24th June

I have been thinking about the metamorphoses that the words have gone through from Maurice Joly to Matvei Golovinske to Sergei Nilus to the German and American Jew/Mason conspiracy maniacs.

Why didn’t it peter out?

Quite the opposite, it became one of the most bestselling books imaginable.

Genealogy

Probably it is too early to say, but my current understanding of its genealogy is the following:

1. Joly’s Machiavelli praises the use of cunning and political power to hold society together and create stable government. An ironic inversion takes place as those words were spoken at a time in France under Napoleon III, when they were a stark reminder of the plight of the libertarians in France, and thus had maximum effect.

   This in spite of Machiavelli’s declared intentions, namely to protect the people from themselves.

   The protector becomes a tyrant.

2. Golovinski’s Jewish council praises the use of political cunning and use of wealth to manipulate and consolidate power in a world right in the process of abandoning authoritarian rule.

   In this world, the liberalists were celebrating their victory over monarchy and while their belief in liberty, equality, fraternity were briefly honoured, it only lasted until political realities got the better of them. The system was sensitive to large scale manipulation. Party dominance and wars on words in the printed media prevailed. A new ruling class inserted itself, and the plebeians suffered.

   Their protection used to be the autocrat, but no more. The Jewish (or Masonic?) council is plotting to take over, but their intentions are obscure! Greed or self-sacrifice? It varies.

   The protector was a tyrant, protecting people from themselves rather than leaving them to their own fate.

3. Sergei Nilus like a wild unfed bear grabs anything that smells of Masonic conspiracy. (Obviously nobody in their right mind would actually prefer socialism or liberalism of their own volition, when the alternative is orthodoxy and loyalty to the Czar).

4. To the Western antisemites, the Protocols became The Bolshevist Bible which goes to show that nobody has ever read them.

   Of the rich and multi-layered content decades old, all that remains is a primitive image of exploiters rigging the system against defenceless hordes of conscientious voters and workers.

Few mental constructions are as potent as the last one. Soldiers committing rape during war is one of them. Bloodsuckers stealing the fruits of other peoples’ labour is another.

In the case of the Protocols, the damaging effect is amazingly enough not accomplished by its content, but by its very rumour. More words have been spilled about such books than its authors could ever produce.

My conclusion for now remains that it may have been a bestselling book, but it can’t possibly have been read. I will see what I can find in German papers at a later time.

From number 1 to number 4 there is a clear progression:

• The political discussion leaves the stage in degrees.
• The irrational fear of a conspiracy and the obsession with it takes center stage.

Most of the paper wars we fight are against painted devils.

I will take a break today. No more reading before tomorrow.

25th June

Why do words like good and evil sound hackneyed? Because they have been used up. Those are spent words, emptied of strong emotions that long ago evoked strong feelings.

Reach far enough into the past, and there you can find them: Evocative discussions full of vitality and nutrients. So powerful in fact, that the ideas spread like fire. Over centuries, entire books ended up being reduced to one-word slogans. From then on their promulgators assumed the mere mention would be sufficient to trigger an avalanche of insight.

Such cultural phenomena rarely survives long in their original shape, but they invariably undergo a larval stage, if not several.

Joly’s Machiavelli and Montesquieu shows signs of their words being elderly already at this point. Words like ’legislature’ and ‘suffrage’ are past their formative years and have solidified to a ticket one can show to the doorman to gain entrance.

26th June

Something struck me.

Matvei Golovinski’s job could not have been easy.

Nicholas I and France and Napoleon III

Nicholas I loathed the usurper Napoleon III, who in his younger years wrote De l’extinction du paupérisme, which was known as a pro-worker text and paved the way for Louis Napoleon’s election in 1848 (which paved the way for his usurpation of rule and self-aggrandisement to emperor Napoleon III in 1852).

Napoleon’s despotic tendencies aside, when viewing West Europe from the Orthodox East, France stunk of revolution in years after the big one around 1791. It takes more than being in favour of autocracy to win the Orthodox heart. It takes devotion to aristocratic blood and the ancient church. To revere the presence of the mysteries in old rituals. To consider sacred the social order of the universe. Once France tore their own society apart, they severed their connection with the past. From them on anything could arise out of that vile country (if you ask Sergei Nilus or Matvei Golovinski).

So Golovinske needed to counter Joly’s conclusions, while not protecting the despotic regime of Napoleon III.

Ordering and matching protocols and dialogues.

At this point, I no longer find a one-to-one match between them.

If and when possible, I will link similar passages and work from the assumption that Golovinski didn’t reorder too much.

For example, here from Protocol 3 vs Dialogue 4:

Those are clearly linked by subject as well as meaning.

The next step would be to look for similarities between Protocol 2 and Dialogue 2 and 3 to see when the sliding occurred.

But I have doubts as to that approach.

Contributors to the annals of history have been helpful in establishing various matches. I will shy away from that approach.

Not stealing but countering.

Instead, I will focus on Golovinski and his goal.

If indeed the purpose had been pure antisemitism, he could have plucked the most odious passages from Machiavelli and placed them in the words of the Jews.

Nothing like that was done. Anywhere we put our fingers in the Protocols, we hit a strong political message.

While the spectre of republicanism - the outright rejection of monarchy and dynasty - and liberalism - which similarly rejected monarchy, but out of a (bourgeois) desire for individual freedom - spread through the world as epitomised in the French and American revolutions, by the latter half of the century, those ideas were old and ripe for counterattack.

While Maurice Joly had to veil his attack on despotism in the police state of Napoleon III by making his antagonist, Machiavelli, take on the despotic aspect of Napoleon (note that Machiavelli is generally considered a republican himself), Golovinski’s tactic is much different.

By the latter half of the 19th century, long term consequences of republicanism and liberalism in practice were easy to observe. Golovinski uses that information to write the next chapter in Joly’s comedy. This next chapter is itself an artwork of condensed ironies.

Golovinski in other words uses the insight of recent decades to erode away at the enthusiasm of earlier times.

27th June

Today I have been reading ahead in Joly’s Dialogue in Hell. With a little luck, there is some kind of correspondence between Protocol 2 and Dialogue 2+3.

Dialogue 2

● Moral, not might, is foundation of rights. ● Different laws for the Prince and the people will fail. People will imitate corrupt behaviour.

Montesquieu delivers his counterargument which is a defence of morals as a guiding principle. His first approach is to catch Machiavelli on the pragmatic level: Machiavelli cannot favour violence for the sake of violence. He cannot possible desire cunning and brutality out of principle?

Men of reason versus men of force is a common denominator in the battle for peace in the world. All the way back to the Middle Ages when clerics managed to sway battle-eager warlords towards an honour system that involved protecting rather than exploiting the weak (and the monasteries) has this dynamic existed.

At some point in history the balance of power between impulsivity and reason (or rather, persuasion) must have tilted. At some point in time the warlords who had since become a nobility must have forgotten that laws bound no sword — their old creed.

They simply ended up internalising their upbringing and their honor system.

I hope Montesquieu is just getting started. At this point Joly has (weakly) pushed Machiavelli to a point where a dialogue can take form: If he really thinks deceit and violence will benefit the state, then that is what they must discuss.

Now Montesquieu can appeal with full force to a dark vision: Anarchy and civil war.

The underlying logic is simple: If I envy the lawlessness of the ruler, I take a pitiful look at my own existence and wonders why on earth I should be bound by moral codes.

There are many assumptions buried here.

1. If I see the ruler as a person subject to laws, not a function of his office, I will judge him as another person. This stance can easily come about if the ruler displays too many idiosyncrasies and wallows in luxury. All a bit hard to swallow, given he ought to be a mere servant (which, ironically was Machiavelli’s own theory in The Prince).
2. If I furthermore see him as a person similar to myself, I start to think for real.
3. If I furthermore no longer perceive the necessity to unite internally in the country against forces from the outside, that is, to accept minor injustices and inequalities, then we move closer to mutiny.

Then Montesquieu informs Machiavelli that despotism by these selfsame chaotic processes brought about by the despot’s own behaviour have changed the political soil in such a way that no monarch can ever regain full autocracy.

Imagine how Golovinski or any other pro-czarist writer must have felt when reading this.

As if democracy and political turmoil could ever bring peace and prosperity. Already at this point, we can imagine his fervent brain starting to hatch the grand counter attack: “I will show them that they should have preferred their old despot rather than being secretly subdued by a new clique of despots much worse than the old one!”

Dialogue 3

● World progressed since Machiavelli’s time. ● International rights between nations. ● Executive, legislative and judicial separation of powers. ● The press is hailed as a watchdog

Machiavelli, still dubious about Montesquieu’s claim that forward thinking countries in Europe has been vaccinated against despotism forever presses the issue.

And with these words, Montesquieu goes on to outline the progress towards what he calls the constitutional regime, which reduced the Prince to an employee in the service of the state.

While Joly’s Montesquieu refrain from unrealistic ideology, he happily performs his soliloquy about wise Solon and antiquity’s understanding of democracy and whatnot.

We are squarely in the realm of political theory as old as antiquity. This is another thing that Matvei Golovinski needs to handle if he wants to accomplish anything pro-autocratic: The sly smugness of Montesquieu’s faith in his own political theory.

But a fresh breeze blows over Europe. The reigning powers only understood force. Rising from the populace itself came a new understanding that could never have taken roots in the old regime.

That last comment is going to be moved to the other side of the aisle and put in the mouths of the Jews, corresponding to Machiavelli. This is a good example of how the Protocols synthesises its elements from both Machiavelli and Montesquieu.

Enticed by Machiavelli, Montesquieu delivers his entire repertoire in one solid delivery.

All in all pretty pedestrian, if you ask me. My feeling is that Joly is running on autopilot, basically listing the assumed virtues of liberal democracy when he gives Montesquieu the word.

Fundamentally he partitions the world temporally into antiquity, Machiavelli’s era and the world of new ideas which took place after his own tenure on earth.

Built into that assumption is who is in a defensive and who is in an offensive position. Usually new forms come about as improvement, so there’s the basic axis of progression right there. Except, of course, antiquity. The Romans were better by design. We lost The Law for a handful of centuries, but later regained it.

Matvei Golovinski will need to dig deep enough that he can pose a counterattack against progressiveness itself, i.e. the hidden assumption that conservatism needs to defend itself for being obsoleted.

Golovinski also needs to mount an attack against the authority that any science jargon, in this case, political science speak, poses.

He admits freely that assemblies are no guarantee against abuse of power, which is why legislative power is spread out across upper and lower house.

(Here I am skipping over a discussion about how laws in themselves signify little. They can be the result of an unchecked assembly or even those of a king’s decrees, meaning they are tied up in the systems of power. A heterogeneous system is the remedy.)

But most of his energy is spent on comparing the wantonness of the autocratic ruler in matters of justice and policy with the outcome of decision by voting which have a tendency to eliminate precisely the emotional part.

In fact, even if an imaginary ruler invented all the same laws and made all the same decisions as a democratic government, it would still be a problem, as the very infusion of unprincipled emotion is the very root of the problem.

The ruling classes are no longer the only ones with an opinion.

There are systems for complaint and criminal systems allowing people to be judged by their peers, which is better than being judged by a fickle and capricious ruler.

The press is spoken well of, along with other means of exposing sinister plans.

28th June

Our hypothetical social engineer, Matvei Golovinski, who took it upon himself to rewrite Joly have quite a challenge cut out for him.

• The liberal belief in morality as superior to force, which is destructive and a perversion (if you are a pro-czarist) of the aristocratic creed.
• The optimistic faith in checks and balances, division of government, political science.
• The press as a watchdog exposing corrupt behaviour.

Protocol 2

● The Jewish narrator describes how wars first must become economic wars (as they control the economy). ● A doubt is sown as to the value of theory. ● International rights used as instrument to topple sovereignty. ● The press is exposed as a tool.

Now I feel prepared to see how Golovinski decides to play the game.

Jumping right into it …

“Million-eyed agents”: While this famous comment about “million-eyed agents” has made the rounds around the antisemitic world, I wouldn’t brand it essential. I think it sits well with the overall allergic reaction to new ideas which needs a face and a culprit: Jews and Masons.

International rights: His first attempt at simple reversing the illustrious benefits of new inventions.

If I ask you “do you believe in individual rights and by inference also international rights?”, I bestow upon you a value system in which the question is seeped, which makes it harder to say “no”.

If I tell ask you “will you let international rights demolish national laws?”, I confer to you by way of language a situation where it is harder to say “yes”.

Capital / economic might: Obviously this ties in with the antisemitic notion of Jews as bankers, and probably represents the most direct route via associations that led to the holocaust.

But something else rears its head. Golovinski would have ample opportunity to to observe a change in climate regarding nationalism.

I want to be careful when it comes to nationalism. While it is hard to imagine any ultra-orthodox conservative who was not a patriot believing his own country to be superior, there is a difference in quality between the ruler-subject version of patriotism and the devoted-to-kinsmen version of patriotism. One is religious in duty, the other is secular.

While Golovinski no doubt would advocate Russia as superior, it entailed the bonds of duty that held everyone in place.

The Protocols have already been clear about the consequence of dissolution of those bonds.

Here is an interesting quote from a book I once read.

CONTENDING THEORIES OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - P.156

There was an anticipation, reflected in the writings of Montesquieu and others, that the transition from monarchical to republican institutions would be accompanied by a shift from the spirit of war and aggrandizement to that of peace and moderation. The period abounded in projects for abolishing war and establishing perpetual peace.

The hopes of the Enlightenment writers proved ill-founded in the latter part of the eighteenth century. The emergence of liberal nationalist ideologies, sparked by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic aftermath, led once again to an intensification of warfare. Citizen armies, backed by a steadily growing industrial base, fought ferociously for nationalist ideals.

By the turn of the century, all hell broke loose.

Throughout the nineteenth century, Europe experienced no conflict so bloody as the American Civil War, which was in many respects an ideological war fought for absolute objectives.

This puts a lot into perspective. A liberated people is not a homogeneous mass of peaceful merchants. They erected institutions that are quite capable of obliterating the entire planet.

This sheds a strange light on the optimism of past centuries.

For the first time in history, men were coming into possession of constantly expanding means of waging absolute war for unlimited objectives.

Golovinski is determined to take this problem back to the court and present it to the judge. DID Montesquieu’s checks and balances prevent total war?

There are no words which can describe the historical irony that the Protocols helped spin Germany out of control to the point of actual total war.

Next is a direct stab at political science.

It is antisemitism, but not racism. When I spent time understanding the feelings against Masonry, I saw the same strange conviction that the face of liberalism could be reduced to the faces of particular Masons. The same with growing ideologies and international capitalism. It must be the doing of Jews.

Why anybody would dilute their own argument by not hitting the ball head on, is a mystery to me. Liberalism and socialism will emerge quite unscathed from the battle against a Jewish conspiracy.

But Golovinski not only believes the Jews are responsible (if in fact he even does that). He also needs a consistent system above the Montesquieuan institutions. Inject the Jew.

Next order of business is to reverse the glorious contribution of the press.

It is mildly depressing to compare the two versions with today’s climate. One optimistic, one cynically pessimistic.

I could not in good conscience claim that Golovinski has been proven wrong. The only way the press can even be called a watchdog today is owing to the fact that there are not one controlling world council, but several. The press is bought and paid for, and is in any conceivable way a tool to produce a narrated reality. And like the warring political parties, it is divided into factions and further fragmented.

So who wins? Golovinski’s “Machiavelli”? Or Joly’s Montesquieu?

Who can say.

28th June — Evening

Certainly Matvei Golovinski’s aim is to take the sting out of Joly and Montesquieu’s confidence in the superiority of constitutional government.

The problem is that this very sense of superiority is hidden inside the very fabric of the modernist presentation: Something new invariably must be better than something old.

The solution must seem quite apparent: Create a new hidden message inside another explicit message.

The hidden message is: The milk is sour. You can’t see it, but you can taste it.

PARADISE LOST