The final argument of the anti-Semitic scaremongers is the
Judeo-Bolshevik bogey. The _Morning Post_ theory of "World Unrest" may
prove difficult of assimilation to matter-of-fact minds, and the
authenticity of the Nilus Protocols may be suspect, but the Bolshevism
of the Jews is asserted to be an incontrovertible fact, which proves
that both the theory and its documents are morally justifiable. Were
it not for its very tragical possibilities, the evocation of this
bogey would be a fit subject for mirth, or, at best, a problem for the
folk-lorist or the student of corporate hallucination. As it is, it is
a very serious matter, seeing that the lives of many thousands of
innocent persons are jeopardised by it.
The bogey takes the specific form of a charge against the Jews of
Russia and Poland that they are for the most part Bolsheviks, and that
the Bolshevist revolution was engineered by them and is still
controlled and directed by them.[53] The only evidence cited in
support of it is that Trotsky and a few of the more prominent
Bolshevist commissaries are men of Jewish birth, and that a similar
element on an even more restricted scale is found in certain of the
Soviets. But those men are no more Jews than Lenin, Lunacharsky,
Chicherin, and the great bulk of the Russian Bolsheviks are
Christians. It would, indeed, be just as reasonable to say that the
mainstay of Russian Bolshevism is to be found in American and British
Christendom because it has found sympathisers in Mr. Bullitt and Mr.
Steffens, in Mr. Goode, Mr. Price, Mr. Russell, Mr. Ransome, Mr. Hunt,
and many other Americans and Englishmen of Christian birth.
The appearance of the bogey at this moment is not difficult to
understand. There has always been at the back of the anti-Semitic mind
an uneasy feeling that the Jews are, as the old law books say,
_perpetui inimici Regis et Religionis_. Their participation in the
bourgeois Revolutions of 1830 and 1848 gave political point to this
superstition, and ever since it has been a favourite theory of the
more fanatical reactionaries that the whole Democratic movement in
Europe is a Jewish conspiracy for the subversion of Christianity and
Christian society. In this respect the _Morning Post_ theory is, as
has already been shown, not new. In Russia it became early an
expedient of reactionary tactics. To denounce revolution on its merits
was difficult, but to denounce it as a Jewish conspiracy against the
Throne and the Altar was always calculated to impress large classes of
the population who otherwise might not have been indisposed to look
indulgently on a great political change. This was the cue of all the
incendiary appeals of the Okhrana against the Revolution of 1905.[54]
Thus, when Bolshevism arose, it was quite in the line of traditional
Russian policy to denounce it as the work of the Jews. From the
reactionary camps of Deniken and Koltchak, and even from the Allied
armies in the North, where the Intelligence and Propaganda Services
were necessarily in the hands of Russian officers of the old Tsarist
_regime_, the country was flooded with pamphlets and broadsheets
declaring that Bolshevism was a Jewish plot, and that the aim of those
who were making war on it was not to fight their Russian brothers, but
to deliver them from their Jewish bondage. It was, however, in Germany
that the bogey was adapted for consumption in Western Europe. The old
Junker anti-Semitism received a great impulse from the collapse of
thrones which followed the Armistice of 1918. All the revolutionary
movements were at once attributed by them to the Jews, and, by way of
showing the victorious Allies the danger they were courting by
tolerating them, bloodcurdling pictures of Russian Bolshevism as the
first fruits of an international Jewish conspiracy were issued from
the presses of the anti-Semitic society known as _Deutschland's
Erneuerung_, in Munich.[55] A circle of Russian Monarchist refugees in
Berlin founded a weekly paper called _The Sunbeam_ to help in the holy
work. It was in the columns of this journal that translations of
extracts from Nilus's forged Protocols first appeared.[56] Early in
1919 the themes of these imbecile ephemerides were gathered up and
co-ordinated in bulky volumes by Baron Hans von Liebig,[57] by Dr.
Friedrich Wichtl, and by a person calling himself "Wilhelm
Meister."[58] These writers were the final artificers of the bogey as
we now know it, Trotsky being represented in their pages as the
conscious instrument not only of the Jewish Rabbinate and of Jewish
finance, but also of the secretly Judaised Masonic Lodges. A curious
restatement of this apocalypse will be found in an anonymous pamphlet,
entitled "Le Bolshevisme," which was printed in Paris last year by the
Jesuits of the Rue Garanciere.[59] The French, however, have been very
loth to touch this unclean product of German _Kultur_.
We need only glance at the leading tenets of the Bolsheviks to realise
how stupid all this is--indeed, how impossible it is that Bolshevism
should find even an appreciable measure of sympathy in the Jewish
community. Lenin, Trotsky, and their associates are not only extreme
Communists, but are also avowed Atheists. On the other hand, the great
bulk of the Jews of Russia are extremely orthodox members of the
Synagogue, who hold in horror every symptom of Atheism. The strength of
this element was recently estimated by M. Paderewski himself at 75 per
cent. In their economic affiliation these Jews are not less hostile to
Bolshevism. They belong in an overwhelming proportion to the upper and
middle-class bourgeoisie. Moreover, the Jew is instinctively and by all
his traditions an individualist. It has been possible to found under
the great names of Lamennais, Kingsley, Maurice, Hughes, Bishop
Ketteler, and others a school of Christian Communism seeking its
sanctions in the teachings of orthodox Christianity. No such school in
the strictly economic sense exists or is possible in the Jewish Church.
Marx and Lassalle ceased to be Jews long before they became Socialists,
and, in so far as the Jewish proletariat which has arisen in Russia and
Poland under the stress of exceptional and ephemeral conditions is
Socialistic, it is notoriously remote from the Synagogue--as from every
other kind of "clericalism"--and impatient of its control.
But, it is said, the Jews must be held responsible for Bolshevism
because Bolshevism is only applied Marxism, and Marx was a Jew. I have
already pointed out that, strictly speaking, Marx was not a Jew, but,
even supposing he were, that would not make Bolshevism a Jewish
creation, seeing that in point of fact it is, in its main lines, not
even Marxist. There is so much loose thinking on this question that it
may be well to indicate--however briefly--the fundamental differences
between the teachings of Marx and Lenin. In the first place, Marx was
a Democrat, while Lenin is confessedly an Oligarch. Democracy is
axiomatic with Marx, the foundation of all his doctrine. Lenin, on the
other hand, derides the mere counting of heads. He is, as he would put
it, for the supremacy of truth, whatever the number of its disciples.
This vital difference affects the systems of the two men at all
essential points. Thus, while Marx teaches that the Dictatorship of
the Proletariat should be the outcome of a Democratic Republic based
on Universal Suffrage, Lenin rejects Universal Suffrage, and bases the
Dictatorship on a Guild or Soviet Republic. Again, Marx stands for
Revolution by Law in all Democratic States, while Lenin stands for
Revolution by Force, whatever the constitution of the State. Nor does
this apply only to revolutions, for while Marx holds that the
authority of the State must, whenever possible, be exercised by
peaceful means, Lenin teaches that Force is inherent in the State and
its exercise unavoidable. This leads Lenin to the view of Robespierre
that even the Terror is in a sense mystically sanctified--a view of
which Marx never dreamt in his most daring moments. Finally, contrast
the conceptions of the State as set forth by the two men. Both, of
course, are for the State, but while Marx pictures it, after the
decision of the Class War, as composed of the whole Democracy seeking
the conciliation of its conflicting elements, Lenin would confine it
to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, even though the other classes
might be in the majority.[60] There is, of course, much to be said for
both theories within the ring-fence of Socialist polemics, but I am
not concerned at this moment with their respective merits. All I want
to show is that Marx cannot be held responsible for Bolshevism as we
know it, and that if the alleged Jewishness of Bolshevism rests on the
theory that it has any essential affinity with Marxism it is
singularly unconvincing.
The case against the bogey is, however, not limited to these
generalisations. It may be said, while the upper and middle classes
in Jewry are probably free from Bolshevism, this is not the case with
the Jewish proletariat. If not orthodox Jews, they certainly profess a
strong Jewish nationalism, and if from them Bolshevism draws its main
strength, then Jewry must bear the responsibility. On this point,
happily, very definite information is available. First, with regard to
the leaders. Bolshevism was founded in 1903, through a split among the
Russian Socialists, which took the form of a revolt against Lenin. Who
led the revolt? The Jew Martoff, and he was supported by all the most
conspicuous Jews in the party, including Trotsky himself.[61] They
were followed by the great bulk of the rank-and-file of so-called
Jewish Socialists. How true this is, can be shown by an analysis of
the Leninite party fourteen years later. In the autumn of 1917 the
Bolsheviks themselves published a statistical analysis of the
constituents of the Soviets, with special regard to their geographical
and ethnographical distribution. It was there shown that the
Bolsheviks had a clear majority over the Mensheviks, or non-Bolshevist
Socialists, and that they were far more largely composed of pure
Russian elements than the Mensheviks. Their greatest strength was
found in the districts of Petrograd, Moscow, the Baltic Provinces, the
Volga, the Ural, and Asiatic Russia, where the Great-Russian working
masses dominate. On the other hand, the Mensheviks were almost
entirely confined to the western and south-western provinces, the Don
district, and the Caucasus, where the chief non-Russian races are
found. Here the return for the Jewish Pale of Settlement that is, the
provinces in which 95 per cent. of the Jews of Russia and Poland
reside--is most significant. The number of organised Mensheviks is
given at 18,000, while of organised Bolsheviks there is no trace
whatever in the whole region. The other non-Russian districts in these
provinces were less fortunate, for in the south-western governments
the proportion of Bolsheviks to Mensheviks was 8 to 11, in the Don
district 18 to 29, and in the Caucasus 1 to 5. The statistics here,
however, show clearly that the strength of Bolshevism was always in an
inverse ratio to the strength of the local Jewish population.[62]
Another important piece of evidence is to be found in the attitude of
the Jewish "Bund," which is the main organisation of Jewish workmen in
Poland and the Pale of Settlement. From the beginning of the Russian
Revolution the "Bund," avowedly Socialist, threw all its strength on
the side of the Mensheviks. The most passionate struggles in the
Congress of Soviets in 1917 were those waged between Lenin, on behalf
of the Bolsheviks, and Liber, the "Bund" leader, on behalf of the
Mensheviks. Liber and his colleague Dahn were at that time among the
staunchest supporters of the policy of the Entente in Russia. To this
day the great majority of the members of the "Bund" have remained
anti-Bolshevist in doctrine, although under the pressure of the
administration and for other political reasons which have appealed
equally to many ex-Tsarist generals and Christian Conservatives, they
have lately pledged their allegiance to the Lenin _regime_. In
political thought they are still numbered among the most ardent
supporters of the great coalition of Russian Mensheviks, which has its
headquarters in Stockholm, and--another significant fact--is captained
by a Jew, the well-known Socialist writer Paul Axelrod. There are
probably quite as many Jewish leaders in the anti-Bolshevist coalition
as there are Jewish Commissaries among the Bolsheviks.
Nor are the upper and middle-classes of Russian and Polish Jewry
merely passive spectators of the struggle. Politically they belong in
an overwhelming proportion to the moderate Liberal party known as the
Cadets, and many of them are active in the councils and Press of that
party. The present leader of the Cadets, who succeeded Professor
Miliukoff, after his unhappy but temporary defection from the cause of
the Entente, is the distinguished Jewish lawyer M. Vinaver, equally
conspicuous for his devotion to his co-religionists and the cause of
ordered liberty in Russia. Admiral Koltchak and General Denikin, in
spite of their compromising anti-Semitic associates, had no more
strenuous supporter and no wiser counsellor than M. Vinaver. Another
eminent Jew who may frequently be seen in consultation with MM.
Sazonoff and Maklakoff at the Russian Delegation in Paris is Baron
Alexandre de Gunzburg, at one time the most conspicuous member of the
Jewish Community in Petrograd.
The anti-Semitic impression that Bolshevism is largely Jewish is,
however, not altogether a bad dream, but rather an optical delusion
which has been maliciously exaggerated. The so-called Jewish
Bolsheviks are, indeed, a corps of officers without an army, and the
anti-Semites have a little too hastily inferred the army. Even then
these officers are not of the first rank. We have heard a great deal
of "Jewish Commissars," and I find a notorious German anti-Semitic
book quoting Mr. Robert Wilton, of the _Times_, as its authority for
the statement that "of 384 People's Commissars who constitute the
Government only 13 are Russians, while 300 are Jews."[63] What are the
facts? The only officials in Soviet Russia who are authorised to hold
the rank of People's Commissars are the members of the Cabinet.[64]
These number 17,[65] and of them 16 are indisputably Gentiles, while
only one--Trotsky--is of Jewish birth. And Trotsky, be it remembered,
is a Jew who has publicly abjured the Jewish and all other religions,
and who is so little a Jew in other respects that at the Socialist
Congresses at the beginning of the century he led the cosmopolitans in
denunciation of the Jewish Nationalism of the Bund. To describe
Russian Bolshevism as Jewish because one member of Lenin's Council of
People's Commissars is an apostate Jew is obviously ludicrous. Lenin
might far more justly describe the anti-Bolshevism of Western Europe
as Jewish because two years ago the French Cabinet contained one
professing Jew and the British two. The other so-called Jewish
Commissars are all men of the second and lower ranks of officials
belonging exclusively either to the Civil Service or the Soviet
analogue of our municipal life. They are probably fairly numerous, but
in what may be called the second rank they do not number more than
ten at the outside.[66] The others may or may not be convinced
Bolsheviks. They are servants of the State who may have many other
motives for serving the Soviets than an enthusiasm for Lenin's
politics. Not every head of a Government Department or Chairman of a
County Council in England is to-day necessarily a Lloyd Georgian.
Trotsky has in his War Office and Corps of Officers probably as many
ex-Tsarist officers--including sixteen Generals[67]--as there are
"Jewish Commissars" in the whole Soviet Administration. And yet nobody
dreams of describing the Red Legions as a Tsarist army. These officers
are probably not even Bolsheviks. If we could know their motives we
should probably find that they were not very widely different from
those which actuate the "Jewish Commissars."
All this is not to say that there are no professing Jews in the
Bolshevist ranks, or that the number of indifferent and apostate Jews
who have thrown in their lot with the Soviets is quite negligible.
What is contended is that normally the Jew is intensely anti-pathetic
to Bolshevism, and that at the beginning of the Revolution relatively
very few Jews--even of those who are Jews by race only--rallied to the
call of Lenin. That this situation has changed during the last year is
not improbable. But with whom does the blame rest? If Jews have
reluctantly turned towards Bolshevism, it is because they have been
forced into it by the anti-Bolsheviks. They cannot but be alarmed by
the persistency and passion with which the charge of Bolshevism is
levelled at them, and the threats which come from all sides to avenge
in their persons the sins of Lenin and Trotsky. They have had a bloody
instalment of this St. Bartholomew in the pogroms of the Polish
borderlands and the Ukrainian plains. What wonder, then, if some of
them--and they can only be relatively very few--turn for protection to
the Soviets, especially in the lands where the Soviets rule?
Nevertheless, their aversion from Bolshevism in theory and practice
remains, and is, indeed, for the great majority of them insuperable.
One word in conclusion. If some of the charges against the Jews which
have been examined in the foregoing pages were not so utterly
unfounded as they prove to be, ample explanation and excuse might be
found in the high and sustained tragedy of Jewish history. When in
1848 Ludwig Boerne was reproached by a political colleague with the
excessiveness of his revolutionary zeal, he replied: "I was born a
slave, and hence I love freedom better than you do." Twenty centuries
of a terrible oppression has made of the Jews in Europe an element of
no small importance in all the struggles for popular liberties, but
throughout it all they have always remained a relatively conservative
force. This is most strikingly exemplified by their career in the
Russian Revolution. Human nature being what it is, it would not have
been surprising if all the Jews in Russia had become fanatical
Bolsheviks. The extravagances of Bolshevism are the natural reaction
against the cruelties of Tsarism, and the Jews suffered more bitterly
from those cruelties than any other section of the sorely tried
Russian people. And yet their innate moderation--what Disraeli rightly
diagnosed as their ineradicable attachment to Religion and
Property--has prevailed, and even among the lower classes, who were
proletariatised and driven to Socialism by the infamous May Laws,[68]
Bolshevism has found only few and reluctant recruits. The Jews, no
doubt, have their defects, very much in the same way as Christians,
but what Mr. Gladstone once called "incivism" is not one of them.