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        About The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

                            Introduction

                        by Gordon Fisher

The document known in English as The Protocols of the Elders of
Zion is, to many people, obviously a clumsy piece of false antisemitic
propaganda. Nevertheless, there have been and still are others who
have taken and take the work to be a kind of revelation of the truth
about a conspiracy of a small number of Jewish leaders to gain
political control of the whole world.

The Protocols seem to have been first made available to a wide
public in Russia in book form in 1905, in a Russian version. However,
there was a somewhat truncated version published in a St. Petersburg
(Russia) newspaper Znamya (The Banner) in 1903. Norman Cohn
says (Warrant for Genocide, 1966-7, p 65-66): "Znamya was
edited by P. A. Krushevan, the noted and militant antisemite. A few
months before publishing the Protocols he had instigated the pogrom
at Kishinev in Bessarabia [Russia], in which forty-five Jews were
killed and more than 400 injured and 1,300 houses and shops
destroyed." There was also an untruncated edition of this version
published as a pamphlet in St. Petersburg in 1905, apparently edited
by a retired officer of the Russian Imperial Guard, G. V. Butmi, a
Bessarabian and associate of Krushevan (Cohn, p 66). 

The first version in book form appeared as an appendix in the third
edition, in 1905, of a book called (in Russian) The Great in the
Small: Antichrist considered as an imminent political possibility,
by a Russian mystic named Sergei Nilus. The original manuscript,
which has never been discovered, may well have been written in
French (cf. Cohn, p 69) and translated into Russian. Cohn says (p
67) "It was Nilus's version, not Butmi's, that was to become a force in
world history. That did not even begin to happen in 1905 . . . It
happened only when the book reappeared, somewhat revised and
enlarged, under the title [in Russian] He is Near, At the Door . . .
Here comes Antichrist and the reign of the Devil on earth. And it
happened because of the moment: 1917." Some say widespread
attention to the Protocols began a little later, in 1918, after the defeat
of Germany in World War I (cf. Herman Bernstein, The Truth About
"The Protocols of Zion", 1935, p 50, quoting Count du Chayla,
who knew Nilus personally).

In 1921, The Times of London published three articles written by the
newspaper's Constantinople (now Istanbul) correspondent, Philip
Graves, which showed that the Protocols had been extensively
plagiarized from a book by a French lawyer and writer named
Maurice Joly. The book by Joly was called (in French) Dialogues in
Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu. It was published in
Brussels (Belgium) in 1864 (with a Geneva imprint, although the
edition I have seen is dated 1868 and has a Brussels imprint). Cohn
notes (p 74-5): "In all, over 160 passages in the Protocols, totaling
two-fifths of the entire text, are clearly based on passages in Joly; in
nine of the chapters the borrowings amount to more than half the text,
in some they amount to three-quarters, in one (Protocol VII) to
almost the entire text. This should be enough to demonstrate that
plagiarism occurred. 

There is one very notable difference between the Protocols as put
forth by Nilus and the Dialogues as put forth by Joly. In the
Dialogues there is no mention of Jews. These Dialogues were a
political satire directed at the government of Napoleon III in France,
during the Second Empire. Joly was given 15 months in prison by this
government for his satirical effort. The author or authors of the
Protocols, so far as they were plagiarized from the Dialogues,
substituted Jews where Joly had (non-Jewish) members of the
government of Napoleon III.

Some current believers in the truth of the Protocols have argued that
parallel passages of this sort do not damage the credibility of the
Protocols since, for example, both the Protocols and the Dialogues
could have been based on a third undiscovered document in which
the original protagonists were Jews. In this view, I suppose Joly
becomes the plagiarist who changed the alleged perpetrators of a
world-wide plot to take over the world. No such preceding document
has ever been discovered. Of course, it is impossible to prove that
none ever existed. This is a favorite tactic of many of those whose
believe in the authenticity of the Protocols. They argue on the basis of
documents that might have existed, and actions that could have taken
place, even though no evidence whatsoever is available that they
existed or took place.

Cohn says (p 103): "All in all it is practically certain that the Protocols
were fabricated some time between 1894 and 1899 and highly
probable that it was in 1897 or 1898. The country was undoubtedly
France, as is shown by the many references to French affairs." There
are good grounds for concluding that forgery of the Protocols was
undertaken or directed by a Paris agent of the then Russian secret
police, the Okhrana. I say "forgery" because the Protocols are
presented as a kind of minutes of a meeting of a number of "Elders of
Zion" or "Wise Men of Zion". Since it seems clear that no such
meeting as claimed by presenters of the Protocols ever took place,
the work is a forgery as well as a plagiarism. 

Bernstein, in the book cited above (p 26) is of this opinion: "The
'Protocols' were concocted not for the purpose of impressing
statesmen, theologians, or even public opinion; they were drawn up in
France and published in Russia to influence and inflame a
feeble-minded person whose spirit already was filled with hatred of
the Jew. That person was none other than Tsar Nicholas II."
However this may be, in the years after 1918, the Protocols had a
considerable influence on public opinion in numerous countries of the
world. Not least was their influence on Adolf Hitler. It can be argued
that the Protocols were actually used by Hitler as a partial guide for
his own political programs. But that's another story.

The origins of the basic ideas of the Protocols can be traced back
much further than the work of Joly. To examine this tangled skein, one
can examine the following works:


Herman Bernstein, The Truth About "The Protocols of Zion," 1935
Norman Cohn, Warrant for Genocide, 1966-67
Goran Larsson, Fact or Fraud? The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, 1994
(a Christian point of view)
Richard S. Levy, A Lie and A Libel, 1995, which contains a translation of:
Binjamin Segel, Welt-Krieg,Weltverschwörung, Weltoberregierung, 1926 

                          [End of introduction]

The original exposure of the plagiarism involved in the Protocols was
made by Philip Graves in three articles published in 1921. These
articles, together with introductory and concluding articles by editors
of the London Times, were published as a pamphlet in 1921.


[original page 2] 

The Truth About
"The Protocols"

A LITERARY FORGERY



From The Times of August 16, 17, and 18, 1921

LONDON:
PRINTING HOUSE SQUARE, E.C.4



[Editor's Note: Page references in brackets such as [p. 3] refer to the original
pamphlet's pagination. Page numbers in parentheses such as (p. 3) are those
made by Graves himself, referring to various books which he used. Note that
the Preface is not by Graves, but by an unnamed author. Note also that the
original British-English spelling has been retained, as well as certain oddities of
the period; e.g., "Sion" instead of the more familiar "Zion".]



[p. 3]

PREFACE

------------



The so-called "Protocols of the Elders of Sion" were published in
London in 1920 under the title of "The Jewish Peril."

This book is a translation of a book published in Russia, in 1905, by
Sergei Nilus, a Government official, who professed to have received
from a friend a copy of a summary of the minutes of a secret meeting,
held in Paris by a Jewish organization th at was plotting to overthrow
civilization in order to establish a Jewish world state.

The "Protocols" attracted little attention until after the Russian
Revolution of 1917, when the appearance of the Bolshevists, among
whom were many Jews professing and practicing political doctrines
that in some points resembled those advocated in the "Protocols," led
many to believe that Nilus's alleged discovery was genuine. The
"Protocols" were widely discussed and translated into several
European languages. Their authenticity has been frequently attacked
and many arguments have been adduced for the theory that they are a
forgery.

In the following three articles the Constantinople Correspondent of
The Times presents for the first time conclusive proof that the
document is in the main a clumsy plagiarism. He has forwarded to
The Times a copy of the French book f rom which the [p. 4]
plagiarism is made. The British Museum has a complete copy of the
book, which is entitled "Dialogue aux Enfers entre Machiavel et
Montesquieu, ou la Politique de Machiavel au XIX. Siècle. Par un
Contemporain," and was published at Brussels in 1865. Shortly after
its publication, Maurice Joly, a Paris lawyer and publicist, was
arrested by the police of Napoleon III. and sentenced to 15 months'
imprisonment.

[p. 5]

I — A LITERARY FORGERY.

"There is one thing about Constantinople that is worth your while to
remember," said a diplomatist to the writer in 1908. "If you only stay
here long enough you will meet many men who matter, and you may
find the key to many strange secrets." Yet I must confess that when
the discovery which is the theme of these articles was communicated
to me I was at first incredulous. Mr. X., who brought me the
evidence, was convinced. "Read this book through," he said, "and you
will find irrefutable proof that the "Protocols of the Learned Elders of
Sion' is a plagiarism."

Mr. X, who does not wish his real name to be known, is a Russian
landowner with English connexions. Orthodox by religion, he is in
political opinion, a Constitutional Monarchist. He came here as a
refugee after the final failure of the White cause in South Russia. He
had long been interested in the Jewish question as far as it concerned
Russia, had studied the "Protocols," and during the period of
Denikin's ascendancy had made investigations with the object of
discovering whether any oc cult "Masonic" organization, such as the
"Protocols" speak of, existed in Southern Russia. The only such
organization was a Monarchist one. The discovery of the key to the
problem of the "Protocols" came to him by chance. 

A few months ago he bought a number of old books from a former
officer of the "Okhrana" (Political Police) who had fled to
Constantinople. Among these books was a small volume in French,
lacking the title-page, with dimensions of 5 1/2 in. by 3 3/4in. It had
been cheaply rebound. On the leather back is printed in [p. 6] Latin
capitals the word Joli. The preface, entitled "Simple avertissement," is
dated Geneva, October 15, 1864. The book contains 324 pages, of
which numbers 315-322 inclusive follow page 24 in the only copy
known to Mr. X, perhaps owing to a mistake when the book was
rebound. Both the paper and the type are characteristic of the "sixties
and seventies" of the last century. These details are given in the hope
that they may lead to the discovery of the title of the book [see
Preface]. Mr. X. believes it must be rare, since, had it not been so,
the "Protocols" would have speedily been recognized as a plagiarism
by anyone who had read the original.

That the latter is a "fake" could not be maintained for an instant by
anyone who had seen it. Its original possessor, the old Okhrana
office, did not remember where he obtained it, and attached no
importance to it. Mr. X, glancing at it one day, was struck by a
resemblance between a passage which had caught his eye and a
phrase in the French edition of the "Protocols" (Edition de la Vieille
France, 1920, 5, Rue du Préaux-Clercs, 5, Paris 7th
Arrondissement). He followed up the clue, and soon realized that the
"Protocols" were to a very large extent as much a paraphrase of the
Geneva original as the published version of a War Office or Foreign
Office telegram is a paraphrase of the ciphered original. 

Before receiving the book from Mr. X, I was, as I have said,
incredulous. I did not believe that Sergei Nilus's "Protocols" were
authentic; they explained too much by the theory of a vast Jewish
conspiracy. Professor Nilus's account of how they were obtained was
too melodramatic to be credible, and it was hard to believe that real
"Learned Elders of Sion " would not have produced a more intelligent
political scheme than the crude and theatrical subtilties [sic] of the
Protocols. But I could not [p. 7] have believed, had I not seen, that
the writer who supplied Nilus with his originals was a careless and
shameless plagiarist.

The Geneva book is a very thinly-veiled attack on the despotism of
Napoleon III. in the form of a series of 25 dialogues divided into four
parts. The speakers are Montesquieu and Machiavelli. In the brief
preface to his book the anonymous author points out that it contains
passages which are applicable to all Governments, "but it particularly
personifies a political system which has not varied in its application for
a single day since the fatal and alas! Too distant date when it was
enthroned." Its references to the "Haussmannisation" of Paris, to the
repressive measures and policy of the French Emperor, to his
wasteful financial system, to his foreign wars, to his use of secret
societies in his foreign policy (cf., hi notorious relations with the
Carbonari) and his suppression of them in France, to his relations with
the Vatican, and to his control of the Press are unmistakable.

The Geneva book, or as it will henceforth be called the Geneva
Dialogues, opens with the meeting of the spirits of Montesquieu and
Machiavelli on a desolate beach in the world of shades. After a
lengthy exchange of civilities Montesquieu asks Machiavelli to explain
why from an ardent Republican he had become the author of "The
Prince" and "the founder of that somber school of thought which has
made all crowned heads your disciples, but which is well fitted to
justify the worst crimes of tyranny." Machiavelli replies that he is a
realist and proceeds to justify the teaching of "The Prince," and to
explain its applicability to the Western European States of 1864.

In the first six "Geneva Dialogues" Montesquieu is given a chance of
argument of which he avails himself. In the seventh dialogue, [p. 8]
which corresponds to the fifth, sixth, seventh , and part of the eighth
"Protocols," he gives Machiavelli permission to describe at length how
he would solve the problem of stabilizing political societies
"incessantly disturbed by the spirit of anarchy and revolution."
Henceforth Machiavelli or in reality Napoleon III., speaking through
Machiavelli, has the lion's share of the dialogue. Montesquieu's
contributions thereto become more and more exclamatory; he is
profoundly shocked by Machiavelli-Napoleon's defense of an able
and ru thless dictatorship, but his counter-arguments grow briefer and
weaker. At times, indeed, the author of "L'Esprit des Lois" is made to
cut as poor a figure as – parvum componere magno – does Dr.
Watson when he attempts to talk criminology to Sherlock Holmes.

The "Protocols" follow almost the same order as the Dialogues.
Dialogues 1-17 generally correspond with "Protocols" 1-19. There
are a few exceptions to this. One is in the 18th "Protocol," where,
together with paraphrases of passages from the 17th Dialogue
("Geneva Dialogues," pp. 216, 217), there is an echo of a passage in
the 25th "Geneva Dialogue," viz: -- "Quand le malheureux est opprimé
il dit 'Si le Roi le savait'; Quand on veut se venger, qu'on espère un
secours, on dit 'le Roi le saura.' " This appears on page 68 of the
English edition of the "Protocols" (4th Edition, published by "The
Britons," 62, Oxford-street, London, W.) as "In order to exist, the
prestige of power must occupy such a position that the people say
among themselves, 'If only the King knew about it,' or 'When the
King knows about it.' " 

The last five "Protocols" (Nos. 20-24 inclusive) do not contain so
many paraphrases of the "Geneva Dialogues" as the first 29. Some of
their resemblances and paraphrases are, however, very striking, e.g.,
the following: -- [p. 9]

A loan is an issue of Government paper which entails an obligation to
pay interest amounting to a percentage of the total sum of the
borrowed money. If a loan is at 5 per cent., then in 20 years the
Government will have unnecessarily paid out a sum equal to that of the
loan in order to cover the percentage. In 40 years it will have paid
twice, and in 60 thrice that amount, but the loan will still remain an
unpaid debt. – "Protocols," p. 77.

MONTESQUIEU,-- "How are loans made? By the issue of bonds
entailing on the Government the obligation to pay interest
proportionate to the capital it has been paid. Thus, if a loan is at 5 per
cent., the State, after 20 years, has paid out a sum equal to the
borrowed capital. When 40 years have expired it has paid double, after
60 years triple: yet ir remains debtor for the entire capital sum." –
"Geneva Dialogues," p. 256.

But generally speaking "Protocols" 20 and 21, which deal (somewhat
unconvincingly) with the financial programme of the Learned Elders,
owe less to the "Geneva Dialogues," Nos. 18-21, than to the
imagination of the plagiarist author who had for once in a way to show
a little originality. This is natural enough since the "Dialogues" in
question describe the actual financial policy of the French Imperial
Government, while the "Protocols" deal with the future. Again in the
last four "Geneva Dialogues" Machiavelli's apotheosis of the Second
Empire, being based upon historical facts which took place between
1852 and 1864, obviously furnished scanty material for the plagiarist
who wished to prove or, very possibly, had been ordered to prove in
the "Protocols" that the ultimate aim of the leaders of Jewry was to
give the world a ruler sprung from the House of David.

The scores of parallels between the two books and a theory
concerning the methods of the plagiarist and the reasons for the
publication of the "Protocols" in 1905 will be the subject of further
articles. Meanwhile it is amusing to find that the only subject with
which the "Protocols," deal on lines quite contrary to those followed
by Machiavelli in the "Dialogues" is the private life of the Sovereign.
[p. 10] The last words of the "Protocols" are "Our Sovereign must be
irreproachable." The Elders evidently propose to keep the King of
Israel in good order. The historical Machiavelli was, we know, rather
a scandalous old gentleman, and his shade insists that amorous
adventures, so far from injuring a Sovereign's reputation, make him an
object of interest and sympathy to "the fairest half of his subjects."

[p. 11]

II. — PLAGIARISM AT WORK.

While the Geneva Dialogues open with an exchange of compliments
between Montesquieu and Machiavelli, which covers seven pages,
the author of the Protocols plunges at once in media res.

One can imagine him hastily turning over those first seven pages of the
book which he has been ordered to paraphrase against time, and
angrily ejaculating, "Nothing here." But on page 8 of the Dialogues he
finds what he wants; the greater part of this page and the next are
promptly paraphrased, thus: --

Geneva Dialogues, p. 8.

Among mankind the evil instinct is
mightier than the good. Man is
more drawn to evil than to good.
Fear and Force have more empire
over him than reason . . . Every man
aims at domination; not one but
would be an oppressor if he could;
all or almost all are ready to
sacrifice the rights of others to
their own interests....
Protocols, p. 1 ("The Britons"
edition).

It must be noted that people with
corrupt instincts are more
numerous than those of noble
instinct. Therefore in governing
the world the best results are
obtained by means of violence and
intimidation, and not by academic
discussions. Every man ai ms at
power; every one would like to
become a dictator if he only could
do so, and rare indeed are the men
who would not be disposed to
sacrifice the welfare of others in
order to attain their own personal
aims.
What restrains those beasts of
prey which they call men from
attacking one another? Brute
unrestrained Force in the first
stages of social life, then the Law,
that is still force regulated by
forms. You have consulted all
historical sources; every where
might precedes right. Political
Liberty is merely a relative idea....
What restrained the wild beasts of
prey which we call men? What has
ruled them up to now? In the first
stages of social like they submitted
to brute and blind forces, then to
law, which in reality is the same
force, only masked. From this I am
le d to deduct that by the law of
nature right lies in might. Political
freedom is not a fact but an idea.


[p. 12]

The gift of liberty to the Machiavelli of the Geneva Dialogues, of
self-government according to the Protocols (page 2), leads speedily
to civil and social strife, and the State is soon ruined by internal
convulsions or by foreign intervention follow ing on the heels of civil
war. Then follows a singular parallel between the two books which
deserves quotation:--

Geneva Dialogues, p. 9.

What arms will they (States) employ
in war against foreign enemies? Will
the opposing generals communicate
their plans of campaign to one
another and thus be mutually in a
position to defend themselves? Will
they mutually ban night attacks,
traps, ambushes, battles with
inequality of force? Of course not;
such combatants would court
derision. Are you against the
employment of those traps and tricks,
of all the strategy indispensable to
war against the enemy within, the
revolutionary?
Protocols, p. 2.

... I would ask the question why is
it not immoral for a State which
has two enemies, one external
and one internal, to use different
means of defence against the
former in that which it would use
against the latter, to attack him
by night or with superior
forces?... 


Both "Machiavelli" and the author of the Protocols agree (Prot. P. 3,
Geneva Dialogues, p. 11) almost in the same words that polities have
nothing in common with morality. Right is described in the Protocols
as "an abstract idea established by nothing," in the Dialogues as an
"infinitely vague" expression. The end, say both, justifies the means. "I
pay less attention," says Machiavelli, "to what is good and moral than
to what is useful and necessary." The Protocols (p. 4) use the same
formula, substituting "profitable" for "useful." According to the
Protocols he who would rule "must have recourse to cunningness (sic)
and hypocrisy." In the second Dialogue (p. 15) Montesquieu
reproaches Machiavelli for having "only two words to repeat –
'Force' and 'guile.' " Both Machiavelli and the "Elders" [p. 13] of the
Protocols preach despotism as the sole safeguard against anarchy. In
the Protocols this despotism has to be Jewish and hereditary.
Machiavelli's despotism is obviously Napoleonic.

There are scores of other parallels between the books. Fully 50
paragraphs of passages in the Dialogues are simply paraphrases of
passages in the Dialogues. The quotation 

Per me reges regnant, rightly given in the Vieille France edition of
the Protocols (p. 29), while regunt is substituted for regnant in the
English version (p. 20), appears on p. 63 of the Geneva Dialogues.
Sulla, whom the English version of the Protocols insists on calling
"Silla," appears in both books.

After covering Italy with blood, Sulla reappeared in as a simple citizen
in Rome: no one durst touch a hair of his head. Geneva Dialogues, p.
159.

Remember at the time when Italy was streaming with blood, she did not
touch a hair of Silla's head, and he was the man who made her blood
pour out. Protocols, p. 51.

Sulla, who after the proscriptions stalked "in savage grandeur home,"
is one of the tyrants whom every schoolboy knows and those who
believe that Elders of the 33rd Degree are responsible for the
Protocols, may say that this is a mere coincidence. But what about the
exotic Vishnu, the hundred-armed Hindu deity who appears twice in
each book? The following passages never were examples of
"unconscious plagiarism."

Geneva Dialogues, p. 141:---

Machiavelli.—"Like the God Vishnu, my press will have a hundred
arms, and these arms will give their hands to all the different shades
of opinion throughout the country."

Protocols, p. 43:--

"These newspapers, like the Indian god Vishnu, will be possessed of
hundreds of hands, each of which will be feeling the pulse of varying
public opinion." 

Geneva Dialogues, p. 207:--

Montesquieu:-- "Now I understand the figure of the god Vishnu; you
have a hundred [p. 14] arms like the Indian idol, and each of your
fingers touches a spring.

Protocols, p. 65:--

"Our Government will resemble the Hindu god Vishnu. Each of our
hundred hands will hold one spring of the social machinery of State."

TAXATION OF THE PRESS

The Dialogues and the Protocols alike devote special attention to the
Press, and their schemes for the muzzling and control thereof are
almost identical – absolutely identical, indeed, in many details. Thus
Machiavelli on pp. 135 and 136 of the Dialogues expounds the
following ingenious scheme:--

"I shall extend the tax on newspapers to books, or rather I shall
introduce a stamp duty on books having less than a certain number of
pages. A book, for example, with less than 200 or 300 pages will not
rank as a book, but as a brochure. I a m sure you see the advantage of
this scheme. On the one hand I thin (je rarifie) by taxation that cloud of
short books which are the mere appendages of journalism; on the
other I force those who wish to escape stamp duty to throw themselves
into l ong and costly compositions, which will hardly ever be sold and
scarcely read in such a form."

The Protocols, p. 41, has:--

"We will tax it (the book press) in the same manner as the newspaper
Press – that is to say, by means of Excise stamps and deposits. But on
books of less than 300 pages we will place a tax twice as heavy. Those
short books we will classify as pamphlets, which constitute the most
virulent form of printed poison. These measures will also compel
writers to publish such long works that they will be little read by the
public and so chiefly on account of their high price."

Both have the same profound contempt for journalists.

Geneva Dialogues, pp. 145, 146:--

Machiavelli.-- "You must know that journalism is a sort of
Freemasonry; those who live by it are bound . . . to one another by the
ties of professional discretion; like the augurs of old, they do not
lightly divulge the secret of their oracles. They would gain nothing by
betraying themselves, for they have mostly won more less
discreditable scars . . ."

Protocols, p. 44:--

"Already there exists in French journalism a system of Masonic
understanding for giving counter- [p. 15] signs. All organs of the
Press are tied by mutual professional secrets to the manner of the
ancient oracles. Not one of the members will betray his knowledge of
the secret, if the secret has not been ordered to be made public. No
single publisher will have the courage to betray the secret entrusted
to him, the reason being that not one of them is admitted into the
literary world without bearing the marks of some shady act in his past
life."

CONTEMPT FOR THE PEOPLE

But this contempt is nothing compared to that which both Machiavelli
and the Elders evince towards the masses whom tyranny is to reduce
to a more than Oriental servitude.

Geneva Dialogues, p. 43:--

Machiavelli:-- "You do not know the unbounded meanness of the
peoples . . . . groveling before force, pitiless towards the weak,
implacable to faults, indulgent to crimes, incapable of supporting the
contradictions of a free régime, and patient to the point of martyrdom
under the violence of an audacious despotism . . . giving themselves
masters whom they pardon for deeds for the least of which they would
have beheaded twenty constitutional kings."

Protocols, p. 15:--

"In their intense meanness the Christian peoples help our
independence – when kneeling they crouch before power; when they
are pitiless towards the weak; merciless in dealing with faults, and
lenient to crimes; when they refuse to recognize the contradictions of
freedom; when they are patient to the degree of martyrdom in bearing
with the violence of an audacious despotism. At the hands of their
present dictators, Premiers, and Ministers, they endure abuses for
the smallest of which they would have murdered twenty kings."


Both the Elders and Machiavelli propose to make political crime
thoroughly unpopular by assimilating the treatment of the political
criminal to that of the felon. Both devote not a little attention to police
organization and espionage; the creator of Machiavelli had evidently
studied Napoleon III.'s police methods and suffered at the hands of
his agents. Each proposes to exercise a severe control over the Bar
and the Bench. As regards the Vatican, Machiavelli-Napoleon, with
recent Italian history in mind, aims at the complete control of the
Papacy. After inflaming popular hatred [p. 16] against the Church of
Rome and its clergy, he will intervene to protect the Holy See, as
Napoleon III. did intervene, when "the chassepôts worked wonders."
The learned Elders propose to follow a similar plan: "when the people
in their rage throw themselves on to the Vatican we shall appear as its
protectors in order to stop bloodshed ." Ultimately, of course, they
mean to destroy the Church. The terrible chiefs of a Pan-Judaic
conspiracy could hardly have any other plan of campaign.
Machiavelli, naturally, does not go so far. Enough for him if the Pope
is safely lodged in th e Napoleonic pockets.

Is it necessary to produce further proofs that the majority of the
Protocols are simply paraphrases of the Geneva Dialogues, with
wicked Hebrew Elders, and finally an Israelite world ruler in the place
of Machiavelli-Napoleon III., and the brutish goyim (Gentiles)
substituted for the fickle masses, "gripped in a vice [sic] by poverty,
ridden by sensuality, devoured by ambition," whom Machiavelli
intends to win? 

[p. 17]

III. — SOME CONCLUSIONS.

There is no evidence as to how the Geneva Dialogues reached
Russia. The following theory may be suggested.

The Third Napoleon's secret police, many of whom were Corsicans,
must have known the existence of the Dialogues and almost certainly
obtained them from some of the many persons arrested on the charge
of political conspiracy during the reign of of Napoleon III. In the last
two decades of the 19th century and in the early years of the 20th
there were always a few Corsicans in the Palace Police of the Tsar,
and in the Russian secret service. Combining courage with
secretiveness, a high average of intelligence with fidelity to his chief,
the Corsican makes a first-class secret agent or bodyguard. It is not
improbably that Corsicans who had been in the service of Napoleon
III., or who had had kinsmen in his secret service, brought the
Geneva Dialogues to Russia, where some member of the Okhrana or
some Court official obtained possession of them, But this is only a
theory.

As to the Protocols, they were first published in 1905 at Tsarskoye
Selo in the second edition of a book entitled "The Great Within the
Small," the author of which was Professor Sergei Nilus. Professor
Nilus has been described to the writ er as a learned, pious, credulous
Conservative, who combined much theological and some historical
erudition with a singular lack of knowledge of the world. In January,
1917, Nilus, according to the introduction to the French version of the
Protocols, pub lished a book, entitled "It is Here, at Our Doors!!" in
which he republished the Protocols. In this latter work, according to
the [p. 18] French version, Professor Nilus stated that the manu script
of the Protocols was given him by Alexis Nicolaievich Sukhotin, a
noble who afterwards became Vice-Governor of Stavropol.

According to the 1905 edition of the Protocols they were obtained by
a woman who stole them from "one of the most influential and most
highly initiated leaders of Freemasonry. The theft was accomplished at
the close of the secret meeting of the 'initiated' in France, that nest of
Jewish conspiracy." But in the epilogue to the English version of the
Protocols Professor Nilus says, "My friend found them in the sages at
the headquarters of the Society of Zion which are at present situa ted
in France." According to the French version of the Protocols, Nilus in
his book of 1917 states that the Protocols were notes of a plan
submitted to the "Council of Elders" by Theodor Herzl at the first
Zionist Congress which was held a t Basle, in August, 1897, and that
Herzl afterwards complained to the Zionist Committee of Action of
the indiscreet publication of confidential information. The Protocols
were signed by "Zionist representatives of the 33rd Degree" in Orient
Freemasonry and were secretly removed from the complete file of the
proceedings of the aforesaid Zionist Congress, which was hidden in
the "Chief Zionist office, which is situated in French territory."

Such are Professor Nilus's rather contradictory accounts of the origin
of the Protocols. Not a very convincing story! Theodor Herzl is dead;
Sukhotin is dead, and where are the signatures of the Zionist
representatives of the 33rd Degree?

Turning to the text of the Protocols, and comparing it with that of the
Geneva Dialogues, one is struck by the absence of any effort on the
part of the plagiarist to conceal his plagiarism. The paraphrasing has
been very careless; parts [p. 19] of sentences, whole phrases at times,
are identical; the development of the thought is the same; there has
been no attempt worth mentioning to alter the order of the Geneva
Dialogues. The plagiarist has introduced Darwin, Marx, and
Nietzsche in one passage in order to be "up to date"; he has given a
Jewish colour to "Machiavelli's" schemes for dictatorship, but he has
utterly failed to conceal his indebtedness to the Geneva Dialogues.
This gives the impression that the real writer of the Protocols, who
does not seem to have had anything to do with Nilus and may have
been some quite unimportant prècis writer employed by the Court or
by the Okhrana, was obliged to paraphrase the original at short
notice. A proof of Jewish conspiracy was required at once as a
weapon for the Conservatives against the Liberal elements in Russia.

Mr. X, the discoverer of the plagiarism, informs me that Protocols,
shortly after their discovery in 1901, four years before their
publication by Professor Nilus, served a subsidiary purpose, namely,
the first defeat of Monsieur Philippe, a French h ypnotist and
thought-reader, who acquired considerable influence over the Tsar
and Tsaritsa at the beginning of the present century. The Court
favorite was disliked by certain great personages, and incurred the
natural jealousy of the monks, thaumaturgis ts, and similar adventurers
who hoped to capture the Tsar though the Empress in their own
interest, or in that of various cliques. Philippe was not a Jew, but it
was easy to represent a Frenchman from "that nest of Jewish
conspiracy" as a Zioni st agent. Philippe fell from favour, to return to
Russia and find himself once more in the Court's good graces at a
later date.

But the principal importance of the Protocols was their use during the
first Russian revolu- [p. 20] tion. This revolution was supported by the
Jewish element in Russia, notably by the Jewish Bund. The Okhrana
organization knew this perfectly well; it had its Jewish and
crypto-Jewish agents, one of whom afterwards assassinated M.
Stolypin; it was in league with the powerful Conservative faction; with
its allies it sought to gain the Tsar's ear. For many years before the
Russian revolution of 1905-1906 there had been a tale of a secret
council of Rabbis [sic] who plotted ceaselessly against the Orthodox.
The publication of the Protocols in 1905 certainly came at an
opportune moment for the Conservatives. It is said by some Russians
that the manuscript of the Protocols was communicated to the Tsar
early in 1905, and that its communication contributed to the fall of the
Liberal Prince Svitopolk-Mirski in that year and the subsequent
strong reac tionary movement. However that may be, the date and
place of publication of Nilus's first edition of the Protocols are most
significant now that we know that the originals which were given him
were simply paraphrases.

The following conclusions are, therefore, forced upon any reader of
the two books who has studied Nilus's account of the origin of the
Protocols and has some acquaintance with Russian history in the
years preceding the revolution of 1905-6:--

1.The Protocols are largely a paraphrase of the book here
provisionally called the "Geneva Dialogues." 
2.They were designed to foster the belief among Russian
Conservatives, and especially in Court circles, that the prime
cause of discontent among the politically minded elements in
Russia was not the repressive policy of the bureaucracy, but a
world-wide Jewish conspiracy. They thus served as a weapon
against the Russian Liberals, who urged the Tsar [p. 21] to
make certain concessions to the intelligentsia. 
3.The Protocols were paraphrased very hastily and carelessly. 
4.Such portions of the Protocols as were not derived from the
Geneva Dialogues were probably supplied by the Okhrana,
which organization very possibly obtained them from the many
Jews it employed to spy on their coreligionists.

So much for the Protocols. They have done harm not so much, in the
writer's opinion, by arousing anti-Jewish feeling, which is older than
the Protocols and will persist in all countries where there is a Jewish
problem until that problem is solved; rather, they have done harm by
persuading all sorts of mostly well-to-do people that every recent
manifestation of discontent on the part of the poor is an unnatural
phenomenon, a factitious agitation caused by a secret society of Jews.

[p. 22]

Leading Article reprinted from
The Times
of August 18, 1921
[by an editor]

We publish to-day the last of the articles on the so-called "Protocols
of the Elders of Zion [sic]" from our Constantinople Correspondent,
who has effectively exposed a remarkable forgery. We have, of
course, no political object in making this discovery known. On the
general aspects of the Jewish problem our attitude is known to be
impartial, and we have no intention of taking sides in those political
controversies on this question which too frequently engender
excessive passion and obsc ure its real character. In the interests of
objective truth, however, it was of great importance that a legend like
that so long connected with the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"
should be exposed at the earliest possible opportunity.

Briefly summarized, the facts of this curious historical incident are as
follows. A Russian book, published in 1905 by an official named
SERGEI NILUS, contained a document described as "The Protocols
of the Elders of Zion," and purported to be a summary of the
proceedings of a secret meeting of a Jewish organization that was
plotting in France to overthrow Gentile civilization and establish a
Jewish world State. The document attracted little attention until after
the Russian revolution i n 1917, when the astounding collapse of a
great country through the action of the Bolshevists and the presence
of a large number of Jews in the Bolshevist ranks caused many to
search for some simplified explanation of the catastrophe. The
"protocols " appeared to provide such an explanation, more
particularly since the tactics [p. 23] of the Bolshevists in many respects
resembled those advocated in the "Protocols." The book was tr
anslated into several European languages and made the basis for
impassioned dissertations on an alleged Jewish world peril. There was
a certain plausibility about this thesis that attracted many; but the
authenticity of the "Protocols" was very vigorously called in question,
and the whole matter was shrouded in doubt until our Correspondent
made his remarkable discovery. A Russian in Constantinople, who
had bought some books from an ex-officer of the Russian Secret
Police, found among them one in which many passages struck him by
their resemblance to the "Protocols." Our Correspondent, whose
attention was called to the matter, found on examination that the
"Protocols" consisted in the main of clumsy plagiarisms from this l ittle
French book, which he has forwarded to us. The book had no
title-page, but we identified it in the British Museum as a political
pamphlet directed against NAPOLEON III. and published in
Brussels in 1865 by a French lawyer named MAURICE JOLY, and
en titled "Dialogue aux Enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu." The
book was published anonymously, but the author was immediately
seized by NAPOLEON's police and sentenced to a term of
imprisonment. A second edition was published in Brussels in 1868,
with the author's name and a note on his imprisonment.

The author of the "protocols" simply copied from the "Dialogues" a
number of passages in which MACHIAVELLI is made to enunciate
the doctrines and tactics of despotism as they were at that time
practiced by NAPOLEON, and put them into the mouth of an
imaginary Jewish Elder. There can be little doubt that the forgery was
perpetrated by some member of the Russian Secret Police. NILUS,
who may have acted in good faith, declared [p. 24] that the manuscript
of the "Protocols" had been given him by an official named
ALEXANDER SUKHOTIN, who professed to have received it
from a woman who had stolen it from an Elder of Zion. On the leather
back of the copy of the "Dial ogues" sent us by our Correspondent
we notice the letters A.S., and, seeing that the book was bought from
an ex-officer of the Secret Police, it seems possible that this copy
belonged at one time to SUKHOTIN, and that it was the copy
actually used in the compilation of the "protocols." For many years
there was a close connexion between the Russian and the French
police, and one of the confiscated copies of JOLY's book may easily
have fallen into the hands of a Russian agent – such as
RACHKOVSKY, at one time head of the Russian Secret Police in
Paris, to whom other and more clumsy forgeries have been traced –
and may have inspired him to invent a weapon for use against Jewish
revolutionaries. At any rate, the fact of the plagiarism has now been
conclusively established, and the legend may be allowed to pass into
oblivion. The historical interest of the discovery is considerable,
though, as we have indicated, it does not, in our opinion, affect the
Jewish problem, which happily, in this country, cannot be said to
exist in its Continental form.

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