Page:The Shield (Knopf, 1917).djvu/94

68 new régime, was created,—namely artificial political parties.

Thus, anti-Semitism of the new type, however strange this conclusion may appear, is the product of the constitutional epoch. It is a response to the need for new means of influencing the masses. And in this sense anti-Semitism plays in Russia the same role as it played in Western Europe.

Bismarck, it will be remembered, called anti-Semitism the socialism of fools. In order to combat the socialism of intelligent people, it is necessary to take hold of the ignorant masses and to mislead them by showing them the imaginary enemy of their welfare instead of the real one. Anti-Semitism says to the ignorant masses: "There is your enemy, fight the Jews, and you will improve your life conditions" It is well known that such attempts to apply anti-Semitism for the purpose of creating social parties of the new type were more than once made in the West. As an example, I shall cite the Christian Social Party in Austria, with its late leader, Lueger.

There is one small difference between us and the West. In Russia the masses are not