First Published: Morning Freiheit, May 18, 1975.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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(Morning Freiheit Statement of May 14, 1975)
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On May 10th and 13th the Daily World published a bitter attack on the Morning Freiheit because of its condemnation of Dimitri Zhukov’s anti-Semitic article in the Moscow journal Ogonyok, and also because the Morning Freiheit demanded that Zhukov be brought before a Soviet court of justice.
The attack on the Morning Freiheit was made in the name of the “Jewish Commission” of the Communist Party, although its statement in the Daily World openly admitted that the article was anti-Semitic.
The Commission’s statement said: “To be sure, in condemning it [the campaign against Zhukov’s article] we cannot defend the Zhukov article itself. It contains a number of gross inaccuracies and statements with distinct anti-Semitic implications... Zhukov cites as an authority for the alleged affluence of the Jews, the Nazi ideologue Werner Sombart and he adds the astounding statement that in Tsarist Russia less than 1 percent of the Jews were proletarian – a complete perversion of reality... Clearly the [Zhukov] article propagates anti-Semitic stereotypes and it violates the precepts of Soviet socialism and Leninist principles; it is unquestionably deserving of the severest criticism.”
At last the Commission concedes that Zhukov’s article is anti-Semitic, although the admission is couched in very mild terms. Zhukov is charged not with engaging in anti-Semitic incitements but only with “anti-Semitic stereotypes.” His article is said to contain only “anti-Semitic implications.”
Although the Commission admits that Zhukov “violates the precepts of Soviet socialism and Leninist principles,” it proceeds to attack the Morning Freiheit for demanding that Zhukov be brought before a Soviet court of justice.
Completely ignored by the Commission is Zhukov’s shameful theory that the pogroms in Tsarist Russia were in reality a part of the “class struggle” that the Russian workers waged against the Jews who, under Tsarism, held in their hands the “entire trade in bread, sugar, cattle and all public inns.” Instead the Commission dwells on some minor errors in translating the Zhukov article, errors which in no way alters the anti-Semitic character of the article, as the Commission itself is forced to admit, though it does not say why it remained silent about it so long.
In its attack, the Commission charged that the Morning Freiheit follows the same line as the Zionists with their clamor about “Soviet anti-Semitism.” This, of course, is false! The truth is that the Morning Freiheit continually points out that the Zhukovs and their ilk provide the anti-Soviet haters with material for their propaganda.
In attacking the Morning Freiheit, the Commission also attacks all the other progressive Jewish publications that have denounced the Ogonyok article, such as the YKUF magazine, Yiddishe Kultur, the Paris Neie Presse, Canadian Vochenblatt, the Israeli press, the Freie Shtimme in Argentina, Canadian Jewish Outlook and Jewish Currents.
The Commission’s statement charges that the Morning Freiheit conducted no campaign against the anti-Semitic General Brown and that very little attention is paid to anti-Semitism in the USA.
The Morning Freiheit will shortly give a more detailed answer to these and other blatant distortions of the facts.