PROTOCOL NUMBER TWELVE


1. The word "freedom," which can be interpreted in various
ways, is defined by us as follows -

2. Freedom is the right to do what which the law allows.
This interpretation of the word will at the proper time be
of service to us, because all freedom will thus be in our
hands, since the laws will abolish or create only that which
is desirable for us according to the aforesaid program.

3. We shall deal with the press in the following way: what
is the part played by the press to-day? It serves to excite
and inflame those passions which are needed for our purpose
or else it serves selfish ends of parties. It is often
vapid, unjust, mendacious, and the majority of the public
have not the slightest idea what ends the press really
serves. We shall saddle and bridle it with a tight curb: we
shall do the same also with all productions of the printing
press, for where would be the sense of getting rid of the
attacks of the press if we remain targets for pamphlets and
books? The produce of publicity, which nowadays is a source
of heavy expense owing to the necessity of censoring it,
will be turned by us into a very lucrative source of income
to our State: we shall law on it a special stamp tax and
require deposits of caution-money before permitting the
establishment of any organ of the press or of printing
offices; these will then have to guarantee our government
against any kind of attack on the part of the press. For any
attempt to attack us, if such still be possible, we shall
inflict fines without mercy. Such measures as stamp tax,
deposit of caution-money and fines secured by these
deposits, will bring in a huge income to the government. It
is true that party organs might not spare money for the sake
of publicity, but these we shall shut up at the second
attack upon us. No one shall with impunity lay a finger on
the aureole of our government infallibility. The pretext for
stopping any publication will be the alleged plea that it is
agitating the public mind without occasion or justification.
I beg you to note that among those making attacks upon us
will also be organs established by us, but they will attack
exclusively points that we have pre-determined to alter.

WE CONTROL THE PRESS:

4. Not a single announcement will reach the public without
our control. Even now this is already being attained by us
inasmuch as all news items are received by a few agencies,
in whose offices they are focused from all parts of the
world. These agencies will then be already entirely ours and
will give publicity only to what we dictate to them.

5. If already now we have contrived to possess ourselves of
the minds of the goy communities to such an extent the they
all come near looking upon the events of the world through
the colored glasses of those spectacles we are setting
astride their noses; if already now there is not a single
State where there exist for us any barriers to admittance
into what goy stupidity calls State secrets: what will our
positions be then, when we shall be acknowledged supreme
lords of the world in the person of our king of all the
world ....

6. Let us turn again to the future of the printing press.
Every one desirous of being a publisher, librarian, or
printer, will be obliged to provide himself with the diploma
instituted therefore, which, in case of any fault, will be
immediately impounded. With such measures the instrument of
thought will become an educative means in the hands of our
government, which will no longer allow the mass of the
nation to be led astray in by-ways and fantasies about the
blessings of progress. Is there any one of us who does not
know that these phantom blessings are the direct roads to
foolish imaginings which give birth to anarchical relations
of men among themselves and towards authority, because
progress, or rather the idea of progress, has introduced the
conception of every kind of emancipation, but has failed to
establish its limits .... All the so-called liberals are
anarchists, if not in fact, at any rate in thought. Every
one of them in hunting after phantoms of freedom, and
falling exclusively into license, that is, into the anarchy
of protest for the sake of protest ....

FREE PRESS DESTROYED:

7. We turn to the periodical press. We shall impose on it,
as on all printed matter, stamp taxes per sheet and deposits
of caution- money, and books of less than 30 sheets will pay
double. We shall reckon them as pamphlets in order, on the
one hand, to reduce the number of magazines, which are the
worst form of printed poison, and, on the other, in order
that this measure may force writers into such lengthy
productions that they will be little read, especially as
they will be costly. At the same time what we shall publish
ourselves to influence mental development in the direction
laid down for our profit will be cheap and will be read
voraciously. The tax will bring vapid literary ambitions
within bounds and the liability to penalties will make
literary men dependent upon us. And if there should be any
found who are desirous of writing against us, they will not
find any person eager to print their productions in print
the publisher or printer will have to apply to the
authorities for permission to do so. Thus we shall know
beforehand of all tricks preparing against us and shall
nullify them by getting ahead with explanations on the
subject treated of.

8. Literature and journalism are two of the most important
educative forces, and therefore our government will become
proprietor of the majority of the journals. This will
neutralize the injurious influence of the privately-owned
press and will put us in possession of a tremendous
influence upon the public mind .... If we give permits for
ten journals, we shall ourselves found thirty, and so on in
the same proportion. This, however, must in no wise be
suspected by the public. For which reason all journals
published by us will be of the most opposite, in appearance,
tendencies and opinions, thereby creating confidence in us
and bringing over to us quite unsuspicious opponents, who
will thus fall into our trap and be rendered harmless.

9. In the front rank will stand organs of an official
character. They will always stand guard over our interests,
and therefore their influence will be comparatively
insignificant.

10. In the second rank will be the semi-official organs,
whose part it will be to attack the tepid and indifferent.

11. In the third rank we shall set up our own, to all
appearance, off position, which, in at least one of its
organs, will present what looks like the very antipodes to
us. Our real opponents at heart will accept this simulated
opposition as their own and will show us their cards.

12. All our newspapers will be of all possible complexions -
aristocratic, republican, revolutionary, even anarchical -
for so long, of course, as the constitution exists .... Like
the Indian idol "Vishnu" they will have a hundred hands, and
every one of them will have a finger on any one of the
public opinions as required. When a pulse quickens these
hands will lead opinion in the direction of our aims, for an
excited patient loses all power of judgment and easily
yields to suggestion. Those fools who will think they are
repeating the opinion of a newspaper of their own camp will
be repeating our opinion or any opinion that seems desirable
for us. In the vain belief that they are following the organ
of their party they will, in fact, follow the flag which we
hang out for them.

13. In order to direct our newspaper militia in this sense
we must take special and minute care in organizing this
matter. Under the title of central department of the press
we shall institute literary gatherings at which our agents
will without attracting attention issue the orders and
watchwords of the day. By discussing andcontroverting, but
always superficially, without touching the essence of the
matter, our organs will carry on a sham fight fusillade with
the official newspapers solely for the purpose of giving
occasion for us to express ourselves more fully than could
well be done from the outset in official announcements,
whenever, of course, that is to our advantage.

14. These attacks upon us will also serve another purpose,
namely, that our subjects will be convinced to the existence
of full freedom of speech and so give our agents an occasion
to affirm that all organs which oppose us are empty
babblers, since they are incapable of finding any
substantial objections to our orders.

ONLY LIES PRINTED:

15. Methods of organization like these, imperceptible to the
public eye but absolutely sure, are the best calculated to
succeed in bringing the attention and the confidence of the
public to the side of our government. Thanks to such
methods, we shall be in a position as from time to time may
be required, to excite or to tranquillize the public mind on
political questions, to persuade or to confuse, printing now
truth, now lies, facts or their contradictions, according as
they may be well or ill received, always very cautiously
feeling our ground before stepping upon it .... We shall
have a sure triumph over our opponents since they will not
have at their disposition organs of the press in which they
can give full and final expression to their views owing to
the aforesaid methods of dealing with the press. We shall
not even need to refute them except very superficially.

16. Trial shots like these, fired by us in the third rank of
our press, in case of need, will be energetically refuted by
us in our semi-official organs.

17. Even nowadays, already, to take only the French press,
there are forms which reveal masonic solidarity in acting on
the watchword: all organs of the press are bound together by
professional secrecy; like the augurs of old, not one of
their numbers will give away the secret of his sources of
information unless it be resolved to make announcement of
them. Not one journalist will venture to betray this secret,
for not one of them is ever admitted to practice literature
unless his whole past has some disgraceful sore or other
.... These sores would be immediately revealed. So long as
they remain the secret of a few the prestige of the
journalist attacks the majority of the country - the mob
follow after him with enthusiasm.

18. Our calculations are especially extended to the
provinces. It is indispensable for us to inflame there those
hopes and impulses with which we could at any moment fall
upon the capital, and we shall represent to the capitals
that these expressions are the independent hopes and
impulses of the provinces. Naturally, the source of them
will be always one and the same - ours. What we need is
that, until such time as we are in the plentitude power, the
capitals should find themselves stifled by the provincial
opinion of the nations, i.e., of a majority arranged by our
agentur. What we need is that at the psychological moment
the capitals should not be in a position to discuss an
accomplished fact for the simple reason, if for no other,
that it has been accepted by the public opinion of a
majority in the provinces.

19. When we are in the period of the new regime transitional
to that of our assumption of full sovereignty, we must not
admit any revelation by the press of any form of public
dishonesty; it is necessary that the new regime should be
thought to have so perfectly contended everybody that even
criminality has disappeared ... Cases of the manifestation
of criminality should remain known only to their victims and
to chance witnesses - no more.

Go To Protocol Number Thirteen . . .