What the veterans discovered when they came back from the war wasn’t just the poverty, the hunger and the destruction. They also came back to a country that had changed completely between 1941 and 1945. The former idealism, the faith in the revolution, communism, fraternity and equality were dead and gone. Profound cynicism and materialism set in. A very visible elite was formed that consisted of people who had connections and could get objects of luxury and trade them for other objects of luxury. The last generation of party leaders who took a tram to work was the pre-war one. The new generation led truly princely lifestyles. (This is something that would never change. Today, their grandchildren are the political leaders and the owners of the supposedly post-Soviet Russia.)
Understandably, the popular discontent was growing. People realized that even though they had won the war, all they had to come home to was misery and back-breaking labor that would only enrich the lucky few. Stalin needed to channel this massive unhappiness somewhere. As usual, he didn’t invent anything new but simply copied one of the people he admired the most in the world: Hitler.
The remedy took. People remembered how comforting it was to hate those greedy, nasty, scheming Jews and popular anti-Semitism grew.
There was another reason why Stalin encouraged anti-Semitism, though. There is ample evidence that at the time right before his death he was preparing to unleash World War III. Of course, he couldn’t initiate a nuclear conflict and expect the downtrodden of the world to support him. He needed to provoke his greatest enemy, the United States. I strongly believe that public trials of Jews and mass deportations were planned specifically to provoke the United States into doing something that would justify the entrance of the USSR into a global nuclear conflict.
After Stalin’s death, anti-Semitism remained the daily reality both on the popular and on the institutional levels until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nowadays, I don’t think that anti-Semitism is much of an issue in the FSU countries for the simple reason that most Jews left.
This concludes this series of posts. I will now accept questions and comments on how well I explain complex facts of history. 🙂
Clarissa's Blog 
*I strongly believe that public trials of Jews and mass deportations were planned specifically to provoke the United States*
I find it impossible to believe. Why think USA will get involved because of Jews despite its’ own interests, when it hasn’t done anything RE Stalin’s purges before? And when Stalin saw on Hitler’s example how much other countries will see in silence and not interfere, if it doesn’t concern them very much?
Here is a document from Yad va Shem organization how the Allies, meaning mainly US, refused time after time to bomb the railroad tracks leading up to Auschwitz:
Click to access Microsoft%20Word%20-%205786.pdf
Imho, USA wouldn’t be able to care less specifically about Jews in USSR and where they would be sent to live as some other USSR nationalities had been before.
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*Nowadays, I don’t think that anti-Semitism is much of an issue in the FSU countries for the simple reason that most Jews left.*
No Jews = no problem doesn’t mean the anti-semitism isn’t as blooming as ever. I even notice it in Russian blogsphere on Internet. Here is a post I found via your friend’s lj on children’s pictures in Auschwitz. We talk about small children, who almost all died there, yes?
http://radulova.livejournal.com/2336446.html
On page 2 we see comments like:
A: ога, страдания еврейских дете
B: Как БООООЛЬНОООО……..
Not sure about this one, may be she’s sincere.
C: То есть, им еще “звери нацисты” давали карандашики и краски для рисования?..
D: Текст почитать не судьба?
“Когда пришел ее черед отправляться в гетто, Фридл взяла с собой краски, кисти, карандаши, бумагу, альбомы по живописи – сколько смогла при положенных пятидесяти килограммов багажа на человека. На входе в Терезин охрана не посчитала все эти художественные принадлежности «ценностями», и их не отобрали.”
C: Надо же, какие добрые фашисты, еще и разрешали “жидам” самовыражаться! Чудо!
Most Russians don’t have internet and/or ljs, so you see usually more educated people on lj and in radulova’s lj specifically. One shouldn’t forget it.
And when somebody puts a word in ” “, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t think it without ” “.
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I honestly think that xenophobia and racism – that are rampant in Russia today – are addressed to people other than Jews.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
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Of course, to other people too, like Kavkazians in Moscow, who are more *numerous*. But why would Jews be excluded suddenly despite formidable history of anti-semitism?
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Because it makes little sense to hate what isn’t there?
I’m not insisting on this point. I keep being told by Russians that there is no ant-semitism any more so I believe them. If there is evidence to the contrary, I’m very willing to reconsider my point of view on this one.
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It is very easy to hate “whose who are not there” if those hated are the mighty Judeo-Masonic conspirators and the secret rulers of the world… Along with the US State Department… Or was the US State department also working in the interest of Judeo-Masons? Do not remember exactly… 🙂 🙂
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Do you also think there is a lot of anti-semitism in FSU today?
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More comments on Jews:
http://fritzmorgen.livejournal.com/419286.html?thread=138658006#t138658006
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