2.1 How The Protocols Came To Russia

The word " protocol "i was used to signify a fly-leaf pasted at the top of an official document, bearing either the opening formula or a summary of the contents for convenient reference. The original draft of a treaty was usually pasted on in this way, that the signatories might check the correctness of the engrossed copy before signing. The draft itself being based on the discussion at the conference, the word came to mean also the minutes of the proceedings.

In this instance " the protocols " mean the " draft of the plan of action " of the Jewish leaders. There have been many such drafts at different periods in Jewish history since the dispersion, but few of them have come into general circulation. In all, the principles and morality are as old as the tribe. By way of illustration we give an instance which occurred in the fifteenth century.

In 1492, Chemor, chief Rabbi of Spain, wrote to the Grand Sanhedrin, which had its seat in Constantinople, for advice, when a Spanish law threatened expulsion.2 This was the reply:

" Beloved brethren in Moses, we have received your letter in which you tell us of the anxieties and misfortunes which you are enduring. We are pierced by as great pain to hear it as yourselves. The advice of the Grand Satraps and Rabbis is the following:

1. As for what you say that the King of Spain 3 obliges you to become Christians: do it, since you cannot do otherwise.
2. As for what you say about the command to despoil you of your property: make your sons merchants that they may despoil, little by little, the Christians of theirs.
3. As for what you say about making attempts on your lives: make your sons doctors and apothecaries, that they may take away Christians' lives.
4. As for what you say of their destroying your syna gogues: make your sons canons and clerics in order that they may destroy their churches.
5. As for the many other vexations you complain of: arrange that your sons become advocates and lawyers, and see that they always mix in affairs of State, that by putting Christians under your yoke you may dominate the world and be avenged on them.
6. Do not swerve from this order that we give you, because you will find by experience that, humiliated as you are, you will reach the actuality of power.

(Signed) PRINCE OF THE JEWS OF CONSTANTINOPLE."

The protocols given to the world by Nilus are only the latest known edition of the Jewish leaders programme. The story of how the latter came into general circulation is an interesting one.

In 1884 the daughter of a Russian general, Mile. Justine Glinka, was endeavouring to serve her country in Paris by obtaining political information, which she communicated to General Orgevskii4 in St. Petersburg. For this purpose she employed a Jew, Joseph Schorst,5 member of the Miz-raim Lodge in Paris. One day Schorst offered to obtain for her a document of great importance to Russia, on payment of 2,500 francs. This sum being received from St. Petersburg was paid over and the document handed to Mile. Glinka.6

She forwarded the French original, accompanied by a Russian translation, to Orgevskii, who in turn handed it to his chief, General Cherevin, for transmission to the Tsar. But Cherevin, under obligation to wealthy Jews, refused to transmit it, merely riling it in the archives.7

Meantime there appeared in Paris certain books on Russian court life8 which displeased the Tsar, who ordered his secret police to discover their authorship. This was falsely attributed, perhaps with malicious intent,9 to Mile. Glinka, and on her return to Russia she was banished to her estate in Orel. To the marechal de noblesse of this district, Alexis Sukhotin, Mile. Glinka gave a copy of the Protocols. Sukhotin showed the document to two friends, Stepanov and Nilus; the former had it printed and circulated privately in 1897; the second, Professor Sergius A. Nilus, published it for the first time in Tsarskoe-Tselo (Russia) in 1901, in a book entitled The Great Within the Small. Then, about the same time, a friend of Nilus, G. Butmi, also brought it out and a copy was deposited in the British Museum on August 10, 1906.

Meantime, through Jewish members10 of the Russian police, minutes of the proceedings of the Basle congress11 in 1897 had been obtained and these were found to correspond with the Protocols.12

In January 1917, Nilus had prepared a second edition, revised and documented, for publication. But before it could be put on the market, the revolution of March 1917 had taken place, and Kerenskii, who had succeeded to power, ordered the whole edition of Nilus's book to be destroyed. In 1924, Prof. Nilus was arrested by the Cheka in Kiev, imprisoned, and tortured; he was told by the Jewish president of the court, that this treatment was meted out to him for " having done them incalculable harm in publishing the Protocols ". Released for a few months, he was again led before the G. P. U. (Cheka), this time in Moscow and confined. Set at liberty in February 1926, he died in exile in the district of Vladimir on January 13, 1929.

A few copies of Nilus's second edition were saved and sent to other countries where they were published: in Germany, by Gottfreid zum Beek (1919); in England, by The Britons (1920); in France, by Mgr. Jouin in La Revue Internationale des Sociétés Secrètes, and by Urbain Gohier in La Vieille France; in the United States, by Small, Maynard & Co. (Boston 1920), and by The Beckwith Co (New York 1921). Later, editions appeared in Italian, Russian, Arabic, and even in Japanese.

Such is the simple story of how these Protocols reached Russia and thence came into general circulation.

Mr. Stepanov's deposition'3 relative to it is here given as corroboration.

" In 1895, my neighbour in the district of Toula, Major (retired) Alexis Sukhotin, gave me a manuscript copy of the Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion. He told me that a lady of his acquaintance, whose name he did not mention, residing in Paris, had found it at the house of a friend, a Jew. Before leaving Paris, she had secretly translated it and had brought this one copy to Russia and given it to Sukhotin.

"At first I mimeographed this translation, but finding it difficult to read, I resolved to have it printed, making no mention of the date, town, or printer's name. In this I was helped by Arcadii Ippolitovich Kelepovskii, who at that time was chief of the household of Grand Duke Sergius.

He gave the document to be printed by the district printing press. This took place in 1897. Sergius Nilus inserted these Protocols in his work and added his own commentary. (Signed) PHILIP PETROVICH STEPANOV."

Formerly Procurator of the Synod of Moscow, Chamberlain, Privy Councillor, and (in 1897) Chief of the Moscow Kursk Railway in the town of Orel. April 17, 1927.

Witnessed by PRINCE DIMITRI GALITZIN. President of the Russian Colony of Emigrants at Stari Fontag.

 —

1. From Greek, protos (first) + holla (glue).

2. The reply is found in the sixteenth century Spanish book, La Silva Curiosa, by Julio-Iniguez de Medrano (Paris, Orry, 1608), on pages 156 and 157, with the following explanation: " This letter following was found in the archives of Toledo by the Hermit of Salamanca, (while) searching the ancient records of the kingdoms of Spain; and, as it is expressive and remarkable, I wish to write it here."—vide, photostat facing page 80.

3. Ferdinand.

4. At that time Secretary to the Minister of the Interior, General Cherevin.

5. Alias Schapiro, whose father had been sentenced in London, two years previous, to ten years penal servitude for counterfeiting.

6. Schorst fled to Egypt where, according to French police archives, he was murdered.

7. On his death in 1896, he willed a copy of his memoirs containing the Protocols to Nicholas II.

8. Published under the pseudonym " Count Vassilii", their real author was Mme. Juliette Adam, using material furnished by Princess Demidov-San Donate, Princess Radzivill, and other Russians.

9. Among the Jews in the Russian secret service in Paris was Maniulov, whose odious character is drawn by M. Pateologue, Memoires.

10. Notably Eno Azev and Efrom. The latter, formerly a rabbi, died in 1925 in a monastery in Serbia, where he had taken refuge; he used to tell the monks that the protocols were but a small part of Jewish plans for ruling the world and a feeble expression of their hatred of the gentiles.

11. Supra, Part I.

12. The Russian government had learned that at meetings of the B'nai Brith in New-York in 1893-94, Jacob Schiff (supra, 52, 53) had been named chairman of the committee on the revol utionary movement in Russia.

13. The translation is the author's; appended facing page 81. a photostat of the original is