History of Zionism part 3

(Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion part 2)

So, how did "The Protocols" come to the attention of the masses?

Well, finding the answer was a bit tricky because there is a lot of conflicting information, but after digging through the Internet a bit, I found some information that was "willing to name names".

The public story starts with a Justine Glinka, who was the daughter of a Russian general. She was acting as a high class spy in Paris when she obtained an original document from a Jewish freemason named Joseph Schorst in 1884. Glinka paid Schorst $2500. franks for the document. After having sold her this document, Schorst fled to Egypt. According to French police archives, he had been tracked down and murdered. (Also of note: Solomon Rothschild (Lord Rothschild's son) was a freemason belonging to a French lodge.)

Glinka then forwarded her discovery to her handler General Orgevskii, in St. Petersburg, who gave it to a General Cherevin, who in turn was suppose to give it to the Czar. Cherevin though is said to have been in debt to certain wealthy Jews, so therefor he did not turn the document over to the Czar.

When Justine Glinka returned to Russia, she was banished to her family estate, by the Czar for allegedly publishing lurid accounts of Russian aristocrats "dirty laundry" in a book entitled Count Vassilii. Glinka was later cleared of the accusation, after it was discovered that real author was Juliette Adam, a French feminist devoted to the "philosophy" of theosophy (a tenant of spiritism religion) and the occult.

Despite these "misunderstandings", Glinka passed on a copy to a man; Alexis Sukhotin. He in turn passed copies to two friends: Philip Stepanov and Sergei Nilus. Stepanove had his own copies printed and was circulating them privately by 1897, although it was well known by the early 1890's that tracts and essays of similar content were already circulating among the Russian nobility. Nilus on the other hand, began to print this information publicly with the intent that the masses would read it.

Sergei Nilus was a Russian Orthodox monk. He was a "prodigal son" type individual who had a very similar conversion / introduction to the life of a monk as did St. Augustine back in the 4th century AD. Nilus first wrote The Great within the Small in 1901, which was a book of "prophetic" writings of what Nilus saw would become the future of Russia. He'd also stated in that work, that he believed this was the beginning of the end of the world. In the back of this book, he appendixes portions of "The Protocols".

The second publication to hit the masses came in 1903, in the form of articles in a Russian newspaper which again published portions of the "Protocols". These are the alleged forgeries said to be written by Matvie Golvinski, printed by editor Pavel Kruschevan of the newspaper "Znamya". (I'll discuss Kruschevan and what was going on in the media at the time in a minute.)

Ironically though, Matvie Golvinski had an interesting outcome that was very different than the editor's fate, or that of Sergie Nilus, or even Justine Glinka. Golvinski the "forger" of the "rabidly anti-semitic" Protocols as it turns out, was pardoned by the overwhelmingly Jewish lead Bolsheviks, for "flip flopping" sides a couple of times and went on to live out a comfortable / happy life as a Soviet bureaucrat under Stalin. Hum, now isn't that interesting?

Justine Glinka on the other hand; (formally known as Yuliana) was born in 1844 and died in 1918. (74 years old) Although I have not been able to find any record of how she died, or whether or not she had been arrested by the Bolsheviks? That would be a good assumption, looking at the year of her death and the fact that she was closely associated as a supporter of the Czar.

Sergie Nilus; (which is not believed to be his real name) in 1905 published the first completed works for the masses, under the title The Jewish Peril - Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.

In 1917, he went on to attempt to publish a revision of his first work, but was arrested by the interim government, before the Bolsheviks actually took over. A couple of copies of his second addition had been smuggled out of Russia, one of which had made it's way into the British archives by 1920, (translated into English by 1924).

Sergie Nilus died of a heart attack in 1929 and was imprisoned three times (1924, 1925 & 1927 respectively). I know he spent some time in the gulag system and I believe he died there, but I'm not 100% sure on that. It is alleged that the judge at his 1924 trial had said that Nilus's being imprisoned and subject to torture, was to repay him for exposing the agenda in printing "the Protocols". Now I don't know if this is true, for my lack of ability to find hard documentation on this story.

It is stated in multiple sources though, that mere possession of "the Protocols" in 1917 would have gotten one shot on the spot. By the early 20's, possession of any of Nilus's publications was a crime punishable by up to 10 years in the gulag system. Nilus's works were labeled specifically as "anti Bolshevik" propaganda.

Issues reaching back into history:

Zanamya's editor Pavel Kruschevan (who was actually the founder of the newspaper - which is listed on Wikipedia as an "ultra-nationalistic" / "anti-Semitic" paper in favor of the Czar) was printed in St. Petersburg between 1902 and 1906?. Kruschevan launched another paper in 1906 entitled "Friend", which seems to have replaced this one). He mysteriously disappears from history in 1909.

1903 though didn't just see the publication of portions of "Protocols" from Kruschevan, but also another story about a 14 year old Russian boy named Mikhail Rybachenko who was found murdered on Thursday February 13th of 1903.

According to an investigation by Russian authorities, Mikhail had been seen with his grandparents at church the previous Sunday. One witness had then stated that he'd seen the boy go into a Jewish store to buy tobacco. Mikhail's body was found by a townsman 4 days later in a garden covered with many bruises and multiple stab wounds to the major arteries. People of the town believed this to be a "blood libel" case; (Blood Libel - belief that there are adherents to Rabbinic Judaism who sacrifice Christian children as part of the Passover.) of which this story spread though neighboring towns and cities, sparking riots which began on Easter Sunday April 12th, 1903.

The murder was investigated by several parties (governmental and independent - one of which was a Jewish doctor "corner" who'd performed the first autopsy; his report having been supported by a Christian doctor who agreed the murder was not ritually sacrificial) and although it may have been "set up" by the real perpetrator to look like a blood libel case; it wasn't. (One obvious discrepancy being Passover began on March 30th in 1903, a whole month and 1/2 after the murder. I'll talk about this in a minute.) Although there had been several "witnesses" that perjured themselves during the course of the investigation, all claiming it to be a blood libel case. The murderer was later found to be a relative of the boy, who'd stand to inherit Mikhail's grandfather's estate should Mikhail pass away.

Pavel Kruschevan though, had reported in his newspaper that these Easter time riots were sparked by this case that was believed to be (or "insinuated as") blood libel. Now I don't know what was actually published in the paper? I did a search of the Internet to see if there was an actual picture of the news article, but did not find a copy of the paper. I do know though that Kruschevan's was not the only paper who reported these riots as being sparked by a blood libel / possible blood libel case(s). There was another story circulating at the time about a girl who died in a Jewish hospital of poisoning. As it turned out, her poisoning was self inflicted.

Consequently, Kruschevan was stated to have had many death threats, attempts on his life and much trouble after these publications hit the news stands. Most of the information about him that is on the Internet, comes from the "other perspective" saying he was an anti-Semite, racist bigot etc., who got into fights and had legal problems with slander and the such like. He is said to have carried a weapon, hired body guards, as well as a personal cook, whom he'd only eat food prepared from for fear / threat of poisoning. Though he is claimed to have been a violent, ill tempered man; yet he is recorded to have held the political office equivalent to the the mayor of a city for about 5 years prior to his mysterious disappearance. Also, the "other perspective" credits him for inciting the riots which are referred to as "Kishinev pogroms" (where it is alleged that the Russian government failed to protect the Jews from physical harm and property crime).

Now I've tried to be as neutral as possible in reporting this information about "The Protocols" and those first involved in their distribution, because there is always two sides to every story. Nothing happens in a vacuum either though and so now what follows here is a portion of yet another side of the story.

Attempts to Garnish Support for Zionism:

Now Krushchevan, the Romanov Dynasty and all of Russia was not engaged in an unfounded and pointless anti-semitic propaganda campaign with the publication of "The Protocols" and the stories of these murders. The Russo-Jewish Committee (RJC) was also conducting a whole sale propaganda campaign of its own against Russia, in order to attempt to garnish support for the idea of creating a political Jewish homeland.

Starting in the 1880's and pretty much running through to the Bolshevik Revolution, Britain and the US were constantly being fed information through the presses as to how life in Russia was so horrendous for the Jews. (New York Times, London Times & Jewish World - The Jewish World being the paper that furnished most of these stories.)

The first stories began "rolling off the presses" from an "on location" journalist who was allegedly traveling all over Russia and witnessing these horrendous acts first hand. There were many accounts of riots, destruction of property murders of Jews and especially accusations of mass rape being printed in American and British newspapers. All of this was couched in language of "act now", "save Russian Jewelry before it's too late", "there's a holocaust going on", "millions are starving" etc.

This instigated the people in Britain to start petitioning their government to intervene. Being slow to want to get involved though, the British government first launched an investigation into these stories when they began to surface in the 1880's. The British consulate sent several independent investigators; all of whom reported back to the crown; that outside of some incidents of property damage, minor injuries to a small number of people and a few who'd succumbed to death as a result of injuries from isolated rioting; there were no mass murders, (matter of fact there weren't actually any murders) no one was starving to death and certainly no mass rapes. At least 3 independent investigators (Consul-General Stanley, Consul-General Law and Colonel Francis Maude) compiled information from their findings and published "Blue Book" in 1884.

When this information hit the public, the London Times responded in a subversive and rather bizarre manner, stating that the indignation of the country is still justified even if the atrocities were "creations of popular fancy".

This I imagine was rather confusing for the people and aggravating for the consulate. Stanley had demanded an answer from the Russo-Jewish Committee / London Times regarding their continued printing of these now debunked stories; especially since he personally had put a lot of his own resources into the investigations to ensure that they were accurate. To this the RJC responded by appealing directly to "the wise and noble people of England," who "will know what weight should be attached to such denials and refutations." So though the RJC did end up winning the sway on popular opinion, they never did convince the British government to intervene.

So in this propaganda war that had already been waging for 10 years against the Romanov dynasty, the Russian papers began to roll out their own versions of things; setting some "historical context" to the alleged "raging anti-semitism" in Czarist Russia. (You really want anti-Semitism, we'll give people a reason to hate you.)

So thus also the reason European powers did not respond to the alleged "Kishinev pogroms", seeing how they'd already been burned by the Jewish press in the 1880's. Keep this in mind too as we get into the 1930's and WWII, with the question so often raised today of European powers' failure to respond to what was allegedly happening in Germany's concentration camps.

So with that rather long segment and it's "many moving parts"; next (before I resume with the 20th century) I will move on to another historical issue which has plagued Judaism for at least two millennia. Human ritual sacrifice or "blood libel".