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Churchill and the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”
- By MICHAEL MCMENAMIN
- | November 8, 2021
- Category: Churchill and Religion Churchill Between the Wars Truths and Heresies
In the first chapter of his book, The Hitler Conspiracies, Richard J. Evans writes about The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the 1903 anti-Semitic tract exposed as a fraud by The Times of London in 1921. At that time, Evans writes, the Protocols were “creating political interest and winning favorable comments from none other than Winston Churchill….”1
Evans is a prolific historian of the Second World War and the Nazi era, but this seemed passing strange. Churchill making “favorable comments” about a notorious anti-Semitic tract, popularized in America by Henry Ford? I was skeptical. Churchill, after all, was a committed Zionist when much if not most of the British establishment was not. Like his father, Lord Randolph, he did not even possess the mild social anti-Semitism prevalent in the British upper-classes.
Official biographer Martin Gilbert, a Holocaust historian, wrote: “A lifelong admirer of Churchill…once confided in me that, ‘even Winston had a fault.’ My ears pricked up: every biographer searches for just such a clue, the flaw, the Achilles heel of his hero. ‘What fault?’ I asked. ‘He was too fond of Jews.’”2
What exactly were these “favorable comments” from Churchill about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion? What did he say? When and where did he say them?
Source of a myth
Evans’ accusation was cited in his endnote: “Eisner, The Plot, pp. 67–91, reproducing extracts from the articles.” Evans does not include a first name for “Eisner.” His only reference to an Eisner in the index is to the German socialist Kurt Eisner, who wrote several books, but not The Plot.
In fact, the Eisner Evans cites is the legendary cartoonist Will Eisner, and The Plot is a graphic historical novel. Subtitled The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, it is well produced and mostly factual. There is, however, at least one factual error, which Evans appears to rely upon.
Pages 67-91 recount a fictitious meeting between Russian émigré Mikhail Roslovlev and Philip Graves, The Times correspondent in Constantinople. Roslovlev offers to sell a copy of The Dialogue in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu by Maurice Joly. First published in 1864, it is a commentary on democracy versus dictatorship.
Roslovlev believes the Protocols are a fraud, plagiarized by its unknown author from Joly’s book. Eisner uses the clever and persuasive device of juxtaposing on each page an excerpt from Dialogue in Hell and its counterpart in The Protocols. Cartoon figures of Roslovlev and Graves converse on the obvious plagiarism in The Protocols from Dialogue in Hell.
Roslovlev tells Graves: “Articles in ‘The Times’ about the ‘Protocols’ alerted me that these books I have might be valuable to you…. So I compared them! We’ve a fraud!” [Emphasis in the original.] Graves expresses skepticism, his word balloon superimposed over the front page of the 8 February 1920 Illustrated Sunday Herald. On it is Churchill’s article, “Zionism versus Bolshevism, A Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People.” (A copy including textual changes in its only reprint, by bibliographer Ronald Cohen, is available to readers upon request.)
Undeserved attention
Graves continues: “Quite a lot of attention has been given to this ‘Protocol’ matter in England! An English version of it, ‘The Jewish Peril,’ appeared last January… and the ‘Illustrated Sunday Herald’ carried a big article on it February 8, 1920.”3 (Emphasis added.) Next is this excerpt from Churchill’s article:
International Jews
In violent opposition to all this sphere of Jewish effort rise the schemes of the International Jews. The adherents of this sinister confederacy are mostly men reared up among the unhappy populations of countries where Jews are persecuted on account of their race. Most, if not all, of them have forsaken the faith of their forefathers, and divorced from their minds all spiritual hopes of the next world.
This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It played, as a modern writer, Mrs. Webster, has so ably shown, a definitely recognisable part in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the Nineteenth Century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.4
Graves then states: “This was written by WINSTON CHURCHILL, a highly regarded M.P. in England….So I need hardly remind you that it will take strong evidence to prove the ‘Protocols’ A FAKE!”5 (Emphasis in original.)
Utterly false
The claim by Eisner’s fictional Graves that “Zionism versus Bolshevism” was a “big article” on the Protocols is false. Full stop. The Protocols are never mentioned. Anyone reading the entire article can plainly see it has nothing to do with the Protocols.
In his article Churchill describes three kinds of Jews. “National Jews” are devoted to their countries and “Zionists” support a national home if not country for Jews in Palestine. According to Churchill, these two categories make up the vast majority of Jews. The third kind—a small minority—are described interchangeably by Churchill as “International,” “Terrorist” and “Bolshevik” Jews.6 His closing points are that all other Jews should condemn the Bolshevik conspiracy and make clear it is not a Jewish movement.
Eisner wrote a historical graphic novel. In fiction, an author may, as he did, falsely claim that Churchill wrote a “big article” on the Protocols. That is literary license. Churchill’s article gave him the opportunity to do this. Even Martin Gilbert wrote in Churchill and the Jews, that the portrayal in the Protocols of Bolshevik “Jews seeking to dominate the world by conspiracy and guile…were clearly echoed” in Eisner’s out-of-context quote from Churchill’s article.
But historians do not have literary license. Evans apparently bases his assertion of Churchill’s alleged “favourable comments” about the Protocols on Eisner’s excerpt from Churchill’s article. That immediately raises the question: Why cite a secondary source like Eisner when a primary source, i.e., Churchill, is readily available? It certainly makes it more difficult for a reader to evaluate Evans’ claim that Churchill made “favourable comments” about the Protocols.
There are other questions. Did Evans ever read the entire article, “Zionism versus Bolshevism”? If he did, he knew there were no comments about the Protocols. If he didn’t, and relied only on Eisner’s excerpt, he should have said so. Neither possibility reflects well on Evans.
Background to Churchill’s article
Eisner and Evans are wrong for different reasons. What prompted Churchill to write “Zionism versus Bolshevism” in February 1920? He was, at the time, Minister for War and Air. His predecessor had sent British troops to Russia to keep Allied supplies from the Germans after Russia sued for peace. Churchill’s deep aversion to Russian Bolshevism was well known. Speaking at Sunderland in January 1920, he explained why Britain was aiding the White Russian armies of Deniken and Kolchak. The tone of his speech, “The Agony of Russia,” can be illustrated by this excerpt:
There is another class which, in my judgment, it is no use trying to conciliate. I mean those Bolshevists, fanatics who are the avowed enemies of the existing civilization of the world who, if they had their way, would destroy the democratic parliaments on which the liberties of free peoples depend….7
Later in the speech, Churchill expanded on this point and included an unfortunate phrase that would lead to the “Zionism versus Bolshevism” article. Bolsheviks, he declared
seek to destroy capital. We seek to control monopolies…. We defend freedom of conscience and religious equality. They seek to exterminate every form of religious belief…. They believe in the international Soviet of the Russian and Polish Jew [emphasis added]. We are still putting our confidence in the British Empire.8
Reaction
Some Jews took offense at what, on the surface, seems to be a gratuitous if not anti-Semitic reference to Russian and Polish Jews. The Jewish scholar Claude Montefiore complained to Churchill’s friend, H.A.L. Fisher, President of the Board of Education. Fisher told Churchill of Montefiore’s “footnote of dissent to one particular passage in your otherwise admirable Sunderland speech.” He described Montefiore, a Churchill admirer, as “the greatest living Jew in Europe (not excepting our common friend Trotsky).”9
It should not be necessary to add, but in today’s political climate, we must: Fisher’s final comment was tongue-in-cheek. Churchill was not a friend of Trotsky, commander of the Bolshevik armies.
Defense
Churchill was disturbed at this criticism of his speech. He took several weeks before he replied to Fisher on 21 January 1920. Proud of his admiration of and friendship for the Jewish people, he made this clear in his letter: “If I have any mental bias on the question, it is rather in favour of than against the Jews among whom I am proud to number many good friends.” He then made several points he had not mentioned in his Sunderland speech, but would include in “Zionism versus Bolshevism”:
Your correspondent makes it clear that, in his opinion, “to speak as if Bolshevism was a predominantly Jewish movement is false and calculated to add to the number of Jewish victims already murdered by tens of thousands” and while admitting that “many subaltern Bolsheviks” are Jews he stated that “the majority of the leaders are not Jews.” If this view were correct I should perforce have to admit that he had good grounds for the objection…. [But] I did not speak without giving very careful thought and study to the Bolshevik movement…. I find no escape from the plain and obvious conclusion that the Jews are undoubtedly playing a predominant part in the Bolshevik movement, and that the majority of the leaders are Jews.10
Churchill then lists nine prominent Bolsheviks, beginning with Lenin and Trotsky, six of whom were Jews. He concludes with the same argument he was to employ two weeks later in “Zionism versus Bolshevism”:
Jews…would be better advised…to denounce the renegades in Russian and Poland who are dishonouring their race and religion and to rally to the support of such forces in Russia as offer some project of restoring a strong, democratic and impartial government.”11
“Zionism versus Bolshevism”
Churchill recognized that his Sunderland speech did not convey the same message as his letter to Fisher. His speech did not acknowledge that “Bolshevik Jews” were a small minority among their co-religionists. Their belief in “an international Soviet of the Russian and Polish Jew” could be misinterpreted as a reference to all Russian and Polish Jews. In late January he began work on the “Zionism versus Bolshevism” article to convey his views more completely. At this time, Gilbert observes in Churchill and the Jews, the Balfour Declaration of a national home for the Jews in Palestine “was being much opposed n British political circles…particularly so in the Conservative Party.”
Churchill’s conclusions in “Zionism versus Bolshevism” echoed those he made in his letter to Fisher:
It is particularly important in these circumstances that the national Jews in every country…should come forward on every occasion…and take a prominent part in every measure for combating the Bolshevik conspiracy. In this way they will be able to vindicate the honour of the Jewish name and make it clear to all the world that the Bolshevik movement is not a Jewish movement, but is repudiated vehemently by the great mass of the Jewish race.12
The article ends with a pitch for Zionism:
But a negative resistance to Bolshevism in any field is not enough. Positive and practicable alternatives are needed in the moral as well as in the social sphere; and building up with the utmost possible rapidity a Jewish national centre in Palestine which may become not only a refuge to the oppressed from the unhappy lands of Central Europe, but which will also be a symbol of Jewish unity and the temple of Jewish glory, a task is presented on which many blessings rest.13
Less than a year later, Churchill became Britain’s Secretary of State for the Colonies with direct responsibility for its League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. Over Arab objections, he reiterated British support for the Balfour Declaration and denied Trans-Jordan’s claim to the West Bank of the River Jordan.
Continued misunderstanding
Reaction to Churchill’s article was not long in coming. A fierce editorial (Martin Gilbert’s characterization) appeared in The Jewish Chronicle. Churchill, they wrote, “charges Jews with originating the gospel of Antichrist with engineering a ‘world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization.’” TJC accused Churchill of conducting “the gravest, as it is the most reckless and scandalous campaign in which even the most discredited politicians have ever engaged.” As Gilbert notes, however, the editorial completely “ignored” Churchill’s “strong support in this same article for Zionism.”14
Everyone us a critic, and variations of this out-of-context use of Churchill’s “Bolshevik Jew” paragraph in his 1920 article persist to this day. Even reputable publications like The Spectator are guilty. See for example “Churchill for Dummies” in its 27 April 2004 issue where the writer, quoting in part the same paragraph as Eisner, suggested that Churchill’s support for Zionism was fuelled by an underlying anti-Semitism. Ironically, the editor of The Spectator at the time was Boris Johnson, later a Churchill biographer and still later British Prime Minister.15
Our current age doesn’t have a monopoly on fools, however it may sometimes seem.
Endnotes
1 Richard J. Evans, The Hitler Conspiracies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), 31.
2 Martin Gilbert, In Search of Churchill (London: HarperCollins, 1994), 89.
3 Will Eisner, The Plot (New York: W.W. Norton, 2005), 70.,
4 Winston S. Churchill (hereinafter WSC), “Zionism versus Bolshevism,” Illustrated Sunday Herald, 8 February 1920, 1; republished in Michael Wolff, ed., Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill, 4 vols. (London: Library of Imperial History, 1975), IV: 26-30.
5 Eisner, The Plot, 70.
6 WSC, “Zionism versus Bolshevism,” 1; Wolff, IV: 27. The term “Terrorist Jews” appears as a subheading in the Herald original.
7 Winston S. Churchill, “The Agony of Russia,” Sunderland, 3 January 1920, in Robert Rhodes James, ed., Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches 1897-1963, 8 vols. (New York: Bowker, 1974), III: 2918.
8 Ibid., 2919.
9 H.A.L. Fisher to WSC, 7 January 1920, in Martin Gilbert, ed., The Churchill Documents, vol. 9 (Hillsdale, Mich.: Hillsdale College Press, 2008), 993.
10 WSC to H.A.L. Fisher, 21 January 1920, ibid., 1010.
11 Ibid., 1012.
12 WSC, “Zionism versus Bolshevism,” 29-30.
13 Ibid., 30.
14 Martin Gilbert, Churchill and the Jews (London: Simon & Schuster, 2007), 43-44.
15 Michael Lind, “Churchill for Dummies,” in The Spectator, London, 27 April 2004, Spectator archive, https://bit.ly/3lrQ2c4, accessed 3 August 2021.
The author
Michael McMenamin is the co-author of Becoming Winston Churchill: The Untold Story of Churchill and His American Mentor; and a contributing editor to Finest Hour and Reason magazine. He has also collaborated with his son and daughter on a series of historical novels about Churchill’s hitherto unknown adventures during his Wilderness Years in the 1930s. For a full list, please visit his Amazon author’s page.