The Nature of Conspiracy Theories. Michael Butter

that is used to discredit the ideas of others – even if they do not display the typical characteristics of conspiracy theories. That said, it is in my view nevertheless possible to use the term neutrally, as I argue in the fourth part of this chapter. Finally, I examine calls to replace the term ‘conspiracy theory’ with ‘conspiracy ideology’. This discussion is limited to German-speaking countries; elsewhere, scholars seem either to have no problem with it or to accept that the term ‘conspiracy theory’ is already so well established that an alternative would fail to catch on anyway. The debate is, notwithstanding, of general interest, since it highlights the question of how far conspiracy theories are in fact theories, and what distinguishes them from scientific theories.

Characteristics

      According to the American political scientist Michael Barkun, conspiracy theories are characterized – in addition to the premise of a group of conspirators – by three basic assumptions: 1) Nothing happens by accident; 2) Nothing is as it seems; 3) Everything is connected. The English historian Geoffrey Cubitt, who formulated another influential definition of conspiracism, takes a very similar view. For him, intentionality, secrecy (which he refers to as occultism) and the dualism of good and evil constitute the essence of conspiracy theory. Intentionality and secrecy correspond almost exactly to Barkun’s first two components in that the conspirators follow a plan and act in secret, while dualism is highlighted elsewhere by Barkun. The conspirators are invariably imagined as evil, and their actions as causing harm to the wider mass of innocent people.¹

      All these characteristics can indeed be found in Churchill’s short text, especially in the paragraph on ‘International Jews’, which I will therefore cite again at greater length:

In violent opposition to all this sphere of Jewish effort rise the schemes of the International Jews. The adherents of this sinister confederacy are mostly men reared up among the unhappy populations of countries where Jews are persecuted on account of their race. Most, if not all, of them have forsaken the faith of their forefathers, and divorced from their minds all spiritual hopes of the next world. This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg [sic] (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It played, as a modern writer, Mrs Webster, has so ably shown, a definitely recognizable part in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the Nineteenth Century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.

In a single paragraph, Churchill paints the picture of a global conspiracy that has been operating at least since 1776, when the Order of the Illuminati was founded by Adam Weishaupt – ‘Spartacus’ to his brethren within the secret society – in the Bavarian town of Ingolstadt. According to Churchill, this ‘world-wide conspiracy’ secretly orchestrated the French Revolution, was behind various revolutions throughout the nineteenth century – he is surely thinking in particular of the series of failed and successful revolutions of 1848 – and is now, more successfully than ever, orchestrating events in Russia. Admittedly, Churchill is slightly more careful than other conspiracy theorists, as he does not entirely disregard other influences. Still, the conspirators ‘played … a definitely recognisable part in the tragedy of the French Revolution’ and have ‘been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the Nineteenth Century’. In a manner characteristic of conspiracy theorizing since the eighteenth century, Churchill thus considers world history largely the result of a conspiracy. He denies that the revolutions in different countries were the result of a number of complex and interrelating factors, some local, some national, some transnational, and reduces history to the secret workings of a group of conspirators who are pursuing a single goal – ‘the overthrow of civilization’ – and have therefore plotted all of these events.

      Moreover, in the short vision of history that Churchill provides here, nothing is as it seems. Not only does he unveil a global conspiracy that has been operating for more than 200 years; without offering any kind of evidence for his claims, he also maintains that Adam Weishaupt, who in reality was raised as a Catholic but later rejected the more traditional versions of religion in favour of Deism, was a Jew, one of those who gave up ‘the faith of their forefathers, and divorced from their minds all spiritual hopes of the next world’. In fact, in Churchill’s logic, the masterminds behind the various revolutionary efforts he considers are all either Jews who keep their real identities a secret or are controlled by Jews. These explicit and implicit claims allow him to construct a teleological historical narrative that spans from the Illuminati to the Bolshevists, from Ingolstadt to St Petersburg. What we see here in a nutshell, then, is how the characteristics of conspiracy theory identified by Barkun and Cubitt are interconnected. Once one looks beneath the surface of things, the hidden connections become apparent. Admittedly, not everything is connected in Churchill’s text – in that regard Barkun exaggerates slightly – but many links between events and people one would not have thought of as related are highlighted.

      The dualism of good and evil that Cubitt particularly emphasizes structures Churchill’s text in twofold fashion. On the one hand, there is the conflict between the malevolent conspirators, ‘schem[ing for] a world-wide communistic State under Jewish domination’, and the innocent victims of their plot. On the other hand, there is the conflict that frames Churchill’s conspiracy narrative, the conflict between ‘Good and Bad Jews’, between those subscribing to nationalism and those plotting for international communism. As he claims early in his text, ‘The conflict between good and evil which proceeds unceasingly in the breast of man nowhere reaches such an intensity as in the Jewish race.’

When it comes to providing evidence of the alleged plot – a topic I discuss in detail in the next chapter – Churchill’s speech is rather untypical. It deviates from what we usually find in conspiracy theory texts in that he does not provide a lot of evidence for his claims. Because of the genre of the text – a short speech that simply does not allow for an in-depth analysis – he does not quote any sources to prove that there really is a plot. In fact, he places the burden of proof on another conspiracy theorist, ‘a modern writer, Mrs Webster, [who, he claims] has so ably shown’ that the conspirators orchestrated the French Revolution. Such a reference is quite typical of conspiracist discourse, however. Conspiracy theorists often back up their feeble assertions by referring to sources who have made the same claims, usually without offering any convincing evidence themselves. All too often, the conspiracy theorists thus quoted refer back to those who cited them, engaging in a circular logic that creates the impression of serious research and a foundation in facts.

      It is no coincidence that Churchill refers to Nesta Webster (1876–1960), a member of the British upper class and wife of Arthur Templer Webster, the Superintendent of the British Police in India. Webster is one of the most significant conspiracy theorists of the twentieth century, whose influence on contemporary conspiracist visions that merge suspicions about secret societies, Jews and communists cannot be overestimated. She single-handedly resuscitated the Illuminati conspiracy theory that had gone out of fashion by the second half of the nineteenth century, and is thus the most important link between late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century conspiracy theorists like John Robison, Augustin Barruel and Johann August von Starck, who blamed the Illuminati and the Freemasons for the French Revolution, and twentieth- and twenty-first-century writers who do the same.²

The book by Webster that Churchill has in mind is The French Revolution: A Study in Democracy, from 1919, in which she breathed new life into the allegations of Robison, Barruel and Starck. In the book’s epilogue, she also connected the alleged plots around the French Revolution to other revolutions in the nineteenth century and current events in Russia. Still, Webster did not (yet) explicitly argue that the same group of conspirators was behind all of these events. She rather highlighted what she perceived