Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History by David Aaronovitch Page B
Authors: David Aaronovitch
Tags: General, Social Science, History, Conspiracies, World, Historiography, Civilization, Conspiracy Theories, Popular Culture, Conspiracies - History, .verified
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understanding, wrote Rachkovsky/Préval “provides the key to a host of disturbing and seemingly insoluble riddles.” 22
Subsequently, at least two colleagues of Rachkovsky were to testify that he had caused the Protocols to be concocted, creating evidence for the assertion he’d already made in the forged Anarchism and Nihilism . If this is true (and these people were, after all, police agents), it would seem that the forgers went about the business of creating their text by borrowing material that was already to hand but a bit obscure: a whole lot of Joly here, a dollop of Goedsche there.
The Rachkovsky Protocols were originally designed for the domestic Russian market—a weapon in the battle between those who wanted the absolutist regime to stay much the same and those who wished to reform it. As ever, the reform party was identified with the Jews, and Jews indeed supported it. The reactionaries, therefore, used the Jewish connection as part of their crusade against change, adding a religious and mystical dimension to an argument about power. And early appearances of the Protocols had a way of coinciding with anti-Jewish and anti-reform campaigns. A pre-Nilus version was published in southern Russia in 1903, around the time an anti-Jewish pogrom took place in the area. Nilus’s own first effort appeared as the tsar was being forced into his October Manifesto of reforms, which created a constitution and a parliament. The leading absolutist politician was also the chief of police, D. F. Trepov, who responded by encouraging a series of pogroms in the Jewish Pale of Settlement, local peasants being told that the Jews had coerced the tsar into this devilish work. His deputy chief of police was one Piotr Ivanovich Rachkovsky.
Nicholas II himself received one of the first copies of Nilus’s book and was delighted, scribbling exclamations in the margins: “What depth of thought!” “How prophetic!” “How perfectly they have fulfilled their plan!” “This year of 1905 has truly been dominated by the Jewish Elders!” “All of it is undoubtedly genuine! The destructive hand of Jewry is everywhere!” And more. 23 The sovereign’s pleasure took a practical turn: in the years 1905-1906, he personally contributed 12 million rubles to disseminating anti-Semitic tracts.
And then, abruptly, the tsar withdrew his support from the Protocols and forbade their dissemination. Sixteen years before Bernstein, Graves, and Stanjek, Nicholas had become convinced that the book was tainted. “It is impossible,” said the tsar honorably, “to defend something sacred by dirty methods.” 24 Few partisans of the Protocols , however, shared his scruples.
“Reality Provides the Best Commentary”
Salvaging the Protocols was not going to be an easy task. Anybody comparing the text with that of the much earlier Dialogues could see that the first was a plagiarism of the second, and anyone looking at the weird evolution of the “Rabbi’s Speech” could trace the notion of the assembly of super-manipulative Jews back to the excited prose of “Sir John Retcliffe.” The section of respectable Establishment opinion that had, like The Times , flirted with the notion of Jews sitting around and plotting the takeover of the world, was now lost to the Protocoliers.
But there were many other people outside the Establishment left to convince, and the conspiracy’s partisans could not be accused of a lack of invention. At some point in his turbulent life, Lord Alfred Douglas, the “Bosie” whose caresses had helped earn Oscar Wilde his place in Reading jail, had become Britain’s leading anti-Semite. Now in middle age, Douglas was the proprietor and editor of his own literary magazine, Plain English . Within a week of the Graves articles in The Times , Bosie had the answer: Maurice Joly was not Maurice Joly at all. In the edition of Plain English of August 27, 1921, it was revealed that he was, in fact, Moses Joel, a circumcised Jew.
Subsequently, at least two colleagues of Rachkovsky were to testify that he had caused the Protocols to be concocted, creating evidence for the assertion he’d already made in the forged Anarchism and Nihilism . If this is true (and these people were, after all, police agents), it would seem that the forgers went about the business of creating their text by borrowing material that was already to hand but a bit obscure: a whole lot of Joly here, a dollop of Goedsche there.
The Rachkovsky Protocols were originally designed for the domestic Russian market—a weapon in the battle between those who wanted the absolutist regime to stay much the same and those who wished to reform it. As ever, the reform party was identified with the Jews, and Jews indeed supported it. The reactionaries, therefore, used the Jewish connection as part of their crusade against change, adding a religious and mystical dimension to an argument about power. And early appearances of the Protocols had a way of coinciding with anti-Jewish and anti-reform campaigns. A pre-Nilus version was published in southern Russia in 1903, around the time an anti-Jewish pogrom took place in the area. Nilus’s own first effort appeared as the tsar was being forced into his October Manifesto of reforms, which created a constitution and a parliament. The leading absolutist politician was also the chief of police, D. F. Trepov, who responded by encouraging a series of pogroms in the Jewish Pale of Settlement, local peasants being told that the Jews had coerced the tsar into this devilish work. His deputy chief of police was one Piotr Ivanovich Rachkovsky.
Nicholas II himself received one of the first copies of Nilus’s book and was delighted, scribbling exclamations in the margins: “What depth of thought!” “How prophetic!” “How perfectly they have fulfilled their plan!” “This year of 1905 has truly been dominated by the Jewish Elders!” “All of it is undoubtedly genuine! The destructive hand of Jewry is everywhere!” And more. 23 The sovereign’s pleasure took a practical turn: in the years 1905-1906, he personally contributed 12 million rubles to disseminating anti-Semitic tracts.
And then, abruptly, the tsar withdrew his support from the Protocols and forbade their dissemination. Sixteen years before Bernstein, Graves, and Stanjek, Nicholas had become convinced that the book was tainted. “It is impossible,” said the tsar honorably, “to defend something sacred by dirty methods.” 24 Few partisans of the Protocols , however, shared his scruples.
“Reality Provides the Best Commentary”
Salvaging the Protocols was not going to be an easy task. Anybody comparing the text with that of the much earlier Dialogues could see that the first was a plagiarism of the second, and anyone looking at the weird evolution of the “Rabbi’s Speech” could trace the notion of the assembly of super-manipulative Jews back to the excited prose of “Sir John Retcliffe.” The section of respectable Establishment opinion that had, like The Times , flirted with the notion of Jews sitting around and plotting the takeover of the world, was now lost to the Protocoliers.
But there were many other people outside the Establishment left to convince, and the conspiracy’s partisans could not be accused of a lack of invention. At some point in his turbulent life, Lord Alfred Douglas, the “Bosie” whose caresses had helped earn Oscar Wilde his place in Reading jail, had become Britain’s leading anti-Semite. Now in middle age, Douglas was the proprietor and editor of his own literary magazine, Plain English . Within a week of the Graves articles in The Times , Bosie had the answer: Maurice Joly was not Maurice Joly at all. In the edition of Plain English of August 27, 1921, it was revealed that he was, in fact, Moses Joel, a circumcised Jew.
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