# Is there any truth to the idea of Marxism being Jewish? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 1, 2015, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-truth-to-the-idea-of-marxism-being-jewish/719039 "2015-05-01T19:40:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2015, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-truth-to-the-idea-of-marxism-being-jewish/719039/21 "2015-05-02T05:43:50Z")
> [@jezzaOZ](#): > > And just to be clear I’d never heard of it before today, but it does seem to have a handy list. Perhaps you could point out any errors or inaccuracies? Putting aside the fact that it’s out of date, and uses some pretty dodgy, out of date terminology (“Mulatto”? Really?), and the “Jewish spouse” thing, and that it distinguishes “Ashkenazi Jews” from “White Europeans”, when Ashkenazi Jews are white Europeans, it doesn’t support its claims. It’ll say somebody’s Jewish and then not provide any evidence to support that. ---
**Author:** ![jezzaOZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@jezzaOZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jezzaOZ)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2015, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-truth-to-the-idea-of-marxism-being-jewish/719039/22 "2015-05-02T07:30:03Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I also disbelieve every single word jennaOZ says about Jewish Commissars. Especially in “post-war” Europe. Post what war? > > There is among some groups the belief that Jews and Communism are essentially synonymous. Wikipedia has an article on it called [Jewish Bolshevism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Bolshevism) which reveals it as a conspiracy theory just as nutty as anyone other than jennaOZ one might imagine. [Slansky Trial Czecholsovakie - Jewish purge](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sl%C3%A1nsk%C3%BD_trial) Poland post WW-II: ‘significant’ Jewish control of Government despite being under 1% of the population. [Żydzi w kierownictwie UB. Stereotyp czy rzeczywistość?](http://www.bibula.com/?p=65251) ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2015, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-truth-to-the-idea-of-marxism-being-jewish/719039/23 "2015-05-02T07:57:38Z")
> [@jezzaOZ](#): > > Perhaps you could point out any errors or inaccuracies? Well, ZOG stands for Zionist-Occupied Government, which is the kind of stuff people who hole up in compounds in the middle of nowhere with only their illegally-modified fully-automatic AR-15s to keep them company rant about. It not so much implies as explicitly states that the government of the United States of America is controlled by a bunch of smirking Jews who… uh… _don’t_ use our amazing military might to ensure Israel never sees another rocket launched against it. Anyway, the error is in the name of the blog, and the nature of the error is “Blatantly racist and totally idiotic conspiracy theory”. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2015, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-truth-to-the-idea-of-marxism-being-jewish/719039/24 "2015-05-02T11:05:39Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > And just where in that list of notable Jewish actors does it assert/imply/insinuate/go off the rails with an asinine assertion that “Jews control” their employer(s)? jezzOZ: Did you forget the question I put to you there? > [@](#): > > Look, it’s 10 a.m. here and I have to be somewhere soon to meet some people. Unless someone beats me to it, I’ll dedicate a BBQ Pit thread to you when I get back home. Well, since you didn’t bother to reply to my question and nobody else beat me to it, [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=755941) is your very own Pit thread. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2015, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-truth-to-the-idea-of-marxism-being-jewish/719039/25 "2015-05-02T12:36:24Z")
Huh? If Jews=Communists, does that mean that they have “a list of over 200 communists in the State Department”? How 1950’s! In fact, I recall reading about some recently-disclosed old Soviet archives where Trotsky had specifically declined succeeding Lenin because he was concerned about western muttering that communism was a Jewish conspiracy, and he preferred that Stalin succeed so as to not besmirch communism’s good name. So the alleged connection, or rather the allegation, is over a century old. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2015, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-truth-to-the-idea-of-marxism-being-jewish/719039/26 "2015-05-02T13:00:24Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > Marx’s father was a Rabbi who later converted to Lutheranism for political expediency I don’t think Marx’s father was a Rabbi. Both of his grandfathers were, but the dad converted the whole family to Lutheranism and raised his children as Christians. It’s also worth noting that Marx never once in all of his writings hinted at any feelings of kinship and in fact made many extremely anti-Semitic comments. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2015, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-truth-to-the-idea-of-marxism-being-jewish/719039/27 "2015-05-02T14:50:53Z")
> [@jezzaOZ](#): > > [Slansky Trial Czecholsovakie - Jewish purge](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sl%C3%A1nsk%C3%BD_trial) > > Poland post WW-II: ‘significant’ Jewish control of Government despite being under 1% of the population. [Żydzi w kierownictwie UB. Stereotyp czy rzeczywistość?](http://www.bibula.com/?p=65251) I can’t read the second cite, but the first one doesn’t prove anything about percentages of Jews in government, which is the literal definition of “disproportionate.” Obviously a show trial against Zionist influences will name every Jew they could find. In fact, if they could only find 11 Jews to try that would indicate that the percentage was extremely low, and nowhere near 50%. Additionally, not a single one of them had a rank that would translate as Commissar, to my understanding. So far you’ve only managed to refute yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2015, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-truth-to-the-idea-of-marxism-being-jewish/719039/28 "2015-05-02T15:43:31Z")
> [@jezzaOZ](#): > > It’s a little bit more than that. Jews were as disproportionately represented in Commissar ranks in wartime and post-war occupied Europe as in the US State Department today, possibly even more so! > > I recall in postwar Hungary(?) more than 50% of the Leadership Cadres were Jewish Ashkenazi Jews (not Jews in general, just the Ashkenazim) are a high-IQ group, so they’re going to be overrepresented in fields that require high IQ like political leadership. Also, IQ correlates with openness, so high IQ groups are going to be more open to radical political ideas of the left or the right. I thought the question was “does Jewish religion or culture influence you in the direction of far left ideas”, and the answer to that is clearly no. Hobsbawm said famously, “if I was a Christian, I might have gone fascist in the 1930s instead of communist”. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-truth-to-the-idea-of-marxism-being-jewish/719039/29 "2015-05-03T04:56:34Z")
> [@jezzaOZ](#): > > And just to be clear I’d never heard of it before today, but it does seem to have a handy list. Perhaps you could point out any errors or inaccuracies? [Rashad Hussain](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashad_Hussain) is not Arab; his background is Indian. I’m still waiting on an answer to the question I put to you about your ridiculous post #13. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-truth-to-the-idea-of-marxism-being-jewish/719039/30 "2015-05-03T05:46:40Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > I don’t think Marx’s father was a Rabbi. You’re correct. Heinrich Marx was a lawyer. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-truth-to-the-idea-of-marxism-being-jewish/719039/31 "2015-05-03T05:52:33Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > You’re correct. Heinrich Marx was a lawyer. And in contracts he was the party of the first part, which in this contract shall be known as the party of the first part. In fact, he loved parties so much, he went to a lot of them while Karl was still just a lad, including one on a revolving platform. His professed love of that revolutionary party probably never had a profound effect on Karl, why do you ask? ---
**Author:** ![jezzaOZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@jezzaOZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jezzaOZ)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-truth-to-the-idea-of-marxism-being-jewish/719039/32 "2015-05-03T08:20:17Z")
I guess I should have stuck with my first choice of the [Brother Nathanael State Department List](http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=800). Quite a bit shorter and less researched, but the good Bro is a high achieving, high IQ Ashkenazi Jew so he’ll be much more acceptable as a source! (Proceeds to play Bialystock Bingo - “self hating Jew” getting triple word score) ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-truth-to-the-idea-of-marxism-being-jewish/719039/33 "2015-05-03T09:48:19Z")
> [@jezzaOZ](#): > > I guess I should have stuck with my first choice of the [Brother Nathanael State Department List](http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=800). Quite a bit shorter and less researched, but the good Bro is a high achieving, high IQ Ashkenazi Jew so he’ll be much more acceptable as a source! > > (Proceeds to play Bialystock Bingo - “self hating Jew” getting triple word score) So you’re actually sticking with that bigoted tripe you linked to earlier as being “more researched”? And now you’re linking to an Evangelical anti-Jewish site and calling that acceptable? Maybe this [from that bigoted site](http://realjewnews.com/) will show you why it’s not a good site: > [@](#): > > Welcome To “REAL JEW NEWS!” > My Name Is Brother Nathanael Kapner > I’m A “Street Evangelist” > > I Grew Up As A Jew > I’m Now An Orthodox Christian > > I Wish To Warn How Jewry > Is Destroying Christianity Throughout The World And you still haven’t answered my question about your post #13. ---
**Author:** ![jezzaOZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@jezzaOZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jezzaOZ)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-truth-to-the-idea-of-marxism-being-jewish/719039/34 "2015-05-03T09:58:34Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > So you’re actually sticking with that bigoted tripe you linked to earlier as being “more researched”? And now you’re linking to an Evangelical anti-Jewish site and calling that acceptable? Maybe this [from that bigoted site](http://realjewnews.com/) will show you why it’s not a good site: Thanks! I just got at 4 words in my Bialystock Bingo game! Keep it up! I should be able to shout Bingo after only two or three more of your comments! ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-truth-to-the-idea-of-marxism-being-jewish/719039/35 "2015-05-03T10:22:38Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > is the idea of communism and Marxism in general being influenced by Jewish root supported by facts at all What would be the point of attempting to determine such a thing? Any set of ideas draws on any other ideas in the cultural environment at the time at which it is developed. Attempting to determine to what precise extent Marx was more exposed to rabbinical teaching than to Hegel or any other intellectual predecessor, let alone what subsequent thinkers and activists made of his thought, seems to me to be a waste of time and effort. They said what they said and did what they did: they alone stand to be judged on that alone: that others may or will have been exposed to some or all of the same influences and inheritances is neither here nor there. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-truth-to-the-idea-of-marxism-being-jewish/719039/36 "2015-05-03T14:19:51Z")
Earl Browder, long time head of the US Communist Party was not Jewish. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-truth-to-the-idea-of-marxism-being-jewish/719039/37 "2015-05-03T14:55:25Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > And you still haven’t answered my question about your post #13. Hey, wait a second. jennaOZ still hasn’t provide a single cite to back post #4 that I questioned. Let’s get in line here. There’s so much deliberate ignorance to fight that we’ll all get a chance. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-truth-to-the-idea-of-marxism-being-jewish/719039/38 "2015-05-03T15:30:31Z")
There are at least three levels of response to this op. 1. Correcting factual errors. Others have done that. (For example, Karl Marx was neither Jewish by religion or by Jewish Law or by identity; his father had been born Jewish and converted, so on.) 2. Taking the question seriously. A significant myth within the Jewish religion is the Exodus myth - how we were slaves in Egypt and rose up against our oppressors, about how we need to aid others who are oppressed because we too were slaves, about how we needed to learn to be free and how tempting worshipping the Golden Calf is … not a stretch to think of that myth as priming some to accept some basic premises of the concepts of oppressed workers needing to learn how to be free and the dangers of worshipping money and things. Of course Judaism is not alone in having myths that can be interpreted thusly, including much of the Christ mythology, so not specifically Jewish … 3. The basic tactic in some of those linked sites (no matter what our poster’s motivation actually is): political movement blank (fill in the antithesis of your own beliefs of your choice) has and has had a disproportionate number of Jews leading it, either at the top or right behind the top. Very often true no matter what you put in the blank. Neocons? Yup. Traditional conservatives? Yup. Communists? Yup? Capitalists? Yup. Anarchists? Yup. Libertarianism? [Yup.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard) Jews over-represented per unit population at the State Department, in Congress, as mayors, business leaders, inventors, scientists, playwrights …? Hard to dispute. They can’t agree with each other for shit but those damn Jews are everywhere. Sure our poster is loose with the facts and uses … questionable … resources. But the fundamental problem with the trope is the presumption that lots of Jews equal a conspiracy when the reality is that two Jews equals five diametrically opposed opinions … ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-truth-to-the-idea-of-marxism-being-jewish/719039/39 "2015-05-03T15:41:51Z")
What I want to know is why the conspiracy nuts all assume the Jews have bad intentions. According to the nuts, the Jews secretly control the American government and world communism. But the nuts tell us the Jews are controlling the American government in order to destroy it from within while they’re trying to promote world communism. Well, I read the papers. World communism isn’t what it used to be. Meanwhile the United States is doing just fine. So it looks like our Jewish masters were actually protecting the United States when they infiltrated world communism. Their goal was to destroy world communism in order to make us safe. They probably would have gotten it all except there aren’t any Jews in China, North Korea, and Vietnam. So they subcontracted out the destruction of communism in those countries to the Buddhists and we all know how lazy those people are. ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-truth-to-the-idea-of-marxism-being-jewish/719039/40 "2015-05-03T15:43:19Z")
It’s going to be hard for anyone to take seriously (an ostensible goal of the SD and particularly of this forum) a cite that refers to a “Jew-ridden” State Department. The idea is to try to find something like objective information and sources from which we can glean desired knowledge. If the cite signals its bias that overtly, then it can’t have much credibility or influence here as we try to understand the ideas we explore. I’m thinking this thread has fizzled, based on the outlandish assertions we’re being asked to accept. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-truth-to-the-idea-of-marxism-being-jewish/719039.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-truth-to-the-idea-of-marxism-being-jewish/719039.md?page=3)