A rabidly anti-Semitic newspaper has called on Russian voters to support the Communist candidate in the June presidential elections, saying that he will be able to solve the “Zionist question.”
The weekly newspaper Kolokol, or The Bell, recently explained its support for Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov on the basis that he would advance the nationalist cause.
Recent polls indicate that Zyuganov could beat President Boris Yeltsin in the June 16 vote.
Kolokol is widely regarded as the most disreputable nationalist newspaper among Russia’s provincial media.
Published in Volgograd, a city of 1 million located 900 miles south of Moscow, Kolokol has been publishing anti-Semitic propaganda for four years.
Each issue of Kolokol is stuffed with anti-Semitic slogans such as: “Let’s Blow the Rotten Zionist Scum’s Brains Out” or “Let’s Throw Masonic Infection Out [of Russia].”
As the elections approach, the newspaper’s anti-Semitism has become increasingly frenzied.
But neither the police nor the courts appear interested in stopping Kolokol’s slurs, said Vladlen Paikin, leader of the Volgogarad Jewish community, which numbers about 5,000.
Paikin said the publication is sold openly throughout the city. It is also distributed free of charge in Volgograd’s working-class neighborhoods.
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