The Judeo-Bolshevik Myth: A 20th-Century Conspiracy Theory

Today, a widespread version of conspiratorial antisemitism casts Jews as “cultural Marxists” bent on destroying the timeless values of Western civilization. But fears of a global Jewish conspiracy have taken different forms. In the twentieth century, no conspiracy theory was more potent or more destructive than the myth of Judeo-Bolshevism. This paper will consider the history of the Judeo-Bolshevik myth—how fantasies about a Jewish Communist conspiracy came to seem real and how an astonishing variety of people acted on this belief.