Fools Russian: The Plot Against Civilization pp. 140-143

 The Russian revolution figures heavily into conspiracy lore because it also settles into the fear of conservatives over Communism. The John Birch Society likely never exists if the omnipresent boogeymen of Communism doesn’t scare their members into donating. We’re obviously before that time, WWII hasn’t happened yet, and Webster is writing pretty recently after the formation of the USSR under Josef Stalin. The problem that conspiracy theorists have in covering the Russian Revolution is the same problem that they have in covering the French Revolution: they have to pretend that everything was fine before the revolution.

What’s going to be interesting about this chapter is that Webster is stepping outside of her comfort zone. She’s written a historical book about the French Revolution prior to this book but now she isn’t going to be able to draw from that knowledge base. After that book on the French Revolution her writing gets more and more conspiratorial…she dips her toe in the spiral with that book, but afterwards she’s lost down the well.

The chapter opens, “The first visible result of the work of the Secret Societies in the nineteenth century occurred in Russia, which the doctrines of illuminized freemasonry had been carried by Napolean’s armies and by Russian officers who had travelled in Germany.”

There is a footnote to this sentence which leads us to two different sources, the first is in French, but the second is English so I checked it out on the internet archive, this is The Court of Russia in the Nineteenth Century, I’ve hopefully linked directly to the page but if I haven’t, the citation merely explains that Russian students studied in European countries sometimes. This is the kind of the investigative reporting I expect out of my conspiracy theory books—rich people sent their kids to Europe for school.

What I’m confused about though, is that she claims that Napolean’s armies spread Illuminized freemasonry to Russia. Earlier (a chapter or so ago) she said that the during the reign of Napolean was the only time that the Illuminati held no power in Europe. Only one of these things can be true.

The first step in the Russian Revolution is the Dekabrist uprising. This is the first in the industrial period and it occurred after the death of Alexander I. It lasted a single day and was basically a fight between Alexander’s successor Konstantin Pavlovich, and their younger brother Nicholas I. Nicholas I, would have been the same old Tsar as Alexander, while Konstantin and his supporters were looking for a constitutional republic.

Webster claims that the word “constitution” is a clue that the secret societies were involved. She does this because people like her actually dislike Democracy. The thing about her claim is that she’s threading true facts into her bullshit narrative. Yes, the secret societies in Russia wanted a Constitutional Republic, but that’s not nefarious. If you, a Russian subject to the Tsar, wanted to meet with other people to discuss Democratic reforms you had to do so in secret because this was a crime.

One aspect of Russia in the 19th century that people may be ignorant of, is that it was a medieval style empire. The Tsar owned everything, and the people who worked the land were essentially property in much the same way that the French peasants were in the late 18th century. Webster gets this much correct and she gives us a curious statement, “In this year of 1839 the peasants, hearing that the emperor had just bought some more land, sent a disputation to Petersburg…Nicholas I received them kindly, for whilst adopting repressive measures towards insurrection his sympathies were with the people.”

His sympathies were with the people as long as those people knew their place: at the foot of the emperor (Webster uses the term “Emperor” in place of Tsar). Nicholas tells the delegation, ‘Hey, if it were up to me, you’d all be free, and I’m really trying to make that happen.”

Webster claims that this was twisted by “savage and envious men” leading to another revolt. It bears repeating that people like Webster crave domination by aristocratic lords so much so that they delude themselves with statements like Nicholas to the delegation. It’s up to Nicholas; he’s the Emperor of Russia—he gets to decide if the Russian peasants are free or not. There’s nothing to work out except which ink he wants to use to sign the edict.

The peasants, she reports, rose up and killed their overseers thinking that Nicholas I words were supportive. However, they weren’t because Nicholas never meant to free the peasants from servitude, if he had, he would have. She wants us to see the Russian peasant’s actions as being similar to the French peasant’s actions in 1789. Because both movements were violent reaction against their lords, there must have been a secret power at work directing both of them. There’s no other explanation…unless one realizes that this is how the oppressed take vengeance upon their oppressors.

We are then treated to a description of the French Revolution of 1830, which Webster tells us is not within the scope of this book, “The revolution of 1830 was in the main not a social but a political revolution, a renewed attempt of the Orleanist conspiracy to effect a change in dynasty and as such formed a mere corollary to the insurrection of July and October 1789.”

I’m sorry, it was merely a political revolution and therefore her book on how secret societies create social upheaval will not cover it? I think the translation here is that her conspiracy narrative can’t absorb this revolution because it’s about overthrowing Charles X and I guess Webster cannot make him sympathetic. I really don’t know.

The rest of this chapter is back to France and the Revolution of 1848. Which is fine because she can’t drift too far away from her comfort zone; but then why did we begin this chapter with a divergence toward Russia? I assume she’s going to get into Russian History in greater detail later so why even tease it out now?

Most conspiracy theory books need stronger editors and I was hoping that Webster’s would be different with her background. One might be tempted to defend her position by explaining that she’s going chronologically but it’s such a narrative shift. It’s like she was being forced to address this small revolution in Russia. I don’t see why. So we’re back in France for the 1848 Revolution next week.