I Read the Bad Books for You: Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Section 1

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is one of those many books that are more often mentioned than read.  Most literate people know from hearsay that the Protocols is a libelous forgery of the Czarist secret police and that the Protocols says Bolshevism was actually a stalking horse of supremacist Jews.  That, at least, is what I knew from hearsay (although my claim to literacy is in some quarters disputed).  In any case, I have at last decided to actually read the infamous tract, and propose to tell all who care to listen exactly what I find.

The first chapter of the Protocols explains that democracy and liberalism are, as it were, the heavy artillery barrage with which gentile societies are softened before the Bolsheviks (in fact supremacist Jews) take control.  Like all classical political philosophers, the authors of the Protocols  maintain that absolute democracy necessarily devolves into anarchy because the demos is composed of petty, greedy, ignorant, short-sighted and quarrelsome plebs.

“To work out a suitable scheme of action one must bear in mind the meanness, instability, and want of ballast on the part of the crowd, its incapacity to understand and respect the conditions of its own existence and of its own welfare.” (p. 3)

The key aspect of the crowd’s “incapacity to understand and respect the conditions of its own existence and  . . . welfare” is the crowd’s incapacity to understand that a crowd is incapable of governing itself.  The demos, which is nothing but a great crowd, is, in effect, like a teenager.  The great difference is that the demos will never grow up.  This is why the authors of the Protocols say they have, with sinister intent, handed demos the car keys (democracy) and an uncorked  bottle of booze (liberalism).

“It suffices to give the populace self-government for a short period for this populace to become a disorganized rabble.  From that very moment dissensions start which soon develop into social battles . . . . Whether the state is exhausted by its own internal convulsions, or whether civil wars hand it over to an external foe, it can in any case be considered as definitely and finally destroyed—it will be in our power.” (2)

Plebian leaders cannot save demos from internecine “social battles” because, even when these leaders are “geniuses,” they are always leaders of a plebian faction.  Every plebian leader claws his way to democratic power by skillfully slandering and vituperatively vilifying other factions in the demos.  If he succeeds it taking power, he will, in the great aria of democratic hypocrisy, announce his rebirth as a “unifier:” but this is, of course, a risible ruse.

“The people abandoned to itself, i.e., to upstarts from the masses [demagogues], is ruined by party dissensions which arise from greed of power and honors and which create disturbances and disorder.” (4-5)

Democracy is, in short, a corrosive social solvent because democracy converts a population of organized subjects into a riot of angry rivals for power and prestige.  Liberalism meanwhile causes these furious and fractious democrats to overlook or tolerate political actors who are playing a deeper game.  Political actors like the Bolsheviks (in fact supremacist Jews).

“The problem [of usurpation] is simplified if said rival becomes infected with ideas of freedom, so-called liberalism, and for the sake of this idea yields some of its power” (1)

Thus the Masonic motto “liberty, equality and fraternity” is, according the Protocols, the instrument of men (supremacist Jews) who aim to “enslave all Governments under our super-Government” (6).  These three words are, indeed, lexical knock-out-drops that seem to invigorate men but in fact put them into a trance.

“Our call of ‘Liberty, equality and fraternity’ brought whole legions to our ranks from all four corners of the world through our unconscious agents [“would-be wise and intelligent Gentiles”], and these legions carried our banners with ecstasy.  In the meantime these words were eating, like so many worms, into the well-being of the Christians and were destroying their peace, steadfastness and unity . . .” (7).

The three words in the Masonic motto are, as many have noted, contradictory, since liberty always leads to inequality and fraternity entails claims that constrain (one might as well say liberty and matrimony).  These contradictions are, however, overlooked in the delirium that these heady abstractions induce in idealistic gentiles.  Likewise overlooked are the absolute implications of these three intoxicating words.

When a man hears the word “liberty,” he pictures himself liberated from the irksome and officious governors by whom he is ruled.  He does not picture the liberation of those who are subject to his own rule and government.  Thus the man who was liberated from the rule of his king is soon surprised to learn that his wife has been liberated from the rule of her husband.

When a man hears the word “equality,” he pictures himself equalized with his superiors, with those who have so long been the objects of his resentment and envy.  He does not picture himself equalized with his inferiors, with those who have so long been the objects of his scorn and contempt.  Thus the man who was raised to equality with his squire is soon surprised to learn that his slave has been raised to equality with himself.

When a man hears the word fraternity, he pictures himself being helped by beneficent “brothers” who will give him a hand. He does not pictured himself pawed by deadbeats who have suddenly become his “brothers.”  Thus the man who was delighted by the warm handclasp of fraternity is soon surprised to learn that the handclasp is in fact a handcuff and he is shackled to a bevy of bums.

In addition to pulverizing gentile society with democratic wrangling, liberal leniency, and the narcotic abstractions of liberty, equality, and fraternity, the Protocols say that supremacist Jews (hiding behind stalking horses like Masonry and Bolshevism) aim to replace the national aristocracies of the gentiles with a global plutocracy of Jews.

“On the ruins of natural and hereditary aristocracy we built an aristocracy of our own on a plutocratic basis.  We established this new aristocracy on wealth, of which we had control, and on science promoted by our scholars.”

That “science” would be political economy and historical materialism broadly conceived.  This “science” (which Thomas Carlyle called “pig philosophy”) teaches that human life is nothing but jostling for goodies in the trough of the marketplace.  Just like the Masonic mantra of “liberty, equality and fraternity,” the “science” of political economy and historical materialism exploit a weakness in the psychology of the gentiles, the weakness being in this case not idealism but a lack of self-restraint.

“[We] always worked upon the most susceptible part of the human mind, namely by playing on our victim’s weakness for profits, on their greed, on their insatiability . . .”

Thus the claims of the old gentile aristocracy are undermined by criticism of their economic ineptitude.  By slow degrees the demos of a nation is taught to transfer its loyalty from those with noble blood to those who are good with money,  from those who can produce a pedigree to those who promise to put a chicken in every pot and a Ford in every garage.

End of Section1
To Be Continued