Another look at the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion

The most resent detailed study on the origins of the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is Cesare De Michelis’ Non-Existent Manuscript (2004). According to De Michelis the version that Nilius published in 1905 does not directly derive from the earliest known version published by Krusevan in 1903. This is evidence that there was an earlier version than Krusevan (1903). The protocols were first mentioned in an article “Plots against Humanity” published by Mikhail Menshikov in April 1902. Thus, the last possible writing date of the original version can be taken as April 1902.

            The content of the 1905 version published by Sergei Nilius gives the following hints to for the writing time. The Panama scandal of 1892/93 is mentioned (Protocol 10). Léon Bourgeois’ object lessons are mentioned (Protocol 16). Léon Bourgeois become Minister of Education in 1890 and from that time on spoke of object lessons. Sergei Witte made a currency reform in 1896 to put the Russian ruble on the gold standard. There is also a discussion of the dangers of the gold standard (Protocol 20). Therefore the writing time of the Protocols is likely to be close to 1896. Thus, the writing time is not before 1892 and not after 1902.  

            Jewish Freemason Léon Bourgeois was one of the politicians accused in the Panama scandal, yet was made the prime minister in 1895.  His government included eight Freemasons. In 1918 Bourgeois proposed forming the League of Nations. The idea of a super-government is mentioned several times in the Protocols. The Protocols do not mention Zionism. This may mean that they were written before the First Zionist Congress in 1897. Emile Zola published J’Accuse in 1898 and after that the Dreyfuss affair was major news in Paris. There is no hint to the Dreyfuss affair, thus the writing time may be before 1898.

            The Protocols mention Russia only in one place: that, with the exception of Papacy, the monarchy of Russia was the only real opponent to the Elders. There is no mention e.g. of the founding of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in 1898. This party later split to Mencheviks and Bolsheviks and made the Bolshevik revolution.  

            A very natural writing time for the Protocols would be the year 1895, soon after Bourgeois formed his government, and by the content, the original was written in France and therefore most probably in French, though no French version has been found. Some alternative stories can be discarded: Yuliana Glinka did not get these protocols from Jew Schorst in 1884 as the Protocols were not written before 1892. Princess Catherine Radziwiłł did not learn from Pyotr Rachkovsky that Matvei Golovinsky wrote the protocols in Paris in 1903-1904 as the Protocols were written before that time. Count A. M. du Chayla told in 1921 that he had met Sergei Nilius in 1909 and Nilius has shown him the same handwritten text of the Protocols with an ink blot on the first page that Radziwiłł had told of. According to du Chayla Nilius had got it from Rachkovsky. As this story tried to confirm a verified false story by Radziwiłł, it can be discarded. Count A. M. du Chayla changed sides after the Bolshevik revolution and cannot be considered a reliable witness in 1921. A Russian historian Mikhail Lépekhine announced in 1999 that according to Soviet archives a man called Henry Bint had claimed in 1917 that Matvei Golovinsky was the author of the Protocols and he himself had paid the forger, but this evidence is not sufficient to confirm the authorship of Golovinsky. Indeed, Cesare De Michelis does not find any evidence that Okhrana forged the Protocols.

            Discarding these very likely incorrect theories, there is left the testimony of Philip Stepanov, where Stepanov claims to have obtained the Protocols from Alexis Sukhotin in 1895 and given them to Nilius in 1897. The date 1895 is very possible. The name Alexis Sukhotin, and possibly also Philip Stepanov, may be false.

            The story goes that Sergei Nilius got the document in 1897 but Okhrana learned of it and Pyotr Rachkovsky forbade him from publishing the document. In 1902 an unknown woman, probably not from Okhrana, had offered a different version of Protocols to Menshikov in April 1902 and this version had been published by Krusevan in 1903, but the Nilius version was not yet published. In 1904 started the Japan-Russia, and it was known that Jacob Schiff had financed Japan. According to the story, Rachkovsky gave Nilius the permission to publish the text after these events. The Protocols were shown to Tsar Nicholas II in 1905. Minister of Interior Pyotr Stolypin had the authenticity of the document investigated. In 1906 Stolypin’s investigators concluded that it was a forgery deriving from anti-Semitic circles of Paris in 1890s. This conclusion is natural as the text suggests the time around 1895, the place as France, and the text can be considered anti-Semitic (the other alternative being that it is written by a fanatic Jew). Because of Stolypin’s report, Tsar forbade the usage of the Protocols in propaganda.  

            I think this story is a very reasonable scenario and there is no reason to doubt it. According to De Michels the version of Nilius is not a direct descendant of the one of Krusevan, nor in the other direction. Yet, it is difficult to see why Okhrana would have edited two different versions. As Menshikov was a rightist, monarchist, publisher and thus close to the Tsar’s government, Okhrana could simply have given him a document to be published, not using an unknown woman and not being rejected my Menshikov (who refused to publish the document shown to him by the unknown woman). Thus, the Krusevan version did not come from Okhrana.

            There is a reason to believe that Okhrana did have one version of the Protocols, and that would be the one published by Nilius. It comes from Gerard Encausse, known as Papus, the leader of Martinists. He visited the Tsar of Russia in 1901, 1905 and 1906. In 1901 he wrote articles where he accused Pyotr Rachovsky and Sergei Witte of being in a Jewish conspiracy which can harm the Franco-Russia alliance. This is something interesting as one of  Rachkovsky’s main goals had been to form the Franco-Russian alliance and he had succeeded in it: the alliance was formed in 1891-1893.

            Pyotr Rachkovsky was chief of Paris Ohrana from 1885 to 1902. With the help of his Jewish-born infiltration agent Landensen (Aharon Hackelman, Arcadiy Harting), who was both a revolutionary and an Okhrana agent, Rachkovsky organized a false plan to assassinate Alexander III in 1890. He informed the French police of the plan. The French police arrested Russian revolutionaries in Paris. This act convinced the Russian opposition to the alliance that France is capability of acting against revolutionary threats and can be taken as an alliance partner.

            After Napoleon III had fallen, French governments included many Jews and Freemasons all the time until the world war. As Rachkovsky wanted the Franco-Russian alliance, he would not have ordered any of his men to write the Protocols, which states that minister Léon Bourgeois is a trusted agent of Judeo-Masonic Elders and implies that the document is from the time circa 1895, and he would not base the conspiracy to France. At the time London and New York were the banking centers of the world. Thus, Okhrana did not write the Protocols.  

            Gerard Encausse apparently wanted the Franco-Russian alliance, as he accused Rachkovsky for working against it. Encausse never became a normal Freemason, but was very high in several irregular Masonic organizations, where the political activities took place. These Masonic circles were implied in the start of the First World War and in the Russian revolution in 1917. We can assume that Freemasons wanted the war, as the outcome fully served their goals. Thus, Encausse wanted the war and therefore he, or other Martinists, did not write the Protocols.

            Papus’ accusation against Rachkovsky would be understandable if Rachkovsky had the Protocols around 1901 and was considering using them in the fight against revolutionaries. The Protocols clearly point to Jewish Freemasons and the French government included many Jews and Freemasons during this time, thus, it could harm the Franco-Russian alliance. If Rachkovsky had the Protocols in 1901, he finally decided not to use them. Only the war with Japan convinced him to show the Protocols to Nikolai II.

            Because the Protocols imply France by the Panama scandal and Bourgeois, we can conclude that they were not written by Russian anti-Semites. There is only one reference to Russia and it is that Russia, not counting the Papacy, was the only serious enemy of the Elders (Protocol 15). Russian right was closely connected with the Orthodox Church and it would be unlikely to find any statements of Papacy (Protocol 15) or Jesuits (Protocol 5) as opponents of the Elders, but there are those. Thus, the Protocols were not written by Russian anti-Semites. Nor can one assume that they derive from the French secret police at this time when Jewish Masons were often in the government.

            Excluding all other possible parties there remains only two: Masonic circles and the actual Jewish Masonic Elders. The Elders in the Protocol are told to have all gold (Protocol 22) and that they control almost all Press. That means that the Elders are Jewish bankers of the type of Rothschild family and Jacob Schiff. These bankers did have a dominant role in international finance at the time and they could control the press, which was shown in three blood libel trials, the Dreyfuss affair, and later in the Balfour declaration. But the important issue to notice is that these Jewish bankers were Zionists. They openly supported and advanced the emigration of Jews to Palestine and the establishment of the home land for Jews in Palestine. The Protocols do not mention Zionism at all. Both Masonic circles and Jewish circles were aware of these Judeo-Masonic pre-Zionistic efforts. Regardless of which one of these parties write the Protocols, it did not correctly describe the plans of the Elders. Instead, the writer created a document what would cause anti-Semitism. That must have been the goal of the document. Anti-Semitism was needed as a tool in the real plans of the Elders, that is, in the Palestine plan. This is confirmed by Protocol 9, which says that all anti-Semitism of that time served the goals of the Elders.

            It is therefore not important if the writer was a Jew or a non-Jew, or whether he belonged to the Elders or not. In any case, the Protocols do not describe the correct plan of the Elders. The goal of the Elders was Zionism. The goal of Freemasonry was a revolution and a democracy, in leftist Freemasonry the goal was socialistic democracy, and when the movement evolved to Communism, the goal was a world revolution and communistic utopia. Jews took actively part in this movement and managed to dominate it in some place and in some time and they were supported by Jewish bankers, like Jacob Schiff, but the goal of Jewish bankers was improvement of the situation of Jews and later emigration of Jews to Palestine to found a new Israel. Anti-Semitism helped in achieving this goal by giving the Zionists the argument that Jews cannot remain where they were. Persecution of Jews in Russia gave Zionists a weapon to force European powers to accept a Jewish home land: Christian voters would react to Jewish suffering in Russia by demanding that Jews should be given a land of their own. The land in question was always Palestine. Pogroms in Russia would persuade Jews to move to the USA, but that could not be helped as Turkey was not willing to receive so many Jews. In the USA the growing Jewish population could turn the world opinion to be more favorable to a Jewish state in Palestine. But, it would require not only anti-Semitism. It would require a world war.

            Pre-Zionists did ask Turkey for a homeland, but were rejected. Theodor Herzl did propose that Russia asks Turkey to give Jews a homeland in Palestine. Tsar Nikolai II did not ask. This event did indeed happen. Theodore Herzl met Vyacheslav von Plehve and proposed that Russia asks Turkey for Palestine to Jews. Plehve did forward the proposal to Nikolai II. Naturally, Tsar could not make such a request to Turkey. Herzl seems to have lost all common sense, but no. We have to look at the history of Jewish messianism.

            Jews fought three wars against Rome and lost them. These three wars were most probably connected with Hasmonean plans, starting from Herod Agrippa I, as there were no male descendants of the Davidic king lineage. Rabbi Hillel was of the Davidic lineage, but through the mother’s side. After the Bar Kochba revolt, Jews strangely found a male descendant of David, Nahum, around 135 AD, who became the exilarch, the Prince in Exile. Exilarchs did not succeed in restoring the kingdom of Jews. During Julian the Apostate, 360 AD, Jews got the right to rebuild the temple, but the plan failed. In the time of Heraclius, 614 AD, Jews rebelled, but again failed. After these efforts Jewish messianic aspirations turned to magical means. Two kabbalists, Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia (1280 AD) and Shabbatai Zevi (1666 AD), tried to ask if the Pope or the Sultan respectively would kindly give Palestine to the Jewish Messiah. Naturally both were refused. Herzl just did the same, because what else was there to do?

            Only, there was another way. In 1890s Jews controlled the finance and the press. They could, with the essential help from Freemasons, make the New Turk revolution in Turkey, start a world war and have Turkey join it. Turkey would lose Palestine to England, which would be so hard pressed by Germany at one point that it would write the Balfour declaration. It would still take Hitler to uproot the Jews, and after all this there would be Israel. The Judeo-Masonic plan can be followed at least from 1825 (Manuel Mordecai Noah) and in a less defined form since the 17th century when British Protestants concluded that American Indians are the Lost tribes of Israel and it is the end of the times.

            As for the actual writer of the Protocols, I think the best candidates are Theosophists. Yuliana Glinka, a Russian occultist and Theosophists, is often mentioned as the finder of the Protocols. I see no reason to suggest another name. The Protocols are a forgery in the sense that they do not tell the whole plan of the Elders (which is Zionism, the World Wars, Israel). They only tell enough of Communistic plans and Masonic methods to create anti-Semitism. The Protocols are most probably based on real documents of the Paris Mizraim lodge, L’Arc en Ciel, and these documents may have been obtained around 1884, agreeing with the story how Glinka got them. But the Protocols have been worked out of these papers and the book of Maurice Joly, and the Protocols were finished around 1895.

            Let us continue to the content of the Protocols.

            The document explains both the goals and the methods. The goal is as follows.

            The state is totalitarian and centralized (Protocol 5). The standard of money is a working-man power (Protocol 20), i.e., Marx’s (incorrect, as history has shown) value theory. Prices are fixed by the law (Protocol 21), a practice, which always creates a black market, especially as luxury articles are reduced to teach people humility (Protocol 23). The Elders do not like to burden workers with income taxes but advocate progressive property taxes (Protocol 20) and stamp taxes (Protocol 20). Industry is based on small enterprises, as the state kills large firms by progressive property taxation. The state invests in industrial bonds, i.e., in private business (Protocol 20). Those must be larger firms, implying that larger firms are in fact owned by the state. The Elders believe that Goyim states only take loans for spending, not for investments (Protocol 20), and propose that the state does not take foreign loans at all (Protocol 20). The Elders seem to be unaware of profitable state owned business e.g. in the Imperial Russia (railroads, alcohol monopole, telegraphy/telephone), much under Sergei Witte. Taking foreign loans for modernization investments was fully motivated and resulted to economic growth. Arms race fueled by foreign loans was a negative phenomenon of the time. It was at least partially caused by banks offering loans for these purposes. As the Elders do not like to take loans from banks, the state runs a credit system, implying that banks have been nationalized.

            The state arranges public works and the Elders want monthly accounting of state income and expenses to the ruler (Protocol 20), which may be rather difficult, and they believe that in their system money circulates and does not stagnate (Protocol 20), but considering the atmosphere in their state, one may doubt how it will work. Namely: A large proportion of citizens are informers (1/3 in Protocol 17, according to the text, members of a Kahal are required to inform of apostates in their own family). Criminals are arrested at suspicion (Protocol 18). No voting (Protocol 11). No liberalism (Protocol 15). Opposition is destroyed without mercy (Protocol 15). Secret societies are forbidden (Protocol 15). Judges (Protocol 15), journalists/writers (Protocol 11, 12), and university professors (Protocol 16) are all dependent on the state and controlled. History is erased (Protocol 16), only mistakes of Goy governments are mentioned (Protocol 14). As this means that the state is a very authoritarian despotism, one may wonder how well business adapts to these conditions.

            What an intelligent person would normally do in such a state is not possible, since drunkenness is punishable (Protocol 23). You could not turn to religion. Christianity is destroyed (Protocol 17) and later other religions except for the religion of Moses, which is allowed (Protocol 14), yet outsiders are not allowed to learn what it is. It is the religion of the Chosen, not of the people. There is a kind of a caste system (Protocol 16), here it is an ethnic group, but it could be a party. Anyway, there are the Chosen, who lead. (Protocol 13).    

            There is a strong, despotic leader, the king, who discusses with people in market places (Protocol 23, 24) taking petitions from the people (Protocol 19). You might imagine that in such a dictatorship the king needs some body guards, but the Elders do not allow even secret guards (Protocol 18) as in their state nobody can even think of assassinating the king.

            This state looks much like a Communistic state, only Communists made a more realistic version of these fatally incorrect economic ideas. The Elders seem to have been minority Communists, as they do not think collectivization would be the right way (Protocol 15). As Communists wanted a world revolution, the state is a part of the world-wide super-state.

           What to say. The goals show serious lack of competence in macroeconomic issues and old fashioned political thinking on the line of an absolute monarchy. The precise goals cannot even be realized in the modern times. Bolsheviks did what they could rather much along these lines and the result is known. In the text the Elders praise themselves as geniuses of economic and political thought, like God has given them the genius that they may equal to their task (Protocol 5). If some Internet trolls (on another site, not here) had not written fairly similar comments demonstrating a rare combination of a lack of logical thinking and a strong faith in their own talent, I would not for a minute think that somebody might have been serious writing this document. Yet, Communists did follow much of this and in the beginning there were many Jews among Communists, so I do not know. If it would not be so that many authors, when discussing the Protocols, praise the deep understanding that these Elders had, I would consider the document ironical. But as it is, if some false ideas are today praised as ingenious and deep by the main stream, then you usually can guess from what source these ideas might come from. Anyway, I think the ideas are really poor.

            The methods instead are fully correct and working ways to destabilize a society. They are methods used and developed by Freemasons, and later used by Communists. They include corruption of the society and the public sector, trapping the state with external loans, destruction of the moral and religion. The Protocols do not address destruction of the family, but Adam Weishaus’ Bavarian Illuminati did include the family: all pillars of the society should be targeted, largely by infiltrating and capturing education, academy and intellectuals. After weakening the society in these ways one can create an economic crisis, or start a war. A common Masonic way is to get some foothold in the government e.g. by demonstrations, and then to join a war, which ends up badly (often due to intentional sabotage). At this more vulnerable situation Masons can make a coup d’etat, often by the white rider on a horse trick. The control of the public opinion by press, which includes false opposition, is an old Masonic method, and it still works. So is talking to masses.

            Many of these Masonic methods were developed from studies of the French Great Revolution, Napoleon, the coup in 1848 and Napoleon III, events that mostly went differently than planned. Therefore they were based on real cases. Concerning Napoleon III, there is a strange false opinion that Maurice Joly’s Dialogue criticizes Napoleon III. Actually it focuses in the beginning of Napoleon III’s time, when the player behind the scenes was the Mizraim lodges. Later Napoleon III tried to make the Napoleon Bonaparte trick and become independent. A Carbonari tried to assassinate him for this effort, and finally Napoleon III did not do all what Joly writes in his book. Napoleon III fell in 1871, the time when Freemasons supported the Commune of Paris and Germany proved superior in the war. After his time there were again many Freemasons, many of them Jewish, in the government.

            The methods used by Freemasons are interesting on their own right, but as they are fairly old and too often used by Communists, today states can defend themselves better against such efforts of destabilization. Some of the methods still work, like assassinations and terror attacks, economic crises and usury loans. But one can say that democracy has proven itself to be more resistant than was expected in the end of the 19th century. While there still are populist movements, a revolutionary party probably finds it harder to grasp power today than in the early times of socialism, at least in Europe.

            There are two small issues that may deserve a few words. The first is about the gold standard in Protocol 20. The problem with the gold standard is that the economy grew faster than the amount of gold. Thus, gold become move valuable, though slowly. As the value of savings grew by itself, there is less reason to invest savings, and this is bad for speculators. But is it bad for the society? Not necessarily. The second is the trick told in Protocol 21. A state gives out obligations through a bank (like Rothschild’s bank). The obligations are given with a nominal value. The bank buys obligations for this nominal price and pulls up the price of the obligation through seemingly independent traders. The public, seeing that the price of the obligation goes up, starts to buy this paper. The bank sells the obligations it bought for a good profit, and the state has sold all its obligations and got more money than it expected. The state will use this additional money to pay off some older loans. So, in reality it took too much loan. Finally, doing such things, the state builds up a huge loan. This seems to be just one of many possible tricks one can make in stocks and shares. It does not get show that the writer has any knowledge of banking.

            What did the Elders actually want, if the Protocols do not tell what they wanted but tells what Communists wanted in order to scare you? I think all that is mentioned in the end of the time prophecies in the Old Testament are still valid. There was to be Israel and it was to rule all nations. All other religions were to be destroyed. All opponents were to be destroyed. In some way it follows that history must be controlled, so that somebody does not announce that it was not quite like that. This implies that education, academies and media must be controlled. They in any case must be controlled because how can the world be ruled? As the Protocols correctly say, they have the gold because they control the press, not vice verse. So, the end state is very much the world as you may find it today, but the one-world goal there is. It is not a political one-world. It is basically economical one-world: one world market with fewer restrictions. We may have this also today, but this all may fall rather soon. History may not remain controlled for ever, nor the media, not necessarily.