WATCHMEN BIBLE STUDY GROUP "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." — Psalm 119:105   Contact Editor  | Bible studies  | Newer students  |  Bible Q & A's  |  Study tools  | Search our site Library/Bookstore  |  Statement of faith  |  New material on site  | Join our mailing list  |  Home Page | Donate

E-Book
(Many pictures, page opens slow―2½ min. on 56K)

BEHIND COMMUNISM
by Frank L Britton. Probably published in 1952.
 

Go to table of Contents     To understand the total problem of Communism it is necessary that we trace the course of the movement from it’s beginning down to the present.  We must understand who it’s originators were, and what they were, and we must gain some idea as to the forces which influenced and shaped their philosophy.

     Unfortunately, any deep-down discussion of Communism and Marxism involves the Jewish question.  We cannot honestly discuss the subject without revealing—and commenting on—the fact that the founders of Russian Communism were Jewish.  Neither can we ignore the fact that all but a few of the top leadership of the American Communism party—including the recently convicted spies— are of the same race.  These are facts of history over which we have no control. But we are faced with the very serious problem of how to reveal these, facts without being labeled—and treated—as "antiSemites."

     The main reason why so little is known concerning the true nature of Communism stems from this problem.  Historical writers have been understandably reluctant to hold forth on the subject for fear of marking themselves as "race haters" and "bigots."  For this reason the entire subject has been placed beyond the pale of discussion.  One simply does not use the word "Jew" and "Communism" together.  The result is, of course, censorship.

     In this work we have decided to breach the wall of silence at whatever the cost, and to treat the subject as fairly and as honestly as we know how.  No attempt is made to single out individuals because they happened to be born to a certain race: neither have we exempted anyone from criticism for that reason.  It was decided that since Communism and Judaism are so irretrievably bound one to the other, a history of the Jewish people would contribute substantially to an understanding of the present communist menace.

THE PERSECUTION MYTH

THE JEW IN EUROPE

Expelled
      The Fourth Lateran Council restricted Jewish commercial advantage but it did not end the Jewish problem. Beginning in the latter part of the 13th century, one European country after another expelled its Jewish population as the only final solution to the problem. First to take the step was England which banned them in 1290. Fifteen years later in 1306 the French followed suit. In steady succession the various states of Europe emulated this example with Spain being one of the last to enforce the ban in 1492. The situation in Spain is worth noting. Says Encyclopedia Britannica: [page 57, vol. 13 - 1947]: "... The 14th century was the golden age of their history in Spain. In 1391 the preaching of a priest of Seville, Fernando Martenez, led to the first general massacre of the Jews who were envied for their prosperity and hated because they were the king's tax collectors." Ferdinand and Isabella, after uniting Spain and driving out the Moors turned their attention to the Jewish problem, with the result that they were evicted completely in 1492. In 1498 Portugal evicted its Jewish population also.

The Exploiters
      A great deal has been said about the "persecution" of the Jews in Europe and elsewhere, and they have pretty well convinced the world (or at least Americans) that these hardships were inflicted on an innocent people. But these rich Spanish Jews we see being evicted in 1492 were not down-trodden folk. They were the wealthy, the privileged, the exploiters: they were the well-fed merchants and the gouging tax collectors ...
      So it was in Portugal; in that country we find that the deportation of the Jews ... "deprived Portugal of its middle class and its most scientific traders and financiers." [Encyclopedia Britannica, page 279, vol. 18 - 1947.] Undeniably this class of traders and financiers was put to hardship by this banishment, but it does not follow that they were victims of discrimination in the accepted sense, nor were they underprivileged in any way. Rather we see a wealthy merchant group being ousted from its seat of vested privilege by a thoroughly outraged, and a thoroughly exploited Christian society ...
      The situation in England was similar. The Jews had come to England in the wake of the Norman conquest and had quickly gained a position of wealth and prosperity. Says Valentine's Jewish Encyclopedia of this period: "Their numbers and prosperity increased, Aaron of Lincoln being the wealthiest man in England in his time ... his financial transactions covering the whole country and concerning many of the leading nobles and churchmen ... On his death his property passed to the crown and a special branch of the exchequer had to be created to deal with it."

England
      England, ironically enough, was the last country to be invaded by the Jews and the first to evict them. After the Fourth Lateran Council the Jews had become increasingly difficult to deal with and there were a number of anti-Jewish riots. Perplexed by the problem posed by this alien minority which seemed well on its way to corralling the kingdom's wealth, and failing in an attempt to force its assimilation. Edward I confiscated all Jewish wealth and evicted them permanently in 1290. Not until 1655 was a Jew legally permitted to re-enter England. Britain thus established the precedent for the later eviction which soon followed on the continent.

France
      In France too the Jews were dominant in trade and finance and had been since before Charlemagne's time. Under Philip the Fair (1285-1314) one of the last, and certainly one of the greatest of the Capetian line, France had become the greatest power in Europe. It was Philip's need for money which led him to seize Jewish wealth and drive them from the country. He had already before 1306 taken desperate measures to raise money, which was in short supply, by forbidding the export of gold and silver from France. The same need for money brought him into conflict with the Templars, whose wealth he also seized. But it was the Jews who controlled the greatest supply of floating wealth. In 1306 Philip solved his financial problem—and France's Jewish problem—by expropriating their wealth and evicting them. Thus ended the centuries-long commercial dominance of the Jew in France. Later a few were permitted to return and these were in turn ejected in 1394.

RETURN TO THE EAST

Back to Poland
      By 1500 all of Western Europe except northern Italy, parts of Germany, and the Papal possessions around Avignon, had been rid of the Jewish invasion. For a while, at least, Europe was free of the Jews; not until 1650 did they return in any numbers. Says Encyclopedia Britannica: [page 57-58, vol. 13 - 1947.] "The great mass of the Jewish people were thus to be found once more in the East, in the Polish and Turkish empires . . The few communities suffered to remain in western Europe were meanwhile subjected at last to all the restrictions which earlier ages had usually allowed to remain as an ideal; so that in a sense, the Jewish dark ages may be said to begin with the Renaissance."

THE RENAISSANCE

Table of Contents | Top
As the Jew Departed ...
      The period marked by the evictions—1300 to 1650—also marks the period of the Renaissance which broke over Europe as the Jews departed. Starting at first in the trading cities of northern Italy in about 1300, there began a great rebirth of culture and learning which at first was based almost entirely on the writings of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Very quickly this renascent culture spread over Europe and when the age had ended, in about 1650, Europe was by comparison with her former status, enlightened and civilized. Quite obviously all this could not have taken place had it not been for a great upsurge of commercial activity which occurred simultaneously with, and as an adjunct of, the Renaissance. Not until the nations of Europe had wrested commercial control from the ghetto did this rebirth of western civilization occur.

The Ghettos
      "Wherever Jews have settled, since the beginning of the Diaspora, they have proceeded to create their own communal organizations. Various factors of an internal character—religious, cultural, social, and economic—as well as external factors, have contributed to this factor" (Page 201, The Jewish People, Past and Present, by the Central Yiddish Culture Organization (CYCO), New York).
      It is virtually impossible to comprehend the character of Judaism without some knowledge of the nature of the Medieval Jewish community. (Kahal; Ghetto). Probably one of the commonest fallacies extant today concerns the true origin of the ghetto. Most history books defer to Jewish sensibilities by giving the Jewish version, namely that the Jewish people were for centuries forced to reside in a special quarter of the city as a result of the bigotry and intolerance of the Christian majority. This is not true, and no scholar of Judaism believes it to be.
      Valentine's Jewish Encyclopedia describes the origin of the ghetto as follows: "At any rate the word became general for a Jew's quarter. Already in antiquity the Jews voluntarily occupied special quarters; In the Middle Ages, Jew's streets or Jewries were to be found from the end of the 11th century, but the motive of their concentration was no longer religious or social: trade caused them to settle near the market, or danger made them seek the protection of the reigning prince, the protector also wishing to have them together for the easier collection of taxes. It was not until the 13th century that the Jew's quarter was turned into a compulsory Ghetto. ... The concentration of Jews in Ghettos, although unintended, had its good result. It preserved the communal feeling and the traditional Jewish culture."
      As a point of fact these ghetto-communities existed only because the Jews wanted them to exist—they represented a desire on the part of Jewry to remain aloof and exclusive of Christian Society. Says Valentine's Jewish Encyclopedia [p 589]: "There were as a rule officially recognized authorities in the Jewish communities in Europe during the Middle Ages to regulate their own affairs and to treat as a body with the civil government. Even with no other incentive but that of living up to the requirements of Judaism the Jews of a locality were compelled to organize themselves into a community (Kahal; Kehilla), in order to regulate ritual, educational and charitable institutions. Courts of law were also a necessity, since Jewish litigants were expected to obey the civil code of the Talmud."
      The ghetto was not merely a place of residence; it was in the fullest sense a community within a community. Here the Jews maintained their culture, their religion, and their tradition of solidarity. Here they nursed their age-long hatred for Christian civilization. Says Encyclopedia Britannica [p 59, vol. 13 - 1947.]: "All these activities necessitated a great deal of legislation and in this the autonomous Jewish community was granted the widest latitude. Ordinances were enacted by Jews governing every phase of life: business, synagogue attendance, social morals, policing, prescriptions for dress, and a detailed regimentation of amusements ... The characteristic common to the medieval Jewish community were: self imposed discipline, the considering of all religious, philanthropic, educational, and self defense problems as common concerns, and a strong sense of solidarity fortified by a uniform way of life."

      For ten centuries preceding the great evictions, in virtually every Christian nation of Europe (and in Mohammedan Spain, Africa, and Asia Minor) these Jews settled into these parasitic ghetto-communities and here they nurtured and maintained a culture which was quite a thing apart from the culture of the European. When finally they were driven from Western Europe in the centuries preceding the Renaissance, we find them settling and establishing ghetto-communities in Poland and Russia which have lasted down to the present day. The Medieval ghetto did not disappear with the ending of the Dark Ages—it was transferred, unimpaired, to Eastern Europe, where the majority of the world's Jews settled.
      The institution of the ghetto has enabled two basically different cultures and peoples to remain side by side—one Asiatic and Judaic, the other European and Christian—without becoming integrated. It is primarily for this reason that the Jew has remained an alien in spite of centuries of exposure to Christian civilization. And that is why the Spanish Jew remained a Jew first and a Spaniard second, and why the Polish Jew, the Russian Jew, and the German Jew, have given their first allegiance to Judah and rendered a sort of second-hand loyalty to the country of their abode.

The Chazars
      The modern Jew with his Yiddish culture and rapacious financial traditions should not be confused with the biblical Hebrews, who were mainly a pastoral people. The international Jew of modern times is indeed the bastardized product of a bastardized past. He does not truly worship the Bible, but the Talmud; he does not speak Hebrew, but Yiddish; he is not descended from Israel, but from the scum of the eastern Mediterranean.

     This is vividly illustrated by H. G. Wells in his great Outline of History:

      "The Jewish idea was and is a curious combination of theological breadth and an intense racial patriotism. The Jews looked for a special saviour, a Messiah, who was to redeem mankind by the agreeable process of restoring the fabulous glories of David and Solomon, and bringing the whole world it last under the benevolent but firm Jewish heel. As the political power of the peoples declined as Carthage followed Tyre into the darkness and Spain became a Roman province, this dream grew and spread. There can be little doubt that the scattered Phoenicians in Spain and Africa and throughout the Mediterranean, speaking as they did a language closely akin to Hebrew and being deprived of their authentic political rights, became proselytes to Judaism. For phases of vigorous proselytism alternated with phases of exclusive jealousy in Jewish history. On one occasion the Idumeans, being conquered, were all forcibly made Jews. (Josephus). There were Arab tribes who were Jews in the time of Muhammad, and a Turkish people who were mainly Jews in South Russia in the ninth century. Judaism is indeed the reconstructed political ideal of many shattered peoples—mainly Semitic. It is to the Phoenician contingent and to Aramean accessions in Babylon that the financial and commercial tradition of the Jews is to be ascribed. But as a result of these coalescences and assimilations, almost everywhere in the towns throughout the Roman Empire, and far beyond it in the east, Jewish communities traded and flourished, and were kept in touch through the Bible, and through a religious and educational organization. The main part of Jewry never was in Judea and had never come out of Judea." [Outline of History page 493-494, third edition, by H. G. Wells. Section 'Christianity and Islam', with a footnote recommending the Cambridge Medieval History.-RW]

      The "Turkish" people whom Wells mentions were the Chazars [Chazar=Khazar], who built an empire in south Russia in the 9th century A. D. This Chazar empire was infiltrated by large numbers of Byzantine Jews. By process of intermarriage and conversion these Chazars became identified as Jews and in all Jewish histories and encyclopedias the words "Chazar" and "Jew" are used interchangeably. In the tenth century a succession of invasions destroyed the Chazar empire and large numbers of these Chazar-Jews settled in the area of what is now Poland. Others found their way to western Europe and Spain, where they mingled with the already bastardized conglomeration of European Jewry.

Poland's Fate
      These Jews we find settling in Poland in the early 14th century came there at the invitation of Casimir I, who seems to have been under strong Jewish influence. As early as the 10th century the Jews (chiefly of Khazar origin) were influential in Poland, and by the 12th century they were well enough entrenched to monopolize the coinage of Poland's money. Says the Jewish Encyclopedia: [Funk & Wagnall's Jewish Encyclopedia, page 56, vol. 10] "Coins unearthed in 1812 in the Great Polish village of Glenbok show conclusively that in the reigns of Mieczyslauw III (1173-1209), Casimir, and Leshek (1194-1205), the Jews were, as stated above, in charge of the coinage of Great and Little Poland." It is interesting to note that these coins bore Jewish as well as Polish inscriptions.
      The history of Poland for the next 3 centuries revolves around the struggle for supremacy between the native Polish people and the Jews. During the greater part of that time Poland was more or less dominated by the Jews—a situation most beneficial to all, according to Jewish history books. But when, as occasionally happened, there was a lapse in Jewish fortunes, these same histories are replete with accounts of gentile cruelty and bestiality to the chosen race. And because these laments have been repeated often enough and loudly enough there is a widely held belief that Poland has been a land of oppression for Jewry ...
      It has been the unhappy fate of Poland to be saddled for the greater part of its history with a large proportion of the world's Jewish population. This, more than anything else, accounts for the tragic disunity which has kept Poland from taking its place among the great nations of the earth.
      In 1793 (third partition) Poland was divided between Prussia and Russia and thus ceased to exist as a nation. Russia thus fell heir to a full fledged Jewish problem.

Russia
      The third partition of Poland was an event of paramount significance in Russian history because as a by-product of the partition she acquired the world's largest Jewish population. From this moment on Russia's history became hopelessly intertwined with the Jewish problem, and eventually, as we shall relate, the Jews brought about the downfall of Imperial Russia.
      No one can possibly understand the nature of present day communism, nor of Zionism, without some knowledge of the situation existing in Russia in the century preceding the October revolution of 1917. We have already noted the presence of Khazar Jews in Poland in the 10th century, and these same Khazar Jews are to be found in Russia from that time on. But whereas Poland had invited the evicted Jews of western Europe to settle in vast numbers within its boundaries in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries, the Imperial Russian government had permitted no such immigrations, and had in fact sealed its borders to them. As would be expected, therefore, the Imperial government was something less than enthusiastic over this sudden acquisition of Poland's teeming masses of Jews.

 Pale of Settlement

     From the very beginning the Tsarist government imposed a set of restrictions designed to protect Russia's economy and culture from the inroads of the Jew. It was decreed (in 1772) that Jews could settle in Greater Russia, but only in certain areas. Within this "Pale of Settlement" Jews were more or less free to conduct their affairs as they pleased. But travel or residence beyond the Pale was rigidly restricted, so that in 1897 (date of Russia's 1st census) 93.9% of Russia's Jewish population lived within its boundaries, and only 6% of the total resided in other parts of the Empire. To prevent smuggling, no Jew was permitted to reside within 50 versts of the border.
      From the standpoint of Jewish history, the Pale of Settlement ranks as one of the most significant factors of modern times. Here within. a single and contiguous area the greater part of Jewry had gathered, and was to remain, for something like 125 years. For the first time Jewry was subjected to a common environment and a common ground of experience. Out of this common experience and environment there evolved the Yiddish speaking Jew of the 20th century. Here too were born the great movements of Zionism and Communism.

The Kahal
      We have already remarked upon the habit of Jewry from ancient times of establishing and maintaining their own tribal community (kahal) within the framework of Christian society. We have noted also that as the Jew was driven from Western Europe, he brought with him to Poland this ancient custom. The Kahal was an established institution in Poland, and as the Jews settled within the Pale they set up these autonomous communities here too.
      At first the Imperial government recognized the autonomous Kahal organization permitting them to raise taxes and set up courts of law, where only Jewish litigants were concerned. In addition to the individual communities, there were district Kahal organizations which at first were permitted to assess local Jewish communities with taxes. In 1786 these privileges were drastically curtailed and Jews were there after obliged to appear before ordinary courts of law and the Kahal organization was restricted to matters of religious and social nature.

      Although Jewish propagandists have complained long and loudly of being oppressed by the Imperial government, it is a fact that up until 1881 they prospered beyond all expectation. Jewry settled in the Russian economy like a swarm of locusts in a field of new corn. Very quickly they achieved a monopoly over Russia's liquor, tobacco, and retail industries. Later they dominated the professions as well. Under the reign of Alexander I many of the restrictions against residence beyond the Pale of Settlement were relaxed, especially for the artisan and professional classes. A determined effort was made to establish Jews in agriculture and the government encouraged at every opportunity the assimilation of Jews into Russian national life.

Nicholas I
      Alexander's successor, Nicholas I, was less inclined to favor Jewry, and in fact viewed their inroads into the Russian economy with alarm. He was much hated by the Jews. Prior to his reign, Alexander I had allowed any male Jew the privilege of escaping compulsory military duty by paying a special draft-exemption tax. In 1827 Nicholas abolished the custom, with the result that Jews were for the first time taken into the Imperial armies ...
      In 1844 Nicholas I further antagonized Jewry by abolishing the institution of the Kahal, and in that same year he prohibited by law the traditional Jewish garb, specifying that all Jews should, except on ceremonial occasions, dress in conformity with Russian standards. These measures, and many others like them, were aimed at facilitating the assimilation of Jewry into Russian life. The Tsarist government was much concerned by the Jew's failure to become Russianized, and viewed with extreme hostility the ancient Jewish custom of maintaining a separate culture, language, mode of dress, etc.—all of which contributed to keep the Jew an alien in the land of his residence. It is to this determination to "Russianize" and "civilize" the Jew that we can ascribe the unusual efforts made by the Imperial government to provide free education to its Jews. In 1804 all schools were thrown open to Jews and attendance for Jewish children was made compulsory. Compulsory education was not only a novelty in Russia, but in any country in the early 19th century. In Russia education was generally reserved for a privileged few, and even as late as 1914 only 55% of her gentile population had been inside a school. The net result of the Imperial government's assimilation program was that Russian Jewry became the best educated segment in Russia. This eventually worked to the destruction of the Tsarist government ...
      The reign of Alexander II marked the apex of Jewish fortunes in Tsarist Russia. By 1880 they were becoming dominant in the professions, in many trades and industries, and were beginning to filter into government in increasing numbers. As early as 1861 Alexander II had permitted Jewish university graduates to settle and hold governmental positions in greater Russia, and by 1879 apothecaries, nurses, midwives dentists, distillers, and skilled craftsmen were permitted to work and reside throughout the empire.
      Nevertheless Russia's Jews were increasingly rebellious over the remaining restraints which still bound the greater part of Russian Jewry to the Pale of Settlement, and which, to some extent at least, restricted their commercial activities. Herein lay the dilemma; the Imperial government could retain certain of the restrictions against the Jews, and by doing so incur their undying hostility, or it could remove all restraints and thus pave the way for Jewish domination over every phase of Russian life. Certainly Alexander viewed this problem with increasing concern as time went on. Actually it was a problem capable of being solved. [sic-RW]
      Alexander II lost a considerable amount of his enthusiasm for liberal causes after an attempt was made to assassinate him in 1866. He dismissed his "liberal" advisors and from that time on displayed an inclination toward conservatism. This is not to say he became anti-Jewish, but he did show more firmness in dealing with them. In 1879 there was another attempt on his life, and another in the following year when his winter palace was blown up. In 1881 a plot hatched in the home of the Jewess, Hesia Helfman, was successful. Alexander II was blown up and so ended an era.

The New Policy
      The reaction to the assassination of Alexander II was instantaneous and far reaching. There was a widespread belief in and out of the government, that if the Jews were dissatisfied with the rule of Alexander II—whom the crypto-Jew, D'Israeli, had described as "the most benevolent prince that ever ruled Russia"—then they would be satisfied with nothing less than outright domination of Russia.
      Up to 1881 Russian policy had consistently been directed in an attempt to "Russianize" the Jew, preparatory to accepting him into full citizenship. In line with this policy, free and compulsory education for Jews had been introduced, repeated attempts had been made to encourage them to settle on farms, and special efforts had been made to encourage them to engage in the crafts. Now Russian policy was reversed. Hereafter it became the policy of the Imperial government to prevent the further exploitation of the Russian people by the Jews. Thus began the death struggle between Tsar and Jew.
      All through 1881 there was widespread anti-Jewish rioting all over the empire. Large numbers of Jews who had been permitted to settle beyond the Pale of Settlement were evicted. In May of 1882 the May Laws (Provisional Rules of May 3, 1882) were imposed, thus implementing the new governmental policy.
      The May Laws shook the empire to its foundations. The following passage is taken from Encyclopedia Britannica [page 76, volume 2, 1947]: "The Russian May Laws were the most conspicuous legislative monument achieved by modern anti-Semitism ... Their immediate results was a ruinous commercial depression which was felt all over the empire and which profoundly affected the national credit. The Russian minister was at his wit's end for money. Negotiations for a large loan were entered upon with the house of Rothschild and a preliminary contract was signed, when ... the finance minister was informed that unless the persecutions of the Jews were stopped the great banking house would be compelled to withdraw from the operation ... In this way anti-Semitism, which had already so profoundly influenced the domestic policies of Europe, set its mark on the international relations of the powers, for it was the urgent need of the Russian treasury quite as much as the termination of Prince Bismarck's secret treaty of mutual neutrality which brought about the Franco-Russian alliance."
      Thus, within a period of 92 years (from the 3rd partition to 1882) the Jews, although constituting only 4.2% of the population, had been able to entrench themselves so well in the Russian economy that the nation was almost bankrupted in the attempt to dislodge them. And, as we have seen, the nation's international credit was also affected.
      After 1881 events served increasingly to sharpen the enmity of Jewry toward Tsarism. The May Laws had not only restricted Jewish economic activity, but had attempted—unsuccessfully, as we shall see—to preserve Russia's cultural integrity. Hereafter Jews were permitted to attend state-supported schools and universities, but only in ratio to their population. This was not unreasonable since Russia's schools were flooded with Jewish students while large numbers of her gentile population were illiterate, but to the Jews this represented another bitter "persecution," and all the world was acquainted with the enormity of this new crime against Jewry ...
      On May 23rd a delegation of Jews headed by Baron Gunzberg called on the new Tsar (Alexander III) to protest the May Laws and the alleged discrimination against Jewry. As a result of the investigation which followed, Tsar Alexander issued an edict the following Sept. 3rd, a part of which is given here:
      "For some time the government has given its attention to the Jews and to their relations to the rest of the inhabitants of the empire, with a view of ascertaining the sad condition of the Christian inhabitants brought about by the conduct of the Jews in business matters ...
      During the last twenty years the Jews have gradually possessed themselves of not only every trade and business in all its branches, but also of a great part of the land by buying or farming it. With few exceptions, they have as a body devoted their attention, not to enriching or benefiting the country, but to defrauding by their wiles its inhabitants, and particularly its poor inhabitants. This conduct of theirs has called forth protests on the part of the people, as manifested in acts of violence and robbery. The government, while on the one hand doing its best to put down the disturbances, and to deliver the Jews from oppression and slaughter, have also, on the other hand, thought it a matter of urgency and justice to adopt stringent measures in order to put an end to the oppression practised by the Jews on the inhabitants, and to free the country from their malpractices, which were, as is known, the cause of the agitations." [Russia and Turkey in the 19th Century by E. W. Latimer, page 332. A. C. McClury & Co., 1895.]
      It was in this atmosphere that the twin movements of Marxism and Zionism began to take hold and dominate the mass of Russian Jewry. Ironically, both Zionism and Marxism were first promulgated by westernized German Jews. Zionism, whose chief advocate was Theodore Herzl, took root in Russia in the 1880s in competition with Marxism, whose high priest was Karl Marx, grandson of a rabbi ... Eventually every Russian Jew came to identify himself with either one or the other of these movements.

THE TERROR SECTION

BLOODY SUNDAY

Father Gapon
      One of the most outstanding trade union leaders—and certainly the most unusual—was Father Gapon, a priest in the Russian Orthodox Church. On the day Port Arthur fell a number of clashes occurred in Petersberg's giant Putilov works between members of Father Gapon's labor organization and company officials. A few days later the Putilov workers went on strike.
      Father Gapon resolved to take the matter directly to the Tsar. On the following Sunday thousands of Petersberg's workmen and their families turned out to participate in this appeal to the "little father". The procession was entirely orderly and peaceful and the petitioners carried patriotic banners expressing loyalty to the crown. At the palace gate the procession was met by a flaming volley of rifle fire. Hundreds of workmen and members of their families were slaughtered. This was "Bloody Sunday", certainly one of the blackest days in Tsarist history.
      Was Tsar Nicholas II responsible for Bloody Sunday, as Marxist propagandists have claimed? He couldn't have been because he was out of the city at the time. Father Gapon had marched on an empty palace. But the harm had been done. ...

Revolution of 1905
      Bloody Sunday marked the beginning of the 1905 revolution. For the first time the Jewish-Marxists were joined by large numbers of the working class. Bloody Sunday delivered Russia's industrial population into the hands of the Jew-dominated revolutionary movement.
      A strike broke out in Lodz in late January, and by June 22nd this developed into an armed insurrection in which 2000 were killed. The Tsar acted at once to recover the situation. In early February he ordered an investigation (by the Shidlovsky Commission) into the causes of unrest among the Petersberg workers, and later in the year (August) he announced provisions for establishing a legislature which later came to be the Duma. Not only that but he offered amnesty to political offenders, under which, incidentally, Lenin returned to Russia. But these attempts failed.
      On October 20th the Jewish Menshevik-led All-Russian Railway union went on strike. On the 21st a general strike was called in Petersberg, and on the 25th there were general strikes in Moscow, Smolensk, Kursk, and other cities.

PETERSBERG SOVIET

Parvus
      On Dec. 20th the Jew, Parvus, assumed control of a new executive committee of the Soviet and organized a general strike in Petersberg which involved 90,000 workers. The next day 150,000 workers went on strike in Moscow, and there were insurrections in Chita, Kansk, and Rostov. But within a week the government had gained the upper hand and by the 30th of December the revolution was over.

After 1905
      As an outcome of the 1905 revolution, Tsar Nicholas II set about remedying the shortcomings of his regime in a most commendable manner. At his decree, Russia was given representative government and a constitution. An elective legislative—the Duma—was established, and free elections were held. By these measures and others which followed, Russia seemed well on the way to becoming a constitutional monarchy patterned after the western European model, and as a point of fact it was only the outbreak of World War I which prevented this from becoming a reality.
      As would be expected, the Jewish revolutionary parties bitterly opposed these reforms, looking on them as merely a device by which the forces of revolution would be dissipated. Actually these measures did succeed in pacifying the Russian masses, and the years between 1905 and 1914 were ones of comparative quiet and progress. No man deserves more credit for this state of affairs than Premier Peter Arkadyevich Stolypin, who in the year following the 1905 revolt emerged as the most impressive figure in Imperial Russia.
      From 1906 to 1911 it is no exaggeration to say that he dominated Russian politics. It was he who gave Russia the famed "Stolypin Constitution," which among other things undertook to guarantee the civil rights of the peasantry, which constituted 85% of Russia's population. His land reforms, for which he is most famous, not only gave the peasant the right to own land, but actually financed the purchase with government loans. Stolypin was determined to give the peasant a stake in capitalism, believing that "the natural counterweight of the communal principal is individual ownership."
      Were the Stolypin land reforms effective? Bertram Wolfe, who is on all points anti-Tsarist and pro-revolutionary, has this to say [Three Who Made a Revolution, page 360, by Bertram Wolfe, Dial Press, New York, 1948] "Between 1907 and 1914, under the Stolypin land reform laws, 2,000,000 peasant families seceded from the village mir and became individual proprietors. All through the war the movement continued, so that by Jan. 1, 1916, 6,200,000 peasant families, out of approximately 16,000,000 eligible, had made application for separation. Lenin saw the matter as a race with time between Stolypin's reforms and the next upheaval. Should an upheaval be postponed for a couple of decades, the new land measures would so transform the countryside that it would no longer be a revolutionary force. How near Lenin came to losing the race is proved by the fact that in 1917, when he called on the peasants to "take the land," they already owned more than three-fourths of it."
      Russian Jewry wanted revolution, not reform. As early as 1906 an attempt had been made to assassinate Premier Stolypin when his country house was destroyed by a bomb. Finally in Sept. of 1911 the best premier Russia ever had was shot down in cold blood while attending a gala affair at the Kiev theatre. The assassin was a Jewish lawyer named Mordecai Bogrov. Thus it was that Russia had since 1902 lost two premiers to Jewish assassins.
      Many of Stolypin's reforms were carried out after his death. In 1912 an industrial insurance law was inaugurated which gave all industrial workmen sickness and accident compensation to the extent of two-thirds and three-fourths of their regular pay. For the first time the newspapers of the revolutionary parties were given legal status. Public schools were expanded and the election laws were revised. In 1913 a general amnesty for all political prisoners was given. Not even the severest critic of Tsarism can deny that these measures represented a sincere attempt on the part of the Imperial government to bring about reform. Why in spite of all this, was the Tsar overthrown?

World War I
      One of the chief factors contributing to the destruction of the Imperial government was the onset of World War I. Before the war the Imperial military establishment had contained perhaps 1,500,000 professional troops, well trained and loyal to the crown, ... "but by 1917 the regular army was gone. Its losses for the first ten months of the war were reckoned as 3,800,000, or, to take the reckoning of the Quartermaster-General, Danilov, 300,000 a month and the officers, who went into action standing, while commanding their men to crawl, were falling at twice the rate of the men." [Russia, page 41, by Bernard Pares, New American Library, New York, revised 1949.] Altogether 18 million men were called to the colors, most of whom were conscripted from the peasantry. Although courageous in battle they proved politically unreliable and were easily incited by agitators.
      Large numbers of the industrial population were also drafted into the armies, and their places were taken by peasants, fresh out of the country. As a result, Russia's principal cities came to be populated by a working class which was peasant in origin and habit of thinking, but which lacked the conservatism and stability which seems to go with tenure of the land. This new proletariat was in reality an uprooted and landless peasantry, poorly adjusted to city life, and easily stirred up by propagandists.
      Now—It should be remembered that the Russian revolution was carried out by a handful of revolutionaries operating mainly in the larger cities. While something like 85% of Russia's gentile population was rural, these country people took virtually no part in the revolt. Conversely only 2.4% of the Jewish population was actually situated on the farms; the great majority of the Jews were congregated in the cities. Says the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia: [page 285, vol. 9, Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, Inc., New York, 1939] "... it must be noted that the Jews lived almost exclusively in the cities and towns; in Russia's urban population the Jews constituted 11%. Two additional factors are taken into consideration. On the one hand the rural population took practically no part in political activities, and on the other there was virtually no illiteracy among the Russian Jews." As a matter of fact, the Jews represented a substantial portion of Russia's educated class. Not only that, but the overwhelming majority of Russia's professional class were Jews. So complete was the Jewish domination of the professions that only one out of eight of Russia's professional people were gentile. In other words, the Jews, who constituted 4.2% of Russia's pre-war population comprised something like 87% of its professional class.

The Evacuations
      Also significant was the fact that the theatre of war was situated in those areas most heavily populated by Jews. By 1914, it should be remembered, Russia's Jewish population was nearing the seven million mark. (The exact figure given in the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia is 6,946,000). A substantial number of these resided in Russian-Poland, which was a war zone. The majority of these Jews, out of hatred for the Tsarist regime, were inclined to favor a German victory. As a result, the Imperial high command was compelled to remove all Jews from the war area in the early part of 1915. In May of 1915, for example, the supreme command expelled all Jewish residents from the provinces of Courland and Grodno. Altogether, nearly a half million Jews were forced to leave their homes in the military zone. These expellees were at first required to remain within the Pale of Settlement, but in August of 1915 they were permitted to settle in all cities in the empire. Thus it was that as the war progressed a flood of Tsar-hating Jews began infiltrating the cities beyond the Pale ...

REVOLUTION

HISTORY OF BOLSHEVISM

Lenin
      Lenin (real name Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov) was born on the banks of the Volga in the provincial city of Simbirsk, in 1870. He was born to a station of comparative privilege, being the son of a government official whose title of "Actual State Counsellor" carried with it the privilege of hereditary nobility. Lenin's father did not himself inherit the title, but acquired it as a reward of service as a school supervisor.
      By every rule, "Lenin" should have become a respected member of Russian society. He was of middle class background, was university educated, and was admitted to the practice of law. That he dd not do so can be ascribed in part to the fate of his older brother, Alexander, who in 1887 was executed for participating in an attempt on the life of Tsar Alexander II. This is said to have influenced Lenin to take up the career of a professional revolutionary.
      In any event the year of 1895 finds young Lenin—then 25—meeting in Switzerland with the leaders of the "Group for the Emancipation of Labor". Shortly thereafter he returned to Russia in the company of young Julius Martov (Tsederbaum), a Jew who had already become prominent as an agitator in the Pale of Settlement, and who was one day to become the leader of the Menshevik faction. Their purpose was to raise funds for revolutionary activity.
      In Petersberg they became involved in a series of strikes which swept the city in 1895, and in the autumn of the same year Lenin, Martov, and a number of others were convicted and sent to prison for revolutionary activity.
      In February of 1897 Lenin completed his prison term and began his period of exile in Siberia. He was permitted to travel to Siberia at his own expense and he took with him his Jewish wife, Krupsakaya [sic; everyone else spells her Krupskaya-RW] and her Yiddish speaking mother.
      It should be explained that, contrary to popular belief, political exiles—unless convicted of a criminal act—were not imprisoned in Siberia; rather they were paroled there. In exile the government provided a pension, sufficient usually to maintain an existence. To supplement this, the exile sometimes sought local employment (Trotzky worked as a bookkeeper) or they got funds from friends and family. Lenin received a government allowance of 7 rubles 40 kopeks monthly, "'enough to pay for room, board and laundry." [Lenin (abridgement by Donald P. Geddes), page 26, by David Shub, New American Library, 1950 (Mentor Books).]
      While in Siberian exile Lenin, Martov, and an accomplice Potresov, formulated the idea of an "All Russian Newspaper" which would serve to combine the thought and energies of the entire revolutionary movement. The Marxists in 1900, as at all times in the future were divided and subdivided into a great many factions. Lenin's idea was to weld these various factions into a single organization.

Iskra

Communism as an organised movement began with the publishing of ISKRA (The Spark) in December of 1900. Three years later, in 1903, the "Iskrists" joined with the Polish Social Democrats, the Jewish Bund, and others, to form the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (which later changed its name to the Communist Party). ISKRA, like every other Communist publication which followed, was mainly edited and controlled by Jews.

      In February of 1900 Lenin was released from exile and applied for, and got, permission to go to Switzerland. In Geneva he joined the "Group for the Emancipation of Labor", and in December the Group began the publication of Iskra (The Spark). The establishment of Iskra marked the beginning of Russian Marxism as an organized movement, and the beginning of Lenin's role as a party leader.
      The editorial board consisted of the "oldsters", Plekhanov, Zasulich, Axelrod, and their disciples, Lenin, Potresov, and Martov. Lenin's Jewish wife, Krupsakaya, was the board's secretary. Later, in 1902, young Trotzky (Bronstein) joined the editorial board, but without voting privileges. Four of the above—Martov, Axelrod, Zasulich, and Trotzky—were Jews, while Plekhanov, Lenin, and Potresov were gentile. The editorial board thus contained four Jews and three gentiles, but since Trotzky was without vote, and since Plekhanov had retained two votes, the voting strength was exactly reversed, with the Jews having 3 votes to the gentile's four.
      It is interesting to note the editorial contributions of the first 45 editions of Iskra. The largest number of articles was written by Martov, who contributed 39. Next was Lenin, who wrote 32 articles, followed by Plekhanov with 24, Petresov with 8, Zasulich with 6, and Axelrod with 4. In addition, articles were written by Parvus, Trotzky, and Rosa Luxemberg, all of whom were Jewish. It is worth recording that the only other revolutionary paper in existence at this time was "Rabochee Delo" (Workers Cause), organ of the "Economist" faction, of whom the Jew, Theodore Dan was the editor.
      Iskra was actually printed in Munich, Germany. For a time the editorial board met in London, but in 1903 it was moved back to Geneva. From there copies of Iskra were smuggled into Russia by ship and courier. In this way Iskra built up an underground organization of professional revolutionaries, first known as "Iskrists", and later as Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.

      In Switzerland Axelrod eked out an existence by peddling yogurt, and Plekhanov is said to have addressed letters for an income. But the founders and leaders of communism were not proletarians. Almost without exception they were highly educated Jewish intellectuals, few of whom had ever performed a useful day's labor.

Unification Congress
      In 1903 a Unification Congress convened in Brussels, Belgium. Its purpose was to unite the various Marxists groups into the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party, which technically had been formed in 1898, but which had failed to bring unity.
      Altogether, 60 voting delegates attended, four of whom were, or had been, workers. The rest were mostly Jewish intellectuals. Represented were the groups which had formed the party in 1898: The Jewish Bund, the Georgian Social Democrats, Rosa Luxemberg's Polish Social democrats, and the Group for the Emancipation of Labor, now identified as "Iskrists". The Maximalist's newspaper, "Rabochee Delo" was also represented by 3 delegates. These groups, their leaders, and their disciples, made the revolution of 1917. Here, Communism as we know it, was born.
      In early August the Belgium Police deported a number of delegates and the Unification Congress moved en masse to England, where it convened from August 11th to the 23rd. One very important outcome of the congress was the ideological split which divided the Iskrists into two camps: The Bolsheviks (majority faction), headed by Lenin and the Mensheviks (minority faction), headed by Martov.
      The final act of the congress was to elect Lenin, Plekhanov, and Martov to the editorial board of Iskra. This new board of three never actually functioned, due to the hostility between Martov and Lenin. After issue No. 53 Lenin resigned leaving it in the hands of Martov, Plekhanov, Axelrod, Zasulich and Petresov, the latter three being admitted to the board following Lenin's resignation.
      Although Lenin's faction clung to the Bolshevik label, they did not at any time command a real majority in the party. Lenin had temporarily been able to dominate the Unification Congress when the Jewish Bund's delegation had walked out in a huff over party policy. Because Lenin had been temporarily able to martial [sic-RW] a majority of the remaining delegates to his support, his faction had been identified as the Bolshevik, or majority faction, and always thereafter Lenin and his followers were known as Bolsheviks. It is important to note that this Bolshevik-Menshevik split was among the Iskrists only. The two other major factions of the party—Rosa Luxemberg's Polish Social Democrats and the Jewish Bund—were neither Bolshevik nor Menshevik, although both factions usually teamed up with the Mensheviks on party policy. (In 1917, however, both the Polish party and the Bund merged into the Bolshevik faction.)

Revolution of 1905
      The 1905 revolution came unexpectedly. Jewish agitators, seizing upon the discontent engendered by Russia's defeat by the Japanese, and capitalizing on the "Bloody Sunday" incident—which we have already described—fanned the flames of insurrection into being in what was to be a dress rehearsal of the 1917 revolution.
      The revolt, coming so quickly on the heels of the Bloody Sunday incident, caught the party leadership by surprise. Lenin was in Geneva and he did not return to Petersberg until October—shortly before the Petersburg Soviet was organized. Martov the Menshevik leader, returned at the same time. Rosa Luxemberg arrived in December, by which time the insurrection had ended. Axelrod got only as far as Finland, and Plekhanov never returned at all. The 1905 revolution was principally led by second-string leaders, virtually all of whom were identified with the Mensheviks.
      Trotzky alone of the top leadership had sensed the significance of "Bloody Sunday," and at the first word of revolution he and a Jewish compatriot, Parvus, had struck out for Petersberg.
      Using the pseudonym Yanovsky, he very quickly became a leading member of the Soviet, and by the end of October was generally recognized as the most influential member of the Executive Committee. In addition, he edited (with Parvus) the Menshevik organ, Nachato. Later, under the pseudonym, "Peter Petrovich" he edited the "Russkyaya Gazeta." On Dec. 9, as we have previously related, he was elected president of the Petersberg Soviet, and following his arrest Parvus assumed leadership of the revolt.
      Although Lenin had been in St. Petersberg throughout the life of the Petersberg Soviet, neither he nor any member of his faction played a prominent part in its activities. When the 300 members of the Soviet were finally arrested, not a single prominent Bolshevik was among them. The revolution of 1905 was strictly a Menshevik affair.

The London Congress
      In 1907 (May 13 - June 1) a fifth Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party was held, this time in London. This was by all accounts the most impressive one of all, and it was the last one held before the 1917 revolution. Represented at the Congress were:
      The Bolsheviks, led by Lenin—91 delegates.
      The Mensheviks, led by Martov and Dan—89 delegates.
      The Polish Social Democrats, led by Rosa Luxemberg—44 delegates.
      The Jewish Bund, led by Rafael Abramovitch and M. I. Lieber—55 delegates.
      The Lettish Social Democrats, led by "Comrade Herman" (Danishevsky).

      Altogether there were 312 delegates to the Congress, of whom 116 were, or had been, workers. Dominating the Congress were the great names of the party: there were the founders of the movement, Plekhanov, Axelrod, Deutch, and Zasulich—who after 1907 played roles of diminishing importance in party affairs—and their disciples, Lenin, Martov, Dan (Gurvich), and Trotzky. There were Abramovich and Lieber (Goldman) of the Bund, and Rosa Luxemberg, the latter one day being destined to lead a revolution of her own in Germany. Present also were Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Stalin, none of whom were important in 1907, but who are listed here because one day they would be the three most powerful men in Russia. Significantly all of those named were Jewish, excepting Lenin, Plekhanov, and Stalin.

      Perhaps one of the most important matters taken up by the London Congress was the bitterly controversial question of "expropriations." It should be explained that Lenin's Bolshevik faction had to an increasing degree resorted to outlawry to replenish its finances. Robbery. kidnapping, and theft became regular party activities. And on one occasion a loyal Bolshevik married a rich widow to secure funds for the party treasury. These activities were referred to in party circles as "expropriations." The most famous expropriation was the Tiflis bank robbery, engineered by young Josef Stalin shortly after the London Congress.

In communist Russia the penalty for revolutionary activity is always death. Under the more tolerant rule of the Tsars the penalty was exile in Siberia. Stalin was exiled no less than 5 times. The photo above shows him with a friend (Suren Spandaryan) during exile in Monastyrskoye, Turukhansk, Siberia.

      The Mensheviks bitterly criticized these tactics, while Lenin stoutly defended them as a necessary means of raising capital. The "expropriation" question broke out again and again as a point of contention between the two factions. Actually a great deal of Lenin's strength came from this source. With money thus raised he was able to pay the traveling expenses of delegates to these various congresses, and this gave him a voting power which was probably out of proportion to his following. Lenin's opposition on the expropriation question came not only from Martov's Menshevik faction, but also from the Jewish Bund and Rosa Luxemberg's Polish Social Democrats. The Jewish Bund and Rosa Luxemberg's faction usually sided with the Mensheviks in these intra-party squabbles. and it was not until 1917, when they were actually incorporated into the Bolshevik faction, that Lenin was able to actually control the entire party.
      The Tiflis bank robbery has now become a part of the legend which surrounds Stalin, and it is perhaps worth while to give it some attention. Although the robbery was engineered by Stalin, then a minor party worker, the actual hold-up was carried out by an Armenian by the name of Petroyan, who is known in Russian history as "Kamo." Kamo's method was crude but effective: he tossed a dynamite bomb at a bank stage which was transporting 250,000 rubles in currency. In the resulting explosion some 30 people were killed and Kamo escaped with the loot, which consisted mainly of 500 ruble notes.
      The Bolsheviks encountered considerable difficulty in converting these 500 ruble notes into usable form. It was decided that agents in various countries would simultaneously cash as many as possible in a single day. The operation was not a complete success. The Jewess, Olga Ravich, who was one day to marry Zinoviev was apprehended by police authorities, as was one Meyer Wallach, whose real name was Finklestein, and who is better known as Maxim Litinov. [sic-RW] Litinov later became Commissar of Foreign Affairs (1930-39).

The Year 1908
      In the autumn of 1908 the Bolsheviks began publishing the Proletariie, with Lenin, Dubrovinsky, Zinoviev, and Kamenev (the latter two Jewish) as editors. In the same year the Menshevik organ, Golos Sotsial-Demokrata began publication, edited by Plekhanov, Axelrod, Martov, Dan, and Martynov (Pikel), all of whom were Jewish with the exception of Plekhanov. In Oct. of 1908 the Vienna Pravda was launched, with Trotzky as editor.

The Troika
      In 1909 the Lenin-Zinoviev-Kamenev "troika" was formed. It was to endure until Lenin's death in 1924. Zinoviev and Kamenev were Lenin's inseparable companions. Later, when the Bolsheviks were in power, Trotzky would become co-equal with Lenin, and even something of a competitor, but Kamenev and Zinoviev were never Lenin's equals nor his competitors—they were his right and left hand. They would argue with him, and fight with him, and oppose him in party councils, but the "troika" was broken only when Lenin died.

January Plenum
      In January of 1910 the 19 top leaders of the Party met in what historians refer to as the "January Plenum of the Central Committee." Its purpose was, as always, to promote party unity. One outcome was that Lenin was compelled to burn the remainder of the 500 ruble notes from the Tiflis expropriation, which he had been unable to cash anyway. Another outcome of the January Plenum was the recognition of the newspaper, Sotsial Demokrata, as the general party newspaper. Its editors were the Bolsheviks, Lenin and Zinoviev, and the Mensheviks, Martov and Dan. Lenin was the only gentile. Trotzky's semi-independent "Vienna Pravda" was declared to be an official party organ, and Kamenev was appointed to help edit it. Who could have foretold in the year 1910 that within seven short years this Yiddish crew would be the lords and masters of all Russia?

The 1917 Revolution
      The 1917 revolution, like that of 1905. caught the top leaders of the party unprepared. Lenin and Martov were in Switzerland, and Trotzky was eking out an existence in New York's East Side.
      Shortly after the March revolution the German government did a peculiar thing. It arranged to ship Lenin, Martov, Radek, and 32 members of the party across Germany to Russia. The German strategy seemed to be based on the assumption—which later proved correct—that the communists would work to sabotage the Russian war effort, now being prosecuted by the Provisional Government. Perhaps the Lenin group had some such agreement with the Germans, no one knows. But one thing is certain: 48 hours after the Bolsheviks came to power, Trotzky began negotiations for an armistice. But that story comes later.
      On April 3rd, just 23 days after the provisional government had been formed, Lenin and his party arrived in Petersberg. Within 7 months he and his faction would be the supreme dictators of all Russia.

PETERSBERG SOVIET

The Provisional Government
      The Provisional Government was not a revolutionary body. Of its 12 members, only one, Kerensky, was a "Socialist." The others were typical upper-middle class members of the Duma, with possibly mild leanings to the left. Head of the Provisional Government was Prince Lvov, whose reputation as a liberal may have qualified him for that position more than some of the others. This 12 man government had sprung into being simply because no other semblance of a government existed in Petersberg on March l2th—it did not in any way participate in the revolution. In the months following the overthrow of the Tsar, however, its power grew considerably, so that by July when an abortive Bolshevik uprising occurred, the Provisional Government was able to quell the affair and arrest or force into hiding the Bolshevik leaders.
      The Provisional Government undertook to continue the war against Germany. The great mass of people were, of course, patriotic Russians, and Germany was looked on as a dangerous threat to Russian sovereignty. The Provisional Government, during its entire tenure, was primarily occupied with the prosecution of the war.
      The Provisional Government took two steps, however, which were to profoundly affect the revolution. The first, and most fateful, was the decision to permit the return of all exiled political prisoners from Siberia and abroad. By doing so it sealed the fate of Russia. Here is the way one American writer, Edward Alworth Ross, has described it [Russian Bolshevik Revolution, page 58, by Edward Alsworth Ross, Century Company. New York. 1921]:
      "One of the first acts of the Provisional government, however, is to bring back to Russia the political victims of the autocracy. From Siberia about eighty thousand are brought out. From Switzerland, France, Scandinavia, the United States, even from Argentina and other remote countries, come perhaps ten thousand who have been refugees from the tsar's vengeance. In all ninety thousand at least, virtually all of them of socialist sympathies, stream into European Russia in late April, May, June, and July. Honored by a grateful people for their voluntary sacrifices and sufferings they quickly rise to a commanding influence in the local soviets and carry them irresistibly toward the political left."
      These ninety thousand exiles constituted the heart of the approaching Bolshevik revolution. They were almost to the last man professional revolutionaries, and with few exceptions they were Jewish. Stalin, Sverdlov, and Zinoviev were among the exiles who returned from Siberia. Lenin, Martov, Radek, and Kamenev—as we have seen—returned from Switzerland. Trotzky returned, with hundreds of his Yiddish brethren, from New York's East Side. These were the inheritors of the revolution. Until their return the revolution had been without leadership—largely it had been conducted by second string leaders who happened to be on the spot. Now the elite were returning. Let us take another quotation from the starry-eyed Edward Alworth Ross, whose prose is almost as poor as his judgment: "The bewildered leaderless Russian masses are thrilled and captivated by these ready, self-confident men who tell them just what they must do in order to garner for themselves the fruits of the revolution. This is why refugees, obscure to us although not to Russians, who in exile had been obliged to work in our steel mills and tailor shops for a living, former residents of New York's "Eastside", who lived precariously from some Russian newspapers we Americans never heard of, will rise to be the heads of soviets and, later, cabinet ministers of a government ruling a tenth of the human race. In all modern history there is no romance like it." [Russian Bolshevik Revolution (ibid p. 45), page 67]

	When the Bolsheviks came to power, they systematically undertook to destroy every vestige of opposition by exterminating the upper classes of Russian society. The fury of the Red Terror can be explained only as a manifestation of Jewish hatred against Christian civilization.

     Soon these hordes of returning Jews would exercise the power of life and death over 150 million Christian Russians. Soon every factory, every government bureau every school district, and every army unit would function under the gimlet eye of a Jewish Commissar. Soon the blood of human beings would be oozing from under the doors of communist execution chambers as tens of thousands of Christian men and women were butchered like cattle in a slaughterhouse. Soon five million landowners would be deliberately starved to death as part of a premeditated plan. Soon a move would be under way to exterminate the gentile leader class of the entire nation by murdering every Christian factory owner, and lawyer, and government leader, and army officer, and every other person who had been, or might be, a potential leader. Soon the standing population of the slave labor camps would exceed 15 million. Soon every church and cathedral would be gutted and every priest and preacher would become a criminal in his own community. Soon Russia would have a zombie-proletariat docile, willing to work, easily controlled, incapable of revolt ... Such was the "romance" of the Bolshevik revolution.
 

Constituent Assembly Elections
      A second important act of the Provisional Government was to create the machinery for the election of a Constituent Assembly. It was provided that delegates from all of Russia should be chosen in free elections, and these were to meet in a Constituent Assembly for the purpose of writing a constitution for Russia. It was to be, as one writer puts it [Stalin: An Appraisal of the Man and His Influence, by Lev Trotsky (translated by Charles Malamuth), Harper Bros., New York & London, 1941] "a body encompassing the purposes of both the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention of the American Revolution."
      When the Constituent Assembly did meet, in January of 1918, the Bolsheviks had already been in power a month. "It met at the Tauride Palace in Petrograd and lasted less than 13 hours; from four in the afternoon of Jan. 18, to 40 minutes past four of Jan. 19, when it was dispersed by Bolshevik troops, chiefly soldiers of Lettish regiments." One of the factors which precipitated the October Revolution was the forthcoming elections for the Constituent Assembly.

All-Russian Congress of Soviets
      One other event occurred which was to affect the outcome of the revolution. This was the convening of the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets in Petersberg on June 3rd, 1917. It should be explained that the word "soviet" means "council", or "committee". Following the March Revolution, literally hundreds of local revolutionary Soviets were organized all over Russia by the various Marxists parties. It was decided that a congress of these soviets should meet for the purpose of unifying the forces of the revolution.
      This first Congress of Soviets was dominated by the Mensheviks and Essars. (Essars = Social Revolutionary Party). The Bolsheviks had fewer than 40 delegates out of several hundred attending.
      Before disbanding, the Congress of Soviets set October 20th (later changed to Nov. 7th) as the date for the convening of the next Congress. This date is extremely important because it marks the date of the Bolshevik Revolution. When the Second Congress of Soviets did convene, on the evening of November 7th, the Bolsheviks had already gained control of the Petersberg Soviet and had overthrown the Provisional Government a few hours earlier. The Bolsheviks were thus able to present the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets with a "fait accompli". This Second Congress of Soviets became the official government of Communist Russia on that same evening of November 7th, 1917.

Lenin Returns
      But now we must turn our attention back to Lenin and his party at the time of their arrival from abroad. When Lenin arrived in Petersberg in April of 1917, he found the Petersberg Soviet dominated by the Mensheviks, with the Essars (Social Revolutionaries) second in membership, and the Bolsheviks in the minority. President of the Soviet was the Menshevik, Tcheidze, a "defensist" who strongly supported the war effort. Of the two vice-presidents, one was Skobelev, also a Menshevik, and the other was Kerensky, the only member of the 12 man Provisional Government who also belonged to the Soviet.
      Although the Mensheviks controlled the Petersberg Soviet, they were badly divided among themselves. The main body of the Menshevik faction—the defensists—was headed by Theodore Dan (Gurvich) and M. I. Lieber (formerly of the Jewish Bund). The other group of Mensheviks,—the internationalists—was headed by Martov.
      Lenin bitterly criticized this state of affairs. He regarded the provisional government as an instrument of the "bourgeois" and he immediately and violently advocated its overthrow. Throughout April, May, and June the Bolsheviks preached the destruction of the Provisional Government, and among the factory workers and the military garrisons around Petersberg this propaganda began to take effect. Under the slogan "all power to the Soviets", the Bolsheviks had succeeded by July in recruiting to their banners large numbers of the city's more radical elements.
      The returning influx of exiles also enhanced the position of the Bolsheviks. These exiles were not all originally Bolsheviks, but they were almost without exception extremists, and they had waited a long time for revolution to come: they were hungry for power. And they were inclined to favor the Bolsheviks because they were the most radical advocates of direct action. Trotzky, who had in 1905 began a Menshevik, and who had later been a "neutral", immediately joined the Bolsheviks on his return from New York. So it was with many others.
      On July 17th this anti-government agitation resulted in an unscheduled uprising by thousands of the city's inflamed worker-soldier population. In modern Russian history these are known as the "July Days". Kerensky, who by now had become the dominant figure in the Provisional Government dealt with the insurrection with considerable firmness. The mob was fired on, and in the course of the next three days several hundred people were killed.
      As a result of the "July Days" uprising, the top Bolshevik leadership was either arrested or forced to flee. Lenin and Zinoviev temporarily hid out in Sestroretsk, outside of Petersberg. Trotzky, Kamenev, and Lunacharsky (soon to become prominent) were arrested. Stalin, at that time an editor of Pravda, was not molested.
      One result of the "July Days" was the collapse of the Provisional Government under the premiership of Prince Lvov. On July 20th, Kerensky (Adler) the Jewish Napoleon, became Prime Minister of a 'salvation of the revolution' government. Kerensky was quite an orator, and he applied himself to the task of whipping up enthusiasm for an offensive against the Germans. Although he met with moderate success at first, the offensive failed and Kerensky's influence declined steadily in the next three months.

SIXTH PARTY CONGRESS

      Thus, Trotzky again cites evidence to prove that Stalin was not an important figure in the Bolshevik Party in 1917. But in doing so he names the real leaders, who as before are the Jews, Kamenev, Zinoviev, Trotzky, and the up and coming Sverdlov. Lenin is the only gentile.

The above cut [Outmoded expression meaning 'woodcut'] is taken from Trotzky's book Stalin. It is a reproduction of a postcard widely circulated in Russia following the Bolshevik Revolution. It is entitled "Leaders of the Proletarian Revolution". Trotzky uses this as evidence to prove that Stalin, whom he despised, was not an important figure in the October Revolution—which it does nicely. But it also reveals the Jewishness of these original leaders of the Communist Party: Four of those appearing above are Jews, and a fifth, Lenin, is married to a Jewess. Shown above are (1) Lenin, (2) Trotzky, (3) Zinoviev, (4) Lunacharsky (a gentile), (5) Kamenev, (6) Sverdlov. These were the leaders of the Communist Revolution of 1917.

      Because the top party leaders were either in prison or in hiding as a result of the abortive July Days uprising, the Sixth Party Congress was organized by the lesser lights of the party, of whom Sverdlov was the most active. Lev Trotzky, ever anxious to discredit Stalin, gives us this description: "The praesidium consisted ofSverdlov, Olminsky, Lomov, Yurenev, and Stalin. Even here, with the most prominent figures of Bolshevism absent, Stalin's name is listed in last place. The Congress resolved to send greetings to 'Lenin, Trotzky, Zinoviev, Lunacharsky, Kamenev, Kollontai, and all the others arrested and persecuted comrades'. These were elected to the honorary praesidium." [Stalin (ibid page 48) page 217.] Here again, in the words of Trotzky, we have named the "most prominent figures of Bolshevism": Lenin, Trotzky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Kollontai and Lunacharsky. And we know these were the most important leaders because they were the ones Kerensky had arrested or driven underground following the July Days revolt. Of these, only Lunacharsky and Lenin were gentile; the others were Jewish. These facts show why the Jewishness of communism is so immediately and indisputably apparent to anyone who has the slightest knowledge of Bolshevik history.

TROTZKY TO POWER

Table of Contents | Top
      On August 17th Kamenev was released from prison, and exactly a month later Trotzky was also freed by the Kerensky regime. On Sept. 24th Trotzky was elected president of the Petersberg Soviet, displacing Cheidze, the Menshevik. From this moment on the Bolsheviks were in control of the Petersberg Soviet. On October 29th the Petersberg Soviet voted to transfer all military power to a "Military Revolutionary Committee", headed by Trotzky. Revolution was now only days away.

Military Revolutionary Committee
      The Military Revolutionary Committee, under the chairmanship of Trotzky, was organized for the express purpose of preparing the revolution. Time was running out and it was a matter of striking soon or not at all. The Constituent Assembly elections were only a few weeks off, and when it convened, Russia was to have a new government. There was another reason for striking soon. The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets was to meet on Nov. 7th. The Bolsheviks feared—and with reason—that the Kerensky government would arrest or disband the entire congress and thereby doom the revolt. For these reasons it was felt essential to overthrow the Provisional Government by or before the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets convened on Nov. 7th.
      On November 4th the Military Revolutionary Committee arranged huge mass meetings in preparation for the forthcoming revolt. On .the following day the garrison of the Peter and Paul Fortress declared itself in alliance with the Bolsheviks. On the 6th Kerensky made one last attempt to forestall revolution by ordering the arrest of the Military Revolution Committee, banning all Bolshevik publications, and ordering fresh troops to replace the Petersberg garrison. These measures were never carried out.

Revolution
      On the evening of November 6th Lenin came out of hiding and joined the Military Revolutionary Committee at Smolny Institute which served as revolutionary headquarters. At two A.M. the following morning the revolution began.
      By noon the city was largely in Bolshevik hands. At three P.M. Lenin delivered a fiery speech to the Petersberg Soviet—his first since July. At nine P.M. Bolshevik troops began their two day siege of the Winter Palace, last stronghold of the Provisional Government.
      At eleven P. M. the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets convened with the Bolsheviks in a clear majority. The Congress was now the official government of Russia. The Jew Kamenev, was elected its first President. Lenin became Premier. Trotzky was made Commissar of Foreign Affairs. Before dawn it had elected a Central Executive Committee under the chairmanship of Kamenev, who thus had the distinction of being the first President of the "Soviet Republic".
      Within a few days (Nov. 21) the Jew, Sverdlov, succeeded Kamenev, and thus became the second Jewish president of the "Soviet Republic". A relatively minor figure in Bolshevik circles six months before the revolution, he very quickly became one of the five top men in the party.
      Before his early death two years later he had become the party's chief trouble-shooter and had assumed absolute control over Russia's economic life.

CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY

War Commissar
      Meanwhile the enemies of the new regime were gathering strength. Before the year was over the Soviet Government was under attack on six war fronts. Some of these anti-communist armies were organized by pro-Tsarist sympathizers; others were organized and financed by foreign governments. These "White Russian" forces constituted a dangerous threat to the new regime, and in March Trotzky relinquished his post as Commissar of Foreign Affairs to become Commissar of War, a position which gave him authority over the Soviet Government's entire military resources. It was he who organized and led the Red Army to victory Not until 1921 were the last of the anti-communist forces destroyed.

The above is a reproduction of a banner displayed by the Bolsheviks on the first anniversary of the Communist Revolution. After having butchered the royal family and a substantial part of the nation's ruling class, the Bolsheviks set out to "educate" the Russian people to the joys of proletarian life. So successful has this program of "education" been, that the enslaved Russian people actually believe they are privileged to live under Jew-Communism. The above poster, incidentally, again reveals the Jewishness of the Communist leadership: of the twelve shown, five are Jews and one (Lenin) is married to a Jewess. To the right of Lenin: Pokrovsky, Kamenev*, Sverdlov*, Lunacharsky, Kollontai, Krylenko, Zinoviev*, Bukharin, Trotsky*, Rykov, Radek*. *NOTE: On a previous page Mme. Kollontai is inadvertently identified as Jewish. Her nationality is unverified.

Murder of the Royal Family

      Shortly after the March Revolution of 1917 the Tsar had applied for permission for himself and his family to leave the country. Nicholas II was closely related to the royal families of England and Denmark, and he felt exile there was preferable to remaining a prisoner in his own land. The Provisional Government had been inclined to grant his request, but the Petersberg Soviet had blocked the move and the royal family had been transferred to Ekaterinburg, in south Russia. There, in 1918, they were housed in the home of a local merchant named Ipatiev. On July 17th anti-Bolshevik troops advanced on Ekaterinburg and the local commissar, a Jew by the name of Yorovsky, ordered the family—and their household servants—executed. Yorovsky personally dispatched Nicholas with a pistol shot in the head. The rest of the family was executed by a firing squad. Their bodies were then soaked in oil and burned ...
      Should the reader be moved to look up the position of Ekaterinburg on a modern day map of Soviet Russia, he will find no trace of it. The former city and province of Ekaterinburg has been renamed "Sverdlovsk", in honor of the Jew, Yakov Sverdlov, president of the "Soviet Republic" at the time of the execution ...

THE RED TERROR

The Third International
      A basic tenet of Marxist ideology was, and