Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Protocol 01
Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion
PROTOCOL NUMBER ONE
Protocol Number 1 : The Basic Doctrine
1. ....Putting aside fine phrases
we shall speak of the significance of each thought:
by comparisons and deductions
we shall throw light upon surrounding facts.
2. What I am about to set forth, then,
is our system from the two points of view,
that of ourselves
and that of the goyim [i.e., non- Jews].
3. It must be noted
that men with bad instincts
are more in number than the good,
and therefore
the best results in governing them
are attained by violence and terrorisation,
and not by academic discussions.
Every man aims at power,
everyone would like to become a dictator
if only he could,
and rare indeed are the men
who would not be willing to sacrifice the welfare of all
for the sake of securing their own welfare.
4. What has restrained the beasts of prey
who are called men?
What has served for their guidance hitherto?
5. In the beginnings of the structure of society,
they were subjected to brutal and blind force;
after words - to Law,
which is the same force,
only disguised.
I draw the conclusion
that by the law of nature right lies in force.
6. Political freedom is an idea but not a fact.
This idea one must know how to apply
whenever it appears necessary with this bait of an idea
to attract the masses of the people to one's party
for the purpose of crushing another who is in authority.
This task is rendered easier of the opponent
has himself been infected with the idea of freedom,
so-called liberalism, and, for the sake of an idea,
is willing to yield some of his power.
It is precisely here that the triumph of our theory appears;
the slackened reins of government are immediately,
by the law of life,
caught up and gathered together
by a new hand,
because the blind might of the nation
cannot for one single day exist without guidance,
and the new authority merely fits into the place
of the old already weakened by liberalism.
GOLD:
7. In our day
the power which has replaced that of the rulers
who were liberal is the power of Gold.
Time was when Faith ruled.
The idea of freedom is impossible of realization
because no one knows how to use it with moderation.
It is enough to hand over a people to self-government
for a certain length of time
for that people to be turned into a disorganized mob.
From that moment on
we get internecine strife
which soon develops into battles between classes,
in the midst of which States burn down
and their importance is reduced to that of a heap of ashes.
8. Whether a State exhausts itself in its own convulsions,
whether its internal discord brings it under the power
of external foes
- in any case
it can be accounted irretrievable lost:
It is in our power.
The despotism of Capital,
which is entirely in our hands,
reaches out to it a straw that the State,
willy-nilly,
must take hold of:
if not
- it goes to the bottom.
9. Should anyone of a liberal mind say
that such reflections as the above are immoral,
I would put the following questions:
If every State has two foes
and if in regard to the external foe
it is allowed and not considered immoral
to use every manner and art of conflict,
as for example to keep the enemy in ignorance
of plans of attack and defense,
to attack him by night or in superior numbers,
then in what way
can the same means in regard to a worse foe,
the destroyer of the structure of society
and the commonwealth,
be called immoral and not permissible?
10. Is it possible for any sound logical mind
to hope with any success to guide crowds
by the aid of reasonable counsels and arguments,
when any objection or contradiction,
senseless though it may be,
can be made
and when such objection may find more favor with the people,
whose powers of reasoning are superficial?
Men in masses and the men of the masses,
being guided solely by petty passions,
paltry beliefs,
traditions and sentimental theorems,
fall a prey to party dissension,
which hinders any kind of agreement
even on the basis of a perfectly reasonable argument.
Every resolution of a crowd
depends upon a chance or packed majority,
which,
in its ignorance of political secrets,
puts forth some ridiculous resolution
that lays in the administration a seed of anarchy.
11. The political has nothing in common with the moral.
The ruler who is governed by the moral
is not a skilled politician,
and is therefore unstable on his throne.
He who wishes to rule
must have recourse
both to cunning and to make-believe.
Great national qualities,
like frankness and honesty,
are vices in politics,
for they bring down rulers
from their thrones more effectively
and more certainly
than the most powerful enemy.
Such qualities must be the attributes
of the kingdoms of the goyim,
but we must in no wise be guided by them.
RIGHT IS MIGHT:
12. Our right lies in force.
The word "right" is an abstract thought
and proved by nothing.
The word means no more than:
Give me what I want
in order that thereby
I may have a proof
that I am stronger than you.
13. Where does right begin?
Where does it end?
14. In any State
in which there is a bad organization of authority,
an impersonality of laws
and of the rulers
who have lost their personality
amid the flood of rights
ever multiplying out of liberalism,
I find a new right
- to attack by the right of the strong,
and to scatter to the winds
all existing forces of order and regulation,
to reconstruct all institutions
and to become the sovereign lord of those
who have left to us the rights of their power
by laying them down voluntarily in their liberalism.
15. Our power in the present tottering condition
of all forms of power
will be more invincible than any other,
because it will remain invisible
until the moment when it has gained such strength
that no cunning can any longer undermine it.
16. Out of the temporary evil
we are now compelled to commit
will emerge the good of an unshakable rule,
which will restore the regular course of the machinery
of the national life,
brought to naught by liberalism.
The result justifies the means.
Let us, however, in our plans,
direct our attention not so much
to what is good and moral
as to what is necessary and useful.
17. Before us is a plan
in which is laid down strategically
the line from which we cannot deviate
without running the risk
of seeing the labor of many centuries
brought to naught.
18. In order to elaborate satisfactory forms of action
it is necessary to have regard to the rascality,
the slackness,
the instability of the mob,
its lack of capacity to understand
and respect the conditions of its own life,
or its own welfare.
It must be understood
that the might of a mob is blind,
senseless and un-reasoning force
ever at the mercy of a suggestion
from any side.
The blind cannot lead the blind
without bringing them into the abyss;
consequently,
members of the mob,
upstarts from the people
even though they should be as a genius for wisdom,
yet having no understanding of the political,
cannot come forward as leaders of the mob
without bringing the whole nation to ruin.
19. Only one trained from childhood
for independent rule
can have understanding of the words
that can be made up of the political alphabet.
20. A people left to itself,
i.e., to upstarts from its midst,
brings itself to ruin by party dissensions
excited by the pursuit of power
and honors and the disorders arising therefrom.
Is it possible for the masses of the people
calmly and without petty jealousies
to form judgment,
to deal with the affairs of the country,
which cannot be mixed up
with personal interest?
Can they defend themselves from an external foe?
It is unthinkable;
for a plan broken up into as many parts
as there are heads in the mob,
loses all homogeneity,
and thereby becomes unintelligible
and impossible of execution.
WE ARE DESPOTS:
21. It is only with a despotic ruler
that plans can be elaborated extensively and clearly
in such a way
as to distribute the whole properly
among the several parts of the machinery of the State:
from this the conclusion is inevitable
that a satisfactory form of government
for any country
is one that concentrates in the hands
of one responsible person.
Without an absolute despotism
there can be no existence for civilization
which is carried on
not by the masses
but by their guide,
whosoever that person may be.
The mob is savage,
and displays its savagery at every opportunity.
The moment the mob seizes freedom in its hands
it quickly turns to anarchy,
which in itself
is the highest degree of savagery.
22. Behold the alcoholic animals,
bemused with drink,
the right to an immoderate use of which
comes along with freedom.
It is not for us and ours to walk that road.
The peoples of the goyim
are bemused with alcoholic liquors;
their youth has grown stupid
on classicism and from early immorality,
into which it has been inducted
by our special agents
- by tutors, lackeys, governesses
in the houses of the wealthy,
by clerks and others,
by our women in the places of dissipation
frequented by the goyim.
In the number of these last
I count also the so-called "society ladies,"
voluntary followers of the others
in corruption and luxury.
23. Our countersign is
- Force and Make-believe.
Only force conquers in political affairs,
especially if it be concealed
in the talents essential to statesmen.
Violence must be the principle,
and cunning
and make-believe the rule for governments
which do not want to lay down their crowns
at the feet of agents of some new power.
This evil is the one and only means
to attain the end,
the good.
Therefore we must not stop at bribery, deceit and treachery
when they should serve towards the attainment of our end.
In politics
one must know how to seize the property of others
without hesitation
if by it we secure submission and sovereignty.
24. Our State,
marching along the path of peaceful conquest,
has the right to replace the horrors of war
by less noticeable and more satisfactory sentences of death,
necessary to maintain the terror
which tends to produce blind submission.
Just but merciless severity
is the greatest factor of strength in the State:
not only for the sake of gain
but also in the name of duty,
for the sake of victory,
we must keep to the programme of violence
and make-believe.
The doctrine of squaring accounts
is precisely as strong
as the means of which it makes use.
Therefore
it is not so much by the means themselves
as by the doctrine of severity
that we shall triumph
and bring all governments
into subjection to our super-government.
It is enough for them
to know that we are too merciless
for all disobedience to cease.
WE SHALL END LIBERTY:
25. Far back in ancient times
we were the first to cry among the masses of the people
the words "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,"
words many times repeated
since these days by stupid poll-parrots
who,
from all sides around,
flew down upon these baits
and with them carried away the well-being of the world,
true freedom of the individual,
formerly so well guarded
against the pressure of the mob.
The would-be wise men of the goyim,
the intellectuals,
could not make anything out of the uttered words
in their abstractedness;
did not see that in nature there is no equality,
cannot be freedom:
that Nature herself has established inequality of minds,
of characters, and capacities,
just as immutably
as she has established subordination to her laws:
never stopped to think
that the mob is a blind thing,
that upstarts elected from among it
to bear rule are,
in regard to the political,
the same blind men as the mob itself,
that the adept,
though he be a fool,
can yet rule,
whereas the non-adept,
even if he were a genius,
understands nothing in the political
- to all those things the goyim
paid no regard;
yet all the time
it was based upon these things
that dynastic rule rested:
the father passed on to the son a knowledge
of the course of political affairs
in such wise
that none should know it
but members of the dynasty
and none could betray it
to the governed.
As time went on,
the meaning of the dynastic transference
of the true position of affairs in the political
was lost,
and this aided the success of our cause.
26. In all corners of the earth
the words "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,"
brought to our ranks,
thanks to our blind agents,
whole legions who bore our banners
with enthusiasm.
And all the time
these words were canker-worms at work
boring into the well-being of the goyim,
putting an end everywhere to peace,
quiet, solidarity
and destroying all the foundations
of the goyA States.
As you will see later,
this helped us to our triumph:
it gave us the possibility,
among other things,
of getting into our hands
the master card
- the destruction of the privileges,
or in other words
of the very existence of the aristocracy of the goyim,
that class
which was the only defense
peoples and countries had against us.
On the ruins of the eternal and genealogical aristocracy
of the goyim
we have set up the aristocracy
of our educated class
headed by the aristocracy of money.
The qualifications for this aristocracy
we have established in wealth,
which is dependent upon us,
and in knowledge,
for which our learned elders
provide the motive force.
27. Our triumph has been rendered easier
by the fact that in our relations with the men,
whom we wanted,
we have always worked upon the most sensitive chords
of the human mind,
upon the cash account,
upon the cupidity,
upon the insatiability
for material needs of man;
and each one of these human weaknesses,
taken alone,
is sufficient to paralyze initiative,
for it hands over the will of men
to the disposition of him
who has bought their activities.
28. The abstraction of freedom
has enabled us to persuade the mob
in all countries
that their government is nothing but the steward
of the people who are the owners of the country,
and that the steward may be replaced like a worn-out glove.
29. It is this possibility
of replacing the representatives of the people
which has placed at our disposal,
and,
as it were,
given us the power of appointment.