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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sidney Reilly who wrote (34298)	4/10/1999 10:44:00 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Revolutions cost money. Not much, actually. All it takes is an angry populace and an inept government with a poor hold on its coercive apparatus. You haven't answered my question on motive. Why would international bankers lend money to a communist organization that would not have any conceivable intention of paying them back? What would they stand to gain? Who loaned the money, in exchange for what? What do you think was exchanged? There is no need to look for a conspiracy behind a revolution. Not that outsiders do not occasionally try to forment discontent and provoke revolution in other countries, for their own motives. But unless the basic prerequisites for revolution - a government without control and an angry populace - are present, no degree of conspiracy or provocation will produce revolution.

To: Sidney Reilly who wrote (34298)	4/10/1999 10:50:00 PM
From: nihil	Respond to of 108807

Here it is. Marx was financed by Engels, a Manchester businessman who made his money sweating textile workers, so it may be fairly said that the English working class financed the development of Marxian thought. Lenin's education was financed by his father, a Russian school administrator, so it may be fairly said that Lenin was financed by the Imperial Russian Government. Stalin was an orthodox theology seminary student in Georgia. So it may be fairly said that the Russian Orthodox Church financed his revolutionary activity. He later made his living robbing banks, so it may be fairly said that Russian banks financed his revolutionary activities. Now I've got to do my taxes, or the authorities will send me to Vorkuta. Please continue your researtch on your own. No need to publish until you learn how to reference your sources.

To: Sidney Reilly who wrote (34298)	4/11/1999 12:02:00 AM
From: jbe	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

Tell us what you have learned. I have learned to reject all mono-causal explanations. And I have learned that we will probably never know the "Full Truth" about anything, that we will have to content ourselves with possibilities or, at best, probabilities. As far as the multiple causes of the Russian Revolution are concerned, I would list, in descending order of importance: 1) The ineptitude and the anachronistic character of the Russian monarchy, which became more obvious than ever during the war years (Rasputin, the rumor that the Tsarina was a "German spy", etc.); 3) The impact of the war -- and the war-weariness it provoked; 3) The absence of a developed civil society. (It had been developing on the eve of the war, but the war cut it short.) I am speaking, of course, of THE Russian Revolution -- the democratic revolution of February, 1917. The October (Bolshevik) Revolution actually began as a coup, and wound up as a civil war. I would disagree with Steve that you need an ANGRY populace to make a revolution (let alone a coup); but you do need an uncontrollable one. The "democrats" -- Kerensky et al. -- made the (understandable) mistake of insisting on continuing the war "on the side of the democracies" (after all, they had to prove they were not "German spies" like the Tsarina), but at the same time they allowed the relaxation (the disappearance, rather) of discipline in the army, and launched some unfortunate failed offensives. In any event, the army disintegrated -- the peasants just "walked off the job." And the whole country was at loose ends. (The proletariat, incidentally, played a relatively insignificant role in the revolution.) The Bolsheviks were able to seize power because they were the only group that was determined to seize it -- and the only group that promised peace. This, of course, is a tremendous oversimplification. Just trying to hit what I see as some of the major factors. Another point: But the history books never say who paid the bill!! What history books? Your high-school texts? For years one of the most popular theories, by the way, was the theory that the Germans financed the Bolsheviks. After all, they did provide Lenin with the armored train that ensured his safe passage from his exile in Switzerland through to the Russian border....And, of course, one of the first things the Bolsheviks did after seizing power was to make peace with the Germans at Brest-Litovsk...and hand them over a considerable piece of formerly Russian territory. Personally, however, I prefer nihil's theories... jbe