A best selling novel in the Soviet Union depicts Rasputin, the infamous “holy man” who wielded great influence in the closing days of Czarism, as a lackey of the Jews and the “dark forces” of Zionism. The book, titled” Just Before The End, ” has created a stir in official Soviet literary circles and is firmly in line with the recent tenor of anti-Zionist propaganda in the Soviet Union.
An account of the book has been published here by the Institute of Jewish Affairs (IJA) which says it encapsulates some of the basest elements of anti-Semitic ideology current in the USSR. Howard Spier of the IJA says that its inflammatory effect is enhanced by its claim to be factual, complete with textual references and lengthy quotes from diaries and other historical sources. “The work contains no fictitious heroes or events.” says Valentin Pikul, its 51 year old author.
Although the period Pikul covers, the 1880s until Rasputin’s assassination in 1961, has been the subject of abundant research, he feels that a more conspiratorial account is necessary and he sets out to expose the “dark forces” which gained a grip on Czarist Russia and slowly dragged it to its destruction.
Pikul depicts the “Zionists” as quick to recognize Rasputin’s growing influence in court circles and decide to use him for their own nefarious ends. Small wonder, then, that when Russia faced her supreme test of will in World War I she was no match for the Germans, since her morale had been sapped by years of “alien” infiltration; Pikul contends.
Last June, the novel received a sharply negative review in Literaturnaya Rossiya, weekly organ of the Russian Writers Union, which upbraided Pikul for his “non-class approach” and said his coarse language bordered on “boulevard literature. “However, the novel was strongly defended by a Radio Moscow broadcaster who rejected claims that it was anti-Semitic and said such arguments were them selves “anti-Soviet.”
In the words of the IJA, however, “Just Before The End” is a purely Russian novel which could well have emerged from the pre-revolutionary anti-Semitic Black Hundreds period.
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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.
