Putin’s ‘Secondary Antisemitism’

HAIFA, Israel — The view of Ukraine as part of Russia, captured in the etymology of the Russian word “Ukraine,” is at the heart of the aggression: the “periphery,” the “border region” of the Moscow state, the “edge,” the “vassal” revolted against the “suzerain.” And the “suzerain” brings down on the “vassal” all the power of his military machine.

One of the goals of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “military operation” is the “demilitarization” of Ukraine, that is, the legitimization of its subordinate position to Russia, the formal deprivation of its independence. According to Putin’s ideology, Russia’s “outskirts” cannot be independent of Russia. The second goal of the war is “denazification,” that is, the fight against the “neo-Nazis” of Ukraine, led by the Jewish President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Defining a Jew as a neo-Nazi is a manifestation of the “secondary antisemitism” fashionable in recent years. “Primary,” conventional antisemitism comes from the inequality of Jews with non-Jews: Jews are inferior people because of their negative traits and deeds, including the crucifixion of Christ, poisoning wells, eating the blood of Christian babies, racial inferiority, economic predation, the desire to take over the world, destructive revolutionary radicalism. “Secondary” antisemitism asserts the equality of Jews with Nazis on negative qualities. Attributing Zelensky to neo-Nazis and demanding “denazification” is not only anti-Ukrainian, but also anti-Jewish move.

In 1887 Leo Tolstoy published a play called The Power of Darkness. After reading the title of the play, writer Vladimir Gilyarovsky wrote, “We have two evils in Russia: below is the power of darkness, above is the darkness of power.” The “darkness of power,” combined with the “power of darkness,” is looming over Ukraine. To understand the consequences of the ongoing invasion, it is worth recalling Friedrich Schiller’s words from the play Demetrius: “Only Russia can defeat Russia.”

Putin is destroying two countries. He is destroying Ukraine militarily, and he is destroying Russia through boycotts and sanctions on other countries. There is a phenomenon characteristic of totalitarian regimes: they are blinded by an exaggerated and mistaken idea of their own power. The Russian-Japanese War of 1904–1905, unleashed by Czarist Russia and lost against all expectations, hastened its destruction. The Third Reich collapsed thanks to military adventures stemming from the unreasonable exaggeration of the Nazi regime. The Soviet Union’s attack on Afghanistan and the decade-long war with that country hastened the collapse of the Soviet empire. Totalitarian regimes have an innate blindness. They cannot correctly calculate their forces. By destroying Ukraine, Putin is promoting what he does not like: the crystallization and consolidation of the Ukrainian nation, which he wants to present as part of the Russian nation: hatred of the occupiers unites Ukrainians. By going to war with Ukraine Russia is approaching its end as an empire. In accordance with Schiller’s statement, Russia defeats itself: an exaggerated belief in its own power and righteousness, expressed in aggression, is the “weapon of mass self-destruction” of Russian power.

As an Israeli, I am interested in the Jewish aspect of this drama. There is no state antisemitism in the Russian Federation. Shifting the antipathy from Jews to the peoples of Western countries, to “people of Caucasian nationality” and to Ukrainians changes the direction of hatred in the Russian Federation and diverts it away from the Jews. In Russia, migrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia, on whom the dislike of the dominant nation is concentrated, play the former role of the Jews. In the Russian Federation, various kinds of phobias — Americanophobia (including the phobia towards the West), Caucasophobia, Islamophobia, Ukrainophobia — are intensively exploited and planted by special state media services.

Antisemitism in Russia is controlled and dosed to the right level by the authorities. Regulated and controlled antisemitism is latent. The gases of state antisemitism are sealed in cisterns stored in the storerooms of the authorities, which can be opened if necessary, and the poisonous fumes will spread. Dormant antisemitism may awaken depending on the policies of the authorities. However, having and using a large number of phobias against a number of peoples is a risky thing to do. Phobias are contagious, explosive, and can spiral out of control. Living in an evil atmosphere threatens the explosion of the “infernal machine” that can result from the overuse of flammable hatred. A country whose air is saturated with the miasmas of misanthropy contains poisonous substances for its citizens. Would Jews suffer from the abundant and careless handling of the oceans of hatred of “children of different nations” by the authorities?

It is hard to say what would have happened if not for the war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine. Russia attacked Ukraine, a nation led by a Jew, Zelensky. Since Russia has brought economic woes upon itself, including a significant deterioration of people’s living standards, Russian citizens will surely have to ask, “Who is to blame?” One possible answer from the population that has a rich tradition of antisemitism and sees Zelensky at the head of a hostile state is that the Jews are to blame.

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Alex Gordon is a native of Kiev, Ukraine, and graduate of the Kiev State University and the Technion in Haifa (Doctor of Science, 1984). He immigrated to Israel in 1979. He is a Full Professor (Emeritus) of Physics in the Faculty of Natural Sciences at the University of Haifa and at Oranim, the Academic College of Education. He is the author of eight books and about 500 articles in print and online, and has been published in 62 journals in 14 countries in Russian, Hebrew, English, and German.