Page:The History of a Lie (1921).djvu/67



As the writings of Sergius Nilus are typical of the “literature” produced under the auspices of the Russian Black Hundred organizations which sought to save the Czar’s throne by pogroms, I examined a large number of publications brought out in Russia during the period when “the Russian Mystic,” Sergius Nilus, published his pretended discovery, the “Protocols.” His book, “The Great in the Small and anti-Christ,” appeared in 1905 after the Russo-Japanese War, when the Russian revolutionists made an attempt to overthrow the Czar’s government. A new organization was formed for the support of the Russian throne. It was known as “the Union of the Russian People,”—“the Black Hundred,”—whose program was Jew-baiting. It was then that Russia adopted a definite, anti-Jewish policy of vengenance—a pogrom policy. The “Black Hundred” held the Jews responsible for Russia’s defeat in the war and for the attempted revolution,—and neither the Czar nor his loyal organization of the “Black Hundred” ever forgave Count Sergius Witte, who won for Russia at the Portsmouth Peace Conference what she had lost on the battlefields, for inducing Nicholas II to grant a constitution to Russia. “The Black Hundreds” nicknamed Witte “the Jewish Count of Portsmouth.” They attacked him and attempted to assassinate him. They assassinated at that Rh