The Bolshevik Revolution And Capitalism

Executive Summary:
The rulers of the West and Soviet bloc are friends. We, the ruled are the enemy. It is rich versus poor. Oppression is fun for the oppressors.

The capitalist system in the West and the Soviets in Russia were enemies. We all know that. The Cold War was a central part of life for many years after the Second World War. At all events that is what we think. Defence establishments were raised on that basis. Armies were stationed on both sides of the Iron Curtain. I saw English Electric Lightnings bombed up and ready to go at RAF Gütersloh in Germany a long time ago. My battalion was committed to the Western Front and halting the barbarian hordes when they came forth from the East with a flaming sword. Secret services like MI6, the CIA and the KGB were spying on both sides. BRIXMIS was an important outfit at the time. It was ours. The Soviets had SOXMIS.

Newspapers, books and the main stream media generally were writing about us and them. It all seemed clear enough until Antony Sutton told us that the relations between both sides were a good deal more intimate than one might have thought. Capitalist swine had no compunction when it came to selling things like weapon systems to the Russians. Major bankers were financing the Bolsheviks. Important men in the West helped Trotsky, a known revolutionary get back to Russia to ply his trade.

In the alternative, Doctor Sutton was utterly wrong. He was a Brit who studied history in American universities and was decidedly unpopular. He was QUOTE persecuted but never prosecuted for his research and subsequent publication of his findings.  UNQUOTE ex Antony Sutton But Professor Pipes, of Harvard, an eminent historian on his own account is quoted as saying in his book, Survival Is Not Enough: Soviet Realities And America's Future

"In his three-volume detailed account of Soviet Purchases of Western Equipment and Technology ..." Sutton comes to conclusions that are uncomfortable for many businessmen and economists. For this reason his work tends to be either dismissed out of hand as 'extreme' or, more often, simply ignored." - see Antony Sutton

This is far from saying that he was wrong. In fact it is pretty much an admission that the good doctor was spot on. He quotes sources for his telling and that is always a good sign.

George Orwell was a socialist, a decent man and famous writer. His satire on communism and capitalism,  Animal Farm has its last scene with the farmer representing capital and the pigs standing in for communist leadership. The farm animals representing us, the victims who are unable to tell them apart. And then both sides cheat. Go to Animal Farm and search on 'spades' to find the scene. Orwell makes the point. Doctor Sutton gives us the evidence. His book is at Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution. Part of Chapter 1 is below.

Perhaps the right way to look at the world and politics was never Capitalism versus Communism or West versus East. It is more like Liberty versus Oppression. When the American government has secret prisons and torture it is not clear that it is any better than the Soviet government and the KGB.

Here you can read for yourself, think for yourself and decide for yourself.

From Chapter 1 of Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution.

Chapter I

THE ACTORS ON THE REVOLUTIONARY STAGE

The frontispiece in this book was drawn by cartoonist Robert Minor in 1911 for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Minor was a talented artist and writer who doubled as a Bolshevik revolutionary, got himself arrested in Russia in 1915 for alleged subversion, and was later bank-rolled by prominent Wall Street financiers. Minor's cartoon portrays a bearded, beaming Karl Marx standing in Wall Street with Socialism tucked under his arm and accepting the congratulations of financial luminaries J.P. Morgan, Morgan partner George W. Perkins, a smug John D. Rockefeller, John D. Ryan of National City Bank, and Teddy Roosevelt — prominently identified by his famous teeth — in the background. Wall Street is decorated by Red flags. The cheering crowd and the airborne hats suggest that Karl Marx must have been a fairly popular sort of fellow in the New York financial district.

Was Robert Minor dreaming? On the contrary, we shall see that Minor was on firm ground in depicting an enthusiastic alliance of Wall Street and Marxist socialism. The characters in Minor's cartoon — Karl Marx (symbolizing the future revolutionaries Lenin and Trotsky), J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller — and indeed Robert Minor himself, are also prominent characters in this book.

The contradictions suggested by Minor's cartoon have been brushed under the rug of history because they do not fit the accepted conceptual spectrum of political left and political right. Bolsheviks are at the left end of the political spectrum and Wall Street financiers are at the right end; therefore, we implicitly reason, the two groups have nothing in common and any alliance between the two is absurd. Factors contrary to this neat conceptual arrangement are usually rejected as bizarre observations or unfortunate errors. Modern history possesses such a built-in duality and certainly if too many uncomfortable facts have been rejected and brushed under the rug, it is an inaccurate history.

On the other hand, it may be observed that both the extreme right and the extreme left of the conventional political spectrum are absolutely collectivist. The national socialist (for example, the fascist) and the international socialist (for example, the Communist) both recommend totalitarian politico-economic systems based on naked, unfettered political power and individual coercion. Both systems require monopoly control of society. While monopoly control of industries was once the objective of J. P. Morgan and J. D. Rockefeller, by the late nineteenth century the inner sanctums of Wall Street understood that the most efficient way to gain an unchallenged monopoly was to "go political" and make society go to work for the monopolists — under the name of the public good and the public interest. This strategy was detailed by Frederic C Howe in The confessions of a monopolist. Howe, by the way, is also a figure in the story of the Bolshevik Revolution.

Therefore, an alternative conceptual packaging of political ideas and politico-economic systems would be that of ranking the degree of individual freedom versus the degree of centralized political control. Under such an ordering the corporate welfare state and socialism are at the same end of the spectrum. Hence we see that attempts at monopoly control of society can have different labels while owning common features.