JEWISH WORLD

JEWISH WORLD • APRIL 1 - 7, 2022 31 The quest for a scapegoat in times of crises and losses is noth- ing new in world history. Gomuł- ka’s tirade against the “fifth col- umn” was an obvious reaction to the losses of the Soviet-supported Arab side in the Six DayWar. Putin has been using the same argument after its unsuccessful blitz attempt to subdue and occupy Ukraine. “When the society suffers, it needs someone to blame, someone upon whom to avenge itself for its disap- pointments,” wrote French sociol- ogist Emil Durkheim presciently in 1899, trying to understand the anti-Semitic turmoil of late 19th century France. At the University of Warsaw, we have studied this process ex- tensively through research studies, surveys and psychological analy- sis. Anti-Semitic conspiracy theo- ries are most commonly trusted by those who lose control over their life. Losers need scapegoats, and Jews are the most common targets. We observed this pattern in Po- land, Britain and other countries. Notably, this does not seem to be true in Ukraine. Ukrainians do not tend to blame Jews for their misfor- FREE For your FREE digital issue send an email to: lijewworld@aol.com omon Mikhoels; academic Lina Stern was sentenced to labor camp and internal exile. The hunt for “rootless cosmopolitans” continued for more than 20 years, even after Stalin’s death, targeting many oth- er artists, scientists, musicians and writers of Jewish ancestry. T he “anti-cosmopolitan” argu- ment used in Putin’s speech was soon repeated across the At- lantic. “President Zelensky is a very bad character who is work- ing with globalists against the in- terests of his own people,” wrote American conservative political commentator Candace Owens. “Globalist” is the new “rootless cosmopolitan,” and it is not by ac- cident that the Jewish president of Ukraine is described this way. A few months earlier, one of Fox News’ pro-Russian military ex- perts said that America has “a huge problem with a class of so-called elites” who “have no connection to the country, there is nothing there that holds them in place” who are “as the Russians used to call cer- tain individuals many, many years ago, rootless cosmopolitans.” tunes. In a large nationwide study performed in 2001 we found that, contrary to Poles, Ukrainians did not explain their losses by way of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. The paradox of Putin’s rhetoric is that he accuses Ukraine of “Na- zism” while simultaneously using anti-Semitic tropes to stigmatize Russians who oppose his war and support Ukraine. This recalls the most absurd slur used by pro-Rus- sian activists during Moscow’s first invasion of Ukraine, its war in the Donbas in 2014: “Zhido- banderovtsy” (Kike-Banderites) –which conflated Jews with a well- known anti-Semitic ideologist of the past, Stepan Bandera, who led a Ukrainian ultranationalist orga- nization that collaborated with the Nazis and was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Jews. Yet it made sense to the follow- ers of conspiracy theories. There is no logic in their thinking. Conspir- acy theorists can strongly believe that Princess Diana is dead and alive at the same time. In his March 16 address, Putin did not say the word “Jews.” He didn’t need to. The key elements of his narratives sound all too familiar to any Jewish person living in East- ern Europe. And his promise of “a natural and necessary self-purifi- cation of society” must have filled many of them with dread. Michal Bilewicz is the director of the Center for Research on Prej- udice at the University of Warsaw. Putin continued from page 4 A Fox News analyst echoed Putin when he spoke of the U.S.’s “huge problem with “rootless cosmopolitans,” the USSR term for Jews. country,” said Gomułka, in his no- torious address to trade unionists. A few months later, workers’ rallies against “Zionists” and “fifth columnists” were organized across the country, thousands of Jews were fired from their jobs, expelled from academic institutions, and forced to emigrate. Another notable element of Pu- tin’s speech was the accusation of cosmopolitanism: “The problem is that in essence, their mentality is there, not here, with our people. Not with Russia.” Again, Putin follows a typical anti-Semitic narrative from the So- viet era that preceded anti-Jewish purges, this time in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Propagandist dai- ly Pravda published a screed in 1949 about “unbridled, evil-mind- ed cosmopolitans, profiteers with no roots and no conscience (…) non-indigenous nationals without a motherland, who poison our pro- letarian culture with their stench.” Three years later, numerous lead- ers of the Soviet Jewish community were executed, including the great Yiddish poets Peretz Markish and David Hofshteyn and actor Sol- Destroyed Russian tank in Ukraine. Putin pointed to an alleged vast conspiracy in ‘the homeland” that is sabotaging his armed forces’ efforts in the war. Hitler continued from page 27 left in the middle of the Cold War, realizing that my ideas of what was necessary for the United States to prevail in that war did not coincide with the then-prevailing U.S. gov- ernment policy. I thought that we were too proactive and that many of our political action operations were unnecessary and counterpro- ductive. Having become convinced over the years of the necessity of strong intelligence-collection ef- fort, I was disillusioned that the ‘action side’ of the CIA did not heed the intelligence collected by the intelligence side.” He returned to Manhattan to fol- low the family tradition of being in the wine business and was a key figure behind the great success of the Blue Nun label. S ichel is well-familiar with Rus- sia from his years of intelli- gence work. Is there a parallel between Ger- many’s invasion into the Rhineland and Russia’s invasion into Ukraine — and the response to both? Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once a Pu- tin oligarch — who became the rich- est man in Russia but split with Putin and ended up in jail for a decade — says: “I believe that actually what we are seeing now is that western leaders are repeating the same mistake that their predecessors committed years ago with Hitler, when Hitler was very vulnerable back then, when he tried to invade Europe and that’s what his accomplices did admit during the Nuremberg tribunal.” “Western leaders kept saying that they were afraid to aggravate Hitler and they thought, well, if they are not showing any resistance then eventu- ally he’ll stop,” Khodorkovsky said on CNN. “However, that mistake cost hundreds of millions of human lives, hundreds of millions of hu- man lives were lost, and the same mistake is being committed now.” Sichel says of the savage, bloody invasion of Ukraine by Russia: “Terrible! Terrible!” A comparison with the invasion of the Rhineland as to the response is “very complicated,” he said, mainly because of the nuclear weaponry possessed by Russia. “Armaments of today have moved further than the human mind.” However, the rising Russian mil- itary death toll will, he anticipates, have an impact on the Russian peo- ple. When the “body bags came back from Afghanistan, it was the Russian mothers who forced” an end to that Russian war. Further, with “the public in- volved” in protesting in Russia, if the number of people “willing to face up to the brutality of the po- lice” grows, that will matter. And the Russian army “is not very strong,” says Sichel. Also, “If thewar goes on and chang- es into an occupation, there will be a well-organized resistance,” he says. Meanwhile, the sanctions are tak- ing a great economic toll on Russia. A s with the case of Nazi Germa- ny, there is a “tyrant” at the cen- ter, says Sichel, now 99 years old, to be 100 in September, who has been described as the oldest living former CIA agent. He has also been called the “Jewish James Bond.” As various steps are taken against Russia, and the failure of the inva- sion, so far, there is conjecture about Putin being overthrown. “Ukraine: How might the war end? Five sce- narios,” was the headline of a BBC News piece. One of the ways, it says, is with Putin pursuing “a disastrous war” and “thousands of Russian sol- diers” dying, and as the “economic sanctions bite,” he loses “popular support….There is a bloody palace coup and Putin is out.” “Russia after Putin” was the headline of an essay last week in the Washington, D.C. publication The Hill by Alexander J. Motyl, a professor of political science at Rutgers University and a specialist on Ukraine and Russia. His books include Dilemmas of Indepen- dence: Ukraine after Totalitarian- ism. He maintains “Putin is likely to fall, because of his disastrous handling of the war in Ukraine and its ruinous consequences for Rus- sia.” He projects “two possibilities: the Khrushchev variant, named af- ter the Soviet Party leader who was ousted in 1964 in a coup organized by his political cronies, and the Yanukovych variant, named after the Ukrainian president who fled abroad in the aftermath of the 2014 Maidan Revolution. In the Khrush- chev variant, Putin’s closest advi- sors would, together with influen- tial oligarchs, end Russia’s descent into oblivion by arresting Putin.” Karl Grossman is a professor of journalism at the State University of NewYork/CollegeatOldWestburywho has specialized in investigative report- ing for 45 years. He is the host of theTV program “Enviro Close-Up,” the writ- er and presenter of numerous TVdocu- mentaries and the author of six books.