When Bolshevism meet Zionism | Winston Smith Ministry of Truth Archive

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When Bolshevism meet Zionism

In the spring of 1910, the two future leaders of Israel and the Soviet Union laid-out their diabolical plans to each-other in a Paris café

Russian Jew Chaim Weizmann and Russian Jew Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin)

British prime minister Winston Churchill, who in 1964 was awarded the Theodore Herzl Award for outstanding services to Zionism, wrote to his Israeli counterpart David Ben Gurion in November 1952 regarding the president of the State of Israel:
"I am deeply grieved to hear of the death of my old friend, Dr Chaim Weizmann. The world has lost a distinguished citizen and Israel a faithful son."

In 1921 Winston Churchill described Bolshevik leader Lenin as:
"the arch-miscreant and villian, who has destroyed Russia for the sake of his theories,"

It transpires that Churchill's old friend Weizmann, and the "villain" Lenin were acquainted with one-another, having meet, and talked at length in a Paris café during 1910—following which Lenin sent Weizmann a signed copy of his book Materialism Empirio-Criticism. It's possible Weizmann even listened to Lenin speak in Geneva during 1904, as both had lived in Geneva during 1903 and 1904, and the Russian students and Russian intellectuals frequented the same cafés.

In 1967, an article entitled Lenin u-Weizmann or Lenin and Weizmann written by Boris Guriel, director of the Chaim Weizmann Archives in Tel Aviv, appeared in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, it revealed details of Lenin and Weizmann's 1910 meeting for the first time. I've not been able to find the article on Haaretz's archives, I'm not even sure if the paper even had an English edition back then. The article is cited in several books, and below is an extract from one that reproduces many of the details from the Haaretz article:
According to a memoir by one of Weizmann's confidants during his declining years, it was in Paris, in early April 1910, that Weizmann met Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.47 Weizmann may have heard Lenin speak at public meetings in Geneva in 1904. Now he was formally introduced, possibly by Nikolai Semeshko.* Lenin was in exile for the second time, after the collapse of the 1905 Revolution. He had plenty of time to study and turned to the natural sciences, among other subjects. Lenin knew of the work at the Pasteur Institute. He had also heard of the discoveries of Ernest Rutherford and was interested in meeting a Mancunian who was said to be a friend of Rutherford. According to the sole evidence in our possession, the two met in Lenin's favorite Parisian café on the boulevard d'Orleans. Their discussion ran the gamut from tsarist Russia to physics and chemistry. For the most part, it seems that Weizmann explained scientific terminology to Lenin while the latter held forth on Machists, Russian Empirio-Monists, Empirio-Symbolists, and other backward groups and theories. He also did not refrain from making disparaging remarks about the Zionists, especially the Zionist-socialists of Ber Borochov's school. Lenin did not spare the Bund either. Nevertheless they seem to have parted on friendly terms, because a few days later Lenin sent Weizmann his recently published book Materialism and Etnpirio-Criticism, which included the following handwritten dedication: "Compliments of the Author."51

(Footnotes)

47. This entire account is based on an article by Boris Guriel, "Lenin u-Weizmann," Haaretz, November 3, 1967, p.3. There is no other evidence for this meeting, but the article is filled with sufficient detail to make it plausible. If indeed the meeting took place, it must have been between the end of March and mid-April 1910, when Weizmann came over to work at the Pasteur Institute. The two most detailed Western biographies of Lenin do not mention Weizmann. See Louis Fischer, The Life of Lenin (New York, 1964), and Adam B. Ulam, Lenin and the Bolsheviks (London, 1965).

51. The book was originally published under Lenin's 1909—1910 pseudonym of V. I. Illian. According to Guriel, Weizmann donated the book to the Soviet legation in Tel Aviv in 1948.

Reinharz, Jehuda. Chaim Weizmann: The Making of a Zionist Leader. Oxford University Press. 1985 p.352 & p.511.

* Nikolai Semashko, I don't know whether he was a Jew or not, but he
published a book in 1926 entitled Who Persecutes the Jews and Why?

click image to enlarge
"According to a memoir by one of Weizmann's confidants during his declining years,
it was in Paris, in early April 1910, that Weizmann met Vladimir Ilyich Lenin."
Reinharz, Jehuda. Chaim Weizmann: The Making of a Zionist Leader. Oxford University Press. 1985 p.352 & p.511

click image to enlarge
"Weizmann probably met Lenin in his Geneva days."
LIFE, June 12, 1939

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