Wall Street and the Russian Revolution: 1905-1925 by Richard Spence

Dr. Richard B. Spence is a professor of history at the University of Idaho.

This book is the story of work, motivations, and people behind the scenes of the Russian Revolution of 1917.

The author writes that, "Much of the evidence is circumstantial. Such evidence may not be sufficient to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt, but it may be sufficient to raise serious questions and suggest possible answers. Speculation, as educated guesswork, is the driving force of investigation."

Poverty in Russia before 1917

"Inside Russia’s immense expanse, nearly three times the area of the continental U.S., was a vast treasure house of natural wealth. By merit of these resources, the Tsar’s domain should have been among the most prosperous anywhere. It was blessed with abundant human resources. In the twenty years between 1897 and 1917 its population burgeoned to almost 180 million, nearly twice that of the United States."

"Instead of general prosperity there was pervasive poverty. Three quarters of the population eked a living from the soil. Poverty and frustration bred discontent."

"American, journalist George Kennan, who popularized this view in his 1891 Siberia and the Exile System. The book portrayed Russia as an 'amalgamation of villainy, frozen wastes and hound packs'."

Russia was ripe for revolution. There was a failed revolution in 1905, and then a successful one in 1917 which overthrew the Rule of the Czar.

"From 1905 to 1910, the Tsarist Government faced a veritable onslaught of revolutionary terrorism. From 1901 to 1917, but overwhelmingly concentrated in the post-1905 years, there were 23,000 acts of revolutionary violence which killed or wounded nearly 17,000 – mostly innocent bystanders."

The 1905 revolution failed because:
The military remained loyal.
No good leaders.
Tsar Nicholas allowed to go free.
"Inadequate preparation and planning. Prep and planning required money, and there was too little of that as well."

However, "By 1909, terror was all but throttled and the radical cadres decimated, defeated and demoralized."

American Interest in Russia

"a Russia that realized its full economic potential would constitute a major competitor to every other industrial power, including the U.S.A".

"From the standpoint of Wall Street, it was a potential rival that needed to be co-opted, controlled, or eliminated."

American could not leave Russia alone.

"Russia was under nothing less than a persistent, multi-pronged “economic assault” by American commercial and financial interests aimed at penetrating its markets and gaining control of its resources. The assault failed because the Tsarist Government proved itself more resistant and more resilient than anticipated. The solution, therefore, rested not on diplomacy but on regime change."

Funding the Revolution

"Even more important than numbers was money. Revolutions don’t come cheap, and the movement could never have enough. One means to generate funds was ekspropriatsiya (“expropriation”), or, more simply, robbery."

Russian revolutionaries robbed Helsinki State Bank in 1906, and in Tiflis (Tblisi) in 1907.

Then they had to struggle to launder the money in USA.

"More important to revolutionary finances were the contributions of wealthy sympathizers. "

"Furthermore, the post-1905 years saw the development of a sophisticated American support network for the Russian revolutionary cause, most clearly embodied by the revived Friends of Russian Freedom.

Most importantly, the revolutionary cause had the backing of well-heeled friends in high places, preeminently Crane and Schiff. When 1917 came along, the template was already set, the spin and response pre-determined."

It was not just money, but influence and protection that Russian revolutionaries received from influential people in America. The author gives several examples of this.

"Everywhere Trotsky turned in New York he was surrounded by persons willing and able to give him money."

One of the claims by the author in the books is that "Crane asserted that Jacob Schiff “had given Trotsky fifty thousand dollars when he started to Russia.”"

"Wiseman concocted a scheme to send his own agents from America to “guide the storm” by exerting counter influence. These agents included “international socialists” and even “notorious nihilists.” Trotsky, arguably, was his first stab at this."

"This so-called February Revolution, in reality a carefully orchestrated coup d’état, had achieved in a week what the Revolution of 1905 failed to do in almost a year.

The difference was a much longer and more costly war and better preparation."

Wall St. and Regime Change in Russia

"Russia’s revolutionary upheavals between 1905 and 1917 were not isolated cases. Very similar disturbances occurred in Persia (Iran), Turkey, Mexico and China. In each case, foreign interests, including American, funded or encouraged the revolutionary movements. The natural resources and economic assets of these countries came up for grabs, and grabbed they were."

"At the beginning of the 20th century, all the above states were governed by “backward” authoritarian regimes. Each possessed natural wealth that foreign capitalists were eager to exploit. As in Russia’s case, the existing regimes were held to be obstacles to “progress” and “democracy.”"

"The 1898 victory over Spain secured Washington’s, and Wall Street’s, control of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines."

"A “Constitutionalist Revolution” swept oil-rich Persia in 1906."

"In 1908-09 a military-political conspiracy dubbed the “Young Turk” Revolution came to power in the Ottoman Empire which then controlled much of the Middle East. "

"Mexico’s turn came in 1910, when another revolution toppled the country’s aging dictator, Porfirio Diaz."

"In 1911, revolution came to China..."

"It is a common misconception that prior to World War One the U.S. was an isolationist nation with little political or economic interests outside its borders. Nothing could be further from the truth. The roots of American interventionism go back as far as the 1823 Monroe Doctrine..."

"well before 1917 the U.S. Government and Wall Street were well-versed in instigating revolutionary upheavals to achieve economic and political aims. Russia would offer the biggest opportunity of all."

Russia after the revolution of 1917

As almost always, the spirit of the revolution disappears leaving behind the scum of bureaucracy.

"For those on Wall Street (and elsewhere) who dreamed of putting the brakes on Russia’s economic development and seeing its riches and resources up for grabs under a regime willing to sell anything, that dream had basically come true.

From 1918 through early 1921, Bolshevik “War Communism” reduced Russia to an economy based on barter and robbery. Besides the abolition of private trade and the destruction of the monetary system, the Red regime embarked on a massive looting campaign, ransacking palaces, bank vaults, churches and museums. They expropriated every valuable they could get their hands on and stashed it all in a new “State Treasury,” the Gokhran.

By the close of 1921, an estimated $450 million in valuables had been sequestered there, with more to come, much of it destined to be fenced abroad for a fraction of its value in capitalist hard currency."

"There never was a Grand Unified Wall Street Conspiracy to economically dominate Russia."

Trotsky architected the revolution. Wall St. funded it. The outcome of the revolution of 1917 was that Russia was impoverished, and the private backers looted Russia's treasures.

But, "More often, their[Wall St.] plans competed with and undercut one another." "Wall Streeters, who almost all hoped for the Reds’ demise, and the Soviets, who likewise awaited capitalism’s destruction, could never muster an authentic spirit of collaboration. It was always mutual exploitation."



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