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Want to welcome everyone back to Part fifty one. Of
our reading of two hundred Years Together by Alexander Solshanisen.
I'm gonna ask you this, Doctor Johnson already know the answer.
How are you doing today?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm I'm I'm under the weather. I'm I'm definitely sick.
I rarely get sick, so when it happens, I have
no idea what to do. But I wasn't going to
I was thinking of canceling as it. Now I don't.
I don't do stuff like that, so I have no
you know, it's just your typical virus. I guess. I don't.
I don't know, and I'm getting stuff done and we
have to we have to get through this. We're at
fifty one now, we have to get through this. We
can't be taking any time off.
Speaker 1: No, no, let's uh, let's start right now because we're
going to get into a little uh talking a little
bit about Czarism here, So picking up where we lost
off at the end of episode fifty. Moreover, Russian society
would have ceased to be itself if it had not
brought everything to a single burning question. Czarism still zar
always our Bizarism, but the consequence was this, After the
days of October the programs in nineteen oh five, concrete
aids of the Jewish victims was brought only by the
Jews of Russia and other countries, and Birdyev added, are
you capable of feeling the soul of the Jewish people? No,
you are fighting in favor of an abstract humanity.
Speaker 2: You know, I've written on Bridayav for many years. He
is one of the great existentialist philosophers. I don't really
know what he's talking about here. There needs to be
a little bit more context to what he's writing. His
final Semitism went back and forth, like a lot of
these guys did so, and of course half the revolution
that changed a little bit.
Speaker 1: But yeah, this is confirmed by Siliosberg. In politically evolved circles,
the Jewish question was not politically in the broad sense
of the was not political in the broad sense of
the term. Society was attentive to manifestations of the reaction
in all its forms. In order to correct this misjudgment
of Russian society, a collection of articles entitled Stitt Shit
looks like shit to Me the Shield was published in
nineteen fifteen. It took on globally and exclusively the defense
of the Jews, but without the participation of the latter
As writers. These were either Russian or Ukrainian, and a
beautiful skewer of celebrities of the time was assembled there
nearly forty names. The whole collection was based on a
single theme, Jews in Russia. It is univocal in its conclusions,
and its formulations denote in some places a certain spirit
of sacrifice. A few samples l Andreev quote the prospect
of an approaching solution to the Jewish problem brings about
a feeling of joy close to fervor, the feeling of
being freed from a pain that has accompanied me all
my life, which was like a hump on the back.
I breathe the poisonous air. M. Gorky, the great European thinkers,
consider that the psychic structure of the jew is culturally higher,
more beautiful than that of the Russian. Yes. Of course,
he then rejoiced at the development in Russia of the
sex of the Sabotists and that of the New Israel P.
Malayantovitch Maliansovitch. The arbitrariness to which the Jews are subjected
is a reproach which, like a stain covers the name
of the Russian people. The best among the Russians feel
it is a shame that pursues you all your life.
We are barbarians among the civilized peoples of humanity. We
are deprived of the precious right to be proud of
our people. The struggle for the equal rights of the
Jews represents for the Russi man a national cause of
prime importance. The arbitrary and its subjected to the Jews
condemns the Russian to failure and their attempts to attain
their own happiness. If we do not worry about the
liberation of the Jews, quote, we will never be able
to solve our own problems end quote.
Speaker 2: So in that in that section, he's he's saying that
that our pride is Russians is based on the Jews
and whether they are treated well or not. But of
course they're never treated well in Goist society. So it's
it's it's very bizarre what these people. I mean, Gorky,
you expect that crap out of him. But anyway, the
rest are you know, everything seems to be based on
you know, Russians aren't civilized because the Jews don't rule.
It's really what I'm coming with, what I'm what I'm
taking from some of this quote.
Speaker 1: If we remove everything that hinders the Jews, we will
see an increase in the intellectual force of Russia a
Komokhova quote. On the other hand, our close spiritual relationship
with the Jewish world and the domain of the highest
spiritual values. On the other the Jews may be the
object of contempt of hatred al Andreev. It is we,
the Russians, who are the Jews of Europe are border
It is precisely the pale of settlement di Mareshkovsky. What
do the Jews expect of us? Our moral indignation? But
this indignation is so strong and so simple that we
only have to scream with the Jews. This is what
we do by the effect of I am by the
effect of I am not sure which misunderstanding. Berdhev is
not one of the authors of the Shield, but he
said of himself that he had broken with his milieu
from his earliest youth, and that he preferred to frequent
the Jews.
Speaker 2: No, whatever that means.
Speaker 1: All of the authors of the Shield defined anti Semitism
as an ignoble feeling, as quote a disease of consciousness,
obstinate and contagious. That's by Kolakovski and an accommedition. But
at the same time, several others note that the methods
and process of anti Semites are of foreign origin. Milyyakov
said that quote, the latest cry of anti Semitic ideology
is a product of the German industry of the spirit.
The Aryan theory has been taken up by our nationalist
press Menshikov. The ideas of Gobeno Kokotchen. The doctrine of
the superiority the Aryans is in relation to the Semites
is of a German manufacture see Ivanov.
Speaker 2: That's interesting because you know there was always you know,
Komyakov in the eighteen eighteen sixties eve or even before then,
had the Kushite versus Iranian division of peoples of the world,
and Iranian is really just Aryan. That was much before then.
I don't know if this is just to deflect criticism.
It's not our fault, it's the German's fault. But you notice,
of course, none of these people are going to say,
what did the Jews do to earn this? It's a feeling,
It's like a disease. Disease is something that you catch,
you know, it has nothing to do with with anyone's behavior.
It's just it's something that you have to just get
rid of and not think about. It's this is absolutely absurd.
They're doing everything in their power, and these are mostly Jews,
by the way, they're doing everything in their power to
avoid you know, the question, what did the Jews do? What?
What hell have they provoked this kind of thing? What
sort of people are these? I mean, nothing has changed today,
of course, but when you start connecting it or using
the disease metaphor, really that means it has no connection
to behavior at all, just random. It's funny. Though there
was no hatred of the Arabs in Russia, there was
no hatred of Armenians. You know they are Christians, but
heretical Christians certainly. You know, no other group, not even
the Germans who did very well. Only the Jews were
treated this way.
Speaker 1: But for us, with our hump on our backs, what
does it change? Invited by the Progressive Circle at the
end of nineteen sixteen, Gorky devoted two hours of his
lecture to rolling the Russian people in the mud and
raising the Jews to the Skies, as noted by the
progressive deputy Mansrev Mansirev, one of the founders of the Circle.
A contemporary Jewish writer analyzes this phenomenon objectively and lucidly. Quote.
We assisted to aud transformation of the minds of the
cultivated Russians, who unfortunately took to heart the Jewish problem
much more greatly than might have been expected. Compassion for
the Jews was transformed into an imperative, almost as categorical
as the formula God, the Czar, the Fatherland. As for
the Jews quote, they took advantage of this profession of
faith according to their degree of cynicism end quote. At
the same time, Rosanov spoke of quote the avid desire
of the Jews to seize everything, so at least.
Speaker 2: You have some some reference to their behavior. But I
don't know what this Jewish writer is, but he is
telling the truth here. Godsar, Fatherland has been replaced in
the minds of Russian intellectuals with how are the Jews
being treated? Powerless people can't make that happen. Extremely powerful
people make that happen. All of this shows the immense
power that the Jews had over Russian society, which I
think is not even a tenth of what it has
over American society or British society at the time. Then
before trying to pass it off to the Germans. You know,
but this is so Rosanna. Finally, he notes that this
Avid desires the Jews to seize everything. Okay, you know,
so at least there's some common sense here. In the twenties,
v Shulgeen summed it up as follows.
Speaker 1: Quote. At that time, quarter of a century before the revolution,
the Jews had taken control of the political life of
the country. The brain of the nation, if we accept,
if we accept, the government and the circles close to
it found itself in the hands of the Jews and
was accustomed to think according to their directives, despite all
the restrictions on their rights. The Jews had taken possession
of the soul of the Russian people. But was it
the Jews who had seized the Russian soul or did
the Russian simply not know what to do with it?
Still in the shield Marshnovsky Mareshkovsky tried to explain that
Philosemitism had arisen in reaction to anti Semitism, that the
blind valorization of a foreign nationality. Was asserted that the absolute,
the absolutization of the no led to that of the Yes,
and Professor Vaudouin des Courtenay acknowledged that many, even among
the political friends of the Jews, experience repulsion and acknowledge
it in private. Here, of course, there is nothing to do.
Sympathy and antipathy are not commanded. We must nevertheless rely
not on effects but on reason.
Speaker 2: Well, he certainly he was telling the truth, you know,
but reason was the one thing that was not involved
in any of this. Now, Sultan Eatson was very sympathetic
to the old believers, like I am. I have a
book out on the topic, and and that was a
the sism in Russian society, the two different kinds of royalists,
you Muscovite type and your and your Saint Petersburg type.
I think that's what he means when he says they
don't know what to do with it or what it was.
This massive you know what happened in the eighteenth century
in Russia. It was it was unparalleled. You had forced westernization,
you had you know, these female rulers. But of course
it was foreign Masonic men, you know, the the like
Lord Byron who actually ran the country from behind the scenes,
who hated Russia, who hated Orthodoxy, Catherine the Second, who
didn't didn't really speak Russian, and you know, it was
a bad faith conversion. The only good, good section of
the eighteenth century was was Elizabeth. But otherwise not a
legitimate monarch in that in that whole thing. Uh, the
Petrine Revolution.
Speaker 1: Was just that.
Speaker 2: And that builds on the the sism that occurred under
Zar Alexis in the previous generation, because that's that's you know,
there were that's It's the simplest way I could put it,
and I've already put it that the Saint Petersburg type
and then the Muscovite type. Muscovite type is very medievalist.
I tend to find myself in that. In that camp
most of the time. The Slavophiles, well the Slava Files
didn't like the old believers either, which is odd because
that would be very much an old believer matter. And
the Saint Petersburg type, which included Nicholas the First, who
was a great man, that was more your you know,
your civic type. I'm not saying that they didn't have
an ethnic component. They did, they didn't make the the
extreme distinction that we make today. But but I think
maybe I think what he come in, what it comes
down to is he doesn't realize the the what Russia
was at its best. There was no agreement on it.
That's because of Zar Alexis, that's because of Zar Peter
forced westernization and now here we see, oh, the blind
valorization of a foreign nationality was asserted. Well, if you
can do that with the Western world one hundred years
earlier or more a little bit more, then you can
do it with Jews. Now, you know, Russia had been
through hell of it. People don't realize the revolutionary changes
that took place in Russia in the eighteenth century. I
got so much stuff out on it, and how the
monarchy had been reduced to almost nothing, even though you
had plenty of you know, most of the the old
whelming majority of the population were monarchists. By the time
of our Nicholas the Second that had changed that, you know,
Alexander Nicholas had brought it back to its previous level.
The Old Believers were equalized with the Orthodox Church even
before nineteen oh five. So but that's that's maybe maybe
I'm being too rational about it what I just said before.
You know, the brain of the nation. So you had
the Russian State, you had Russian patriots, then you had
the Jews. That was it. Now I think maybe Shulgan's
comment he said in the twenties, I mean he means
the nineteen twenties, I think, But.
Speaker 1: Yes, I believe, I believe you means.
Speaker 2: If you means the nineteen twenties, then then yeah, that
that that's true. But there was no Russian nation. Russia
was subsumed and terrorized under the Soviet Union. Lenin hated Russians,
Stalin hated Russians, and they were exploited mercilessly for the
benefit of everybody else. That's a whole separate set of issues.
Nationalism was selectively accepted if it was like the Ukrainian
or Baltic or Georgian or something like that. The only
one that was never allowed, the only one that never
had its own party really or its own press, was Russia.
It's kind of like England in the UK. So I
have a lecture and a paper out on the the
Leningraders with the purges of the Pro Russian Party after
World War two. These are the people who you know,
defended Leningrad from the invasion. They were Russian nationalists, and
Stalin could not have that. He got rid of all
of them. It's a little known purge that he did
right afterwards and got rid of some of his best people.
So Russia was tormented and split many times, starting from
Peter the Great all the way to all the way
to well, maybe you know, all the way to the
end of World War two. So I'm still I'm focused
on Sultan Eestan comment. Maybe the Russians didn't know what
to do with it, but I still say, by this
period of time, the reign of Nicholas the Second had
brought it all together. And had he survived, and had
he had, you know, successors, Russian history would have been
extremely different in ways we couldn't even imagine, which is
precisely why the Bolshevik Revolution had to happen when it did. Plus,
World War One created such brutal disruption in chaos. They
bring order out of chaos, and so that's you know,
and don't forget nationry, which is very judaic in many ways,
penetrated some of the great noble families at the time,
all the way all the way up to the revolution.
Speaker 1: The confusion that rained in the minds of those days
was brought to light with greater significance and reached by P. B. Struff,
who devoted his entire life to breaking down the obstacles
erected on the path that would lead him from Marxism
to the rule of law, and along the way also
obstacles of other kinds. The occasion was a polemic fallen
into a deep oblivion, but of great historical importance, which
broke out in the liberal Slovo newspaper in March nineteen
oh nine and immediately won the entirety of the Russian press.
Everything had begun with the Shurikov affair, an episode whose
importance was inflated to the extreme, an explosion of rage
in a small literary circle, accusing Shirikov, author of a
play entitled the Jews and well disposed toward them, to
be anti Semitic. And this was because at a dinner
of writers, he had let himself go on to say
that most of the literary critics of Saint Petersburg were Jews,
but were they able to understand the reality of Russian life.
This affair shook many things in Russian society. The journalist
Leo bisch Bosch wrote about it, it is the two
Copeck candle that set fire to Moscow.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, that irrationality, that kind of hysteria that
happens today. Of course, I unfortunately have not read this play.
I probably should, but he claims to be philo Semitic.
But it doesn't matter anyway, because he says everything could
be interpreted through their lens. And since they're not really Russians,
they don't we lest speak Russian most of the time,
how can they possibly understand the reality of of of
Russian life. And this is what and you know we've
already read there's a few paragraphs above that that in private,
some of these liberals they're dealing with the Jews were negative.
They just couldn't say it, that, they couldn't maintain their
positions and say it. Of course, in the Soviet Union
you could get your head chopped off for that, for
for any anti anti semitism, but Letting, Letting passed that,
and that was there constant cases in that area. But
but right right, you know, even the political friends of
the Jews experienced repulsion and acknowledge it in private, not
in public. This guy said something he wasn't supposed to say.
That they control the literary criticism of Saint Petersburg, maybe
not Moscow. Moscow tended to be very Russian, but in
the same peg and Kiev maybe, And so it really
doesn't matter what you're right. Everything could to be interpreted
through their eyes, and they're not Russians.
Speaker 1: Considering that he had not sufficiently expressed himself on the
Sharkov affair in a first article, Jabutinsky published a text
entitled a Semitism in the Slovo newspaper on March ninth,
nineteen oh nine. He stated it in his fears and
his indignation at the fact that the majority of the
progressive press wanted to silence this matter, that even a
great liberal newspaper he was referring to, the Russian News,
had not published a word for twenty five years on
the atrocious persecution suffered by the Jewish people. Since then,
the law of silence had been regarded as the latest
trend by progressive philo Semites. It was precisely here that
evil resided in passing over the Jewish question. We can
only agree with this when Sharikov and Arabajin assure us
that there is nothing anti Semitic in their remarks. They
are both perfectly right. Because of this tradition of silence,
one can be accused of anti Semitism for having only
pronounced the word Jew or made the most innocent remark
about some particularity of the Jews. The problem is that
the Jews have become a veritable taboo that forbids the
most trivial criticism, and that it is to them that
are the big losers in the affair. Here again, we
can only agree there is a feeling that the word
Jew itself has become an indecent term. There is here
an echo of a general state of mind that makes
its way among the middle strata of the progressive Russian intelligentsia.
We cannot yet provide tangible proofs of it. We can
only have a presentiment about this state of mind. But
it is precisely that this that torments him. No proofs,
just an intuition, and the Jews will not see the
storm coming. They will be caught unprepared. For the moment.
We see only a small cloud forming in the sky,
and we can hear a distant but already menacing roll.
It is not anti Semitism, it is only a Semitism.
But that also is not admissible. Neutrality cannot be justified
after the program of Kishenev, And while the reactionary press
pedals the inflamed toe of hatred, the silence of the
progressive newspapers about one of the most tragic questions of
Russian life is unacceptable.
Speaker 2: I think what he means. I remember this the first
time I went through it, that many liberal papers, because
Jews were so powerful, they didn't know what to say
about things. They weren't Jews themselves necessarily, Maybe they'll say
the wrong thing, They won't be sensitive enough to certain things.
The word jew versus Jewish people was a big one,
actually came up several times before, and that there's this
fear that you're not gonna be able to get a
job in any literary criticism or anything if you irritate
you irritate the Jews. And I think that's what's that's
what's that's the problem here. Now Jews will not see
the storm coming. Well, that's interesting. They didn't see Kimo
Nitski coming. They thought the Messiah was coming. They never learned.
They never learned from their from their history. A Semitism,
I think, in his mind is something purely negative. But
at least he's giving a somewhat rational explanation for it.
And that is the fear of the Jewish Jewish friends
of saying the wrong thing. Because the entire Jewish mentality
there and now is based on finding offense in things
and throwing people always off balance. It's a tremendously powerful thing.
Speaker 1: In the editorial the same issue of Slovo were formulated
the following reservations about job Atsinski's article quote. The accusations
made by the author against the progressive press correspond, in
our opinion, to the reality of things. We understand the
sentiments that have inspired the author with his bitter remarks,
but to impute to the Russian intelligency of the intention,
so to speak, deliberately of sweeping the Jewish question under
the rug is unfair. The Russian reality has so many
unresolved problems that we cannot devote much space to each
of them. Yet, if many of these problems are resolved,
this will have very important effects, including the Jews who
are citizens of our common homeland. And if the editorialist
of the Slovo had then asked Jabutinsky why he did
not defend one or the other of those fools who
uttered quote the innocent, the most innocent remark about some
particularity of the Jews. Was Jewish opinion interested only in them?
Did they take their part? Or was it enough to
observe how the Russian intelligentsia got rid of the anti Semites. No,
the Jews were no less responsible than the others for
this taboo.
Speaker 2: See that this is this is how Jewish power works.
No other power works this way, I think or otherwise.
This is this. This book is utter proof that what
we deal with today and even worse, what they deal
with in Britain, is nothing new. It's this this fake victimhood.
You know. I remember years ago, now I was in
college and even in high school, you say some racial
remark and you were thrown out of school or something. Well,
how powerless could they be? How powerless could they be?
If if if even one little thing could of course
they're powerful, They're they're culturally dominant. I didn't know how
to articulate it way back when, but it's the same
thing here. And I said a hundred times that the
the the didn't build their own propaganda apparatus. The White
Army never built their own propaganda apparatus. The Church was
doing it, and they certainly did it abroad after the revolution,
But I don't think those are fully understood the importance
of propaganda. To Potinski, he did.
Speaker 1: Another article in the same paper helped launch the discussion.
The agreement, not the fusion of Vigolyubev of v. Galyubev. Indeed,
the Sharkov affair is far from being an isolated case.
At the present time. The national question is also of
concern to our intelligentsia. In the recent past, especially in
the year of the Revolution, our intelligentsia had sinned very
much by cosmopolitanism. But the struggles that have been fought
within our community and between the nationalities that populate the
Russian state have not disappeared without leaving traces. Like the
other nationalities in those years, the Russians had to look
at their own national question. When nationalities deprived of sovereignty
began to self determine, the Russians felt they need to
do so as well. Even the history of Russia, we
Russian intellectuals, we know it, perhaps less well than European history.
Universal ideals have always been more important to us in
the edification of our own nation. But even according to
Vladimir Solovyov, who is however, very far removed from nationalism
before being a bearer of universal ideas, it is essential
to raise oneself to a certain national level, and the
feeling of raising oneself seems to have begun to make
its way into our intelligentsia. Until now, we have been
silent on our own peculiarities. Remembering them in our memory
does not constitute a manifestation of anti Semitism and oppression
of other nationalities. Between nationalities, there must be harmony and
not fusion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, internationalism and cosmopolitanism are two different things. The Marxist
use word internationalism. Internationalism applies that nations exist and it's
how they interact that their entities that exist on the
world stage. Cosmopolitanism says there are no nationalities, so it's
just one universal reality. But Selova is saying that unless
you know what your own people are, you can't reject
all of that and claim to be a cosmopolitan I
mean we know now, of course, it is forced on
kids in school and everything else. Slovia was no expert
on Russian history, Sergei Slova was. But I guess you know,
what we've heard from from liberal Russians from then until
now are just you know, slogans about how evils areism
or how terrible whites are owning slaves in the American South,
you know, and unconscious racism and all that cramp. But
that doesn't constitute knowledge. That's the opposite of knowledge. That's
a short circuit in the brain, that's that's the result
of propaganda, almost a trauma reaction. So I think, I
think that's when these are liberals here, that's what he
means by this sinned with cosmopolitanism. Alexander Herzen was an
early hinteenth century Russian liberal who or westernizer, I should say,
who once he went to the West, once he lived
in England, suddenly became a Russian nationalist. Again, that tendency
tends to happen. It changed him in the abstract. It
seems one thing when you see it in your in
front of your face. Maybe this isn't what I want.
Universal ideals have to be based on something. Ah So Slovia,
you know, is believed in nations certainly, but in international order.
Now of course this is all before World War One,
for World War two, you know, for the USSR. You know,
you can give them some breaks for that, but of
course the very fact that they're you know, they're they're
they're making the same apologies that we have to make.
Just you know, making reference to to one's own nation
doesn't mean you hate everybody else. Every nation has its
own peculiarities. The Jews especially, you know, it's like that many.
You know, I don't know if you've seen the the
most interesting Jew in the world. You know, however you view,
there's a lot of truth to that objective truth to that.
Jews in the comments are laughing saying, yeah, yeah, I guess. So,
you know, when you put it that way, it's a
different story. I think it just came to comes down
to fear. Liberals needed Jewish money, didn't want to piss
them off, didn't want to say the wrong thing, weren't
quite sure of how to report on this stuff, so
they kind of didn't say anything. I think that's been
the thesis so far.
Speaker 1: Well, you know how all this works. If you're talking
about the Jews controlling the alcohol manufacturing, and you know
the way they promoted it, to the peasants and you're saying,
good job. You know that was good capitalism there, guys.
You know you the advertising was great. You guys made
a buck off of it, and yeah, you had control
of that. That's fine, as soon as you say, as
soon as you talk about that, but you say, well,
maybe they were taking advantage of people who you know,
were less educated than them, less worldly than them, and
they you know, they actually they could have known. They
they knew, they actually knew that these peasants had a
tendency towards liking alcohol that they probably shouldn't have done that.
You know, you're you're in another you're in another country
that has a has a way of doing things, has customs,
and you've just broken the custom. But if you say that,
then you obviously want to kill them all.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. There's this hysteria attached to it. There's
some kind of short circuit I've been dealing with. You've
been dealing with it your whole life. I've been dealing
with my whole life. Jews are really not non blacks,
especially Blacks and Jews. I don't know about anyone else
but home sexuals that if you criticize them rationally, you
hate them personally, And I am sick and tired of
having to say this isn't personal. This has to do
with your aggregate effect on society, not the guy I
went to school with, not my dentist, not the guy
who lived down the street. This is not a personal matter.
One has nothing to do with the other. I actually
have to explain to adults the difference between groups and individuals,
and as is anyone who knows what a group is,
it's the Jews.
Speaker 1: The editorial team of the newspaper may have taken all
these precautions because it was preparing to publish the following day,
March tenth, an article by PB Struve quote the intelligency
on the national face, which had coincidentally arrived at the
same time than that of Jabutinsky and also dealing with
the Sharikov case. Struve wrote, this incident, which will soon
be forgotten, has shown that something has moved in the minds.
Something has moved in the minds, has awakened and will
no longer be calmed, and we will have to rely
on that the Russian intelligencia hides its national face. It
is an attitude that imposes nothing which is sterile. Nationality
is something much more obvious and at the same time
something subtle. It is the attraction and repulsion of the mind.
And to become aware of them, it is not necessary
to resort to anthro anthropometry anthropometric I can't pronounce that
word or anthropometry. Ok. They live and palpitate in the
depths of the soul. One can and must fight to
make these attractions repulsions not to be brought into law.
But political equality does not require from us national indifference.
These attractions and repulsions belong to us. They are our goods,
the organic feeling of our national belonging. And I do
not see the slightest reason to renounce this property in
the name of anyone or anything.
Speaker 2: Remember, this wasn't a This wasn't something he wrote the
Cherukov case. It wasn't it wasn't the play itself. It
was something he said later, and not I don't even
think in writing. I mean, people today are taught that
there is no such things as nationality unless you're Jews, Jewish,
or or Black or Ukrainian. It was a very typical
Soviet policy. Whoever works for us will will permit some
kind of national assault to them that we're all just individuals,
were all the same under the skin. We know that
that's not true, But how can you know Corstruv is
not a not a not a Jew? But how can
Jews claim any kind of they were they were ruling
the intellectual life of at least a U. I think
it's an exaggeration to say that they were the It
wasn't true. I've been reading stuff from this era for many,
many years. There's all kinds of nationalist stuff and royalist stuff,
and you know, but still the Jewish question comes up
in each and every one of these things. Not the Germans,
not the Arabs, not the Armenians, not the Georgians, not
the Ossetians, but the Turks, but the Jews the only
ones who have this particular feature. But now you know,
the kids are taught that there is no such thing
as ethnicity, there is no such thing as any kind
of What's the slogan that they use is more difference
within groups and between them, or between them and within them.
I should say, whatever you eat, whatever it is, and
it just doesn't matter. It's an arbitrary border. That isn't true,
of course, And then of course, as the economic elites
have demanded globalism from at least this era, if not before.
Of course they hate any kind of na Nationalists has
been the only enemy of capitalism, Marxism. Capitalists invested heavily
in the USSR. No nationalism was the enemy, and so
of course you're going to be raised in a society
that says it doesn't exist, or it's a bad thing,
or it leads to warfare. So you know, a lot
of this stuff in Russia was just getting talked about
it for the first time. You didn't have hate crime
laws obviously in Zars Russia at the time, and not
that wasn't until you know, the Mulsovics, So you could
talk about this rationally and fully and it wasn't interesting.
But it's not interesting now because first of all, Jews
control most of the discussion about them, and secondly, you know,
the non Jews, when they dare talk about something like this,
they're scared to death. For the same reason we've already.
Speaker 1: Said, yes, insists trews. It is essential to draw a
border between the legal, the political domains and the realm
where these sentiments live. Especially with regards to the Jewish question.
It is both very easy and very difficult. The Jewish
question is formally a question of law, and for this
reason it is easy and natural to help solve it,
to grant the Jews equal rights, yes, of course. But
at the same time it is very difficult, because the
force of rejection towards the Jews in different strata of
Russian society is considerable, and it requires great moral force
in a very rational mind too. Despite this, repulsion resolved
definitively this question of right. However, even though there is
a great force of rejection towards the Jews among large
segments of the Russian population, of all the foreigners to
the Jews are those who are closest to us, those
who are the most closely linked to us. It has
historical culture, all right, And and remember this, this is
a socialistan talking. This is strue writing right, right, This is.
Speaker 2: Not right right.
Speaker 1: It is a historical cultural paradox. But it is so.
The Russian intelligentsia has always regarded the Jews as Russians.
And it is neither fortuitous nor the effect of a misunderstanding.
The deliberate initiative of rejecting Russian culture and asserting Jewish
national singularity does not belong to the Russian intelligentsia, but
to this movement known as Zionism. I do not feel
any sympathy for Zionism, but I understand that the problem
of Jewish nationality does indeed exist, and it poses it
and even poses itself more and more. It is significant
that he places national and Jewish in quotation marks. He
still cannot believe that the Jews think of themselves as others.
There does not existence. Yeah, that's all that in the parenthetic.
In the parentheses that was social. There does not exist.
There does not exist in Russia. Other foreigners who play
a role as important in Russian culture. And here is
another difficulty. They play this role while remaining Jews. One cannot,
for example, deny the role of the Germans in Russian
culture and science. But by immersing themselves in Russian culture,
the Germans completely blend into it with the Jews. That's
another matter.
Speaker 2: I don't know what he's, you know, part of Russian identity.
Very early on we talked about this that all God
knows how many years ago. When we started this thing,
I was about to slove destroying the Kasar Khanate, the
slave raids, the the tolls that they charged at the Volga.
You know, there was always a contempt for this this Jews,
I mean, they're they're Kazars, especially if if if no
other place than in Russia. So even talking about Semites
when you when you're right next to literally right next
to Kazaria, Uh, doesn't doesn't make any sense to me.
Clearly these are Kazar Turks or you know, mixed Turks,
whatever they what else whatever else is down there. Uh.
But no, Russian Jews don't see themselves as Russians, unless,
of course it benefits them for the moment. You know,
they play an important role, that's for sure. Doesn't mean
it's a good role in Russian culture, but it also
comes from the fact that they could buy it, that
they simply had the power. What are they talking about
equal rights for when you have people like this saying
that they control the cultural discord or at least or
number two in the cultural discourse here. And we know,
we know that the past has hated them. You know
that many of the Russian language, Russian speaking merchants hated them.
They've dealt with them before, especially in the western part
of the country. You know, the people who have actually
dealt with them one on one, and it's it's hard,
you know, some of these some of these liberals, I mean,
Kant even didn't like them. Of all people, Kant didn't
like them. But but you know, he's still a beacon
of the enlightenment. You know, it's hard to believe that
a lot of these guys maybe didn't believe what they
were saying. Yeah, there was a lot of foreigners within
the Russian Empire. Russia wasn't a country, it was an empire.
Russia is an empire. The Russian Empire is something something different.
But this nonsense that this Russian society has always viewed
Jews closest to them as utter nonsense. I mentioned the
Kazaria thing because that was some of Russia's very early
sense of self identity came from its wars with Kazaria.
The exact opposite is true.
Speaker 1: And he concludes, we must not deceive our national feeling
or hide our faces. I have a right, like any
Russian to these feelings. The better it understood, the less
there will be misunderstandings in the future. Yes, Oh, if
we had woken up as much as we are a
few decades earlier, the Jews. They had awakened long before
the Russians. I think this is a good place to
stop for the day.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, we were to keep going with Struve's. It's
already close to an hour all right. Yeah, this is perfect.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're not feeling well, so yeah, I'm not.
At least we got we got something recorded. Good, all right.
I encourage everyone go to the show notes, go to
the the the description of the videos, and donate to
doctor Johnson. Please keep him not working having to get
a job so that he can keep studying and he
can keep educating us. So as always, thank you doctor Johnson.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thank you, my friend. No problem.