Chapter 11 The Post-Soviet Assault on the Jew’s Body: the New Racial Science “Mr. Foster was so struck with the general appearance of the Cashmereans as to be almost inclined to imagine that he had been suddenly transported among the nation of Jews” John Bigland. 1816.1 This chapter examines the presence of the Jew’s racialized body in the quasi-scientific writing of post-Soviet period. It examines the work of two racially aggressive authors, Grigory Klimov (1918–2007) and Vladimir Avdeev (b. 1962), whose pseudo-scientific assumptions are presented as respectable social theories.2 Avdeev and Klimov are popular not only inside Russia and the former Soviet Union, but also among the Russian Diaspora around the globe. Klimov had an Internet site, and received letters from followers from various parts of the world, including such “remote places” as Australia and New Zealand.3 He died in the United States in December 2007. Psychopathology of Race: Klimov’s “Advanced Sociology” The most extreme manifestation in Russian discourse of the political exploita-tion of linking race and psychopathology, including sexual perverseness, is found in the work of the contemporary author Grigory Klimov. Klimov’s appeal to the post-Soviet Russian reader is explained by the fact that, due to his unusual biography, he himself falls into the category of “returned” authors.4 Klimov defected to the West after World War II and, 244244 The Post-Soviet Assault on the Jew’s Body: the New Racial Science according to the information on his website, was employed by US intelligence organizations as an expert on communist societies.5 His popularity in post- Soviet Russia is explained by the aura of authority that surrounds him as a person and his rare insight not only into the workings of communist governments, but also into the secrets of major institutions within the United States. The fact that his works were banned from publication in the Soviet Union puts him on a par with authors such as Vasily Rozanov and other representatives of conservative and ultra-conservative Russian thought. His advanced age gave him an additional status of respectability and wisdom. After the fall of the Soviet Union Klimov became a member of the Russian Writers’ Union. He is the author of openly antisemitic books with such provocative titles as Bozhii narod (God’s Chosen People [1989]), Protokoly sovetskikh mudretsov (Protocols of the Elders of the Soviets [1981]) (the title echoes Protocols of the Elders of Zion), and Krasnaia kabala (The Red Kabala [1987]), all of which are available in various bookshops and can be downloaded from Internet sites. His work promotes the idea of the existence of a Jewish conspiracy, a theory based on the biological nature of the Jewish race. Klimov uses a number of quasi-scientific terms, such as “bionegativity” and “degeneracy.” His scientific method is termed “Degeneralogiia” (“Degenerology”) and the branch of science he has developed is known as “Vysshaia Sotsiologiia” (“Advanced Sociology”). Klimov’s work is focused almost exclusively on the pathology of the Jewish race, which for him is the prime example of degeneration and psychopathology. Every political problem that Russian society has faced over the last two centuries is regarded as the result of the activities of Jews. The main postulate of Klimov’s theory is that all Jews are degenerates, and that all degenerates are either Jews or have an admixture of Jewish blood. Once Jewish blood enters the genetic pool of the nation, this nation becomes poisoned, damaged by agents of destruction that cannot be identified as Jewish because their physical appearance has been altered. Klimov’s method of application of such theories is simple: he postulates an admixture of Jewish blood in all prominent and important political personalities in the history of Russia and the Soviet Union, explaining their destructive role by their psychopathological drive to dominate the political life of the country. He terms such a drive the “complex of power.” The following passage from an interview entitled “Sut’ problemy” (“The Core of the Problem”), which Klimov gave in 2001,6 demonstrates his methodology, approach and use of terminology: When close relatives marry each other, then children from such a union will be degenerates. This is an old and well-known fact. This is why the Christian 245245 Chapter 11 Church forbids marriage between relatives up to six generations. If a group of religious leaders does the opposite and ENCOURAGES such marriages and even FORBIDS marriages outside the sect, then this sect will be full of degenerates in four to five generations. Do you know such a sect, which forbids mixed marriages and which continues marriages between relatives as it has done for a several thousand years? Yes, we know such a sect. Many degenerates have strange characteristics, such as the insatiable desire to dominate, and an abnormal, pathological desire always to be on top. Many of them have an insatiable power mania. These degenerates feel that they are the “chosen people,” an “élite group” (superiority mania), and at the same time they feel that they are being “persecuted” and “chased away” (persecution mania). But superiority mania and persecution mania are siblings (1). This is one of Klimov’s most diplomatic and cryptic descriptions of a degenerative group, in which the reader nevertheless easily identifies Jews. His book Bozhii narod (God’s Chosen People) is structured as a series of lectures, and consists of thirteen chapters in which he concentrates entirely on Jews as a prime example of a degenerate nation. Here, in this interview, Klimov explains the difference between his approach and racism, maintaining that any body politic that advocates the racial purity of blood is itself a source of degeneracy. Jews and Judaism are identified not only as degenerate, but also as racist; such is the double-edged sword of Klimov’s methodology in application to Jews. Klimov divides degeneracy into three stages: 1/ sexual perversions; 2/ psychological illnesses; 3/ inborn defects. These categories allow Klimov to include homosexuals and lesbians in the category of degenerates, and to create a link between race and gender. The main aim of Klimov’s diagnosis of groups of people as degenerates is to expose them as a destructive force in the political, economic and cultural life of contemporary societies, and Russia in particular. In fact, he describes degenerates as “weapons of mass destruction” (1). Sexual Degeneracy In his “advanced sociology,” Klimov focuses on a number of features, including sexual transgressions and Jewish pathology, as a political weapon against enemies/Jews.7 His self-proclaimed mission is to save the Russian nation from pollution by Jewish blood and it comes as no surprise that he 246 The Post-Soviet Assault on the Jew’s Body: the New Racial Science refers to Rozanov in his work, albeit with an ironic mistrust of this writer’s sanity: Here is an example. There is a rather famous writer in the history of Russian literature –Vasily Vasilievich Rozanov. In an article entitled “Jehovah’s Angel and the Jews” Rozanov wrote about the attitude of Jews towards goyim: “He (the goy) can be made even more ill when he is sick, or be given medicine which does not work. It is possible to spoil the goyim’s literature. It is possible to damage and destroy their trade and industry.” One has to say that V. V. Rozanov himself was a very ambivalent person, e. g. from the viewpoint of advanced sociology he was a degenerate and psychologically sick. I think that sexually he was also not normal. At the age of twenty he married a forty-year-old woman, something which a normal man would not do. He explained the reason for his marriage in this way: this forty-year-old woman used to be Dostoevsky’s mistress and out of respect for Dostoevsky he married her. The marriage was short, this psychopathic woman left him. In the article “Jehovah’s Angel and the Jews” V. Rozanov acted as an antisemite, but soon he started to flirt with Jews—he was a terrible chameleon (6).8 In this attack on Rozanov there are echoes of Rozanov’s own practice of accusing his enemies of sexual perversions. In Klimov’s case Rozanov becomes the object of such a “methodology.” Klimov accuses both Rozanov and his partner Apollinariia Suslova of being psychopaths in a move that is symptomatic of his tactic of damning sexual deviants: in his work even divorced women fall into the category of degenerates.9 Even writers like Rozanov and Dostoevsky, who made negative pronouncements about Jews, fall into the category of degenerates, sexual deviants, or biologically flawed individuals (“bionegatives”). This, however, does not mean that Klimov is less manipulative than Rozanov in his mission. Indeed, various personalities become objects of Klimov’s manipulation by means of his interpretation of their sexualities. Dostoevsky, His Own Pathologies and His “Crypto-Jews” Klimov uses Dostoevsky as he uses Rozanov, as an expert on Jews, while at the same time being an object of Klimov’s study of psychopathology. The alliances Klimov forges with Rozanov and Dostoevsky, however, are only partial.10 Klimov does not hesitate to use isolated fragments of texts 247 Chapter 11 and biographical information, including the behavioral or psychological characteristics of a given personality, if they suit his arguments. He uses Dostoevsky as an authoritative figure to fight the enemy, while at the same time implicating him as a suspect personality. In the following example, Klimov uses this method twice: In this lecture series we shall address the problem dubbed “The Jewish Question.” This is a very difficult problem for an objective investigation.