New Moscow Movement Viewed as Anti-Semitic : Soviet Officials Appear Confused Over How to Respond to ‘Patriotic’ Group

Soviet officials appear to be concerned about a new movement springing up in Moscow with strong anti-Semitic overtones.

The movement, called Pamyat, or memory, was bitterly attacked in the youth newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda on Friday as “exploding from the burning match of anti-Semitism.”

The paper’s leading ideologue, Yelena L. Losoto, charged that the group is composed of “small bourgeoisie” who have concocted a “poisonous mixture” of anti-Semitism and anti-Freemasonry under the guise of “Leninism” and “patriotism.”

The Pamyat group, according to the lengthy article, contends that only the Soviet secret police, the KGB, “can save us from Jewish and Masonic oppression.” But other organs of the Soviet press have kept silent, leading some Western diplomats to speculate that the government is confused about how to deal with the organization.

Pamyat takes a strong nationalistic line, extolling the virtues and strengths of the Soviet Union, and combines this with statements supporting conservation of the country’s architectural heritage.

Ecological Issues

But in addition to this heavily conservative note in supporting the traditional values of the Soviet people, Pamyat’s tone is more like that of West Germany’s radical Greens party on ecological issues.

“The Pamyat movement seems to be tolerated,” commented a Western diplomat. “These issues go deep into Russian history and culture, and it seems as if they are being fought out in public and the press.”

“I think there is confusion among the hierarchy about how to handle the movement,” said a Soviet analyst in Moscow. “The new freedom of glasnost has left many confused.” Glasnost, or openness, is a term used to describe Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s policy of reform and liberalization of life in the Soviet Union.

The Pamyat movement came to the attention of Western observers about two weeks ago when about 400 members held a demonstration in the center of Moscow without police interference.

They carried placards reading “Long Live True Leninism,” “Save Our History,” and “Down With Jews.” Soviet analysts here say that part of Pamyat’s anti-Jewish campaign arises from historic Russian anti-Semitic attitudes but that contributing to it is the more recent phenomenon of some of the Soviet emigres returning to this country from the West.

Jewish Returnees

“Many of these returnees are Jews,” said one Muscovite, “and the Pamyat people are suggesting that they are (being) treated as heroes, getting priority on apartments or cars, while they should instead be treated as traitors or infidels who left the country in the first place.”

Despite the provocative nature of some of the Pamyat slogans, the Communist Party chief in Moscow, Boris N. Yeltsin, who is also an alternate member of the ruling Soviet Politburo, received leaders of the group after their recent demonstration and spoke with them for three hours.

To some observers, this seemed like a form of official recognition of the group, whose leaders remain rather elusive figures and have not turned up in public interviews.

He also reportedly told them that their request for public recognition would be considered.

Members of the group, supported by other organizations that seem to be sprouting up in Soviet cities, have complained to authorities about new construction that might cause the destruction of traditional villages.

‘Confusion and Indecision’

“All this is new under Gorbachev,” remarked one citizen here. “Before, the authorities did not tolerate these kinds of objections. Now there is confusion and indecision over how to handle them.”

In her article, ideologist Losoto did not mention the group’s meeting with Yeltsin, although she was acid in her criticism of the society’s activities and statements.

Before the Gorbachev era, according to specialists here, an article such as Losoto’s damning the Pamyat group would have had to have official approval at a high level before being published.

“Now we don’t know which side the government is on,” a Soviet analyst commented. “We’ll just have to read the papers and wait and see.”