Soviet Jewry Legal Advocacy Center 415 South Street, Waltham MA 02254 ANTI-SEMITISM IN THE USSR: OFFICIAL SOVIET VIOLATION OF DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL LAW* By Donna Arzt SJLAC General Counsel Numerous studies by Western commentators and Sovietologists have documented the massive and virulent new wave of Soviet antiSemitism. The evidence is overwhelming. From the publication in large-scale editions of books such as Yuri Ivanov's Beware: Zionism!, to the widely-read articles on "Zionist cooperation with Hitler" in Pravda and other official publications, to national television programs labeling Jews as money-changers and "traders of souls," to the defamatory attacks in local Soviet newspapers on individual Jewish refusenik activists such as Ida Nudel, Lev Ovsishcher, Alexander Paritsky and, earlier, Anatoly Shcharansky, the new propaganda campaign appears clearly to be Kremlin-directed and inspired. brief report illustrates the intentional yet meretricious character of this campaign by citing some of its official sponsors and by demonstrating that the propagation of racial and religious hatred is itself a violation of Soviet law. ** OFFICIAL SOURCES This Under the Soviet bureaucratic system of information control, all This memorandum has been prepared by the SJLAC for the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, May 1980. Permission to reproduce must be obtained in writing from the SJLAC or the CSCE. The author is graduate of Harvard Law School, where she studied Soviet law and international human rights. a ** See Attachment. | publications and broadcast media must have prior approval of the Komsomolskaya Pravda, moreover, command the official stamp of the other journals. When anti-Zionist hatred is disseminated through films and articles shown to Red Army recruits, 1 when Jewish history is blatantly deleted from Soviet elementary and secondary school 2 textbooks, when Jews are excluded from Novosibirsk University and other schools (state-sponsored, of course) on a system that quantifies 3 an applicant's percentage of Jewish blood, the governmental sponsorship of this vilification can hardly be questioned. Authorities such as William Korey, as well as Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, have traced anti-Zionism at the United Nations to Soviet sources, and have documented the distribution of literature at Soviet exhibits in Paris and Toronto, indicating the key role played in this propaganda campaign by the Soviet Foreign Ministry, among other Soviet agencies." Most ominous of all, perhaps, from the standpoint of law and the legal profession, is the publication in 1979 of "The White Book," a collection of libelous misinformation about Israel, the United States and Zionism. Published by the Association of Soviet Jurists, the book is edited by L.N.Smirnov, who serves as chairman of the Association in his capacity as Chief Justice of the Soviet Supreme Court. This would be equivalent to the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court editing a book which denounced, for instance, Puerto Ricans and Puerto Rican Nationalism. Given the official status of these publications, it is interesting to note the official reason given by Soviet authorities for banning Western books such as Modern Jewish History, Twentieth Century Czechoslovakia and Animal Farm at the International Book Fair held in Moscow last September. In justification of this censorship, Boris Stukalin, chairman of the Soviet State Committee for Printing, cited Soviet legislation forbidding books on war and racism, books that are anti-Soviet, and those that "insult the dignity of participating countries" and "stir up hatred and hostility between people Juxtaposed to the defamatory and hamper the process of detente."5 Soviet publications that the committee does approve, the Book Fair served to illustrate another example of official Soviet hypocrisy. VIOLATION OF SOVIET LAW Stukalin's references to Soviet legislation are exactly on the mark, however. Bigotry, whether written or oral, is indeed a crime in the Soviet Union. Article 74 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Republic states: 6 Propaganda or agitation for the purpose of arousing hostility or dissension of races or nationalities, or the direct or indirect restriction of rights or the establishment of direct or indirect privileges for citizens depending on the races or nationalities to which they belong, shall be punished by deprivation of freedom for a term of six months to three years, or by exile for a term of two to five years. The Soviet Jewry Legal Advocacy Center is aware of no cases brought under this article against the writers, editors or publishers of Soviet anti-Semitic literature. Note that anti-Semitism would fall under this provision because Jews are considered a nationality in the USSR, as well as a religious group. This principle of Soviet legality is also embodied in the 1977 Soviet Constitution, a political document which codifies Soviet policy and enshrines the revolutional ideology of modern Soviet socialism. In the article emphasizing freedom of conscience and religion, the Constitution stipulates: "Incitement of hostility or hatred on religious grounds is prohibited." The article on equality of races and nationalities similarly provides that "any advocacy of racial or national exclusiveness, hostility or contempt is punishable by law."7 - in Unlike its American counterpart, the Soviet Constitution does not serve as a basis for judicial jurisdiction over claims of violation of Constitutional rights. However, it is an inspirational document which purports to embody the policy of the same official Soviet bodies which have published and approved racist literature direct violation of Constitutional and statutory law. This state of affairs should not be seen as an inconsistency so much as a deliberate, high level decision to ignore the strictures of law when doing so would better serve governmental policy. VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW Official Soviet anti-Semitism also contravenes provisions The of international law that the Soviet Union has adopted. International Covenant on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, adopted by the United Nations in 1965 and ratified by the USSR in 1969, obliges the ratifying states to end racial discrimination in public life and to make punishable by law any propaganda and organizations which promote racial superiority or racial hatred. Unlike the international provisions on the right to emigrate, which have merely been ratified by the USSR, the universal right to be free from prejudice and bigotry has been incorporated into Soviet domestic law as well as enacted through international 8 Covenant ratification. CONCLUSION The Soviet law applicable to anti-Semitism differs from American law, which often upholds the right to propagate anti-Jewish and racist beliefs as a First Amendment freedom. It also differs from the Nuremburg Laws of Nazi Germany, which specifically embodied racism and validated bigotry. Soviet law, by contrast, clearly proscribes prejudice. Principles such as this one are routinely trumpeted by Soviet Nevertheless, the very existence in Soviet legislation of such progressive principles human rights activists with a unique opportunity. We can call upon the Soviet Union to rectify what is not only a violation of universal human rights but also a violation of that nation's own laws. 1"Hate Indoctrination in Red Army," 4 Insight; Soviet Jews No.2 2 3 (London, Feb.1980) William Korey, with Ina Schlesinger, Jews as Non-Persons: A Study of Soviet History Textbooks (B'nai B'rith International Council,n.d.) Novoye Russkoye Slovo (New York, Aug.1,2 and 3, 1978) William Korey, "Protocols of Zion," 1 Soviet Jewry Law Review 12 (Jan.1980) and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, "Anti-Semitism Called Soviet-Spread Plague," The Jewish Week-American Examiner (Dec.2, 1979). See also William Korey, "Making Anti-Semitism Respectable," 4 Moment No.2 (December 1978) on the involvement of the prestigious Soviet Academy of Sciences in the Kremlin's anti-Semitic campaign. Anthony Austin, "Moscow Continuing to Seize US Books," The New York Times, (Sept.3, 1979) "Harold Berman, Soviet Criminal Law and Procedure: The RSFSR Codes 5 at 154 (1972). The other Soviet republics have similar legislation. Articles 52, 36, Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Novosti Press Agency, Moscow, 1978) Article 4. The U.S. signed the Convention in 1966 but the President only sent it to the Senate for ratification in 1978 and the Senate has not yet voted. 'see Irwin Cotler, The Shcharansky Case: Petition to the Procurator General of the USSR from Avital Shcharansky, at Appendix XXIV (1978). Prisoner of Conscience Ida Nudel is currently preparing a case against a local Siberian newspaper for racist incitement. 4 Alert: The Union of Councils for Soviet Jews No.21 (April 24, 1980 |