The anti-Semitic press of both hemispheres charges that Bolshevism in Russia and elsewhere is a movement instigated and led by Jews, as part of a great conspiracy to bring about the Jewish domination of the world.  The reasons for making this charge are only too obvious.  Bolshevism is repugnant to the great mass of civilized mankind, by whom it is rightly regarded as a sort of moral leprosy.  Whatever may be thought of the possibility of Sovietism in industry and government, Bolshevism, the spiritual dynamic as distinguished from the mechanical agent, is the negation of every virtuous principle which mankind holds in reverence.  It frankly bases government upon brute force wielded by the few, and denies the ideal toward which all nations are striving, the ideal of government based upon the sanction of the governed.  It unites in a terrible synthesis all the worst agencies and methods of tsarism and of militarism.  To persuade the people of this or any other civilized country that Bolshevism is essentially a Jewish movement, part of a conspiracy to reduce civilization to chaos, and so prepare the way for a Jewish supergovernment of the world, would mean the rapid organization of the rest of the population against the Jews in every phase of life ­politics, commerce, industry, education, social intercourse, and so on.

In support of this most serious charge not a single shred of credible evidence has ever been adduced by any anti-Semitic writer or organ.  For the universally known fact that there are Jews among the leaders of Bolshevism, in Russia and elsewhere, is not evidence that Bolshevism is essentially or primarily a Jewish movement; neither is it evidence that Bolshevism is a part of a Jewish conspiracy to obtain world domination.  All that it proves is that which needs no proof ­that there are Jews among the Bolsheviki.  I repeat that in support of the charge not a shred of credible evidence has ever been adduced.  In that shameful book, The Cause of World Unrest, consisting of articles reprinted from the London Morning Post, the anonymous author gives a list of fifty names of “persons who either are the actual governing powers in Soviet Russia now or were responsible for the establishment of the present regime there.”  There is both guile and cowardice in the latter part of this charge.  It is easy to argue, with a certain plausibility, that every person who helped in the revolution of March, 1917, must be held “responsible for the establishment of the present regime.”  I have heard many Russians make the charge that Kerensky, the anti-Bolshevist, was “responsible” for the establishment of the Bolshevist regime.  I have heard others charge the same thing against such men as Rodzianko, Prince Lvov, and Professor Miliukov.  What these Russians meant was that the failure of these men and others to deal properly with the situation existing at the time of the March revolution made the triumph of Bolshevism possible.  In that sense, we might as well go back a stage farther and present the names of Tsar Nicholas II and all his responsible Ministers as “persons who ... were responsible for the establishment of the present regime.”  This, however, is not what the Morning Post desires to convey to the mind of the reader.  It insinuates, in a most cowardly fashion, that the fifty persons named by it are Bolsheviki and falsely alleges that of the fifty no less than forty-two are Jews.

Concerning this list of names a few observations are necessary.  The compiler of the list was not honest; he did not intend to place the reader in possession of the truth.  This is evidenced by several facts.  In the first place, many influential leaders of the Bolsheviki whose names are familiar to all who have given even ordinary attention to the subject are conspicuously absent.  The reason for the omission is that these men are non-Jews. Their inclusion in the list would have destroyed the author’s charge. He has suppressed important facts in the interest of his wretched case.  I searched the list in vain for the names of such prominent leaders of the Bolshevist movement as Bucharin, Rakovsky, Miliutin, Raskolnikov, Shliapnikov, Latzis, Rykov, Stalin, Krestinsky, Bonch-Brouyevich, Dybenko, Dzerzhinsky, Krylenko, Gorky, Andreyeva, Nogin, Platakov, Kalinin, Boky, and many others less well known.  Anyone who is at all familiar with the subject will recognize in the names I have here given some of the most active and influential leaders of the Bolsheviki.  Not one of them is a Jew, and I submit that to omit them from a list of names which pretends to be representative is as dishonest as it is cowardly.

The list is thoroughly dishonest, moreover, in that it sets down as Jews men who are well known to be Gentiles.  For example, Manouilsky, number forty-six on the list, is described as a Jew, whereas it is well known that he is a Gentile, a Ukrainian.  Bogdanov, number ten on the list, is likewise wrongfully described.  His real name is not Silberstein, as alleged, but Malinovsky.  Neither is he a Jew, as alleged, but a Gentile, a Russian.  These two illustrations will serve to show how little reliance can be placed upon the list.  Whether there are other misrepresentations of the same kind I am unable to say, for the reason that the list contains many names of persons who do not hold and have not held any important position in Russia, either under the Bolsheviki or the earlier Provisional Government headed by Kerensky.  These persons are absolutely unknown to me, even by name, and they are equally unknown to every Russian revolutionary leader to whom I have submitted them.  It is quite probable, therefore, that these names of alleged Jews hide the identity of men who are not Jews at all.

Not only does this precious list studiously omit many of the principal leaders of the Bolshevist regime simply because they are not Jews, and misrepresent well-known Gentiles as Jews; quite as bad is the fact that it includes many names of men who are not only not supporters of the Bolshevist regime, but actually leaders of the most determined opposition to it.  Here is a list which is submitted in proof of the charge that “nearly all the Bolshevist leaders are Jews,” and in that list I find the names of ten men who are known to me to be among the most active leaders of the struggle against the Bolsheviki, men who have made heroic sacrifices and risked their lives in that fight.  I say that the list includes the names of ten men known to me to be bitter opponents of Bolshevism; there may be others concerning whom I am not informed.

Included in the list I find the name of Izgoev (forty-three), for instance.  His real name is alleged to be Goldman, when in fact it is Landau.  Not only is he not a Bolshevik, but, as everybody familiar with the Russian movement knows, one of the active publicists of the Russian Constitutional Democratic party.  Orthodoks, number thirty-five on the list, is not a Bolshevik, but one of the most active members of the group of so-called Socialist Patriots, the “Unity” group organized by the late George Plechanov to support the Allied war aims, an organization that did much to strengthen Russian morale in the early stages of the war and which has vigorously and bitterly opposed Bolshevism and all its ways.  Bounakov, number forty-five on the list, is also a leader of the anti-Bolshevist forces.  When I was in Paris recently he was there actively engaged with other Socialists in carrying on anti-Bolshevist propaganda.  Kamkov, number fifteen on the list, was one of the leaders of the Socialists-Revolutionists party, a determined opponent of the Bolsheviki.  According to the best information at my command, he was one of the men responsible for the assassination of the German ambassador, Count von Mirbach, which was a protest against the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and was put to death by the Bolsheviki.  Gorev, number eleven on the list, has consistently opposed Bolshevism with the rest of his colleagues of the Mensheviki.  The same thing is true of Abramovich (twenty-four), of Dan (seventeen), of Martinov (twenty-one), of Martov (four), and of Meshkovsky (eighteen).

The anonymous author of The Cause of World Unrest says of this list that it is “the result of much labor and the work of several hands.”  I do not need to characterize it, in the light of the foregoing analysis.  The facts to which I have called attention can be very readily verified.  I submit that most abject apology is due to the reader from everybody concerned in the preparation and circulation of this book ­from the anonymous author, the compiler of the list, the London Morning Post, and the publishers.  There is nothing more contemptible than such poisoning of the wells of public information.

For the present I have finished with the Morning Post.  Let us turn now to Mr. Ford’s Dearborn Independent.  In its issue of May 29, 1920, this organ of American anti-Semitism desperately tries to bolster up the charge that nearly all the leaders of the Bolsheviki are Jews by a clumsy invention of its own.  It says: 

Every commisar in Russia to-day is a Jew.  Publicists are accustomed to speak of Russia as if it were in disorder, but the Jewish government of Russia is not.  From a mass of underlings, the Jews of Russia came up in a perfect phalanx, a flying wedge through the superinduced disorder, as if every man’s place had been previously prepared for him.

For these statements there is no justification in fact.  They are absolutely and unqualifiedly untrue, as every person familiar with the facts must know.  It is not true that “every commissar in Russia to-day is a Jew.”  Not even a majority of the members of the Council of People’s Commissars are Jews.  Lenin, who is at the head of the government, is not a Jew.  Tchitcherin, who is in charge of foreign affairs, is not a Jew.  Krassin, who is in charge of the trade negotiations with the British government, is not a Jew.  These three men wield greater power and influence in Soviet Russia than all the Jewish officials combined.  Dzerzhinsky, head of the infamous Extraordinary Commissions, is not a Jew.  Lunarcharsky, who has charge of public education, is not a Jew.  Rykov, chairman of the Economic Council, is not a Jew.  Bonch-Brouyevich, secretary of the Council of People’s Commissars, is not a Jew.  Kolontai is not a Jewess.  There are many other Gentile Commissars.  How completely the London Morning Post and the Dearborn Independent misrepresent the essential facts I have already shown by my analysis of the pretentious list of fifty names published by the former.  I have before me the official list of the members of the Sovnarkom ­that is, the Council of the People’s Commissars of the Soviet government.  As is well known, the elaborate and intricate governmental system of Soviet Russia centers ultimate authority in this Council of People’s Commissars, which consists of seventeen members.  A most striking refutation of the statement made by the Dearborn Independent is found in the fact that of the seventeen members of this supreme Bolshevist authority only one, Trotzky, is a Jew. 

Of course there are many Jews holding minor positions in the Bolshevist regime.  It would be quite impossible to name any part of the Russian population to which that statement would not equally apply.  For millions of people, Christians and Jews alike, the only possible alternative to starvation and death is to accept service under the Bolsheviki.  Even loyal generals of the Tsar’s army have accepted such service in order to avoid the starvation of themselves and their loved ones, despite their hatred of Bolshevism and the Bolsheviki.  It is a fact, however, that there are very few Jews holding responsible posts in the Bolshevist government of Russia, while there are many Jews prominently identified with the anti-Bolshevist movement.  I have followed very closely the accounts of the proceedings of the Bolshevist movement and of the Communist party, as reported in the official press, and have paid special attention to the activity of the Jews.  Up to the present my list of Jews holding prominent positions in either the Soviet government or the Communist party contains less than twenty names, yet I believe it is fairly complete.  It includes the names of Trotzky, Steklov, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Uritsky, Volodarsky, Sverdlov, Ganetsky, Helfandt (Parvus), Riazanov, Radek, Litvinov, Joffe, and Larin.  It will be rather difficult, I think, to name any important omissions.  As against this meager list of Jews, a very hastily compiled list of non-Jews who are prominent in the government or in the Communist party contains seventy-five names.  In this list I do not include any of the many former generals of the Tsar’s army now holding important positions in the Red Army and various departments of the Soviet government.  With entire confidence I submit these incontestable facts to my readers in reply to the Dearborn Independent.

It is absurdly untrue to say, as the Dearborn Independent does, that “the Jews of Russia came up in a perfect phalanx” after the overthrow of tsarism.  Throughout the revolutionary period the Jews in Russia have presented about the same political divisions as the Russian population in general.  Like the overwhelming mass of the Russian people, they are anti-Bolshevist.  Even if we confine our attention to the Jewish Socialists, overlooking for the moment the large number of Jews belonging to the Constitutional Democrats and other non-Socialist parties, we shall find absolutely no evidence of anything approaching a united Jewish Socialist support of the Bolsheviki.  On the contrary, the most implacable and determined opponents of the Bolsheviki have been, and still are, Jewish Socialists.  Such Jews as Martov, Dan, Lieber, Abramovich, and others have distinguished themselves by their relentless and unremitting opposition to the Bolsheviki.

In reply to Mr. William Hard, who called attention to the fact that Jews like Vinaver, Martov, and others have been as active on the anti-Bolshevist side as Trotzky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, and others have been on the Bolshevist side, the anonymous writer employed by the Dearborn Independent resorts to a more cowardly and despicable controversial trick than I have hitherto encountered, even in anti-Semitic literature.  Having charged that the Jews were united “in a perfect phalanx” in support of Bolshevism, when confronted by Mr. Hard with the evidence that there are Jews at the head of the anti-Bolshevist forces, he coolly abandons his charge and insinuates another.  He says:  “Look how the Jews control every phase of political opinion in Russia!  Doesn’t there seem to be some ground for the feeling that they are desirous of ruling everywhere?”

Not often, I venture to say, has any American journalist descended to this low level.  I am justified in asking Mr. Ford, who is primarily responsible for the Dearborn Independent and for its policy, whether he considers it to be compatible with sound American citizenship and with the traditions of our race to spread broadcast through the land such cruelly unjust appeals to prejudice.  Surely it is not difficult to see this matter from the viewpoint of the Jew, which in this instance is also the viewpoint of every fair-minded non-Jew.  For the Jew it is a case of being damned either way.  When it is noted that there are a few Jews holding prominent positions in the Bolshevist regime, the whole race is stigmatized and charged with being engaged in a conspiracy to destroy civilization; but when attention is called to the fact that other Jews, far more numerous, are engaged in fighting Bolshevism and attempting to save civilization, no credit for that fact is given to the race; it is not admitted as a fact modifying the previously formed sweeping judgment, but, on the contrary, is held to be additional evidence of guilt.  Nothing that Bolshevist propagandists have attempted to do in this country involves anything like the peril to our institutions that is involved in this deliberate attempt to silence the anti-Bolshevist Jews by making even their propaganda against Bolshevism appear as part of a conspiracy against those institutions.

I am not here and now concerned to defend the Jews.  Even were my gifts much greater, I should not presume to arrogate to myself that honor.  The defense of the Jewish people against the aspersions cast upon them by this cruel propaganda belongs in the first place to Jewish scholars and publicists and can be left to them.  My concern is the defense of Christian civilization, of American ideals and institutions, of the noblest Anglo-Saxon traditions.  These things are our greatest wealth; they are the heritage of our children.  When, therefore, this hateful propaganda imperils these things, it is both my duty and my privilege to defend them.  Anti-Semitism has no place in Christian civilization; its spirit and its language are both alien and hostile to our Republic and to the genius of the race of Milton and Lincoln.

It can be demonstrated to the full satisfaction of any open-minded person of normal intelligence that Bolshevism is the negation of the faith and morals which constitute the strongest bond of the Jewish people.  Trotzky has many times declared that he is no Jew, but a “general proletarian,” and Bela Kun, in a formal statement, declared himself to be opposed to all religions and national cultures, the Jewish included, and that he stood only for the economic interests of the proletariat.  I could quote many similar statements by prominent Jewish Bolsheviki, were it necessary.  The position taken by these men is, of course, entirely logical.  Not only is Bolshevism fundamentally opposed to the Jewish religion; it is equally antagonistic to the principle of nationality itself.  How, then, can it be possible to regard Bolshevism as typically and essentially Jewish, or as part of an all-Jewish conspiracy?  Is it possible to believe that a great conspiratory scheme to direct the whole weight and influence of the Jewish people to a single political end, conceived and led by the ablest leaders of that great people so remarkable for their intellectual power, would or could rest upon principles diametrically and irreconcilably opposed to the greatest psychological force motivating the conduct of the masses of that people?

These questions by themselves shatter the charge we are discussing.  There is, however, an immense mass of direct and positive evidence available to all who desire to know the truth, but which is carefully and studiously ignored by the preachers of anti-Semitism.  If such men as Mr. Ford are ignorant of the existence of this evidence, as we must suppose them to be, their offense against America and American ideals is not thereby appreciably lessened; their reckless and irresponsible use of the wealth and other influential agents at their command adds to the sum of their shame and wrongdoing.  The greatest and strongest Jewish Socialist organization in Russia and Poland, the “Bund,” has stood in solid opposition to Bolshevism and the Bolshevist regime from the very beginning until now.  Not only have leaders of the right wing, or moderate section of the “Bund,” such as Lieber, fought Bolshevism with their full might, but leaders of the radical left wing, such as Kossovsky and Medem, have been equally courageous and uncompromising on the same side.  A tiny and negligible minority split off from the “Bund” because of its anti-Bolshevist character and formed a new organization, the “Communist Bund.”  Similarly, the overwhelming mass of the Zionist party has consistently opposed Bolshevism and all its works, and such men as Doctor Pasmanick, the well-known Zionist leader of Odessa, have given their full support to every anti-Bolshevist movement, political and military.

I have already referred to the activity of the well-known Jewish leader, Vinaver, in the fight against Bolshevism.  Mr. Vinaver is not a Socialist; on the contrary, during many years he has been a consistent opponent of Socialism and one of the foremost leaders of the Constitutional Democratic party, of whose Central Committee he was, and I believe still is, the chairman.  Immediately after the March revolution of 1917, Mr. Vinaver was appointed Senator by the First Provisional Government.  He was elected to the Constituent Assembly from Petrograd, and later on, after his escape from Petrograd, served as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the government of the Crimea.  This prominent Jewish anti-Socialist testifies that “not a single Jewish Socialist faction has joined the Bolsheviki.”  From a report on this subject cabled to this country by Vinaver in July, 1919, I quote the following paragraphs, which speak for themselves.

The entire Russian Jewry struggles against Bolshevism.  This is true not only with regard to the bourgeoisie, but to the democratic classes of the Russian Jewry as well.  It is sufficient to say that not a single Jewish Socialist faction has joined the Bolsheviki.  All political factions of the Russian Jewry are struggling against Bolshevism.

The great majority of the Jewish population, including many of the poor, are being classed by the Bolsheviki with the so-called bourgeoisie, and every place where the Bolsheviki rule, the Jewish population, not to speak of very insignificant exceptions, is suffering and starving.

The Bolshevist regime has destroyed the industries and the trade, and the Jewish population, which made its living mostly through participation in the industrial and commercial life, is suffering probably more than other nationalities.  At the same time, the Bolsheviki are persecuting all religions, and the Jewish religious institutions have suffered from their despotic rule not less than the institutions of the Christian religion.

The anti-Sémites are making very wide use of the fact that Trotzky is a Jew, but the participation of several Jews among the Bolshevist leaders does not nullify the fact that the Russian Jewry, in its overwhelming majority, struggles actively against Bolshevism. It is significant that Bolshevism spread mostly in central and eastern Russia where the Jews constitute an insignificant minority.

It is a significant fact that the only Socialist elected to the United States Congress in the recent election, Meyer London, a Russian-born Jew, is a vigorous opponent of Bolshevism.  In view of such evidence as the foregoing, it is surely not less than ridiculous to attempt to make Bolshevism appear as a phase of Jewish Socialism, and a part of a world-wide Jewish conspiracy, instead of what it is ­namely, the wild anarchical outburst of despairing and desperate masses of men.  I venture to say that when the history of this tragic episode in the life of Russia is authoritatively written, it will be found that Jews have not been responsible for the most objectionable features of Bolshevism.  Not even Trotzky need be excluded from this generalization, for, while it is true that his genius made Bolshevism the formidable military power it became, the brutal excesses of the Red Terror must be charged against such men as Peters, the Lett, and Dzerzhinsky, the Pole.