoisie, frantically evolving in hundreds and sham ideology that constitutes the extremes of German thousands of Russian villages, provincial cities, capitals and National-Socialism. far-flung hamlets. At this point I wish to express some ideas about the This phenomenon has repeated itself throughout all inner essence of antisemitism. of Jewish history. The medieval Spanish inquisition that ƒy endowing ews with the traits, laws and riminal intentions that were raging in their very own hearts, …ational†‡oialism fatefully repeated what previous antisemites had done throughout the ages Antisemitism exists in every country in the world and burned Jews at the stake did not grasp the fact that it has existed throughout human history. It can be found even held up the Jews as a mirror of its own rigid intolerance, in contemporary democratic states. Its character changes orthodoxy and backwards prejudice; that by burning Jews, in different times and places, of course. Antisemitism in it was contending with flaws that had grown up inside its England and antisemitism in tsarist Russia are not the own heart. When Russian reactionary thinkers perceived same thing. Its appearance depends on reactionary forces, the Jews as the source of a revolutionary epidemic, they such as deceitful attempts of ruling powers to explain and did not and perhaps could not know that they were seeing ameliorate social and ideological discontent. Antisemitism a reflection of a Russia that was unconsciously birthing a is a paradigmatic conflict with no solution. The period of revolution in thousands of its factories, plants and mines, post-revolutionary reaction in Russia between 1905 and and in its universities and army barracks. Ideological 1911 has become known for bloody Jewish pogroms and antisemitism cannot and does not want to understand this. charges of ritual murder. But the great Russian Revolution One can put it this way: ‘Tell me what you blame on the was a period of history that did not know antisemitism. Jews, and I will tell you what you are guilty of yourself.’ Here I am speaking of state antisemitism, that is, of the What did the Nazis blame on the Jews? willful incitement of antisemitism by a government They accused them of the seven deadly sins. The apparatus. paradoxical, remarkable thing is that the portrait that the In addition to state antisemitism, there is also so-called Nazis painted of Jews—their supposedly fanatical racism, ‘ideological’ antisemitism. Ideological antisemitism is thirst for global power, hunger to enslave and recklessly rule a phenomenon born of a physiological need to explain over humankind—was in fact a self-portrait. By endowing human and global problems by examining them in a Jews with the traits, flaws and criminal intentions that looking glass rather a mirror. One finds ideological were raging in their very own hearts, National-Socialism antisemites primarily among educated people. When the fatefully repeated what previous antisemites had done great Dostoevsky blamed the Jews for impoverishing throughout the ages. the masses in Russia’s borderlands, he merely substituted The Germans are now being expelled from Ukraine. the invisible and mysterious historical process that had Every day the glorious, weary earth is being liberated, as produced bourgeois, feudal Russian society with the idea if a flood of muddy, filthy German hatred is receding and that Jewish commercial circles had supposedly invaded in its wake, bread is once again beginning to rise, hunched Russia. Mid-nineteenth century Russia experienced an black trees, bushes and forests are straightening themselves intense growth in capitalist relations. Petty buyers and out, and the sun and wind are drying out soil that is soaked sellers, small factory owners, and contractors began to with blood and tears. People are speaking in normal voices appear everywhere, destroying the old means of production again and looking at the world with open eyes. Millions of to benefit themselves, and ruining idyllic relations between people have been freed from slavery. feudal lords and their serfs. Ukraine was one of the fascists’ most important prizes. Dostoevsky saw the new relations, but he did not, Its discussions about Ukraine had begun as early as 1933. or perhaps could not see the new qualities and types of And now, it is in the process of losing—it has already lost— Russian people—the plundering buyers, merciless leasers, Ukraine. Fascism failed to understand (how could it possibly and greedy factory owners—who accompanied them. He understand?) the strength of our people’s resistance, their great 1Ÿ • Jewish Quarterly