(9) World War I and Lenin: German Support and the Seizure of Newspaper Media

Read Victor Sebeschen's "Lenin: Power and Love" ⑼

Continued by Victor SebeschenLenin, Power and Love.The following are some of the memorable passages from the

Outbreak of the Russian February Revolution in 1917

In February 1917, the Russian Revolution broke out.

The revolution had almost begun as Ofrana (*The Emperor's secret police. The revolution had begun almost exactly as the warnings of the Oblana (*Czar's secret police, blog author's note) had predicted. The Russian winter of 1916-17 was the coldest in the 20th century. This is an important and often underestimated factor in what is about to happen.

From the end of January to almost the end of February, the temperature in Petrograd averaged minus 15 degrees Celsius. Transportation networks to the cities, including railroads, were almost completely shut down. Grain and other food supplies never reached Petrograd or Moscow.

On February 19, the capital's Administrative Director, A. P. Baruk, reported that the city had received only 500,000 pds (old Russian unit of weight, one pd is about 16 kg) of flour the previous week, compared to the usual 30,000 pds, and that the city's bakeries were able to use only 35,000 pds of flour compared to the usual 90,000 pds. The city's bakeries reported using only 35,000 poods of flour compared to the normal 90,000 poods.

Thousands of women - in fact, most of them were women - stood in line all night long for bread. Next, on February 23, the weather in the Arctic suddenly changed, and "the temperature was a mild five degrees.

It was then that the wave of strikes and demonstrations began in Petrograd - about 130,000 people on the 23rd of International Women's Day, and over 180,000 the next day. By the afternoon of the first mass street action, the people were no longer shouting "Give us bread" and "We are hungry," but "Down with the Czar," "Give us peace," and "Fuck you German women.

The police were unable to control the crowd, and the military refused to fire on civilians. The crowd lynched police officers - killing the Petrograd police commissioner with a stone - and began to occupy government buildings. They "liberated" the Petropavlovsk Fortress Prison and freed a small number of imprisoned prisoners. Most had been arrested during the past few days. A large part of the city was in the hands of the protest participants.
Some line breaks have been made.

Hakusuisha, Victor Sebeschen, translated by Motohiro Miura and Tsukasa Yokoyama, Lenin: Power and Love, vol. 2, p. 19-20.

The Russian February Revolution of 1917 was not actually led by Lenin. It began with demonstrations by starving citizens demanding food.

Moreover, as mentioned here, this winter was much colder than usual and food shortages were severe. Furthermore, the economy had been destroyed by World War I, and the number of casualties from the war was only increasing. The dissatisfaction with the government was on the verge of exploding.

And just in time for International Women's Day, the extreme cold weather subsided and warm temperatures returned. This meant that more people went out and joined the demonstrations. It may seem trivial that the weather had such an impact on the revolution, but it actually played a major role. I thought, "This makes sense.

Now, a more detailed explanation of the history of this revolution would be quite lengthy.

If you want to know more about the book, please read this book and the previously introduced book by Masashi Jinno, "World History Theatre: The Russian Revolutionary UpheavalI would like to invite you to read the book "The

I won't go any further in this article, but the important thing to remember about this revolution is that it was spontaneous. And the important thing to remember is that Lenin played no role, or was not even on the scene.

Lenin was in exile in Switzerland at the time, and it is said that he himself was taken aback by the news of the revolution. He was shocked at the news from far away in Switzerland, saying, "I never thought that a revolution would really happen.

It was after the February Revolution that Lenin would become a leading figure in the Russian Revolution. He would return to Russia in a tremendous way and fight the post-revolutionary Provisional Government.

Lenin's Return to Germany Sealing Train

The Provisional Government established after the Russian February Revolution insisted on continuing the First World War.

But Germany, which was fighting Britain, France, and Russia, hoped that Russia would back off.

Once the fighting with Russia is over, we can concentrate on fighting Britain and France.

Germany then came up with an ingenious plan. It was the famous "sealed train" that was used to transport Lenin to Russia. A brief description of the "sealed train" is as follows

seal train
Germany supported Lenin's return to Japan after seeing the coincidence of interests in "overthrowing the Provisional Government, which cried out for the continuation of the war.
Lenin and 32 comrades were to be delivered.
However, to avoid the spread of revolutionary ideas throughout Germany, the train windows were closed and all contact with the outside world was prohibited.
Thus, this is called a "sealed train.
In reality, however, this order was not enforced in the field, and Lenin was able to look out the window of a moving train, get off at one stop to buy newspapers, beer, etc., and even make contact with outsiders.

Bele Publishing, by Masashi Jinno.World History Theatre: The Russian Revolutionary UpheavalP216

Lenin insisted on stopping the war with Germany. That was to Germany's advantage. Germany wanted to send him to Russia to do political maneuvering to gain the upper hand in the war against Britain and France.

However, Lenin was not calling for a cessation of war because he was a pacifist. He was only advocating the cessation of war because it would be advantageous for his own seizure of power. In fact, after his seizure of power, Russia was pushed into a civil war.

Lenin's political activities - populist speeches. Lying promises.

Upon his return by sealed train, Lenin became actively involved in political activities. He attacked the Provisional Government and made a series of radical speeches urging his own leadership.

In public life, Lenin adopted a highly populist style of political activism that would be seen in sophisticated democracies with long histories - and imitated by many popular agitators - a hundred years later. He proposed simple solutions to complex problems. He lied without shame.

He is not the brilliant eloquent speaker that Kerensky and Trotsky were, respectively. But he excelled at presenting the issues in direct and direct terms that anyone could understand, and explaining that the world could be changed if only the people would listen to him and to the Bolsheviks.

That economic inequity and semi-feudal institutions have slowed Russia for centuries? His answer is simple and clear. He said, "All the people have to do is confiscate the assets of 10000 financial and industrial tycoons and break the resistance of ...... dozens of millionaires."

People are hungry for land? It's simple. The peasants must take the land from the original landowner-master. Now the peasants must be the masters.

That workers might not understand how to run an industry? Lenin had a solution. Arrest a handful of capitalists and put them in the same situation as Nikolai Romanov is in now, and they will reveal the clues and secrets of their wealth.
Some line breaks have been made.

Hakusuisha, Victor Sebeschen, translated by Motohiro Miura and Tsukasa Yokoyama, Lenin: Power and Love, vol. 2, p.67-68

Lenin used a populist approach to political activity that is still particularly problematic today. He would say more and more things that were easy to understand and that the people would jump on. He would say things that were easy to understand and that would make the people jump to action. He would incite the desire and hatred of the dissatisfied people to become his followers.

Lenin, in his unabashedly cynical language, was wont to promise people everything and anything. He promised land to the peasants - but he never thought of giving them manors. He wanted to nationalize the land so that the peasants could work in huge state-run collective farms.

He said workers must run the factories. But in fact, he did not believe in the pledge that workers would manage enterprises or create cooperatives run by labor unions. He wanted to centralize labor force management under the leadership of the Party.

When the Provisional Government postponed the Constituent Assembly elections, originally scheduled for early September, Lenin attacked it as a "betrayal" of democracy. Of course, he did not believe in "bourgeois democracy" - free elections with competing parties - and in the state he created, there would be none for the next 70 years.

In political propaganda, it is important to keep things simple, he told his aides. We must talk about peace, land, bread, these things. Then we will shine like a lighthouse in the darkness.

He defended what he knew to be a lie on the premise that he theorized most things. In other words, the ends - the socialist revolution - justify the means.

During his three months back in Russia, Lenin addressed dozens of rallies and became the center of public attention day by day. He was lucid, logical, forthright, sincere, and apparently honest and persuasive. Although he did not have a strong physical presence, "people felt that there was something extraordinary about him.
Some line breaks have been made.

Hakusuisha, Victor Sebeschen, translated by Motohiro Miura and Tsukasa Yokoyama, Lenin: Power and Love, vol. 2, p.68-69

Signs of civil war in rural areas

Lenin's determination to stir up class hatred for political ends was appalling to his critics. But for Lenin, socialism was class warfare itself. Therefore, the violence that accompanies it is inevitable.

As he used to say, "No major problem in history has ever been solved without force. The state of chaos in Russia, he told his close comrades, should be welcomed "on the assumption that what is bad for their bourgeois government is good for ours.

Nevertheless, even some of Lenin's admirers were shocked by the mass agitation populism he displayed in the spring and summer of 1917. For example, the slogan he used in many of his speeches, "Deprive the deprived of their deprivation. An ardent socialist, Gorky was in despair. My anxiety grows every day," he wrote to his wife on June 14. Lenin's mad political activity will soon lead to civil war.

The civil war was already taking place in rural villages engulfed in a state of chaos. The orders of the Provisional Government had failed to reach much of the Russian countryside, and law and order had completely collapsed. Many estates throughout Russia were occupied by peasants, and the peasant clans evicted, assaulted, and in many cases murdered their landlords.
Some line breaks have been made.

Hakusuisha, Victor Sebeschen, translated by Motohiro Miura and Tsukasa Yokoyama, Lenin: Power and Love, vol. 2, p.74

Lenin repeatedly made radical speeches, inciting hatred among the people.

Order began to break down in the countryside during the February Revolution, when Lenin had not yet returned to Russia, and by the time he began to take control, chaos had set in. The seeds of civil war were already being planted.

Lenin's Expansion of Power: His Seizure of the Newspaper Media

Lenin was completely optimistic. Partly because he was convinced that his message was getting through, but mainly because he had access to huge financial resources. The Bolshevik party membership was growing.

The number of party members, which had reached a maximum of 23,000 at the beginning of March, had reached 900,000 by July. Most importantly, the Bolsheviks quickly established a newspaper empire with a circulation far greater than that of any party newspaper.

Pravda was legalized at the end of February. By mid-April, it was printing and selling 85,000 copies a day in Petrograd. There were local editions, and editions for different ethnic groups were published in Georgian, Latvian, Polish, Armenian, and Yiddish, in the main.

A huge number of copies of Soldatkovaya Pravda (Soldier Pravda) went out to army soldiers - 70,000 copies a day for front-line soldiers - and to sailors. Unexpectedly, the Bolsheviks were able to afford an expensive new state-of-the-art printing press, had money to buy a huge stockpile of newsprint, and had a distribution system that could reach a large number of readers.

And they found excellent journalists who produced readable and, at times, excellent papers. All together, the Bolsheviks had a total of 41 newspapers with a total circulation of about 350,000 at the beginning of July.

Getting the newspaper off the ground so quickly was "an unusual organizing feat," Trotsky said, and it created a huge impact of political propaganda for the Bolsheviks.

Those who had never heard of the Bolsheviks before now knew where they stood - on the question of war, that is.
Some line breaks have been made.

Hakusuisha, Victor Sebeschen, translated by Motohiro Miura and Tsukasa Yokoyama, Lenin: Power and Love, vol. 2, p.80-81

Lenin was indeed a master orator, and his populist strategy, coupled with his own, won him many supporters.

However, it was his media strategy that quickly boosted his popularity.

He started his own newspaper and took control of the media in Russia. This was, as the quote says, "an extraordinary feat of organization. He provided the public with a quality and quantity of material that overwhelmed other newspapers.

But then, how was Lenin able to do such a trick? That is the following quote.

Huge secret aid payments by Germany

This undertaking, directed by Lenin, would not have been possible without the huge amount of money from Germany that was part of the deal that included the "sealed train".

Although Lenin did not handle the arrangement himself, and there are no records directly linking him to the deal, there is no doubt that Lenin was aware of all the details of the commission. It was not until some time after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 that some evidence came to light. The Communist Party had carefully concealed the evidence for more than 70 years. Even now the details are not fully known.

No one knows for sure how much money flowed from Germany to the Bolsheviks between February 1917 and March 2006. Eduard Bernstein of the German Social Democratic Party was one of the first to openly address the allegations. But he was a well-known longtime enemy of Lenin, and he himself admitted that he could not prove anything from his "certainly reliable sources. He also claimed that the amount of money Germany gave Lenin was exorbitant - "about 500 million gold marks," he said. He also claimed that the amount Germany gave Lenin was exorbitant - "about 500 million gold marks," he said, "about 100 million dollars in today's value. Whatever the actual figure, it must have been a lot of money, but not that much. (omitted).

Germany later admitted that it had helped the Bolsheviks financially, without saying how much. When the Bolsheviks came to power, Germany was pleased with the success of its strategy. The German Foreign Minister, Richard von Kühlmann, was very proud.

The dismantling of the Consultative Agreement constitutes ...... the most important war objective of our diplomacy," he told his fellow cabinet members.

Russia was the weakest link in the enemy chain. Our task was to loosen and, if possible, remove the chains. This was the aim of our [subversive] activities [with revolutionary groups] in Russia. ......The Bolsheviks' ability to launch their newspaper Pravda, to carry out vigorous political propaganda, and to successfully expand their narrow party base was due to the fact that they were able to receive a steady flow of funds from us through various channels and under different names. It was only after they received a steady flow of money from us, through different channels and under different names, that they were able to successfully expand their narrow party base. ...... It is entirely in our interest."

Once in power, Lenin hastened to cover his tracks. The new regime after the October Revolution destroyed all evidence as far as it could find when officials inspected the documents of the Provisional Government. Lenin and Trotsky undoubtedly knew about the cover-up and likely ordered it.

They were determined not to leave any traces, but at least one memorandum that remained shows that they had left no stone unturned.

Two officials from the Foreign Affairs and People's Commissariat under the leadership of Trotsky, Fyodor Zarkind and Evgeny Polivanov, reported finding several "seized and valuable materials."

In a letter to Lenin, they wrote, "From the files in the custody of the Ministry of Justice concerning the so-called 'trafficking acts' of Comrade Lenin, Zinoviev, Kollontai and others, we have removed instruction number 27433, dated March 2, 1917, of the Deutsche Reichsbank, authorizing payment of money." They state that they "inspected all the passbooks of the New Stockholm Bank ...... and found instruction 2704 from the Deutsche Reichsbank," which they also removed. This document saw the light of day 70 years later.

The enormous German funding for their activities was a major boost to the Bolsheviks' fortunes. But the incompetence of Lenin's enemies was a bigger factor - and Lenin was quick to seize the opportunities they repeatedly gave him.
Some line breaks have been made.

Hakusuisha, Victor Sebeschen, translated by Motohiro Miura and Tsukasa Yokoyama, Lenin: Power and Love, vol. 2, p.81-84

What a surprise: behind Lenin's political activities was the secret funding of the German government. And the amount of money was extraordinary. It was such funds that made it possible for Lenin to seize control of the media in Russia.

It was Germany that sent Lenin, who was in exile in Switzerland at the outbreak of the Russian February Revolution, back to Russia on a sealed train.

By sending Lenin, who had insisted on withdrawing from the war, to Russia, Germany was hoping to get the Russian government to back off from the war against Germany.

So Germany continued to support Lenin in secret after his return.

It was also surprising to me that Lenin was able to seize power only because of German strategy.

It made me realize the complexity of international politics.

be unbroken

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