Ch. III
Levin teaches Doctor Landowski the science of torturing through causing pleasure in the victims instead of suffering. He explains that a person being tortured loses his power of will in the same way as does someone who is overwhelmed by pleasure; in extasis. Explaining this with great passion, he says:
“My friend; we are making a new society; as you might know. Christian humanity has pleased herself, has enjoyed things as a pig enjoys being in the mud. Well, what until now has been pleasure for a few will become an instrument for the transformation of community life.” [34]
Hedonism is the tool. Because people will become accustomed to pleasure, to consuming, to drugs, etc, when they are then later deprived of them, or threatened with deprivation, they will be amenable to the will of the new master. This was intended to be applied to prisoners, dissidents, opposition, etc.
Landowski: “Terror, negative terror, as a means of ferocious coordinated actions against men and masses – the total meaning that it has had for the average man until now- had been mastered. The scientific crime, not only as a weapon to destroy the adversary but also as a means to achieve control, was being adopted in a systematic and normal way.” [38]
He then describes how Stalin enjoys not only killing his enemies but also making them suffer as much as possible publicly, and instead of overt massacres he is opting for “natural death”, “murder by chance”; “legal murder”. [38]
In short, the “terror” was to be induced by making it possible to murder people without any judicial or medical evidence of murder being committed. Those who could see what was being done would be helpless to obtain justice and thus would understand that they, at any time, could also be murdered and there would be nothing that could be done about it.
CHAPTER XXVI: Confession [332]
[Testimony recorded from Garmarik under torture]:
I can affirm that the conspiracy has the complicity and the help of very powerful international forces. Firstly, the circle of Wall Street, the strongest of the United States, whose power is huge upon all the American and European economy, and to which governments and politicians of many nations in the world obey. I don’t know who those great financers are; but I’ve been told, even if I don’t believe it, that they have been offering services and extremely important help to the Marxist revolutions for many years.
According to the leaders of the Opposition, the government of the Democratic nations, and in particular England, France, Czechoslovakia and specially the United States, being pressured by these big financers, want the triumph of the Opposition in the USSR and for that goal, they facilitate it by ordering their international politics in front of Stalin. As immediate and important effects, they have the security that the democratic nations help indirectly the German rearmament, at the same time tolerating the enlargement of the Third Reich, so as to make Hitler have enough military capacities to dare to declare war against the USSR.
(…) In the military:
2° The essence and the character of the conspiracy are revealed in the word defeatism. The success of the conspiracy depends on the organization of the defeat over the USSR; not a total victory, but a series of partial victories that could cause Stalin’s fall. (…)
3° According to what I’ve been told, it has been arranged with Wall Street that the war will finish at the same moment that Stalin, the Politburo and the most loyal men have been executed. It has been assured to the leaders of the conspiracy that a big coalition, England, France, The United States and all the other States which form the Society of Nations, will declare war against Hitler, describing him as an aggressor. This will be the signal for the conspiracy of the German generals, who also want to kill Hitler, to establish a military coup. A peace treaty will follow. A peace of “commandments” in the territorial aspect, but Germany being disarmed, having to submit to Versailles treaty once again, which will aggravate because of its new aggression.
REPORT
THE QUESTIONING OF THE ACCUSED CHRISTIAN GEORGIEVITCH RAKOVSKY BY GAVRIIL GAVRIILOVITCH KUS'MIN ON THE 26TH JANUARY, 1938.
Rokovsky: we can all confirm that when the masses take possession of a city or a country, then they always seem struck by a sort of superstitious fear of the banks and bankers. One had killed Kings, generals, bishops, policemen, priests and other representatives of the hated privileged classes; one robbed and burnt palaces, churches and even centres of science, but though the revolutions were economic-social, the lives of the bankers were respected, and as a result the magnificent buildings of the banks remained untouched ... According to my information, before I had been arrested, this continues even now ...
The international essence of money is well known. From this fact emerges that the organization which owns them and accumulates them is a cosmopolitan organization. Finances in their apogee - as an aim in themselves, the financial International - deny and do not recognise anything national, they do not recognize the State; and therefore it is anarchical and would be absolutely anarchical if it - the denier of any national State - were not itself, by necessity, a State in its own basic essence. The State as such is only Power. And money is exclusively Power. . . . Money is today the centre of global gravity. I hope you agree with me?
The understanding of how the financial International has gradually, right up to our epoch, become the master of money, this magical talisman, which has become for people that which God and the nation had been formerly, is something which exceeds in scientific interest even the art of revolutionary strategy, since this is also an art and also a revolution. I shall explain it to you. Historiographers and the masses, blinded by the shouts and the pomp of the French revolution, the people, intoxicated by the fact that it had succeeded in taking all power from the King and the privileged classes, did not notice how a small group of mysterious, careful and insignificant people had taken possession of the real Royal power, the magical power, almost divine, which it obtained almost without knowing it. The masses did not notice that the power had been seized by others and that soon they had subjected them to a slavery more cruel than the King, since the latter, in view of his religious and moral prejudices, was incapable of taking advantage of such a power. So it came about that the supreme Royal power was taken over by persons, whose moral, intellectual and cosmopolitan qualities did allow them to use it. It is clear that this were people who had never been Christians, but cosmopolitans.
G. - What is that for a mythical power which they had obtained?
R. - They had acquired for themselves the real privilege of coining money ... Do not smile, otherwise I shall have to believe that you do not know what moneys are ... I ask you to put yourself in my place. My position in relation to you is that of the assistant of a doctor, who would have to explain bacteriology to a resurrected medical man of the epoch before Pasteur. But I can explain your lack of knowledge to myself and can forgive it. Our language makes use of words which provoke incorrect thoughts about things and actions, thanks to the power of the inertia of thoughts, and which do not correspond to real and exact conceptions. [534] I say: money. It is clear that in your imagination there immediately appeared pictures of real money of metal and paper. But that is not so. Money is now not that; real circulating coin is a true anachronism. If it still exists and circulates, then it is only thanks to atavism, only because it is convenient to maintain the illusion, a purely imaginary fiction for the present day.
G. - This is a brilliant paradox, risky and even poetical.
R. - If you like, this is perhaps brilliant, but it is not a paradox. I know - and that is why you smiled - that States still coin money on pieces of metal or paper with Royal busts or national crests; well, so what? A great part of the money circulating, money for big affairs, as representative of all national wealth, money, yes money - it was being issued by those few people about whom I had hinted. Titles, figures, cheques, promissory notes, endorsements, discount, quotations, figures without end flooded States like a waterfall. What are in comparison with these the metallic and paper moneys? ... Something devoid of influence, some kind of minimum in the face of the growing flood of the all-flooding financial money. They, being the most subtle psychologists, were able to gain even more without trouble, thanks to a lack of understanding. In addition to the immensely varied different forms of financial moneys, they created credit-money with a view to making its volume close to infinite. And to give it the speed of sound ... it is an abstraction, a being of thought, a figure, number, credit, faith ...
Do you understand already? ... Fraud; false moneys, given a legal standing ..., using other terminology, so that you should understand me. Banks, the stock exchanges and the whole world financial system - is a gigantic machine for the purpose of bringing about unnatural scandals, according to Aristotle's expression; to force money to produce money - that is something that if it is a crime in economics, then in relations to finances it is a crime against the criminal code, since it is usury. I do not know by what arguments all this is justified: by the proposition that they receive legal interest ... Even accepting that, and even that admission is more than is necessary, we see that usury still exists, since even if the interest received is legal, then it invents and falsifies the non-existent capital. Banks have always by way of deposits or moneys in productive movement a certain quantity of money which is five or perhaps even a hundred times greater than there are physically coined moneys of metal or paper. I shall say nothing of those cases when the credit-moneys, i.e. false, fabricated ones, are greater than the quantity of moneys paid out as capital. Bearing in mind that lawful interest is fixed not on real capital but on non-existing capital, the interest is illegal by so many times as the fictional capital is greater than the real one.
Bear in mind that this system, which I am describing in detail, is one of the most innocent among those used for the fabrication of false money. Imagine to yourself, if you can, a small number of people, having unlimited power through the possession of real wealth, and you will see that they are the absolute dictators of the stock-exchange; and as a result of this also the dictators of production and distribution and also of work and consumption. If you have enough imagination then multiply this, by the global factor and you will see its anarchical, [535] moral and social influence, i.e. a revolutionary one ... Do you now understand?
G. - No, not yet.
R. - Obviously it is very difficult to understand miracles.
G. - Miracle?
R. - Yes, miracle. Is it not a miracle that a wooden bench has been transformed into a temple? And yet such a miracle has been seen by people a thousand times, and they did not bat an eyelid, during a whole century. Since this was an extraordinary miracle that the benches on which sat the greasy usurers to trade in their moneys, have now been converted into temples, which stand magnificently at every corner of contemporary big towns with their heathen colonnades, and crowds go there with a faith which they are already not given by heavenly gods, in order to bring assiduously their deposits of all their possessions to the god of money, who, they imagine, lives in the steel safes of the bankers, and who is preordained, thanks to his divine mission to increase the wealth to a metaphysical infinity.
G. - This is the new religion of the decayed bourgeoisie?
R. - Religion, yes, the religion of power.
G. - You appear to be the poet of economics.
R. - If you like, then in order to give a picture of finance, as of a work of art which is most obviously a work of genius and the most revolutionary of all times, poetry is required.
G. - This is a faulty view. Finances, as defined by Marx, and more especially Engels, are determined by the system of Capitalistic production.
R. - Exactly, but just the reverse: the Capitalistic system of production is determined by finance. The fact that Engels states the opposite and even tries to prove this, is the most obvious proof that finances rule bourgeois production. So it is and so it was even before Marx and Engels, that finances were the most powerful instrument of revolution and the Comintern was nothing but a toy in their hands. But neither Marx nor Engels will disclose or explain this. On the contrary, making use of their talent as scientists, they had to camouflage truth . . . .
G. - When he says that the Comintern is a conservative organization in comparison with the stock-exchange in New York; he points at the big bankers as being the inventors of the revolution.
R. - Yes, he said this in a small book in which he foretold the fall of England ... Yes, he said this and added: "Who pushes England along the path of revolution?" ... and replied: "Not Moscow, but New York."
G. - But remember also his assertion that if the financiers of New York had forged the revolution, then it was done unconsciously. [536]
G. - The financiers are unconscious revolutionaries since they are such only objectively, as the result of their intellectual incapacity of seeing the final consequences.
R. - You believe this sincerely? You think that among these real geniuses there are some who are unconscious? You consider to be idiots people to whom today the whole world is subjected? This would really be a very stupid contradiction!
G. - What do you pretend to?
R. - I simply assert that they are revolutionaries objectively and subjectively, quite consciously.
G. - The bankers! You must be mad?
R. - I, no ... But you? Think a little. These people are just like you and me. The circumstance that they control moneys in unlimited amounts, insofar as they themselves create them, does not give us the opportunity of determining the limits of all their ambitions ... If there is something which provides a man with full satisfaction then it is the satisfaction of his ambition. And most of all the satisfaction of his will to power. Why should not these people, the bankers, have the impulse towards power, towards full power? Just as it happens to you and to me.
G. - But if, according to you - and I think the same - they already have global political power, then what other power do they want to possess ?
R. - I have already told you: Full power. Such power as Stalin has in the USSR, but world-wide.
G. - Such power as Stalin's, but with the opposite aim.
R. - Power, if in reality it is absolute, can be only one. The idea of the absolute excludes multiplicity. For that reason the power sought by the Comintern and "Comintern," which are things of the same order, being absolute, must also in politics be unique and identical: Absolute power has a purpose in itself, otherwise it is not absolute. And until the present day there has not yet been invented another machine of total power except the Communist State. Capitalistic bourgeois power, even on its highest rung of the ladder, the power of Caesar, is limited power since if, in theory, it was the personification of the deity in the Pharaohs and Caesars in ancient times, then nevertheless, thanks to the economic character of life in those primitive States and owing to the technical under-development of the State apparatus, there was always room for individual freedom. Do you understand that those who already partially rule over nations and worldly governments [537] have pretensions to absolute domination? Understand that that is the only thing which they have not yet reached.
G. - This is interesting: at least as an example of insanity.
R. - Certainly, insanity in a lesser degree than in the case of Lenin, who dreamt of power over the whole world in his attic in Switzerland or the insanity of Stalin, dreaming of the same thing during his exile in a Siberian hut. I think that dreams of such ambitions are much more natural for the moneyed people, living in the skyscrapers of New York.
G. - Let us conclude: Who are they?
R. - You are so naive that you think that if I knew who "They" are, I would be here as a prisoner?
G. - Why?
R. - For a very simple reason, since he who is acquainted with them would not be put into a position in which he would be obliged to report on them ... This is an elementary rule of every intelligent conspiracy, which you must well understand.
G. - But you said that they are the bankers?
R. - Not I; remember that I always spoke of the financial International, and when mentioning persons I said "They" and nothing more. If you want that I should inform you openly then I shall only give facts, but not names, since I do not know them. I think I shall not be wrong if I tell you that not one of "Them" is a person who occupies a political position or a position in the World Bank. As I understood after the murder of Rathenau in Rapallo, they give political or financial positions only to intermediaries. Obviously to persons who are trustworthy and loyal, which can be guaranteed a thousand ways: thus one can assert that bankers and politicians - are only men of straw ... even though they occupy very high places and are made to appear to be the authors of the plans which are carried out.
G. - Although all this can be understood and is also logical, but is not your declaration of not knowing only an evasion? As it seems to me, and according to the information I have, you occupied a sufficiently high place in this conspiracy to have known much more. You do not even know a single one of them personally?
R. - Yes, but of course you do not believe me. I have come to that moment where I had explained that I am talking about a person and persons with a personality ... how should one say? ... a mystical one, like Ghandi or something like that, but without any external display. Mystics of pure power, who have become free from all vulgar trifles. I do not know if you understand me? Well, as to their place of residence and names, I do not know them ... Imagine Stalin just now, in reality ruling the USSR, but not surrounded by stone walls, not having any personnel around him, and having the same guarantees for his life as any other citizen. By which means could he guard against attempts on his life? He is first of all a conspirator, however great his power, he is anonymous.
G. - What you are saying is logical, but I do not believe you. [538]
R. - But still believe me; I know nothing; if I knew then how happy I would be! I would not be here, defending my life. . . .
You know that according to the unwritten history known only to us, the founder of the First Communist International is indicated, of course secretly, as being Weishaupt. You remember his name? He was the head of the masonry which is known by the name of the Illuminati; this name he borrowed from the second anti-Christian conspiracy of that era - gnosticism. This important revolutionary, Semite and former Jesuit, foreseeing the triumph of the French revolution decided, or perhaps he was ordered (some mention as his chief the important philosopher Mendelssohn) to found a secret organization which was to provoke and push the French revolution to go further than its political objectives, with the aim of transforming it into a social revolution for the establishment of Communism. In those heroic times it was colossally dangerous to mention Communism as an aim; from this derive the various precautions and secrets, which had to surround the Illuminati. More than a hundred years were required before a man could confess to being a Communist without danger of going to prison or being executed. This is more or less known.
What is not known are the relations between Weishaupt and his followers with the first of the Rothschilds. The secret of the acquisition of wealth of the best known bankers could have been explained by the fact that they were the treasurers of this first Comintern. There is evidence that when the five brothers spread out to the five provinces of the financial empire of Europe, they had some secret help for the accumulation of these enormous sums: it is possible that they were those first Communists from the Bavarian catacombs who were already spread all over Europe.
But others say, and I think with better reason, that the Rothschilds were not the treasurers, but the chiefs of that first secret Communism. This opinion is based on that well-known fact that Marx and the highest chiefs of the First International - already the open one - and among them Herzen and Heine, were controlled by Baron Lionel Rothschild, whose revolutionary portrait was done by Disraeli (in Coningsby - Transl.) the English Premier, who was his creature, and has been left to us. He described him in the character of Sidonia, a man, who, according to the story, was a multi-millionaire, knew and controlled spies, carbonari, freemasons, secret Jews, gypsies, revolutionaries etc., etc. All this seems fantastic. But it has been proved that Sidonia is an idealized portrait of the son of Nathan Rothschild, which can also be deduced from that campaign which he raised against Tsar Nicholas in favour of Herzen. He won this campaign.
If all that which we can guess in the light of these facts is true, then, I think, we could even determine who invented this terrible machine of accumulation and anarchy, which is the financial International. At the same time, I think, he would be the same person who also created the revolutionary International. [539] It is an act of genius: to create with the help of Capitalism accumulation of the highest degree, to push the proletariat towards strikes, to sow hopelessness, and at the same time to create an organization which must unite the proletarians with the purpose of driving them into revolution. This is to write the most majestic chapter of history.
Even more: remember the phrase of the mother of the five Rothschild brothers: "If my sons want it, then there will be no war." This means that they were the arbiters, the masters of peace and war, but not emperors. Are you capable of visualizing the fact of such a cosmic importance? Is not war already a revolutionary function? War - the Commune. Since that time every war was a giant step towards Communism. As if some mysterious force satisfied the passionate wish of Lenin, which he had expressed to Gorky. Remember: 1905-1914. Do admit at least that two of the three levers of power which lead to Communism are not controlled and cannot be controlled by the proletariat.
Wars were not brought about and were not controlled by either the Third International or the USSR, which did not yet exist at that time. Equally they cannot be provoked and still less controlled by those small groups of Bolsheviks who plod along in the emigration, although they want war. This is quite obvious. The International and the USSR have even fewer possibilities for such immense accumulations of capital and the creation of national or international anarchy in Capitalistic production. Such an anarchy which is capable of forcing people to burn huge quantities of foodstuffs, rather than give them to starving people, and is capable of that which Rathenau described in one of his phrases, i.e.: "To bring about that half the world will fabricate dung, and the other half will use it."
And, after all, can the proletariat believe that it is the cause of this inflation, growing in geometric progression, this devaluation, the constant acquisition of surplus values and the accumulation of financial capital, but not usury capital, and that as the result of the fact that it cannot prevent the constant lowering of its purchasing power, there takes place the proletarization of the middle classes, who are the true opponents of revolution. The proletariat does not control the lever of economics or the lever of war. But it is itself the third lever, the only visible and demonstrable lever, which carries out the final blow at the power of the Capitalistic State and takes it over. Yes, they seize it, if "They" yield it to them ...
G. - I again repeat to you that all this, which you have set out in such a literate form, has a name which we have already repeated to excess in this endless conversation: the natural contradictions of Capitalism and if, as you claim, there is yet someone else's will and activity apart from the proletariat, then I want you to indicate to me concretely a personal case.
R. - You require only one? Well, then listen to a small story: "They" isolated the Tsar diplomatically for the Russo-Japanese War, and the United States financed Japan; speaking precisely, [540] this was done by Jacob Schiff, the head of the bank of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., which is the successor of the House of Rothschild, whence Schiff originated. He had such power that he achieved that States which had colonial possessions in Asia supported the creation of the Japanese Empire which was inclined towards xenophobia; and Europe already feels the effects of this xenophobia. From the prisoner-of-war camps there came to Petrograd the best fighters, trained as revolutionary agents; they were sent there from America with the permission of Japan, obained through the persons who had financed it. The Russo-Japanese War, thanks to the organized defeat of the Tsar's army, called forth the revolution of 1905, which, though it was premature, but was very nearly successful; even if it did not win, it still created the required political conditions for the victory of 1917.
I shall say even more. Have you read the biography of Trotzky? Recall its first revolutionary period. He is still quite a young man; after his flight from Siberia he lived some time among the emigres in London, Paris, and Switzerland; Lenin, Plekhanov, Martov and other chiefs look on him only as a promising newcomer. But he already dares during the first split to behave independently, trying to become the arbiter of the reunion. In 1905 he is 25 years old and he returns to Russia alone, without a party and without his own oranization. Read the reports of the revolution of 1905 which have not been "pruned" by Stalin; for example that of Lunatcharsky, who was not a Trotzkyite. Trotzky is the chief figure during the revolution in Petrograd. This is how it really was. Only he emerges from it with increased popularity and influence. Neither Lenin, nor Martov, nor Plekhanov acquire popularity. They only keep it and even lose a little. How and why there rises the unknown Trotzky, gaining power by one move greater than that which the oldest and most influential revolutionaries had? Very simple: he marries.
Together with him there arrives in Russia his wife - Sedova. Do you know who she is? She is associated with Zhivotovsky, linked with the bankers Warburg, partners and relatives of Jacob Schiff, i.e. of that financial group which, as I had said, had also financed the revolution of 1905. Here is the reason why Trotzky, in one move, moves to the top of the revolutionary list. And here, too, you have the key to his real personality. Let us jump to 1914. Behind the back of the people who made the attempt on the Archduke there stands Trotzky, and that attempt provoked the European War. Do you really believe that the murder and the war - are simp!e coincidences? ...,
Analyze in the light of "non-coincidence" the development of the military actions in Russia. "Defeatism" is an exemplary word. The help of the Allies for the Tsar was regulated and controlled with such skill that it gave the Allied ambassadors … to get from Nicholas, thanks to his stupidity, suicidal advances, one after another. The mass of the Russian cannon fodder was immense, but not inexhaustible. A series of organized defeats led to the revolution. When the threat came from all sides, then a cure was found in the form of the establishment of a democratic republic . . . this meant the [541] elimination of any threat to the revolutionaries. But that is not yet all. Kerensky . . . . brings it about so that the democratic revolution should spread beyond its bounds. And even still more: Kerensky was to surrender the State fully to Communism, and he does it.
Trotzky has the chance in an "unnoticed manner" to occupy the whole State apparatus. What a strange blindness! Well that is the reality of the much-praised October revolution. The Bolsheviks took that which "They" gave them.
G. - You dare to say that Kerensky was a collaborator of Lenin?
R. - Of Lenin - no. Of Trotzky - yes; it is more correct to say - a collaborator of "Them."
R. - Yes to me that is quite clear. Understand that I personally took part in all this. I shall tell you even more:
Do you know who financed the October revolution? "They" financed it, in particular through those same bankers who had financed Japan in 1905, i.e. Jacob Schiff, and the brothers Warburg; that means through the great banking constellation, through one of the five banks who are members of the Federal Reserve, through the bank of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., here there took part also other American and European bankers, such as Guggenheim, Hanauer, Breitung, Aschberg, the "Nya Banken" of Stockholm. I was there "by chance," there in Stockholm, and participated in the transmission of funds.
Until Trotzky arrived I was the only person who was an intermediary from the revolutionary side. But at last Trotzky came; I must underline that the Allies had expelled him from France for being a defeatist. And the same Allies released him so that he could be a defeatist in allied Russia ... "Another chance." Who arranged it? The same people who had succeeded that Lenin passed through Germany. Yes, "They" were able to get the defeatist Trotzky out of a Canadian camp to England and send him on to Russia, giving him the chance to pass freely through all the Allied controls; others of "Them" - a certain Rathenau - accomplishes the journey of Lenin through enemy Germany.
If you will undertake the study of the history of the revolution and civil war without prejudices, …. you will meet with a whole series of "amazing chances."
G. - Alright, let us accept the hypothesis that not everything was simply a matter of luck. What deductions to you make here for practical results?
R.--Let me finish this little story, and then we shall both arrive at conclusions. From the time of his arrival in Petrograd Trotzky was openly received by Lenin. As you know sufficiently well, during the interval between the two revolutions there had been deep differences between them. All is forgotten and Trotzky emerges as the master of his trade in the matter of the triumph of the revolution, whether Stalin wants this or not.
Why?
This secret is known to the wife of Lenin - Krupskaya. She knows who Trotzky is in fact; it is she who persuaded Lenin to receive Trotzky. If he had not received him, then Lenin would have remained blocked up in Switzerland; this alone had been for him a serious reason, and in addition he knew that Trotzky provided money and helped to get a colossal international assistance, a proof of this was the sealed train.
Furthermore it was the result of Trotzky's work, and not of the iron determination of Lenin that there was the unification round the insignificant party of the Bolsheviks of the whole Left-wing revolutionary camp, the social-revolutionaries and the anarchists. It was not for nothing that the real party of the "non-party" Trotzky was the ancient "Bund" of the Jewish proletariat, from which emerged all the Moscow revolutionary branches, and to whom it gave 90% of its leaders; not the official and well-known Bund, but the secret Bund which had been infiltrated into all the Socialist parties, the leaders of which were almost all under its control.
G. - And Kerensky too?
R. - Kerensky too ..., and also some other leaders who were not Socialists, the leaders of the bourgeois political fractions.
G. - How is that?
R. - You forget about the role of freemasonry in the first phase of the democratic-bourgeois revolution?
G. - Were they also controlled by the Bund?
R. - Naturally, as the nearest step, but in fact subject to "Them."
G. - Despite the rising tide of Marxism which also threatened their lives and privileges?
R. - Despite all that; obviously they did not see that danger. Bear in mind that every mason saw and hoped to see in his imagination more that there was in reality, because he imagined that which was profitable for him. As a proof of the political power of their association they saw that masons were in governments and at the pinnacle of the States of the bourgeois nations, while their numbers were growing all the time. Bear in mind that at that time the rulers of all the Allied nations were freemasons, with very few exceptions. This was to them an argument of great [543] force. They fully believed that the revolution would stop at the bourgeois republic of the French type.
G. - In accordance with the picture which was given of the Russia of 1917 one had to be a very naive person to believe all this ...
R. - They were and are such. Masons had learned nothing from that first lesson which, for them, had been the Great Revolution, in which they played a colossal revolutionary role; it consumed the majority of masons, beginning with the Grand Master of the Orleans Lodge, more correctly the freemason Louis XVI, in order then to continue to destroy the Girondistes, the Hebertistes, the Jacoboins etc..... and if some survived it was due to the month of Brumaire.
G. - Do you want to say that the freemasons have to die at the hands of the revolution which has been brought about with their co-operation?
R. - Exactly so. You have formulated a truth which is veiled by a great secret. I am a mason, you already knew about that. Is that not so? Well, I shall tell you this great secret, which they promise to disclose to a mason in one of the higher degrees, but which is not disclosed to him either in the 25th, nor the 33rd, nor the 93rd, nor any other high level of any ritual. It is clear that I know of this not as a freemason, but as one who belongs to "Them" ...
G. - And what is it?
R. - Every masonic organization tries to attain and to create all the required prerequisites for the triumph of the Communist revolution; this is the obvious aim of freemasonry; it is clear that all this is done under various pretexts; but they always conceal themselves behind their well-known treble slogan. (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity - Transl.) You understand? But since the Communist revolution has in mind the liquidation, as a class, of the whole bourgeoisie, the physical destruction of all bourgeois political rulers, it follows that the real secret of masonry is the suicide of freemasonry as an organization, and the physical suicide of every more important mason. You can, of course, understand that such an end, which is being prepared for every mason, fully deserves the secrecy, decorativeness and the inclusion of yet another whole series of secrets, with a view to concealing the real one. If one day you were to be present at some future revolution then do not miss the opportunity of observing the gestures of surprise and the expression of stupidity on the face of some freemason at the moment when he realises that he must die at the hands of the revolutionaries. How he screams and wants that one should value his services to the revolution! It is a sight at which one can die ... but of laughter.
G. - And you still deny the inborn stupidity of the bourgeoisie?
R. - I deny it in the bourgeoisie as a class, but not in certain sectors. The existence of madhouses does not prove universal madness. Freemasonry is also a madhouse, but at liberty.
But I continue further: the revolution has been victorious, the seizure of power has been achieved. There arises the first problem, peace, and with it the first differences within the party, in which there participate the forces of the coalition, which takes advantage of power.
I shall not explain to you that which is well known about the struggle which developed in Moscow between [544] the adherents and opponents of the peace of Brest-Litovsk. I shall only point out to you that … the Trotzkvist opposition, i.e. these are the people, a part of whom have already been liquidated and the other part is to be liquidated: they were all against the signing of the peace treaty. That peace was a mistake and an unconscious betrayal by Lenin of the International Revolution. Imagine to yourself the Bolsheviks … finding themselves inside Germany with the Red Army, which had been armed and increased by the Allies. The Soviet State should have participated with arms in the German revolution ... Quite another map of Europe would then have emerged.
But Lenin, intoxicated with power, with the help of Stalin, who had also tasted the fruits of power supported by the national Russian wing of the party, having at their disposal the material recources, enforced their will. Then was born "Socialism in one country," i.e. National-Communism, which has to-day reached its apogee under Stalin. It is obvious that there was a struggle, but only in such a form and extent that the Communist State should not be destroyed; this condition was binding on the opposition during the whole time of its further struggle right up to the present day. This was the reason for our first failure and all those which followed. But the fight was severe, cruel, although concealed in order not to compromise our participation in power.
Trotzky organized, with the help of his friends, the attempt on Lenin's life by Kaplan. On his orders Blumkin killed the ambassador Mirbach. The coup d'etat which was prepared by Spiridonova with her social-revolutionaries had been co-ordinated with Trotzky.
His man for all these affairs, who was immune from all suspicions, was that Rosenblum, a Lithuanian Jew, who used the name of O'Reilly, and was known as the best spy of the British Intelligence. In fact he was a man from "Them." The reason why this famous Rosenblum was chosen, who was known only as a British spy, was that in case of failure the responsibility for assassinations and conspiracies would fall not on Trotzky, and not on us, but on England. So it happened.
Thanks to the Civil War … Trotzky became the organizer and chief of the Soviet Army; before that the army had continuously retreated before the Whites and the territory of the USSR was reduced to the size of the former Moscow Principality.
But here, as if by magic, it begins to win. What do you think, why? As the result of magic or chance? I shall tell you: when Trotzky took over the top command of the Red Army then he had by this in his hands the forces necessary to seize power. A series of victories was to increase his prestige and forces: it was already possible to defeat the Whites. Do you think that that official history was true which ascribes to the unarmed and ill-disciplined Red Army the fact that with its help there was achieved a series of victories?
G. - But to whom then?
R. - To the extent of ninety per cent they were indebted to "Them."
You must not forget that the Whites were, in their way, democratic. [545] The Mensheviks were with them and the remnants of all the old Liberal parties. Inside these forces "They" always had in their service many people, consciously and unconsciously. When Trotzky began to command then these people were ordered systematically to betray the Whites and at the same time they were promised participation, in a more or less short time, in the Soviet Government.
. . . . This sabotage, linked with a progressive diminution of the help of the Allies to the White generals, who apart from all that were luckless idiots, forced them to experience defeat after defeat. Finally Wilson introduced in his famous 14 Points Point 6, the existence of which was enough in order to bring to an end once and for all the attempts of the Whites to fight against the USSR. The Civil War strengthens the position of Trotzky as the heir of Lenin.
So it was without any doubt. The old revolutionary could now die, having acquired fame. If he remained alive after the bullet of Kaplan, he did not emerge alive after the secret process of the forcible ending of his life, to which he was subjected.
f. - Trotsky shortened his life? This is a big favourable point for our trial! Was it not Levin who was Lenin's doctor?
R. - Trotzky? ... It is probable that he participated, but it is quite certain that he knew about it. But as far as the technical realization is concerned ..., that is unimportant; who knows this? "They" have a sufficient number of channels in order to penetrate to wherever they want.
G. - In any event the murder of Lenin is a matter of the greatest importance and it would be worthwhile to transfer it for examination to the next trial ... What do you think, Rakovsky, if you were by chance to be the author of this affair? It is clear that if you fail to achieve success in this conversation ... The technical execution suits you well as a doctor ...
R. - I do not recommend this to you. Leave this matter alone, it is sufficiently dangerous for Stalin himself. You will be able to spread your propaganda as you wish: but "They" have their propaganda which is more powerful and the question as to qui podest - who gains, will force one to see in Stalin the murderer of Lenin, and that argument will be stronger than any confessions extracted frorn Levin, me or anyone else.
G. - What do you want to say by this?
R. - That it is the classical and infallible rule in the determination of who the murderer is to check who gained ..., and as far as the assassination of Lenin is concerned, in this case the beneficiary was his chief - Stalin. Think about this and I very much ask you not to make these remarks, as they distract me and do not make it possible for me to finish.
G. - Very well, continue, but you already know ...
R. - It is well known that if Trotzky did not inherit from Lenin then it was not because by human calculations there was something missing in the plan. During Lenin's illness Trotzky held in his hands all the threads of power, which were more than sufficient to enable him to succeed Lenin. And measures had been taken to declare a sentence of death on Stalin.
For Trotzky the dictator it was enough to have in his hands the letter of Lenin against his then chief - Stalin, which had been torn from her husband by Krupskaya, [546] to liquidate Stalin. But a stupid mischance, as you know, ruined all our chances.
Trotzky became ill unexpectedly and at the decisive moment, when Lenin dies, he becomes incapable of any action during a period of several months. Despite his possession of enormous advantages, the obstacle was our organization of the affair, i.e. its personal centralization. It is obvious that such a person as Trotzky, prepared in advance for his mission, which he was to realise, cannot be created at once, by improvisation. None among us, not even Zinoviev, had the requisite training and qualities for this undertaking; on the other hand Trotzky, being afraid of being displaced, did not himself want to help anybody.
Thus, after the death of Lenin, when we had to be face to face with Stalin, who commenced a feverish activity, we foresaw then already our defeat in the Central Committee. We had to improvise a decision: and it was to ally ourselves with Stalin, to become Stalinists more than he himself, to exaggerate in everything and, therefore, to sabotage. The rest you know already: that was our uninterrupted subterranean struggle and our continuous failure to Stalin's advantage, while he displays police talents of genius, having absolutely no equals in the past.
And even more: Stalin, possessing national atavism, which had not been uprooted in him by his early Marxism, apparently for that reason underlines his pan-Russianism, and in this connexion resurrects a class which we had to destroy, that is the class of National-Communists, as opposed to the Internationalist-Communists, which we are. He places the International at the service of the USSR and it already accepts his mastery.
If we want to find an historical parallel, then we must point to bonapartism, and if we want to find a person of Stalin's type, then we shall not find an historical parallel for him. But perhaps I shall be able to find it in its basic characteristics by combining two people: Fouche and Napoleon. Let us try to deprive the latter of his second half, his accessories, uniforms, military rank, crown and such like things, which, it seems, do not tempt Stalin, and then together they will give us a type identical with Stalin in the most important respects: he is the killer of the revolution, he does not serve it, but makes use of its services; he represents the most ancient Russian Imperialism, just as Napoleon identified himself with the Gauls, he created an aristocracy, even if not a military one, one, since there are no victories, then a bureacratically-police one.
G. - That is enough. Rakovsky. You are not here to make Trotzkyist propaganda. Will you at last get to something concrete?
R. - It is clear that I shall, but not before … you will have formulated for yourself an at least superficial conception concerning "Them," with whom you will have to reckon in practice and in concrete actuality. Not sooner. . . .
G. - Well, try to shorten the story as far as possible.
R. - Our failures, which get worse every year, prevent the immediate carrying out of that which "They" have prepared in the after-war period for the further leap of the revolution forward. The Versailles Treaty, quite inexplicable for the politicians and economists of all nations . . . , was the most decisive precondition for the Revolution. [547]
G. - This is a very curious theory. How do you explain it?
R. - The Versailles reparations and economic limitations were not determined by the advantages of individual nations. Their arithmetical absurdity was so obvious that even the most outstanding economists of the victorious countries soon exposed this. France alone demanded as reparations a great deal more than the cost of all her national possessions, more than one would have had to pay if the whole of France had been converted into a Sahara; even worse was the decision to impose on Germany payment obligations which were many times greater that it could pay, even if it had sold itself fully and given over the whole of its national production.
In the end the true result was that in practice Germany was forced to carry out a phantastic dumping so that it could pay something on account of reparations. And of what did the dumping consist? An insufficiency of consumer goods, hunger in Germany and in corresponding measure unemployment in the importing countries. And since they could not import there was also unemployment in Germany. Hunger and unemployment on both sides; all this were the first results of Versailles ...
Was this treaty revolutionary or not? Even more was done: one undertook an equal control in the international plane. Do you know what that undertaking represents in the revolutionary plane? It means to impose an anarchical absurdity . . .
. . . The immediate result of this was an insufficiency of production, compensated by imports from countries with a sufficient natural economy and an industrial self-sufficiency: insofar as Europe had gold, that import was paid by gold.
Then came the apparent boom in America which exchanged its immense production for gold and gold certificates, of which there was plenty. On the model of any anarchy of production there appeared at that period an unheard-of financial anarchy. "They" took advantage of it on the pretext of helping it with the aid of another and still greater anarchy: the inflation of the official money (cash) and the a hundred times greater inflation of their own money, credit money, i.e. false money. Remember how systematically there came devaluation in many countries; the destruction of the value [548] of money in Germany, the American crisis and its phenomenal consequences ..., a record unemployment; more than thirty million unemployed in Europe and USA alone. Well, did not the Versailles Peace Treaty and its League of Nations serve as a revolutionary pre-condition?
G. - This could have happened even if not intended. Could you not prove to me why the revolution and Communism retreat before logical deductions; and more than that: they oppose fascism which has conquered in Spain and Germany ... What can you tell me?
R. - I shall tell you that only in the case of the non-recognition of "Them" and their aims you would be right ..., but you must not forget about their existence and aims, and also the fact that in the USSR power is in the hands of Stalin.
G. - I do not see the connexion here....
R. - Because you do not want to: you have more than sufficient deductive talents and capabilities of reasoning. I repeat again: for us Stalin is not a Communist, but a bonapartist.
G. - So what?
R. - We do not wish that the great preconditions which we had created at Versailles for the triumph of the Communist revolution in the world, which, as you see, have become a gigantic reality, would serve the purpose of bringing victory to Stalin's bonapartism ... Is that sufficiently clear for you? Everything would have been different if in this case Trotzky had been the dictator of the USSR; that would have meant that "They" would have been the chiefs of International Communism.
G. - But surely fascism is totally anti-Communist, as in relation to the Trotzkyist and the Stalinist Communism ... and if the power which you ascribe to "Them" is so great, how is it that they were unable to avoid this?
R. - Because it were precisely "They" who gave Hitler the possibility of triumphing.
G. - You exceed all the boundaries of absurdity.
R. - The absurd and the miraculous become mixed as the result of a lack of culture. Listen to me. I have already admitted the defeat of the opposition. "They" saw in the end that Stalin cannot be overthrown by a coup d'etat and their historical experience suggested to them the decision of a repetition (repris) with Stalin of that which had been done with the Tsar.
There was here one difficulty, which seemed to us insuperable. In the whole of Europe there was not a single aggressor-State. Not one of them was geographically well placed and had an army sufficient for an attack on Russia. If there was no such country, then "They" had to create it. Only Germany had the corresponding population and positions suitable for an attack on the USSR, and it was capable of defeating Stalin; you can understand that the Weimar republic had not been invented as an aggressor either politically or economically; on the contrary, it was suited to an invasion. On the horizon of a hungry Germany there sparkled the meteor of Hitler. A pair of penetrating eyes fixed their attention on it. The world was the witness to his lightning rise. I shall not say that all of it was the work of our hands, no. His rise, uninterruptedly increasing in extent, took place as the result of the Revolutionary-Communist economy of Versailles. Versailles had had in mind not the creation of preconditions for the triumph of Hitler [549], but for the proletarization of Germany, for unemployment and hunger, as the result of which there should have triumphed the Communist revolution.
But insofar as, thanks to the existence of Stalin at the head of the USSR and the International, the latter did not succeed, and as a result of an unwillingness to give up Germany to bonapartism, these preconditions were somewhat abated in … expectation that meanwhile the opposition would come to power in Russia ..., but that, too, did not happen; but the existence of revolutionary preconditions had to produce its results. . . .
That was not yet all. It was necessary that the Trotzkyists and Socialists should divide the masses with an already awakened and whole class consciousness - in accordance with instructions. With this business we concerned ourselves.
But even more was needed: In 1929, when the National-Socialist Party began to experience a crisis of growth and it had insufficient financial recources, "They" sent their ambassador there. I even know his name: it was one of the Warburgs. In direct negotiations with Hitler they agreed as to the financing of the National-Socialist Party, and the latter received in a couple of years millions of Dollars, sent to it from Wall Street, and millions of Marks from German financiers through Schacht; the upkeep of the S.A. and S.S. and also the financing of the elections which took place, which gave Hitler power, are done on the Dollars and Marks sent by "Them."
G. - Those who, according to you, want to achieve full Communism, arm Hitler, who swears that he will uproot the first Communist nation. This, if one is to believe you, is something very logical for the financiers.
R. - You again forget the Stalinist bonapartism. Remember that against Napoleon, the strangler of the French revolution, who stole its strength, there stood the objective revolutionaries - Louis XVIII, Wellington, Metternich and right up to the Tsar-Autocrat ... This is 22 carat, according to the strict Stalinist doctrine. You must know by heart his theses about colonies with regard to imperialistic countries. Yes, according to him the Kings of Afghanistan and Egypt are objectively Communists owing to their struggle against His Britannic Majesty; why cannot Hitler be objectively Communist since he is fighting against the autocratic . . . Stalin.
After all there is Hitler with his growing military power, and he already extends the boundaries of the Third Reich, and in future will do more ... to such an extent as to have enough strength and possibilities to attack and fully destroy Stalin ... Do you not observe the general sympathy of the Versailles wolves, who limit themselves only to a weak growl? Is this yet another chance, accident? Hitler will invade the USSR and as in [550] 1917, when defeat suffered by the Tsar then gave us the opportunity of overthrowing him, so the defeat of Stalin will help us to remove him ... Again the hour of the world revolution will strike. Since the democratic states, at present put to sleep, will help to bring about the general change at that moment, when Trotzky will take power into his hands, as during the Civil War. Hitler will attack from the West, his generals will rise and liquidate him ... Now tell me, was not Hitler objectively a Communist? Yes or no?
G. - I do not believe in fairy tales or miracles ...
R. - Well if you do not want to believe that "They" are able to achieve that which they had already achieved, then prepare to observe an invasion of the USSR and the liquidation of Stalin within a year. You think this is a miracle or an accident, well then prepare to see and experience that ... But are you really able to refuse to believe that of which I have spoken, though this is still only a hypothesis? You will begin to act in this direction only at that moment when you will begin to see the proofs in the light of my talk. . . .
The magnificent threat to the USSR is real and exists. This is not an hypothesis and not a verbal threat. It is a fact and a fact which obliges. "They" already have superiority over Stalin, a superiority which cannot be denied. Stalin is offered only one altemative, the right to choose, but not full freedom. The attack of Hitler will come in any case of its own accord; "They" need not do anything to make it happen but only leave him the chance of acting. This is the basic and determining reality, which has been forgotten by you owing to your excessively Kremlin-like way of thinking ... Egocentrism, Sir, egocentrism.
G. - The right to choose?
R. - I shall define it exactly once more, but shortly: either there will be an attack on Stalin, or there will come the realization of the plan I have indicated, according to which the European Capitalistic States will destroy each other. I drew attention to this alternative, but as you see it was only a theoretical one. If Stalin wants to survive then he will be forced to realize the plan which has been proposed by me and ratifed by "Them."
G. - But if he refuses?
R. - That will be impossible for him. The expansion and re-armament of Germany will continue. When Stalin will be faced by this gigantic threat ..., then what will he do? This will be dictated to him by his own instinct of self-preservation.
G. - It seems that events must develop only according to the orders indicated by "Them."
R. - And it is so. Of course, in the USSR to-day things still stand like this, but sooner or later it will happen like that all the same. . . . .. Reject the wrong thought that you are the arbiters in the given situation, since "They" are the arbiters.
G. - "They" both in the first and the second case ... Therefore we must deal with shadows?
R. - But are facts shadows? The international situation will be extraordinary, but not shadowy; it is real and very real. This is not a miracle; here is predetermined the future policy ... Do you think this is the work of shadows?
G.--But let us see; let us assume that your plan is accepted ... But we must have something tangible, personal, in order to be able to carry out negotiations.
R. - For example? [560]
G. - Some person with powers of attorney and representation.
R. - But for what? Just for the pleasure of becoming acquainted wlth him? For the pleasure of a talk? Bear in mind that the assumed person, in case of his appearance, will not present you with credentials with seals and crests and wlll not wear a diplomatic uniform, at least a man from "Them"; if he