Lucien Wolf

“ Democracy is axiomatic with Marx, the foundation of all his doctrine. Lenin, on the other hand, derides the mere counting of heads. He is, as he would put it, for the supremacy of truth, whatever the number of its disciples. This vital difference affects the systems of the two men at all essential points. Thus, while Marx teaches that the Dictatorship of the Proletariat should be the outcome of a [46] Democratic Republic based on Universal Suffrage, Lenin rejects Universal Suffrage, and bases the Dictatorship on a Guild or Soviet Republic. ”

“ Trade Unionism, Socialism, Syndicalism, Bolshevism, Sinn Fein, Indian Nationalism, and their analogues in every part of the globe are outward and visible signs of its sinister activity. That there are social grievances and even evils at the root of this unrest is not denied, but they are as artificial as the unrest itself. ”

“ Here we see that it is not the Jew Socialist who works to destroy the established political order of things, but the Gentile Anarchist. This point may be still further illustrated by Syndicalism and Bolshevism, which are both far more destructive than Socialism and are both revolts against Marx. It is true that Lenin pretends to be a strict Marxist, but his orthodoxy is vehemently contested by all the leading Marxists in England, France, and Germany, and by the whole body of Russian Mensheviks, among whom are many Jews. ”

“ To describe Russian Bolshevism as Jewish because one member of Lenin's Council of People's Commissars is an apostate Jew is obviously ludicrous. Lenin might far more justly describe the anti-Bolshevism of Western Europe as Jewish because two years ago the French Cabinet contained one professing Jew and the British two. The other so-called Jewish Commissars are all men of the second and lower ranks of officials belonging exclusively either to the Civil Service or the Soviet analogue of our municipal life. ”

“ It was, however, in Germany that the bogey was adapted for consumption in Western Europe. The old Junker anti-Semitism received a great impulse from the collapse of thrones which followed the Armistice of 1918. All the revolutionary movements were at once attributed by them to the Jews, and, by way of showing the victorious Allies the danger they were courting by tolerating them, bloodcurdling pictures of Russian Bolshevism as the first fruits of an international Jewish conspiracy were issued from the presses of the anti-Semitic society known as Deutschland's Erneuerung, in Munich. ”

“ Marx, indeed, was an intellectual product of the essentially Gentile teachings of Hegel and Feuerbach. Perhaps the best test of the Gentilism of his outlook is that, while his Jewish disciples were comparatively few, his Christian converts are numbered in millions. In the second place, if Marx was the chief instrument of a Jewish plot to subvert Christian society, he must have proved something of a disappointment to his secret employers. Among the forces which are making for World Unrest to-day he is a relatively conservative element. The Morning Post itself supplies the proof of this. ”

“ The struggle for Jewish emancipation had triumphed all over Western Europe, largely as a consequence of the Revolutions of 1848, and the new citizens thus enfranchised had everywhere cast in their lot with the Liberal parties. This was swiftly and angrily noted by the Ultramontane polemists, and the old bogey of a "Formidable Sect" began to haunt them in a revised and enlarged form. In the new conspiracy there was no longer any talk of Philosophers and Illuminati. Their place was taken by Jews and Protestants. ”

“ The general suggestion of the Morning Post that the Jewish Community is, for the most part, composed of dangerous Revolutionists is a little difficult to deal with, because, at the same time, it is admitted that they are not sincere. ”

“ Again, Marx stands for Revolution by Law in all Democratic States, while Lenin stands for Revolution by Force, whatever the constitution of the State. Nor does this apply only to revolutions, for while Marx holds that the authority of the State must, whenever possible, be exercised by peaceful means, Lenin teaches that Force is inherent in the State and its exercise unavoidable. ”

“ This is precisely the case of "Professor Sergyei Nilus," the alleged author of the Russian original of "The Jewish Peril."
His documented "discovery" that the Jews, in conspiracy with certain secret brotherhoods, are at the bottom of all the political and religious convulsions and all the social instabilities throughout the world, has been devised to bolster up a theory which has long failed to convince. The theory itself, of which the Morning Post's "Formidable Sect" is the latest product, is at least three centuries old. ”

“ In its anxiety to convict Marx of adding the sin of Germanism to the criminality of anti-Christian Thuggee—a little difficult to reconcile—it recalls his life-long quarrel with Bakounine, and explains it as exclusively a struggle between Judeo-Germanism and Slavism. [22] There is, however, no reason to believe that it was at bottom anything but a conflict between Socialism and Anarchism—that is, [18] between those who, however revolutionary they may be in a social sense, would still maintain the structure of the State, and those who would destroy it root and branch. ”

“ This is most strikingly exemplified by their career in the Russian Revolution. Human nature being what it is, it would not have been surprising if all the Jews in Russia had become fanatical Bolsheviks. The extravagances of Bolshevism are the natural reaction [53] against the cruelties of Tsarism, and the Jews suffered more bitterly from those cruelties than any other section of the sorely tried Russian people. ”

“ Another important piece of evidence is to be found in the attitude of the Jewish "Bund," which is the main organisation of Jewish workmen in Poland and the Pale of Settlement. From the beginning of the Russian Revolution the "Bund," avowedly Socialist, threw all its strength on the side of the Mensheviks. The most passionate struggles in the Congress of Soviets in 1917 were those waged between Lenin, on behalf of the Bolsheviks, and Liber, the "Bund" leader, on behalf of the Mensheviks. ”

“ If Jews have reluctantly turned towards [52] Bolshevism, it is because they have been forced into it by the anti-Bolsheviks. They cannot but be alarmed by the persistency and passion with which the charge of Bolshevism is levelled at them, and the threats which come from all sides to avenge in their persons the sins of Lenin and Trotsky. ”

“ When we examine Nilus's added matter the revelation [30] of fraud becomes still more remarkable. The main difference between Nilus and his German and Czech fore-runners is that he works out in detail the alleged Autocratic and Bolshevist philosophy of his Elders of Zion. He pictures these fabulous personages as genuine believers in Autocracy, but more intent on Jewish political domination than on merely mercenary exploitation. ”

“ No such school in the strictly economic sense exists or is possible in the Jewish Church. Marx and Lassalle ceased to be Jews long before they became Socialists, and, in so far as the Jewish proletariat which has arisen in Russia and Poland under the stress of exceptional and ephemeral conditions is Socialistic, it is notoriously remote from the Synagogue—as from every other kind of "clericalism"—and impatient of its control. ”

“ The true explanation of the Hebrew elements in Freemasonry, as in Templarism, is that both borrowed from the Old Testament, as a Christian document.
(c) As for the activities of Jews in the anti-monarchical and anti-Christian machinations of Masonry, the answer is that orthodox Masonry has never been anti-monarchical or anti-Christian, and if there have [13] been spurious lodges open to this reproach, and if orthodox lodges have been improperly used for this purpose, they were, at any rate, free of the added reproach of Jewish control or inspiration. ”

“ Twenty centuries of a terrible oppression has made of the Jews in Europe an element of no small importance in all the struggles for popular liberties, but throughout it all they have always remained a relatively conservative force. ”

“ The short answer to it in the case of the Jews is that it is an invention, and that not only is there no trace of it in the history of the Dispersion, but that, on the contrary, the Jews, even as a Church, and still more in their secular relations, have suffered more from the want of international organisation and uniformity than any other Church or religious community. ”

“ Another eminent Jew who may frequently be seen in consultation with MM. Sazonoff and Maklakoff at the Russian Delegation in Paris is Baron Alexandre de Gunzburg, at one time the most conspicuous member of the Jewish Community in Petrograd.
The anti-Semitic impression that Bolshevism is largely Jewish is, however, not altogether a bad dream, but rather an optical delusion which has been maliciously exaggerated. The so-called Jewish Bolsheviks are, indeed, a corps of officers without an army, and the [50] anti-Semites have a little too hastily inferred the army. ”

“ If the rituals were Jewish, one might expect to find parallel passages in the Hebrew Prayer-Book and similar literature, but nothing of the kind is discoverable. It is really remarkable that Jews had nothing to do—and indeed, I believe, never have had anything to do—with the composition of the Masonic rituals, seeing that the lodges, in this country, at least, have always been open to them, and at an early date learned Jews were interested in them and possibly joined them ”

“ Credulous and vicious people are still abundant, and they are not confined to the crowd. Mr. Winston Churchill has darkly hinted that he reads the signs of the times much in the same way as the Morning Post, and a curious story is current that the translation of the Russian forgery on which the theory of that journal mainly rests was actually made in the Intelligence Department of the War Office. ”

“ With the Jews it has no more to do with practical politics than the analogous hopes of pious Christendom. The Morning Post, however, does not stand alone in its error. A curious variant of it is found in recent German Antisemitica. The World Unrest is there pictured as due to a conspiracy of Jewry and the British Empire, based on the Anglo-Israelitish theory that the British people are the Lost Tribes and the Royal House of Windsor the authentic seed of David. ”

“ The number of organised Mensheviks is given at 18,000, while of organised Bolsheviks there is no trace whatever in the whole region. The other non-Russian districts in these provinces were less fortunate, for in the south-western governments the proportion of Bolsheviks to Mensheviks was 8 to 11, in the Don district 18 to 29, and in the Caucasus 1 to 5. The statistics here, however, show clearly that the strength of Bolshevism was always in an inverse ratio to the strength of the local Jewish population. ”

“ If not orthodox Jews, they certainly profess a strong Jewish nationalism, and if from them Bolshevism draws its main strength, then Jewry must bear the responsibility. On this point, happily, very definite information is available. First, with regard to the leaders. Bolshevism was founded in 1903, through a split among the Russian Socialists, which took the form of a revolt against Lenin. Who led the revolt? The Jew Martoff, and he was supported by all the most conspicuous Jews in the party, including Trotsky himself. ”

“ The others may or may not be convinced Bolsheviks. They are servants of the State who may have many other motives for serving the Soviets than an enthusiasm for Lenin's politics. Not every head of a Government Department or Chairman of a County Council in England is to-day necessarily a Lloyd Georgian. Trotsky has in his War Office and Corps of Officers probably as many ex-Tsarist officers—including sixteen Generals [67] —as there are "Jewish Commissars" in the whole Soviet Administration. ”

“ In their economic affiliation these Jews are not less hostile to Bolshevism. They belong in an overwhelming proportion to the upper and middle-class bourgeoisie. Moreover, the Jew is instinctively and by all his traditions an [45] individualist. It has been possible to found under the great names of Lamennais, Kingsley, Maurice, Hughes, Bishop Ketteler, and others a school of Christian Communism seeking its sanctions in the teachings of orthodox Christianity. ”

“ But, in the first place, it is the invaluable distinction of this free country that such a just intercourse of opinions exists without restraint as cannot leave to any number of men the desire of forming or frequenting those disguised societies where dangerous dispositions may be imbibed. And, secondly, the profligate doctrines which may have been nurtured in any such self-established assemblies could never have been tolerated for a moment in any lodge meeting under regular authority. ”