Ilya Zavlavsky : Soviet’s Leading Jewish Politician Discusses the Nation’s Anti-Semitism

Although Jews by the hundreds of thousands are leaving the Soviet Union, others have decided to stay. Among them: Ilya Eosovich Zavlavsky, 31, a fearless democrat who, in 1989, was elected to the Congress of Peoples Deputies from Moscow’s October District. A prestigious neighborhood, the October District is home to many leading officials--including Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Politics in the Soviet Union is filled with ironies. But surely one of the most startling is that, for the past two years, Zavlavsky, a militant anti-communist and a Jew, has served as Gorbachev’s representative. This is yet another sign of the enormous change in a country where official anti-Semitism barred Jews from many top government jobs as recently as five years ago.

Prickly and uncompromising, Zavlavsky has, at times, alienated even his most enthusiastic supporters. Nonetheless, he has overcome great odds to become perhaps the Soviet Union’s most prominent Jewish politician. In many ways, his is a real Horatio Alger story, Russian-style: He overcame anti-Semitism and the communist system, not poverty, to achieve his success.

Zavlavsky is one of a remarkable group of young, well-educated democratic politicians who emerged in the wake of glasnost and perestroika to challenge Soviet communism. Allied with the mayors of Moscow and Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), they were largely responsible for creating the grass-roots movement that rallied behind Boris N. Yeltsin during the coup.

A systems analyst by training, Zavlavsky first became politically active in 1987, fighting for the rights of the disabled; crippled since childhood by a form of hemophilia, Zavlavsky is forced to walk with a cane.

The work for the disabled led to the 1989 Peoples Deputy election. In 1990, Zavlavsky was again elected, this time as chairman of the October District City Council. There, he incurred the wrath of his most famous constituent, Gorbachev, who denounced Zavlavsky because he implemented radical measures to encourage free enterprise and end Communist Party domination of the district. Although continuing communist opposition forced him to resign from the City Council earlier this year, Gorbachev’s attack did wonders for Zavlavsky’s political reputation among democrats and reformers.

During the coup, Zavlavsky arrived at the Russian parliament building early and remained there throughout the three-day siege. He delights recounting how, at one point, he offered to fly to the Crimea to demand the Gorbachevs’ release. Despite their many prior differences, it was his duty as their representative, he says, the irony barely concealed.

Zavlavsky is very much an assimilated Jew. But he does not deny, or try to hide, his heritage--as do many other Jews in Soviet public life. Married to a Russian and the father of a 4-year-old daughter, Zavlavsky speaks excellent English and has visited the United States several times.

Question: Your enemies, when you were chairman of the October District Soviet, used the fact that you are Jewish to try to discredit the program you were attempting to introduce. Was anti-Semitism a major factor among the problems you had?

Answer: No. Absolutely not. Anti-Semitism is a real thing in our country. It exists. It exists just like anti-Armenian prejudice and anti-Russian prejudice. And, of course, it creates a lot of problems, difficulties, for Jews who live here.

But I must also point out that the social research (polls) asking, “Which nation do you most dislike?,” Jews are among the nations which have the least enemies--not a lot of enemies.

The majority of people here are anti-Armenian, anti-Azerbaijani; Jews are at the bottom of the list. Perhaps that’s because there was official anti-Semitism, which was strong, and in our country there is a good tradition: If the government, the communist government, persecuted somebody, some nation, people looked more favorably on these people.

But of course anti-Semitism exists.

Q: Rabbi Adolph Shayevich, Moscow’s chief rabbi, says few Jews are involved in politics. Why is that?

A: I don’t agree that there are few Jews. There are a lot of Jews involved in politics. For example, there are many Jews in the Soviet parliament (Congress of Peoples Deputies) and a very big percent of Jews in the parliament of Russia and the Mossoviet (Moscow City Council). So, I don’t agree that only a few Jews are involved in politics. In fact, the percent of Jews is much higher than the percent of Jews in the overall population.

That’s not because of some official line, but because a lot of them have joined the democratic movement; that’s understandable because of the persecution organized by the official communist government for many, many years. There was a reaction . . . .

Q: During your campaign, did you detect anti-Semitism?

A: Yes, of course. But I must say, in most cases, it was official anti-Semitism: the people of Pamyat (extreme Russian nationalist movement), the local Communist Party, and so on. That was official point of view: It’s bad to be Jew. Official point of view of communist government.

Of course, it’s not (written down) in the official program of the CPSU (Communist Party) but it was the political language of Leonid Brezhnev and his predecessors: by Joseph Stalin and by all communist governments after Mr. Lenin--who was a most terrible man but not anti-Semitic . . . .

Not because I am a Jew, but because I am an anti-communist. They must make people understand why anti-communist Zavlavsky is bad: “He is bad because he is disabled. He is bad because he is Jew.”

Because if they would say that Zavlavsky is bad because he is anti-communist, it will not make good impression on people who do not like communists. So they looked for other arguments.

Q: But they used that argument against you because they thought it would discredit you.

A: Of course! And it made some influence to some percent of the electors. Obviously. It was evident.

After the election, when I was chairman of the October District Soviet, they made a real campaign against Zavlavsky because Zavlavsky took a lot of Jews on his team. At the same time, among the organizers of this campaign, there were some so-called “official Jews,” who were unquestionably Jews biologically, who organized this anti-Semitic campaign.

They charged that Zavlavsky was agent of CIA, that Zavlavsky is agent of Zionism, that Zavlavsky has been given money for Jewish terrorism; and the guy who organized all this was himself a Jew who changed his name. (He laughs) And as a result, he was good enough to work for our secret service (KGB).

Q: So many of the original Bolsheviks were Jewish, why is it that the Communist Party developed into such a strongly, officially anti-Semitic organization?

A: It’s completely understandable. Joseph Stalin began the process of liquidating the original Bolsheviks, which was criminal, because he wanted to be the one master. To do this, he had to find an argument against them. So he used the argument that they were Jews--not because he did not like Jews, I think--but because it was a very good argument.

He (had to explain) why Trotsky is bad. “All right! Because he is Jew.” Trotsky was a criminal like Stalin. One was Georgian. One was Jew. Both were criminals because they were communists.

The principal problem for communists was to find ways to convince people that communism was good. If somebody is bad, it’s because somebody is Jewish, somebody is Lithuanian, somebody is Estonian. Nationalism was used by the communists. It’s the old Roman principle: You make to separate, and you will have power.

Anti-Semitism was one of a number of methods they used. Sometimes, very effectively. But now, as the communist system was nearing the end of its existence, the old methods worked badly . . . .

Q: Do you think Jews in the Soviet Union have benefitted from the political opening that began with glasnost and perestroika ?

A: I think Jews, among all others, have benefitted from this . . . We lived in a communist society, and there was always the possibility of returning to reaction; the coup d’etat was a demonstration that the possibility continues to exist.

You can only imagine what would have happened to all the nations, the Jews among them, if Mr. Yanayev and Mr. Kryuchkov would have held on to power. I do not think this would have been good for anyone.

I must say that Gorbachev has changed his point of view (since the coup) . . . . But I’m afraid that many Jews in the United States made a big mistake (before the coup): They decided that Gorbachev was a little better than other communists, they had no choice but to support Gorbachev, because he permitted Jews to leave the country.

In reality, in any normal society like the United States, everybody lives much better and nobody must say “thanks” because somebody permits them to leave. Not a lot of Jewish organizations in the United States understood this. But some of them did . . . . Unfortunately, these were not the organizations which have big influence in the Establishment of the United States of America.

Q: Why have you decided to stay in this country? You could have left five years ago when things were uncertain. Why have you--and many other Jews--opted to stay?

A: It’s a question of loyalty, which people must decide for themselves . . . . For me, Russia is my homeland. My country. I will not leave! I cannot understand why I must leave my country! I prefer to give the communists the possibility to leave the country . . . .

Q: Do you think the fact that Ilya Krichevsky, one of the three men killed defending the Russian parliament during the coup, was a Jew will affect the perception of Jews among the Russian people?

A: I said at the beginning that Jews are not the most unpopular . . . . But I think that the index of their unpopularity is now less because of the heroic death of Ilya Krichevsky. Of course.

A lot of people who understood nothing, who did not like the Jews, understand after this; there are patriots among Jews like there are patriots among Russians. All the accusations that Jews do not love their country, it’s all lies . . . .

Q: Do you think, among Jews in this country, many of whom are assimilated, have changed their names, have tried to change their passports to say “Russian” and not “Jew”--do you think the fact that one of those who died was a Jew will raise their own self-esteem? Will it lead to the kind of consciousness-raising that has occurred among blacks and others in the United States, for example?

A: You must differentiate between the question of assimilation and the question of those who change their names, passports, and try to become “official Jews”; those who speak against Zionism, who join the Anti-Zionist Committee of Soviet People, which is sometimes called the Anti-Semitic Committee of Soviet Jews.

Assimilation is a normal process and there are a lot of assimilated Jews who don’t see anything wrong with it; . . . they are Jews biologically, and they don’t want to say anything bad (about Jews or Israel).

And for them, like for other (more religious) Jews, the death of Ilya Krichevsky means that someone like them, who was biologically a Jew, sacrificed his life so that a lot of other Jews could live their lives like he did. They approved of him because he was a democrat like them.

What about people who changed their names and such other things? Perhaps in their souls they are Jews, but they are cowards. I don’t think that anything can help them, because they want to hide that they are Jews. They have no self-esteem; and if you have no self-esteem, you can be Russian, you can be Jew or Georgian. Nothing will help you.

Q: It’s the Jewish New Year. As you look ahead, do you think the number of Jews leaving the Soviet Union will decrease if the outcome of the coup leads to more economic and political stability?

A: Yes, of course. I’m absolutely sure the principal factor for emigration is instability . . . . Because people can’t find a job or feed their children. To be a Jew is a good way to leave the country; a lot of Russians go to Israel, (pretending) they’re Jews, or their wife is Jewish, or their cat is the son or daughter of some other cat which was a cat from a Jewish family.

It’s reality . . . the principal factor for emigration is the difficulties in this country. And I’m absolutely sure if life would be better, it would change the problem of emigration.

Recently I was in some Arab countries and they asked me, “Why do so many Soviet Jews leave the Soviet Union? Can you stop them by law?”

I said, “Of course not! But if you can find an Arab sheik who will give some money to Russia, not so many Russian Jews will go to Israel.”