Η αυτοεκπλήρωση του ρωσικού αντισημιτισμού

Ninety years later, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, a funny thing happened: Russia's media and finance was overwhelmingly controlled by Jews. Paranoia and fiction became reality. Of the seven oligarchs who controlled more than 50% of Russia's economy during the 1990s, six were Jews: Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Gusin-sky, Alexander Smolensky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Mi-khail Friedman, and Vitaly Malkin. Berezovsky also controlled the state television station and several newspapers, while Gusinsky's media empire controlled NTV, Russia's only national independent TV station, as well as major radio and print outlets.

While these largely Jewish figures appeared to dominate the nation, Russia suffered through a decade of unprecedented industrial decline, mass poverty, and a soaring death rate unheard of in an industrialized country not at war. It was a nightmare come true for a country where anti-Semitism is as common as birch trees.

Is this proof that the Protocols weren't a forgery, and that Jews really do gather in Basel every year for a power-weekend of world-domination-plotting and lo-carb fondue? As exciting as that sounds, the reason Jews rose to such power is much simpler. Thanks to anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union, Jews were restricted in their ability to assimilate and rise up in society, so those who wanted to get ahead were forced into the margins. That meant that while ethnic Slavs dominated all the best career slots in the highly bureaucratized Soviet society, Jews dominated the black market economy. After the collapse of communism, the black market became legalized as free-market capitalism. And so a disproportionate number of Jews went from being black marketers to robber barons to oligarchs. In other words, Russian anti-Semitism created its own anti-Semitic reality, which was then used to validate Russian anti-Semitism.

The Jews: Where Are They Now? By Yasha Levine and Mark Ames
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