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Understanding the Russian Revolution

52 points by samclemens 10y ago

nikolay 10y ago
It is so surprising how nobody officially admits that the Russian Revolution was funded by Wall St. and the key role of Jacob Schiff [0] in all this. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Schiff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Schiff
- farright 10y ago
  Based on the wikipedia article it looks like Jacob Schiff funded the Russian Revolution because he was Jewish, and disliked the anti-Semitism of the Tzarist regime. As the article discusses, he funded the Japanese side in the Russo-Japanese war for the same reason. Given this I don't think it makes sense to say that the Russian Revolution was funded by "Wall St." but rather that it was supported by a wealthy Jewish American who opposed the Tzarist regime.
  - idlewords 10y ago
    The entire Schiff connection is bogus, and you'll see that the sites that talk about him tend to be one click away from outright anti-semitic conspiracy pages.
    - kapitza 10y ago
      Schiff and many Americans were definitely involved in funding Russian revolutionaries -- that was quite a common thing. The posthumous memoirs of Samuel Harper, a Rockefeller man and one of the founding figures of Slavic studies in the US, are quite frank on this point. Not online, but I recall an anecdote about some little old lady in Chicago writing a check and saying "I hope this one pays for the bomb that blows up the Czar!" https://www.amazon.com/Russia-Believe-Memoirs-Samuel-Harper/dp/1162802030 https://www.amazon.com/Russia-Believe-Memoirs-Samuel-Harper/... Your second point is entirely correct. However, they're not one click away from "Haven Monahan", yet another Fidel eulogy, Trump as the puppet of Putin, etc. You can't possibly think it's this easy to have a clue? A nice factual fact, by the way, is Averell Harriman's giant manganese concession in Georgia in the '20s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiatura_mine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiatura_mine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Averell_Harriman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Averell_Harriman Giant holes in the ground are hard to sweep under the rug...
      - idlewords 10y ago
        The topic of American capitalists running huge factories in the USSR in the 20's is absolutely fascinating, and I'm glad you linked to it here. But it is entirely separate from what the parent comment is trying to say. With respect to financing the Bolsheviks, I don't dispute that Americans did it. My issue is with the insinuation that Wall Street Jews were the puppetmasters, which is where this stuff leads. Nobody did more to help the Bolshevik cause than Germany, by allowing Lenin to cross their territory in a sealed train during a world war. The rest was luck, ruthlessness, and quickly broken promises.
        kapitza 10y ago
        As Jennings Wise (a legitimate historian from the '30s, his Wilson biography is quite good) said: "Historians must never forget that Woodrow Wilson, despite the efforts of the British police, made it possible for Leon Trotsky to enter Russia with an American passport." The Germans were not exactly in a position to promote the Bolshevik cause in 1919 (eg, at the proposed Prinkipo conference). Or in point 6 of the Fourteen Points. The top thread above is giving the Soviet (and American) party-line interpretation of the American "anti-Bolshevik" intervention in the Russian Civil War. Actually if you read enough primary docs (for instance, the memoir of Graves, who commanded the Siberian force) it quickly becomes clear that the actual goal of the policy was to sandbag the Whites (and, in Siberia, also the Japanese). The American forces involved are all full of bureaucratic duplicity and all swear up, down, left and sideways that they're enemies of godless Bolshevism. And some of them actually are. "this stuff leads" -- sure. And reading the NYT leads to Castro-worship, "hands up, don't shoot," Haven Monahan, and other fake news of a sinister persuasion. If you let it. Wise's Wilson book is quite good. It was written in 1937. The only people who care about it today are anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists. So what? Who cares? They will all die, and the book will still be there. It's a book. https://archive.org/details/WoodrowWilsonJenningsCWise https://archive.org/details/WoodrowWilsonJenningsCWise (This is a badly transcribed bootleg.)
        farright 10y ago
        I don't see what it is in my comment that you disagree with. I was only pointing out that Schiff funded the Bolsheviks because of his political views that were related to bring an American Jew. And there seems to be plenty of evidence in the Wikipedia article for that asking. I never made the claim that Schiff was particularly important. Can you point to something specifically in my post that if incorrect?
  - nikolay 10y ago
    Jacob Schiff and his clique were most of what Wall St. was at that time.
- padraic7a 10y ago
  That's a surprising link for you to post, especially since it doesn't support what you have said in the slightest. tldr: Jacob Schiff was a super wealthy Jewish banker. Because of the state endorsed pogroms in Russia he refused to lend to the Russian Empire and instead lent to Japan - helping them to buy weapons and win the Russian-Japanese war. After the fall of the empire he no longer blacklisted Russia. The simplification of a complex political and social event like the Russian Revolution to the 'Bankrolling of Jews' is not only stupid and narrow minded but is part of a long and sordid history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Bolshevism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Bolshevism On a sort of related matter if anyone would like to read a very entertaining novel about conspiracy theories, check out Umberto Eco's 'Prague Cemetery'.
  - nikolay 10y ago
    I posted the link as a reference to who he is. There's much more about him and what he's done elsewhere. It's very easy to label inconvenient hypotheses as "conspiracy theories" - George Soros was one of those until we saw proof about his involvement everywhere.
    - padraic7a 10y ago
      Well the second site you posted has the following masthead: "NEW WORLD ORDER / WORLD WAR II / CONSPIRACY / ECONOMICS / NEWS" Like you say there are lots of sites about Schiff and the Russian Revolution. I'm not surprised you didn't post them here since they have urls like strangeside, jewishracism, judeo-masonic, communism-explained and so on.
      - ixtli 10y ago
        Yes can we stop the whitewashing? It's zionist conspiracy theory.
      - nikolay 10y ago
        Well, world history is full of conspiracy facts, so, there's nothing wrong with that being in the title. Conspiracy theories, when founded on facts, are also fine. We can't know most of the facts so you suggest people should stop thinking and creating theories?! Debunk with verifiable facts instead of labeling - that's the only right thing to do.
- idlewords 10y ago
  That's because Jacob Schiff did not play a key role in the Russian Revolution, unless you're a (((conspiracy theorist))).
  - kapitza 10y ago
    Do you like (((books)))? If so, the best source on early Western support for the Bolsheviks is Antony (((Sutton))), from the (((Hoover Institution))). Not a perfect writer but generally trustworthy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_C._Sutton https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_C._Sutton Sutton, by the way, writes (this is true): "There is no concrete evidence that Jews were involved in the Bolshevik Revolution because they were Jewish." See also the lives of Raymond Robins and William Boyce Thompson, who I guess don't get much attention from the tinfoil hats on account of not being (((Jews))): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Robins https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Robins https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Boyce_Thompson https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Boyce_Thompson Robins, really the main American Bolshevik booster, wrote an autobiography of sorts. It's hilariously disingenuous but worth reading anyway, and it's free. It must be nice living in this world where official truth always === truth. I officially apologize as an Anglo-American for all those sleek smug copies of the Economist we export. Make sure you don't read too many (((books))) tho, it can cause you all kinds of real-life problems!
    - hx87 10y ago
      Your reply deflects from the parent's statement. Sure, a lot of westerners supported the Bolsheviks, but that doesn't mean Jacob Schiff was one of them. > It must be nice living in this world where official truth always === truth. I officially apologize as an Anglo-American for all those sleek smug copies of the Economist we export. Make sure you don't read too many (((books))) tho, it can cause you all kinds of real-life problems! It must be nice living in this world where smug secret truth always === truth. I officially apologize as an Anglo-American for all those sleek smug "I know better than you sheeple" opinions we export. Make sure you don't read too many (((books))) tho, it can cause you all kinds of real-life problems!
      - 10y ago
- cryoshon 10y ago
  the russian civil war had multiple competing factions with a bevy of foreign influences onto each.... a little "funding" has an impact that works out to be a wash, considering that most of the combatants in the war had obsolete weapons, no organization, no food, no logistic chain, no cold weather gear, no education, etc...
chokolad 10y ago
Not sure what to expect from the article which can't even get names right. It's Sukhomlinov, not Suklominov.
- Synaesthesia 10y ago
  A minor difference in an anglicisation of Russian which can vary anyway.
  - chokolad 10y ago
    Not really. Suhomlinov is pronounced very differently from Suhlominov. EDIT: It's as different as Sherlock Holmes versus Sherlock Hlomes and roughly as grating to one's ear.
Synaesthesia 10y ago
What's not often mentioned when discussing the revolution was that western powers, including the USA immediately invaded the Soviet Union to attempt to overthrow the government. This explains a lot in the ensuing history, including the paranoid militancy of the Soviet Union.
- turar 10y ago
  Yes, there are some fascinating pictures of Allied troops marching through Vladivostok in 1918. [1] The Red Scare followed that immediately, and wasn't caused by any Russian aggression towards the US. [2] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Force_Siberia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Force_S... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare
  - trhway 10y ago
    >The Red Scare followed that immediately, and wasn't caused by any Russian aggression towards the US. One of the pillars of the Bolsheviks world view (based on the Marx's economical and political class theory) was "worlwide revolution", and it was really happening in many parts of the world at the time (almost whole Europe was basically on fire and China too - one can see why US had reasons to worry especially given the active communist movement in US back then) And for Bolsheviks it wasn't just passive view though, they did for example tried to militarily help German revolutionary comrades and if not for the new Poland state and army which happened to be on the way to Germany, the 20th century in Europe may have looked somewhat differently. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_westward_offensive_of_1918%E2%80%9319#Background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_westward_offensive_of_1... : "The Bolsheviks were also implementing a new strategy, "Revolution from abroad" (Revolutsiya izvne—literally, "revolution from the outside"), based on an assumption that revolutionary masses desire revolution but are unable to carry it out without help from more organized and advanced Bolsheviks. Hence, as Leon Trotsky remarked, the revolution should be "brought on bayonets" (of the Red Army), as "through Kiev leads the straight route for uniting with Austro-Hungarian revolution, just as through Pskov and Vilnius goes the way for uniting with German revolution. Offensive on all fronts! Offensive on the west front, offensive on the south front, offensive on the all revolutionary fronts!"." From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Soviet_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Soviet_War : " Lenin, meanwhile, saw Poland as the bridge the Red Army had to cross to assist other communist movements and bring about other European revolutions."

52 points by samclemens 10y ago

It is so surprising how nobody officially admits that the Russian Revolution was funded by Wall St. and the key role of Jacob Schiff [0] in all this. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Schiff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Schiff

farright 10y ago
Based on the wikipedia article it looks like Jacob Schiff funded the Russian Revolution because he was Jewish, and disliked the anti-Semitism of the Tzarist regime. As the article discusses, he funded the Japanese side in the Russo-Japanese war for the same reason. Given this I don't think it makes sense to say that the Russian Revolution was funded by "Wall St." but rather that it was supported by a wealthy Jewish American who opposed the Tzarist regime.
- idlewords 10y ago
  The entire Schiff connection is bogus, and you'll see that the sites that talk about him tend to be one click away from outright anti-semitic conspiracy pages.
  - kapitza 10y ago
    Schiff and many Americans were definitely involved in funding Russian revolutionaries -- that was quite a common thing. The posthumous memoirs of Samuel Harper, a Rockefeller man and one of the founding figures of Slavic studies in the US, are quite frank on this point. Not online, but I recall an anecdote about some little old lady in Chicago writing a check and saying "I hope this one pays for the bomb that blows up the Czar!" https://www.amazon.com/Russia-Believe-Memoirs-Samuel-Harper/dp/1162802030 https://www.amazon.com/Russia-Believe-Memoirs-Samuel-Harper/... Your second point is entirely correct. However, they're not one click away from "Haven Monahan", yet another Fidel eulogy, Trump as the puppet of Putin, etc. You can't possibly think it's this easy to have a clue? A nice factual fact, by the way, is Averell Harriman's giant manganese concession in Georgia in the '20s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiatura_mine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiatura_mine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Averell_Harriman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Averell_Harriman Giant holes in the ground are hard to sweep under the rug...
    - idlewords 10y ago
      The topic of American capitalists running huge factories in the USSR in the 20's is absolutely fascinating, and I'm glad you linked to it here. But it is entirely separate from what the parent comment is trying to say. With respect to financing the Bolsheviks, I don't dispute that Americans did it. My issue is with the insinuation that Wall Street Jews were the puppetmasters, which is where this stuff leads. Nobody did more to help the Bolshevik cause than Germany, by allowing Lenin to cross their territory in a sealed train during a world war. The rest was luck, ruthlessness, and quickly broken promises.
      - kapitza 10y ago
        As Jennings Wise (a legitimate historian from the '30s, his Wilson biography is quite good) said: "Historians must never forget that Woodrow Wilson, despite the efforts of the British police, made it possible for Leon Trotsky to enter Russia with an American passport." The Germans were not exactly in a position to promote the Bolshevik cause in 1919 (eg, at the proposed Prinkipo conference). Or in point 6 of the Fourteen Points. The top thread above is giving the Soviet (and American) party-line interpretation of the American "anti-Bolshevik" intervention in the Russian Civil War. Actually if you read enough primary docs (for instance, the memoir of Graves, who commanded the Siberian force) it quickly becomes clear that the actual goal of the policy was to sandbag the Whites (and, in Siberia, also the Japanese). The American forces involved are all full of bureaucratic duplicity and all swear up, down, left and sideways that they're enemies of godless Bolshevism. And some of them actually are. "this stuff leads" -- sure. And reading the NYT leads to Castro-worship, "hands up, don't shoot," Haven Monahan, and other fake news of a sinister persuasion. If you let it. Wise's Wilson book is quite good. It was written in 1937. The only people who care about it today are anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists. So what? Who cares? They will all die, and the book will still be there. It's a book. https://archive.org/details/WoodrowWilsonJenningsCWise https://archive.org/details/WoodrowWilsonJenningsCWise (This is a badly transcribed bootleg.)
      - farright 10y ago
        I don't see what it is in my comment that you disagree with. I was only pointing out that Schiff funded the Bolsheviks because of his political views that were related to bring an American Jew. And there seems to be plenty of evidence in the Wikipedia article for that asking. I never made the claim that Schiff was particularly important. Can you point to something specifically in my post that if incorrect?
- nikolay 10y ago
  Jacob Schiff and his clique were most of what Wall St. was at that time.
padraic7a 10y ago
That's a surprising link for you to post, especially since it doesn't support what you have said in the slightest. tldr: Jacob Schiff was a super wealthy Jewish banker. Because of the state endorsed pogroms in Russia he refused to lend to the Russian Empire and instead lent to Japan - helping them to buy weapons and win the Russian-Japanese war. After the fall of the empire he no longer blacklisted Russia. The simplification of a complex political and social event like the Russian Revolution to the 'Bankrolling of Jews' is not only stupid and narrow minded but is part of a long and sordid history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Bolshevism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Bolshevism On a sort of related matter if anyone would like to read a very entertaining novel about conspiracy theories, check out Umberto Eco's 'Prague Cemetery'.
- nikolay 10y ago
  I posted the link as a reference to who he is. There's much more about him and what he's done elsewhere. It's very easy to label inconvenient hypotheses as "conspiracy theories" - George Soros was one of those until we saw proof about his involvement everywhere.
  - padraic7a 10y ago
    Well the second site you posted has the following masthead: "NEW WORLD ORDER / WORLD WAR II / CONSPIRACY / ECONOMICS / NEWS" Like you say there are lots of sites about Schiff and the Russian Revolution. I'm not surprised you didn't post them here since they have urls like strangeside, jewishracism, judeo-masonic, communism-explained and so on.
    - ixtli 10y ago
      Yes can we stop the whitewashing? It's zionist conspiracy theory.
    - nikolay 10y ago
      Well, world history is full of conspiracy facts, so, there's nothing wrong with that being in the title. Conspiracy theories, when founded on facts, are also fine. We can't know most of the facts so you suggest people should stop thinking and creating theories?! Debunk with verifiable facts instead of labeling - that's the only right thing to do.
idlewords 10y ago
That's because Jacob Schiff did not play a key role in the Russian Revolution, unless you're a (((conspiracy theorist))).
- kapitza 10y ago
  Do you like (((books)))? If so, the best source on early Western support for the Bolsheviks is Antony (((Sutton))), from the (((Hoover Institution))). Not a perfect writer but generally trustworthy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_C._Sutton https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_C._Sutton Sutton, by the way, writes (this is true): "There is no concrete evidence that Jews were involved in the Bolshevik Revolution because they were Jewish." See also the lives of Raymond Robins and William Boyce Thompson, who I guess don't get much attention from the tinfoil hats on account of not being (((Jews))): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Robins https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Robins https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Boyce_Thompson https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Boyce_Thompson Robins, really the main American Bolshevik booster, wrote an autobiography of sorts. It's hilariously disingenuous but worth reading anyway, and it's free. It must be nice living in this world where official truth always === truth. I officially apologize as an Anglo-American for all those sleek smug copies of the Economist we export. Make sure you don't read too many (((books))) tho, it can cause you all kinds of real-life problems!
  - hx87 10y ago
    Your reply deflects from the parent's statement. Sure, a lot of westerners supported the Bolsheviks, but that doesn't mean Jacob Schiff was one of them. > It must be nice living in this world where official truth always === truth. I officially apologize as an Anglo-American for all those sleek smug copies of the Economist we export. Make sure you don't read too many (((books))) tho, it can cause you all kinds of real-life problems! It must be nice living in this world where smug secret truth always === truth. I officially apologize as an Anglo-American for all those sleek smug "I know better than you sheeple" opinions we export. Make sure you don't read too many (((books))) tho, it can cause you all kinds of real-life problems!
    - 10y ago
cryoshon 10y ago
the russian civil war had multiple competing factions with a bevy of foreign influences onto each.... a little "funding" has an impact that works out to be a wash, considering that most of the combatants in the war had obsolete weapons, no organization, no food, no logistic chain, no cold weather gear, no education, etc...

chokolad 10y ago

Not sure what to expect from the article which can't even get names right. It's Sukhomlinov, not Suklominov.

Synaesthesia 10y ago
A minor difference in an anglicisation of Russian which can vary anyway.
- chokolad 10y ago
  Not really. Suhomlinov is pronounced very differently from Suhlominov. EDIT: It's as different as Sherlock Holmes versus Sherlock Hlomes and roughly as grating to one's ear.

Synaesthesia 10y ago

What's not often mentioned when discussing the revolution was that western powers, including the USA immediately invaded the Soviet Union to attempt to overthrow the government. This explains a lot in the ensuing history, including the paranoid militancy of the Soviet Union.

turar 10y ago
Yes, there are some fascinating pictures of Allied troops marching through Vladivostok in 1918. [1] The Red Scare followed that immediately, and wasn't caused by any Russian aggression towards the US. [2] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Force_Siberia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Force_S... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare
- trhway 10y ago
  >The Red Scare followed that immediately, and wasn't caused by any Russian aggression towards the US. One of the pillars of the Bolsheviks world view (based on the Marx's economical and political class theory) was "worlwide revolution", and it was really happening in many parts of the world at the time (almost whole Europe was basically on fire and China too - one can see why US had reasons to worry especially given the active communist movement in US back then) And for Bolsheviks it wasn't just passive view though, they did for example tried to militarily help German revolutionary comrades and if not for the new Poland state and army which happened to be on the way to Germany, the 20th century in Europe may have looked somewhat differently. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_westward_offensive_of_1918%E2%80%9319#Background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_westward_offensive_of_1... : "The Bolsheviks were also implementing a new strategy, "Revolution from abroad" (Revolutsiya izvne—literally, "revolution from the outside"), based on an assumption that revolutionary masses desire revolution but are unable to carry it out without help from more organized and advanced Bolsheviks. Hence, as Leon Trotsky remarked, the revolution should be "brought on bayonets" (of the Red Army), as "through Kiev leads the straight route for uniting with Austro-Hungarian revolution, just as through Pskov and Vilnius goes the way for uniting with German revolution. Offensive on all fronts! Offensive on the west front, offensive on the south front, offensive on the all revolutionary fronts!"." From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Soviet_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Soviet_War : " Lenin, meanwhile, saw Poland as the bridge the Red Army had to cross to assist other communist movements and bring about other European revolutions."