Chapter VI
CONSOLIDATION AND EXPORT OF THE REVOLUTION
Marx's great book Das Kapital is at once a monument of
reasoning and a storehouse of facts.
Lord Milner, member of the British War Cabinet, 1917, and
director of the London Joint Stock Bank
William Boyce Thompson is an unknown name in
twentieth-century history, yet Thompson played a crucial role in the Bolshevik
Revolution.1 Indeed, if Thompson had not been in Russia in 1917, subsequent
history might have followed a quite different course. Without the financial and,
more important, the diplomatic and propaganda assistance given to Trotsky and
Lenin by Thompson, Robins, and their New York associates, the Bolsheviks may
well have withered away and Russia evolved into a socialist but constitutional
society.
Who was William Boyce Thompson? Thompson was a promoter of
mining stocks, one of the best in a high-risk business. Before World War I he
handled stock-market operations for the Guggenheim copper interests. When the
Guggenheims needed quick capital for a stock-market struggle with John D.
Rockefeller, it was Thompson who promoted Yukon Consolidated Goldfields before an
unsuspecting public to raise a $3.5 million war chest. Thompson was manager of
the Kennecott syndicate, another Guggenheim operation, valued at $200 million.
It was Guggenheim Exploration, on the other hand, that took up Thompson's
options on the rich Nevada Consolidated Copper Company. About three quarters of
the original Guggenheim Exploration Company was controlled by the Guggenheim
family, the Whitney family (who owned Metropolitan magazine, which
employed the Bolshevik John Reed), and John Ryan. In 1916 the Guggenheim
interests reorganized into Guggenheim Brothers and brought in William C. Potter,
who was formerly with Guggenheim's American Smelting and Refining Company but
who was in 1916 first' vice president of Guaranty Trust.
Extraordinary skill in raising capital for risky mining
promotions earned Thompson a personal fortune and directorships in Inspiration
Consolidated Copper Company, Nevada Consolidated Copper Company, and Utah Copper
Company — all major domestic copper producers. Copper is, of course, a major
material in the manufacture of munitions. Thompson was also director of the
Chicago Rock Island & Pacific Railroad, the Magma Arizona Railroad and the
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. And of particular interest for this book,
Thompson was "one of the heaviest stockholders in the Chase National
Bank." It was Albert H. Wiggin, president of the Chase Bank, who pushed
Thompson for a post in the Federal Reserve System; and in 1914 Thompson became
the first full-term director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — the most
important bank in the Federal Reserve System.
By 1917, then, William Boyce Thompson was a financial
operator of substantial means, demonstrated ability, with a flair for promotion
and implementation of capitalist projects, and with ready access to the centers
of political and financial power. This was the same man who first supported
Aleksandr Kerensky, and who then became an ardent supporter of the Bolsheviks,
bequeathing a surviving symbol of this support — a laudatory pamphlet in Russian,
"Pravda o Rossii i Bol'shevikakh."2
Before leaving Russia in early December 1917 Thompson handed
over the American Red Cross Mission to his deputy Raymond Robins. Robins then
organized Russian revolutionaries to implement the Thompson plan for spreading
Bolshevik propaganda in Europe (see Appendix 3). A French government document confirms this:
"It
appeared that Colonel Robins . . . was able to send a subversive
mission of Russian bolsheviks to Germany to start a revolution there."3
This mission led to the abortive German Spartacist revolt of 1918. The overall
plan also included schemes for dropping Bolshevik literature by airplane or for
smuggling it across German lines.
Thompson made preparations in late 1917 to leave Petrograd
and sell the Bolshevik Revolution to governments in Europe and to the U.S. With
this in mind, Thompson cabled Thomas W. Lamont, a partner in the Morgan firm who
was then in Paris with Colonel E. M. House. Lamont recorded the receipt of this
cablegram in his biography:
Just as the House Mission was completing its discussions in
Paris in December 1917, I received an arresting cable from my old school and
business friend, William Boyce Thompson, who was then in Petrograd in charge of
the American Red Cross Mission there.4
Lamont journeyed to London and met with Thompson, who had
left Petrograd on December 5, traveled via Bergen, Norway, and arrived in London
on December 10. The most important achievement of Thompson and Lamont in London
was to convince the British War Cabinet — then decidedly anti-Bolshevik —
that the
Bolshevik regime had come to stay, and that British policy should cease to be
anti-Bolshevik, should accept the new realities, and should support Lenin and
Trotsky. Thompson and Lamont left London on December 18 and arrived in New York
on December 25, 1917. They attempted the same process of conversion in the
United States.
The secret British War Cabinet papers are now available and
record the argument used by Thompson to sell the British government on a
pro-Bolshevik policy. The prime minister of Great Britain was David Lloyd
George. Lloyd George's private and political machinations rivaled those of a
Tammany Hall politician — yet in his lifetime and for decades after, biographers
were unable, or unwilling, to come to grips with them. In 1970 Donald
McCormick's The Mask of Merlin
lifted the veil of secrecy. McCormick shows that by 1917
David Lloyd George had bogged "too deeply in the mesh of
international armaments intrigues to be a free agent" and was beholden to
Sir Basil Zaharoff, an international armaments dealer, whose considerable
fortune was made by selling arms to both sides in several wars.5 Zaharoff
wielded enormous behind-the-scenes power and, according to McCormick, was
consulted on war policies by the Allied leaders. On more than one occasion,
reports McCormick, Woodrow Wilson, Lloyd George, and Georges Clemenceau met in
Zaharoff's Paris home. McCormick notes that "Allied statesmen and leaders
were obliged to consult him before planning any great attack." British
intelligence, according to McCormick, "discovered documents which
incriminated servants of the Crown as secret agents of Sir Basil Zaharoff with
the knowledge of Lloyd George."6 In 1917 Zaharoff was linked to the
Bolsheviks; he sought to divert munitions away from anti-Bolsheviks and had
already intervened in behalf of the Bolshevik regime in both London and Paris.
In late 1917, then — at the time Lamont and Thompson arrived
in London — Prime Minister Lloyd George was indebted to powerful international
armaments interests that were allied to the Bolsheviks and providing assistance
to extend Bolshevik power in Russia. The British prime minister who met with
William Thompson in 1917 was not then a free agent; Lord Milner was the power
behind the scenes and, as the epigraph to this chapter suggests, favorably
inclined towards socialism and Karl Marx.
The "secret" War Cabinet papers give the
"Prime Minister's account of a conversation with Mr. Thompson, an American
returned from Russia,"7 and the report made by the prime minister to the
War Cabinet after meeting with Thompson.8 The cabinet paper reads as follows:
The Prime Minister reported a conversation he had had with a
Mr. Thompson — an American traveller and a man of considerable means — who had
just returned from Russia, and who had given a somewhat different impression of
affairs in that country from what was generally believed. The gist of his remarks was to the effect that the
Revolution had come to stay; that the Allies had not shown themselves
sufficiently sympathetic with the Revolution; and that MM. Trotzki and Lenin
were not in German pay, the latter being a fairly distinguished Professor. Mr.
Thompson had added that he considered the Allies should conduct in Russia an
active propaganda, carried out by some form of Allied Council composed o[ men
especially selected [or the purpose; further, that on the whole, he considered,
having regard to the character of the de facto Russian Government, the several
Allied Governments were not suitably represented in Petrograd. In Mr. Thompson's
opinion, it was necessary for the Allies to realise that the Russian army and
people were out of the war, and that the Allies would have to choose
between Russia as the friendly or a hostile neutral.
The question was discussed as to whether the Allies ought not
to change their policy in regard to the de facto Russian Government, the
Bolsheviks being stated by Mr. Thompson to be and-German. In this connection
Lord Robert Cecil drew attention to the conditions of the armistice between the
German and Russian armies, which provided, inter alia, for trading between the
two countries, and for the establishment of a Purchasing Commission in Odessa,
the whole arrangement being obviously dictated by the Germans. Lord Robert Cecil
expressed the view that the Germans would endeavour to continue the armistice
until the Russian army had melted away.
Sir Edward Carson read a communication, signed by M. Trotzki,
which had been sent to him by a British subject, the manager of the Russian
branch of the Vauxhall Motor Company, who had just returned from Russia [Paper
G.T. — 3040]. This report indicated that M. Trotzki's policy was, ostensibly at
any rate, one of hostility to the organisation of civilised society rather than
pro-German. On the other hand, it was suggested that an assumed attitude of this
kind was by no means inconsistent with Trotzki's being a German agent, whose
object was to ruin Russia in order that Germany might do what she desired in
that country.
After hearing Lloyd George's report and supporting arguments,
the War Cabinet decided to go along with Thompson and the Bolsheviks. Milner had
a former British consul in Russia — Bruce Lockhart — ready and waiting in the
wings. Lockhart was briefed and sent to Russia with instructions to work
informally with the Soviets.
The thoroughness of Thompson's work in London and the
pressure he was able to bring to bear on the situation are suggested by
subsequent reports coming into the hands of the War Cabinet, from authentic
sources. The reports provide a quite different view of Trotsky and the
Bolsheviks from that presented by Thompson, and yet they were ignored by the
cabinet. In April 1918 General Jan Smuts reported to the War Cabinet his talk with General
Nieffel, the head of the French Military Mission who had just returned from
Russia:
Trotski (sic) . . . was a consummate scoundrel who may not be
pro-German, but is thoroughly pro-Trotski and pro-revolutionary and cannot in
any way be trusted. His influence is shown by the way he has come to dominate
Lockhart, Robins and the French representative. He [Nieffel] counsels great
prudence in dealing with Trotski, who he admits is the only really able man in
Russia.9
Several months later Thomas D. Thacher, Wall Street lawyer
and another member of the American Red CrAss Mission to Russia, was in London.
On April 13, 1918, Thacher wrote to the American ambassador in London to the
effect that he had received a request from H. P. Davison, a Morgan partner, "to
confer with Lord Northcliffe" concerning the situation in Russia and
then to go on to Paris "for other conferences." Lord Northcliffe was
ill and Thacher left with yet another Morgan partner, Dwight W. Morrow, a
memorandum to be submitted to Northcliffe on his return to London.10 This
memorandum not only made explicit suggestions about Russian policy that
supported Thompson's position but even stated that "the fullest assistance
should be given to the Soviet government in its efforts to organize a volunteer
revolutionary army." The four main proposals in this Thacher report are:
First of all . . . the Allies should discourage Japanese
intervention in Siberia.
In the second place, the fullest assistance should be given
to the Soviet Government in its efforts to organize a volunteer revolutionary
army.
Thirdly, the Allied Governments should give their moral
support to the Russian people in their efforts to work out their own political
systems free from the domination of any foreign power ....
Fourthly, until the time when open conflict shall result
between the German Government and the Soviet Government of Russia there will be
opportunity for peaceful commercial penetration by German agencies in Russia. So
long as there is no open break, it will probably be impossible to entirely
prevent such commerce. Steps should, therefore, be taken to impede, so far as possible, the transport of grain
and raw materials to Germany from Russia.11
Why would a prominent Wall Street financier, and director of
the Federal Reserve Bank, want to organize and assist Bolshevik revolutionaries?
Why would not one but several Morgan partners working in concert want to
encourage the formation of a Soviet "volunteer revolutionary army" —
an
army supposedly dedicated to the overthrow of Wall Street, including Thompson,
Thomas Lamont, Dwight Morrow, the Morgan firm, and all their associates?
Thompson at least was straightforward about his objectives in
Russia: he wanted to keep Russia at war with Germany (yet he argued before the
British War Cabinet that Russia was out of the war anyway) and to retain Russia
as a market for postwar American enterprise. The December 1917 Thompson
memorandum to Lloyd George describes these aims.12 The memorandum begins,
"The Russian situation is lost and Russia lies entirely open to unopposed
German exploitation .... "and concludes, "I believe that
intelligent and courageous work will still prevent Germany from occupying the
field to itself and thus exploiting Russia at the expense of the Allies."
Consequently, it was German commercial and industrial exploitation of Russia
that Thompson feared (this is also reflected in the Thacher memorandum) and that
brought Thompson and his New York friends into an alliance with the Bolsheviks.
Moreover, this interpretation is reflected in a quasi-jocular statement made by
Raymond Robins, Thompson's deputy, to Bruce Lockhart, the British agent:
You will hear it said
that I am the representative of Wall
Street; that I am the servant of William B. Thompson to get Altai
copper for
him; that I have already got 500,000 acres of the best timber land in
Russia
for myself; that I have already copped off the Trans-Siberian Railway;
that
they have given me a monopoly of the platinum of Russia; that this
explains my
working for the soviet .... You will hear that talk. Now, I do not
think it is
true, Commissioner, but let us assume it is true. Let us assume that I
am here
to capture Russia for Wall Street and American business men. Let us
assume
that you are a British wolf and I am an American wolf, and that when
this war
is over we are going to eat each other up for the Russian market; let
us do so
in perfectly frank, man fashion, but let us assume at the same time
that we are fairly intelligent wolves, and that we know that if we
do not hunt together in this hour the German wolf will eat us both up,
and
then let us go to work.13
With this in mind let us take a look at Thompson's personal
motivations. Thompson was a financier, a promoter, and, although without
previous interest in Russia, had personally financed the Red Cross Mission to
Russia and used the mission as a vehicle for political maneuvering. From the
total picture we can deduce that Thompson's motives were primarily financial
and commercial. Specifically, Thompson was interested in the Russian market,
and how this market could be influenced, diverted; and captured for postwar
exploitation by a Wall Street syndicate, or syndicates. Certainly Thompson
viewed Germany as an enemy, but less a political enemy than an economic or a
commercial enemy. German industry and German banking were the real enemy. To
outwit Germany, Thompson was willing to place seed money on any political
power vehicle that would achieve his objective. In other words, Thompson was
an American imperialist fighting against German imperialism, and this struggle
was shrewdly recognized and exploited by Lenin and Trotsky.
The evidence supports this apolitical approach. In early
August 1917, William Boyce Thompson lunched at the U.S. Petrograd embassy with
Kerensky, Terestchenko, and the American ambassador Francis. Over lunch
Thompson showed his Russian guests a cable he had just sent to the New York
office of J.P. Morgan requesting transfer of 425,000 rubles to cover a
personal subscription to the new Russian Liberty Loan. Thompson also asked
Morgan to "inform my friends I recommend these bonds as the best war
investment I know. Will be glad to look after their purchasing here without
compensation"; he then offered personally to take up twenty percent of a
New York syndicate buying five million rubles of the Russian loan. Not
unexpectedly, Kerensky and Terestchenko indicated "great
gratification" at support from Wall Street. And Ambassador Francis by
cable promptly informed the State Department that the Red Cross commission was
"working harmoniously with me," and that it would have an
"excellent effect."14 Other writers have recounted how Thompson
attempted to convince the Russian peasants to support Kerensky by investing $1
million of his own money and U.S. government funds on the same order of
magnitude in propaganda activities. Subsequently, the Committee on Civic
Education in Free Russia, headed by the revolutionary "Grandmother"
Breshkovskaya, with David Soskice (Kerensky's private secretary) as executive,
established newspapers, news bureaus, printing plants, and speakers bureaus to
promote the appeal — "Fight the kaiser and save the revolution." It
is noteworthy that the Thompson-funded Kerensky campaign had the same appeal —
"Keep Russia in the war" — as had his financial support of the
Bolsheviks. The common link between Thompson's support of Kerensky and his
support of Trotsky and Lenin was — "continue the war against Germany"
and keep Germany out of Russia.
In brief, behind and below the military, diplomatic, and
political aspects of World War I, there was another battle raging, namely, a
maneuvering for postwar world economic power by international operators with
significant muscle and influence. Thompson was not a Bolshevik; he was not
even pro-Bolshevik. Neither was he pro-Kerensky. Nor was he even pro-American.
The overriding motivation was the capturing of the postwar Russian market. This
was a commercial, not an ideological, objective. Ideology could sway
revolutionary operators like Kerensky, Trotsky, Lenin et al., but not
financiers.
The Lloyd George memorandum demonstrates Thompson's
partiality for neither Kerensky nor the Bolsheviks: "After the overthrow
of the last Kerensky government we materially aided the dissemination of the
Bolshevik literature, distributing it through agents and by aeroplanes to the
Germany army."15 This was written in mid-December 1917, only five weeks
after the start of the Bolshevik Revolution, and less than four months after
Thompson expressed his support of Kerensky over lunch in the American embassy.
Thompson then
returned and toured the United States with a public plea for recognition of
the Soviets. In a speech to the Rocky Mountain Club of New York in January
1918, Thompson called for assistance for the emerging Bolshevik government
and, appealing to an audience composed largely of Westerners, evoked the
spirit of the American pioneers:
These men would not have hesitated very long about extending
recognition and giving the fullest help and sympathy to the
workingman's government of Russia, because in 1819 and the years
following we had out there bolsheviki governments . . . and mighty good
governments too....16
It strains the imagination to compare the pioneer experience
of our Western frontier to the ruthless extermination of
political opposition then under way in Russia. To Thompson, promoting this was
no doubt looked upon as akin to his promotion of mining stocks
in days gone by. As for those in Thompson's audience, we know not what they
thought; however, no one raised a challenge. The speaker was a respected
director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a self-made millionaire (and
that counts for much). And after all, had he not just returned from Russia?
But all was not rosy. Thompson's biographer Hermann Hagedorn has written that
Wall Street was "stunned" that his friends were "shocked"
and "said he had lost his head, had turned Bolshevist himself."17
While Wall Street wondered whether he had indeed
"turned Bolshevik," Thompson found sympathy among fellow directors
on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Codirector W. L.
Saunders, chairman of Ingersoll-Rand Corporation and a director of the FRB,
wrote President Wilson on October 17, 1918, stating that he was "in
sympathy with the Soviet form of Government"; at the same time he
disclaimed any ulterior motive such as "preparing now to get the trade of
the world after the war.18
Most interesting of Thompson's fellow directors was George
Foster Peabody, deputy chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and a
close friend of socialist Henry George. Peabody had made a fortune in railroad
manipulation, as Thompson had made his fortune in the manipulation of copper
stocks. Peabody then became active in behalf of government ownership of
railroads, and openly adopted socialization.19 How did Peabody reconcile his
private-enterprise success with promotion of government ownership? According
to his biographer Louis Ware, "His reasoning told him that it was
important for this form of transport to be operated as a public service rather
than for the advantage of private interests." This high-sounding do-good
reasoning hardly rings true. It would be more accurate to argue that given the dominant political
influence of Peabody and his fellow financiers in Washington, they could by
government control of railroads more easily avoid the rigors of competition.
Through political influence they could manipulate the police power of the
state to achieve what they had been unable, or what was too costly, to achieve
under private enterprise. In other words, the police power of the state was a
means of maintaining a private monopoly. This was exactly as Frederick C. Howe
had proposed.20 The idea of a centrally planned socialist Russia must have
appealed to Peabody. Think of it — one gigantic state monopoly! And Thompson,
his friend and fellow director, had the inside track with the boys running the
operation!21
The Bolsheviks for their part correctly assessed a lack of
sympathy among the Petrograd representatives of the three major Western
powers: the United States, Britain and France. The United States was
represented by Ambassador Francis, undisguisedly out of sympathy with the
revolution. Great Britain was represented by Sir James Buchanan, who had
strong ties to the tsarist monarchy and was suspected of having helped along
the Kerensky phase of the revolution. France was represented by Ambassador
Paleologue, overtly anti-Bolshevik. In early 1918 three additional personages
made their appearance; they became de facto representatives of these
Western countries and edged out the officially recognized representatives.
Raymond Robins took over the Red Cross Mission from W. B.
Thompson in early December 1917 but concerned himself more with economic and
political matters than obtaining relief and assistance for poverty-stricken
Russia. On December 26, 1917, Robins cabled Morgan partner Henry Davison,
temporarily the director general of the American Red Cross: "Please urge
upon the President the necessity of our continued intercourse with the
Bolshevik Government."22 On January 23, 1918, Robins cabled Thompson,
then in New York:
Soviet Government stronger today than ever before. Its
authority and power greatly consolidated by dissolution of Constituent
Assembly .... Cannot urge too strongly importance of prompt recognition of
Bolshevik authority .... Sisson approves this text and requests you to show
this cable to Creel. Thacher and Wardwell concur.23
Later in 1918, on his return to the United States, Robins
submitted a report to Secretary of State Robert Lansing containing this
opening paragraph: "American economic cooperation with Russia; Russia
will welcome American assistance in economic reconstruction."24
Robins' persistent efforts in behalf of the Bolshevik cause
gave him a certain prestige in the Bolshevik camp, and perhaps even some
political influence. The U.S. embassy in London claimed in November 1918 that
"Salkind owe[s] his appointment, as Bolshevik Ambassador to Switzerland,
to an American . . . no other than Mr. Raymond Robins."25 About this time
reports began filtering into Washington that Robins was himself a Bolshevik;
for example, the following from Copenhagen, dated December 3, 1918:
Confidential. According to a statement made by Radek to
George de Patpourrie, late Austria Hungarian Consul General at Moscow, Colonel
Robbins [sic], formerly thief of the American Red Cross Mission to
Russia, is at present in Moscow negotiating with the Soviet Government and
arts as the intermediary between the Bolsheviki and their friends in the
United States. The impression seems to be in some quarters that Colonel
Robbins is himself a Bolsheviki while others maintain that he is not but that
his activities in Russia have been contrary to the interest of Associated
Governments.26
Materials in the files of the Soviet Bureau in New York,
and seized by the Lusk Committee in 1919, confirm that both Robins and his
wife were closely associated with Bolshevik activities in the United States
and with the formation of the Soviet Bureau in New York.27
The British government established unofficial relations
with the Bolshevik regime by sending to Russia a young Russian-speaking agent,
Bruce Lockhart. Lockhart was, in effect, Robins' opposite number; but unlike
Robins, Lockhart had direct channels to his Foreign Office. Lockhart was not
selected by the foreign secretary or the Foreign Office; both were dismayed at
the appointment. According to Richard Ullman, Lockhart was "selected for
his mission by Milner and Lloyd George themselves .... "Maxim Litvinov,
acting as unofficial Soviet representative in Great Britain, wrote for
Lockhart a letter of introduction to Trotsky; in it he called the British
agent "a thoroughly honest man who understands our position and
sympathizes with us.28
We have already noted the pressures on Lloyd George to take
a pro-Bolshevik position, especially those from William B. Thompson, and those
indirectly from Sir Basil Zaharoff and Lord Milner. Milner was, as the
epigraph to this chapter suggests, exceedingly prosocialist. Edward Crankshaw
has succinctly outlined Milner's duality.
Some of the passages [in Milner] on industry and society .
. . are passages which any Socialist would be proud to have written. But they
were not written by a Socialist. They were written by "the man who made
the Boer War." Some of the passages on Imperialism and the white man's
burden might have been written by a Tory diehard. They were written by the
student of Karl Marx.29
According to Lockhart, the socialist bank director Milner
was a man who inspired in him "the greatest affection and
hero-worship."30 Lockhart recounts how Milner personally sponsored his
Russian appointment, pushed it to cabinet level, and after his appointment
talked "almost daily" with Lockhart. While opening the way for
recognition of the Bolsheviks, Milner also promoted financial support for
their opponents in South Russia and elsewhere, as did Morgan in New York. This
dual policy is consistent with the thesis that the modus operandi of
the politicized internationalists — such as Milner and Thompson — was to place
state money on any revolutionary or counterrevolutionary horse that looked a
possible winner. The internationalists, of course, claimed any subsequent
benefits. The clue is perhaps in Bruce Lockhart's observation that Milner was
a man who "believed in the highly organized state."31
The French government appointed an even more openly
Bolshevik sympathizer, Jacques Sadoul, an old friend of Trotsky.32
In sum, the Allied governments neutralized their own
diplomatic representatives in Petrograd and replaced them with unofficial
agents more or less sympathetic to the Bolshevists.
The reports of these unofficial ambassadors were in direct
contrast to pleas for help addressed to the West from inside Russia. Maxim
Gorky protested the betrayal of revolutionary ideals by the Lenin-Trotsky
group, which had imposed the iron grip of a police state in Russia:
We Russians make up a people that has never yet worked in
freedom, that has never yet had a chance to develop all its powers and its
talents. And when I think that the revolution gives us the possibility of free
work, of a many-sided joy in creating, my heart is tilled with great hope and
joy, even in these cursed days that are besmirched with blood and alcohol.
There is where begins the line of my decided and
irreconcilable separation [tom the insane actions of the People's
Commissaries. I consider Maximalism in ideas very useful for the boundless
Russian soul; its task is to develop in this soul great and bold needs, to
call forth the so necessary fighting spirit and activity, to promote
initiative in this indolent soul and to give it shape and life in general.
But the practical Maximalism of the
Anarcho-Communists and
visionaries from the Smolny is ruinous for Russia and, above all, for the
Russian working class. The People's Commissaries handle Russia like material
for an experiment. The Russian people is for them what the Horse is for
learned bacteriologists who inoculate the horse with typhus so that the
anti-typhus lymph may develop in its blood. Now the Commissaries are trying
such a predestined-to-failure experiment upon the Russian people without
thinking that the tormented, half-starved horse may die.
The reformers from the Smolny do not worry about Russia.
They are cold-bloodedly sacrificing Russia in the name of their dream of the
worldwide and European revolution. And just as long as I can, I shall
impress this upon the Russian proletarian: "Thou art being led to
destruction} Thou art being used as material for an inhuman
experiment!"33
Also in contrast to the reports of the sympathetic
unofficial ambassadors were the reports from the old-line diplomatic
representatives. Typical o[ many messages [lowing into Washington in early
1918 — particularly after Woodrow Wilson's expression of support for the
Bolshevik governments — was the following cable [tom the U.S. legation in Bern,
Switzerland:
For Polk. President's message to Consul Moscow not
understood here and people are asking why the President expresses support of
Bolsheviki, in view of rapine, murder and anarchy of these bands.34
Continued support by the Wilson administration for the
Bolsheviks led to the resignation of De Witt C. Poole, the capable American
charge d'affaires in Archangel (Russia):
It is my duty to explain frankly to the department the
perplexity into which I have been thrown by the statement of Russian policy
adopted by the Peace Conference, January 22, on the motion of the President.
The announcement very happily recognizes the revolution and confirms again
that entire absence of sympathy for any form of counter revolution which has
always been a key note of American policy in Russia, but it contains not one
[word] of condemnation for the other enemy of the revolution — the Bolshevik
Government.35
Thus even in the early days of 1918 the betrayal of the
libertarian revolution had been noted by such acute observers as Maxim Gorky
and De Witt C. Poole. Poole's resignation shook the State Department, which
requested the "utmost reticence regarding your desire to resign" and
stated that "it will be necessary to replace you in a natural and normal
manner in order to prevent grave and perhaps disastrous effect upon the morale
of American troops in the Archangel district which might lead to loss of
American lives."36
So not only did Allied governments neutralize their own
government representatives but the U.S. ignored pleas from within and without
Russia to cease support of the Bolsheviks. Influential support of the Soviets
came heavily from the New York financial area (little effective support
emanated from domestic U.S. revolutionaries). In particular, it came from
American International Corporation, a Morgan-controlled firm.
We are now in a position to compare two
cases — not by any
means the only such cases — in which American citizens Jacob Rubin and Robert
Minor assisted in exporting the revolution to Europe and other parts of
Russia.
Jacob H. Rubin was a banker who, in his own words,
"helped to form the Soviet Government of Odessa."37 Rubin was
president, treasurer, and secretary of Rubin Brothers of 19 West 34
Street, New York City. In 1917 he was associated with the Union Bank of
Milwaukee and the Provident Loan Society of New York. The trustees of the
Provident Loan Society included persons mentioned elsewhere as having
connection with the Bolshevik Revolution: P. A. Rockefeller, Mortimer L.
Schiff, and James Speyer.
By some process — only vaguely recounted in his book I
Live to Tell38 — Rubin was in Odessa in February 1920 and became the
subject of a message from Admiral McCully to the State Department (dated
February 13, 1920, 861.00/6349). The message was to the effect that Jacob H.
Rubin of Union Bank, Milwaukee, was in Odessa and desired to remain with the
Bolshevists — "Rubin does not wish to leave, has offered his services to
Bolsheviks and apparently sympathizes with them." Rubin later found his
way back to the U.S. and gave testimony before the House Committee on Foreign
Affairs in 1921:
I had been with the American Red Cross people at Odessa. I
was there when the Red Army took possession of Odessa. At that time I was
favorably inclined toward the Soviet Government, because I was a socialist and
had been a member of that party for 20 years. I must admit that to a certain
extent I helped to form the Soviet Government of Odessa ....39
While adding that he had been arrested as a spy by the
Denikin government of South Russia, we learn little more about Rubin. We do,
however, know a great deal more about Robert Minor, who was caught in the act
and released by a mechanism reminiscent of Trotsky's release from a Halifax
prisoner-of-war camp.
Bolshevik propaganda work in
Germany,40 financed and
organized by William Boyce Thompson and Raymond Robins, was implemented in the
field by American citizens, under the supervision of Trotsky's People's
Commissariat for Foreign Affairs:
One of Trotsky's earliest
innovations in the Foreign Office
had been to institute a Press Bureau under Karl Radek and a Bureau of
International Revolutionary Propaganda under Boris Reinstein,
among whose assistants were John Reed and Albert Rhys Williams, and
the full
blast of these power-houses was turned against the Germany army.
A German newspaper, Die Fackel (The Torch), was printed in
editions of half a million a day and sent by special train to Central Army
Committees in Minsk, Kiev, and other cities, which in turn distributed them to
other points along the front.41
Robert Minor was an operative in Reinstein's propaganda
bureau. Minor's ancestors were prominent in early American history. General
Sam Houston, first president of the Republic of Texas, was related to Minor's
mother, Routez Houston. Other relatives were Mildred Washington, aunt of
George Washington, and General John Minor, campaign manager for Thomas
Jefferson. Minor's father was a Virginia lawyer who migrated to Texas. After
hard years with few clients, he became a San Antonio judge.
Robert Minor was a talented cartoonist and a socialist. He
left Texas to come East. Some of his contributions appeared in Masses, a
pro-Bolshevik journal. In 1918 Minor was a cartoonist on the staff of the Philadelphia
Public Ledger. Minor left New York in March 1918 to report the Bolshevik
Revolution. While in Russia Minor joined Reinstein's Bureau of International
Revolutionary Propaganda (see diagram), along with Philip Price, correspondent
of the Daily Herald and Manchester Guardian, and Jacques Sadoul,
the unofficial French ambassador and friend of Trotsky.
Excellent data on the activities of Price, Minor, and
Sadoul have survived in the form of a Scotland Yard (London) Secret Special
Report, No. 4, entitled, "The Case of Philip Price and Robert
Minor," as well as in reports in the files of the State Department,
Washington, D.C.42 According to this Scotland Yard report, Philip Price was in
Moscow in mid-1917, before the Bolshevik Revolution, and admitted, "I am
up to my neck in the Revolutionary movement." Between the revolution and
about the fall of 1918, Price worked with Robert Minor in the Commissariat for
Foreign Affairs.
ORGANIZATION OF FOREIGN PROPAGANDA WORK IN 1918
PEOPLE'S COMMISSARIAT FOR FOREIGN
AFFAIRS
|
|
(Trotsky)
|
BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL
REVOLUTIONARY PROPAGANDA
|
|
(Reinstein)
|
Field Operatives
John Reed
Louis Bryant
Albert Rhys Williams
Robert Minor
Philip Price
Jacques Sadoul
|
In November 1918 Minor and Price left Russia and went to
Germany.43 Their propaganda products were first used on the Russian Murman
front; leaflets were dropped by Bolshevik airplanes amongst British, French, and American
troops — according to
William Thompson's program.44 The decision to send Sadoul, Price, and Minor to
Germany was made by the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party. In
Germany their activities came to the notice of British, French, and American
intelligence. On February 15, 1919, Lieutenant J. Habas of the U.S. Army was
sent to Düsseldorf, then under control of a Spartacist revolutionary group; he
posed as a deserter from the American army and offered his services to the
Spartacists. Habas got to know Philip Price and Robert Minor and suggested
that some pamphlets be printed for distribution amongst American troops. The
Scotland Yard report relates that Price and Minor had already written several
pamphlets for British and American troops, that Price had translated some of
Wilhelm Liebknecht's works into English, and that both were working on
additional propaganda tracts. Habas reported that Minor and Price said they
had worked together in Siberia printing an English-language Bolshevik
newspaper for distribution by air among American and British troops.45
On June 8, 1919, Robert Minor was arrested in Paris by the
French police and handed over to the American military authorities in Coblenz.
Simultaneously, German Spartacists were arrested by the British military
authorities in the Cologne area. Subsequently, the Spartacists were convicted
on charges of conspiracy to cause mutiny and sedition among Allied forces.
Price was arrested but, like Minor, speedily liberated. This hasty release was
noted in the State Department:
Robert Minor has now been released, for reasons that are
not quite clear, since the evidence against him appears to have been ample to
secure conviction. The release will have an unfortunate effect, for Minor is
believed to have been intimately connected with the IWW in America.46
The mechanism by which Robert Minor secured his release is
recorded in the State Department files. The first relevant document, dated
June 12, 1919, is from the U.S. Paris embassy to the secretary of state in
Washington, D.C., and marked URGENT AND CONFIDENTIAL.47 The French Foreign
Office informed the embassy that on June 8, Robert Minor, "an American
correspondent," had been arrested in Paris and turned over to the general
headquarters of the Third American Army in Coblenz. Papers found on Minor
appear "to confirm the reports furnished on his activities. It would
therefore seem to be established that Minor has entered into relations in
Paris with the avowed partisans of Bolshevism." The embassy regarded
Minor as a "particularly dangerous man." Inquiries were being made
of the American military authorities; the embassy believed this to be a matter
within the jurisdiction of the military alone, so that it contemplated no
action although instructions would be welcome.
On June 14, Judge R. B. Minor in San Antonio, Texas,
telegraphed Frank L. Polk in the State Department:
Press reports detention my son Robert Minor in Paris for
unknown reasons. Please do all possible to protect him I refer to Senators
from Texas.
[sgd.] R. P. Minor, District Judge, San Antonio,
Texas48
Polk telegraphed Judge
Minor that neither the State
Department nor the War Department had information on the detention of
Robert Minor, and that the case was now before the military
authorities at Coblenz. Late on June 13 the State Department received a
"strictly confidential urgent" message from Paris reporting a
statement made by the Office of Military Intelligence (Coblenz) in
regard to
the detention of Robert Minor: "Minor was arrested in Paris by French
authorities upon request of British Military Intelligence and
immediately
turned over to American headquarters at Coblenz."49 He was charged with
writing and disseminating Bolshevik revolutionary literature, which had been
printed in Dusseldorf, amongst British and American troops in the areas they
occupied. The military authorities intended to examine the charges against
Minor, and if substantiated, to try him by court-martial. If the charges were
not substantiated, it was their intention to turn Minor over to the British
authorities, "who originally requested that the French hand him over to
them."50 Judge Minor in Texas independently contacted Morris Sheppard,
U.S. senator from Texas, and Sheppard contacted Colonel House in Paris. On
June 17, 1919, Colonel House sent the following to Senator Sheppard:
Both the American Ambassador and I are following Robert
Minor's case. Am informed that he is detained by American Military authorities
at Cologne on serious charges, the exact nature of which it is difficult to
discover. Nevertheless, we will take every possible step to insure just
consideration for him.51
Both Senator Sheppard and Congressman Carlos Bee (14th
District, Texas) made their interest known to the State Department. On June
27, 1919, Congressman Bee requested facilities so that Judge Minor could send
his son $350 and a message. On July 3 Senator Sheppard wrote Frank Polk,
stating that he was "very much interested" in the Robert Minor case,
and wondering whether State could ascertain its status, and whether Minor was
properly under the jurisdiction of the military authorities. Then on July 8
the Paris embassy cabled Washington: "Confidential. Minor released by
American authorities . . . returning to the United States on the first
available boat." This sudden release intrigued the State Department, and
on August 3 Secretary of State Lansing cabled Paris: "Secret. Referring
to previous, am very anxious to obtain reasons for Minor's release by Military
authorities."
Originally, U.S. Army authorities had wanted the British to
try Robert Minor as "they feared politics might intervene in the United
States to prevent a conviction if the prisoner was tried by American
court-martial." However, the British government argued that Minor was a
United States citizen, that the evidence showed he prepared propaganda against
American troops in the first instance, and that, consequently — so the British
Chief of Staff suggested — Minor should be tried before an American court. The
British Chief of Staff did "consider it of the greatest importance to
obtain a conviction if possible."52
Documents in the office of the Chief of Staff of the Third
Army relate to the internal details of Minor's release.53 A telegram of June
23, 1919, from Major General Harbord, Chief of Staff of the Third Army (later
chairman of the Board of International General Electric, whose executive
center, coincidentally, was also at 120 Broadway), to the commanding general,
Third Army, stated that Commander in Chief John J. Pershing "directs that
you suspend action in the case against Minor pending further orders."
There is also a memorandum signed by Brigadier General W. A. Bethel in the
office of the judge advocate, dated June 28, 1919, marked "Secret and
Confidential," and entitled "Robert Minor, Awaiting Trial by a
Military Commission at Headquarters, 3rd Army." The memo reviews the
legal case against Minor. Among the points made by Bethel is that the British
were obviously reluctant to handle the Minor case because "they fear
American opinion in the event of trial by them of an American for a war
offense in Europe," even though tire offense with which Minor is charged
is as serious "as a man can commit." This is a significant
statement; Minor, Price, and Sadoul were implementing a program designed by
Federal Reserve Bank director Thompson, a fact confirmed by Thompson's own
memorandum (see Appendix 3). Was not therefore Thompson (and Robins), to some
degree, subject to the same charges?
After interviewing Siegfried, the witness against Minor,
and reviewing the evidence, Bethel commented:
I thoroughly believe Minor to be guilty, but if I was
sitting in court, I would not put guilty on the evidence now available —
the
testimony of one man only and that man acting in the character of a
detective and informer.
Bethel goes on to state that it would be known within a
week or ten days whether substantial corroboration of Siegfried's testimony
was available. If available, "I think Minor should be tried,"
but "if corroboration cannot be had, I think it would be better to
dismiss the case."
This statement by Bethel was relayed in a different form by
General Harbord in a telegram of July 5 to General Malin Craig (Chief of
Staff, Third Army, Coblenz):
With reference to the case against Minor, unless other
witnesses than Siegfried have been located by this time C in C directs the
case be dropped and Minor liberated. Please acknowledge and state action.
The reply from Craig to General Harbord (July 5) records
that Minor was liberated in Paris and adds, "This is in accordance with
his own wishes and suits our purposes." Craig also adds that other
witnesses had been obtained.
This exchange of telegrams suggests a degree of haste in
dropping the charges against Robert Minor, and haste suggests pressure. There
was no significant attempt made to develop evidence. Intervention by Colonel
House and General Pershing at the highest levels in Paris and the cablegram
from Colonel House to Senator Morris Sheppard give weight to American
newspaper reports that both House and President Wilson were responsible for
Minor's hasty release without trial.54
Minor returned to the United States and, like Thompson and
Robins before him, toured the U.S. promoting the wonders of Bolshevik Russia.
By way of summary, we find that Federal Reserve Bank
director William Thompson was active in promoting Bolshevik interests in
several ways — production of a pamphlet in Russian, financing Bolshevik
operations, speeches, organizing (with Robins) a Bolshevik revolutionary
mission to Germany (and perhaps France), and with Morgan partner Lamont
influencing Lloyd George and the British War Cabinet to effect a change in
British policy. Further, Raymond Robins was cited by the French government for
organizing Russian Bolsheviks for the German revolution. We know that Robins
was undisguisedly working for Soviet interests in Russia and the United
States. Finally, we find that Robert Minor, one of the revolutionary propagandists used in Thompson's program, was released
under circumstances suggesting intervention from the highest levels of the
U.S. government.
Obviously, this is but a
fraction of a much wider picture.
These are hardly accidental or random events. They constitute a coherent,
continuing pattern over several years. They suggest powerful influence at the
summit levels of several governments.
Footnotes:
1For
a biography see Hermann Hagedorn, The Magnate: William Boyce Thompson and His
Time (1869-1930) (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1935).
2Polkovnik'
Villiam' Boic' Thompson', "Pravda o Rossii i Bol'shevikakh" (New York:
Russian-American Publication Society, 1918).
3John
Bradley, Allied Intervention in Russia (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson,
1968.)
4Thomas
W. Lamont, Across World Frontiers (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1959), p.
85. See also pp. 94-97 for massive breastbeating over the failure of President
Wilson to act promptly to befriend the Soviet regime. Corliss Lamont, his son,
became a [font-line domestic leftist in the U.S.
5Donald
McCormick, The Mask of Merlin (London: MacDonald, 1963; New York: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, 1964), p. 208. Lloyd George's personal life would
certainly leave him open to blackmail.
6Ibid.
McCormick's italics.
7British
War Cabinet papers, no. 302, sec. 2 (Public Records Office, London).
8The
written memorandum that Thompson submitted to Lloyd George and that became the
basis for the War Cabinet statement is available from U.S. archival sources and
is printed in full in Appendix 3.
9War
Cabinet papers, 24/49/7197 (G.T. 4322) Secret, April 24, 1918.
10Letter
reproduced in full in Appendix 3. It should be noted that we have identified
Thomas Lamont, Dwight Morrow, and H. P. Davison as being closely involved in
developing policy towards the Bolsheviks. All were partners in the J.P. Morgan
firm. Thacher was with the law firm Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett and was a
close friend of Felix Frankfurter.
11Complete
memorandum is in U.S. State Dept. Decimal File, 316-13-698.
13U.S.,
Senate, Bolshevik Propaganda, Hearings before a Subcommittee of the
Committee on the Judiciary, 65th Cong., t919, p. 802.
14U.S.
State Dept. Decimal File, 861.51/184.
16Inserted
by Senator Calder into the Congressional Record, January 31, 1918, p.
1409.
17Hagedorn,
op. tit., p. 263.
18U.S.
State Dept. Decimal File, 861.00/3005.
19Louis
Ware, George Foster Peabody (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1951).
21If
this argument seems too farfetched, the reader should see Gabriel Kolko, Railroads
and Regulation 1877-1916 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1965), which describes how
pressures for government control and formation of the Interstate Commerce
Commission came from the railroad owners, not from farmers and users of
railroad services.
22C.
K. Cumming and Waller W. Pettit, Russian-American Relations, Documents and
Papers (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Howe, 1920), doe. 44.
25U.S.
State Dept. Decimal File, 861.00/3449. But see Kennan, Russia Leaves the
War, pp. 401-5.
28Richard
H. Ullman, Intervention and the War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1961), t). 61.
29Edward
Crankshaw, The Forsaken Idea: A Study o! Viscount Milner (London:
Longmans Green, 1952), p. 269.
30Robert
Hamilton Bruce Lockhart, British Agent (New York: Putnam's, 1933), p.
119.
32See
Jacques Sadoul, Notes sur la revolution bolchevique (Paris: Editions de
la sirene, 1919).
34U.S.
State Dept. Decimal File, 861.00/1305, March 15, 1918.
37U.S.,
House, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Conditions in Russia, 66th Cong., 3d
sess., 1921.
38Jacob
H. Rubin, 1 Live to Tell: The Russian Adventures o! an American Socialist (Indianapolis:
Bobbs-Merrill, 1934).
39U.S.,
House, Committee on Foreign Affairs, op. cit.
40See
George G. Bruntz, Allied Propaganda and the Collapse o! the German Empire in
1918 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1938), pp. 144-55; see
also herein p. 82.
41John
W. Wheeler-Bennett, The Forgotten Peace (New York: William Morrow, 1939).
42There
is a copy of this Scotland Yard report in U.S. Start' Dept. Decimal File,
316-23-1184 9.
43Joseph
North, Robert Minor: Artist and Crusader (New York: International
Publishers, 1956).
44Samples
of Minor's propaganda tracts are still in the U.S. State Dept. files. See p.
197-200 on Thompson.
46U.S.
State Dept. Decimal File, 316-23-1184.
47Ibid.,
861.00/4680 (316-22-0774).
48Ibid.,
861.00/4685 (/783).
49U.S.
State Dept. Decimal File, 861.00/4688 (/788).
52U.S.
State Dept. Decimal File, 861.00/4874.
53Office
of Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
54U.S.,
Senate, Congressional Record, October 1919, pp. 6430, 6664-66, 7353-54;
and New York Times, October It, 1919. See also Sacramento Bee, July
17, 1919.
No comments:
Post a Comment