Book Review: Wall Street and the Russian Revolution: 1905-1925, By Richard B. Spence
Review by: A. W. Finnegan
This article reviews another thorough, in-depth study from Spence, building off some of the work by Antony C. Sutton in Wall-Street and the Bolshevik Revolution. However, this work goes a bit deeper, beyond just the Bolshevik age, but the years and activities leading up to the Soviet Regime. This takes us back to 1905, continuing to the years 1925. The book is full of names and presents an intricate web of connections within the global chessboard. The reality of Russia and the end of the Romanov Dynasty shows us that, while the Russian uprising and subsequent regime change was a result of the need for change within Russia, the movement had considerable helping hands and ulterior agendas in motion by special interest groups like those at Wall-Street and Great Britain. Where there is chaos, opportunity will follow...
As I do with all my book reviews, we will give a basic layout of the book and just discuss the contents, and following this comes my thoughts, reflections, and anything relevant to bring up. There are 11 Chapters, and introduction and an epilogue. So, here in the following section is a brief, general summary of the book's content from start to finish.
Chapter 01: Two Empires
The beginning of the book looks at the two great world empires, the United States and Russia. Russia was run by absolute monarchy under the power of the Romanov family. It discusses the empire of the Tsar, the Russian Revolutionaries, the Russian Liberals, the "Jewish Question" which has become a popular idea in many circles, Spence however does not advocate for or against but only presents the evidence he has, bringing it up because it has become a popular question. It is however an intricate web with many interests, from many different kinds of ethnicities and religions. He looks at the empire of Trusts set up through banking families, American business in Russia, as well as Regime change and American interventionalism
Chapter 02: Wall Street Dramatis Personae and Others
This next chapter profiles some of the different Wall-Street elites with influence in Russian affairs, men like Charles R. Crane, Jacob Schiff whose nickname was "the Jewish Avenger," the Warburgs, the House of Morgan, and the Society of Friends of Russian Freedom (SFRF). We begin to see the different agendas and complex interrelationships that set the context in the coming story.
Chapter 03: The Failed Revolution of 1905
This chapter looks closer at an earlier attempt to foment and carry out a successful Revolution, which failed and left many shot dead by the Imperial Russian forces, which earned itself the nickname Bloody Sunday. This was led by Georgy Gapon and his associates. Names like Leon Trotsky, Maxim Gorky, and Alexander Helphand "Parvus, " who mentored Trotsky, are some of the names that become relevant in this chapter.
Chapter 04: The Revolutionary Road Show
Here we see the anti-Tsarist sentiments in those Russian emigres, many having been exiled, and the popular line of thought or attitude among the Wall-Street players of these earlier times. They oftentimes had a similar or comparable worldview to today's large corporate elite, who preach humanitarianism and liberal ideas because it is the popular ideology. In this chapter we hear more about Maxim Gorky and his early attempts at stirring up the Revolution again following the Bloody Sunday defeat, with more support to the Revolutionaries, leaning on the victimization put on them by the Tsar's imperial force.
Chapter 05: American Bolsheviki
It is here where the Bolshevik cause in America is presented and gains momentum, looking at such groups as the Union of Russian Workers (URW), the Russian Socialist Federation (RSF), active revolutionaries like Arthur Adams, Barnett Bobroff, Nikolai Bukharin, Michael Gruzenberg, Julius Hammer, Abraham Hammer, Alexandra Kollontai, Alexander Krasnoshchekoff, Ludwig Martens, and many others critical to the foundation of Bolshevism.
Chapter 06: The Conspirators
This Chapter we see the names surrounding the central activity in funding and strengthening the Revolutionary networks, with buffer zones of cut-outs and spies between the Wall-Street kingpins and the Bolshevik Revolutionaries. This chapter looks closer at the activities by Sidney Reilly, as well as an uncle to Trotsky named Uncle Abram, that is, Abram L'vovich Zhivotovsky. Other names like Sir William Wiseman, Samuel Vauclain, Olof Aschberg, Leonid Krasin, Vladimir Nekrasov, Grayson Murphy, Samuel McRoberts, and a handful of cronies in Manhattan like Charles R. Flint are profiled for their parts in the coming Revolution.
Chapter 07: Trotsky in New York
This chapter focuses more closely at the travels, associations, and expenses of the wandering revolutionary Leon Trotsky, who was one of the central figures in the Bolshevik Revolution to take place in 1917. Trotsky was in New York for some time associating with many prominent figures from Wall Street, likely securing the required funding needed for the regime change in Russia. Trotsky can be found operating with a high degree of protection, not to mention funding, probably coming from the side of Wall-Street.
Chapter 08: Come the Revolution, Again
This chapter observes the second attempt to establish regime change in Russia, indeed successful. The Romanovs' long rule had come to an end, with Kerensky's provisional government taking Nicholas II as prisoner and would soon be killed. Charles R. Crane would be a critical figure in the events to play out in the future, with several informants and agents to keep him notified of the activities in the establishment of a Democratic Russia, such as Xenophan Kalamatiano. Lord Milner is mentioned, who participated in a Inter-Allied conference in 1917, leading for the British delegation. Wall Street was to welcome the New Democratic Russia. There was a trip to Russia aboard the liner Kristianiafjord, with Cahrles R. Crane, Leon Trotsky, and a handful of associates. The ship was interrupted by British Intelligence on behalf of Admiral "Blinker" Hall, the same one who was directing some of Crowley's activities in Spence's other book, Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence, and the Occult. The Root Mission is examined, intelligence activities underlying Railway construction with many of the Wall-Street tycoons onboard. This chapter also examines the Red Cross and American Ambulance missions in Russia, as fronts for deeper intelligence activities.
Chapter 09: Bolshevism, Inc.
Here the Bolshevik's take charge of Russia, through the efforts of Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, an army of Revolutionaries, and of course, the financial backing of the Wall-Street hydra. We again see names that were mentioned in Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence, and the Occult. Names like Sir William Wiseman and W. Somerset Maugham. This chapter also discusses the participation of John Reed, "rock star of American radicalism." We again see Sidney Reilly's network in the thick of the Revolution. We begin to see the way Wall Street converges into the Russian territory for financial opportunities and control.
Chapter 10: The Dealmakers
This chapter looks more deeply into thew overlapping interests at work in and around the New Regime. Russia and its resources becomes a virtual chessboard, not only for Wall-Street, but Britain's kingpins, the Japanese, some of the former White Russians, and the world struggle for power and dominance, especially when it came to oil. Charles R. Crane returns to Russia to take a stab at more deals, Sidney Reilly returns to the United States, and following the death of banker Jacob Schiff, Sir William Wiseman finds opportunity to cozy up at Kuhn, Loeb & Co., through Otto Kahn. Concluding this chapter, Many millions in currency and gold finds its way back from the Russian territory and back into the hands of Wall Street.
Chapter 11: Kremlin Rules
As the Soviet Regime put its rulership over the Russian kingdom into effect, the beginnings of its struggle for financial stability was chaotic, resorting to looting and barter. They raided all valuables they could find and placed it under the authority of the "State Treasury." This would be their start for trade and establishing themselves in their global position. This brought with it much resentment and rebellion when peasants began to fight back against the government attempting to steal its grain and agriculture. The entire continent had gone from a rich dynasty to something almost inconceivable in four years:
consider what the Bolsheviks had achieved. In less than four years, they had expropriated the Russian economy from its former owners, run it into the ground, and stripped the country of its gold and valuables, most of which ended up in the West - the lion's share in America. Russia had been turned into an economic wasteland which foreign capitalists were now being invited to rebuild.
This forced Vladimir Lenin towards a New Economic Policy and the peasants were in part, allowed to keep their grains and crops. The American Relief Administration (ARA) came in to assist in the crisis of drought and starvation, which of course was overlapping ulterior motives for the future plan in Russia. But things did not work out quite as planned. John Reed was also captured by the Soviets who were tipped off about his deeper activities, like Reilly's. As he was whisked away by the Reds, he soon contracted typhus and died.
Next, Reilly is maneuvering his schemes from New York and abroad, and his nickname for international capitalism was, the “Occult Octopus.” Several deals and meetings were going down, and two Soviet men, Isaiah Khurgin and Efriam M. Sklyansky, who came to United States to meet someone in the boonies of New York state, went canoeing and turned up dead from drowning, and an important suitcase was left behind, and it was said that unknown men came to retrieve the suitcase from the person who found the two dead men. Finally, this chapter ends with Sidney Reilly’s capture and eventual execution, some might suspect that Josef Stalin had been ridding himself of his Trotskyite rivals and the spooks connecting Trotsky to Wall Street.
Epilogue: The End of the Beginning
The epilogue closes the book, revealing the reason for the book to stop at the year 1925, the time in which Josef Stalin took hold and cleansed the Russian empire of its Wall-Street leverage. They were to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and get the Soviet Workers to rebuild the Soviet Dream in the image of Stalin’s vision. That of course, left the door open for the beginnings of the Cold War, long before the admitted start following the Second World War, which, as the deeper story shows, begins where Spence’s book leaves off...
Review & Commentary
The book was a great study on the inner mechanics at work that put the Soviet system in place, but more than that, it shows the events and intricacies that led up to the installment of Communist Russia. It reminds us that there is a dynamic complexity at work. In the midst of it all; conspiracy. As Rick stated in my interview on his book about Crowley, he said "you can't have a revolution without a conspiracy." Indeed, and the financial agendas intersecting at these points remind us that the conspiracy can go one of many different ways in the dynamic of change. A world where many wear many different hats, and trust turns to perhaps warranted paranoia. when it comes to steering and directing the revolution and conspiracy.
To the outsider, a partnership between the capitalists at Wall-Street and the revolutionaries of communism would seem ludicrous, counter-intuitive. However, on the contrary, when one takes the dive into Spence's in-depth study of the Russian Revolution, one will see the reasons it serves, and what made it the perfect duo for the times. Chaos in Russia was another opportunity for the financial giants to converge into the mix and wield their influence and control. This then ties the world of intelligence deeply into its chemical structure. I recommend this book to anyone who is just starting to wake up to the deeper elements of world events in history that make today what it is. One may see that the New Order of the World was in its beta-test in darling Russia. Another element of the British expansion, but some of its engineered monsters occasionally get loose from the lion's grip and became the next monstrosity they can't control they way they planned...