Talk:Rootless cosmopolitan/Archive 1

Archive 1

Avnery

Moving this to talk: The Israeli dissident journalist and activist Uri Avnery, in several articles written both in the 1950's and when Meir was Israel's Prime Minister in the early 1970's, charcterised her conduct in this affair as "highly irresponsible" and "disastrous". For example, in 1970 Avnery wrote: "If she had even the most general idea of the workings of the Soviet regime, she should have realised that she was putting the Russian Jews in grave danger; and if she did not realise what she was doing, than she was manifestly unfit to be Ambassador to Moscow".(Uri Avnery, "Golda Meir - Woman of the Year" in HaOlam Hazeh Magazine Jewish New Year Special Edition, Tel-Aviv, September 1970,אורי אבנרי, "אשת השנה גולדה מאיר", שבועון העולם הזה, גליון ראש השנה, ספטמבר 1970.) - Avnery's POV is precious, but I am afraid he is simply not a reliable source on the matter. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 09:16, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Avnery is certainly not a source for what happened in the Soviet Union in 1948. He certainly IS a source for how the actions of Golda Meir at Moscow in 1948 were regarded (considering their outcome) by at least part of the public opinion in the country whose ambassador she was at the time. This is quite relevant information for a page which describes these activities of hers in great detail, and in terms which are not exactly NPOV ("They called her 'Our Golda'" etc.). Adam keller 15:05, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

They did indeed call her "Our Golda" and we report about it in WP:NPOV way. How big a part of the public opinion Avnery expresses is very questionable, and in any case his 70s political posturing is irrelevant to the subject of the article. I'm not even talking about his off-the-wall idea that Golda have influenced Stalins' policies. Shows how much he knows about "the workings of the Soviet regime". ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 21:39, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

She did manifestly influence Stalin's policies in a very negative way. She helped convince him that the Soviet Jews were a threat to his regime, and he had well-known ways of dealing with waht he considered a threat. There was no need to be a big expert to know that he would not tolerate things far less substantial than 50,000 Soviet citizens being mobilised in the middle of Moscow,uncontrolled by the regime and - as he would see certainly see it, whether or not it was true -controlled by the ambassador of a foreign country who os also the representative of an ideological movement which was an old enemey of the Bolsheviks. I think she bears a considerable part of the responsibility for the death of the Jews who were killed in the Soviet Union between 1948 and 1953.Adam keller 16:58, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

You are repeating Avnery's POV, and he is not a WP:RS. "controlled by the ambassador of a foreign country" - proof please. "I think she bears a considerable part of the responsibility for the death of the Jews who were killed in the Soviet Union between 1948 and 1953." - thank you for expressing your POV, see what WP is not. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 00:58, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

About her moral responsiblity for the killing - that is indeed my own opinion and that's why I write it here, I would not try to put it into the article unless I could give a clear proof which is of course very difficult. For the article the point is that it describes what Golda Meir did in her job as ambassador of Israel to Moscow, and it describes it in a very positive way without one word of criticism. Therefore, the fact that there was criticism made in Israel of what she did is quite relevant to the article, especiallly that the criticism was made by the editor of a weekly opposition magazine which was at the time quite popular and influencial. As I already said, I don't claim that Avnery is any way a source for what happened in Moscow in 1948. But for the fact that there was criticism made in Israel of Golda Meir's actions, the magazine articles expressing the criticism are obviously the primary source according to WP:RS. Adam keller 12:59, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

First, in Israel there is/was criticism of everyone and everything both inside and outside the state. Second, sorry I don't see where the article "describes in a very positive way" her "job as ambassador of Israel to Moscow". Third, this is a wrong place for political bickering by a minor figure in Israeli opposition in 1970s. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 08:12, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

"Golda Meir in the crowd. Born in Kiev, she was AFFECIONATELY known as "OUR GOLDA". "HUGE ENTHUSIASISTIC CROWDS (ESTIAMTED 50,000) gathered along her path and in and around Moscow". What words could be more positive than that? And two paragrpahs later, the reference to "Domestically, Soviet Jews were being considered a security liability for their international connections, especially to the United States of America, and growing national awareness." Was there no connection between what Golda did and the Soviet Jews being considered this way? And should she no have realised that this was the likely result of what she did? Adam keller 15:02, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Fact: Golda was born in Kiev. Fact: post-War Soviet Jews affectionately and proudly called her "Our Golda". Fact: The crowds were huge and enthusiastic. OTOH, you want to paint facts in the color of your POV and want to inject Israeli internal political bickering of 1970s where it doesn't belong: USSR of 1948. And again, you assert that Golda did organize the crowds - still without a proof. As a matter of fact, some memoirs suggest that the crowds could have been organized by the KGB. But we are writing an encyclopedia here, so let's stick to relevant facts. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 00:13, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

The important fact is not whether she organised the crowds or not, or if anybody organised them, and I did not assert that she did. The important fact is that whether or not she organised them, it was bound to look to a chronic paranoid like Stalin that she did organise them, with bad consequences to the Jews, and that she should have realised this as soon as she saw what was happening and done she could to discourage it (rather than encourage it in every possible way).And by the way, Avnery was saying this not only in the 1970's (when it became relevant again since she became prime Minster), he was saying it in editorials in the early 1950's, quite soon after the events. But anyway, the two of us can go on debating this for weeks or months, and I don't think we will reach consensus which is what is supposed to happen in Wikipedia. You think that Avnery's words are not relevant to the article, I think they do, and there does not seem a way for us to convince each other. If I remember rightly, what should be done in this kind of case is to ask for arbitration.Adam keller 18:54, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

For the n-th time, what did she do to "encourage it in every possible way"?

Bad, bad Golda! 1) She should have prophesied what was about to happen; 2) She should have predicted Stalin's thoughts; and 3) She should have stopped the crowds: you see, secretly she was indeed controlling them. At least she should have called the KGB. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 21:34, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

There is no point in continuing to waste each other's time and energy in repeating the same arguments again and again. I have now placed the following in Wikipedia:Third opinion, I hope some third parties with a fresh view take a hand and bring some fresh air into this suffocating debate. Adam keller 01:55, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I have been involved in a prolonged debate with Humus sapiens on a specific edit in the page rootless cosmopolitans. You can follow our debate on the discussion page there (the section entitled "Avnery"). As you can plainly see, we have been locked in this debate for a considerable time, we are repeating the same arguments, and neither of us is going to convince the other. No third party has taken an interest in this debate on their own initiative, so it seems this is the place to approach and try to resolve the deadlock. Thanks for any help. 01:51, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I'm here to provide a third opinion. I think quoting Avner is definitely POV, especially since this is not an article on Golda Meir's visit, and the visit is just a small part of it. If you'd like to quote him, it would be more appropriate in a separate article detailing the visit. However, the whole paragraph is unsourced in its current state. I think it's definitely possible that Golda Meir's visit encouraged state anti-Semitism, that much is clear - but some source must be provided, something for her visit (though this is of lower priority, I'd say: the photo definitely shows the large crowd), and something for the debate pro and contra. If it's "a point still debated by historians", then that debate should be presented, if only in the form of two quick external links. Historians should be preferred to journalists and politicians. Gite voch -- prezzey 23:07, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

It should be possible to find appropriate refrerences, either online or in the Tel-Aviv University library. Adam keller 17:39, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

RfC

BAn RfC: Which descriptor, if any, can be added in front of Southern Poverty Law Center when referenced in other articles? has been posted at the Southern Poverty Law Center talk page. Your participation is welcomed. – MrX 17:15, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Internationalism

Both the "fraternity of the peoples" and the "proletarian internationalism" principles were more than some abstract concepts, but also the ideological cornerstones to abide by at least formally, or else... Perhaps each deserve a separate article. --Humus sapiens | Talk 03:11, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Well, you can add them back if you want. I think the present wording gets the point across more clearly, though. Everyking 04:01, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I don't get how cosmopolitanism is bad? I know the USSR had lots of oxymorons, but just how did they resolve this? Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 04:56, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Essentially, state propaganda re/mis/defined a plain word in order to brand certain people, and primal fear took care of the rest - the Great Purge was a recent memory. Since a totalitarian society lacks any significant internal opposition, brainwash works. ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 07:38, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

---

^^^^^^^the soviet union certainly did not lack internal opposition it was just impotent to do anything, the GOOD totalitarian societies accomplish pacification without violence and intimidation, look at the United States....its entire history is one of unrepentant conquest and subjugation, enslavement, war, foreign meddling, and atomic annhilation, yet the populous does not disagree and in fact whole heartedly supports such endeavors, the United States truly has no significant internal opposition....as where the soviet union did but they could do nothing, the united states allows for any such mass movement to take the reins of government yet none exist...true totalitarian perfection —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.171.219.196 (talk) 09:31, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

---

cosmopolitanism is the philisophical embodiment of the luxurious, worldly, aristocratic, and distintcly anti-proletarian nature of western culture and was considered a threat to the soviet state. -but i have a complaint to register as i think this wiki should not be included in the Anti-Semitism category as the phrase and subsequent suppression of jews wasnt motivated by anti-semitism....i think it should be included in jewish history but not anti semitism, YES many people, especially the soviet people at large were motivated to action by their own anti-semitism and YES the state used overtly anti-semitic messages to accomplish their goal but Stalin's motivation was destabilizing a potentially threatening, distinctly non-soviet belief system...the same is true of soviet attitudes towards the russian orthodox church before the war. they burned the churches, murdered the priests and it would seem stalin hates christianity but then WWII starts and stalin has many of thechurches rebuilt and re-instates the priests with their blessings and icons because it was politically expedient.....bottom line i think, they DID punish jews and target jews but not because they hate jews or judaism but because they felt threatened by the idea of a large portion of their populous owing allegiance to a foreign, western nation and to a philosophy and world outlook that was something other than the tenents of marxism-leninism and dialectical materialsm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.171.219.196 (talk) 09:27, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Cosmopolitanism is a philosophy whereby one looks at themselves as a 'citizen of the world' without feeling patriotism for any one specific country more than another. The word rootless is a bit weird, and a better translation of the Russian word would be 'without a motherland'. Meishern (talk) 15:46, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Yuri Zhukov (historian)

Not only he is an open Stalinist (author of book "Настольная книга сталиниста" - "Handbook of Stalinist"), but he blamed Jews of Soviet political repressions to whitewash Stalin, as explained, for example, here. Therefore, he is an especially inappropriate source for an article about oppression of Jews in the Soviet Union. My very best wishes (talk) 14:25, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Handbook of Stalinist = author is a Stalinist? That is just a silly argument... The author usually does not choose the title of his books; the publisher does that.

I don't think websites like jewish.ru meet the RS requirements. The accusations about him accusing the Jews are false anyway. -YMB29 (talk) 20:48, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

This not just this book, but all his books and all 3rd party publications about him. For example, here he even denies/casts doubts that Katyn massacre was perpetrated by the Soviet NKVD and hints it was committed by Germans. My very best wishes (talk) 21:26, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

That does not make him unreliable. There are many holes in the official story, and it is not uncommon in Russia for historians to question it.

In the book cited here, he is objective. For example, he accuses members of Soviet public organizations (like the Writers' Union) of antisemitism. -YMB29 (talk) 23:39, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I see. You believe that the claim by a modern-day historian that Katyn massacre possibly was not perpetrated by the Soviet NKVD does not make him unreliable. And his claim that Jews were guilty of Stalinist repressions ("он тщится оправдать диктатора, выставляя козлами отпущения за его преступления евреев" according to another historian [1]) does not make him an anti-semite and an inappropriate source for this article. Too bad. My very best wishes (talk) 04:28, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

He has a right to an opinion about Katyn since he worked with the documents. If I remember correctly, his doubts about the official version are mostly based on the fact that he saw one document in the archives, but when it was published its content was very different from what he first saw.

As for him being an antisemite, how can an antisemite criticize others for antisemitism? Did you read the whole interview with the context? His point was that there were many badly educated Jews and non-Jews in the NKVD and the Soviet government in general:

Очень многие партсекретари были людьми полуграмотными. Хорошо, если за плечами церковно-приходская школа, кто русский, и хедеры, если еврей. Как такие могли контролировать строительство гигантов индустрии? Они пытались руководить, ничего толком не понимая. Поэтому нарастало недовольство со стороны крестьян, рабочих, инженеров, они всё это ощущали на себе.

-YMB29 (talk) 05:27, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

??? In the link/interview you provided he tells that Great Purge was a very good, successful campaign by Stalin because it allowed him (according to Zhukov) to suppress Soviet bureaucracy ("37-й и 38-й годы – это сопротивление партократии. Удалось."). This is like someone telling about "successes" of Holocaust.My very best wishes (talk) 16:52, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Why are you bringing up the Holocaust again here? You can't think of better arguments?

He said that it was successful from Stalin's point of view, not that it was very good. Also, he is talking about the fight against the bureaucracy, not the entire Great Purge. -YMB29 (talk) 22:30, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I reviewed the text and I must say that the complete revert is unwarranted. Edits of YMB29 made many good points. In particular, the previous version was too simplistic as to the origin of the term. "Worshipping the West" ("idolopoklonnichestvo pered zapadom") was a perennial campaign in the Soviet Union. Only gradually the term "(rootless) cosmopolitan" has become the euphemism for the Jews. There are some other hood edits. Therefore if you don't like Zhukov, please focus only on the text referenced from him. -M.Altenmann >t 18:28, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I reviewed the paragraph footnoted to Zhukov. It contains no biased opinions (IMO) and is a description of a certain chain of events which can be verified independently. In fact, it depicts very well the "law of the jungle" and cage fights in Soviet society and culture of the times, when the main weapon was not an intellectual discussion, but who was better equipped with support of Party bosses. Ass kissing to the powers and ratting on the opponents were at their height. -M.Altenmann >t 18:39, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I may understand that, Zhukov as Stalinist, may work hard to disprove the opinion Stalin bore the sole responsibility for all bads. Nevertheless, you know the saying, "That you are a paranoid does not mean that they are not after you" :-) In the same vein, yes, Stalin (and his Party) was evil, but a significant (if not the major) part of the Soviet establishment learned "the rules of the game" and smartly pulled the ropes available to destroy the opponents. "Survival of the fittest" was at works, so to say. And Zhukov works at his best to demonstrate that everybody had their "snout in feathers" (рыльце в пуху) (a saying that draws on an image of a cat who ate a canary and sits here with an innocent look from a fable about Fox who ate chicken given as a bribe but denies it). And in my opinion, yes, we can put at work Zhukov's findings of the fact, but not his conclusions. -M.Altenmann >t 18:46, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Well you can't say that Zhukov is a Stalinist. He has worked a lot with primary sources since the Soviet archives were opened in the 1990's and concluded that many of the things said about the Stalin era are not true. -YMB29 (talk) 22:30, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, I might be jumping to conslusions from others' words. I am not familiar with his writings directly. I will take a look soon. -M.Altenmann >t 17:04, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

@Altenmann. If you wish to improve this page, please do. However, after having this and several other discussions with YMB29, I would rather generally avoid any pages he edited (and I think many other contributors did the same). My point was very simple: why should anyone use this book by Zhukov (which is not a reliable source on this subject) if there are many other, much better sources? My very best wishes (talk) 14:12, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

My point is even simpler: where are the wikipedians who would love to expand this article using much better sources? If you consider Zhukov unreliable, I am ready to discuss which fact cited in the article are presented in controversial way. -M.Altenmann >t 17:04, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes the article needs improvement. In particular, the focus on "rootless" cosmopolitans ignores the fact that many notable ethnic Russians suffered in the fight with "cosmopolitans". -M.Altenmann >t 17:04, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

I added some information about that, but yes more is needed. -YMB29 (talk) 02:36, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

As for Zhukov not being a reliable source, how can you claim that? He worked with archival documents of that time probably more than any other historian. Just because you don't agree with his conclusions, does not make him unreliable. -YMB29 (talk) 02:36, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

From an old article by Zhukov on the importance of archival documents[2]:

Sovietologists in western countries had a somewhat wider range of sources than their Soviet colleagues, but they too were constrained by the very limited set of data available from the Soviet Union. Their sources generally included everything that was available to the Soviet scholar, plus materials pertaining to the USSR that were stored in western archives, Soviet publications that were "forgotten" for political reasons, and other unofficially forbidden materials. Individuals from the Soviet Union contributed to the oral history of the period--which was at times highly revealing--but, on other occasions, facts were so distorted by reflecting second- or third-hand versions that they came closer to apocrypha than history.

The tectonic shift in the availability of sources for historical research occurred in 1990: Finally researchers were allowed access to the multiple strata of archival holdings. Gorbachev's instruction to begin declassifying materials from the TsK KPSS archives and transferring these items to open collections constituted a real revolution. For the first time scholars could study documents that reflected the nature of political power in the Soviet Union, the mechanisms by which the government functioned, and, most crucially, the true structure of the governing bodies. Using materials from the Politburo, the Secretariat, the Orgburo of the TsK KPSS, and the departments of the TsK, a researcher could establish who initiated a given act, who made a decision, as well as how and by whom a document was prepared. These materials pertained to every aspect of Soviet life, including foreign and domestic policy formation.

Many newer Western publications about Soviet history make some use of the archival documents that became available, but they are still mostly based on Cold War era secondary sources. -YMB29 (talk) 04:43, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

January 2015

I'm not sure what is going on here, but the article is being re-written in a way that is impossible to comprehend beginning with its introduction. – Here's an example of how is reads to me now, after the last bunch of edits. Rootless cosmopolitans are the cosmopolitans who were rootless according to anti-cosmopolitan patriotism of the non-rootless Central Committee of the Communist Party. Poeticbent talk 16:47, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, your reading is correct. The intro also explains what the term "cosmopolitan" meant in the Soviet Union and what the word "rootless" meant. So your irony is misplaced. -M.Altenmann >t 16:54, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

The first usage

Apparently Zhdanov, January 1948.

Next Alexandrov, March 1948. Александров Г.Ф. Космополитизм - идеология империалистической буржуазии // Вопросы философии. 1948. № 3. С. 178, 179, 185, 186. Xx236 (talk) 07:10, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

If the above is truth, so the Pravda article of 1949 is the third stage.Xx236 (talk) 07:14, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes it is, and may even not "3rd stage". There were even more minor usages in between; I can easly find quotes, but this is not essential. Fact is that after Pravda shit truly hit the fan. I fixed the lede a bit accordingly.

At the same time I have found a more grave misnomer (and deleted) the claim "was originally coined by the Russian nineteenth-century literary critic Vissarion Belinsky to describe writers who lacked national character." This is rather dubious for those who knows a bit of the worldview of Belinsky. Fact is while Belinsky was skeptical with regards to comsmopolitanianism, just the same he was strongly against crude nationalism (narodnichestvo; not to be confused with the movement of "Narodniks") and Slavophily; he derided both "фантастический космополитизм" in that context, "fandacized (invented) cosmopolitanianism") and "фантастическое народничество" "fantacized (invented) nationalism".[3] He polemized with e.g., Valerian Maykov and described him as гуманистический космополит (humanistic cosmoipolitan). However his position was that one cannot drive a watershed between "strictly national roots" and "common supranational humanity" and both are present is a person. Therefore I don't believe that Belinsky could have used the word "rootless", which is from the lexicon of hardcore nationalists whom he was not.

When anti-cosmopolitan struggle started evolving, anti-cosmists quickly recalled Belinsky (who was favored by Bolsheviks as a "progressive" critic) and mentioned him almost daily. At this moment I may believe a cross-contamination happened; everybody wrote kinda "Belinsky was first to step up the fight against rootless cosmopolitans, etc." And this, IMHO somehow trickled by means of Chinese whispers up to nowadays. I have also seen claims that ru:Паперный, Зиновий Самойлович allegedly digged out the term "безродный космополит" in an obscure text of Belinsky and mentioned this in his article dedicated to the 100th anniversary of Belinsky (1948), but I failed to find a solid confirmation. Therefore I removed this phrase from the lede as dubious. - üser:Altenmann >t 08:46, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

P.S. At the same time Belinsky coined the following epithet for cosmspolitans: "беспачпортные бродяги в человечестве" - "pasportless vagabonds inside the humankind". - sounds quite close to "rootless". - üser:Altenmann >t 09:02, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Problematic synthesis and Cold War propaganda porn

The article as it stands is pure Cold War propaganda and synthesis, taking exclusively the American line on the subjective (while hiding behind the "safe" cover of Jewish ethnocentrism and overstated victimhood seeking) to try and paint the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin as anti-semitic.

The article draws in completely separate things such as the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee and the campaign against rootless cosmopolitanism, without explaining how they are supposed to be linked to each other (there are no crossover of figures, Ilya Ehrenburg, for example was never accused of adhering to rootless cosmopolitanism). It draws in stuff about the Soviet Union's position on Israel (which is based on Jewish ultra-nationalism, not "rootless cosmopolitanism" - these things are literally exact opposites).

Frankly, it looks like somebody with either a pro-American bias or a worldview based on the most extreme Jewish ethnocentrism has just decided to fill the history section which a random rant about anything and everything related to Soviet Jews in the post-WWII period. Only the section entitled "About one anti-patriotic group of theater critics" is actually about the subject of the article, the campaign against rootless cosmopolitanism.

Actual academic sources which seriously study the era in a measured way, such as Benjamin Pinkus's The Soviet Government and the Jews 1948-1967: A Documented Study take a far more nunanced view than is presented in the article. Notably, that non-Jewish individuals were criticised for rootless cosmopolitanism and individual Soviet Jews criticised people for rootless cosmopolitanism (Mark Mitin, David Zaslavsky and Vladimir Lutsky), showing that this was about culture not ethnicity (yes, amazingly there were other people living in the Soviet Union and the entire lives of the CPSU wasn't fixated on one ethnic group, shocking as it may seem). Pinkus is an Israeli and a professor at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, so he can hardly be said to be enthusastic about everything to do with the Soviets.

To put balance to the 'Murica Fuck Yeah School of History we currently unbashedly run with, we also have an important Communist source to give balance specifically about this subject, the article The Soviet Campaign Against Cosmopolitanism: 1947-1952 by Bill Bland of the Stalin Society Claíomh Solais (talk) 17:54, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

I've reverted. You need consensus to make these massive changes from the stable version, including removing sourced content, and you simply do not have that. Your version downplays the antisemitism of the phrase/movement; it also adds your own idiosyncratic interpretations in text at odds with the historical sources. Neutrality^talk 18:40, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Can you respond to the above information? In particular the academic historical source, Benjamin Pinkus' The Soviet Government and the Jews 1948-1967: A Documented Study, which contrary to the current propaganda version/hysterical navel-gazing ethnocentrism version of our articles, gives a far more marginal role to anti-semitism as a motivation in this affair? Claíomh Solais (talk) 19:05, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Let's look at some excerpts from Pinkus The Soviet Government and the Jews 1948-1967: 1) p 90 "It is a fact that the most extreme anti-Semitic policy and the whole history of the Soviet Union was carried out during 1949–53"; 2) (p 93) "The concept of rootless cosmopolitanism which had been utilized in the Stalin era to symbolize the regime's campaign to annihilate the assimilated Jewish intelligentsia"; 3) p 103] "The struggle against the 'rootless cosmopolitans' in the USSR is in fact a concealed form of the struggle against Jewish intellectuals." Rjensen (talk) 20:17, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Claíomh_Solais -- The anti-rootless-cosmopolitan campaign was an aspect of the post-WW2 Zhdanov Doctrine or "Zhdanovshchina", which had many general anti-cosmopolitan aspects (deriding authors who were influenced by foreign sources, insisting that many scientific discoveries and technological advancements had been made by Russians, etc.etc.), but the full phrase "Rootless Cosmopolitan" was pretty much a code-word for Jew, and anyone who denies this is not to be trusted. Fortunately, Stalin's death saved the Jews from the full fury which he had planned to unleash on them following the "Doctors' plot"... AnonMoos (talk) 13:09, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Removing the paragraph mentioning Putin, Bannon etc.

I want to see evidence that Putin ever used the term "rootless cosmopolitan". I would settle for just "cosmopolitan". Also, it would have to be used in a derisive way. The same standard applies for Bannon et al.

Listen, I'm not a fan of Putin. Far from it, even. But from the looks of it, that passage is trying to disparage Putin (and Bannon etc.) by associating him with anti-semitism. That isn't objective and it isn't fair. It's damaging to the credibility of Wikipedia.

I'm editing it out.

I'm doing this from a caffé. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.5.153.181 (talk) 12:43, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I too initially removed this paragraph, but had to re-include back because the article in Politico directly makes such connection [4]: "One reason why “cosmopolitan” is an unnerving term is that it was the key to an attempt by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin to purge the culture of dissident voices. In a 1946 speech, he deplored works in which “the positive Soviet hero is derided and inferior before all things foreign and cosmopolitanism that we all fought against from the time of Lenin, ... What makes this history relevant is that, all across Europe, nationalist political figures are still making the same kinds of arguments—usually but not always stripped of blatant anti-Semitism—to constrict the flow of ideas and the boundaries of free political expression. Russian President Vladimir Putin, for example, ...". And the author is right, this does reflect the usage of the term. My very best wishes (talk) 01:44, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

I think something (in fact much) from this article may be taken into wikipedia. However the key point is not the association with Stalin, but:

"For a nationalist, these are fighting words. Your country is your country; your fellow citizens are your brethren; and your country’s traditions—religious and otherwise— should be yours. A nation whose people—especially influential people—develop other ties undermine national strength, and must be repudiated."

I.e., Stalin's is but a special, extreme case of playing the political game of patriotism.

IMO the author, Jeff Greenfield, is a RS on the subject. In any, case his opinion is relevant, to the point, and of adequate expertise.- Altenmann >talk 00:45, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

By the way, why is that, "cosmopolitan" is an insult, while "international" is something good, and "transnational" is something sinister, bordering with 'world domination'? - Altenmann >talk 01:16, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

@Altenmann: Cosmopolitans have no tie to national culture. Some might say that the cities are filled with the evil of foreigners and immoral tolerance for alien ways. A bias Wikipedia might suffer from is this sort of cosmopolitan viewpoint, disregarding the pure, simple life of the countryside. I don't think "international" is a good thing, necessarily. Chris Troutman (talk) 01:34, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Rootless cosmopolitan

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Rootless cosmopolitan's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Wein":

• From Václav Kopecký: Wein, Martin (2015). A History of Czechs and Jews: A Slavic Jerusalem. Routledge. pp. 97, 156, 158. ISBN 978-1-317-60821-9.
• From Kosher tax conspiracy theory: Wein, Berel (December 27, 2002). "The problem with Shinui". Jerusalem Post. pp. 8B. Archived from the original on 2002-12-27. Retrieved 2006-10-24. …due to the volume of goods produced, the cost of certification per unit is so small that it really does not figure in the cost of the product.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 03:42, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Move or split?

Should the content be moved or split? Most of this article deals with the anti-cosmopolitan campaign in the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, while the term rootless cospolitan is an epithet which has been deployed from the nineteenth century to the present. Of course, I'm not sure if the term itself meets GNG, so perhaps that should be covered at Wiktionary while this article is moved to "anti-cosmopolitan campaign" to reflect the content. buidhe 01:35, 19 March 2020 (UTC)