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 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 civilisation.
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 recognisable 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
Englishman 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 honourable 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 upholders 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
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.
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
offences 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 signalised 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 a centre
of national life. The statesmanship and
historic sense of Mr. Balfour were prompt to
seize this opportunity. Declarations have
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
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.
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.