"Protocols of the Elders of Zion" - a document or falsification?

The famous "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" once made a lot of noise around the world. The scandalous collection of texts was called nothing more than a proof of the universal Jewish conspiracy of the Masonic lodge, consisting in the destruction of the existing states and the proclamation of a new world order, where Jews, of course, are the "ruling class". It all began in 1901, when the minutes of secret meetings of the Masonic lodge fell into the hands of the writer Sergei Nilus. The documents were written in French and resembled the congresses of the organization called "The Universal Union of Israelites".

Nilus was going to make the documents public, but he was surpassed, and in 1903 "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" were first published. After that, several other journalists published this information, in total from 1905 to 1907 six publications of the "Protocols" were published. Nilus also released his version of the translation as a supplement to his book "The Great in the Little, or the Antichrist as a close political opportunity", which made a furore in Russian society. As a result, after the first revolution, people were seriously ready to blame for the world's Zionist plot in all its troubles.

The Tsar got acquainted with the sensational "Protocols" in 1906 and was inclined to believe this information. However, Stolypin, who served as Minister of Internal Affairs, organized an investigation into the origin of the documents, during which it became clear that the time of writing the "Protocols" - 1897-1898, and created their Parisian anti-Semites. The minister immediately went to the tsar with a report and a request to ban the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in Russia, the text of which is completely falsified. The tsar listened to the report and agreed with the minister, so the book was banned.

As for the authorship and authenticity of the book, the opinions of experts are still at variance. Some experts believe that the book was falsified by members of the Russian secret police. According to their version, the police followed in the footsteps of the creators of the famous pamphlet against Napoleon, published in France. Thus, the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" were fabricated in the Paris National Library. However, there are adherents of the opposite point of view who believe that the document is absolutely real, as well as other texts of the same theme: "Messages of the World Council of Masons," "Dream of the Kaiser", "Message of the Universal Union of Israelites," etc. Russian emigrants managed to take out surviving copies of the book of Nilus, and thus Europe and America also learned what the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" are. The book was soon translated into 80 languages and spread throughout the world.

Nilus' books began to be released again in Russia only in the 1990s, after the collapse of the USSR, and more recently, in 2006, human rights activists together with the Public Chamber made amendments to the legislation, including the creation of a list of extremist literature banned for distribution in Russia. This list includes the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" together with the famous work "Mein Kampf".