The first point of attack is Collective Opinion, that body of ideas which through men's agreement with them, holds large groups together in political, racial, religious, or social unity. Sometimes we call them "standards," sometimes we call them "ideals"; whatever they may be called, they are the invisible bonds of unity, they are the common faith, they are the great overarching reason for group unity and loyalty.
The Protocols assert that here the first attack has been made. The history of Jewish propaganda in the world shows that also.
The first wave of attack is to corrupt Collective Opinion. Now, to "corrupt" in the real sense does not mean anything unsavory or unclean. The whole power of every heresy is its attractiveness to the good mind. The whole explanation of the strong hold which untruth has gained upon the world of our day, is that the untruth is reasonable, inspiring and apparently good. It is only after a long discipline in false ideals—which are reasonable, inspiring and good—that the evil fruits appear in acts and conditions which are unreasonable, destructive and wholly evil. If you will trace the idea of Liberty as it has appeared in Russian history, from its philosophic beginning (a Jewish beginning, by the way) to its present ending (a Jewish ending also), you will see the process.
The Protocols claim that the Gentiles are not thinkers, that attractive ideas have been thrown at them so strategically and persistently that the power of thought is almost destroyed out of them. Fortunately this is a matter on which any Gentile may apply his own test. If he will segregate his ruling ideas, especially those that center round the thought of "democracy," he will discover that he is being ruled in his mind by a whole company of ideas into whose authority over him he has not inquired at all. He is ruled by "say so" whose origin he has not traced. And when, pursuing those ideas, he finds that they are not practicable, he is received by the explanation that "we are not yet sufficiently advanced." Yet when he does see men who are sufficiently "advanced" to