Myths of Conspiracy
According to medieval myths, the Jews were allies of Satan in a gigantic conspiracy against Christendom. From the late 18th century this myth had acquired a more secular form, becoming a part of anti-liberal and anti-revolutionary propaganda. The new myth maintained that the Jews had aspired to world domination with the help of liberalism and democracy, undermining the monarchy and the church in the process. In the wake of the 1917 Russian Revolution such anti-Semitic conspiracy fantasies gained additional ground. The anti-revolutionary propaganda explained the Bolshevik takeover in Russia through the existence of an all-powerful international Jewry that constituted the real force behind the revolution. “Judeo-Bolshevism” instantly became a catch phrase for depicting communism as a Jewish tool.
One of the most influential conspiracy myths, the fictional Protocols of the Elders of Zion, was originally published in Tsarist Russia. The Protocols portrayed Jews as conspirators against the state hatching a secret plan to rule the world.
The Protocols made their way into Western Europe and the United States through Russian emigrées after the 1917 revolution. Composed of disparate texts with no connection to the Jews, the Protocols were proved to be a forgery already in 1921. This did not prevent the Nazis from eagerly using the the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in their propaganda; contemporary anti-Semites, especially in the Middle East, continuously evoke the pamphlet as proof of a global Jewish conspiracy.
“It is completely irrelevant from what particular Jew these revelations originate from, what is important is how uncannily they reveal the nature and activities of the Jewish people,” wrote Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf.