6th August
I think I can now see what could be going on with the numbering of the Protocols.
Someone (our semi-hypothetical Matvei Golovinski according to a Ukrainian historian) sat with either Maurice Joly’s text or some derivate and went through it from end to end commenting and twisting it to fit his feelings.
He did not partition the text into numbered items, and neither did Sergei Nilus in his The Great Within The Small. The partition came later by someone else. Mostly they got it right, probably with the help of the original itself, but from time to time they slid.
Protocol 7
● Keep the neighbours in a state of eternal war. ● Convert internal disturbance to external war. ● Declare total and universal war if necessary. ● Use the press.
The Protocols is best the Dialogues gives them something to elaborate on. This is not the case for the time being.
| Protocol 7 | Subtext | Dialogue 7 |
|---|---|---|
Intensified military service and the increase of the police force are essential to complete the above mentioned plans. It is essential for us to arrange that, besides ourselves, there should be in all countries nothing but a huge proletariat, so many soldiers and police loyal to our cause. |
Protocols: No millionaires | It is useless to add that the perpetual maintenance of a formidable army, ceaselessly engaged in foreign wars, must be the indispensable complement of this system; it is necessary to reach a situation i which – in the State – there are only proletarians, several millionaires, and soldiers. |
| In the whole of Europe, and with the help of Europe, we must promote on other continents sedition, dissensions and mutual hostility. In this there is a twofold advantage: | So much for the internal politics of the State. Outside, it would necessary to excite – from one end of Europe to the other – the very revolutionary ferment that one represses at home. This would result in two considerable advantages: | |
| Firstly by these means we command the respect of all countries, who well know that we have the power to create upheavals at will, or else to restore order. All countries are used to look to us for the necessary pressure, when such is required. | Protocols: Instil fear in neighbours. Dialogue: Legitimise internal repression. |
Liberal agitation outside justifies repression inside. |
| Secondly, by intrigues we shall entangle all the threads spun by us in the ministries of all governments not only by our politics, but by trade conventions and financial obligations. | The point is to use political intrigue to tangle up all the threads of European politics so as to play by turns the powers with which one deals. |
There are two stark differences between the Protocols and the Dialogue here.
- The Protocols leave out the millionaires when enumerating the desired demographic of society.
- The Protocols proposes advantage #1 as gaining the respect of neighbouring countries, the Dialogue as justification of internal repression.
I wonder if it is significant.
Regarding the first deviation, at the time when Joly wrote, the idea of the oligarchy was very much in vogue. Machiavellis both talks about wanting a proletariat and raise the salary of the worker. His directions for toppling a society with political rights is to diminish people’s sense of participation through luxury and blurring of liberal awareness.
Golovinski may find it self-contradictory to claim that the non-feudal society would both have the aristocracy provide for food and living for its peasants while also stating that luxury could be achievable by everybody.
In the Dialogue, there exists a gulf between disagreeing within a liberal system that tolerates disagreement and turning the very liberal system into just another party on a larger stage that easily can overthrow liberal freedoms without anybody even noticing it.
The goal of Maurice’s writing is of course to underline the necessity of awareness of political right to assure the continuation of liberalism itself, disagreements notwithstanding.
Golovinski can easily afford to throw that awareness out the windows. He is under no illusion (as he sees it) that the mob can retain political awareness for any length of time. Hence the need for aristocracy. He can mock the entire circus and still emphasise his view.
The second deviation puzzles me. Maybe Golovinski sees no need for political legitimacy. The Jew is speaking, but as I have noticed before, sometimes the Jewish voice expresses ideals that belong to the aristocratic ideology in a thinly veiled, typically unholy fashion.
Perhaps the author decided to adapt the text to Russia’s circumstances. After all, this person still hopes that Russia can avoid a big revolution and remain tsarist. Russia as a powerful European player was a wet dream which became a reality under Alexander I for some time. The enemy in his Holy Alliance with Prussia and Austria was revolutionary liberalism. Alexander I was a closet liberal in his younger days. In office, he remained liberal until Napoleon Bonaparte shattered his view of liberalism as a peaceful way of changing the world while retaining stability.
Had Napoleon not invaded Russia, there is a chance that he would have abolished serfdom some fifty years earlier than 1861. Such is the politics of trust. The world is always watching and learning. A revolutionary is entrusted to not let his or her personal anger result in atrocities, or else his ideological compatriots elsewhere will be oppressed.
| Protocol 7 | Subtext | Dialogue 7 |
|---|---|---|
In order to obtain these ends we must have recourse to much slyness and artfulness during negotiations and agreements, |
Alexander VI was always deceptive in his diplomatic negotiations and yet he always succeeded because he knew the science of guile. |
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but in what is called "official language" we shall assume the opposite tactics of appearing honest and amenable, |
But in what you, today, call the official language, a striking contrast is necessary and here one could not affect the spirits of loyalty and conciliation too much; |
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Thus the governments of the Gentiles, which we taught to look only on the showy side of affairs, as we present these to them, will even look upon us as benefactors and saviours of humanity, |
Note: the Gentile governments = the people | the people, who only see the appearances of things, will make a wise reputation for the sovereign who knows how to conduct himself in this way. |
We must be in a position to meet every opposition with a declaration of war on the part of the neighbouring country of that state which dares to stand in our way; |
The Protocols misses the point about the provocation being internal. It thinks of external provocation. | To any internal agitation, the sovereign must be able to respond through external war; |
but if such neighbours in their turn were to decide to unite in opposing us, we must respond by creating a universal war. |
to any imminent revolution, he must be able to respond through general warfare; |
Golovinski has clearly turned the aggression and blasphemy dials up a notch. He sees how the “Gentiles” (i.e. the mob, those children that play “politics” by electing other children as leaders) are not grand enough to handle the obligations. Dishonesty and deceit sets in. A leader is not something you elect. God chooses the proper man according to his innate character.
Political blasphemy is probably the best way to describe it.
Golovinski lets the Jew commit political blasphemy according to the liberal bible. It is a direct provocation by an orthodox against the liberal agenda, saying “you fools thought you had it all figured out! See how easy I can unravel your entire utopia of fraternity!”.
Why the Jews? Because their reputation was - thanks to the Catholic Church and past prejudicial regimes - already one of blasphemy. Even more so than the Freemasons.
Who knows. If protestantism and nationalism had been directly named as another blasphemer, perhaps the Holocaust would never had happened. The German public would have hated the book instead of devouring it in truckloads.
Hitler’s Germany was after all utterly condemned (i.e. praised by the Devil’s Advocating Jew) as precisely what the Protocols warned about: People without pedigree coming to power.
| Protocol 7 | Subtext | Dialogue 7 |
|---|---|---|
The main success in politics consists in the degree of secrecy employed in pursuing it. The action of a diplomat must not correspond with his words. |
but as words must never be in agreement with actions (as in politics), it is necessary that, in diverse conjunctions, the prince is quite skillful at disguising his real designs under contrary ones; he must always have the air of yielding to the pressure of public opinion when he executes what his hand has secretly prepared. To summarize the word system in a phrase, revolution must be contained within the State: on the one side, by the terror of anarchy, on the other, by bankruptcy, and – all things considered – by general warfare. |
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To help our worldwide plan, which is nearing its desired end, we must influence the governments of the Gentiles by so-called public opinions, in reality prearranged by us by means of that greatest of all powers — the press, which, with a few insignificant exceptions not worth taking into account, is entirely in our hands. |
Voice of the victims of a lurid money-hungry press. | You have already seen, in the rapid indications that I have given you, the important role the art of speech is summoned to play in modern politics. I am far from disdaining the press, as you will see, and I need to make use of the grandstand; |
Briefly, in order to demonstrate our enslavement of the Gentile governments in Europe, we will show our power to one of them by means of crimes of violence, that is to say by a reign of terror (*) and in case they all rise against us we will respond with American, Chinese or Japanese guns. |
Voice of someone who thinks the world wants to see Russia broken. * Footnote in Protocols: “Notice state of Russia”, i.e. Russia is the victim of this aggression. |
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Not very sophisticated, this protocol. Lie to the press and demonstrate power.
Machiavelli spends more time depicting his puppet as someone who deceives the people into believing he plays their game. “You want a liberal revolution, people?”, “Yes!”, screams the lot. “Then follow me into total war, our war against the freedom haters!”, says the despot. “Yes!”, screams the lobotomised people.
Montesquieu probably yawns at this point in the play.
Joly to some degree takes the lead on sophistication this time. Golovinski’s strong suit is certainly not in the direct claims but in the multi layered imitation, which bestows upon his parody a life of its own.
Satirise a voice by person A, but let someone completely different say those lines, person B, than the original. Make sure A and B are perceived by us in wildly different manner. You could make a movie out of that premise.
In the last paragraphs I have tried to expunge on the voice. The assumption here is that someone either emotionally lashes out or more professionally tries to manipulate the reader into something, but otherwise, I try to figure out at what depth the microscope should focus. Ironic disdain or emotional expression or pure manipulation.
Of course, when you are in the midst of history, it is impossible to get an overview of what is stirring.
Golovinski can feel the revolution approaching, but certainly not as a fait accompli. The 1905 Bloody Sunday was approaching, but what did he see?
Sergei Nilus saw omens everywhere that antichrist was here.
I guess he was.
PARADISE LOST