"Finally, it is important to recognize the shift that occurred in the late nineteenth century from traditional anti-Judaism to a more 'modern' anti-Semitism, linked - though not identical - to the racist ideology that had swept the nineteenth-century West. It was an apostate named Brafman who, in The Book of the Kahal, first alleged the existence of a secret Jewish organization with sinister powers. This conspiracy theory greatly appealed to new organizations like the League of the Russian People, which combined reactionary devotion to autocracy with violent anti-Semitism. It was in the League's St Petersburg newspaper Russkoye Znamya that the Moldavian anti-Semite Pavolachi Krushevan published the fake 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' (1903), a series of articles subsequently reprinted with the imprimatur of the Russian army as The Root of Our Misfortunes. Though the 'Protocols' would exert a greater malign influence in the inter-war years, they were Tsarist Russia's distinctive contribution to the poisonous brew of pre-war prejudice. Once, Russia's rulers had believed that the 'Jewish question' could be answered by the simple expedient of enforced conversion. The new conspiracy theorists made it clear that this simply would not suffice."