The liberal policies of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that have brought about a fundamental change in Soviet attitudes toward Jews face fierce opposition from conservative groups there, foremost among them being the anti-Semitic organization called Pamyat (Memory).
It is dedicated to reversing Gorbachev’s “glasnost” (openness) and “perestroika” (restructuring) policies, which it regards as a conspiracy of Jews, Masons and Westernizers.
A 26-page booklet, titled “Pamyat: Hatred Under Glasnost” was issued here last week by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.
In a preface to the report, Burton Levinson, ADL’s national chairman, said despite the far-reaching changes in Soviet life under Gorbachev, “the phenomenon of Pamyat suggests the triumph of liberalization in the USSR is by no means assured.”
He said the membership of Pamyat, which was established in 1980, is estimated in the thousands. Some of its activists and supporters include prominent Soviet scholars and writers.
ADL noted that in 1987, Pamyat leaders were granted a two-hour audience with then Communist Party boss in Moscow, Boris Yeltsin.
Dimitri Simes, a contributor to the ADL booklet, said that was without precedent for a protest group in the Soviet Union.
Levinson said the booklet is intended to serve three purposes: to provide a full picture of the situation facing Soviet Jewry; supply the context for the ongoing debate in the United States over policy toward the USSR; and present a perspective to evaluate current trends within the Soviet Union.
Pamyat boasts of the role it played in defeating Vitaly Korotich, editor of the popular liberal magazine Ogonyok, in the recent elections to the 2,250-member Congress of Deputies.
The ADL report cited a sample of Pamyat literature which alleges that Jewish “internationalists” allied to Masons spearheaded the destruction of traditional Russian culture during the 1920s and ’30s; that Jews who are active in the Soviet arts and media are trying to “contaminate” Russian culture; and that Soviet Jewish emigres “defame” the Soviet Union from abroad.
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