Jews here are expressing deep unease about the future of political and economic reform in Russia in the wake of President Boris Yeltsin’s setback during last week’s emergency session of the Congress of People’s Deputies.
Yeltsin is seen by most Jews here as the main bulwark against the anti-democratic, reactionary forces.
As the embattled president attempts to neutralize the growing might of conservative forces in the Russian Congress, which last week stripped him of many of his powers, most here expect the current atmosphere of political instability to worsen.
But, for the moment at least, violence is seen as a remote possibility.
“I just don’t see any danger of a putsch,” said Mikhail Chlenov; co-chairman of the Vaad, the largest Jewish umbrella organization in the former Soviet Union.
“Of course, the president’s problems raise an alarm, but it’s not panic,” said Chlenov, adding: “At least most Jews here aren’t panicking.”
The growing consensus is that there may be some sort of “democratic putsch.”
According to this scenario, Yeltsin would impose direct presidential rule, possibly after rallying popular support in a nationwide referendum, supported by democratic elements of society and the armed forces.
“A democratic putsch would put us in an odd position,” said Chlenov. “Our traditional position, as Jews, has been to support democracy and oppose any extra-legal attempts to change the political situation.
“That’s the position we took in 1991,” he said, referring to the failed coup attempt by hard-line Communists against former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
“But everything depends on the circumstances,” he added.
COULD HAVE IMPACT ON EMIGRATION
Chlenov said that the danger posed to Jews by the conservative forces that are gaining strength is slight.
“Of course, there is an extreme nationalistic element in the parliament, but their influence is not large. The dominant conservative element is oriented toward preserving their power as factory or collective farm heads,” he explained.
“If they succeed in slowing or stopping the reform process, it will affect Jews in an indirect way,” Chlenov said.
“It will cause Jews, many of whom are part of the new business class” or are democratically oriented, to “ask themselves whether a stagnant Russia is really the kind of country they want to live in.”
“In other words, a conservative victory will raise the emigration question for many Jews here,” he said.
Others echoed the deep gloom prevailing among Yeltsin supporters in the wake of the Congress.
Said a senior Jewish editor at Izvestia, Russia’s largest daily paper, who preferred anonymity: “If Yeltsin goes, the free press goes, too, and then I’ll need a few dollars to buy an apartment in Tel Aviv.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
