[PEN-L:1880] Open letter to Gennady Zyuganov

[Robert Naiman <naimanr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Open letter to Gennady Zyuganov

	from a Jewish leftist in the U.S.A.

Gennady Zyuganov
Russian Communist Party

Dear Brother Zyuganov,

Greetings. I hope my letter finds you in good health.

Allow me to address you as an American Jewish leftist, as one with great
concern over the suffering of Russias people, and also as one deeply
concerned with the suffering of the Arab peoples of the Middle East, indeed
as one who has brought medicine to Iraq in violation of the U.S. embargo and
who was imprisoned by the Israeli authorities in February 1996 for
attempting to nonviolently obstruct the demolition of a Palestinian home by
Israeli authorities, and who remains to this day barred from Israel by the
Israeli government.

Let me begin my letter by expressing my deep regret for the destructive role
that the United States, through its military, economic and political
policies, has played in Russia, particularly for the role of the U.S., the
IMF, and USAID in supporting "shock therapy" for the Russian economy, which
has caused so much suffering for the Russian people.

While I continue to be saddened by the suffering of the Russian people, I
have been heartened by the recent moves of the Russian government to
"declare independence" from the IMF and the U.S. and return to economic
policies more attuned to the interests of the Russian people than to the
interests of international banks and multinational corporations.

However, I was quite dismayed to read recent press reports that you have
recently and publicly attacked the role of "Zionist capital" in Russia,
accusing it of "ruining Russias economy."

I hope that these reports are not accurate. If they are not, please accept
my apologies and my hope that in the future, you will bear in mind how your
remarks may be distorted in the Western media and choose your words more
carefully.

If these reports are accurate, however, I must vigorously protest. Your
remarks are being interpreted in the West a thinly veiled anti-Semitic
attack. Sadly, I must agree with this assessment. In making these remarks,
not only do you do a great disservice to the Jews of Russia, who must surely
feel less safe today knowing that the head of the Russian Communist Party is
willing to engage in anti-Semitic diatribes, you also do a great disservice
to all those who struggle for more economic justice in the world and to all
those who support the just demands of the Palestinian and Arab peoples for
self-determination.

That you do a disservice to the Jews of Russia, by making an issue of the
religious or ethnic background of some of the clique around Yeltsin instead
of attacking them for their specific activities, I think is obvious. That
you do a disservice to those who support economic justice and Arab and
Palestinian self-determination may not be so obvious to you, so let me
attempt to explain.

To begin, I hope that you would agree that the opinions of the
newspaper-reading public in the United States are a matter of great import
for the world. It should not be so; in a just and more perfect world, power
would be more evenly distributed, the U.S. would not be able to push other
countries around so much, and so the opinions of Americans would not matter
so much. But while we should all work to reduce the power of the U.S.
relative to other countries, for the foreseeable future U.S. policy will
have a great impact.

Now, I would not claim that we in the U.S. democratically control the U.S.
government. Clearly this is not the case; our democracy is rather imperfect,
to say the least. Nonetheless, public opinion does have some impact.
Consider the Vietnam War as an example. The war continued long after it was
deeply unpopular in the U.S. Nonetheless, popular protest shortened the war
and thus saved many lives. More recently, activists opposed to the policies
of the IMF succeeded in blocking the Clinton Administrations request for
more money for the IMF in the U.S. House of Representatives. While the IMF
eventually got the money through a backroom deal, we believe that this
battle significantly weakened the IMF politically and contributed to the
somewhat increased flexibility the IMF has shown recently, at least in Asia.

I assume you are aware that for many years Yeltsin and his clique have been
portrayed in the West as "democrats " and "reformers," who are only opposed
by "remnants of the Stalinist regime" and "extreme nationalists." (The term
"nationalist" in this context has the connotation not of those who defend
the general public against the interests of foreign powers but of those who
promote ethnic hatred and xenophobia to advance their political careers. )
With this portrayal, increasingly at odds with reality as you know, the U.S.
government was able to maintain public support for its destructive policy of
supporting Yeltsin at all costs and destroying the Russian economy.

I hope you will see then, that by making comments like this you play into
the hands of Russias worst enemies, foreign powers who would destroy
Russian industry and make Russia a Third World vassal of the United States,
exporting raw materials and importing industrial goods. Comments like this
allow the U.S. government to portray those who oppose the rule of Russia by
the U.S., the IMF, and foreign corporations as Jew-haters and racists. I
would not be surprised to find out that U.S. State Department officials were
secretly delighted by your remarks.

Similarly, and perhaps more importantly for the fate of the world, your
remarks do a great disservice to those of us who are working, against
formidable odds, to change U.S. policy in the Middle East. Perhaps Russia
will be able to find its own way even in the face of U.S. opposition.
Perhaps Russia, with its nuclear weapons, can cancel its foreign debt and
expel the IMF without fear of a U.S. military attack. The Arabs of the
Middle East have no such security. Every day they live under the threat of
U.S. military intervention, as we have seen demonstrated again so recently.
As you know, more than a million Iraqis have died as a result of the
U.S.-maintained economic embargo.

You must know that those who support the current U.S. policies in the Middle
East, and those who support the policies of the Israeli government which
since 1948 has expelled Palestinians, confiscated their land and destroyed
their houses, you must know that these forces have benefited tremendously
from the lie that those who oppose their policies are anti-Jewish. I know
that you said in your letter that you are not anti-Jewish. But when you use
the term "Zionist" to refer to the activities of Jewish capitalists in
Russia, you conflate two unrelated things to the detriment of both
criticisms. Unless you have specific evidence that they are connected, which
you are then obligated to place before the world, you should keep separate
your criticism of the activities of capitalists in Russia, however
nefarious, from your criticism of colonialists in the Middle East. If you
fail to make this separation, your criticism of "Zionists" in Russia will be
interpreted -- correctly -- as anti-Semitism and your criticism of "Zionism"
in the Middle East will be dismissed as anti-Semitic as well, at least in
the West.

Lastly, Brother Zyuganov, I would ask you a question. If your remarks lead
many Jews in Russia to feel more insecure, and if this insecurity leads more
Russian Jews to emigrate, and if some of these Jews emigrate to Israel, and
if the Israeli government settles these Russian Jews on land and even in
houses that it has stolen from Palestinian Arabs; then, Brother Zyuganov,
exactly whose interests have you served?

Im sure, Brother Zyuganov, that you would be alarmed to discover that your
criticism of "Zionism" had in fact made you an "objective ally of Zionism."

Brother Zyuganov, I wish you peace and prosperity in the New Year and the
same for all the peoples of the world. Lchaim.

Robert Naiman
1744 Kalorama NW
Washington, DC 20009