The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is probably the most influential work of antisemitism ever written. It consists of the supposed minutes from 24 sessions of a congress held by representatives from the âtwelve tribes of Israelâ and led by a Grand Rabbi, whose purpose was to plan the conquest of the world. This congress never took place. The pamphlet is actually a crude forgery created by the Okhrana, or secret police, of Imperial Russia. It first appeared in 1903 and incorporates many of the most vicious myths about the Jews handed down over the centuries. Used initially to blame Jews and their supposedly servile allies, the Freemasons, for the 1905 Revolution in Russia, the Protocols would become a welcome export around the world. If not simple hatred then pogroms, and if not pogroms then even worse, followed in its wake. It was applauded by royalty, it was embraced by counterrevolutionaries, and the Nazis made it required reading. It still serves as a staple for numerous fundamentalist, conservative, neofascist, and antisemitic groups in the United States and throughout the world. Indeed, what the Communist Manifesto is for Marxism , the fictitious Protocols is for antisemitism.
It enabled antisemites to see their nemesis, the Jew , as both an intrinsic element of Western civilization and its other. This anthropological view, in fact, provides the foundation for the theory articulated in the pamphlet. Beyond the myriad ways in which hatred of the Jew is expressed lies the continuity of prejudice. The Protocols solidifies the connection between the true believers in Christianity, those nineteenth-century reactionaries intent on combating the Enlightenment, and the fanatics of a seemingly antireligious and revolutionary Nazi movement desirous of establishing the primacy of a single race. Christian institutions and the first genuinely reactionary movements, no less than the Nazis , overwhelmingly aligned themselves against the modern ideas and values generated in the age of democratic revolution: secularism and science, rationalism and materialism, tolerance and equality, capitalism and socialism, and liberalism and Marxism. Antisemitism was never simply an independent impulse. It was always part of a broader project directed against what Norbert Elias called âthe civilizing process.â The way in which the Protocols contributed to that effort is precisely what this book seeks to explore.
My personal background surely shaped my interest in the Protocols: my family fled Hitlerâs Germany and I grew up during the postwar period in a neighborhood of working-class German-Jewish immigrants who had experienced the implications of this terrible pamphlet in a way beyond my imagination. Those few still alive continue to exist in the shadow of the holocaust. It remains their point of reference for any outbreak of genocide or antisemitism; my parents and their friends often exclaimed: genau wie beim Hitler . Many younger people have also undoubtedly felt the sting of antisemitism and encountered credulous individuals who have mentioned the Protocols. But it is woefully misleading to draw parallels between antisemitism as it was practiced in the 1930s and its practice today. As the twentieth century draws to a close, indeed, few know much about this once-popular pamphlet and even fewer have read it.
International sales of the pamphlet were astronomical during the 1920s and 1930s; Henri Rollin, the French scholar of antisemitism , called the Protocols the most widely distributed book in the world other than the Bible, accompanied by a mountain of secondary literature comprising well more than 1000 titles. Since World War II, however, antisemitism of the old sort has receded and, on closer examination, the mountain has dwindled in size. The tract is no longer the fundamental ideological expression of states and mass movements capable of influencing contemporary politics. The world is different and it makes little sense to look at the present through the lense of the past.
The Protocols is now almost universally recognized as a fabrication. Its claims about a Jewish world conspiracy are mostly greeted with derision in the Western democracies. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, of course, some still consider these calculatedly paranoiac myths true and the rumors plausible. Weakened forms of antisemitic politics still exist, and certain groups and movements are still susceptible to the message contained in the pamphlet. The danger of antisemitism never fully disappears and, in any event, the political risk in making the opposite assumption is too high. The half-baked rumor might yet resurface as a full-blown myth with a new form of popular appeal. The fragility of our historical memory alone justifies a new treatment of the Protocols. Nevertheless, if the issue is really one of preventing the recurrence of antisemitism, then yet another pedantic account of the trials and tribulations associated with the Protocols is of less importance than an examination of its historical appeal and its political implications.
Just as there are documents of liberty like the Declaration of Independence (1776) or the Gettysburg Address (1863), there are also those that celebrate hatred and tyranny. The Protocols is one of those works: it encapsulates the historical legacy of antisemitism and reflects its transformation from a religious and social concept into a new political phenomenon. The pamphlet gives an insight into the way the antisemite thinks, not merely about the Jew but about himself or herself. Few works give as penetrating an insight into the cynical, unscrupulous, and self-deceiving assumptions of right-wing bigots. Equally important: it highlights how antisemitism is grounded in an antimodern and antidemocratic worldview.
Such insights appear only if the Protocols is seen not merely as an outrageous set of lies born of prejudice but as a seminal contribution to an established literary tradition intent on combating liberalism and socialism. The forgery was perpetrated by agents of Imperial Russia. Yet, the same story could have unfolded elsewhere. Antisemitism was an international phenomenon and the Protocols is not simply reducible to the Russian context. It was instead a work that took on an international life of its own. The Protocols helped shape the worst trends of the twentieth century. It shows that history is not merely composed of truth but incorporates lies as well.
Other works are arguably more seminal for the intellectual lineage of antisemitism. But they generally run hundreds of pages, and they were mostly directed toward an educated or academic audience. Nor should this seem strange, given the respectability accorded antisemitism in many academic and intellectual circles prior to World War II. The Protocols, by contrast, fits nicely into a newspaper or a set of magazine installments. Even though it once appeared in an elegant gold-leaf edition meant for Czar Nicholas II, from the first, the tract was intended for a mass audience.
The Protocols is not a work of intellectual quality. Short on ideas, and shorter on argumentation, it relies on a gothic vision and a spirit of cheap melodrama. The writing is pathetic. Its convoluted prose, logical inconsistencies, and impoverished imagery betray the character and intellectual level of its authors. The brochure rests on traditional myths and stereotypes even as it gives a distinctly modern twist to the prejudices of the past: it, indeed, offers a sense of the popular fears raised by âthe Jews.â
The Protocols is an object lesson in antisemitism and, if only for this reason, it is useful to provide some selections. The Protocols appeared in many formats. But, for present purposes, the English translation by Victor Marsden is the most appropriate. The selections included in the next chapter are more extensive than most, and they should provide a sense of what fascists themselves considered important about the pamphlet. They will also enable the reader to avoid dealing with a rambling and redundant work. The central idea animating the Protocols involves the supposed existence of a Jewish world conspiracy designed to enslave Christian civilization under a new world order run by the leading elder of Zion. But there are other claims and various hidden assumptions. It is important to consider the imagery of the work, the stereotypes it employs, and the provincial anxieties it creates with respect to the supposed degeneration of the authentic Christian community and its racially homogeneous inhabitants.
Antisemites were unconcerned with empirical reality, and critics must understand the assumptions informing their arguments. The Protocols portrays the Jews and Freemasons as outsiders and enemies of Christian civilization. It highlights their seemingly strange and outlandish rituals , their supposedly secret symbols and secret contacts. It condemns their influence, their control over media, and their manipulation of the most diverse political parties. It projects the antisemitesâ own authoritarianism upon them and, oddly enough, it admires the absolute obedience supposedly commanded by the Grand Rabbi or Grand Master. The Jew and the Freemason are one and the same or else the Jew is the master and the Freemason his lackey. It is the usual nonsense packaged differently. âThe Jewâ has nothing to do with Jews.
The Protocols is expressive of an anthropological trend within the âJudeo-Christianâ heritage, and the third chapter of this book, âThe Text in Context,â attempts to understand it. Chapter three provides a sketch of what William James might have termed the âvarieties of antisemitismâ and the logic driving the historical development of this particular prejudice. The cultural atmosphere is depicted along with the pamphletâs contempt for cosmopolitanism and education, secularism and science, equality and liberty, and rights and republicanism. The Protocols also mirrors the feelings of powerlessness, the paranoia of a community under siege, and the fear of the losers seemingly faced with the âhidden handâ of the Jews pulling the strings of progress. This chapter indeed shows how the strengthening of prejudice is the other side of the struggle for liberty, equality, and fraternity.
The chapter begins with an examination of premodern religious bigotry in which Christians believed that Jews were working together with the devil : these believers were more concerned with abolishing the faith of the Jew than denying him as a person. That changed following the Enlightenment and the democratic revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when, fearful of Jews using their new rights as citizens, advocates of a counterrevolution sought to retract their privileges. This meant recognizing the Jew as a Jew while denying his right to participate in the public realm. Only following the First World War would antisemitic mass parties attempt to deny the Jew as a person and a citizen, thereby anticipating his elimination.
With the stage set, âThe Tale of a Forgeryâ recounts the story of the Protocols. It underwent numerous permutations and different versions have been ascribed to various individuals. But there is no need to rehearse again its esoteric elements or compare the numerous editions in which the pamphlet appeared. Better to concentrate on the fabrication of the most popular edition of the Protocols and the purposes it was meant to serve. In turn, however, this makes it necessary to consider the period extending roughly from the last ...