"The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 came near failing. Only the energy and genius of Lenin pulled it through. What if you traveled to the nineteenth century and quietly, harmlessly prevented Lenin's parents from ever meeting each other?"
-Poul Anderson, "The Year of the Ransom" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 641-735 AT p. 672.
We recall this passage because we have acquired W. Somerset Maugham, Ashenden (London, 2000), fiction based on its author's experiences.
"In 1917 I went to Russia. I was sent to prevent the Bolshevik Revolution and to keep Russia in the war. The reader will know that my efforts did not meet with success."
-Preface, pp. v-x AT p. ix.
If Maugham had succeeded, then the Time Patrol would have had to become involved.
Since we have compared Anderson's Dominic Flandry with Ian Fleming's James Bond, we might also compare Bond with Maugham's Ashenden. Bond is a Cold War secret agent whose superior is an Admiral called M whereas Ashenden is a World War I secret agent whose superior is a Colonel called R.
We live in a sea of literary associations.
26 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I'm puzzled, as far as I know almost no one in any posts of authority outside Russia knew about that Bad Man's existence--aside from the Germans who injected him like a plague bacillus into Russia. Meaning I don't think anyone in British Intelligence would even think of someone as obscure as Ulyanov.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Maugham went to support Kerensky, not to eliminate Lenin.
Time travellers in the Time Patrol timeline could eliminate Lenin/Ulyanov.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Both of the two Provisional prime ministers, Prince George Lvov and Alexander Kerensky, were well meaning but ineffectual. It would make sense for some to support them, to prevent more iron-willed leaders from coming to power.
And Manse Everard, despite his loathing for the monstrous Lenin, would have to thwart these efforts to eliminate Ulyanov.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Does Everard express loathing?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
He certainly detested having to work to make bad things come to pass in history, and that includes Lenin and his equally monstrous successor, Stalin, who died today in 1953.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
There are different views about Lenin. Read other accounts.
Everard does not say anything on the subject although of course we can infer what his views would probably be.
Paul.
If you read Lenin's correspondence, he's very enthusiastic about terrorism and mass killing.
Mr Stirling,
Can you point me to reference for this?
Many of us certainly need to read more about Lenin, including me.
Paul.
And this is a telegraph he sent to an area where a peasant insurrection had broken out (he uses the dehumanizing term "kulaks"):
"Comrades! The insurrection of five kulak districts should be ruthlessly suppressed.
The interests of the whole revolution require this because 'the last decisive battle'[a] with the kulaks is now underway everywhere. An example must be made.
Hang (absolutely hang, in full view of the people) no fewer than one hundred known kulaks, fatcats, bloodsuckers.
Publish their names.
Seize all grain from them.(*)
Designate hostages - in accordance with yesterday's telegram.
Do it in such a fashion, that for hundreds of verst around the people see, tremble, know, shout: "the bloodsucking kulaks are being strangled and will be strangled".
Telegraph the receipt and implementation. Yours, Lenin.
P.S. Find tougher people."
(*) thus condemning their families and children to starvation, btw.
And in Crimea, of course, after promising clemency for those who surrendered,
50,000 were summarily executed with Lenin's approval:
In Crimea , Béla Kun and Rosalia Zemlyachka , with Lenin's approval, [ 49 ] had 50,000 White prisoners of war and civilians summarily executed by shooting or hanging after the defeat of general Pyotr Wrangel at the end of 1920. They had been promised amnesty if they would surrender.
From SM Stirling:
Comrade Fyodorov,
It is obvious that a whiteguard insurrection is being prepared in Nizhni. You must strain every effort, appoint three men with dictatorial powers (yourself, Markin and one other), organise immediately mass terror, shoot and deport the hundreds of prostitutes who are making drunkards of the soldiers, former officers and the like.
Not a minute of delay.
I can’t understand how Romanov could leave at a time like this!
I do not know the bearer. His name is Alexei Nikolayevich Bobrov. He says he worked in Vyborgskaya Storona District in Petrograd (from 1916).... Previously worked in Nizhni in 1905.
Judging by his credentials, he can be trusted. Check up on this and set him to work.
Peters, Chairman of the Extraordinary Commission, says that they also have reliable people in Nizhni.
You must act with all energy. Mass searches. Execution for concealing arms. Mass deportation of Mensheviks and unreliables. Change the guards at warehouses, put in reliable people.
They say Raskolnikov and Danishevsky are on their way to see you from Kazan.
Read this letter to the friends and reply by telegraph or telephone.
Yours,
Lenin
Combox Confusion:
In response to a request from me for some references, SM Stirling sent no less than three comments. I have a record of the reception of all three comments although, as far as I can see, only the second and third appeared here in the combox. I have therefore copied the first which consequently appears after instead of before the second and third. Now I will read them!
Slightly more confusion (sorry, folks):
In copying and pasting SM Stirlings' first comment, I omitted his first two lines which were:
"Well, here's a sample:
"August 9, 1918"
Now, hopefully to eliminate all confusion, here is the entire comment:
Well, here's a sample:
August 9, 1918
Comrade Fyodorov,
It is obvious that a whiteguard insurrection is being prepared in Nizhni. You must strain every effort, appoint three men with dictatorial powers (yourself, Markin and one other), organise immediately mass terror, shoot and deport the hundreds of prostitutes who are making drunkards of the soldiers, former officers and the like.
Not a minute of delay.
I can’t understand how Romanov could leave at a time like this!
I do not know the bearer. His name is Alexei Nikolayevich Bobrov. He says he worked in Vyborgskaya Storona District in Petrograd (from 1916).... Previously worked in Nizhni in 1905.
Judging by his credentials, he can be trusted. Check up on this and set him to work.
Peters, Chairman of the Extraordinary Commission, says that they also have reliable people in Nizhni.
You must act with all energy. Mass searches. Execution for concealing arms. Mass deportation of Mensheviks and unreliables. Change the guards at warehouses, put in reliable people.
They say Raskolnikov and Danishevsky are on their way to see you from Kazan.
Read this letter to the friends and reply by telegraph or telephone.
Yours,
Lenin
Now, as my comment, if I were in a country where I was supporting a revolutionary movement, then I would certainly not support the methods described here: terror, hanging etc. We know that things went very wrong very quickly in Russia. This confirms and indeed emphasizes it.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: I read with interest/disgust this example of Ilyich's brutality and fanaticism. It certainly fitted in with what I read about Lenin's crimes from other sources.
I was esp. interested in how you mentioned Peter Wrangel. Because he was one of the most able of the White generals during the Civil War. And not only just as a fighter feared and dreaded by the Bolsheviks, but also because, unlike some of the other White generals, Wrangel kept his troops firmly in line, refusing to tolerate looting and random violence by them. He was also far more politically savvy than Admiral Kolchak and Gen. Denikin, having a much sounder grasp of the political/military strategy needed to crush the Bolshevik criminals.
Alas, by the time Wrangel rose to command of the White movement early in 1920 it was too late (or almost too late) for him to reverse the blunders of his predecessors. But he did his best, introducing sweeping political and military reforms in the territory still held by the Whites. He also executed a skillfully planned counteroffensive against the Bolsheviks which shocked and drove them back, for a time.
But it was too late, the forces mustered by Lenin's minions were too much for Wrangel to decisively defeat, forcing him to retreat to the Crimean peninsula, where he prepared an evacuation that was a military masterpiece. At least 150,000 Russians and the Tsarist Black Sea fleet withdrew into exile in an orderly way. I recall reading of Wrangel warning the Russians who wanted to trust Lenin's lying promises of clemency that they were making a mistake--and he was right, with 50,000 or more being slaughtered by the Bolsheviks.
One thing puzzles me, I don't understand Ilyich's reference to "Romanov" in the telegram of August 9, 1918. Tsar Nicholas II and his entire family had been massacred at Ekaterinburg om July 18, 1918 by the Bolsheviks.
Paul: Why are you so eager to defend almost any "revolutionary movement"? It's naive to think all revolutions are either deserving of support or that any revolutionary regime will be better than its predecessor. Most revolutions are catastrophes.
The wrong thing in Russia was Marxism and the fanaticism and cruelty it encouraged, enabling evil and vile men like Lenin to seize power.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I am not eager to defend almost any "revolutionary movement" and do not think that all "revolutions" are deserving of support or that any revolutionary regime will necessarily be better than its predecessor. The present state of the world is a catastrophe. A revolutionary transformation is necessary but it has to come from mass movements, not from small groups, although small groups play a role in challenging ruling ideas and presenting alternatives.
As with "socialism," "revolution" has different meanings. A mere seizure of an already existing state apparatus by a small group is in no way revolutionary.
Marxism is an excellent critique of capitalism. It does not in itself encourage fanaticism or cruelty, quite the contrary, although some fanatics distort it just as other fanatics distort Christianity.
The "forces mustered by Lenin's minions" were Russians defending their revolution.
A focus on one "evil and vile" man in no way addresses the issues. One man did not seize power. Soviets (workers councils) with Bolshevik majorities did what the Bolsheviks had long said needed to be done and what the workers by now expected of them. They ended the dual power between themselves and the Provisional Government. They pulled Russia out of that deadly and destructive war. They passed progressive laws, for example emancipating women. The civil war destroyed the physical basis of workers' democracy, leaving only a state bureaucracy which became a dictatorship.
To say that Marxism encouraged fanaticism and cruelty enabling evil and vile men to seize power is a complete distortion and reads like nothing more than an expression of hate directed towards those you disagree with philosophically and politically.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
My instinct is to distrust revolution, or at least any kind of violent political revolution. There has been too much horror and bloodshed from all such revolutions since 1789 for me to regard them with anything but icy suspicion and distrust.
That's exactly what Ilyich and his small clique of cronies did, seize control of the existing state from the Provisional Gov't.
Disagree, Marxism has been an all too excellent tool for fanaticism and cruelty. Reread Ilyich's telegrams above. And vol. 1 of THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO gives a detailed description of how Lenin molded the Soviet state to be as brutal as it became.
The forces mustered by Lenin's minions were led by monsters and criminals. With Trotsky sometimes taking the families of Red officers as hostages, to prevent defections to the Whites. That "revolution" was a disgusting horror.
I don't believe one bit in those "Soviets." It was a coup led by a small faction controlled by Lenin to seize power from an est. gov't, however weak it was. Btw, Lenin soon got rid of those "Soviets:" when he no longer needed them. Next, Lenin had to agree to ignominious and traitorous terms with the Central Powers to "pull" Russia out of WW I (Treaty of Brest-Litovsk). To say nothing of the Civil War starting in 1918. Nonsense, re "progressive laws," empty words in the dictatorship Lenin set up. Late Tsarist Russia was far more genuinely progressive.
Denied, Marxism enabled cruelty and fanaticism. Every single Marxist regime has been like that.
Ad astra! Sean
Disagree. (But we are not trying to agree.)
There have not been many Marxist regimes.
I think that the English and American Revolutions had good outcomes.
Kaor, Paul!
I should not need to go thru the list of Marxist dictatorships, but very well:
After the USSR the next Marxist regime set up was the puppet set up in Mongolia in 1924.
Next came the satellite regimes set up in eastern Europe by Stalin after WW II in Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria. Yugoslavia and Albania were also afflicted with Marxist despots, but they eluded Stalin's grasp.
The Maoist Marxists conquered China by 1949.
Marxists seized control of North Vietnam and conquered Laos and South Vietnam. And Pol Pot's ghastly brand of Marxists ravaged Cambodia from 1975-79.
Fidel Castro and his Marxists seized power in Cuba in 1959.
Ethiopian Marxists seized power in Ethiopia in 1974.
Marxist regimes were not "few" and they were all terrible, all tyrannical.
The British/American "revolutions" were that peculiarity, conservative revolutions. Led by men motivated by their views of English law and the rights of Englishmen.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I forgot to include the weird Kim Marxist regime in North Korea in the above list.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Well, if all that you mean by a "Marxist regime" is a dictatorship with an officially Marxist ideology, then, yes, there have been a great number of them.
If someone like Stalin sets up a puppet regime and calls it "Marxist," then I call that a puppet bureaucratic regime set up by a dictator. It is not a country in which the majority of the population, workers by hand and brain, have collectively seized control of the means of production and have democratically reorganized production for the needs of society instead of for the profits of a minority.
Paul.
Maoists just marched into the capital city and took control of the state, telling workers to remain at work, not even to strike in support of a new regime! That was not a workers' revolution and was certainly not the same sort of thing as the massive class struggle that happened in Russia in 1917. Words like "Marxist," "socialist" and revolution" are used far too loosely.
There were no workers' revolutions in Eastern Europe or Cuba.
I do not support "Marxist despots" (frankly, a self-contradictory phrase) any more than I suppose that you would support Catholic despots.
I think that we have been through at least some of this before?
That North Korean regime cannot possibly be the sort of thing that I am talking about! Anyone can appropriate the word, "Marxist," just as they can appropriate "democratic," "Christian" etc.
Kaor, Paul!
I don't believe you, you are holding on to a definition of Marxism the way you wish it was. You don't get to tell other Marxists they are not Marxists because they acted in ways you don't like.
The Chinese Maoist Marxists fought a four years civil war to conquer all of China. Peking is not all of China.
I did not say "you" support Marxist despots. And every single Marxist regime has been that, despotic. I don't care about nonsense like "workers revolutions," what matters is how Marxism actually turned out.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I don't believe you. It is absurd. I have read Marxist literature and know Marxists. You don't get to tell Marxists what "Marxists" are just because all these dictators and bureaucrats have misused that word just as the Inquisitors misused "Christianity."
Maoists are Chinese nationalists using "Marxism" instead of Confucianism or something else as a convenient modern ideological label. They did not lead a workers' revolution in China.
"Marxist despot" is a contradiction. There have not been many Marxist regimes. The Russian Revolution was led by Marxists and was overwhelmed by Russian backwardness, isolation and devastation, leaving only a state capitalist regime that of course claimed to be Marxist while contradicting Marxism in practice.
Workers' revolution is not nonsense. I do care about it. It overthrew the Shah but unfortunately workers were not organized enough to prevent the Ayatollahs from filling the vacuum. An Iranian Marxist that I knew went back and was killed by the Ayatollahs.
Eastern Europe and Korea are not "how Marxism turned out." That imposition of brutal dictatorships has nothing to do with workers' collective self-emancipation which IS approached every time there is mass opposition to oppression. That, not bombardment, is what is needed in Iran and throughout the Middle East.
Is it possible just to DISCUSS these issues instead of going hammer and tongs to rubbish an alternative point of view? This merely entrenches prejudice.
Paul.
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