Editor, Herald of Sov. Jewish Culture, interviewed 21 February 1990 in Moscow
Interviewer: Gwynne Dyer

[ MS: Regrettably, I’m not sure whether this is Dyer’s summary or mine after listening to the tape. I think it is probably mine. ]

Golenpolski is some kind of a journalist and he says that Leningrad is becoming a centre for xenophobia, that Pamyat is recruiting people and getting people to supply the addresses of Jews. Sobchak and others have warned that a pogrom is not out of the question. The KGB and others should do something to prevent it. There was not much antisemitism among intellectuals until now but some of these people are intellectuals. They are antisemitic but behind that they are basically right wingers. They are anti-socialist and pro-monarchist. Accusing them of being a Jewish plot is to discredit socialism. The only one they haven’t said is they haven’t said that Lenin had any Jewish blood, but they said everybody else had, to prove that the revolution was bad. In the past, the growth of anti-semitism was correlated with all the departure of Jews. All or some of the Jews could leave, but all the other people had to stay, and they resented it. He is promoting the idea of civil rights. All people should have the same rights to emigrate.

He argues for dual citizenship. People should know, when they leave, that they have the right to return home.

Asked about his position on Trotsky and stuff, he says he always told people that the people who were opponents of the Czar or of Trotsky, etc. those people are still alive, so there are people who were their personal enemies, and once those people die, then they will just become part of history and instead of being Trotskyites, he will just be Mr. Trotsky, one of the people in our history. So that’s what is happening now; they are making that change.