By Antonius J. Patrick
What follows is a synopsis of the highlights of The Rulers of Russia and the Russian Farmers, first printed in 1938 and written and published by Rev. Denis Fahey, C.S.Sp., a fierce critic of atheistic Bolshevism. This review is based upon the third revised edition of the book published by Loreto Printing in 2014.
Introduction
Before the Second Vatican Council, 1962-65, Catholicism was decidedly anti-Communist. Popes issued condemnatory encyclicals on it, the clergy spoke out about its dangers in sermons and Catholic intellectuals published a considerable amount of literature that exposed its atheistic nature. In the English-speaking world, there were popular anti-Communist clerics, most notably Bishop Fulton Sheen, Fr. Charles E. Coughlin and Fr. Denis Fahey.
Prior to WWII, Catholic opposition to Communism also contained criticism of the Jewish personalities involved in it since many of the revolutionary movements were fronted or orchestrated by Jews. Political correctness had yet to purge objective inquiry into social matters, although it was certainly on the ascent.
After the Allied “victory” in WWII and the disastrous geopolitical results of the war which led, in part, to Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, warnings about the “Communist threat” remained within Catholic circles. However, there was a decided difference. Mention of the Jewish involvement in Communism had begun to fade and, as the years rolled by, their involvement was rarely written about in mainstream Catholic periodicals. Moreover, there was almost no talk of the other areas of Western culture that Jewish businessmen sought to dominate after the war. These included television, radio, movies, the arts, academia, publishing, newspapers [and today the internet]—the best lines of communication for swaying public opinion.
Of the few who continued to speak of Jewish involvement in both Communism and throughout Western society, both before and after the war, was the Irish priest Fr. Denis Fahey, C.S.Sp. However, with his passing in 1954, a major voice had disappeared that, unfortunately, would not be replaced in the next generation of Catholic intelligentsia.1
Right up to his death, Fr. Fahey never tired in demonstrating the pernicious effects that he believed Jews had on Western societies, especially after WWII. We now know, with the benefit of hindsight, that WWII was a victory largely for World Zionism and a major defeat for the White race. One need only look at the number of White Europeans who died or were maimed in that war to understand that.
After Vatican II, however, not only was there no criticism of Jewish/Zionist influence on Western culture, but critique of atheistic Communism was largely frowned upon by Church officials, who had become imbibed with the new ecumenism of the council. When Communism was spoken of, emphasis was typically placed on its economic deficiencies and the supposed military threat that it posed to the West.
Instead of showing the “errors” of Judaism and attempting to convert them, as the Church had done for its first 2,000 years of existence, after Vatican II, Jews became Catholic “elder brothers,” as “dialogue” and not evangelization became Church policy.
Jews & the Revolution
No honest historian or those who have taken at least a cursory look at 20th-century history could deny or not know that the Bolshevik revolution and the establishment of the Red regime was conceived, financed, carried forth and eventually implemented largely by Jews from both inside Russia and around the world. Unlike most modern historians, who are conspicuously silent on the matter, Fr. Fahey documents the overwhelming role that Jews played throughout the entire horrific saga.
One of the best sources that objectively chronicled the dramatic events that took place leading up to and after the Bolshevik takeover in 1917 was Robert Wilton’s book Les Derniers Jours des Romanof (The Last Days of the Romanovs). Wilton was no mere journalist; he was educated in Russia, fluent in the language and worked as a correspondent for The Paris Times.
Fr. Fahey quotes from Wilton’s book about the astounding number of Jews who held key positions within the Bolshevik regime:
In order not to leave myself [Wilton] open to any accusation of prejudice, I am giving … the list of the members of the Central Committee, of the Extraordinary Commission and the Council of Commissars functioning at the time of the assassination of the Imperial Family. The 62 members of the committee were composed of five Russians, one Ukrainian, six Letts, two Germans, one Czech, two Armenians, three Georgians, one Karaim (Jewish sect) and 41 Jews. [12]
The extraordinary Commission of Moscow was composed of 36 members, including one German, one Pole, one Armenian, two Russians, eight Letts, 23 Jews. The Council of the People’s Commissars numbered two Armenians, three Russians, 17 Jews. According to the data furnished by the Soviet press, out of 556 important functionaries of the Bolshevik state, including the above-mentioned, there were in 1918-19, 17 Russians, two Ukrainians, 11 Armenians, 35 Letts, 15 Germans, one Hungarian, 10 Georgians, three Poles, three Finns, one Czech, one Karaim, 457 Jews. [Ibid.]
“It is in the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party,” writes Wilton, “that the governmental power resides. It was composed as follows in 1918: Bronstein (Trotsky), Apfelbaum (Zinovieff), Lourie (Larine), Ouritski, Volodarski, Rosenfeldt (Kamenef), Sniidovich, Sverdlof (Yankel), Nakham- kes (Stekliof).” Of the 12 Central Committee members, nine were Jews with only three Russians. [9]
As Fr. Fahey rightly points out, the overthrow of the czar was far from the first instance where Jews had instigated political turmoil or participated in the moral corruption of society. In response, countries often expelled them from their midsts and, when they were allowed to remain, they were prevented from holding positions of influence.
After the French Revolution, however, came Jewish emancipation, which, soon afterward, saw their ascendancy first in the strategic area of money and banking. Financial wealth led to political and social control that, by the end of the 19th century and throughout the 20th century—and to this day—has been overwhelming.
While Fr. Fahey does not directly mention this connection in these monographs, it is no coincidence that the Jews and other political elites were able to gain an inordinate amount of power as the gold standard was continually weakened and central banks gained greater and greater control over money and banking. The rise and sustainability of the nation state after the breakup of Western Christendom, the downfall of the czar and the undermining of the Russian Orthodox Church were financed, in large measure, through central banking.
While Fr. Fahey presents the undeniable fact of Jewish involvement in the Bolshevik Revolution, the analysis of why it took place and the motivating factors behind it are just as important. To Fr. Fahey, the Jewish social domination ultimately stems from their genetic and religious makeup that, he insisted, permeates their world outlook. The Jews, as social theorists such as Kevin MacDonald contend, do not see themselves as part of a nation or kingdom, but are “cosmopolitan” in outlook, where their race and religion are above their commitment or adherence to a specific nationality. Fr. Fahey acknowledged this factor, but stressed the religious aspect of Judaism or, more accurately, their unfaithfulness (“perfidy”) to Christ as the impetus for their individual and group behavior.
The Bolshevik version of Marxism was to Fr. Fahey another phase or program for Jewish activists to use to break down societies and cultures which they saw as threats to their self-interest and group survival. The catalyst for their actions is their belief system, which seeks a “Natural Messias” or messiah being either an individual or, after 1948, the state of Israel to lead them, and Judaism, to world hegemony:
In this pamphlet, I have outlined some of the historical evidence which goes to prove that those “strangers to the real interests of Russia,” who are experimenting with this Marxian plan elaborated years ago, are members of the Jewish nation, and that Communism is the latest and, up to the present, the most decadent materialistic phase of the opposition of that nation to the Supernatural Messias. [14]
He continues:
. . . I present to my readers a number of serious documents which go to show that the real forces behind Bolshevism in Russia are Jewish forces, and that Bolshevism is really an instrument in the hands of the Jews for the establishment of their future Messianic kingdom. [25]
Fr. Fahey sees the religious composition of the Jews as the principle factor not only for their actions but for their incredible success. Only supernatural inspiration and manipulation can explain how the Jews, despite being a minority—and often a hated one—have been able to transform so many societies. They have been able not only to change people’s beliefs about themselves, but have insidiously conditioned the host cultures in which they dwell to despise their own heritage. The Jews have had long experience with such things. The most infamous example goes back to the New Testament when they mendaciously turned the crowd against Jesus despite Pontius Pilate’s reluctance to condemn the clearly innocent victim. Many in the crowd were the very same people who, no less than a week earlier, had proclaimed Him their Savior.
No greater authority than Christ Himself identified the “Supernatural Force” who was the Jews’ master: “You are of your father the devil.” [St. John, ch. VIII, verse 44]
“Their rejection of the Supernatural Messias,” Fr. Fahey contends, “is just as vigorous today as at any time since Calvary.” [48] For the Jews, they chose—and still do—their race and its glory over that of Christ and His:
[T]he Jewish nation, by its rejection of Christ’s message, asserted that its national life was the highest life in the world and proclaimed that the supreme test of the value of a course of action was its relation to that national life. [47-8]
Once Western societies abandoned Christianity, they became easy prey for the Jews and their allies to shape and mold to their liking. Opposition to Judaism has largely been waged on naturalistic grounds. Most opponents of the Jews do not recognize that this is a supernatural struggle, as Fr. Fahey so ably points out, and cannot be won without divine assistance, as Fr. Fahey believed.
Russian Farmers
Fr. Fahey’s monograph on the Russian farmers focuses on the brutal collectivization of the countryside that liquidated the well-to-do and middling farmers. While socialistic planning led to the predictable results of famine, death, misery and economic decline, collectivization had another purpose: to do away with the agricultural system which had existed for centuries that was a natural bulwark against Bolshevism.
Marxism and most socialistic theorists held great distain for agriculture and the peasantry, favoring industrial labor that, they believed, would be more conducive to revolutionary activity. Farmers are highly independent and not as reliant on cities and government for their survival, which made collectivization of agriculture more difficult. The Bolsheviks, therefore, were considerably more ruthless in the countryside in their implementation of Communism than in the cities.
Economic forces at the time, not only in Russia but throughout the Western world, were working in the Bolsheviks’ favor, although they were not aware of the dynamics taking place. As agriculture became more mechanized—making it more productive—farming became less labor intensive. More food could be grown with fewer hands. The “surplus labor” from the countryside increasingly migrated to cities and urban areas for work, thus strengthening the ranks of the proletariat—the Bolsheviks’ natural base.
The first attempt at farm socialism was conducted soon after the Reds came to power. The policy had a two-fold purpose. The first was to apply their failed economic theories in the countryside, while the second was to destroy the more well-to-do farmers—the much despised kulaks. The first “war” on the Russian farmer began in 1919 and lasted to 1921, as Fr Fahey describes:
In those years Lenin tried to apply Marxian collectivism, based on the doctrine that man is merely an animal, to the Russian countryside. The peasants resisted the intolerable demands made upon them. They refused to grow food for “the pampered cities and armies.’”[19]
As to be expected, the experiment was a monumental catastrophe in economic terms, although much to the glee of the Bolsheviks it accomplished the goal of destroying millions of highly productive kulak farms. From sources familiar with the situation, some 23 million people were “threatened with extermination” with 6 million reported deaths from lack of nutrition. Had it not been for relief efforts, the numbers would have been considerably higher. Unfortunately, under Stalin’s satanic attempt at collectivization, the Soviet dictator did not allow any outside help. This guaranteed the deaths of untold millions.
While the Bolsheviks accomplished their goal of eradicating many of the kulaks, the destruction of Russian agriculture was so severe that they called a halt to it and, soon afterward, enacted NEP, “new economic policy.” NEP allowed a certain amount of economic freedom and capitalistic production while it slowed the breakup and redistribution of farm land. After a few years of NEP, farm production did rise, although never to pre-war levels, as farmers remained leery of producing “too much” that might bring about confiscation by the authorities.
The brief respite under NEP, that allowed for some market activity in the Russian countryside, was brutally ended in 1929 with Stalin’s attempt to fully collectivize farming and completely liquidate the kulaks. There would be no reprieve from this policy until WWII, when the Soviet regime needed help from the entire population in their titanic struggle with Germany.
The economic devastation from complete socialistic agricultural planning was enormous and probably the worst of its kind recorded in history. Even the best year—1935—saw farm production fall short of 1913 per capita yield. Fr. Fahey quotes W.H. Chamberlain from his Collectivism: A False Utopia about conditions in Stalinist Russia:
The Russian people, if one may accept the plain evidence of Soviet statistics, are worse fed than they were two decades ago under czarism. … Much greater has been the impoverishment of Russian agriculture in livestock, with the corresponding inevitable deterioration in the supply of meat, milk and dairy products. … Here one has in a nutshell the explanation of the Soviet food prices, which are abnormally high in relation to the earnings of the workers and employees, and also the proof that Russians, by and large, are eating less and worse than before the revolution. . . . [50]
Let it not be forgotten that at the heart of the Reds’ farm policy (and for that matter all of Bolshevism) lay a hatred of Christianity. The great famine of 1932-33 gave the farm commissars an excuse to further confiscate and plunder Church property and possessions: “In accordance with instructions of the Regional Executive Committee, the church in your village is to be put in order as a storehouse for government grain. … The local Komsomols [All-Union Leninist Young Communist League] did the actual work of stripping the church of its hangings, icons and valuables.” [41]2
The peasants’ reaction to this barbarity was heartrending:
The news spread like wildfire through the fields. Scores of peasants dropped their implements and rushed to the village. They cursed and pleaded and wept as they saw their sacred objects removed. … “They’ve taken everything from us. They’ve left us nothing. Now they are removing our last comfort. Where shall we christen our children and bury our dead? Where shall we turn for comfort in our sorrows? The scoundrels, the infidels! I was helpless.”[19]3
Conclusion
Those along the wide spectrum of the right—social conservatives, racial realists, constitutionalists, Alt-Righters, Southern sympathizers, nationalists, free marketeers—who have tried to defeat or at least turn back the tide of Jewish-dominated liberalism will continue to lose unless they fight the left with Christianity. The right largely fails because it is in agreement with the left that Almighty God should have no place in political affairs. The current destruction of many cities and urban areas by neo-Bolsheviks is just the latest example of the right’s impotency in halting the left’s assault on its heritage. For those who seek a strategy not only to defeat the barbaric hordes, but especially their wily manipulators, from a supernatural perspective Fr. Denis Fahey’s books, in particular his two monographs—The Rulers of Russia and The Rulers of Russia and the Russian Farmers —are essential reading.
Endnotes:
1 See in particular, The Kingship of Christ and the Conversion of the Jewish Nation; The Kingship of Christ and Organized Naturalism: Secret Societies and the Kingship of Christ.
2 Fr. Fahey quotes from Victor Kravchenko’s book, I Chose Freedom.
3 Ibid.
This article appeared in the January/February 2021 issue of The Barnes Review. Click here for more information.