Stop your cruel oppression of the Jews Many people think of Nazi Germany as the cradle of government created anti-Semitism, but long before anyone had heard of the Nazi Holocaust, the Russian concept of pogrom was well known. The 1939 edition of an authoritative Russian dictionary defined pogrom as: “the government-organized mass slaughter of some element of the population as a group, such as the Jewish pogroms in tsarist Russia.” Russia’s first major pogrom against the Jews took place on April 15, 1881, in the Ukrainian town of Yelisavetgrad. Russia’s government was suffering from gross corruption and incompetence. In order to deflect criticism, emissaries from St. Petersburg called for the people’s wrath to be vented on the Jews. The impoverished peasants obliged. A month later, Tsar Alexander II was assassinated. His successor, Alexander III, decided to save Russia from anarchical disorder by transforming it into a nation with one nationality, one language, and one religion. He began his policy by instigating more pogroms. A wave of killings, rapes, and the pillaging of Jews spread quickly across the entire Russian empire. Tsarist authorities, of course, blamed the victims for the violence. An investigative commission concluded: that “the passion for acquisition and money-grabbing is inherent in the Jew from the day of his birth; it is characteristic of the Semitic race, manifest from almost the first page of the Bible.” In April 1903, another major pogrom took place in Kishinev, then the capital of the Bessarabia province. The pogrom started after a young boy was found murdered. Although it was clear that he had been killed by a relative (who was later identified), the Russian media insinuated that he was murdered by Jews. The pogrom spanned three days. The New York Times described it as follows: The anti-Jewish riots in Kishinev, Bessarabia, are worse than the censor will permit to publish. There was a well laid-out plan for the general massacre of Jews on the day following the Russian Easter. The mob was led by priests, and the general cry, “Kill the Jews,” was taken- up all over the city. The Jews were taken wholly unaware and were slaughtered like sheep. The dead number 120 and the injured about 500. The scenes of horror attending this massacre are beyond description. Babes were literally torn to pieces by the frenzied and bloodthirsty mob. The local police made no attempt to check the reign of terror. At sunset the streets were piled with corpses and wounded. Those who could make their escape fled in terror, and the city is now practically deserted of Jews. A second Kishinev pogrom took place on October 19-20, 1905. By the time it was over, 19 more Jews had been killed and 56 injured. The Soviet dictators, like the tsars before them, needed a tangible enemy. Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the Bolshevik revolution, dropped the Kremlin’s traditional anti-Semitism and unleashed his wrath against the country’s aristocracy and wealthy landowners. His successor Stalin, however, transformed his personal anti-Semitism into national and international policy. Fearing the competing Communists who had fought for Lenin’s revolution, Stalin framed some of them as agents of Zionist espionage and made the others look guilty by association. When Stalin wanted to get rid of his main rival, Leon Trotsky, his political police framed Trotsky as a Jewish spy of American Zionism and had him expelled from the country. That insinuation later allowed Stalin to have Trotsky barbarically killed with an ice axe in Mexico City without causing most of Russia even to blink an eye. Once again, the Jews were the country’s enemies. Sadly, it was not the last time that anti-Semitism would be used as a national policy designed to advance a political agenda. Part 2: http://brandeiscenter.com/blog/government-created-anti-semitism-part-2/ Part 3: http://brandeiscenter.com/blog/government-created-anti-semitism-part-3/#more-1460 All three blogs are based on the book, Disinformation: Former Spy Chief Reveals Secret Strategies for Undermining Freedom, Attacking Religion, and Promoting Terrorism: http://superstore.wnd.com/books/Disinformation-Former-Spy-Chief-Reveals-Hardcover