Soviet Court Convicts Man of Anti-Semitism : Racism: He was sentenced to two years in a labor camp for shouting insults at a writers’ meeting.

MOSCOW — A Soviet court today convicted a Russian nationalist of promoting racism and insulting Jews and sentenced him to two years in a labor camp, ending a three-month trial highlighting fears of growing anti-Semitism.

“I’m suffering for Russia!” Konstantin Smirnov-Ostashvili shouted in one of many outbursts during the half-hour session in the heavily guarded Moscow City Court.

Dozens of supporters in the courtroom threw red roses to him.

Andrei Makarov, a prosecutor, said the case shows that “fascism is being born” in the Soviet Union, likening the situation to that in Germany in the 1930s.

Supporters of Smirnov-Ostashvili heckled Judge Andrei Muratov repeatedly as he read a summary of the case, then the verdict.

It was the first such case brought to trial under a law passed as the Soviet Union grapples with widespread unrest among many of its more than 100 ethnic groups. Smirnov-Ostashvili, 54, was charged with inciting hatred between ethnic groups.

He was accused of organizing protesters who broke up a meeting at the Central House of Literature in Moscow on Jan. 18 and insulted Jewish writers.

The popular weekly publication Ogonyok quoted an unidentified protester as shouting through a megaphone:

“Your time is over! Neither the police, nor the KGB, nor the party will help you! Now we will be masters of the country and you newcomers, clear out and go to Israel. How long can we tolerate your Russophobia?”

Muratov determined Friday that Smirnov-Ostashvili had made those remarks.

The court dismissed charges that he had used violence at the writers’ meeting but said he had threatened attacks on Jews.

The case received wide publicity at a time when thousands of Jews are emigrating, many because they fear a wave of anti-Semitic attacks by extreme nationalist groups.

Soviet Jews welcomed the landmark case, which participants said was the first time an accused anti-Semite has been put on trial in Russia.

Mikhail Clenov, co-president of Vaad, the Confederation of Jewish Organizations and Communities in the U.S.S.R., said the government should now investigate the entire Pamyat group, a Russian nationalist organization to which the defendant belongs.

About 100 spectators in court today wore buttons of Pamyat. They shouted, “Shame! Shame!” after the judge read the sentence.