[p. 22]

Leading Article reprinted from
The Times
of August 18, 1921
[by an editor]

We publish to-day the last of the articles on the so-called "Protocols of the Elders of Zion [sic]" from our Constantinople Correspondent, who has effectively exposed a remarkable forgery. We have, of course, no political object in making this discovery known. On the general aspects of the Jewish problem our attitude is known to be impartial, and we have no intention of taking sides in those political controversies on this question which too frequently engender excessive passion and obsc ure its real character. In the interests of objective truth, however, it was of great importance that a legend like that so long connected with the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" should be exposed at the earliest possible opportunity.

Briefly summarized, the facts of this curious historical incident are as follows. A Russian book, published in 1905 by an official named SERGEI NILUS, contained a document described as "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," and purported to be a summary of the proceedings of a secret meeting of a Jewish organization that was plotting in France to overthrow Gentile civilization and establish a Jewish world State. The document attracted little attention until after the Russian revolution i n 1917, when the astounding collapse of a great country through the action of the Bolshevists and the presence of a large number of Jews in the Bolshevist ranks caused many to search for some simplified explanation of the catastrophe. The "protocols " appeared to provide such an explanation, more particularly since the tactics [p. 23] of the Bolshevists in many respects resembled those advocated in the "Protocols." The book was tr anslated into several European languages and made the basis for impassioned dissertations on an alleged Jewish world peril. There was a certain plausibility about this thesis that attracted many; but the authenticity of the "Protocols" was very vigorously called in question, and the whole matter was shrouded in doubt until our Correspondent made his remarkable discovery. A Russian in Constantinople, who had bought some books from an ex-officer of the Russian Secret Police, found among them one in which many passages struck him by their resemblance to the "Protocols." Our Correspondent, whose attention was called to the matter, found on examination that the "Protocols" consisted in the main of clumsy plagiarisms from this l ittle French book, which he has forwarded to us. The book had no title-page, but we identified it in the British Museum as a political pamphlet directed against NAPOLEON III. and published in Brussels in 1865 by a French lawyer named MAURICE JOLY, and en titled "Dialogue aux Enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu." The book was published anonymously, but the author was immediately seized by NAPOLEON's police and sentenced to a term of imprisonment. A second edition was published in Brussels in 1868, with the author's name and a note on his imprisonment.

The author of the "protocols" simply copied from the "Dialogues" a number of passages in which MACHIAVELLI is made to enunciate the doctrines and tactics of despotism as they were at that time practiced by NAPOLEON, and put them into the mouth of an imaginary Jewish Elder. There can be little doubt that the forgery was perpetrated by some member of the Russian Secret Police. NILUS, who may have acted in good faith, declared [p. 24] that the manuscript of the "Protocols" had been given him by an official named ALEXANDER SUKHOTIN, who professed to have received it from a woman who had stolen it from an Elder of Zion. On the leather back of the copy of the "Dial ogues" sent us by our Correspondent we notice the letters A.S., and, seeing that the book was bought from an ex-officer of the Secret Police, it seems possible that this copy belonged at one time to SUKHOTIN, and that it was the copy actually used in the compilation of the "protocols." For many years there was a close connexion between the Russian and the French police, and one of the confiscated copies of JOLY's book may easily have fallen into the hands of a Russian agent – such as RACHKOVSKY, at one time head of the Russian Secret Police in Paris, to whom other and more clumsy forgeries have been traced – and may have inspired him to invent a weapon for use against Jewish revolutionaries. At any rate, the fact of the plagiarism has now been conclusively established, and the legend may be allowed to pass into oblivion. The historical interest of the discovery is considerable, though, as we have indicated, it does not, in our opinion, affect the Jewish problem, which happily, in this co untry, cannot be said to exist in its Continental form.