Short summary and introductory remarks, some of which may be repeated later:
In this post I will present some of the events that taken together assisted the development of what has become Poland. Using a concept from the first post, I will explore the origins of World War I and enter into a discussion of the Russian revolution and outside factors that helped to bring it about.
I have to admit the idea for this post seemed simpler at the beginning of writing than it ended up being; it turned out much more complex, even confusingly complex,, disturbing and hard to present in the linear format of a post. The disturbing part was when I had to ask if without British and French intrigues, without German ambitions, without a World War I, without radicalized communists that rooted for Bolshevism and fueled by the materialist ideology of Marx and Engels, without a Lenin being sent to Russia by the Germans, without Trotsky being supported by American finance, without financial support for the Bolshevik revolution, without also support for their opponents the Mensheviks would there have been a Poland?
In favour of tracing many threads, even if they are complex, a signature on the forum by
@Voyageur caught my attention, as perhaps never before:
"When the passions of the past blend with the prejudices of the present, human reality is reduced to a picture of black and white."- Marc Bloch, 'The Historian's Craft'
Perhaps that was a timely disclaimer for entering into a difficult post. Below are some findings, as I tried to understand the history of Poland from the sideline.
Poland reemerged during World War I on the initiative of Germany
In the first post there was a part from the Wiki where it explains how
en.wikipedia.org
The Kingdom of Poland (
Polish:
Królestwo Polskie), also known informally as the Regency Kingdom of Poland (
Polish:
Królestwo Regencyjne), was a proposed
puppet state of the
German Empire during
World War I.
[1][2] The decision to propose the
restoration of Poland after a century of partitions was taken up by the German policymakers in an attempt to legitimize further imperial omnipresence in the occupied territories. The plan was followed by the German propaganda pamphlet campaign delivered to the Poles in 1915, claiming that the German soldiers were arriving as liberators to free Poland from subjugation by
Russia.
[3]
A draft constitution was proposed in 1917.
[4] The German government used punitive threats to force Polish landowners living in the German-occupied
Baltic states to relocate and sell their Baltic property to the Germans in exchange for the entry to Poland. Parallel efforts were made to remove Poles from Polish territories of the
Prussian Partition.
[5]
Following the Armistice of 11 November 1918 signed by the Allies with imperial Germany, which ended World War I, the area became part of the nascent Second Polish Republic.
Early plans
Before the onset of war in 1914, for the purposes of securing Germany's eastern border against the
Russian imperial army,
Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, the
German chancellor, decided on the
annexation of a specific strip of land from Congress Poland, known later on as the
Polish Border Strip.
About Congress Poland mentioned at the end of the above quote there is:
en.wikipedia.org
Congress Poland[3] or
Russian Poland, formally known as the
Kingdom of Poland,
[4] was a
polity created in 1815 by the
Congress of Vienna as a
sovereign Polish state. Until the
November Uprising in 1831, the kingdom was in a
personal union with the
tsars of Russia. Thereafter, the state was forcibly integrated into the
Russian Empire over the course of the 19th century. In 1915, during
World War I, it was replaced by the
Central Powers with the nominal
Regency Kingdom of Poland,
[a] until Poland
regained independence in 1918.
Following the partitions of Poland at the end of the 18th century, Poland ceased to exist as an independent state for 123 years. The territory, with its native population, was
split between the Austrian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Russian Empire. An equivalent to Congress Poland within the Austrian Empire was the
Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, also commonly referred to as
"Austrian Poland". The area incorporated into Prussia and subsequently the German Empire had little autonomy and was merely a province – the Province of Posen.
The Kingdom of Poland enjoyed considerable political autonomy as guaranteed by the liberal
constitution. However, its rulers, the
Russian Emperors, generally disregarded any restrictions on their power. It was, therefore,
little more than a puppet state of the Russian Empire.[5][6] The autonomy was severely curtailed following uprisings in
1830–31 and
1863, as the country became governed by
namiestniks, and later divided into
guberniya (provinces).
[5][6] Thus, from the start, Polish autonomy remained little more than fiction.
[7]
The capital was located in
Warsaw, which towards the beginning of the 20th century became the Russian Empire's third-largest city after
St. Petersburg and
Moscow. The moderately multicultural population of Congress Poland was estimated at 9,402,253 inhabitants in 1897. It was mostly composed of
Poles,
Polish Jews, ethnic
Germans and a small Russian minority. The predominant religion was
Roman Catholicism and the official language used within the state was
Polish until the
January Uprising when
Russian became co-official.
Yiddish and German were widely spoken by its native speakers.
The territory of
Congress Poland roughly corresponds to modern-day Kalisz Region and the Lublin, Łódź, Masovian, Podlaskie and Holy Cross Voivodeships of Poland as well as southwestern Lithuania and part of Grodno District of Belarus. Congress Poland - Wikipedia
From the above one may conclude that if one wishes to appreciate how Poland came to be, one will also need to appreciate the factors that lead to World War I and what followed. These events include several chapters of European history that reach well beyond a focus on the area that is now Poland. One may consider questions like how WWI began, who supported the war and why, what means they used to get the conflict going and overcoming their enemies, and of course it is impossible to avoid several pages of the Russian revolution. If Russia had not been weak from Civil War, would it have been possible to enlarge the territory of Poland to the East, as happened following WWI and illustrated by the border changes indicated on some of the maps in the first post? Also if one looks further ahead the Russian revolution came to influence what had become Poland after World War II.
Maps of Europe with alliances at the time of World War 1
Since there are many names, Below is a map of Europe at the beginning of WW1
en.wikipedia.org
On the next
map Turkey is also marked as being in the Triple Alliance, but it only became an opponent of Russia and the Entente after having bombarded the Port of Odessa on the northern shore of the Black Sea in late October of 1914.
And as
an overview of the many agreements:
The beginning of World War 1 - main participants and some political factors
Next are some articles which also include the history of Europe including Germany and Russia which largely administered the areas that later became Poland, as well as reflections, some modern, on this history.
About the Russian entry into WWI there is this opinion which summarizes some point dealt with later:
The Saker: The time has come for Putin to make the most important decision of his Presidency -- Sott.net (17 Jun 2014)
[...]First, Russia was literally "sucked into" WWI by the Germany. Russia did not have to enter the war as Russia herself was not attacked. "Only" Serbia was. Russia was not ready to enter the war, but the Czar-Martyr Saint Nicholas II decided that it was his Christian duty was to take the defense of the Serbian people even if all pragmatic considerations were clearly advocating against a Russian intervention. This war soon turned out to be extremely costly for Russia and greatly contributed to the weakening of the Russian monarchy which eventually resulted in a Aristocratic-Masonic coup (February 1917) followed by a Jewish-Bolshevik coup (October 1917). Did the Czar do the right thing when he decided to defend the Serbian nation at the potential cost of his own Empire, the last Christian Empire in history? It is a fact that the Serbian Prince Alexander and the Serbian people have always shown an immense and sincere gratitude to the Russian people and to Czar Nicholas II (whose first icon was painted on a fresco in Serbia, not Russia). But Russia also liberated Bulgaria from the Ottoman yoke. We now see the kind of "gratitude" Russia got from Bulgaria.[,,,]
The Wiki on Serbia, Russia and World War I
en.wikipedia.org
Although there was no formal alliance between Russia and Serbia, their close bilateral links provided Russia with a route into the crumbling Ottoman Empire, where Germany also had significant interests. Combined with the increase in Russian military strength,
both Austria and Germany felt threatened by Serbian expansion; when Austria invaded Serbia on 28 July 1914, Russian Foreign Minister
Sergey Sazonov viewed it as an Austro-German conspiracy to end Russian influence in the Balkans.
[8]
On 30 July, Russia declared general mobilisation in support of Serbia; on 1 August, Germany declared war on Russia, followed by Austria-Hungary on 6th. Russia and the Entente declared war on the Ottoman Empire in November 1914, after Ottoman warships bombarded the Black Sea port of
Odessa in late October.
[9] Unlike its Allies, Russia's Empire was one contiguous landmass but it also considered itself the defender of its fellow Slavs in countries like Serbia.
Britain and Russia
Britain was not mentioned above, but one finds the background for the "alliance" between Russia and Britain and the formation of the Triple Entente which also included France:
en.wikipedia.org
Between 1873-1887, Russia was allied with Germany and Austria-Hungary in the
League of the Three Emperors, then with Germany in the 1887-1890
Reinsurance Treaty; both collapsed due to the competing interests of Austria and Russia in the
Balkans. While France took advantage of this to agree the 1894
Franco-Russian Alliance, Britain viewed Russia with deep suspicion
(see The Great Game); in 1800 over 3,000 kilometres separated the Russian Empire and British India; by 1902, it was 30 km in some areas with Russian advances into Central Asia.
[5] This threatened to bring the two into direct conflict, as did the long-held Russian objective of gaining control of the
Bosporus Straits and with it access to the British-dominated
Mediterranean Sea.
[6]
[...]
Defeat in the 1905
Russo-Japanese War and Britain's isolation during the 1899-1902
Second Boer War led both parties to seek allies.
The Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 settled disputes in Asia and allowed the establishment of the Triple Entente with France, which at this stage was largely informal. In 1908, Austria annexed the former Ottoman province of
Bosnia and Herzegovina;
Russia responded by creating the Balkan League in order to prevent further Austrian expansion.[7] In the 1912-1913 First Balkan War,
Serbia,
Bulgaria and
Greece captured most of the remaining Ottoman possessions in Europe; disputes over the division of these resulted in the
Second Balkan War, in which Bulgaria was comprehensively defeated by its former allies.
James Corbett connects the motives of Britain in relation to Germany
James Corbette has done three video/articles about the beginnings of WWI:
James Corbett's "The WWI Conspiracy": A New World Order -- Sott.net (Nov 30 2018)
James Corbett's "The WWI Conspiracy": The American Front -- Sott.net (Nov 19 2018)
James Corbett's "The WWI Conspiracy": To Start A War -- Sott.net (11 Nov 2018)
From the last article there is excerpt which shows the motives Britain might had:
The pieces were already beginning to fall into place for Milner and his associates. With Edward Grey as foreign secretary, Hardinge as his unusually influential undersecretary, Rhodes' co-conspirator Lord Esher installed as deputy Governor of Windsor Castle where he had the ear of the king, and the king himself - whose unusual, hands-on approach to foreign diplomacy and whose wife's own hatred of the Germans dovetailed perfectly with the group's aims -
the diplomatic stage was set for the formation of the Triple Entente between France, Russia and Great Britain. With France to the west and Russia to the east, England's secret diplomacy
had forged the two pincers of a German-crushing vise.
All that was needed was an event that the group could spin to its advantage to prepare the population for war against their former German allies. Time and again throughout the decade leading up to the "Great War,"
the group's influential agents in the British press tried to turn every international incident into another example of German hostility.
When the Russo-Japanese War broke out, rumours swirled in London that it was in fact the Germans that had stirred up the hostilities. The theory went that Germany, in a bid to ignite conflict between Russia and England, who had recently concluded an alliance with the Japanese, had fanned the flames of war between Russia and Japan.
The truth, of course, was almost precisely the opposite. Lord Lansdowne had conducted secret negotiations with Japan before signing a formal treaty in January 1902. Having exhausted their reserves building up their military, Japan turned to Cecil Rhodes' co-conspirator Lord Nathan Rothschild to
finance the war itself. Denying the Russian navy access to the Suez canal and high-quality coal, which they did provide to the Japanese,
the British did everything they could to ensure that the Japanese would crush the Russian fleet, effectively removing their main European competitor for the Far East. The Japanese navy was even
constructed in Britain, but these facts did not find their way into the Milner-controlled press.
Developing on the above theme there was in
Britain and France conspired to start World War I -- Sott.net (10 Nov 2018)
[...]
Professor Christopher Clark in his brilliant book, 'The Sleepwalkers' shows how officials and politicians in Britain and France conspired to transform Serbia's murder of Austro-Hungary's Crown Prince into a continent-wide conflict. France burned for revenge for its defeat in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War and loss of Alsace-Lorraine. Britain feared German commercial and naval competition. At the time, the British Empire controlled one quarter of the world's surface. Italy longed to conquer Austria-Hungary's South Tyrol. Turkey feared Russia's desire for the Straits. Austria-Hungary feared Russian expansion.
Prof Clark clearly shows how the French and British maneuvered poorly-led Germany into the war. The Germans were petrified of being crushed between two hostile powers, France and Russia. The longer the Germans waited, the more the military odds turned against them. Tragically, Germany was then Europe's leader in social justice.
Britain kept stirring the pot, determined to defeat commercial and colonial rival, Germany. The rush to war became a gigantic clockwork that no one could stop. All sides believed a war would be short and decisive. Crowds of fools chanted 'On to Berlin' or 'On to Paris.' [...]
Like in the modern NATO wars against Yugoslavia, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan ....
WWI was helped into existence by people believing lies:
Above it said: "the British press tried to turn every international incident into another example of German hostility" which may relate to
Ten lies we're told to justify the slaughter of 20 million in the First World War -- Sott.net (14 Nov 2018)
German aggression was the driving force for war - However aggressive the German leadership may have been in 1914, the British establishment was at least as determined to take the opportunity to go to war with its imperial rival. At one point the Foreign Office even seized on imaginary German incursions into France to justify a British declaration of war on Germany. The declaration letter had to be retrieved from the German ambassador and rewritten when it was discovered that the stories were false. The enthusiasm of the British ruling class for war undermines any justification for it based on German aggression.
Germany had started a naval arms race with Britain - Imperialist competition between the two states over markets and resources preceded the arms race in the fifteen years before the war. Britain's naval power was the vital element in its ability to restrict German access to markets and resources across the world. Unless Britain was willing to allow Germany to expand economically, the logic of capitalist competition meant that Germany was bound to challenge British naval supremacy. The latent violence of the leading imperial nation is always the context for aggressive challenges to the status quo on the part of rising powers.
German imperialism was uniquely vicious and had to be challenged - The atrocities committed against the Herrero people in Namibia were indeed terrible crimes, but were hardly unique compared to the horrors committed by all those involved in the rubber industry in the Belgian Congo, to take but one example. Also, European opinion had only a few years before 1914 been horrified by the brutality of another colonial power when it was engaged in ruthlessly expanding its dominance over independent states in Africa. This was Britain in its wars of aggression against the Boer states in South Africa, during which concentration camps were first used in order to control a civilian population.
From World War I we move gradually over to the Russian revolution, which began before World War I ended, so while Western Europe were done with war after "only" years Russia had much more to endure. But before that there was the case of the murder of Grigori Rasputin in 1916, two years into World War I and one year before the Russian revolution.
Did a British agent kill Rasputin?
G
rigori Rasputin was a Russian mystic who was a healer, a clairvoyant. As the son of the last Tsar suffered from a bleeding disease he was much needed. Rasputin also had influence on matters of political significance, and his biographers have disputed his motives and moral standing, but was he a victim of injustice? In 2004 the BBC made a documentary about his killing and it turned out that an English agent, Oswald Rayner, known to one of the alleged conspirators had participated in the plot. We know that killing advisors, leaders, scientists and intellectuals can be a part of weakening an opponent. So while not related directly to WW I or the Russian revolution, was this in some way a side show, that demonstrated the influence Britain had? Besides, it was not the first assassination attempt and the text below the video says that Rasputin allegedly had advised the Tzar to pull out of WW I, which did not suit the British. Had Russia pulled out in 1916, could the Lenins and Trotskys of 1917 have been avoided? Not if the goal was to weaken Russia.
Who Killed Rasputin ? The British plot. BBC 2004 FULL Documentary [...] The programme-makers re-opened the investigation into the death of Rasputin and found conclusive evidence to suggest that he was murdered in St Petersburg in 1916 in a plot hatched by rogue members of the British Secret Service with a fatal shot fired at close range by Secret Agent Oswald Rayner. The documentary is based on extraordinary new evidence uncovered by intelligence historian, and programme consultant, Andrew Cook. In addition, BBC Timewatch brought in Richard Cullen, former Metropolitan Police Commander, and a trainer of police cadets in forensic detective work in Russia, to re open the case. Re-examining the original autopsy reports, Richard Cullen found that the original explanation for Rasputin's death did not tally with the forensic evidence. In particular, he questions one of the key autopsy photographs which shows a gunshot wound situated in the centre of Rasputin's forehead, which bears the hallmarks of a professional assassination. The accepted version of Rasputin's death states that he was poisoned, then shot, and finally drowned in the River Nevka by five disaffected aristocrats, led by Prince Felix Yusupov. The conspirators were said to be concerned about Rasputin's influence on Tsar Nicholas II, and his wife Tsarina Alexandra. Over the years historians have questioned Yusupov's version of events but failed to come up with credible alternative theories. In Yusupov's memoirs, Cullen noted the presence of a character called Oswald Rayner - said to be a friend of Yusupov's from Oxford University, who appears suddenly in the book at the time of the murder. The Timewatch team discovered that Oswald Rayner was in fact an active British Secret Intelligence Service operative who was working alongside senior SIS officer, John Scale. Scale's daughter provided Cullen with key evidence of the murder plot and Andrew Cook, consultant to the programme, uncovered an official memo on British Intelligence Mission notepaper to Captain John Scale, which led Cullen directly to the assassin. "I am amazed by the outcome of the investigation," states Cook, "when we initially began researching the story I had no idea that the forensic evidence would substantiate the historical documentation so conclusively." Richard Cullen says of the investigation: "I was stunned that the trail of Rasputin's murder led so conclusively to the British Secret Service. "In all John Scale's official documentation Rasputin is referred to as 'Dark Forces' and it is my belief that Rasputin was a seen a real threat to the British.
"Had he persuaded the Tsar to pull out of the First World War, the Allies would have been overwhelmed on the Western Front by German troops no longer needed to fight the Russians in the East."
On the last point about the opinion of Rasputin about the war, the Russian Wiki says:
ru.wikipedia.org
Attitude to war
[...]I
n 1914, he repeatedly spoke out against Russia's entry into the war, believing that it would bring peasants only suffering [34]. [...]
The impression is that he was well used in the propaganda war against the Russian Emperor and that his murder in 1916 paved the ground for the February revolution, less than two months after his death:
[...]The image of Rasputin was also used by German propaganda. In March 1916, German
zeppelins scattered a caricature of Russian trenches depicting
Wilhelm, who relied on the German people, and Nikolai Romanov, relied on the genitals of Rasputin.
[97]
According to the memoirs of A. A. Golovin, during the First World War, rumors that the empress was Rasputin's mistress were
distributed among officers of the Russian army by members of the opposition Zemstvo-city union [98] .
After the overthrow of Nicholas II, the chairman of Zemgor, Prince Lvov, became the chairman of the Provisional Government
The consequences of the murder of Rasputin
On the evening of 1 January 1917, it became known that the body of Rasputin was found in the Malaya Nevka in the ice-hole under the Petrovsky bridge. The body was taken to Chesmensky almshouse in five versts from St. Petersburg. Empress Alexandra Feodorovna demanded the immediate execution of the murderers of Rasputin.
Grand Duchess
Maria Pavlovna, coming from Pskov, which housed the headquarters of the Northern front,
told with what fierce delight were met by troops the news of the assassination of Rasputin. "Nobody doubted that now the Emperor will find a people who are honest and dedicated". However, according to Yusupov: "Rasputin poison for many years has poisoned the higher spheres of the state and devastated the most honest, most hot showers. In the end, we didn't want to make decisions, and someone believed them and take no need for"
[65].
There are many hearsays and rumours around Rasputin. His secretary,
Simanovich, Aaron Samuilovich, who later died in Auschwitz, published what has been considered fictitious memoirs of his time with Rasputin. Simanovich was also allegedly involved in usury, gambling and while in France, making counterfeit bank notes. Others say that the contact of Rasputin with the Royal family was far less than alleged. One person who later became a saint of the Russian Orthodox Church had this to say:
Whether from inside Russia, or from outside Russia, deserved or not deserved, Rasputin was used as a tool to bring the monarchy down and this happened just two months after his death with the
February Revolution followed by the
October Revolution which is also known as the Bolshevik revolution and together known as the
Russian Revolution which led to the
Russian Civil War. Of the two revolutions what affected the future Poland the most was probably the Bolshevik Revolution.
The Russian Bolshevik revolution - as a weapon to destabilize Russia supported by Germany but also Britain and the US
While it is not obvious that elements within Germany, Britain and the US could somehow work together to support the Russian revolutions or kindle the ensuing
civil war between mainly Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, there are indications this seemed to have been the case. The Bolshevik revolution in October (Julian calendar) or November (Gregorian calendar) 1917, was led by Lenin who in April 1917 had arrived from Zürich in Switzerland. Below are some elements quotes that demonstrate how Lenin came so far and how another revolutionary Trotsky also was supported. First there is the case of Lenin and Germany.
How Germany aided the Russian revolution with introduced leadership and money
Through a link in Why didn't British King George V save deposed Russian cousin after the revolution? -- Sott.net I ended up on a map of the journey understood Map & Pictures which also quoted what Winston Churchill later wrote about the event:
'The German war leaders… turned upon Russia the most grisly of all weapons. They transported Lenin in a sealed truck like a plague bacillus from Switzerland to Russia’- Winston S. Churchill
In 1917 Lenin, infused with predominantly German materialist philosophy, travelled from Zürich through Germany, Sweden, Finland until his final destination in Petrograd (St. Petersburg).
Meet the real Lenin: Traitor, parasite, lunatic -- Sott.net (7 Nov 2017)
Once he was in Russia, Lenin began to implement his program of "revolutionary defeatism." First proposed at the Zimmerwald Peace Conference in 1915, publication of the doctrine was squashed by the German Foreign Office, on the fear that its contents would let the Okhrana justify mass arrests of Russian socialists. This didn't sway Lenin from repeating it in his April Theses, whose slogan "down with the war" and call for the abolition of the Russian Army was so radical than even the Bolsheviks' newspaper, Pravda, initially refused to print it.
All this was sustained in large part thanks to German money. In 1917, a grand total of around 50 million gold marks were transferred to Lenin's party in Petrograd (this translates to an amazing $1 billion in today's currency). This helped fund the Bolshevik printing presses, and there are numerous accounts of money being handed out for protests against the Provisional Government throughout 1917 (all standard features of modern color revolutions). This was all done with the firm knowledge that the Bolsheviks served the interests of Germany. Parvus, aka Israel Gelfand, said in a meeting with the German ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in 1915, "The interests of the German Imperial Government are identical with those of the Russian revolutionaries." The second key intermediary, Alexander Kesküla, was a one-time socialist who had become a hardcore Estonian nationalist; his motivations for working with Germany were, in his words, simple: "Hatred of Russia."
To Lenin belongs the dubious honor of carrying out the world's first color revolution, and its color was red.
Above we read that Germany gave money, but is that really believable, or only a part of the story.
Was the financial support from Germany a loan?
As a comment I wonder if the money was more of a loan, considering:
Church Leader's chilling letter to Lenin reveals the truth about the revolution in 1918 -- Sott.net (7 Dec 2017).
What victory could you have turned down, you who have led Russia to a shameful truce, with humiliating conditions that even you did not resolve to make fully public? Instead of "annexations and contributions" the great Motherland is conquered, diminished, dismembered; and as pay for the tribute placed on it you secretly transport to Germany gold that you yourself did not amass.
Having mentioned Germany next comes the role of US and Britain, because if we look at the list of leaders of the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin takes the top spot, but Leon Trotsky is second.
How elements within the US and Britain supported the Bolshevik revolution by helping Trotsky
In the series of articles by James Corbett on the subject of WW1 there is a link to a video in
James Corbett's "The WWI Conspiracy": A New World Order -- Sott.net (Nov 30 2018)
In the above video from 1987 there is a dialogue, in which Professor Sutton summarizes four chapters of his book,
Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution. (For more works and articles see
here). The auto-generated transcript reads, and this is the very beginning of the video:
Q: getting back to the Bolshevik Revolution one of the ironies of it is that both Lenin and Trotsky were in exile one in Germany one in the United States tell us about how who helped them get where they were going to make sure that revolution was pulled off
A: well let me summarize about four chapters into four minutes Trotsky was in New York he had no income I summed his income for the year he was in New York it was about six hundred dollars yet he lived in the apartment he had a chauffeured limousine he had a refrigerator which is very well in those days he left New York and went to Canada on his way to the revolution he had ten thousand dollars in gold on him he didn't earn more than six hundred dollars in New York he was financed out of New York there's no question about that the British took him off the ship in Halifax Canada I got the Canadian archives they knew who he was they knew who Trotsky was they knew he was going to start a revolution rushing instructions from London came to put Trotsky back on the boat with his party and allows him to go forward so there is no question that Woodrow Wilson who issued the passport for Trotsky and the New York financiers who financed Trotsky and the British Foreign Office allowed Trotsky to perform his part in the revolution now over in Switzerland you get Lenin who was in exile he went through Germany and the famous sealed train by permission and by with the encouragement of the German General Staff and yet Germany and Britain was supposed to be fighting each other and you get them both moving these two key revolutionist into place inside Russia and then of course the rest is history they created revolution with no more than about 10,000 revolutionaries they needed assistance from the West and they got assistance from Germany from Britain and from the United States to continue and consolidate the level.
Read the whole video
transcript translated in Russian or one can machine translate it back into English in a suitable browser. Apart from the outside influence and the inside division in Russian society at the time of World War I, one can also ask what was in the mind of the revolutionaries. This is a huge questions, but some people have thought about it.
What were the Russian revolutionaries thinking?
Often there is a thinking process that precedes action, below are some reflections on the thinking among different actors in the Russian revolution. The comments are by a SOTT editor:
"What were they thinking?!" Russian intellectuals on the Russian Revolution -- Sott.net (20 Dec 2017)
Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin was one of the most prominent advocates for anarchism during the Revolution. Overall, Kropotkin supported the Russian revolution and returned from exile to take part in building federalism after the abdication of the emperor. But he did not see the Bolshevik government formed after the October revolution as moving the country forward toward equality in practice.
He strove to inform Lenin about the rampant starvation, "bossist communism" and use of state terror that resulted in increased state power rather than people's liberation. Kropotkin drew a strong contrast between anarchist communism and the Bolsheviks' "state communism." Kropotkin, who died in Russia in 1921, rejected Marxism and materialism in favor of a "moral foundation for Communism."
Comment: The fundamental anarchist error: thinking they will be able to institute their utopian equality without psychopaths like the Bolsheviks snuffing them out first.
Julius Martov became the official leader of the Menshevik Party after 1917. Following the Revolution, he was torn between his commitment to supporting the revolution against its opponents and his criticism of the Bolshevik government. Both Martov and Kropotkin turned to the French Revolution in their analyses of the situation in Russia. Martov predicted that the Bolsheviks would turn to "Bonapartism." He was asked why Bolshevism was supported by socialists in Western Europe and explained that the Bolsheviks appealed to a "native social optimism" that imagines that ultimate social goals can be achieved at any time regardless of "objective conditions." This psychology ignored the requirement of production and focused instead on the needs of the user. According to Martov, the development of socialism within the Soviet context would transpire in one of two ways:
either reason would prevail over spontaneity or a cultural and economic regression would set in for a long time. Martov's pessimism over the future of the Soviet state led him to view "Bolshevism as the spoiler of socialism."
Comment: The Menshiviks' problem: blindness to the fact that the ponerogenic "opening" for Bolshevik types "perverting" socialism was built into Marxism from the beginning.
Burbank ended the talk by reflecting on how the picture of Russia looks 100 years later. Possibly Ustrialov's vision most closely resembles contemporary political attitudes. What the Russian Revolution did succeed in doing was to signal a shift to the East in the balance of world power as well as to mobilize people against the hegemony of European cultural and economic power. As Burbank concluded,
"Intellectuals did succeed in their own observations and analysis even if their own dreams were destroyed."
Betty Banks, a Ph.D. candidate in the NYU Department of History, asked whether or not it was possible to separate the idea of socialism from the context of the Soviet Union. Burbank responded that such a task was challenging, as on some level, the Russian Revolution gave socialism a state form; it materialized the concept of socialism. After 1917, there no longer existed a clean slate for a socialist model. Another questioner asked, Did Burbank consider the role of figures on the right? Burbank noted several examples, such as individuals who strongly defended the monarchy as well as anti-Semitic activists who supported conspiracy theories that Jews had started the Revolution. These ideas, too, emerged from the first years of Bolshevik rule.
To the above there are two comments the first is an article
'The Russian Revolution in Colour' - How the Bolsheviks subverted the 1917 Russian revolution (Documentary) -- Sott.net (10 Mar 2005) The documentary is not longer there but it gives an idea:
This is a 2-part documentary on the Russian Revolution, first aired on the UK's Channel 5 in 2005. The first part centers around the mutiny of the Kronstadt sailors, which helped ignite the February 1917 revolution. Once Bolsheviks like Lenin and Trotsky entered the fray, the anti-war movement for democratic change took on a completely [different?] direction and flavor, so that the October 1917 revolution - 'The Bolshevik Revolution' - saw Russia's continued participation in the First World War, the devastation of once-prosperous Russia in the Russian Civil War, then the creation of the totalitarian Soviet Union.
This video was no longer available on Youtube, only trailers, but it can be found or purchased.
At the end of the last quote it read "conspiracy theories that Jews had started the Revolution". Considering
that according to the book Diplomat in Berlin 1933-1939 page 412, Poland had more than 3,350,000 Jews in 1939 and considering that one of German FM von Ribbentrop's selling point to the Polish diplomat was that:
"He made a slight allusion to the fact that, if only with regard to its three million Jews as colporters of Communism, Poland should not be very much interested in getting too close to Moscow."
So one question is:
Was a disproportionate number of the movers and shakers of the Russian revolution of Jewish origins?
Below are some excerpt from various articles, and sources, that address this or a similar questions. While not answering the question in definite terms, altogether there may be some information to consider. The article
Robert Wilton: How Jewish extremists hijacked the Russian revolution, aided by Germany (28 Apr 2017) has comments by Peter Meyer who on his
home page proposes this hypothesis:
The One World movement has three factions, which co-operate with one another against "nationalism" or "isolationism". They are (a) the
Tory (Imperial) (b) the
International Socialist (Trotskyist, Fabian & Green Left, against the Stalinist Left) (c) the Zionist:
british-conspiracy.html.
The first delivers the "Right", the second delivers the "Left" to One-Worldism:
oneworld.html.
The Balfour Declaration of 1917 marked the joining-up of the Tory and Zionist factions in an uneasy alliance. Before that, they were working against each other (Britain was pro-Czar, the Zionists were anti-Czar).
That is his understanding. At the end Meyer links to another article "The USSR was created by atheistic Jews, but Stalin overthrew them:
stalin-overthrew-jews.html " actually on the page itself called "Debate over the Jewish role in Communism" in the browser window address field. In this article there is:
Stalin overthrew the Jewish Bolsheviks, but this was not something he set out to do; rather it was a by-product of his power-struggle with Trotsky.
His purges were not aimed at Jews but, because Jewish Bolsheviks were commonly Trotsky-supporters, they decimated the Jewish Bolsheviks.
After the Purges of 1936-8, Jews continued to support the Soviet Union, because Hitler was deemed the main threat. Jews participated heavily in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-9, in support of the Republican government allied to the Soviet Union.
After the creation of Israel, exuberant Jewish nationism was on display in Moscow when Golda Meir visited. Stalin then realized that Jews had become a minority with foreign allegiance. He took steps to keep them out of sensitive political posts, but allowed them to proliferate in the professions as before.
He aimed to keep his Jews IN, whereas Hitler aimed to get his Jews OUT.
Robert Wilton, St Petersburg correspondent for the London Times, documented the role of atheistic Jews in creating Bolshevism.
Chapter 16 of The Last Days of the Romanovs, naming the Jews running all the revolutionary parties, was omitted from the British & U.S. editions. Here a translation from the French Edition is published for the first time:
wilton.html .
Stalin's purges reduced the dominance of the Jewish intelligensia (sic) which had rallied to the Bolsheviks during the civil war, and manned the bureaucracy for the first 20 years.
These atheistic Jews had replaced the Germans, who provided similar professional and administrative services in Czarist Russia.
From the mid 1930s, Stalin reversed the earlier 'multicultural' policy favouring minorities, and initiated a policy of Russification. The Baruch Plan of 1946 proposed World Government via joint management of atomic energy and nuclear weapons, with the US retaining a veto. Stalin noted that Jews were at the top of nuclear matters in both the USA and the USSR, and determined to lessen that reliance.
After the creation of Israel, Jews were the only nationality in the USSR with a homeland outside its borders; questions of Dual Loyalty arose. When Golda Meir visited Moscow in 1948 as Israeli ambassador, Jews rallied at Moscow Synagogue with great enthusiasm, and the regime became alarmed. That led to further Russification of politically strategic posts; but Jews proliferated in the other professions until most of them left. There was no discrimination against Jews, except insofar as security issues were involved.
That most left is probably true. If one checks the numbers on the Wiki of
History of Jews in Russia there should be about 1,200,000 in Israel and next the US with 350,000, Germany with 180,000 and Russia with 150,000-200,00. but what I am not sure of is if those who are counted as Russian Jews could have come from former republics of the USSR. In the Wiki it also says:
Before 1917 there were 300,000
Zionists in Russia, while the main Jewish socialist organization,
the Bund, had 33,000 members.
Only 958 Jews had joined the Bolshevik Party before 1917; thousands joined after the Revolution.
[13]:565 The chaotic years of
World War I, the
February and
October Revolutions, and the
Russian Civil War had created social disruption that led to anti-Semitism.
Some 150,000 Jews were killed in the pogroms of 1918–1922, 125,000 of them in Ukraine, 25,000 in Belarus.
[14] The pogroms were mostly perpetrated by anti-communist forces; sometimes,
Red Army units engaged in pogroms as well.
[15]After a short period of confusion, the Soviets started executing guilty individuals and even disbanding the army units whose men had attacked Jews. Although
pogroms were still perpetrated after this, mainly by
Ukrainian units of the Red Army during its retreat from Poland (1920), in general, the
Jews regarded the Red Army as the only force which was able and willing to defend them. The Russian Civil War pogroms shocked world Jewry and rallied many Jews to the Red Army and the Soviet regime, strengthening the desire for the creation of a homeland for the Jewish people.[15]
Peter Meyer continues with a point that might explain, if he is justified, something about where the EU and also by consequence where Poland might be moving today.
Convergence was a Zionist/Trotskyist idea which influenced Gorbachev, and which destroyed the Soviet Union. The aim was to seize control of the USSR from the Stalinists, while
securing the West for "Marxist" values as enacted in the
early Bolshevik period: Gay Rights, Feminism, the abolition of Marriage, cultural revolution, minorities against the majority:
convergence.html.
Peter Meyer mentions a friend Israel Shamir saying:
On Shamir's website, it is at
Myers: USSR was created by atheistic Jews, but Stalin overthrew them
The links there are dead, for two reasons: (a) space characters have been inserted (b) my website has moved from Cyberone to Mailstar. The article, with corrected links, and slightly updated, is below.
On the site of Israeli
Shamir one can read a critical review of the work of Peter Meyer, in case anyone is interested.
The question of Jewish participation in the Russian Revolution brought many responses; one of them is this lengthy and thorough one, by our friend Peter Myers. His view is heavily influenced by Solzhenitsyn; much is based on dated material. Peter Myers accepts Jewish boasting for a real thing; but Jewish bragging should be taken with a grain of salt. He insists that Lenin was Jewish; not very likely for a man who expelled the Jewish Bund from the party (�otherwise Jews will ride on our backs�) and demanded to �treat the Jews with an iron rod, transferring them to the front, not letting them into governmental agencies (except in insignificant percentages, in particularly exceptional circumstances, under class control).
Perhaps that is were the allegation of a conspiracy comes in, but what is the concept in the book by Solzhenitsyn and how was it received:
Solzhenitsyn breaks last taboo of the Russian revolution: New book exposes the role of Jews in Soviet-era repression and genocide -- Sott.net (25 Jan 2003)
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who first exposed the horrors of the Stalinist gulag, is now attempting to tackle one of the most sensitive topics of his writing career - the role of the Jews in the Bolshevik revolution and Soviet purges.
In his latest book Solzhenitsyn, 84, deals with one of the last taboos of the communist revolution: that Jews were as much perpetrators of the repression as its victims. Two Hundred Years Together - a reference to the 1772 partial annexation of Poland and Russia which greatly increased the Russian Jewish population - contains three chapters discussing the Jewish role in the revolutionary genocide and secret police purges of Soviet Russia.
But Jewish leaders and some historians have reacted furiously to the book, and questioned Solzhenitsyn's motives in writing it, accusing him of factual inaccuracies and of fanning the flames of anti-semitism in Russia.
Solzhenitsyn argues that some Jewish satire of the revolutionary period "consciously or unconsciously descends on the Russians" as being behind the genocide. But he states that all the nation's ethnic groups must share the blame, and that people shy away from speaking the truth about the Jewish experience.
In one remark which infuriated Russian Jews, he wrote: "If I would care to generalise, and to say that the life of the Jews in the camps was especially hard, I could, and would not face reproach for an unjust national generalisation. But in the camps where I was kept, it was different. The Jews whose experience I saw - their life was softer than that of others."
Yet he added: "But it is impossible to find the answer to the eternal question: who is to be blamed, who led us to our death? To explain the actions of the Kiev cheka [secret police] only by the fact that two thirds were Jews, is certainly incorrect." [...]
-to be continued-
cassiopaea.org
