The Protocols of Zion: The Facts, The Myths and The Lies (Part VI)

Having dealt and disposed with the problem of the alleged quotations from Goedesche: we can
move on to the sine qua non of the anti-Protocols case: the alleged plagiarism of Maurice Joly's
'Dialogue'. In order to understand this claim we need to understand the context in which the claim
came to light as well as what we know about Maurice Joly.

Maurice Joly was a left-wing French Republican lawyer and writer who was stridently against
Napoleon III of France: so much so that in 1864 he published the 'Dialogue' in Geneva and
Brussels. The work was then unsuccessfully smuggled into France by friends and associates: who
were promptly arrested and interrogated. Joly's left-wing friends predictably gave him up to save
their own skins and the man himself was arrested (not before he had written published another
political attack on Napoleon III published as his 1865 'Caesar'). Hauled before a judge Joly then
received the sentence of 15 months in prison for his subversive pamphlet on the 25th April 1865.

After he got out of prison Joly continued to write and publish an autobiography in 1870 (as well as
joining the 'French resistance' against Napoleon III) and with the downfall of that monarch in 1871
as a direct result of the loss of the Franco-Prussian war. Joly began to publish openly on political
subjects again with a book on French Republican politics in 1872. However Joly had begun to grow
disillusioned, was fighting a legal battle against a one-time friend; Monsieur Grevy, and on July
14th 1878 he was found dead in his apartment: the cause of death being attributed to suicide. (142)

All well and good you might say, but even in Joly's life we have two issues that we need to consider
before we move on.

Firstly we have the allegation; made by Lord Alfred Douglas in 'Plain English' in 1921, that
Maurice Joly was; in fact, a jew who was born with the name: 'Moses Joel'. (143) Douglas cited
various unnamed sources for his assertion, but never told or wrote to anyone; to my knowledge,
about who or what these were. A similar claim was made at the Bern Trial by one of the German
luminaries on the Protocols; Colonel Ulrich Fleischhauer (of 'Weltdienst' fame), who asserted that
Maurice Joly was originally called 'Joseph Levy' but once again produced no actual evidence of this
claim. (144)

That said however the prosecution in the Bern Trial did in fact do the defense a rather large favour
when they sought to disprove Fleischhauer by producing Joly's baptismal certificate which was
dated 1829, which didn't match with Joly's claim of having been born in 1833 in his autobiography.
(145) This could have been used to argue; although it wasn't at the time, that Joly's recollection of
events was doubtful and would have thus enabled the defense to throw a large amount of doubt on
the prosecution's case.

Unfortunately we also have to contend with the fact that in his autobiography; published in 1870,
Joly actually states that he had a French father and an Italian mother: not mentioning any change of
name, anything to do with Judaism and/or gave any indication of being anything other than what he
claimed to be. (146) We also have to bear in mind that the discrepancy is the wrong way for a jew
converting to Christianity (i.e. the baptism is earlier than the claimed birth year rather than the
baptism being several years later) and as such we have to dismiss this evidence as not being
suggestive; in any way, of a jewish origin for Joly.

Now because of the fact that we have no actual evidence that Joly was anything other what he
professed to be: we have to dismiss this notion of Joly being a jew.
Secondly we have the allegation that Joly plagiarised a lot of his material from a work; 'Macchiavel,
Montesquieu, Rousseau' ('Macchiavel' is a transliteration of 'Machiavelli') by one Jakob Venedy
(actually Jacob Venedey) who is claimed to have been a jew, a freemason, a communist and a friend
of Karl Marx. (147)

With these I am going to work slightly backward in that we do know that Venedey was a left-wing;
as opposed to a patriotic, socialist who fought on; but not at, the side as Marx and Engels in the
revolutionary year of 1848 in Germany. As to him being a communist; i.e. a follower of Karl Marx,
this is very unlikely in so far as Venedey died in 1871 (the year of the Paris commune) and although
Marx had published the first volume of his 'Das Kapital' in 1867: it was not till after he died that he
came to be regarded; through the industry and agency of Engels, a 'great' socialist thinker. (148)

It is thus rather doubtful that Venedey was a communist as now normally understood, but it is
possible that he could have been a supporter of the communards given that he spent a large amount
of time in Paris (this time a centre of revolutionary thought) as well as France in general and was
politically left-wing. We can thus reasonably speculate that Venedey was at the very least familiar
with the doctrines and ideas of the philosophers of the communards; like Babeuf, Saint Just and
Proudhon, and would have likely been; as an ideological fellow traveler, supportive of their
revolutionary ideas and general program.

As such then it is possible that Venedey knew Marx, but I know of no instances or examples of
correspondence to or mention of Venedey in any published or archive collection of Marx's
voluminous correspondence. As Marx was a serial letter writer and used any connection; however
obscure, to try to elicit money to pay for his various habits in addition to having an aristocratic wife,
several young children and a servant to feed and clothe. (149) We can say that although it is
possible that Venedey knew Marx it is highly unlikely this was the case as Marx left no paper trail
of it and nor do he or Engels mention Venedey as far as I am aware, which would have been the
case had Marx and Venedey known each other and especially so if the two were friends as is
alleged.

That Venedey was a Freemason I have been able to find no evidence for other than the much later
assertion that he was associated with a Paris lodge named 'Bauhütte' (lit. 'Masonic/Workers Hut').
(150) Other than the fact that the Bauhütte claim could easily refer to the German craft guilds that
had existed since the medieval epoch: the term 'Bauhütte' does not come into existence till 1816
when Goethe innovated it in his book of that year: 'Kunst und Alterthum am Rhein und Mayn'.
(151) I cannot find any contemporary or detailed reference to such an organisation existing in Paris
at the time (Fry refers to a periodical of the same name which I have not been able to locate a copy
of) and not least to Venedey having been a Freemason himself.

Further; and perhaps most alarmingly, there does not appear to be any actual evidence; other than
later blind assertion and rumour, that Venedey was himself jewish. It seems we have a case here; as
Peter Myers has observed, (152) of an individual being labelled as a jew who seems to have not
been and then claimed as being a 'Learned Elder'. (153)

This hasty claim seems to also be at the root of the claim that Venedey's book 'Macchiavel,
Montesquieu, Rousseau' was plagiarised by Maurice Joly. Although I have not; as yet, made a
detailed comparison between the 'Dialogue' and 'Macchiavel, Montesquieu, Rousseau' some key
points stand out to me as suggesting this was a hasty improvisation in the pro-Protocols camp.

Firstly is the difference of language in that in spite of its title 'Macchiavel, Montesquieu, Rousseau'
was only to my knowledge published in German (in 1850 by Franz Duncker in Berlin) as opposed
to Joly's 'Dialogue' which was published in French in Geneva and Brussels. Now it is of course
possible to plagiarise from different language works, but it is very difficult; due to the linguistic
difficulties of translation, to do so accurately. That suggests that even if the Vishnu quote from the
Protocols that has been traced to Joly is in Venedey's work (154) then it wouldn't likely read the
same way due to the translation and would thus be very difficult to track back and prove as a
'plagiarism'.

That said you could style this as a clever piece of plagiarism on Joly's part (as we know he did
actually plagiarise whole pages of work from Eugene Sue for example) (155) but the problem with
that is that we do not know if Joly could read or speak German; let alone fluently, and as such it is
difficult at best to imagine him plagiarising a German language work for reasons unknown to us.

Secondly the originator of the Venedey plagiarism claim seems to have superficially connected the
title of the first volume (there are two) of Venedey's book, which is 'Macchiavel und Montesquieu',
and assumed that this is a dialogue. In fact as the title of the second volume; 'Rousseau', makes
clear: it is actually just a left-wing philosophical reflection on three important authors in the then
contemporary philosophical canon. The work itself is not a dialogue in the vein of the Protocols and
could not have served as a model for Joly's 'Dialogue' as de Michelis rightly points out. (156)

Thirdly Venedy arrives late on the scene; in 1931 no less, (157) as a defense of the Protocols by
including Joly as plagiarist of an alleged freemasonic jewish communist then it serves to neutralise
the superficially powerful Joly 'plagiarism' claims and indeed enlist them into the arsenal of the pro-
Protocols camp.

Thus we can say in summary that Venedey wasn't a communist, didn't know Karl Marx, doesn't
seem to have been jewish or a freemason either. We also can be fairly sure that Venedey's
'Macchiavel, Montesquieu, Rousseau' did not serve as a template or inspiration for Joly's 'Dialogue'.

By contrast to the legend of Joly's plagiarism of Venedey: the pro-Protocols camp are on much
stronger ground when we come to the origins of the Joly plagiarism claim. This is typified in the
fact that the argument originates from Philip Graves who claims to have met a White Russian
landowner ('Mr. X') who had had connections to the Okhrana in Constantinople in 1921 who then
told him that he knew it was plagiarism from a rare old French book; Joly's 'Dialogue', and provided
Graves with a copy to check the passages himself. (158)

Now there are several things that are very wrong with the picture that Graves provides; although
nearly every author on the Protocols has unquestioningly believed him, one of which is found in the
lack of an actual identity to give to this mysterious 'White Russian landowner' per the pseudonym of
'Mr. X'. This faceless man has been tentatively identified; using Graves' description, as one Mihail
Raslovlev who was in Constantinople at about this time. (159)

Now the obvious question that needs to be asked; but which to my knowledge hasn't, is why did
Graves cover up the identity of his informant given that there was no authority that would go after
'Mr. X' any more as the Okhrana had ceased to exist and the anti-jewish governments of the 1930s
were yet to come into power. So the question remains: why cover up the identity of the informant?

You could argue that this was to protect 'Mr. X's' reputation in the right-wing White Russian circles,
which would view such an activity as akin to treason especially for the money that Graves
promised. However this assumes that 'Mr. X' had much to lose by being known as an informer to
White Russian émigrés in Constantinople. The logical question to this dilemma is again: why?

We could suggest; not unreasonably, that it was to avoid losing his friends and social connections,
but then by betraying an alleged 'secret' then 'Mr. X' had already shown he had no real interest in
loyalty to those he pretended to agree with on a social and political level. So why was he so
interested in keeping in with his social and political circle, while willingly betraying an alleged
'secret'?

Well the obvious; if controversial, answer is that 'Mr. X' was actually a White Russian émigré who
worked for the Cheka in an international capacity to keep an eye on what the White Russian
émigrés were planning, which we know of numerous former monarchist émigrés doing. (160)
However; like the sudden remembrances of du Chayla, I think we are dealing here with a Bolshevik
method of trying to discredit their White Russian enemies whom used the Protocols of Zion; with
the massive controversy that was raging around them in Europe in addition to their popularity, as a
highly-effective propaganda weapon against the newly created Soviet Union. (161)

Now as the Cheka could not attack the Protocols directly by planting stories via sympathisers and
fellow travelers without the risk of it being attacked as a Soviet plot to discredit the Protocols: they
hit upon a simple and highly effective alternative. Invite a reporter for the paper that was
respectable institution (i.e. believable) but also one that believed in the Protocols (i.e. no reason to
suspect a Soviet source); for which 'The Times' of London was easily the best candidate, and then
give them the alleged 'plagiarism' information plus a copy of the book in question (so they could see
for themselves and were thus likely to print the claim).

This sounds somewhat fantastic: doesn't it?

However there is one strange detail of the meeting with 'Mr. X' that is very difficult to explain if we
simply assume he was motivated by money: he left after giving the information to Graves without
taking the money that Graves had there for him and didn't actually ask for it at the time. (162) Now
if 'Mr. X' had been motivated by financial difficulties: would he not upon Graves' crediting the
alleged 'plagiarism' immediately ask for the money that was the ostensible reason for his coming
forward?

That 'Mr. X' left suggests to us that the money was not the principle reason for 'Mr. X's' revelation
and that leaves us with two explanations to consider: that 'Mr. X' was estranged from his former
acquaintances and friends in the White Russian émigré movement or that 'Mr. X' was involved in
this event at the behest of a strongly anti-Protocols third party. That 'Mr. X' was not estranged from
his friends and acquaintances in the White Russian émigré movement we can see from the use of
the pseudonym as 'Mr. X' to protect his identity when there were no physical threats to his life by
coming forward.

That then leaves us with other possibility: that 'Mr. X' was working at the behest of a strongly anti-
Protocols third party. The most obvious candidate for this is the Soviet Union who were strongly
involved in opposing anti-Semitism at this time and also; as we have seen, were actively involved in
trying to eliminate the Protocols as late as 1934-1935 at the Bern Trial. In addition to this we have a
huge over-representation of jews in the Russian Communist party apparatus at this time, which
again serves to suggest that what we are dealing with here is a very successful Soviet information
dissemination operation. (163)

If we understand this then it leads us nicely onto the second issue with 'Mr. X's' story and one that
has also not been sufficiently explored by the Protocols literature on both sides of the debate: why
'Mr. X' knew about the alleged 'plagiarism'. The problem with that of course is: we simply don't
know as Graves doesn't tell us, but implies that it is something to do with the Okhrana by pointing
out that 'Mr. X' claimed to have received the information from an ex-officer in that organisation.
(164)
This fits nicely with Cohn's theory of the origin of the Protocols being the Paris Okhrana: in that it
is conceivable that it could have come through organisational gossip and so forth. However; as we
have seen, Cohn's speculative theory is untenable because there is no actual evidence for it and
quite a lot against it.

So then how did 'Mr. X' know about the similarities to Joly's 'Dialogue'?

The answer actually brings us onto the third issue with 'Mr. X's' testimony. To wit: that 'Mr. X'
claimed that Joly's 'Dialogue' was an 'obscure French book' (165) when in fact in its Russian
translation it was actually quite well-known: far more so than in the original French. (166) Now if
'Mr. X' was the man he claimed to be: then he would understood that the book itself was common in
Russian right-wing circles at the time, but if 'Mr. X' was not from that milieu originally then it is
precisely the sort of obscure detail that he wouldn't know.

That then suggests that; as I have said, 'Mr. X' was likely from the Russian left-wing not the Russian
right-wing (assuming of course that Graves would have realised if 'Mr. X' was not actually
Russian): i.e. he was an agent of the Cheka. However the information that 'Mr. X' gave could have
very easily been spotted in the Nilus edition, because two to three Protocols are very close to the
text of the 'Dialogue'. (167)

This then suggests that someone familiar with the 'Dialogue' in its Russian translation; note not the
original French, noticed one or more similarities between the texts when they read the Protocols,
which would have then caused that individual to compare them. This information then found its
way; probably through a monarchist turn-coat, to the Soviet secret police; the Cheka, who then
sought to use it; via the delivery method I have elucidated, to eliminate a powerful weapon that the
White Russian émigrés were using against the Soviet Union as well as enabling them to combat
local anti-Semitism more effectively (i.e. citing the testimony of a respected external anti-
Communist source).

If we understand this then it shows that while it doesn't necessarily impact the existence of alleged
'plagiarisms' in the Protocols from Joly's 'Dialogue': it does give us a very different picture of the
battles that were going on around the Protocols at this time. It wasn't a time of battles between
'truth' and 'fantasy', but rather a brutal geopolitical battle between jews and their critics. The
decisive factor in this phase of the struggle was the Soviet Union's intervention to help an
increasingly desperate jewish community and because of the way that they aided them: it has been
unrecognised till now.

Having thus dealt with the two areas which provide context to the Joly 'plagiarism' claim: we can
begin survey the claim itself. Before we do this however we should remind ourselves of two
pertinent facts:

A) That the amount of 'plagiarism' from Joly's 'Dialogue' differs substantially from the Krushevan
edition of 1903 and the Nilus edition of 1905.

B) That there is a limited range of expression in any language, which can easily give rise to
convergences on metaphors and examples especially if written at a similar time and in a similar (or
the same) cultural context. And we should bear in mind that the principle method used by the anti-
Protocols camp is to look at the metaphors and examples used for comparison.

We should also state that; as Peter Myers has pointed out, the traditional calculation (by Bernstein
and Cohn) of the amount of text the Protocols take from Joly is unrepresentative in that it is not; as
Cohn states, two-fifths but rather one-sixth of the text. (168) Or put another way: the Joly passages
comprise 16.45 percent of the Protocols, but again we should remember as above that a large
quantity of this material is itself a later edition to the Protocols by Nilus. (169)

De Michelis calculates the percentage of 'plagiarism' from Joly as 4 percent of the text across
Protocols 1 to 11 and across 12-22 as 8 percent. (170) This compares to Cohn's claim of 40 percent
and Bernstein's claim of 16.45 percent. This discrepancy can be explained by the authors examining
different texts as Cohn looked at the Nilus edition as did Bernstein, but they came to two very
different conclusions and I would suggest that Cohn is actually trying to maximise the percentage of
the text that can be attributed to Joly's 'Dialogue' (to fit his thesis of an anti-Semitic conspiracy in
Paris using Joly's book) while Bernstein is; ironically (as he was a more outspoken opponent of
anti-Semitism than Cohn), the more accurate.

De Michelis' notice of the difference can actually be explained simply; as he himself acknowledges,
by looking at the fact that the Protocols were originally explicitly divided into two parts in the
Krushevan edition. The first section (Protocols 1-11) was stated to have no 'cuts' from the text by
the editor (Krushevan) while the second section (Protocols 12-22) was stated to have 'cuts' from the
original text. (171) This suggests that whatever original document that Krushevan had: he had
inserted and removed some parts of the text, which may suggest; as we know Krushevan had
commented on Joly's 'Dialogue' in 'The Bessarabian' in 1903, that Krushevan may have
unintentionally dressed up a small part of the Protocols with a book he had recently read and
commented on.

This is quite a common practice; as Myers correctly observes, as one frequently uses earlier articles
and what one has recently read to style ones thought. (172) Thus the lack of other styles in
Krushevan's 1903 edition other than work from Herzl and Joly actually points to the Protocols
originally being an authentic document as the inclusion of Joly we can explain by the cuts, but the
inclusion of near direct quotes from Herzl is very difficult to explain other than to suggest that
Krushevan had read it recently (which has already been removed from contention above).

Even de Michelis has pointed out that the Joly 'plagiarism' argument is at best indirect evidence
precisely because the text is not used consistently throughout the Protocols and while Protocol 8 is
almost word for word: Protocol 14 barely has anything reminiscent of Joly in it at all. (173) That
suggests to us that the Joly plagiarism claim is not nearly as solid as many anti-Protocols scholars
assume it is.

For the sake of simplicity I will take the three examples cited by the Wikipedia article (174) (the
author of which has simply copied these parallel passages and references without attribution from
Graves assuming incorrectly a consistency of argument over nearly a century of debate), (175)
which is many people's first point of reference on this subject. To wit:

From Joly's 12th Dialogue:

'Like the god Vishnu, my press will have a hundred arms, and these arms will give their hands to all
the different shades of opinion throughout the country.'

Is compared to Protocol 12:

'These newspapers, like the Indian god Vishnu, will be possessed of hundreds of hands, each of
which will be feeling the pulse of varying public opinion.'

And
From Joly's 17th Dialogue:

'Now I understand the figure of the god Vishnu; you have a hundred arms like the Indian idol, and
each of your fingers touches a spring.'

Is compared to Protocol 17:

'Our Government will be an apologia of the Hindu god Vishnu. Each of our hundred hands will hold
one spring of the social machinery of the State.'

It is logical to stop here and examine this claim of similarity, which is based singly on the use of the
image of Vishnu to explain a point. This is usually considered to be damning, but I disagree on the
simple grounds that if one is going to explain the organisation of a massive conspiracy with lots of
different elements working at apparent odds with each other. Then there are few neutral; let alone
positive, methods of explanation while there are several negative ones. We should notice here that
the author of the Protocols does not use the common anti-jewish motif of the many-armed octopus;
ironically used as artwork on the cover of many editions of the Protocols, which would have been
more in-line with a 'satirical' origin of the Protocols and also anti-jewish thought in general.

Vishnu as such is actually a very good motif to use as it explains the policy without attaching
negative characteristics to it, but as such it is one of the few such metaphors that could have been
used. If I am honest I myself find it difficult to think of any way of explaining the policy of either
the Protocols or Joly's pseudo-Machiavelli metaphorically without using either an octopus or
Vishnu.

We may further observe that in Dialogue 12 and Protocol 12 the metaphor actually means
something different in so far as Joly's pseudo-Machiavelli is saying that his press will fight each
other at the explicit direction of the central power. While in Protocol 12 the meaning is quite
different in that the Learned Elders are not actively directing the press, but rather using their control
in a more passive way and only intervene; through their agents, when as they say the 'pulse
quickens' to prevent threats to their own power and program.

It is true there is a strong similarity between parts of the passages and the context in which they are
presented, but the text is not nearly as close as is usually portrayed: particularly as Joly's pseudo-
Machiavelli is talking about assigning one 'dedicated organ' (i.e. a single newspaper) only to each
position where-as the Protocols speak directly of newspapers and publishing in general placing no
limit on the scale of their media system or suggesting that there is need for control of these
newspapers to be active or centralized in any way.

As such then we can see that the Joly and Protocols comparison on this quote is actually not as
close as Graves, Bernstein and Cohn think: as the quote differs substantially in what the object of
such control is and how it is to be achieved. The only thing that is similar in part is the phrasing,
which conforms to de Michelis' view of an indirect origin for these paraphrases.

With Dialogue 17 and Protocol 17 we have a similar situation with the metaphor of Vishnu again
being used however this time the Dialogue and the Protocol do match each other far more closely
than in Dialogue 12 and Protocol 12. In particular the use of word 'apologue' (lit. 'account') in the
original text of Joly's 'Dialogue', which has been changed into 'apologia' (lit. 'speaking in defense')
in the Protocols. This occurs before the Vishnu metaphor, which cannot be coincidence precisely
because it is so unusual an expression to use and combined with the commentary on the use of the
police after both the Dialogue and the Protocols suggests that one comes the other.
That said there are some discrepancies: the Protocols actually divorces itself from the use of the
'official police' preferring to use a network of informers (possibly a reference to the jews in the Pale
of Settlement) that will comprise one third of the population to spy on the other two thirds, while
the Dialogue states that pseudo-Machiavelli would increase the network of police to about half the
population as a 'vast institution' so that no one in the other half of the population would be able to
move without central government's knowledge.

Thus we can see that once again there is a similarity; although this time it is clear that the Protocols
is a paraphrase of Joly, but that the meaning is quite different. This is reinforced by the 'apologue'
and 'apologia' discrepancy in so far as whoever wrote the Protocols did not understand the subtle
difference in meaning: a fact that seems to my mind to strengthen the case for a jewish origin
precisely because the jews of Russia would not have been very familiar with Greek work; where-as
Christians such as Krushevan would have been, and would easily have transliterated the meaning
from a term they had not heard of 'apologue' and replaced it into a term they had 'apologia' (hence
the absurdity of 'apologia for the Hindu god Vishnu' which makes no logical sense what-so-ever).

Thus we can see that in spite of the literary paraphrase of Joly the point of the argument made by
the Protocols is neither debunked as part of an actual program or demonstrated that it comes from
anti-Semites. Indeed as stated we can even see in the mistakes in the paraphrasing potential
evidence for jewish involvement.

The last of the examples cited by Wikipedia is from Joly's 20th Dialogue and proceeds thus:

'How are loans made? By the issue of bonds entailing on the Government the obligation to pay
interest proportionate to the capital it has been paid. Thus, if a loan is at 5 percent, the State, after 20
years, has paid out a sum equal to the borrowed capital. When 40 years have expired it has paid
double, after 60 years triple: yet it remains debtor for the entire capital sum.'

Is compared to Protocol 20:

'A loan is an issue of Government paper which entails an obligation to pay interest amounting to a
percentage of the total sum of the borrowed money. If a loan is at 5 percent, then in 20 years the
Government would have unnecessarily paid out a sum equal to that of the loan in order to cover the
percentage. In 40 years it will have paid twice; and in 60 thrice that amount, but the loan will still
remain as an unpaid debt.'

Now here we have a very clear case of a good and simple example being used by the Protocols from
the Joly text in the figures used for the calculation of the loan. However this is as far it goes in as is
demonstrated by actually quoting the context of both statements.

Joly's 20th Dialogue:

'It is here that I wanted to lead you. It is certain that few governments do not have the necessity of
resorting to loans; but it is also certain that they are obligated to use them with discretion; they do
not know how -- without involving immorality and danger -- to burden the generations to come
with loads that are exorbitant and disproportionate to probable resources. How are loans made? By
the issuance of securities that contain obligations on the part of the government to pay sums
proportionate to the capital that is deposited with it. If the loan is at 5 percent, for example, the State
-- at the end of 20 years -- must pay a sum equal to the loaned capital; at the end of 40 years, a
double sum; at the end of 60 years, a triple sum, and yet it still remains a debtor for the totality of
that capital. One can add that, if the State indefinitely increases its debts, without doing anything to
diminish them, it will be brought to the impossibility of borrowing any more capital or bankruptcy.
Such results are easy to grasp: there is no country in which every person would not understand
them. The modern States have also wanted to set necessary limitations on the growth of taxes. To
this purpose, they have imagined what one has called the system of amortization, which is an
arrangement truly admirable for the simplicity and the practical method of its execution. One
creates a special fund, of which the capitalized resources are intended for the permanent redemption
of the public debt through successive fractions, with the result that, every time the State borrows, it
must endow the amortization fund with a certain amount of capital intended to wipe out the new
debts in a given period of time. You will see that this method of limitation is indirect and that this it
its power. By means of the amortization, the nation says to its government: "You will borrow if you
are forced to, but you must still preoccupy yourself with meeting the new obligations that you incur
in my name. When one is ceaselessly obligated to amortize, one will look twice before borrowing.
If you regularly amortize, I will allow your loans to pass."'

In comparison to Protocol 20:

'Every kind of loan proves infirmity in the State and a want of understanding of the rights of the
State. Loans hang like a sword of Damocles over the heads of rulers, who, instead of taking from
their subject by a temporary tax, come begging with outstretched palm of our bankers. Foreign
loans are leeches which there is no possibility of removing from the body of the State until they fall
of themselves or the State flings them off. But the goy States do not tear them off: they go on in
persisting in putting more onto themselves so that they must inevitably perish, drained by voluntary
blood-letting.

What also indeed is, in substance, a loan, especially a foreign loan? A loan is – an issue of
government bills of exchange containing a percentage obligation commensurate to the sum of the
loan capital. If the loan bears a charge of 5 percent, then in 20 years the State vainly pays away in
interest a sum equal to the loan borrowed, in 40 years it is paying a double sum, in sixty thrice, and
all the while the debt remains a debt unpaid.

From this calculation it is obvious that with any form of taxation per head the State is bailing out
the last coppers of the poor taxpayers in order to settle accounts with wealthy foreigners, from
whom it has borrowed money instead of collecting these coppers for its own needs without the
additional interest.'

We can see from putting the two sections side-by-side that the parallel is actually quite minimal and
is limited to talking about a similar subject and the use of the simple example given by the Dialogue
in the Protocols. So while it is clear that the Protocols have used the Dialogue as an aid in
composition: they are not 'plagiarising' or even paraphrasing it. They are merely taking an example
as a benchmark in good expression.

I should add that one sees such example-based bench-marking throughout the Dialogue and
Protocol comparisons such as in Dialogue 13's use of the expression 'tigers have souls of sheep,
heads full of wind' and Protocol 15's 'tigers in appearance have the souls of sheep and the wind
blows through their heads'. There isn't a parallel in either passages in terms of meaning, but rather
the same metaphor or example is used to explain a point.

Sharp-eyed readers will also have noticed the expression 'sword of Damocles' that was covered
earlier; which is alleged to come from Chabry, and offers further evidence of the absurdity of the
'plagiarism' argument leveled at the Protocols in that we are supposed to believe that the author or
authors of the Protocols decided to combine two different 'plagiarisms' from two very different
works together and to have done it consistently.
This underlies my point about the simple lack of common sense in the anti-Protocols camp and how
their seeing 'plagiarism' everywhere has actually undermined their own central 'plagiarism'
argument by dragging it into absurdity.

Thus we can see that the claim that the Protocol's is a 'plagiarism' of Joly is actually something of a
toothless tiger itself as its central argument is based on the idea that the Protocols is merely a repeat
of Joly's Dialogue and offers nothing substantial to it. However as we can see from working through
Wikipedia's three examples: not only is this not the case, but when subjected to point for point
comparison the Dialogue and the Protocols are substantially different if sometimes convergent on
examples and metaphors.

If we bear in mind that all three of these examples are from the second section of Krushevan's 1903
edition (the most 'plagiarised' part with 8 percent of the text allegedly coming from Joly's
'Dialogue') then we can see just how weak the anti-Protocols case is in that they are ignoring nearly
all the text to focus their attention on selective examples of convergence.

I would add that while this does not remove the fact that Joly's 'Dialogue' has been used it is not a
case of 'plagiarism' but rather as a simple benchmark aid to the composition, which proves very
little other than that the author must have been aware of Joly's work. For which we can; as before
stated, remove Krushevan from contention for being the author of the Protocols because of the
Ukrainianisms in the original text which he did not write with.

References

(142) Eisner, Op. Cit., pp. 10-19 gives the simplest summary of these events.
(143) de Michelis, Op. Cit., pp. 53; 60
(144) Bolton, Op. Cit., p. 34
(145) Ibid.
(146) de Michelis, Op. Cit., p. 53
(147) Bolton, Op. Cit., p. 34
(148) See Simon Rigby, 2007, 'Engels and the Formation of Marxism', 1st Edition, Manchester
University Press: Manchester.
(149) See Heinz Frederick Peters, 1986, 'Red Jenny: A Life with Karl Marx', 1st Edition, Allen and
Unwin: London.
(150) Bolton, Op. Cit., p. 34
(151) Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1971, [1816], 'Kunst und Alterthum am Rhein und Mayn', 1st
Edition, Peter Lang: New York, p. 575
(152) http://mailstar.net/toolkit.html
(153) Bolton, Op. Cit., p. 34
(154) http://mailstar.net/toolkit.html
(155) Umberto Eco, 1994, 'Six Walks in the Fictional Woods', 1st Edition, Harvard University
Press: Cambridge, pp. 135; 172
(156) Ibid, p. 60
(157) L. Fry, 1953, 'Waters Flowing Eastwards', 4th Edition, Britons: London, pp. 96-101
(158) Graves, Op. Cit., pp. 4-5
(159) Taguieff, Op. Cit., Vol. 2, p. 196
(160) An excellent example of just this is Nikolai Skoblin who pretended to be an anti-Communist
White Russian émigré, but was actually an agent for the Cheka.
(161) Michael Kellogg, 2005, 'The Russian Roots of Nazism: White Émigrés and the Making of
National Socialism 1917-1945', 1st Edition, Cambridge University Press: New York, pp. 63-70
(162) Eisner, Op. Cit., p. 90
(163) For a detailed discussion of this see Lionel Kochan (Ed.), 1971, 'The Jews in Russia since
1917', 1st Edition, Oxford University Press: New York.
(164) Graves, Op. Cit., pp. 5-6
(165) Ibid, p. 6
(166) de Michelis, Op. Cit., pp. 52-53
(167) Ibid, p. 54
(168) http://mailstar.net/toolkit.html
(169) de Michelis, Op. Cit., p. 55
(170) Ibid, p. 8
(171) Ibid.
(172) http://mailstar.net/toolkit.html
(173) de Michelis, Op. Cit., pp. 54-55
(174) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion#Maurice_Joly
(175) Graves, Op. Cit., pp. 9; 13-14
Posted 11th June 2012 by Karl Radl