Zionism
versus Bolshevism.A Struggle for the Soul
of the Jewish People
By the Rt. Hon. Winston S.
Churchill.
SOME people like Jews and some do
not; but no thoughtful man can doubt the fact that they
are beyond all question the most formidable and the most
remarkable race which has ever appeared in the
world.
Disraeli, the Jew Prime Minister
of England, and Leader of the Conservative Party, who was
always true to his race and proud of his origin, said on
a well-known occasion: "The Lord deals with the nations
as the nations deal with the Jews." Certainly when we
look at the miserable state of Russia, where of all
countries in the world the Jews were the most cruelly
treated, and contrast it with the fortunes of our own
country, which seems to have been so providentially
preserved amid the awful perils of these times, we must
admit that nothing that has since happened in the history
of the world has falsified the truth of Disraeli's
confident assertion.
Good and Bad
Jews
The conflict between good and
evil which proceeds unceasingly in the breast of man
nowhere reaches such an intensity as in the Jewish race.
The dual nature of mankind is nowhere more strongly or
more terribly exemplified. We owe to the Jews in the
Christian revelation a system of ethics which, even if it
were entirely separated from the supernatural, would be
incomparably the most precious possession of mankind,
worth in fact the fruits of all other wisdom and learning
put together. On that system and by that faith there has
been built out of the wreck of the Roman Empire the whole
of our existing civilization.
And it may well be that this same
astounding race may at the present time be in the actual
process of producing another system of morals and
philosophy, as malevolent as Christianity was benevolent,
which, if not arrested, would shatter irretrievably all
that Christianity has rendered possible. It would almost
seem as if the gospel of Christ and the gospel of
Antichrist were destined to originate among the same
people; and that this mystic and mysterious race had been
chosen for the supreme manifestations, both of the divine
and the diabolical.
'National'
Jews
There can be no greater mistake
than to attribute to each individual a recognizable share
in the qualities which make up the national character.
There are all sorts of men -- good, bad and, for the most
part, indifferent -- in every country, and in every race.
Nothing is more wrong than to deny to an individual, on
account of race or origin, his right to be judged on his
personal merits and conduct. In a people of peculiar
genius like the Jews, contrasts are more vivid, the
extremes are more widely separated, the resulting
consequences are more decisive.
At the present fateful period
there are three main lines of political conception among
the Jews. two of which are helpful and hopeful in a very
high degree to humanity, and the third absolutely
destructive.
First there are the Jews who,
dwelling in every country throughout the world, identify
themselves with that country, enter into its national
life and, while adhering faithfully to their own
religion, regard themselves as citizens in the fullest
sense of the State which has received them. Such a Jew
living in England would say, "I am an English man
practising the Jewish faith." This is a worthy
conception, and useful in the highest degree. We in Great
Britain well know that during the great struggle the
influence of what may be called the "National Jews" in
many lands was cast preponderatingly on the side of the
Allies; and in our own Army Jewish soldiers have played a
most distinguished part, some rising to the command of
armies, others winning the Victoria Cross for
valour.
The National Russian Jews, in
spite of the disabilities under which they have suffered,
have managed to play an honorable and useful part in the
national life even of Russia. As bankers and
industrialists they have strenuously promoted the
development of Russia's economic resources, and they were
foremost in the creation of those remarkable
organizations, the Russian Co-operative Societies. In
politics their support has been given, for the most part,
to liberal and progressive movements, and they have been
among the staunchest upholder of friendship with France
and Great Britain.
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 civilization
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 recognizable 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.
Terrorist
Jews
There is no need to exaggerate
the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the
actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution, by these
international and for the most part atheistical Jews, it
is certainly a very great one; it probably outweighs all
others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority
of the leading figures are Jews. Moreover, the principal
inspiration and driving power comes from the Jewish
leaders. Thus Tchitcherin, a pure Russian, is eclipsed by
his nominal subordinate Litvinoff, and the influence of
Russians like Bukharin or Lunacharski cannot be compared
with the power of Trotsky, or of Zinovieff, the Dictator
of the Red Citadel (Petrograd) or of Krassin or Radek --
all Jews. In the Soviet institutions the predominance of
Jews is even more astonishing. And the prominent, if not
indeed the principal, part in the system of terrorism
applied by the Extraordinary Commissions for Combating
Counter-Revolution has been taken by Jews, and in some
notable cases by Jewesses. The same evil prominence was
obtained by Jews in the brief period of terror during
which Bela Kun ruled in Hungary. The same phenomenon has
been presented in Germany (especially in Bavaria), so far
as this madness has been allowed to prey upon the
temporary prostration of the German people. Although in
all these countries there are many non-Jews every whit as
bad as the worst of the Jewish revolutionaries, the part
played by the latter in proportion to their numbers in
the population is astonishing.
'Protector of
the Jews'
Needless to say, the most intense
passions of revenge have been excited in the breasts of
the Russian people. Wherever General Denikin's authority
could reach, protection was always accorded to the Jewish
population, and strenuous efforts were made by his
officers to prevent reprisals and to punish those guilty
of them. So much was this the case that the Petlurist
propaganda against General Denikin denounced him as the
Protector of the Jews. The Misses Healy, nieces of Mr.
Tim Healy, in relating their personal experiences in
Kieff, have declared that to their knowledge on more than
one occasion officers who committed offenses against Jews
were reduced to the ranks and sent out of the city to the
front. But the hordes of brigands by whom the whole. vast
expanse of the Russian Empire is becoming infested do not
hesitate to gratify their lust for blood and for revenge
at the expense of the innocent Jewish population whenever
an opportunity occurs. The brigand Makhno, the hordes of
Petlura and of Gregorieff, who signalized their every
success by the most brutal massacres, everywhere found
among the half-stupefied, half-infuriated population an
eager response to anti-Semitism in its worst and foulest
forms.
The fact that in many cases
Jewish interests and Jewish places of worship are
excepted by the Bolsheviks from their universal hostility
has tended more and more to associate the Jewish race in
Russia with the villainies, which are now being
perpetrated. This is an injustice on millions of helpless
people, most of whom are themselves sufferers from the
revolutionary regime. It becomes, therefore, specially
important to foster and develop any strongly-marked
Jewish movement which leads directly away from these
fatal associations. And it is here that Zionism has such
a deep significance for the whole world at the present
time.
A Home for the
Jews
Zionism offers the third sphere
to the political conceptions of the Jewish race. In
violent contrast to international communism, it presents
to the Jew a national idea of a commanding character. it
has fallen to the British Government, as the result of
the conquest of Palestine, to have the opportunity and
the responsibility of securing for the Jewish race all
over the world a home and centre of national life. The
statesmanship and historic sense of Mr. Balfour were
prompt to seize this opportunity. Declarations have now
been made which have irrevocably decided the policy of
Great Britain. The fiery energies of Dr. Weissmann, the
leader, for practical purposes, of the Zionist project.
backed by many of the most prominent British Jews, and
supported by the full authority of Lord Allenby, are all
directed to achieving the success of this inspiring
movement.
Of course, Palestine is far too
small to accommodate more than a fraction of the Jewish
race, nor do the majority of national Jews wish to go
there. But if, as may well happen, there should be
created in our own lifetime by the banks of the Jordan a
Jewish State under the protection of the British Crown,
which might comprise three or four millions of Jews, an
event would have occurred in the history of the world
which would, from every point of view, be beneficial, and
would be especially in harmony with the truest interests
of the British Empire.
Zionism has already become a
factor in the political convulsions of Russia, as a
powerful competing influence in Bolshevik circles with
the international communistic system. Nothing could be
more significant than the fury with which Trotsky has
attacked the Zionists generally, and Dr. Weissmann in
particular. The cruel penetration of his mind leaves him
in no doubt that his schemes of a world-wide communistic
State under Jewish domination are directly thwarted and
hindered by this new ideal, which directs the energies
and the hopes of Jews in every land towards a simpler, a
truer, and a far more attainable goal. The struggle which
is now beginning between the Zionist and Bolshevik Jews
is little less than a struggle for the soul of the Jewish
people.
Duty of Loyal
Jews
It is particularly important in
these circumstances that the national Jews in every
country who are loyal to the land of their adoption
should come forward on every occasion, as many of them in
England have already done, and take a prominent part in
every measure for combating the Bolshevik conspiracy. In
this way they will be able to vindicate the honor 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.
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 in 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.
