The History of a Lie

by Herman Bernstein

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THE HISTORY OF A LIE

“The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion”

“Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all”

—Oliver Wendell Holmes.

 

A STUDY
BY
HERMAN BERNSTEIN
Author of “With Master Minds,” Etc.

 

NEW YORK
J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY
57 ROSE STREET

 

Copyright, 1921, By J. S. Ogilvie Publishing Company

 

CONTENTS

page
Foreword	3
CHAPTER ONE
The Mysterious Protocols
The Lie of a Jewish World Conspiracy—Is There a Jewish Conspiracy?—Anonymous Accusations—The Mysterious “Protocols” of Sergei Nilus—How did “Nilus” Secure Them?—Contradictory Explanations—Who is “Nilus”?—How his Sponsors Disagree—What Russian Publicists Say	7
CHAPTER TWO
The Story From Which the Protocols Were Fabricated
Essence of “Protocols” Was German Fiction of “Sir John Retcliffe”—Who Was “Retcliffe”?—His Infamous Record—His Bloodcurdling Story—The Meeting in the Cemetery—An Avowed Myth—Meeting Every Hundred Years Attended by “Representatives of the Twelve Tribes of Israel”—The “Son of the Accursed” Also Attends and Provides Comic Interludes	16
CHAPTER THREE
Fiction Forged Into “Fact”
The Lie in its Second Stage—The Tale Becomes “Fact”—The “Rabbi’s” Speech—Its Authenticity Vouched for by “Retcliffe”—An Illuminating Footnote—A Dedication to The Russian “Black Hundreds”—The Imaginary “Speech” Bears Witness to Authenticity of “Protocols,” Themselves Based on “Speech”—Three Stages of the Lie	43
CHAPTER FOUR
The Russian Sponsors of the Forgery
Nilus on the Protocols—Only “the God-Anointed Tsar of Russia” Can Save the World—Passages from Nilus Omitted by Translators—On Tolstoy—On the Emancipation of Women—On the “Sanhedrin” and “its Faithful Ally, England”	55
CHAPTER FIVE
Forgers Disagree
The Butmi Protocols—“Representatives of Zion” Not to be Confounded with “Zionists”—Butmi Contradicts Nilus—Plan for World Conquest Conceived 929 B. C. E.—The “Symbolic Snake”—Universal Suffrage a Jewish Device—Every Jew Familiar with Plot	59
CHAPTER SIX
The Black Hundreds, Their Dupes and Crimes
Russia in 1905—The Unsuccessful Revolution—The Reaction and the Reactionaries—Lutostansky and His Work—The “Symbolic Snake” According to Lutostansky—Who Plagiarized?—Lutostansky on the English People—Are the English the “Lost Tribes”’?—How the Protocols Were “Doctored” by Butmi—Conclusion	63

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RESURRECTION. By Count Leo Tolstoi. (Published 1900.) It depicts with a master hand the ocean of life rocked by storm and lulled to sleep and ease. In the splash of every wave is heard the story of human emotions, misery, disenchantment, suffering, crime, and life, that is true—even in art. Illustrated. Cloth bound. Price, $1.00; postpaid.

“FOMA GORDEYEYV.” By Maxim Gorky. (Published 1901.) This book made Gorky’s literary reputation in Russia, Germany and France. It is a most remarkable novel. The New York Evening Post says:

“Maxim Gorky, the young Russian poet of the vagabond and the proletariat, the most ardent worshipper at the shrine of Nietzsche and his ideal ‘Over-Man,’ owes much of his sudden popularity to his personality. The son of a poor upholsterer, Gorky was thrown upon his own resources at the age of nine and since then has experienced a wide range of human emotions, struggles, depravity and misery. Shoemaker, apple peddler, painter, dock-hand, railroad workman, baker and tramp, this unique author had a thousand and one similar occupations, and had even made more than one attempt to take his own life.”

This version of Foma Gordeyey is in no way abridged, giving the exact reproduction of the thought and expression of the author. Cloth bound. Price, $1.00; postpaid.

THE SEVEN WHO WERE HANGED. By Leonid Andreyey. (Published 1909.) What reviewers say:

“It is by reason of its art even more real, more horrifying, more impressive than any other Russian fiction translated in a long time. Under the crystal simplicity of Andreyev’s style each spirit reveals itself, stripped of its bodily covering, in its inmost truth.”—New York Times.

“Grewsome because it fs fearfully real. But it is compelling for the same reason.’”—New York World.

“It is not a mere morbid probing into the abnormal and horrible. It has its mission. It is a grim and terrible picture, and it is painted with tremendous art—the art of a Dore.”—Chicago Inter-Ocean,

Cloth bound. Price, $1.00; postpaid.

THE FORGED COUPON. By Count Leo Tolstoi. (Published 1912.) This story shows the successive evil and wrong resulting from the forging of a bank note by a student in need of money. Numerous crimes succeed each other as a result of this first wrong act, until the wave of crime is checked by a poor, ignorant woman and a lame tailor, who follow the real teaching of Christ. The book contains also After the Ball, a story of love and military life; Korney Vasilyey, a story of peasant life; Tolstoi’s Vital Humanitarian Ideas, giving the very essence of the fountain-spring and incentive of all the literary work ever written by this wonderful man—a peep, as it were, at the power-works of his thinking machine. Cloth bound. Price, $1.00; postpaid.

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J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY, 57 Rose Street, NEW YORK