Russian Opposition is
Jewish; Trots try to get Trotsky movie (2017 Russian TV) banned
This Russian TV series on Trotsky was a hit in 2017, the
centenary of the Bolshevik Revolution. It appears that Russians are able to tell
the truth about it - that it was a Jewish coup, whereas we still can't.
Newsletter published on March 9, 2019
(1) Russian
Opposition is Jewish
(2) Nearly all the
leaders of the liberal opposition are Jewish - Jerusalem Post
(3) WSWS Trots want
'anti-Semitic' TV series on Trotsky (Russia, 2017) removed from Netflix
(4) Buy the DVD on
eBay "Trotsky (2017) Russian TV Series 8 Episodes with English
subtitles"
(1) Russian
Opposition is Jewish
From: "Come Carpentier comecarpentier@gmail.com
[shamireaders]"
Nearly All the Leaders of the Russian Liberal Opposition Are
Jewish, or Have Jewish Background
March 3, 2015
by Kevin MacDonald
It’s obvious that there is a strong Jewish influence in the
West opposed to Russia, particularly noticeable among the Israel Lobby and the
neocons — Victoria Nuland‘s family ties and her role in the Ukrainian revolution
come to mind.
There are many reasons for this, certainly including Russia’s
alliance with Iran and Syria at a time when Israel and the Israel Lobby are
doing all they can to promote war with both. Quite simply, Jewish hostility
stems from the fact that Russia under Vladimir Putin has proved to be far more
nationalistic than is good for the Jews or for Israel.
An article in The Jerusalem Post, excerpted below, notes the
very prominent role of Jews within
Russia in opposing Putin — Putin refers to the opposition as a "fifth
column" in Russia. But, in addition to foreign policy differences, there are
also overtones of festering resentment
about the role of Jewish oligarchs under Yeltsin in looting the country. Nemtsov, as noted in the article, was second in command to Yeltsin.
The article again raises basic issues about Jewish loyalties
in the Diaspora. As in the period from 1880 to 1917 (here, pp 66-67), there is a
common stance among the organized Jewish community in the Diaspora against
Russia, now tinged with Jewish loyalties to Israel at a time when war with Iran
has assumed center stage for the Israel Lobby. As in the 1880-1917 period, this has
resulted in Diaspora Jewish communities favoring foreign policies that are not
necessarily aligned with the interests of the countries they live in but are
aligned with international Jewish interests.
From The Jerusalem Post ("Nemtsov murder reminds Russian Jews
of lingering anti-Semitism"
A Jewish scholar of education from St. Petersburg, Zicer, 55,
has limited hope for change in a country that is ranked 148th in the Press
Freedom Index and where several of Putin’s critics have either died under
mysterious circumstances or been jailed for what they and many Western observers
say are trumped-up corruption charges.
On Sunday, however, Zicer marched through St. Petersburg with
10,000 people, many of them Jewish, in protest of the murder in central Moscow
of Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister. Nemtsov, an opposition leader, was gunned
down on Saturday just hours after he urged fellow citizens to attend a rally
against Russia’s involvement in the war in Ukraine. …
"This murder and the incitement that preceded it is so
shocking that I could no longer remain an observer," Zicer said.
Whether or not the Kremlin ordered the killing, as some have
accused, Zicer holds the Russian president responsible because of the "the wild
incitement he allowed on media in recent months against Nemtsov and other
opposition figures."
Kremlin spokesmen have denied any involvement in the
slaying.
To many Russian Jews, the murder of Nemtsov — a physicist
turned liberal politician, born to a Jewish mother but baptized in the Orthodox
Church — is a troubling reminder of vulnerability as members of a relatively
affluent minority with a history of being scapegoated, strong ties to the West and a deep
attachment to cosmopolitan values and human rights.
As in the U.S. and throughout the West, Jews in Russia adopt
views that benefit Jews in the Diaspora, advocating "cosmopolitan values and
human rights" while also strongly
supporting Israel with its strong ethnonationalist values and systematic
oppression and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. Jews correctly see the West
as representing cosmopolitan values opposed to the identification of nation with
the ethnic or nationalist interests of its traditional peoples, and, as noted
here repeatedly and as the main message
of The Culture of Critique, the creation of the West as cosmopolitan has been a
Jewish project throughout the 20th century, coming to fruition in the 1960s
and accelerating in the ensuing decades.
The murder hit Russia’s sizable Jewish intelligentsia
particularly hard because "nearly all
the leaders of the liberal opposition are either fully Jewish or have Jewish
background," said Michael Edelstein, a lecturer at Moscow State University
and a writer for the Jewish monthly magazine L’chaim. "His murder is the low
point in a process that started about two years ago which has left the Jewish intelligentsia and its
milieu feeling more uneasy than ever before in post-communist Russia." …
In an interview conducted with Newsweek hours before his
death, Nemtsov said that because of Putin’s policy, Russia’s economy is
collapsing.
Russia’s support for separatists in Ukraine was "wading into
a costly, fratricidal war in Ukraine and into pointless confrontation with the
West," Nemtsov told the magazine.
"We all feel the effects of this insane policy," Nemtsov
said, adding that Putin’s use of media reminded him of the Nazi propaganda chief
Joseph Goebbels.
Putin responded to such criticisms by referring to opponents
of Russia’s actions in Ukraine — and especially the annexation of the Crimean
Peninsula — as a fifth column. And though Putin did not name Nemtsov, the
president was widely thought to be referring to him, the liberal camp’s most
senior politician. Russian media considered to have close Kremlin ties published
Nemtsov’s name on lists of suspected traitors that started circulating shortly
after those included on the lists expressed their opposition to Russia’s
annexation of Crimea in March 2014.
Labeling the liberal
opposition as a fifth column is tantamount to questioning their loyalty to
Russian national interests in retaining close economic and cultural ties with
neighboring countries (see John Mearsheimer’s "Why the Ukraine crisis is the
West’s fault"). Again, given the divergence in the foreign policy concerns of
Russia versus Israel and diaspora Jewish communities, there is more than a whiff
here of the charge of disloyalty.
In a 2010 televised interview, Putin said that Nemtsov and other
opposition figures stole billions from Russians and would "sell off the
whole of Russia" if given the chance.
On the face of it, this would appear to be a reference to the
notoriously corrupt, overwhelmingly
Jewish oligarchs who ended up controlling the basic industries in Russia during
the Yeltsin era. The statement alludes to their lack of feelings and concern
for Russia; much of the wealth of the oligarchs ended up in the West in Swiss
bank accounts, etc. It truly was a matter of looting Russia by people with no
ethnic ties to the Russian people — a financial version of the aftermath of the
Bolshevik Revolution.
"Nemtsov was on every list of traitors published on the
Internet and aired on state TV," the Russian-Jewish journalist Leonid Bershidsky
wrote on Bloomberg View after the murder.
Bershidsky added, "It did not help that he was Jewish. There
was a strong undercurrent of anti-Semitism in the smear campaign."
However, some Russians doubt that Putin would go to the
trouble of ordering the assassination of a high-profile figure who ultimately
may be more trouble dead than alive. Nemtsov, after all, had failed to gain
widespread popularity outside the urban elite and thus never constituted any
real political threat to Putin.
Edelstein noted that "there may have been anti-Semitic
incitement online and in far-right circles," but "Nemtsov wasn’t perceived as a Jew and
wasn’t attacked as such."
The evidence in Nemtsov’s killing, Edelstein believes,
"points to ultra-nationalists, perhaps militiamen who fought in Ukraine, perhaps
only their sympathizers."
Nemstov himself was open about being born to a Jewish mother
and said he rarely felt any discrimination.
Nevertheless, this is a Jewish story and one with sobering
implications for how one thinks about the liberal opposition movement in Russia
and the demonization of Russia in Western media and political circles.
(2) Nearly all the
leaders of the liberal opposition are Jewish - Jerusalem Post
https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Nemtsov-murder-reminds-Russian-Jews-of-lingering-anti-Semitism-392752
Nemtsov Murder Reminds Russian Jews Of Lingering
Anti-Semitism
"His murder is the low point in a process that started about
two years ago which has left the Jewish intelligentsia and its milieu feeling
more uneasy than ever before in post-communist Russia."
BY JTA MARCH 3,
2015
During the past two years, Dima Zicer has skipped several
political rallies opposing the chauvinistic policies of Russian President
Vladimir Putin.
A Jewish scholar of education from St. Petersburg, Zicer, 55,
has limited hope for change in a country that is ranked 148th in the Press
Freedom Index and where several of Putin’s critics have either died under
mysterious circumstances or been jailed for what they and many Western observers
say are trumped-up corruption charges.
On Sunday, however, Zicer marched through St. Petersburg with
10,000 people, many of them Jewish, in protest of the murder in central Moscow
of Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister. Nemtsov, an opposition leader,
was gunned down on Saturday just hours after he urged fellow citizens to attend
a rally against Russia’s involvement in the war in Ukraine.
No arrests have been made in the killing, which took place on
the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion into Crimea. Russia has since annexed
the Crimean Peninsula.
"This murder and the incitement that preceded it is so
shocking that I could no longer remain an observer," Zicer said.
Whether or not the Kremlin ordered the killing, as some have
accused, Zicer holds the Russian president responsible because of the "the wild
incitement he allowed on media in recent months against Nemtsov and other
opposition figures."
Kremlin spokesmen have denied any involvement in the
slaying.
To many Russian Jews, the murder of Nemtsov — a physicist
turned liberal politician, born to a Jewish mother but baptized in the Orthodox
Church — is a troubling reminder of vulnerability as members of a relatively
affluent minority with a history of being scapegoated, strong ties to the West
and a deep attachment to cosmopolitan values and human rights.
The murder hit Russia’s sizable Jewish intelligentsia
particularly hard because "nearly all
the leaders of the liberal opposition are either fully Jewish or have Jewish
background," said Michael Edelstein, a lecturer at Moscow State University
and a writer for the Jewish monthly magazine L’chaim. "His murder is the low
point in a process that started about two years ago which has left the Jewish
intelligentsia and its milieu feeling more uneasy than ever before in
post-communist Russia." [...]
(3) WSWS Trots want
'anti-Semitic' TV series on Trotsky (Russia, 2017) removed from Netflix
Netflix’s Trotsky: A toxic combination of historical
fabrication and blatant anti-Semitism
David North and Clara Weiss
8 March 2019
Netflix is currently presenting to its worldwide audience the
virulently anti-Semitic television
series, Trotsky, which was originally produced by the Russian state in
2017.
Esteban Volkov, Trotsky’s 93-year old grandson, has
recently denounced the series as "a political assault, masked as historical
drama" and "a justification of the murder of the ‘monster’ called Trotsky." The
Latin American edition of the Spanish newspaper El Pais has described the series
as the "second assassination of Leon Trotsky" and rejected its portrayal of the
revolutionary "as a sadist, a complete traitor, and as a puppet."
What is being presented by Netflix is not history. It is not
even an artistic fictionalization of history, in which certain liberties have
been taken for legitimate dramatic purposes. Netflix’s series is a monstrously
reactionary exercise in historical falsification. There is not a single scene
that attempts to depict historical events with any discernable degree of
accuracy. Most of the scenes are grotesque fabrications. Not a single character,
least of all Leon Trotsky, bears any resemblance to the historical figure the
series purports to represent.
To state the issue posed by this series as bluntly and
precisely as possible: Netflix’s Trotsky is the most explicitly and unrelentingly anti-Semitic
film that has ever been presented to an American and international
television audience. It is a frenzied
incitement to Jew-hating. The inspiration for this production is the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the
notorious Russian anti-Semitic forgery, produced in pre-1917 Russia, that
claimed to document an international Jewish conspiracy to take over the
world.
The portrayal of all Jewish characters in the movie,
beginning with Trotsky, is based on malicious anti-Semitic stereotypes.
They are blood-thirsty and self-promoting fanatics, devoid of human pity,
contemptuous of the down-trodden masses, and insatiable in their lust for power.
They are also obsessed with sex.
Most of the male Jewish characters are denigrated in semi-pornographic scenes, a
device of anti-Semitic defamation well-known from the propaganda of the Russian
far-right and the Nazis.
The Russian
revolutions of 1905 and 1917 are depicted as the outcome of a Jewish
conspiracy, funded from abroad. The origin of the Revolution of 1905 is a criminal pact between Trotsky and
Alexander Parvus, who obtains funds from the German government. The October Revolution in 1917, the most
monumental social upheaval in history, is depicted as a "coup," orchestrated by Trotsky with the
help of only two other well-known Bolshevik leaders who were also Jewish: Lev Kamenev and Grigory
Zinoviev.
Trotsky is a demonic figure who revels in death and
destruction. Parvus, a significant Marxist theoretician, is motivated by nothing
other than insatiable greed and appears like a caricature of the scheming
money-grubber familiar from Nazi-era anti-Semitic propaganda films.
Lenin is portrayed as
little more than a thug who ultimately falls victim to Trotsky’s
conspiracy.
Netflix's Trotsky Trotsky cedes power to Lenin, the series
implies, only to guarantee the success
of his bid for world power through world socialist revolution. In a totally
fabricated conversation with Frank Jacson—his future assassin—Trotsky argues
that he handed over power to Lenin because "a Jewish ruler would never stay in
power in Russia for even a month" and to pursue "my real, genuine goal." Jacson
replies: "Yeah, yeah, I know. To fan the flames of world revolution." And
Trotsky continues: "And as a dictator of Russia I would have only made my hands
dirty. The path to power does not always go forward. You need to be able to stop
and wait."
The film’s Trotsky
feels nothing but contempt for the Russian people. In a characteristic
scene, Trotsky tells his companion, Natalia: "The people is a weak woman. The
people have a female psychology." Natalia replies: "I don’t understand how you
can speak with such contempt of the people for whose luck you are, as I
understand, fighting." To which Trotsky answers: "Does a people that have
suffered tyranny for decades deserve anything else but contempt?"
In another scene, set during the Civil War, Trotsky,
ensconced in the Kremlin, plots the extermination of the Russian population. "We
are creating a future into which we will by far not take everyone. Let’s say 30,
50 or 70 percent of the population will die, but the rest will come with us into
communism… The cruelty [we will employ] will be of biblical proportions... This
is the birth of the new world."
The only sympathetic figure in this film is Trotsky’s
assassin, the Stalinist agent Jacson (Ramon Mercader). He is portrayed as taking
up a noble fight against Trotsky, who, the viewers are made to believe, was a
veritable demon. In one scene, Trotsky’s eyes actually turn black. In case
viewers miss the point, Mercader says of Trotsky, "He’s literally the devil. He
sucks my soul out bit by bit, every day." At the end of the film, the murder of
Trotsky is presented as a legitimate act of self-defense by Mercader.
One could cite countless other instances of outrageous, not
to mention semi-deranged, fabrications. The series consists of a fusion of
hysterical anti-communism and the filthiest anti-Semitic elements of the
obscurantist ideologies of the Orthodox Church and virulent Russian
nationalism.
The series bears the foul odor of the homicidal anti-Semitism
that was propagated by the most reactionary elements in Russia prior to the 1917
Revolution and during the Civil War. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, Russia witnessed the most murderous anti-Jewish pogroms. The Tsarist
regime viewed anti-Semitism as a powerful ideological weapon that could be
deployed against the mounting threat of socialist revolution. The Black
Hundreds, led by Vladimir Purishkevich, was only the most prominent of the
anti-Semitic forces that were mobilized as shock troops against the socialist
movement.
The Bolshevik revolution and the ensuing victory of the
working class in the Russian Civil War drove many of the leading ideologues of
Tsarist anti-Semitism into exile in Germany, where they played a major role in
promoting a deadly form of Jew-hatred that exerted substantial influence on what
was to become the Nazi movement. As the historian Michael Kellogg has thoroughly
documented in his book, The Russian Roots of Nazism, the future leaders of the
Third Reich drew heavily in the formulation of their views on the
"conspiratorial-apocalyptic White émigré conceptions of international Jewry as a
malevolent force that strove for world domination through dastardly means."
Hitler was introduced in 1919 to The Protocols of the Elders
of Zion by his political mentor, Dietrich Eckart. The latter, as documented by
Kellogg, "lamented that the ‘Jew Trotskii’ presided over a ‘field of corpses’
that had once been Imperial Russia. He bitterly remarked: ‘Oh, how wise you wise
men from Zion are.’" [The Russian Roots of Nazism: White Émigrés and the making
of National Socialism 1917-1945, Cambridge University Press, 2005]
Netflix’s Trotsky could have been produced, without any
changes, under the auspices of the Nazi regime. Moreover, the fact that the
production of this anti-Semitic trash was sponsored by the Putin government
testifies to the fundamentally reactionary character of a regime that rules on
behalf of criminal oligarchs and desperately fears the resurgence of a
revolutionary socialist movement in Russia.
Given the virulently anti-Semitic character of the Trotsky
series, one might have assumed that a storm of protest would have greeted
Netflix’s distribution and promotion of this film. But nothing of the sort has
happened. Despite daily campaigns denouncing anyone who dares issue a word of
criticism of the Israeli state’s brutal treatment of the Palestinian people as
an anti-Semite, Netflix’s Trotsky has been given a pass. The few reviews in the capitalist media of
the United States and Europe that
have appeared have made no reference to
the film’s blatant anti-Semitism, or even called attention to the
innumerable fabrications. The New York Times has not published a review.
In a review published on February 20, The Washington Post’s Luke Johnson notes,
without complaint: "The show depicts him [Trotsky] as daring, literate and
foreign, reading Freud in Paris and going to a cocaine-fueled soiree, but
ultimately violent and destructive." Johnson recalls with amusement that at a
viewing of the film at Cannes in 2017, the Russian producer, Konstantin Ernst,
sought to promote the show to potential buyers "by jokingly comparing Trotsky’s
sexual exploits to Harvey Weinstein’s misconduct."
The failure to denounce the Netflix film, let alone demand
that it be removed from the company’s roster, is not confined to the media. Jewish organizations have not issued any
protest. The World Socialist Web Site attempted to elicit a statement from the
Anti-Defamation League but received no callback. Prominent academics have,
with few exceptions, maintained their silence as well.
What accounts for this indifference to the presentation of a
viciously anti-Semitic work to a mass audience?
First, the cultural and political climate for this
indifference has been created by decades of historical falsifications. In
particular, the demonization of Trotsky, including the use of anti-Semitic
tropes, has been developed by Western academics since 1991. In their books on
Trotsky, both Ian Thatcher (Ulster University) and Robert Service (Oxford
University), repeatedly referred to Trotsky as "Bronstein" (Trotsky’s original
family name which he, however, never used) to highlight his Jewish origins.
Service even changed Trotsky’s first name from "Lev" to "Leiba" (a Yiddish form
never used by Trotsky or his parents). He described Trotsky’s family as "plucky
Jews", and falsely accused Trotsky of trying to conceal the extent of his
father’s wealth. He described Trotsky as "brash in his cleverness, outspoken in
his opinions… Trotsky had these characteristics to a higher degree than most
other Jews… But he was far from being the only Jew who visibly enjoyed the
opportunities for public self-advancement." Service noted that Trotsky’s "real
nose was neither long nor bent."
Second, under conditions of mounting political crisis, there
is an increasing fear of the growth of interest in revolutionary socialism. The
ruling elites and their agents in the media and academia are responding to this
threat. The historical lie, as Trotsky wrote, is the ideological cement of
reaction.
Anti-Semitism and all forms of racism, in the final analysis,
are based on the falsification of history. It must be opposed. There are, no
doubt, innumerable historians who know very well that Netflix’s Trotsky is a
compilation of lies and fabrications. It is time for them to speak out publicly
and register their protest.
The International Committee of the Fourth International and
the World Socialist Web Site condemn this film as a depraved exercise in
historical falsification and anti-Semitic and anti-socialist propaganda. We
demand that Netflix withdraw this series from its international network. ==
(4) Buy the DVD on
eBay "Trotsky (2017) Russian TV Series 8 Episodes with English
subtitles"
Peter Myers, March 10, 2019
I don't have Netflix; but I bought a DVD of the Trotsky
series on eBay. It says it's region 1, but the seller assured me it will play on
any DVD player that supports NTSC.
Search sBay for
Trotsky (2017)
Russian TV Series 8 Episodes with English subtitles
Format: DVD
Release Year: 2017 Region Code: DVD: 1 (US, Canada...) Sub-Genre: Russian
DVD Edition Year:
2017 Country/Region of
Manufacture: Russian Federation
Director:
Aleksandr Kott, Konstantin Statskiy
Genre: BIOGRAPHY
HISTORY WAR Leading Role:
Konstantin Khabenskiy, Mikhail Porechenkov, Max M
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.