Socialist theories can possibly hold this view of its Jewish origin.
Long before Karl Marx appeared upon the scene of action Socialism had
already made an impress upon European thought. Marx was a boy of
fifteen when the word Socialism first appeared in print as designating
the doctrines preached by Robert Owen, the Welshman, for almost twenty
years before that time. Was Owen the tool of Jewish conspirators? I
have read most of the literature relating to Owen's life and teaching,
including his own voluminous writings, and the innumerable
controversies in which he was engaged throughout his life. I have not
discovered in all this mass of material a single trace of Jewish
influence. He had no Jewish friends or associates during the formative
years, the period in which the Socialist ideas and ideals shaped
themselves. His Socialism was the direct outcome of his experience as
a successful manufacturer. He was not in any sense a man of books.
From time to time he required large sums of money for his enterprises.
Surely, if those enterprises, and his life's work as a whole, formed
part of a great Jewish conspiracy which had behind it the vast
financial resources of Jewry, it would not have been difficult for him
to secure the financial support he needed. It is a fact of cardinal
importance, therefore, that Owen never did receive Jewish financial
support. Those who would have us believe that Socialism originated as
a part of the great world-wide conspiracy of Jewish imperialism must
first of all explain Robert Owen.
Nor does Owen stand alone in the history of Socialism among the
Anglo-Saxon peoples. It is a well-known fact, one to which he himself
has called attention, that the most important of the economic and
sociological theories of Marx were held and promulgated before his
time by a number of British writers. As Professor Foxwell and others
have shown, the roots of what is called Marxian Socialist theory lie
deep in the soil of British political economy. Karl Marx devoted his
typically Jewish genius to the exposition of Socialist theories, but
the theories themselves were not of Hebraic origin. William Godwin,
Charles Hall, William Thompson, John Gray, and John Francis Bray all
preceded Marx, and not one of them was a Jew, nor can we find in their
writings any trace of Jewish influence. It is the same with Bronterre
O'Brien, the first to call himself a Social Democrat. If any or all of
these men were the agents of such a conspiracy, it is remarkable that
there should be an entire absence of evidence of that fact. It is
quite unbelievable that there was any sort of conspiracy which
affected them. For the most part they were poor and their books were
published in pitifully small editions at great sacrifice to
themselves. Incidentally, it is worthy of note, Karl Marx, the Jew,
suffered terrible poverty. Certainly, all this does not suggest an
international conspiracy backed by the Jewish leaders of the financial
world.
Because of the prominence of a few individual Jews in the American
Socialist movement in recent years, the writer of the anti-Semitic
articles in the _Dearborn Independent_ regards as proven the theory
that American Socialism originated in Jewish conspiracy. It is another
evidence of his entire ignorance of the subject concerning which he
writes. If there is anything which can be said about Socialism with
certainty, it is that its fundamental theories are mainly of
Anglo-Saxon origin. Karl Marx was a boy of nine years when Robert Owen
reprinted in England an American Socialist pamphlet, written by an
American workingman and published in America a year or two earlier. At
about the same time Thomas Cooper, of Columbia, South Carolina,
published his book in which the fundamental economic theories of
modern Socialism were clearly expounded. When Marx was no more than
ten years old we find O.A. Brownson, editor of the Boston _Quarterly
Review_, vigorously preaching here in America the theory of the class
war, the abolition of the wage system, and the necessity for a triumph
of the proletariat. We find such men as Thomas Skidmore, R.L.
Jennings, and L. Byllesby preaching thoroughgoing Socialism. In 1829
these men and others were exercising a notable and considerable
influence upon American thought. In vain shall we search their
writings and the meager accounts of their lives for any trace or
suggestion of Jewish influence or control.
I skip a decade and turn to the Fourierist period of American
Socialism. The profound influence of Charles Fourier upon Karl Marx
is well known and has been the subject of much learned writing. But if
the Frenchman inspired the German Jew, so likewise did he inspire many
American non-Jews, the very flower of our race. It was Albert Brisbane
who began the Fourierist agitation here, and soon he had associated
with him Horace Greeley, Parke Godwin, George Ripley, Charles A. Dana,
John S. Dwight, William Henry Channing, Margaret Fuller, John Orvis,
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Edmund Clarence Stedman, and many others.
Other distinguished Americans who were brought into more or less
sympathetic association with the movement included Nathaniel
Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Russell Lowell, and Theodore
Parker, among others. Certainly it would be difficult to name a body
of men and women more truly representative of the highest and best of
American life and genius. To suggest that these were all the agents of
a Jewish conspiracy, either consciously or unconsciously, is to invite
and deserve ridicule. In truth, Socialism is as Anglo-Saxon as Magna
Charta and as American as the Declaration of Independence, and we
might as well attribute either or both of these to Jewish intrigue as
Socialism. It is true that the organized Socialist movement in America
has long spoken with a foreign accent and borne the imprint of an
alien psychology, but that psychology, as I have elsewhere pointed
out, is German and not Hebraic.
It would take us too far afield to discuss the origin of French
Socialism, even in this sketchy fashion, but I can state with the
assurance that is born of intimate knowledge that French Socialism
shows as little sign of having been inspired by alien influences,
Jewish or other, as British and American Socialism. I stress this
point not because I would defend the Jews against the charge that they
have manifested unusual sympathy for Socialism (which, indeed, if
true, I should hold to be a virtuous distinction), nor to apologize
for or to deny the splendid contributions of individual Jews to the
Socialist movement. My concern is to enter protest against the charge
that the Socialist movement of the world originated in the ambitions
of Jewish imperialists and is neither more nor less than part and
parcel of a great international Jewish conspiracy. That is a stupid
travesty of history, and a dangerous one.
I have spent the greater part of my life in the Socialist movement, in
close and intimate comradeship with both Jews and Gentiles belonging
to nearly every civilized nation. I am as proud of the comradeship of
my Jewish comrades as I am of that of any others. My readers will
perhaps understand that I deeply resent the implication that through
all the years of struggle and sacrifice I have been either the
unconscious dupe or the willing agent of any kind of selfish
conspiracy, Jewish or other. It is, of course, difficult to disprove
such an accusation brought against a great movement, and, therefore,
by implication against the individuals belonging to that movement. If
I should charge that Mr. Henry Ford is engaged in this anti-Semitic
propaganda for purely selfish and mercenary reasons, that he has
become the spokesman and agent of great unscrupulous capitalist
interests who seek to destroy their Jewish competitors and to profit
thereby, he would find it difficult to establish the contrary by
definite and concrete proof. As a matter of justice, nothing of the
sort should be expected. The burden of proof rests upon the person
making the accusation. In like fashion, when the _Dearborn
Independent_ charges that the international Socialist movement is one
of the agents of a vicious Jewish conspiracy against Christian
civilization, it is in honor bound to submit proofs. This it has not
done, nor has any other paper making the charge. I _know_ that the
charge is a cruel and cowardly falsehood, a libel upon millions of
honest and honorable men and women, to utter which is an infamy and
degradation.
The charge is one that has been leveled against practically every
movement of protest that has been developed in modern times. It was
leveled against the Protestant Reformation; against the French
Revolution; against Mazzini and his followers in Italy; against the
German Revolutionists of 1848; against British Trade-Unionists. I have
no doubt that a little research would reveal the fact that the same
charge was directed against the Abolitionists in this country. Vicious
interests are never very scrupulous in their choice of weapons. In
those Protestant countries in which the number of Catholics is much
larger than the number of Jews it is a common practice to charge that
movements of protest and revolt are instigated and led by the Catholic
hierarchy. Where the number of Jews is very great the appeal is made
to racial hatred. In Catholic countries, in the same way, accusation
is directed against Protestantism or Judaism, according to
circumstance.
Wherever and by whosoever made, appeals to racial and religious
prejudices and hatreds in defense of vested interests merit the
condemnation of all honest and righteous men. When made in a country
which, like the United States, possesses millions of peoples of many
diverse lands and races not yet welded into national homogeneity, who
must live and work together, such accusations become the most
dangerous form of treason. Whoever propagates in this country
antagonism to any race or creed represented in our citizenship,
whether it be against Jews, Poles, Germans, Irish, English, or
negroes; or against Judaism, Catholicism, or Protestantism, assails
the very foundation of our most cherished and characteristic American
institutions.
V
THE JEWISH SOCIALISTS AND BOLSHEVISM
The anti-Semitic press of both hemispheres charges that Bolshevism in
Russia and elsewhere is a movement instigated and led by Jews, as part
of a great conspiracy to bring about the Jewish domination of the
world. The reasons for making this charge are only too obvious.
Bolshevism is repugnant to the great mass of civilized mankind, by
whom it is rightly regarded as a sort of moral leprosy. Whatever may
be thought of the possibility of Sovietism in industry and government,
Bolshevism, the spiritual dynamic as distinguished from the mechanical
agent, is the negation of every virtuous principle which mankind holds
in reverence. It frankly bases government upon brute force wielded by
the few, and denies the ideal toward which all nations are striving,
the ideal of government based upon the sanction of the governed. It
unites in a terrible synthesis all the worst agencies and methods of
tsarism and of militarism. To persuade the people of this or any other
civilized country that Bolshevism is essentially a Jewish movement,
part of a conspiracy to reduce civilization to chaos, and so prepare
the way for a Jewish supergovernment of the world, would mean the
rapid organization of the rest of the population against the Jews in
every phase of life--politics, commerce, industry, education, social
intercourse, and so on.
In support of this most serious charge not a single shred of credible
evidence has ever been adduced by any anti-Semitic writer or organ.
For the universally known fact that there are Jews among the leaders
of Bolshevism, in Russia and elsewhere, is not evidence that
Bolshevism is _essentially_ or _primarily_ a Jewish movement; neither
is it evidence that Bolshevism is a part of a Jewish conspiracy to
obtain world domination. All that it proves is that which needs no
proof--that there are Jews among the Bolsheviki. I repeat that in
support of the charge not a shred of credible evidence has ever been
adduced. In that shameful book, _The Cause of World Unrest_,
consisting of articles reprinted from the _London Morning Post_, the
anonymous author gives a list of fifty names of "persons who either
are the actual governing powers in Soviet Russia now or were
responsible for the establishment of the present regime there." There
is both guile and cowardice in the latter part of this charge. It is
easy to argue, with a certain plausibility, that every person who
helped in the revolution of March, 1917, must be held "responsible for
the establishment of the present regime." I have heard many Russians
make the charge that Kerensky, the anti-Bolshevist, was "responsible"
for the establishment of the Bolshevist regime. I have heard others
charge the same thing against such men as Rodzianko, Prince Lvov, and
Professor Miliukov. What these Russians meant was that the failure of
these men and others to deal properly with the situation existing at
the time of the March revolution made the triumph of Bolshevism
possible. In that sense, we might as well go back a stage farther and
present the names of Tsar Nicholas II and all his responsible
Ministers as "persons who ... were responsible for the establishment
of the present regime." This, however, is not what the _Morning Post_
desires to convey to the mind of the reader. It insinuates, in a most
cowardly fashion, that the fifty persons named by it are Bolsheviki
and falsely alleges that of the fifty no less than forty-two are Jews.
Concerning this list of names a few observations are necessary. The
compiler of the list was not honest; he did not intend to place the
reader in possession of the truth. This is evidenced by several facts.
In the first place, many influential leaders of the Bolsheviki whose
names are familiar to all who have given even ordinary attention to
the subject are conspicuously absent. The reason for the omission is
that these men are non-Jews. _Their inclusion in the list would have
destroyed the author's charge._ He has suppressed important facts in
the interest of his wretched case. I searched the list in vain for the
names of such prominent leaders of the Bolshevist movement as
Bucharin, Rakovsky, Miliutin, Raskolnikov, Shliapnikov, Latzis, Rykov,
Stalin, Krestinsky, Bonch-Brouyevich, Dybenko, Dzerzhinsky, Krylenko,
Gorky, Andreyeva, Nogin, Platakov, Kalinin, Boky, and many others less
well known. Anyone who is at all familiar with the subject will
recognize in the names I have here given some of the most active and
influential leaders of the Bolsheviki. Not one of them is a Jew, and I
submit that to omit them from a list of names which pretends to be
representative is as dishonest as it is cowardly.
The list is thoroughly dishonest, moreover, in that it sets down as
Jews men who are well known to be Gentiles. For example, Manouilsky,
number forty-six on the list, is described as a Jew, whereas it is
well known that he is a Gentile, a Ukrainian. Bogdanov, number ten on
the list, is likewise wrongfully described. His real name is not
Silberstein, as alleged, but Malinovsky. Neither is he a Jew, as
alleged, but a Gentile, a Russian. These two illustrations will serve
to show how little reliance can be placed upon the list. Whether there
are other misrepresentations of the same kind I am unable to say, for
the reason that the list contains many names of persons who do not
hold and have not held any important position in Russia, either under
the Bolsheviki or the earlier Provisional Government headed by
Kerensky. These persons are absolutely unknown to me, even by name,
and they are equally unknown to every Russian revolutionary leader to
whom I have submitted them. It is quite probable, therefore, that
these names of alleged Jews hide the identity of men who are not Jews
at all.
Not only does this precious list studiously omit many of the principal
leaders of the Bolshevist regime simply because they are not Jews, and
misrepresent well-known Gentiles as Jews; quite as bad is the fact
that it includes many names of men who are not only not supporters of
the Bolshevist regime, but actually leaders of the most determined
opposition to it. Here is a list which is submitted in proof of the
charge that "nearly all the Bolshevist leaders are Jews," and in that
list I find the names of ten men who are known to me to be among the
most active leaders of the struggle against the Bolsheviki, men who
have made heroic sacrifices and risked their lives in that fight. I
say that the list includes the names of ten men known to me to be
bitter opponents of Bolshevism; there may be others concerning whom I
am not informed.
Included in the list I find the name of Izgoev (forty-three), for
instance. His real name is alleged to be Goldman, when in fact it is
Landau. Not only is he not a Bolshevik, but, as everybody familiar
with the Russian movement knows, one of the active publicists of the
Russian Constitutional Democratic party. Orthodoks, number thirty-five
on the list, is not a Bolshevik, but one of the most active members of
the group of so-called Socialist Patriots, the "Unity" group organized
by the late George Plechanov to support the Allied war aims, an
organization that did much to strengthen Russian morale in the early
stages of the war and which has vigorously and bitterly opposed
Bolshevism and all its ways. Bounakov, number forty-five on the list,
is also a leader of the anti-Bolshevist forces. When I was in Paris
recently he was there actively engaged with other Socialists in
carrying on anti-Bolshevist propaganda. Kamkov, number fifteen on the
list, was one of the leaders of the Socialists-Revolutionists party, a
determined opponent of the Bolsheviki. According to the best
information at my command, he was one of the men responsible for the
assassination of the German ambassador, Count von Mirbach, which was
a protest against the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and was put to death by
the Bolsheviki. Gorev, number eleven on the list, has consistently
opposed Bolshevism with the rest of his colleagues of the Mensheviki.
The same thing is true of Abramovich (twenty-four), of Dan
(seventeen), of Martinov (twenty-one), of Martov (four), and of
Meshkovsky (eighteen).
The anonymous author of _The Cause of World Unrest_ says of this list
that it is "the result of much labor and the work of several hands." I
do not need to characterize it, in the light of the foregoing
analysis. The facts to which I have called attention can be very
readily verified. I submit that most abject apology is due to the
reader from everybody concerned in the preparation and circulation of
this book--from the anonymous author, the compiler of the list, the
London _Morning Post_, and the publishers. There is nothing more
contemptible than such poisoning of the wells of public information.
For the present I have finished with the _Morning Post_. Let us turn
now to Mr. Ford's _Dearborn Independent_. In its issue of May 29,
1920, this organ of American anti-Semitism desperately tries to
bolster up the charge that nearly all the leaders of the Bolsheviki
are Jews by a clumsy invention of its own. It says:
Every commisar in Russia to-day is a Jew. Publicists are
accustomed to speak of Russia as if it were in disorder, but the
Jewish government of Russia is not. From a mass of underlings,
the Jews of Russia came up in a perfect phalanx, a flying wedge
through the superinduced disorder, as if every man's place had
been previously prepared for him.
For these statements there is no justification in fact. They are
absolutely and unqualifiedly untrue, as every person familiar with the
facts must know. It is not true that "every commissar in Russia to-day
is a Jew." Not even a majority of the members of the Council of
People's Commissars are Jews. Lenin, who is at the head of the
government, is not a Jew. Tchitcherin, who is in charge of foreign
affairs, is not a Jew. Krassin, who is in charge of the trade
negotiations with the British government, is not a Jew. These three
men wield greater power and influence in Soviet Russia than all the
Jewish officials combined. Dzerzhinsky, head of the infamous
Extraordinary Commissions, is not a Jew. Lunarcharsky, who has charge
of public education, is not a Jew. Rykov, chairman of the Economic
Council, is not a Jew. Bonch-Brouyevich, secretary of the Council of
People's Commissars, is not a Jew. Kolontai is not a Jewess. There are
many other Gentile Commissars. How completely the London _Morning
Post_ and the _Dearborn Independent_ misrepresent the essential facts
I have already shown by my analysis of the pretentious list of fifty
names published by the former. I have before me the official list of
the members of the _Sovnarkom_--that is, the Council of the People's
Commissars of the Soviet government. As is well known, the elaborate
and intricate governmental system of Soviet Russia centers ultimate
authority in this Council of People's Commissars, which consists of
seventeen members. A most striking refutation of the statement made by
the _Dearborn Independent_ is found in the fact that of the seventeen
members of this supreme Bolshevist authority only one, Trotzky, is a
Jew. The official list speaks for itself.
_Official Name_ _Real Name_ _Department_
1. N. Lenin[1] Oulianov President
2. G. Tchitcherin[1] G. Tchitcherin Foreign Affairs
3. L. Trotsky[2] Bronstein War
4. E. Raskolnikov[1] E. Raskolnikov Navy
5. G. Petrovsky[1] G. Petrovsky Interior
6. N. Krestinsky[1] N. Krestinsky Finance
7. L. Krassin[1] L. Krassin Industry and Commerce
and Ways of
Communication
8. S. Sereda[1] S. Sereda Agriculture
9. N. Bruchanov[1] N. Bruchanov Supply
10. A. Lunarcharsky[1] A. Lunarcharsky Public Instruction
11. V. Stuchka[1] V. Stuchka Justice
12. A. Kolontai[1] A. Kolontai Public Welfare
13. V. Smidt[1] V. Smidt Labor
14. A. Rykov[1] A. Rykov Chairman, Economic
Council
15. K. Stalin[3] Djugashvili National Affairs
16. Dr. N. Semashko[1] Dr. N. Semashko Public Health
17. V. Bonch-Brouyevich[1] V. Bonch-Brouyevich Executive secretary
of the Council of
People's Commissars
[1] Russian [2] Jew [3] Georgian
Of course there are many Jews holding minor positions in the
Bolshevist regime. It would be quite impossible to name any part of
the Russian population to which that statement would not equally
apply. For millions of people, Christians and Jews alike, the only
possible alternative to starvation and death is to accept service
under the Bolsheviki. Even loyal generals of the Tsar's army have
accepted such service in order to avoid the starvation of themselves
and their loved ones, despite their hatred of Bolshevism and the
Bolsheviki. It is a fact, however, that there are very few Jews
holding responsible posts in the Bolshevist government of Russia,
while there are many Jews prominently identified with the
anti-Bolshevist movement. I have followed very closely the accounts of
the proceedings of the Bolshevist movement and of the Communist party,
as reported in the official press, and have paid special attention to
the activity of the Jews. Up to the present my list of Jews holding
prominent positions in either the Soviet government or the Communist
party contains less than twenty names, yet I believe it is fairly
complete. It includes the names of Trotzky, Steklov, Zinoviev,
Kamenev, Uritsky, Volodarsky, Sverdlov, Ganetsky, Helfandt (Parvus),
Riazanov, Radek, Litvinov, Joffe, and Larin. It will be rather
difficult, I think, to name any important omissions. As against this
meager list of Jews, a very hastily compiled list of non-Jews who are
prominent in the government or in the Communist party contains
seventy-five names. In this list I do not include any of the many
former generals of the Tsar's army now holding important positions in
the Red Army and various departments of the Soviet government. With
entire confidence I submit these incontestable facts to my readers in
reply to the _Dearborn Independent_.
It is absurdly untrue to say, as the _Dearborn Independent_ does, that
"the Jews of Russia came up in a perfect phalanx" after the overthrow
of tsarism. Throughout the revolutionary period the Jews in Russia
have presented about the same political divisions as the Russian
population in general. Like the overwhelming mass of the Russian
people, they are anti-Bolshevist. Even if we confine our attention to
the Jewish Socialists, overlooking for the moment the large number of
Jews belonging to the Constitutional Democrats and other non-Socialist
parties, we shall find absolutely no evidence of anything approaching
a united Jewish Socialist support of the Bolsheviki. On the contrary,
the most implacable and determined opponents of the Bolsheviki have
been, and still are, Jewish Socialists. Such Jews as Martov, Dan,
Lieber, Abramovich, and others have distinguished themselves by their
relentless and unremitting opposition to the Bolsheviki.