13th June
My scattered notes have so far consisted in a few excepts from each protocol. This is how I for the time being will examine them. In excerpts.
However, it is tempting to take up a systematic treatment of the entire document. Perhaps I will someday.
14th June
I stand by my thesis about the Protocols serving a double aim. In the very first paragraph of the first protocol, it summarises the world’s population like so:
It must be noted that people with corrupt instincts are more numerous than those of noble instinct.
Political freedom is not a fact, but an idea. This idea one must know how to apply when it is necessary, in order to use the same as a bait to attract the power of the populace to one’s party, if such party has decided to usurp the power of a rival.
The bulk of the Protocols then goes on to talk about how these corrupted animals (“Goys”, “Gentiles”) are susceptible to manipulation.
Around this susceptibility is built a whole fantastical narration. The issue is what the consequence of giving people power will be. The two-fold message is this:
- The nobles warned about it.
- The Jews prey on it.
But if the Jews had not, some other global conspiracy would have, since the weaknesses were lying in wait. Demagoguery is an inherent trait of democracy.
It is a historical irony how a rabid antisemitic party ended up exploiting the fears of their countrymen to establish a rule that unleashed the very savage instincts which the (stolen passages of the) Protocols in reality warned us about.
Through the entire book runs a thread of harsh discipline of the population. When it says Gentiles/Goy in most contexts it really means voters. It means Jews and Gentiles only if Jews equal the ruling class, which in a democracy means those able to manipulate the vote, and Gentiles the ruled.
Let there be a brief historical period where the human animals believe themselves capable of ruling themselves. When the superhuman returns, they will use the democratic system against itself and take back control.
15th June
The Voice(s) in the Protocols
The Protocols become more and more mystical for each day I read it.
The contempt for ordinary people matches the aristocracy’s own contempt for commoners.
The effects of the Protocols were murderous for the Jews in Russia and cataclysmic in Germany.
Every single page I put my finger on contains some overt or direct appraisal of the sovereign and the ruling people.
Its ethical compass is dominated by a duty to frustrate the liberal plans of the commoners.
Through the pages runs a kind of rivalry between forces of darkness and light. The narrating voice is oddly working advocate both. The voice ruthlessly (and selflessly) wants to subject society’s children to a discipline harkening back to old ways.
The voice alternates between shameless promotion of aristocracy and phoney depictions of sniggering masterminds developing their plans.
Almost every sentence is merely an excuse to establish why the feudal society was better.
It has an aristocratic ethos while at the same time through the action of putting the ethos in the mouthes of Jews, takes advantage of the fierce fury of liberals and communists against the ruling class. This was before the 1905 Russian Revolution, in a time where assassinations and anarchists plotting revolution were the order of the day.
The roles of the Jews are contradictory. The narrating voices explains how Jews seek world domination, but not to do what we normally associate with antisemitic claims, namely banking and economic exploitation, but to restore ordered society. Disempower the people before it is too late.
Since we know that parts of the documents were outright stolen from older ones, I guess this could be the strange result of trying to adapt one narration to a different purpose.
But if you wanted to paint the Jews in a bad light, why include all the autocratic ruminations?
The pattern could have been:
“We, the Jews, will fool the Gentiles and sabotage their democratic institutions.”
But it is persistently:
“We, the Jews, will fool the Gentiles and sabotage their democratic institutions, which have brought them nothing good and restore a functioning country for the benefit of themselves.”
16th June
I have decided to go through the entire book, one protocol at a time, even starting with the printer’s foreword
Sergei Nilus’ afterword in the English translation by “The Britons” of Sergei’s original 1905 book sounds a lot more like ordinary antisemitism. The people who rule by money.
I will proceed from here assuming that a pro-autocratic source was plundered by a racist group who thought its content fitted their hypothetical Jewish secret society better.
I will use three columns throughout the process when necessary:
- English original
- Pro-autocratic archaic understanding
- Antisemitic modern interpretation
The latter is an obnoxious melting pot of all things understood as bad. It follows the confused collective mind of a mob and is thus harder disentangle.
| Foreword 2nd Edition, English publisher (1920) | Autocratic | Conspiracy obsessed |
|---|---|---|
| PREFATORY NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION. Messrs. Eyre & Spottiswoode having disposed of their rights in this work to the present publishers, it has not been thought necessary to make any alteration in the text ; but, as the numbering of the Protocols is not indicated, a Note has been appended to the volume which will enable readers to add the numbers in their proper places in the margins. | ||
| On May 8th, 1920, The Times published an article on this work which it called “A Disturbing Pamphlet: a Call for Enquiry.” Since then, in a series of articles commencing July 12, the Morning Post has published a very exhaustive “enquiry,” under the title of “The World Unrest.” The Protocols the writer very fitly names “THE BOLSHEVIST BIBLE.” | Note the cultural lustre of Bolshevism in 1920. Nobody knew Lenin’s arguments anyway. | |
| He proves by a mass of cumulative historic evidence that the Protocols are Jewish, and that a secret organisation of Jews is at the base of the world’s unrest. The Times writer says that no one can fail to recognise Soviet Russia in the Protocols, and it asks: | The “scientifically proven” theme. It sounds as appealing to the mind as ads for detergent must have sounded to 1950s housewives. | |
| “Whence comes the uncanny note of prophecy, prophecy in part fulfilled, in parts far gone in the way of fulfilment? Have we been struggling these tragic years to blow up and extirpate the secret organisation of German world dominion only to find beneath it another more dangerous because more secret? Have we, by straining every fibre of our national body, escaped a ‘Pax Germanica’ only to fall into a ‘Pax Judaica’?” | Oddly enough Sergei does nothing in the way of proving anything. The Prussian secret society for world domination??? |
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| The answer, as supplied by the Morning Post’s articles, and by the facts of the present day — strikes, revolutions, high prices, shortage, speculation, and unrest everywhere — is that this is exactly what we have fallen into a Jewish “PEACE” | Workers don’t strike because they are discontent. They are roused by agent provocateurs. It’s a prophecy coming true. |
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| We commend this “disturbing pamphlet” to the most serious consideration of all true Britons. The Kaiser was not the real enemy, egregious sinner though he was. The Learned Elders of Zion were behind him, and it is they who have now to be squarely met. | Single source of agony-theory. The “fix the root problem” illusion. Gnomes could have taken the place of Jews. |
| Foreword 1st Edition, English publisher (1919) | Autocratic | Socialist | Conspiracy obsessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| At a moment when the whole of Western Europe is enlarging upon the benefits of constitutional governments and discussing on the one hand the merits and on the other the sins of Maximalism (Bolshevism), I think that I may with advantage put before the English-speaking public, the translation of a book published at Tsarskoye Sielo, in Russia, in the year 1905. A copy of the original may be seen at the British Museum Library, under No. 3926 d 17, stamped British Museum, 10th August, 1906. How many more copies of the book may be seen in the world, I can hardly say, as, shortly after its appearance in 1905, most copies seem to have been bought up simultaneously and apparently with a purpose. | Protocols: Conservatism is only solution. Those who dissolved the world are the liberals and Bolsheviks. |
Communist reaction to Protocols: The Protocols are both nationalist and feudal. Those who dissolved the world are the liberals and the conservatives. |
Liberal reaction: It’s all Jewish! Bolsheviks and Monarchists are controlled by and invented by Jews. |
| On this point I would only warn my readers that they must not take a copy of this translation to Russia, as anybody in whose possession it is found by the Bolsheviki is immediately shot, as being the bearer of “reactionary propaganda.” | Shot because the Protocols are clearly loyalist propaganda? No, shot because the Bolsheviks are exposed as a front for Jews. |
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| The book was presented to the Russian public by Professor Sergyei Nilus. It contains: (i) An introduction to the main text, written by Sergyei Nilus in 1905. (ii) Notes on lectures delivered to Jewish students in Paris in the year 1901. (iii) A portion of an epilogue written by the same Sergyei Nilus. I have not considered it necessary to reproduce the whole of the epilogue, as portions of it would be of no interest to the British public, and do not bear upon the question before me, namely, that of the Jewish Peril. |
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| I would ask my readers to bear in mind that the lectures above referred to were delivered in 1901, and that Nilus’s Introduction and Epilogue were written in 1905. It is impossible to read any of the parts of this volume to-day without being struck by the strong prophetic note which runs through them all, not only as regards the once Holy Russia, but also as regards certain sinister developments, which may be observed at the present moment throughout the whole world. Gentiles — Beware ! London, and December, 1919. |
The Protocols are a work of art, a pinpointing of all defects of liberal society. It uses the Jews as scapegoats, but could just as well have used “bad luck” or orcs or “intellectuals” The “people” prove themselves to be just as nutty and malleable as we predicted. |
Hey! 👈 and 👉! What are you doing? You confirm each other’s prejudices of each other! How typical. |
The Protocols are a prediction that over the last 20 years have proven its validity. The danger is imminent. The serpent has almost closed the circle. |
Very dense.
We are witnessing a phenomenon we all should know very well: Spiders who all try to envelop the other spiders in their web before the opposite happens.
The moral of the story seems to be that only a fool would read and understand what someone else wrote.
Everything written exists as a brick to be used in one’s own construction. The ultimate goal is to raise a condition of alarm to inspire the remotest political interest in those around you.
Now I sink one layer deeper. In the introduction, the words of the Russian professor who published the book adds his perspective. His motives, I can only speculate on.
The lexicon says about Sergei Nilus that he “was a Russian religious writer, self-described mystic, and prolific antisemite.”
Antisemitism? Yes, but of a different kind.
Sergei returned to his Orthodox Christianity after an accident. He then started to publish about the Antichrist.
Russian religious life is rather foreign to us, who have a predominantly protestant background, with a penchant for rationality and piety. Obedience to us means “obey the law”, not a religious insight. We largely fail to see the value in whipping somebody.
The Antichrist. Even the word itself immediately hits sombre notes rising from a church organ, heralding a final doomsday.
Against these unutterable powers stands the mystic, tirelessly fighting Satanic forces through prayers and publishing.
For lack of a better word, I would refer to Sergei Nilus as an Orthodox religious activist living in an age convulsing with radical and reactionary tendencies.
This is of course a very different rationale from the nationalist’s antisemitism which typically has its offset in a materialistic approach to life. “Jews control the money”.
I can see no point in confusing the two forms.
| Introduction by Sergei Nilus, 1905 | Pro-autocracy | Christian eschatology |
|---|---|---|
| A MANUSCRIPT has been handed to me by a personal friend, now deceased, which with extraordinary precision and clearness describes the plan and development of a sinister world-wide conspiracy, having for its object that of bringing the unregenerate World to its inevitable dismemberment. | Humanity easy to predict: Hand power to the people, and it quickly dissolves. | Validity is in the ability to predict. If half the observations are true, the other half must be as well. |
| This document came into my possession some four years ago (1901), with the positive assurance that it is a true copy in translation, of original documents stolen by a woman from one of the most influential and most highly initiated leaders of [Orient] Freemasonry. The theft was accomplished at the close of a secret meeting of the “initiated” in France, that nest of “Jewish masonic conspiracy.” | The (modern - compared to Orthodoxy) movement for change, Freemasons, is up to their usual schemes. | |
| To those who would see and hear, I venture to reveal this manuscript under the title of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” On first scanning through these minutes, they might convey the impression of being what we usually call truisms, and appear to be more or less ordinary truths, though expressed with a pungency and a hatred which does not usually accompany ordinary truths. | “Truisms”: Who would deny that liberalism is leading to disaster? |
“Hatred”: Christ is purity, love. Satan is impurity, envy, hatred. Social classes are divine. Desiring to unite them is hidden jealousy. |
| There seethes between the lines that arrogant and deep-rooted racial and religious hatred, which has been so long successfully concealed, and it bubbles over and flows, as it were, from an overfilled vessel of rage and revenge, fully conscious that its triumphant end is near. | (No, it simply does not bubble over with anything) | The motive must be rage and envy. The opposite would describe the ones redeemed by Christ. |
| We cannot omit to remark that its title does not altogether correspond to its contents. These are not exactly minutes of meetings, but a report made by some powerful person, divided into sections not always in a logical sequence. They convey the impression of being the part of something threatening and more important, the beginning of which is missing. The aforementioned origin of this document speaks for itself. | You don’t say! [I am starting to entertain the possibility that Sergei Nilus himself believes his own overextended interpretation.] |
Shrouded in mystery. |
| By the prophecies of the Holy Fathers, Anti-Christ’s doings must always be a parody on Christ’s life, and must have likewise their Judas. But, of course, from an earthly point of view, its Judas will not achieve his ends; thus, although of brief duration, a complete victory of the “world ruler” is assured. This reference to W. Soloviev’s words is not intended to be used as a proof of their scientific authority. From an eschatological point of view, science is out of place, the important part is fate. Soloviev gives us the canvas, the embroidery will be worked by the proposed manuscript. | Everything happens according to the prophecies, because everything follows a celestial nature. People asking for proof are oblivious to higher order truths: Fate and eschatology. |
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| We might be justly reproached with the apocryphal nature of this document; but were it possible to prove this world-wide conspiracy by means of letters or by declarations of witnesses, and if its leaders could be unmasked holding its sanguinary threads, the “mysteries of iniquity” would by this very fact, be violated. To prove itself, it has to remain unmolested till the day of its incarnation in the “son of perdition.” | Predetermination mandates this development. Those having a plan for the entire world are themselves pawns on God’s chessboard. |
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| In the present complications of criminal proceedings we cannot look for direct proofs, but we have to be satisfied with circumstantial evidence, and with such the mind of every indignant Christian observer is filled. | Lower the bar of critical thinking. Christians are used to choose faith over science. | |
| That which is written in this work ought to suffice for those “who have ears to hear” as being obvious and is offered them with the intention of urging them to protect themselves while there is yet time, and to be on their guard. | S. Nilus is in mortal combat against the Antichrist coming. | |
| Our conscience will be satisfied if by the grace of God we attain this most important aim of warning the Gentile world without exciting in its heart wrath against the blinded people of Israel. We trust that the Gentiles will not entertain feelings of hatred against the erroneously believing mass of Israel in its innocence of the Satanic sin of its leaders — the Scribes and Pharisees — who have already once proved themselves to be the destruction of Israel. | [My God, Sergei Nilus! What have you done?] |
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| Turning aside the wrath of God, there remains but one way — union of all Christians in Our Lord Jesus Christ and total extermination — repentance for ourselves and for others. | I can’t figure out what he means here. |
“We trust that the Gentiles will not entertain feelings of hatred against the erroneously believing mass of Israel”.
It is time for a thought experiment. The following is not a comparison, but an elucidation of mental processes at work.
Today, the present conflict in Palestine has raised many voices critical against the actions of Israel. Even amongst politicians, and certainly amongst plain people, persist a difficulty in discerning the culpability of the people versus the government. We gladly say Putin did this or Netanyahu did that, and politicians often dream of removing a leader, thinking that in that case the problem will vanish.
Leaders are not of the people, but they rise out of the ocean of people by having at least some kind of appeal to the people.
This is a classical mistake to make in international relations. If one objects to a leader, one objects to the people behind the leader.
And yet when Israel offends us by their actions, we believe we can pinpoint criticism on “the leaders” without soiling our perception of the entire body, without covertly persuading ourselves about the qualities of the whole group.
This is a classical mistake to make in social awareness.
Psychologically. though our words criticise only a subgroup, our minds seem to colour the entire group as if we really did talk about the whole group. We taint our hearts with racism when we try to rationalise antagonism by pinning it on few individuals, latching on to the explanation while the real self-damage is done unconsciously.
If concentration camps had only to contain Jewish political leaders, it would not have amounted to much. Germans were ultimately unable to distinguish between (most likely wrongful) accusations against a few and a verdict on Jews as such.
Our social brain is a sensitive machine. Israeli readers can easily pick up these multiple layers. And since messages delivered by our political leaders on the incoming side officially only reflect the opinions of those speaking, they too are perceived on two levels. Officially as not involving the speaking politicians’s own people, unofficially as a caricature of the people itself.
Mutual suspicion grows between entire peoples.
The thought experiment I mentioned: Imagine Sergei Nilus believed his own words, that it was only this (unproven) Jewish cabal of super leaders that he feared would like a modern Judas facilitate the coming of Antichrist.
In reality his subliminal language acquired an overall poisonous attire towards the Jewish people. Are we doing the same today against the state of Israel?
That problem is utterly unrelated to the matter of conflict handling. If we want to stay clear of simply becoming a part of the conflict, we have to be able to enter and exit each viewpoint fluently.
The first thing to look for is always: Are we excising their expressed reasons for acting? Are we intentionally neglecting arguments which may strike us as illegitimate or as painting them in a bad light (according to our tastes), when we really do want to like them as “one of our own”?
The second is to make sure we never talk about the entire “people” as the acting party. But conversely we must also avoid treating the people and their elected officials as in opposition to each other, unless objectively warranted. There is a good chance they have been elected as saying something the majority wanted to hear.
What remains is the unsolvable core of conflict resolution: Bringing group A and B out of their mutual stereotypical perception of each other.
Perhaps Sergei the Mystic saw the time around the turn of the century as ominous and rife with potent events foreshadowing the inevitable coming of Antichrist. Perhaps his religious fervour commanded him to act in such a way.
Already as an orthodox, he could in the image of liberalism and socialism, two mighty forces unthreading what God had built through his loyal servants, see the face of the ungodly.
Look at this face:
This is not the face of a Jew.
This is the face of us, me.
The face of rationality, the face of utilitarianism. The face of market capitalism.
The face of socialism.
We are the murderers of the divine spirit of the world.
Sergei Nilus was simply not able to fathom that all these strains of political thinking to their authors represented healthy thinking. They had to have been invented by individuals having rotted away in their own jealousy and hate.
The face of the son that didn’t return to his father in heaven. The apostate.
And since they clearly could not really, seriously have meant what they claimed in their fatalistic eagerness to shred the world to pieces, the inescapable conclusion is that some other force would have to have stood behind them.
Some evil in this world desired the abolition of the realm of God.
Unless you are a Christian, the fundamental incompatibility between hating Judas for his actions and accepting his figure as part of the divine plan radiates with dissonance. Once we transcend that difficulty, we can start to think like a Sergei.
| Introduction by Sergei Nilus, 1905 | Pro-autocracy | Christian eschatology |
|---|---|---|
| But is this possible in the present unregenerate condition of the world? It is impossible for the world, but still possible for believing Russia. The present political conditions of Western European states and of their affiliated countries in other continents were prophesied by the Prince of Apostles. | Western Europe are incalcitrant liberalists. God is dead to them. Russia is different. The last refuge for a now superfluous deity. |
The downfall was prophesied. Therefore it was written in the stars above. |
| Mankind in its aspiration to perfect its terrestrial life and in its search of a better realisation of the idea of power, which could secure everybody’s well-being, and in its quest of a reign of universal satiety, which has become the highest ideal of human life, has changed the direction of its ideals by pronouncing the Christian faith as entirely discredited and not having justified the hopes bestowed on it. | Enlightenment science and politics purports to replace faith and devotion. | Seek God’s Kingdom first. Anything else spells doom. |
| Overthrowing former idols, creating new ones, and raising new gods on to pedestals, the world erects for them temples, one more luxurious and more magnificent than the other, and again deposes and destroys them. Mankind has lost the very conception of the power granted by God to kings anointed, and is approaching the conditions of anarchy. Soon the swivel of the republican and constitutional scales will be worn through. The scales will collapse, and in their fall will carry away all the governments to the very abyss of raging anarchy. | Advertising and political hysteria replaces reality. Sooner or later, the people will know that the phantoms sold during election years are hollow. They will loose trust forever. |
Banks, conglomerates, politicians, movie stars come and go and are shrouded in vain appraisals for a short time. |
| The world’s last rampart and last refuge from the coming storm is Russia. Her true faith is still alive, and the anointed Emperor still stands as her sure protector. | The unleashed and deceived masses will, robbed of their King, rise to a storm. | |
| All the efforts of destruction on the part of the sinister and evident servants of the Anti-Christ, his conscious and unconscious workers, are concentrated on Russia. The reasons are understood, the objects are known, they must be known to believing and faithful Russia. The more threatening the coming historical moment is, the more frightening the approaching events concealed in the dense clouds are, the more courageously and with greater determination the brave and intrepid hearts of the Russians must beat. Bravely ought they to join hands round the sacred banner of their Church and round the throne of their Emperor. So long as the soul lives, so long also the flaming heart beats in the bosom, there is no room for the deathly spectre of despair; but it is for us, and for our fidelity, to gain the Almighty’s mercy and to delay the hour of Russia’s fall (1905). | The last Tsar is still standing. The last battle will be in Russia. Both liberalism and socialism are mighty demons already seizing the hearts of many. |
What is terrifying is of course the fact that this “prophecy” correctly estimated the end of the rule of the Romanovs.
All the less impressive, given how that precedent had already been set elsewhere and given the intensity of those movements that had already toppled old regimes in large parts of the world.
Predicting the end of monarchism was a bit like predicting the end of disco. And less eschatological.
PARADISE LOST