The belly is an ungrateful wretch, it never remembers past favors, it always wants more tomorrow.”
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn,
On Joe Rogan’s podcast, Darryl Cooper—a self styled historian with a penchant for revisionism—dropped a bombshell of historical distortion, claiming that Zionists and Soviet communists were cut from the same cloth, both using "so violent and over-the-top" methods to establish their states. It’s a slick narrative, tailor made for Rogan’s audience, hungry for contrarian takes and skeptical of establishment history. But it’s also a lie—a dangerous, sloppy conflation that flattens complex histories into a propaganda tool, and we must expose it for what it is.
Let’s start with the facts, which Cooper conveniently sidesteps. Zionism, born in the late 19th century under Theodor Herzl’s leadership, was a nationalist movement responding to the relentless antisemitism of Europe—pogroms, expulsions, and the Dreyfus Affair. Its goal was simple: a Jewish homeland in Palestine, achieved through immigration, land purchase, and diplomatic maneuvering, like the 1917 Balfour Declaration. Yes, violence emerged during Israel’s 1948 founding, with groups like the Irgun engaging in retaliatory strikes against British and Arab forces. But this was situational, defensive, and localized—nothing like the Bolsheviks’ systematic, state sponsored terror.
Contrast that with Bolshevism, the Marxist-Leninist juggernaut that seized Russia in 1917. Under Lenin and Stalin, the Bolsheviks unleashed the Red Terror, a campaign of mass executions, forced labor camps, and starvation that killed millions—think the Holodomor, where Stalin’s policies starved 3–5 million Ukrainians, or the Gulags, which imprisoned and slaughtered countless others. This wasn’t self defense; it was ideological warfare, targeting entire classes—bourgeoisie, clergy, peasants—as enemies of the proletariat. The scale, intent, and brutality dwarf anything in Zionism’s history.
Cooper’s equivalence isn’t just wrong—it’s a deliberate distortion, fitting a pattern of revisionist history that undermines truth for rhetorical effect. As the Jewish Telegraphic Agency has noted, Cooper’s a Holocaust revisionist, peddling falsehoods about Hitler’s motives on Rogan’s platform with little pushback. His Zionism Bolshevism comparison smells of the same agenda, exploiting Rogan’s megaphone to blur lines between a persecuted minority’s quest for survival and a totalitarian regime’s bloodthirsty revolution. It’s the kind of narrative that thrives in the echo chambers of anti establishment media, where nuance is sacrificed for shock value.
This isn’t just bad history—it’s dangerous propaganda. By equating Zionism’s defensive actions with Bolshevism’s genocidal terror, Cooper feeds into a broader cultural trend of delegitimizing Israel, often cloaked in the language of “critical history.” It echoes the antisemitic conspiracy theories of the early 20th century—like Walter Laqueur’s account of Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg claiming Bolsheviks were a "Jewish revolt" against Aryans. Churchill, in his 1920 article “Zionism versus Bolshevism,” saw the stark contrast: Zionism offered Jews a “national idea,” while Bolshevism’s internationalism clashed with it, leading to persecution of Zionist Jews in the Soviet Union.
Rogan’s platform, with its millions of listeners, amplifies this distortion, raising questions about media’s role in shaping public perception—a theme Cooper himself leans into. But here’s the irony: Cooper’s narrative isn’t the bold truth telling he claims. It’s a sleight of hand, leveraging the podcast’s appetite for contrarianism to peddle a skewed version of history. The Library of Congress and Wikipedia entries on Zionist and Bolshevik violence
readily available show the chasm between the two: Zionism’s sporadic, reactive clashes versus Bolshevism’s systematic, state driven carnage.
We can’t let this slide. The left’s obsession with deconstructing Western institutions has opened the door for revisionists like Cooper to rewrite history, but conservatives and truth seekers must push back. Zionism and Bolshevism aren’t mirror images; they’re opposites, national self determination versus class annihilation. Cooper’s claim isn’t just wrong; it’s a weapon in the culture war, eroding the historical literacy we need to navigate today’s ideological battles.
So, what’s the solution?
Demand rigor. Challenge Rogan to host historians who can counter Cooper’s distortions with evidence, not just charisma. Call out the media machine that prioritizes clicks over clarity. And reject the false equivalence that poisons our understanding of the past. Zionism’s story isn’t spotless, 1948’s Nakba and Zionist militias’ actions deserve scrutiny, but it’s not Bolshevism.
Let’s stop the propaganda and start the reckoning with real history.
