Dostoyevsky is known as an eminent tower of world literature and an implacable depth-sounder of the remotest recesses of the human soul – an analytical mind, fascinated by the invisible chemistry of people’s consciousness and emotions. And if Pushkin can be called the Raphael of Russian literature, Dostoyevsky is undoubtedly its Michelangelo.
Very, or at least relatively few, associate Dostoyevsky with journalism, to which he dedicated a major part of his life – notably during the years when he, single-handed, wrote and published “The Diary of a Writer.” In fact, in later years, the Diary that made him popular, also contributed to his extraordinary fame.
For in XIX century Russia, the boundaries between literature and journalism were more fluid than in Western Europe. N.G. Chernyshevski, the radical philosopher of the nihilists explained why. (The third video I produced on the roots of Russian Communism, also covers Chernyshevski).
One main reason had to do with the strict censorship applied by the Tsarist government, extended later by the Soviet regime. Only literature and literary criticism could touch on social-political issues. Therefore, Russian literature and poetry became expressions of public opinion.
Even so, Dostoyevski was arrested as a revolutionary in 1849 and served four years in a Siberian prison-camp. The experience gave chronic-afflictive weakness to his body, and self-acknowledged inspiration to his mind. He referred to this awakening as “the regeneration of my convictions,” in an important article in the Diary.
I hope the reader will forgive the introduction, and even more the next shorter one. Dostoyevsky’s Diary is over 1000 pages long. One section is dedicated to the “Jewish Question,” in response to many related letters sent to him by his readers.
The idea here is to compare Dostoyevsky’s observations in the last third of the 1800 to what we can observe 150 years later.
If any of my 25 readers happens to be Jewish, I say that I have absolutely nothing against him. I assume him to be the “average” Jew, just as we refer to the “average” man – he who shares with us some of our weaknesses, some of our likes and some of our follies – who is delighted with slight amusements, busied with trifling employments, and disturbed by little vexations.
A man who has duly considered the condition of his being and will contentedly yield to the course of things, who will not pant for distinction where distinction would imply no merit. And though on great occasions he may wish to be greater than others, he will be satisfied in common occurrences not to be less.
To him I say, “For what is worth, I exempt you for any direct or implied criticism, be it Dostoyevsky’s or someone else’s. I even add that, probably, you are 95% innocent of any grievances related to the ‘Jewish Question’. I will also grant you “immunity” for 4% of the remainder, leaving but one per cent “open-for-debate” and to be talked about at the very end.”
One writer to Dostoyevsky (hereinafter referred to as ‘D’), reproaches him for his generalizations about Jews. “Due to their education – says the complaining writer – they long ago ceased to share the prejudices of their nation… and besides… they don’t believe in God.”
D. observes that for “those staunch advocates of their nation, it is much too sinful to forget their forty century-old Jehovah and to renounce him. … A Jew without God cannot be imagined. … To a certain extent I am permitted by these gentlemen to criticize the Jew, but only ostensibly. In fact it is difficult to find anything more irritable and susceptible than the educated Jew, more touchy than him, as a Jew.”
Given that today even a whiff of criticism aimed at the formidable Jewish lobbies is immediately branded as “anti-Semitism,” it would seem that, after 150 years, what was susceptibility has become an obsession.
“Why are you protesting against the Jew, and not against the exploiter in general? – asks one writer. I myself cannot tolerate the prejudices of my nation – but I shall never concede that there dwells shameless exploitation in the blood of our nation.” Then he compares several notorious Russian kulaks with Jewish exploiters, in the sense that the Russians are just as bad.
D responds that he agrees wholeheartedly that both the Jewish exploiters and some Russian kulaks are no good.
“Meanwhile – says the writer – in your criticism you include all the Jews who are engaged in a desperate struggle for existence, a mass which is morally purer not only than the other nationalities, but also than the Russian people deified by you…. Your hate of the Jews extends even to Disraeli (then prime minister of England) who, probably, knows not that his ancestors were Spanish Jews and directs British policy from the standpoint of a conservative, not of a Jew….. You (D) cause harm to an enormous mass of destitute people, whereas influential Jews, who receive in their salons the potent ones of this world, are not afraid of the press nor of the impotent wrath of the exploited.”
We can squarely say that, if in the XIX century Jews were not afraid of the press, today they own it.
From D’s extended response I quote the critical passages, “… It is difficult to learn the forty-century long history of the Jews; but this much I know. In the whole world there is certainly no other people who would be complaining as much about their lot, incessantly… About their humiliation, their suffering, their martyrdom. One might think that it is not they who are reining in Europe, who are directing there the stock exchanges, and therefore politics, domestic affairs, the morality of the states…. But let all this be merely verbalism on my part… Nevertheless… in my opinion, the Russian peasant, and generally, the Russian commoner, bears heavier burdens than the Jew.”
Back to the future, Jewish journalist Joel Stein can write in the Los Angeles Times, at the end of an article listing a series of Jewish accomplishments, “I don’t care if Americans think we’re running the news media, Hollywood, Wall Street and the government. I just care that we get to keep running them.”
Not only, but the Joel Steins of this world have mastered the cognitive peculiarity of our age, where the important is not what is, but what is projected in two dimensions by the monopolists of the public imagination. Thus giving free reign to the tribe of purchasable and vendible imbecils, dedicated to politics or commentaries.
As for today’s equivalent of the “local commoner,” 48% of the American billionaires are Jews, a percentage requiring no comments, given the numerical disproportion between the number of resident Jews and all others.
A reference to statistics on billionaires brings in the accusation of envy. But the envy of many who repine at the sight of affluence and splendor would be much diminished by a simple consideration. Would we purchase the gifts of fortune by the loss of our personality and the delight of our own power of reasoning, resulting from nature or study? I think not, but I thought worth mentioning it.
One writer complains with D that most Jews in Russia have been forced to live in a confined area in the West of the country, comprising part of what is today Poland, and banned from a selection of the place of residence.
This has to do with Tzarina Catherine II’s “Pale of Settlement” (where ‘pale’ is a rendition of the Latin ‘palus’, meaning wooden pole, used at large to delimit specific areas). Soljenitsin gives detailed information and history of the ‘Pale of Settlement’, in his 2-volume book “Two Centuries Together” – material too long to be reported or summarized here.
D responds that twenty-three million Russians have endured serfdom, and that serfdom was more burdensome than the “selection of the place of residence.”
“But then – D continues – Alexander II liberated the native people (1861). And who was the first to fall upon them as victims? Who preeminently took advantage of their vices? By whom – whenever possible – were the abolished landowners promptly replaced, with the difference that the latter, even though they strongly exploited men, nevertheless endeavored – perhaps in their own interest – not to ruin the peasants in order to prevent the exhaustion of labor, whereas the Jew is not concerned about the exhaustion of Russian labor: he grabs what’s his, and off he goes.
I know that upon reading this, the Jews will forthwith start screaming that this is a lie; that this is a calumny; that I believe all this nonsense because I do not know the forty-century history of these chaste angels who are incomparably purer morally, not only than the other nationalities but also than the Russian people deified by me, according to the words of my correspondent.”
But let them be morally purer than all the peoples of the world, nevertheless I have just read in the March issue of “The messenger of Europe” a news item to the effect that in America, in the Southern States, they have already leaped en masse upon the millions of liberated Negroes, and have already taken a grip upon them in their, the Jews’ own way, by means of their sempiternal “gold pursuit,” and by taking advantage of the inexperience of the exploited tribe….
The Negroes are now liberated from the slave owners, but the Jews, of whom there are so many in the world, would jump at this new little victim…. This came to mind as I was reading your letter and I asked myself, “Why one does not hear anything about the Jews there; why do not newspapers write about them, because the Negroes are a treasure for the Jews; is it possible that they wouldn’t miss it?”
Now, I just read in the New York Times (#371) a communication to the effect that, “the Jews have so assaulted the local Lithuanian population, that they almost ruined all of them with vodka, and only the Roman Catholic priests began to save the poor drunkards threatening them with the tortures of hell an organizing temperance societies.”
(Note and update. The Jews acquired The New York Times in the last decade of the XIXth century. Ever since, the newspaper has remained under Jewish control. And, by unofficial, unspoken and essentially unchallenged agreement among the current US cacocracy, the NYT is assumed to represent the “public opinion” of the US.
Quite recently a Jewish NYT journalist could write that if the block of buildings that comprise the NYT had not been in New York in 2003, there would have been no invasion of Iraq.
D connects the dealings between Jews and the Blacks liberated in the course of the American Civil War, to the dealings between Jews and the Russian peasants liberated in 1861.
Here is a piece of topic information that D was not probably aware of. On December 17, 1862, then Major-General Ulysses Grant issued General Order #11. It ordered the expulsion of all Jews in his military district, comprising areas of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky. The order was part of a Union campaign against a black market in Southern cotton, which Grant thought was being run “mostly by Jews and other unprincipled traders.”
During the war, the extensive cotton trade continued between the North and South. Northern textile mills in New York and New England were dependent on Southern cotton, while Southern plantation owners depended on the trade with the North for their economic survival.
The U.S. Government permitted limited trade, licensed by the Treasury and the U.S. Army. Corruption flourished as unlicensed traders bribed Army officers to allow them to buy Southern cotton without a permit.
Grant also instructed Major-General Stephen A. Hurlbut as follows, “Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out.”
The following day he instructed General Joseph Dana Webster: “Give orders to all the conductors on the railroad that no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them.”
And in an explanatory letter to General William Tecumseh Sherman, Grant wrote that his policy was occasioned “in consequence of the total disregard and evasion of orders by Jews.”
As for the “purer morality,” mentioned by one of D’s critics, here is a current extract from “The Jewish Quarterly”, but similar pieces in the Jewish press are accessible via simple searches. “A story little told is that of Jews in Hollywood’s seedier cousin, the adult film industry. There’s no getting away from the fact that secular Jews played (and still continue to play) a disproportionate role throughout the adult film industry in America. Jewish involvement in pornography has a long history in the United States, as Jews have helped transform a fringe subculture into what has become a primary constituent of Americana. These are the ‘true blue’ Jews. Smut peddlers.”
D then speculates on what the situation would be in Russia if (at the time), instead of 80 million Russians and 3 million Jews, the numbers were reversed. “Would they convert the Russians into slaves? Wouldn’t they slaughter them to the last man, to the point of complete extermination, as they used to do with alien peoples in ancient times, during their ancient history?
Nay, I assure you that in the Russian people there is no preconceived hatred of the Jew, but perhaps there is a dislike of him, and especially in certain localities. This cannot be avoided; this exists, but it arises not at all from the fact that he is a Jew, not because of some racial our religious hate, but it comes from other causes of which not the native people but the Jew himself is guilty.”
In our times, the destroyed and war-torn Middle Eastern countries may be considered emblematic examples of dealings with the goy. Noteworthy is the related pronouncement by the then Jewish Secretary of State M. Albright – that the death of 500,000 Iraqis, especially children, “was worth it.”
Referring to the general tone and content of the letters that D received from educated Jews, he says, “… So much hatred these letters against the native population! And the main thing is: they write without realizing it themselves… In order to exist forty centuries on earth, virtually the entire historical period of mankind…. such a viable people, such an extraordinarily strong and energetic people, such an unprecedented people in the world, could not have existed without the state within a state which they have always and everywhere preserved….
However, without fathoming the essence and depth of the subject, it is possible to outline certain symptoms of the “state-within-a-state” – at least externally. These symptoms are: alienation and estrangement in the matter of religious dogma; the impossibility of fusion; belief that in the world there exists but one national entity – the Jew, while even though other entities exist, nevertheless it should be presumed that they are, as it were nonexistent.
“You say, gentlemen, (read, educated Jews and opponents), that all this is nonsense… and it is solely because persecution has brought it about, religious persecution since the Middle Ages, and even earlier. Therefore this state-within-a-state came into existence merely from the instinct of self-preservation. But this is how I feel: should the Jew be given equal rights, under no circumstances would he renounce his state-within-a-state. Moreover, attributing it to nothing but persecution and the instinct of self-preservation is insufficient.
Therefore would there not have been enough tenacity in store for self-preservation during forty centuries, the people would have grown weary of preserving themselves for so long a time…
It is not only self-preservation that constitutes the main cause, but a certain compelling and luring idea, something so universal and profound that on it, mankind is perhaps is still unable to utter its last word. …
They all believe that the Messiah will again unite them in Jerusalem and will bring, by his sword, all nations to their feet; that this is the reason why the overwhelming majority of the Jews have a predilection but for one profession – the trade in gold.
And all this, so it is alleged, in order, that, when the Messiah comes, they should not need to have a new fatherland and to be tied to the land of aliens, but to have everything converted into gold and jewels, so that it would be easier to carry them away.”
Moving the clock forward to our times, the Jews have done even better than D predicted. There is a state-within-a-state, there is Israel and there are the militarily occupied, almost-annexed and colonized West Bank, Golan Heights and Gaza. In the face of the by-now-laughable UN Resolution 242, calling for the “Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent (1967) conflict.”
Returning to the influence of the Jews in the areas of Russia where they were restricted, D says, “…The whole activity of the Jews in these border regions of ours consisted of rendering the native population as much as possible inescapably dependent on them, taking advantage of the local laws. They always manage to be on friendly terms with those upon whom the people were dependent… The spirit of this status-in-a-status of his, breathes with pitilessness for everything that is not Jew, with disrespect for any people and tribe, for every human creature who is not a Jew.
…And as for the rest of Europe, it is impossible not to note the great triumph of Jewry, which has replaced many former ideas with its own… Mercilessness for the lower masses, the decline of brotherhood, exploitation of the poor by the rich – of course, all this existed also before and always; however, it had not been raised to the level of supreme truth and of science – it had been condemned by Christianity, whereas at present, on the contrary, it is being regarded as virtue.
Thus, it is not for nothing that over there (Europe and America) the Jews are reigning everywhere over stock exchanges. It is not for nothing that they control capital, that they are also the masters of credit, and masters of international politics.
And what is going to happen in the future is known to the Jews themselves: their reign, their complete reign is approaching! We are nearing the complete triumph of ideas before which sentiments of humanity, thirst for truth, Christian and national feelings, and even those of national dignity, must bow.
On the contrary, we are approaching materialism, a blind carnivorous craving for personal material welfare, a craving for personal accumulation of money by any means – this is all that has been proclaimed as the supreme aim, as the reasonable thing, as liberty, in lieu of the Christian idea of salvation through the moral and brotherly fellowship of men.
People will laugh and say that this is not all brought about by the Jews. Of course, not only by them, but if the Jews have completely triumphed and thriven in Europe precisely at the time when these new principles have triumphed there, to the point of having been raised to the level of the moral principle, it is impossible not to infer that the Jews, too, have contributed their influence to this condition.”
D could not imagine the Frankfurt School of Cultural Marxism, born in the 1930s and exploded in the 1960s, that pushed – actually almost imposed – globalization, miscegenation, feminism, transgenderism, drugs, disparagement of the goy family, gay marriage, neo-liberalism and its attendant turbo-capitalism.
It is almost as if D had said, “Give me ten thousand eyes, and I will fill them with prophetic tears.”(1)
As an aside, every man sees, and may feel evils, which no law can punish. And not only there always remain possibilities of guilt, which legislative foresight cannot discover, but existing laws are often violated by personalities whose subtlety eludes detection, or whose power prevents prosecution. Consequently, protective justice cannot bring them within the reach of punishment. Any reader but mildly interested in the affairs of the world can think of cases, names and examples (with Goldman Sachs in the lead).
Dostoyevsky’s observations continue at length and we could take note of his conclusions and verify his involuntary predictions.
Instead, let me now return to the imaginary “average Jewish” loner among my readers, and to his remaining one-per-cent debatable responsibility and relevance to the Jewish question – as I suggested at the beginning.
We are all familiar with the expression about the truth being pure and simple. But we also know that the truth is rarely pure and never simple. Still, those of us who were born and raised in Catholic or Christian countries, even if no longer believers, cannot shed, dismiss or avoid the influence of the New Testament. In fact, many Catholics became non-believers as a reaction to the perceived distance, in the Catholic upper hierarchy, from the teachings of the New Testament. Where the spirit is indisputably egalitarian and imbued with the idea of a fraternal mankind.
All this is not the stuff of dreams, begot of nothing but a vain fantasy. (2) “Faith, hope, charity, don’t do unto others…” etc. are more than words or instructions. They carry the modulation of the voice of parents, the reminiscence of our first understandings, the echoes of ancient Gregorian chants, the millennial hopes of the soul.
But your God is anything but. When the Christian world celebrates Christmas, you celebrate Hannukah, a story, according to the Book of the Maccabees, involving a violent rebellion against the Greeks, who had forbidden the Shabbat, the kashrut (Jewish dietary laws) and circumcision. Or, in the Talmudic version, a bloody revolt against the Greeks who, allegedly, wanted to rape Jewish brides before their marriage. A metaphor, according to some interpretations, for the proscribed marriage between Jews and non-Jews – a prohibition, or at least a very strong discouragement yet extant, in Israel.
And whereas the Christians at Easter celebrate a Resurrection, shortly before you celebrate Purim, or the hanging of Haman, another alleged enemy of the Jews.
Besides, the web has enabled many to learn a little, but a little sufficiently meaningful, about the Jewish perception of the goy, as described in the Talmud. Where the goy is at best a beast, created by God to be of service to the Jews. This was confirmed most recently by one of the highest Jewish religious authorities, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who declared that “The goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel.”
Or where the goy is but the discarded part of a cucumber, as in here.
It may be that you, average Jew, reject these notions. Some courageous Jews are vocal about it, but the majority seems not to be. Nor we cannot easily dismiss the weight of history.
As you know, one of your popular Jewish actresses and a great Clintonian supporter, Sarah Silverman, could say on TV, “I am glad that the Jews killed Christ, I’d f….king do it again.” While Jewish actor Larry David urinates on the image of the Mother of Christ, laughing at the idea that Catholic worshippers will believe his urine to be the miracle of a weeping Madonna.
All of the above (and more I omitted), leads me to believe that, not you as an individual, but the Chosen People – as they wish to appear to the world – hold strongly to their seasoned beliefs. If so, it is difficult to imagine how to bridge a persisting chasm.
Will the Chosen People elect to live in harmony with the goy or in a mood of constant antagonism? Will they keep seducing the elitish cacocracy – frankly not worth the dust that the rude wind blows in their face (3) – with massive money and potent perks, forcing the underlings to work and even die in wars for Israel?
The answer to these questions I know not. Four thousand years of animosity, resentment and/or hatred for the goy are not easily erased in the collective mind. Maybe things without all remedy should be without regard,(4) maybe what’s gone and what’s past help, should be past grief.(5)
But as evil increases, crimes will be practiced till their illegality is forgotten, and by an unavoidable familiarity with guilt, we will by degrees cease to abhor it.
Look at the once beautiful countries of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, now reduced to rubble and scorched earth. They say it’s because of the oil, but few any longer believe it. And regrettably fewer, thanks to the effective censorship of the mass media, dare question the mechanism of evil and the anthropology of selfishness, which seems to be the fabric of the current system and cultural moment.
After forty centuries, to take up the issue of the state-within-a-state of the Jewish nation is probably futile, for it is their business. I think I understand the Jewish viewpoint. But I harbor limitless disgust for the goy elitish cacocracy, which has discarded any sense of honor, to second and appease their new masters.
Still, it never yet did hurt to lay down likelihoods and forms of hope. (6) In this sense, I refer and bring up the one-per-cent of your (average Jew’s) responsibility, which I left open-for-debate. For, and I am quoting Dostoyevsky here. “Fraternity can only be realized (among different) peoples where the need for fraternal communion is part of human nature, where one is born with this need or has acquired it as a disposition over the course of many centuries.”
Such are the reflections to which we are called by the voice of truth.
Pessimistic…? I don’t know, but use can almost change the stamp of nature, and either quell the devil, or throw him out with wondrous potency. (7)
I would say that, however difficult, the decision is yours.
Reference:
** (1) Troilus and Cressida
** (2) Romeo and Juliet
** (3) King Lear
** (4) Macbeth
** (5) Winter’s Tale
** (6) King Henry IV, part 2
** (7) Hamlet
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