Our own democracy is only “undermined” to the extent Americans think the Russians are undermining it. It has been said, for instance, that Russian “meddling” was meant to “undermine” our confidence in both the legitimacy of last year’s election, and create doubts about our system and our constitution. And that is exactly what it has done: Many feel Trump was elected illigitimally by a process corrupted by the Russians, and do have lost trust in our system. And those Americans who feel that way have been like putty in the hands of the Russians, behaving exactly as they planned.
6
"[Lenin] was a sophisticated genius of merciless zero-sum gain, expressed by his phrase “Kto kovo?” — literally, “Who, whom?” asking the question who controls whom and, more important, who kills whom."
Did Lenin actually use the term in that sense or did Stalin claim Lenin had after Lenin's death?
5
"...the horrors have been blurred and history forgotten; a glamorous glow of power and idealism lingers to intoxicate young voters disenchanted with the bland dithering of liberal capitalism."
Few if any modern day Western people, young or old, are yearning for Stalin! We want democratic socialism which is what the USA had during the New Deal period. We want greater balance between the upper and lower end of the financial spectrum. We want corporations and the uber-wealthy to pay their taxes as we all are required to do by law. We want a healthcare system that isn't employer-based which would give us greater mobility and assurance in a crazy job market. We want an adequately competent government that is accountable to our needs not corporations. We also would prefer trustworthy government agencies that accurately monitor the quality of food production, medicine and utilities rather than corporate control of these vital needs. Most corporations are not good at self-evaluation and tend towards favoring their money over the consumers health.
11
I admire this writer's work, especially "Stalin: the Court of the Red Tsar," but his projection here (no Lenin, no Hitler) is far too facile. Extremism coupled with world changing events and technological revolutions might very well have created other genocidal catastrophes. The idea that the world would be a peaceful place if Lenin and the October revolution had not happened is as utopian as the concept of the "withering away of the state."
6
Montefiore writes: "Communism is experiencing a resurrection in democratic Britain" in the person of Jeremy Corbyn a "quasi-Leninist". This is an irresponsible smear of a democratic socialist who won the leadership of the Labour Party fair and square, who then refused to purge MPs who opposed his leadership many of whom now work closely with him, who inspired young activists much as Sanders did in the US, and led his party back from the brink of disaster in the last election taking votes and seats from the Conservatives. If he is elected, will he try to forge a one-party dictatorship, suppressing his political opponents? Not a chance!! The Conservatives don't even accuse him of that.
14
1) marxism-leninism isnt monarchy
2) veneazuela, north korea, china, and cuba are not communist. they do not fit the definition of a moneyless, classless, stateless society where the workers own the means of production
3) without lenin there'd be no hitler? are you kidding? lenin and hitler operated seperate from eachother.
Please dont spread this misinformation and obvious slander and lies of, not only the far left, but of historical events that have been sealed into our books and our articles.
4
Montefiore's Russian Revolution history is interesting. He should stick to that subject, because this sentence reveals at best a dim understanding of everything else:
"Marxist-Leninism (albeit in the unique capitalist-Maoist form) still propels China, the world’s surging hyperpower, even as that same ideology ruins Cuba and Venezuela."
"Marxist-Leninism" has no "capitalist" form - capitalist Marxism or Leninism is a complete non sequitur. Same with capitalist Maoism. China's shift to capitalism began after Mao's death, and China today is a capitalist dictatorship, no matter that the party running the dictatorship still calls itself Communist.
The accusation that Marxism and Leninism "ruined" Cuba reveals either historical ignorance, ideological bias, or both. Even assuming that the Cuban people under Communism are worse off than the people of the average non-Communist country, it is simply not objectively demonstrable that Cubans are worse off than they were before Castro overthrew Batista.
Under Batista, the wealthy few enjoyed all of the fruits of capitalism, and everyone else suffered brutally. Cubans today enjoy universal free health care and education, achieving literacy and life expectancy that rival ours, at a tiny fraction of the cost. There are virtually no homeless Cubans, no unemployed Cubans.
If Cuba is "ruined," the ruining was done long before Castro came to power, and therefore has nothing to do with Marxism or Leninism.
politicsbyeccehomo.wordpress.com
14
A lot of unhappiness is being expressed about Montefiore's "what if' thought experiment here. We can't be that literal. Chaos Theory asks, "Does the wing of a butterfly in Africa cause a hurricane?" Untold factors form the evolution of a species; detailed events are unimaginably complex. Nevertheless, there may be crucial tipping points at the borderline of conscious control. What if John Podesta had not clicked on that phishing email? Could that wayward finger lead to the extinction of human civilization? The question itself is the message. Maybe it's something about mindfulness and humanities' future. Montefiore's thought experiment about Lenin does not resolve what is true but it invites reflection. It shows how small events may shift great tides. When we focus on what is simple and good - a smile to a passing stranger, a kind word to someone in pain - we may have to surrender the conceit that we hold the levers of human destiny in our hands. We do not have to act like fanatics seeking the bold stroke that makes all the difference. What we do control, if we are willing to pay attention, is an innate sense of common human decency. Did someone bother to recognize who they were putting on that "sealed train" that took Lenin to Russia? That's a worthy thought experiment. It reminds us that actions have consequences. Grand theories of history are moot; we can never say. Exercising our imagination, though, reminds us that we live amongst the seeds of our real future.
6
Two great forces of that era were global nepotism and the TransSiberian RR. One sought to freeze the status quo; the other sought to smash it.
RRs had produced riches by uniting the two ends of the NA continent. They intended to do the same by crossing Asia. Unfortunately, too much money is too hard to swallow in a short time. $100,000,000 intended for RR was spent on Grand Soirees and Fabrege eggs. The Japanese, recently awakened from a long slumber, didn't like the implications of easy Western access to their neighborhood and reacted by destroying the Russian fleet at Port Arthur.
When two cousins counseled and decided to attack Japan with Russia's Northern Fleet, it too was destroyed. Credit card bill piled up and people (who weren't invited to grand soirees) were expected to pay. They couldn't. Frightened force on a Bloody Sunday didn't help. Russia was stripped to bare bones, yet the Tsar intended to keep Russia in WW1 to help relatives.
As Albert Sorel said about the cause of the French Revolution (and just about all others): "It is the eternal dispute between those who imagine the world to suit their policies and those who must adapt their policies to suit the realities of the world."
How could a Russian Revolution NOT happen?
Russians went from "religious" to resourceful -- to survive.
They also declined to make further credit card payments
-- because they couldn't.
If they hadn't revolted, their fate would have been like that of the Weimar Republic. Madness.
3
Funny how the author (s) fail to mention no Hitler, no WWII and therefore no US as a superpower.... All interesting and futile, quite frankly, but interesting nonetheless how selective this analysis is...
3
You could play bingo, or a drinking game, marking off how many myths about the Russian Revolution this covers. This article gives a pretty good reply: https://marxist.ca/analysis/history/1280-top-10-lies-about-the-bolshevik...
6
Catherine Breshkovskaya , the grandmother of the revolution, is worth visiting .
The problem is nationalism. Without Napoleon Europe could have remained some rough confederacies of fiefdoms, each forever squabbling, no unified Germany or Italy, Russia too big to succeed fractures into more manageable regions, etc.
But what do I know, except that alternate histories are valuable & worthwhile exercises, especially the ones where people make the most obvious choices to avoid the brain-disorder of militaristic nationalism.
Let's do one where Napoleon doesn't rampage across Europe bringing his concept of 'total war' to the modern world.
2
This is a fun speculative article that can generate lively opinions. It isn't, however, much use beyond that. It's similar to the saying from the sixties, "suppose they gave a war and no one came?" Suppose, indeed.
1
Without the revolution and subsequent cold war the United States would not have had reason to create the liberal democracy with a social safety net. There would have been no competition for ideas or incentive to move away from the robber barons and naked soul crushing capitalism. Workers would have continued to suffer the world over. It's why you see now, without a socialist alternative, the moneyed capitalists (GOP) moving to dismantle the social safety net with the fall of the Soviet Union and the decline of the American worker. Why continue to have a social safety net and labor unions etc. when the alternative has been "proven" to not work. Back to 12 hour days and six day work weeks!
2
Unsatisfying piece on two levels. First, too much unsupported conjecture as to what would have happened without the Russian Revolution. For example, Hitler was first and foremost a reaction to the Versailles Treaty, and the immediate opportunity for his rise to power was the Great Depression. Also hard to say that Mao wouldn't have staged a successful revolution, making China's revolution, not Lenin's, the prototype.
Second, smart readers don't need a red herring thrown into the article about Trump. Left and right both do much in this country to sacrifice ethical means to achieve partisan ends. There's nothing "resurgent" about this at all.
"Without Lenin there would have been no Hitler. Hitler owed much of his rise to the support of conservative elites who feared a Bolshevik revolution on German soil and who believed that he alone could defeat Marxism. And the rest of his radical program was likewise justified by the threat of Leninist revolution. His anti-Semitism, his anti-Slavic plan for Lebensraum and above all the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 were supported by the elites and the people because of the fear of what the Nazis called “Judeo-Bolshevism.”
Fatuous. Hitler ranted about Bolshevism because it was handy. Had it not been, it would have been more difficult but Hitler would have found his incendiary topic and, given the German propensities, accomplished the same result.
Nonsense!
In 1917 Buckley Oil moved from Mexico City to Caracas because the State department wouldn't declare war on Mexico for expropriating William F. Buckley Senior's oil holdings. The indigenous population of Venezuela seized control from the white middle class in the latest Venezuelan revolution. Political ideology is not germane as is the Cuban revolution where America refused to cede control of Cuba to the Cuban people.
Russia under the Russian Orthodox theology and Putin's kleptocracy differs little from Stalin's Soviet Union.
I am glad Robespierre and the Reign of Terror is mentioned because the truth of the American Revolution is that the anti tax anti Catholic Revolutionaries gave way to America's best and brightest and instead of the looneys that now control your executive, legislatures and Supreme Court philosophers, writers. historians, journalists and intellectuals took charge and instead of a Reign of terror America saw a peaceful transfer of power.
North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela are dysfunctional because the USA has chosen to make them dysfunctional. They are no more dysfunctional than Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador but they are a lot safer.
We will learn what really happened as countries like Canada, Germany and Japan decide neoliberalism and democracy are as incompatble as Communism and democracy.
1
Without Lenin there still would have been the Treaty of Versailles, a weak Weimar Republic, and antisemitism using Jews as a scapegoat and there still would have been a Great Depression plunging liberal democracy into crisis around the world. Moreover, Lenin did not create the mass socialist movement in Germany. It existed before the Russian Revolution and Marxism would have remained a bogeyman for capitalists to react against through a fascist movement. The real question is without Lenin, what would Russia have been at the dawn of World War II and in the face of Hitler? A fascist country and full fledged ally or a weak democracy waiting to collapse before Hitler's invasion and unable to mount a counterattack?
2
I don't see how you can conflate the leader of the British Labour Party and Leninism or Communism. There is absolutely no evidence for this association. In the old days that kind of charge could be called "red baiting." Also, you are similarly conflating a "radical" who gets to the root of things with an "extremist." Dear Mr. Montefiore, you realize that by your logic George McGovern was an "extremist," but I am sure you will acknowledge that the majority who voted Nixon in supported someone extremely at odds with the U.S. constitution, morality and law, i.e. majorities and un-extreme behavior are no correlated.
2
I am too Tolstoyan, to believe that some kind of revolution in Russia would have never happened. If the Bolsheviks had failed to seize power in November (new style) of 1917, perhaps Kerensky's government would have evolved into something similar to the German Weimar Republic and a subsequent dictatorship. Russia was never accustomed to Occidental democracy.
The current concept of "American democracy," finalizing the third paragraph from the bottom of this what-if article, is throwing childish Trumpianism over all the other Revolutions, past but hopefully not the future.
“What if?” is a legitimate historical inquiry as long as one can demonstrate a reasoned causal connection between historical and virtual terms of specific situations. For example, how would Russia’s peasants fare if the Russian Revolution had never happened? We can try to deduce the answer by portraying different likely Russian modes of government replacing the Czarist regime.
However, there’s no reasonable causal connection between a non-Bolshevik Russia and the unfolding German history of the time – too many possible scenarios; too many unknown variables; too limited data on the terms of the different possible situations; in sum, too weak assumed causal relations. In the context of the Red Century, a most founded “what if” will be to ask what would be the state of Europe and America today hadn’t the Red Army Defeated the Nazi Army? The most probable educated-guess: a Black and Brown Century.
The author does not seem to care that he is blaming the Jews for the Holocaust. He claims that Nazi anti-semitism /arose from/ "what they called 'Judeao-Bolshevism'". The account only works if he thinks this characterization was correct.
4
"The tournaments of power would likely have been just as vicious — just differently vicious." The author doesn't bother to tally the tens of millions who died with the disintegration of Western Empires, hundreds of civil wars that ensued, US interventions in foreign lands. Please note also: it was we who created the conditions for the emergence of Pol Pot! If there was one circumstance that created the fertile ground for Hitler's emergence surely it was the calamitous Treaty of Versailles. And, the Jeremy Corbyn comment, risible!
2
The Russian Revolution was a total disaster for the world, like Marxism itself, and though celebrated by the Times' Walter Duranty (here the term "useful idiots" comes in), remains along with the Holocaust the signature evils of the twentieth century.
1
"What if" questions about history are mostly silly, but this essay is sillier than most.
Its logic is jumbled: the claim that "Without Lenin there would have been no Hitler" is not the same as saying that the Bolshevik revolution somehow caused the Nazis. Yes, the present would not happen without the past, and things might have been different. But different how? So what is the argument?
Making an argument would expose it to being undermined by details of German history. German communists and workers were inspired by the Bolsheviks, but their fight was their own to win or lose following the collapse of the Wilhelmine monarchy. Then the German state had other problems like reparations and weak institutions. Mr. Montefiore uses "justification" as a weasel word that excuses any need for evidence.
Likewise, claims about the Jacobin Terror require actual argument and research about 1790s France. Many scholars of those events would argue that the Jacobins had little choice but to do what they did, under the circumstances of civil war, external war, traitorous leadership, and a restive Parisian population on which the Jacobins relied for power.
The Bolsheviks likewise would have been very unusual people if they didn't fight for what they thought was right, and instead gave up to the White Russians and others fighting them. Perhaps that's the counterfactual Mr. Montefiore prefers to contemplate. How nice for him.
Considering Russia's new Tsar is Putin, the revolution never really did happen.
1
In which Simon Sebag Montefiore blames every political trend he objects to on the Bolshevik Revolution. Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Trump, Bannon, Putin, and Corbyn all collapsed into a black hole of counter-factual speculation from which only paranoiac mccarthyite russophobia escapes.
1
I used to think that the size of Russia, the harsh climate, the vast emptiness of so much of it, the small population over so much land necessitated or at least made inevitable a brutal strongman (or woman). But then, there's Canada: same conditions, opposite outcome.
2
Simon Sebag Montefiore's history of the Romanovs is essential reading for anyone interested in world history. One of the takeaways is that in Russia, torture is like cricket in India, rugby in Australia, baseball in America. I've read it three times. The author, BTW, is a scion of the great banking houses of Montefiore & Rothschild, so he writes from a position of familiarity with the higher corridors of power.
Fascinating! Thank you.
But all these if's. What happened happened. We don't live in a parallel universe. We're stuck in the one we have.
Kto kovo? "Who--whom?" Ah the great dictators! They could turn a phrase. Like the Emperor Tiberius--"Oderint dum metuant! "Let them hate, provided they fear." Or Stalin: "Death is the great problem-solver. No man. No problem."
Kto kovo? Okay, Mr. Lenin. Not bad. I would add this: history remembers--we all remember--the honorable losers. The men that went down fighting for a good cause. Even if it lost. Especially if it lost.
LIke Demosthenes--battling to the last against Philip of Macedon. Then against his son, Alexander. Rather than fall into the hands of his vengeful enemies, he took poison.
Or Cicero--laboring to restore the disintegrating Roman republic. Murdered by a vengeful Mark Anthony. "An eloquent man, my child," remarked Caesar Augustus (years later), "and he loved his country."
And there are others. Many others. A great host of honorable losers. For instance. . . . .
. . . the men you killed, Mr. Lenin. . . .
. . . .the men you killed, Mr. Stalin.
("Men", of course includes men, women, children. You got that, right?)
Kto kovo? A tricky question. Trickier than you might think.
Who, at the end of the day, regards Lenin and Stalin as "winners"?
Not me.
2
But why was Romanov Tsardom decaying after thriving for centures? The times were changing and Tsars couldn’t respond, especially that clueless Nicholas, to any examples abroad of progress in the rights of the individual. The world was moving ahead. Other nations had voting rights.
Why didn’t the Tsars save themselves by starting reforms? They had to cling to the past traditional power, no matter what.
And WW1 led to the end of other monarchies Europe partly because of the changing times toward more democracy, less autocracy. After past wars in history the monarchs had stayed in place.
Shift to today’s America. Why is our Gop missing repeated chances to reform, to respond to the public will and the needs of citizens in the 21st century? They're behaving like the old European aristocrats clinging to the power of the elites---ignoring millions of citizens’ rights in funding for health care, education, tax policy and govt protections for the citizen majority. They are dancing to the tune of their richest campaign funders. A façade of democracy prevails.
American politics is decaying and missing repeated chances for reform. But we have the idealized myth of our Constitution and Bill of Rights to make many think the US is still the democracy it once was.
Russia was a huge geographical area isolated from the progress of other countries, America is a huge country, cut off from other nations’ progress – by 2 huge oceans, and a Canadian border. And its attitude.
3
I love "what if" stories. What if there was no revolution. What if something infinitely worse happened? Thanks for this, Mr. Montefiore.
So, the Capitalists, Christians and ordinary Germans were not responsible for the worst pogrom in all of human history, it was all the fault of the Bolshevik Revolution!
May I suggest to Mr. Montefiore that he take this one step further, using a 'Back to the Future' MO. That way, he could link the Bolshevik Revolution to the pogroms that took place under the Tsar, particularly the massacre of the Jews of Odessa in 1905 or even further back to Spain in the 1490's!!
"What if" history. I am sure that humanity would have found other catastrophes equally as gruesome as the real 20th Century turned out to be.
After all Liberal Capitalism did win big in 1989. It was reportedly the end of history. But look where we are 2017! Who could have predicted this rout?
if the USA had not produced the first bomb under the pressure of WWII, who then would have invented it and how would they have used it when they did?
And what would Barnes & Noble and the History Channel do if we didn't have our endless fascination with the Nazi's? And your wonderful books on Stalin, Simon?
I am not sure what I should watch this evening Eisenstein's OKTOBER or Pasternak's Zhivago or finish The Three Sisters.
"...a glamorous glow of power and idealism lingers to intoxicate young voters disenchanted with the bland dithering of liberal capitalism."
Or, as Clemenceau put it: "My son is 22 years old. If he had not become a Communist at 22, I would have disowned him. If he is still a Communist at 30, I will do it then."
1
Rewrite. UK's Corbyn is hardly a quasi Leninist. What an insult. His ideas are a correction to the Tory’s extreme conservatives. Just as Bernie Sanders was a correction to the rw Gop and the centrist Dems. He would have revived and conserved the New Deal and Great Society that made the US middle class strong.
Corbyn and Sanders are called left wing only by today’s warped standards of the radical rw Gop. That’s where this columnist is.
Corbyn and Sanders want to restore what worked--- the better economic equality and strong democracy of the 1940s to the ‘70s. At least Britain today still has universal health care, started in the 1940s, even approved by Thatcher, Reagan’s counterpart.
The Tories may under fund the NHS, but they don’t aim to destroy it, as our Gop wants to destroy what Obamacare has managed to achieve, inadequate as it is.
1
There are some parts of this essay one can appreciate-- that's for sure. A counterfactual thought experiment it is-- but not a bad one, although pinning so much causal power to Lenin and Bolshevism is of course highly debatable. I am not sure that Lenin directly caused Hitler. Wouldn't that be Marx himself-- it was his idea first that everyone (elites) were so afraid of in the first place? Lenin was simply one proponent of this idea. By the way there were many others. That was part of the "problem".
Also, the author discusses many of the valid negative effects of communism. But dare I say where are some of the positive ones? Increased literacy, a sense of government responsibility, democratic socialism, valid critiques of "unfettered" capitalism. There is a bit of an embittered tone in this essay and everyone is entitled to a perspective but it may be somewhat lacking in true objectivity. Just my two cents in this everlasting, contentious debate-- a debate that has shaped our recent history to its current warped reality.
For want of a nail, a shoe was lost, for want of a shoe.......
If Beau Biden had not died, Joe Biden would have run in the primary, got the nomination and without HRC's negatives, won the election against Trump. Make no mistake about it, Trump is a revolutionary, in that he has used the pardon power to defeat the judiciary, and his appointments right up to the supreme court could have a profound effect.
And then there are the bizarre happenstance that Arch Duke Ferdinand had been shot at once, that missed. Hours later his driver took the same road home, and his assassin got of a second shot --- that triggered WWI, II, the cold war and all that followeed.
Under Trump will Climate Change happen faster, will diplomatic efforts be replaced by raw power, will civility as a way of life diminish? Epochal stresses are always present, but the trigger, the individual, those are simply random accidents that only afterwards become written in stone with the heading, "History"
Some of your lines like 'No Lenin, No Hitler" ring to me extremely shallow and stunningly simplistic (I was about to use another adjective but restrained myself). Saying that the European imperialism became afraid of Soviet Union and thus funded and encouraged Hitler is quite correct but you are implying that Lenin was somehow directly responsible for that. Right... just like a robbery victim could be called responsible and culpable in the crime because he walked the street with some money in his pocket. Or like striking miners in Logan County in 1921 who were fighting for decent wages and their right to unionize were blamed for the subsequent bloodshed. Bravo!
1
Here's a better "what if". What if the framers of the US constitution had neglected to include the second amendment?
1
Woulda, coulda, shoulda. How can we possibly know what would have happened absent the Bolshevik revolution of 1917? The stasis that emerged after WW2 held civilization in a tense power balance that, at least, kept it from blowing itself to smithereens. That stasis is gone now. We're on our own for our own survival. It may not be looking good but it ain't over 'till it's over.
Our leaders have proven themselves incapable of doing anything useful. It's on us now.
1
The verdict on the 20th century won't be rendered for a while. All things considered, it will probably be remembered as a disaster.
Most of the comments prove yet again - as the democratic party's ideology requires - that their collectivist (confiscate and "redistribute" to those who display slavish Party loyalty as opposed to merit) origins in the Great Terror tactics of Stalin, that killed several 10's of millions around the world to absolutely no civilization improving effect, be obscured and denied.
2
What if? This is just a regurgitation of anti-communist propaganda. Everything evil that happened after 1918 wouldn't have? That may be true, but its likely different evils would have. If Tsarist rule had survived that would have been one of them. Chiang and his warlords still ruling an impoverished China would be another.
But the most absurd notion is that other revolutionary movements would not have happened. Those revolutions, like the Russian revolution, were largely driven by social conditions. Whether they would have been successful without Russian support is another question. But anyone who claims to know the answer to that is foolish. Its an even more ridiculous act of intellectual arrogance than Justice Scalia claiming to be able to discern the founder's intent.
4
Or, should we just assume that the US voter should have been more intelligent and should not have fallen for weak Russian propaganda? The US continues to not properly meet the challenge of Russia. It is sad and pathetic.
4
We forget that there were two Russian Revolutions in 1917. The first revolution introduced liberal democracy. The Germans wanted Russia out of WW1 and they allowed Lenin to travel through Germany from Switzerland. Had the first revolution been successful Russia might have become a normal country. WW1 created both fascism and communism. The Germans have a lot to answer for.
10
To lump Venezuela into a broad-brush "Leninist" philosophy shows either willful ignorance, or purposeful misinformation.
12
Or both.
How?
You have posited a slur...not an argument.
Please explain.
1
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/01/27/109328340.html?...
Louise Bryant hated this guy on sight. Will Thompson self funded his own mission to Russia under the guise of the American Red Cross. He sat in the Czar's opera box like a real Trump. Took a ride on his choo choo, too. Just another opportunist looking to shake loose others property for himself, any chaos agent will do.
Thompson backed the Bolsheviks after the bonds he sold for the Provisional Government failed. He wanted access to their natural resources, and the American International Corporation was formed to assist with the extractions. Thompson was eager to see another monarch fail and collect the fall out, just as Trump and his globalist fiends await their own rewards.
8
I love these “what if” articles. Before Lenin came back, the vast majority of Bolshevik comrades were in favor of cooperating with the provisional government and, if I recall correctly, it was really the firm position of Lenin against the war that eventually caught on with the others, pushing Martov, who should have been the leader, in the dustbin of history. Russia could have been just another constitutional monarchy or a republic.
I would add as a consequence of the Russian revolution the ‘compromises’ made by Western governments to socio-democrats by fear of a rise of communism supporters, particularly following the two wars, which impacts our everyday life now.
6
Others have commented on the absurdity of pinning every negative event of the 20th century on Lenin. I'll just add that the author seems to have entirely disregarded another revolution that saw mass rule, professional revolutionaries and a reign of terror: the French.
8
You are correct in stating that you cannot pin every negative event of the 20th century on Lenin. You can however, ascribe the vast majority of over 100 million deaths to the totalitarian, left wing, Utopian regimes of Communism and National Socialism whose central distinction was that Hitler and Mussolini viewed the struggle for socialist hegemony to be nationalistic while Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Fidel, et al insisted that it must emanate from an internationalist strategy.
1
I think that there has to be another consideration. The Russian people did have an election before the October revolution. The Bolsheviks were overwhelmingly defeated, but Lenin refused to follow the popular desires and ultimately gained power by force. This has been a tragedy for the Russian people, because they continued to suffer one way or another. This, of course, does not change the outcome, but in the current climate of "Russophobia" it is often forgotten that Russia accounted for 40% of the population of the Soviet Union. L large number of revolutionaries and leaders were not even Russian.
1
"Judeo-Bolshevism" is so Hitler horse cart fascist. French fascists preferred to veil their basest sentiment more sophisticatedly. "Asiatic Menace" gave them cover for their PU Tabu stink and sold well in smart circles.
4
This is unspeakably bad. Not only is it poor history, but it is written in bad faith. The author - like many liberal and conservative writers - is suffering from selective amnesia. This selective amnesia is necessary to his argument that Lenin and the Russian Revolution represented some sort of unprecedented evil. To believe that one must forget that the "civilized" nations of Europe used violence to establish and maintain racist colonial regimes throughout Asia and Africa and that competition among the imperial powers directly caused the First World War. It is much more difficult to demonize Lenin when one treats him in the context of his times. Finally, the claim "no Lenin, no Hitler," is not credible. Hitler and his movement remained marginal long after the October Revolution. One could with greater justice claim, "No Great Depression, no Hitler." The editorial board should do better by its readers.
41
The only basic, underlying truth that I have learned from this article is the following:
"The tournaments of power would likely have been just as vicious — just differently vicious."
All too true, but, to frame your arguments on presumed ideology, as opposed to the mechanics of real human psychology, while also ignoring the similarity of end result regardless of ideology is simply ignoring the obvious; serfdom under the system of the Czars ended up having little to no difference with Lenin's system. Both are built on the cult of personality (royalty versus presumed revolutionary, turned paranoid autocrat) and while Lenin may have started off as a so-called Marxist revolutionary, he ended up as your run of the mill, paranoid dictator that forgot what put him there.
Furthermore, would Karl Marx have ever aligned himself with this kind of legacy and outcome?
Did he invent the cult of personality?
I cannot remember him ever embracing this kind of an outcome!
Thus, perhaps the real lesson learned from Russian history is true of all human history and that is "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" and until humanity fully grasps this, regardless of what you think you believe, then we are indeed doomed to repeat this time and time again.
22
This "what if" flash back of history is too simplistic. The imperial structure was too weak and the Russian Empire was vast. It is unlikely that the Czarists could have negotiated any stable arrangement. Very likely the country would have disintegrated to various war lord controlled territories not unlike China after SunYat Sen's short lived rule. The assumption that Hitler and Nazism were a direct result of Lenin's dictatorship in Russia is highly debatable. Hitler was a product of internal German politics of the time. He successfully exploited the poor economic climate in Germany painting Jews as an internal enemy and Bolshevism as an external enemy. One could speculate that a weak and divided non Bolshevik Russia might have been more easily overrun by the Nazi brutes. Fascism and Nazism in Europe had as much millenial prospects as Communism or the Abrahamic faiths that the columnist cites. Putin emerged only after the end of the Boris Yeltsin decade in post Soviet Russia. 1990s Russia despite inheriting a much better state structure was seething from chaos to collapse. Why would a post Czar 1917 Russia have been anything but chaotic even if the Bolsheviks (meaning minority) had failed?
20
Great post. I agree with you. The whole article is nothing more than Russia bashing.
1
Of course, the Bolsheviks were the *minority* party, but their name means "majority", and vice versa for the Mensheviks: an early example of "black is white and white is black".
2
Prior to World War I, Russia had a fast-growing economy guided by Prime Minister Vladimir Kokovtsov. The Romanov dynasty could have lasted indefinitely if Czar Nicholas, as I mentioned below, had not decided to fire Kokovtsov and go to war. That decision resulted from the Czar's having appointed sycophantic incompetents to the Imperial Council. They prepared the war plans and talked the Czar into implementing them.
2
Mr. Montefiore images the tsarist regime surviving. It's hard to see how it could. The Russo-Japanese War and the First World War show how dissatisfaction was so widespread that the stresses of war were certain to break the restraints that held the population down. And the Russian government and military predictably waged war badly, as they did so much else badly (the Tsar himself seems to have wanted his government to be inefficient; whenever someone such as Witte or Stolypin appeared to be making the government work better, the Tsar saw him as a threat and undermined him). Yet the logic of Russian nationalism and expansionism was sure to lead to wars, it was only a question of where and when and against whom. Some sort of revolution was going to happen at some point. It might not have been taken over by Lenin, but we can't assume that the alternative would have been benign. There were plenty of ruthless people in the Russian Empire, as everywhere else. It's awfully easy to imagine other horrific scenarios, which there's no room here to detail.
4
The Tsar abdicated many months before the October revolution. The October Revolution was in all real respects, a coup d'état, which replaced the fledging republican government with the glorious government of Lenin. The Germans assisted Lenin because he promised to make peace with them. The Bolsheviks eventually suppressed all the groups which had participated in the fall of the Tsar and even of those groups who helped them seize power. The reason is that they believed in the certainty of the eventual victory of their system of beliefs, and it made them deadly and ruthless.
The Russian Bolshevik Revolution did happen and led to the rise of Bolshevik movements around the world, all bent upon sweeping away the corrupt institutions of the status quo, including the liberal democracies founded upon the idea of government by consent of the governed. Marx was certain that nature meant for man's social order to evolve into communism and with it a perfected human race which would live in peace and without governments. This perfection justified the sacrifice of as many people as needed to achieve this perfection. Without the Bolsheviks, Russia would have struggled to achieve order and unity, but their might not have been any Hitler in Germany and no Stalin in the Soviet Union, and no World War II.
1
What if? Better, it is what it is, deal with it.
What a wonderful world if all these slaughters never happened . . .
of course, they are continuing to happen . . .
Is there any hope of the world awakening to themselves and the tyrannies that control much of the world--with a huge number of displaced and starving?
gotta be positive . . . regardless . . . there are so many great people in the world why is it controlled by those intent on "raping the world" and grabbing the gold?
1
This is a terrible take, one that--among other things--ignores that right-wing fears of socialist revolution long predate the Bolshevik coup in Petrograd. Indeed, the successful seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in Russia was part of a broader, worldwide revolutionary wave, which was vehemently opposed by conservatives and reactionaries. You don't need Lenin for Mussolini, who was already well on his way from socialism to revolutionary conservatism when he served in the trenches.
While I have little sympathy for Leninism, It's disappointing to see the New York Times print a hatchet job on the Left (Montefiore just couldn't resist the dig against Corbyn) instead of engaging in real historical reflection on the Bolshevik revolution and its meanings.
10
If Montefiore wishes to make the claim that Jeremy Corbyn is a "quasi-Leninist comfortably disguised as a cuddly greybeard" and group him in alongside Mao Tse Tung, then he can damned well back that statement up with some facts- ANY facts, whatsoever, to support that assertion.
The renationalization of British industries and public services that were already nationalized for most of Britain's post WWII history and the increasing of taxes on the rich do not constitute Leninism. You might just as well call FDR as Marxist.
20
Yeah, except it's pretty clear that Corbyn is an unreconstructed Marxist/Socialist bent on dragging the UK kicking and screaming towards "utopia". Maybe he can do it better than EVERYONE else who ever tried.
1
Many of today's neocons do portray FDR and his legacy as Marxist and do what they can to undo the New Deal, for instance the attempt at a massive redistribution of wealth to the present day robber barons via the tax code.
2
"Some things didn't happen when they were supposed to. Others didn't happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct such defects."
- Mark Twain
9
Montifiore is a fine writer and this is nice article. There is a whole sub-genre of science-fiction called "alternate history". I particularly enjoy speculations on what would have happened had the Roman Empire held together.
More recently, what if the Ottomans had stayed out of WWI? Or entered on the side of the Allies? Very different Middle East today.
2
If there had been no October revolution, there would have been a November revolution. If Lenin had been assassinated, there would have been an equally ruthless dictator or a short-lived liberal who would have been assassinated by some other ruthless dictator. If the white army had beaten the Leninists, Russia still would have veered toward some form of autocratic socialism through a series of seeming accidents. Russia just had to try some version of communism because people emerging from primitive religious beliefs were convinced that socialism was inevitable and good. So, they tried it, for generations. It didn't work. It was a spectacular failure. Our current world is a mixture of self-doubting liberal democracy and autocrats with absolutely no idea of what to do now that socialism has failed, utterly.
4
To blame Lenin for the Nazis is an outrageous insult to the 27 million Soviet citizens who sacrificed their lives to save the world from fascist conquest. It would be more accurate to say that without Lenin and the state he founded, the Nazis would have won.
The cynicism here is not by Leninists but by professional anti-communists
such as Mr. Montefiore putting unattributed quotes endorsing bloodshed and condemning morality in the mouths of Communist leaders.
The October Revolution was not a coup. Tens of thousands of soldiers of the St. Petersburg garrison took part, backed by hundreds of thousands of others. Moreover, they reflected the will of the majority of Russians, who chose to back the Bolsheviks, not because of manipulation by the evil genius Lenin, but because they understood that they were the only party that would carry out the policies that would save the country.
The soldiers wanted peace. Several million had already been killed in the World War. The Provisional Government of Kerensky instead launched a new offensive that was slaughtered. They were tied to the Allies.
The peasants were likewise desperate for land. But Kerensky told them to respect the landlords property. In the cities, transportation had broken down and hunger was was widespread as the factories closed. But the provisional government refused to nationalize them so the workers could keep them going. The whole country was in a terrible crisis that only a popular Revolution could solve.
14
Uncle Will would not have been able to make off with all those Versailles fire sale items Catherine picked up after the last big blow out of monarchical failure. What is it with Plutoids that they have to possess other big failures' possessions?
I used to open Marie's commode and ask, "So this is where she kept the piss pot? No shite." Just another example of empty people attempting to recruit another's mojo into their empty suites.
Will rolled the Provisional Government like dice. He sold their bonds to all his well connected friends, but in the end, just passed a million dollar check to "Lenine." Will's preferred spelling. He wanted Russia to stay in the war, all the better for his copper mines' bullets.
2
The sad likelihood is that, with or without the Bolsheviks, some form or other of oppressive authoritarianism eventually would have taken hold after the March Revolution. How history would have been different with Russia under a neo-tsarist regime or some other form of autocratic rule through the 20th Century is impossible to say, other than that Russian sponsorship of international communism would not have occurred and Mao, Ho and other ambitious men would have had to find another brand under which to market their otherwise pedestrian power-grabs. Russian society (other than its dissident intellectuals) has never embraced Western-style Democracy, preferring to trade the freedoms and quality of life we take for granted for the illusion of security and comforting xenophobia the strong-man provides. Neither western, nor eastern, Russia continues to confound the West, but not itself.
2
How is it that any government that fails it people is communist? North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba are not communists, they are personalty cults, a type of dictatorship. If Lenin never lived, we would still have dictatorships like Putin and Chavez (Maduro).
8
The "Bolshevism of the right" is better known as fascism to most communists and historians. You would think this person would know this. it's increasingly obvious.
For over a century those two have been waging a war for our political souls, but I prefer a less spicy gumbo of both. That's what a democracy can serve us, but it can also get tugged too far to either pole of this eternal struggle to balance capital against humanity.
I myself enjoy private property, but you have to pay for your own excesses, not lean on me for a tax break, takers.
5
I agree with Warren, that "what if" histories are a waste of time.
"What if" Lee Harvey Oswald had been arrested for his attempted assassination of General Edwin Walker a few weeks earlier?
"What if" Napoleon had had a B-52 at Waterloo?
"What if" 77,000 in three states had stayed home in November of 2016?
All pointless speculation.
8
Mr. Montefiori could save us from such misinterpretation of History. A good historian and researcher would balance to find the real history. What we see here is just a selfishly disregard to so many events that culminated the Russian Revolution. I suggest that Mr. Montefiori should go back to research other sources than the ones that pleases him.
6
Putin prefers to use the victory in WWII to cover for the fact Russia is more fascist now than it has ever been. The rich are rewarded if they adhere to his wishes while the people have nothing but the past to dine on. There is no socialism in Putin's Russia.
16
The main problem with these scenarios is that they incorrectly assume that everything else, absent the "What if..." scenario, remains constant. For example, take the statement in this piece that claims that "Without Lenin there would have been no Hitler". It seems to me that Hitler used whatever reasons he could come up with, given his current political environment. Without Lenin, Hitler, or others like him, would have come up with other reasons to reach power, whatever they may be.
The point I am trying to make is that if we can learn anything from this piece, and other similar "What if..." pieces, it is that the future is utterly random and is extremely volatile. If you can claim that one man, Lenin, though a series of unlikely events came to change the fate of the world it is because the fate of the world is capable of being changed by one man with a bucket of luck. It is a property of the environment of the world, not the individuals. And because of this, without Lenin, there would be other individuals with their buckets of luck that would have changed the world in ways we could not even imagine.
8
We can imagine that any number of lesser revolutions bringing about some measures of change for the oppressed in many places would have occurred in the 20th century without Lenin. I do think Russia would be a vastly different place. In 1914 the economy was "taking off," stalled if not destroyed by the Great War. The education system had become progressive and was growing. Russia was facing west. There certainly was a Lenin, even if Russians today deny it.
I think Lenin and his revolution were so violent in reaction against the terrible repression of socialist ideas everywhere else. Lenin's body was draped with a flag from the Paris Commune because the French old guard had executed as many as 17,000 Parisians in 3 days. Mostly their crime was organizing themselves for their survival after the government had abandoned Paris when the Germans approached in 1870. Lenin was determined that the Paris failure not be repeated. What Lenin did not see was that many reforms the Parisians wanted in 1870 had become real in the 3rd Republic by 1914.
1
It is an amazing story of how Lenin got to Russia and the British got to question him in Finland before the train left to enter Russia. All that is interesting, but Montfiore barely touches on the question raised by the title of the article. One model might be to look at the labor movement in USA?
1
I am currently reading Dominic Lieven's superb and highly detailed 2015 book on the circumstances that launched the complex events in Europe at the turn of the 20th Century involving the British, German, French, American, Ottoman and nascent Russian Empires plus the Slavs and Italian nations; "The End of Tsarist Russia." Lieven's thorough analysis is a tentacled web of national interactions and interests that belies the very idea that Russian transition from Empire to Centrally run communism can be so simply explained as we have here, making this oversimple essay by Montefiore seem like run of the mill output from the John Birch Society.
I had and still have planned for my next work for a study of early 20th Century Europe Montefiore's own 2004, "Stalin- The Court of the Red Tsar" which is a look at the dictator's personal life. This short essay on the October Revolution is fair warning that this author may be biased to the point of worthlessness. It's pretty clear I would have noticed without this red flag, but thanks anyway.
6
very interesting - the Germans actually sowed the seeds for WW II - by shipping Lenin to Russia - by brutalizing populations of civilians - by using chemical weapons - after WW I - the let bygones be bygones approach was not possible - and the German economy was already destroyed by WW I. What does a soft approach look like after a brutal conflict - look no further than this country - allowing the confederate - red states -with limited consequence - back into the union was the biggest mistake in US history.
2
We needn't look as far as Russia for totalitarian government. Didn't Donald just claim he was the only one who matters? He is the only one to make policy?
And aren't the Republican tax and health care bills so favorable to business and oligarchs and so tentative for the rest of us that we border on a one-party putsch -- replete with a cult leader?
9
At once we condemn Lenin's dictatorship and talk about how Russia might been saved by "The White Armies", those leaders in the cause of democracy and reform.
The revolution won because it offered land to the peasants and peace to the soldiers. Lenin rode this wave and tried to control it with mixed success. Only with the First Five Year Plan was the actual dictatorial communist regime established.
But thanks a lot for the rote rerun of what might have been. Can we have a column on If the South won the Civil War next week?
4
I'd rather speculate on "what if Trump had not been elected"
6
Most historians can review a time period as we see here, the tough thing to do is keep your searing political biases out of the conclusions, which we do not see here. In the end as that happens we get example of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg's dictum, "The most dangerous of all falsehoods is a slightly distorted truth."
Thankfully for the progress of accurate history, well read people know better that to blame Adolf on Lenin just because the vile associations inherently move sheep to nod. Hitler was born at the Peace Treaty of Versailles that ended WW1, in which the Russians had no part. If they had had a part we'd have never seen Hitler. Anti Slav German sentiment was brought to Germany, ironically, by Baltic Jewish immigrants (see Dominic Leiven, "The End of Tsarist Russia"). Lacking the Russian Revolution America might never have reacted to it's Great Economic Depression in any way that actually benefited workers, instead Wall St would have created an American serfdom under flag and cross that the Tsars might have admired, except that the Tsars actually loved their peasants.
Tossing Trump into the mix is a dead ringer sign of having caved to pop culture, add Putin and today's anti-Russia misinformation campaign and you have descended to some place where you're gone Tabloid, perhaps jealous of Dan Brown's weekly income. Readers here will love this, which is probably it's only point.
4
A resurrection of the great man theory of history, as if it all depended on personalities, especially the man on horseback, rather than long-term historical forces. Like the Bourbons, this author has forgotten nothing and learned nothing. What retrograde nonsense
9
Alt-Facts has morphed into Alt-History. So many suppositions and so little to back them up. The red menace that did stoke fears was not primarily a result of the Russian revolution. There were millions of communists in the U.S., Germany, the rest of Europe and elsewhere. The Bolsheviks were far too involved with the White rebels to be involved with communist activity in the U.S., Western Europe or elsewhere. To claim No Lenin No Hitler makes no sense, as the humiliation of losing World War I and the sanctions imposed on Germany had far more to do with Hitler's rise that Russian communists.
One could argue if no Hitler no Trump, but again it's wild speculation lacking facts to back it up.
6
Maybe, if the german conservatives would have tried to ameliorate the economic condition of the populace instead of supporting a murderous, scapegoating populist rabble raiser would have stop the spread of Lenin’s revolution.
3
Hypotheticals, mental garbage sometimes, masturbatory to others. There is a saying: "If my grandma had had four wheels, she would/could have been a bus". The facts are there, and the best we can do, or ought to, is learn from them, avoid it's outrages and far too often our dehumanizing, sacrificing the individual in favor of 'society at large'.
3
Spinning counter-factual scenarios is a waste of time.
1) far too many variables, known facts and events.
2) there are several orders of magnitude number of completely unknown facts and events.
To write articles such as this one:
1) limited to a tiny subset of cherry picked known facts.
2) each is necessarily spun in some way
3) one has to concoct some causal chain.
What if Lennien was hit by a bus on his way back to Russia.
Bolshevism was an idea. Marxism was an ideology. It would have caught fire somewhere, sometime.
What if fascism had never happened? Today it is resurgent across the world and is the basis of ultra-nationalism that is preventing us from coming together to prevent global climate catastrophe and, perhaps, the use of nuclear weapons in the next world war.
4
With the circumstances that existed in 1917-18 Russia, it was almost inevitable that some form of dictatorship would have come to power. In similar conditions, it has often been the people and group with the clearest ideology and most fanatical will, rather than the largest numbers, that ends up on top. None of the other players in post tsarist Russia were as fanatical in their outlook and determination as the Bolsheviks; none of the others could as effectively use their beliefs and propaganda to justify almost anything to attain their goal.
3
This article is what is known in the world of sports as the fallacy of the predetermined outcome. No Lenin = no Hitler. My college professors would have flunked me had I written this 40+ years ago. BTW, I was in Russia a month ago and they were, in fact, conducting public commemorations of the revolution in Moscow. The outside of the Bolshoi Theatre was used as a giant movie theatre screen. A film commemorating the one-hundredth anniversary of the 1917 Revolution (sponsored by the state airline Aeroflot) was shown, accompanied by a rather loud audio. Thousands of people in the streets crowded around to view the film.
8
The world went askew when in 1914 Czar Nicholas II fired his peace-loving Prime Minister and, greedy for more territory, provoked a war with Austria-Hungary and Germany. First, Russia arranged the assassination of Austria's Archduke Ferdinand. Second, the Czar ordered a general mobilization of his army and navy knowing this would trigger Germany's Schlieffen Plan, which began with an invasion of Belgium and France. These facts are obvious but carefully ignored by most historians. For documentation and details, see Chapter 12 of my book "Twelve American Wars: Nine of Them Avoidable."
2
"What If" histories are, as the philosopher Benedetto Croce once said, nice parlor games. The Russian Revolution was, indeed, a formative force of twentieth-century history. But it is hard not to feel that Montefiore stacks the deck far too heavily on the negative. Perhaps without the Russian Revolution, we would not have gotten the social welfare state in western Europe and North America, because that was introduced with an awareness that the alternative to enacting modest social support might be outright revolution. Beyond that, I'm struck that Montefiore doesn't really deal with the First World War. The brutality and global scale of that war produced all sorts of effects, including the Bolshevik Revolution. Had there not been a Russian Revolution or had it been successfully crushed, I am convinced that the First World War would have spawned other demons. One sees how correct Croce was. Counter-factual history is a parlor game, and its pieces can be moved at random. What if there had not been a First World War? What if there had not been European Imperialism raping much of the world? What if there had been no capitalism in the first place?
87
Agree, what if there had been no Hitler? What if the Persians defeated the Greeks? What if the Dodgers beat the Astros? What if we lived on Mars?
1
Agreed. The writer underestimates the “other demons “as a result of the war one them the blaming the
Jews for Germany’s loss of the war created or fostered by the German General Staff. And forgetting the depression’s cause of the rise of Hitler. And forgetting that Mussolini’s creation of fascism who was also the inspiration of Hitler. And forgetting the Russia after the war was preoccupied with its domestic problems.
Leftist would have grabbed on to Marx with our without then Russian revolution.
1
Very good point. WWI made the revolution possible and it also created the economic and social conditions for the National Socialist revolution in Germany. I think that it is a stretch to say that the German's signed on to Nazism as a reaction to Bolshevism. It was the war and the punitive treaty that followed that delegitimized the Weimar Republic and gave rise to Hitler, not some unrealized threat in the east. It can be said that Hindenburg did prefer the Nazis to the communists which was crucial to Hitler's rise, but I think Hindenburg also preferred Nazism over Democracy, so I think it is hard to see fear of the Soviets as a main driver there either. Soviet fear definitely drove geopolitics after the WWII, but I think that case for that fear driving them before the war is weak.
1
The implication that Jeremy Corbyn is some sort of Leninist sounds like a right-wing paranoid fantasy. There is nothing in his platform that was not found in the Britain of the late 1940s through 1970s. He is the true conservative on the political scene, and the Conservative Party, with their Dickensian "punish the poor" policies are the radicals.
And anyone who thinks that Cuba and Venezuela have anything in common except the Spanish language and racial diversity doesn't know enough to comment.
105
Thank you. Corbyn's "extremism" mainly lies in supporting policies on the left that the economism of the 80s placed beyond the pale but that have wide support of [gasp] voters. Not demogogery, just plain democracy.
6
Unfortunately Cuba and Venezuela do have a lot in common. The Cuban revolution has and continue to be major force shaping the thinking of most of the world left including Venezuela. Venezuela when was swimming in oil money during the Chavez supported Cuba economically. In exchange Cuba provided the Chavez regime with intelligence to keep them in power. Today, several instance of the Venezuelan regime are run or supervised by the Cubans.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/05/maduro-venezue...
1
Cuba and Venezuela have a very important thing in common: control by the Cuban secret police. Without Cuban secret police present in Venezuela to stiffen its spine, Maduro's clownish dictatorship wouldn't last another month.
1
There were huge objective reasons for Russian Revolution. Demographic explosion of population (mostly agrarian) during 50 years before revolution and huge amount of latifundia. Actual duration of Russian revolution is about 15 years. In fact it began in 1905.
Role of Lenin is important one, but objective reasons are most important.
Also, a for millions Russian Revolution was dramatic example of a huge social lift during many years.
Unfortunately, author underestimate objective reason.
17
I do not know if Harry Turtledove is a Times reader, but if you are, sir, here is the basis for your next series of novels.
5
.
... and the exploitation of what Lenin [perhaps] called "useful idiots."
And history just keeps on repeating.
24
The Domino Theory never really explains anything, as is the case here. It’s a simplistic device used to explain a complex type of event, such as social upheaval from the left or right. It provides comfort to some by identifying the cause of distasteful domestic events to an external entity. It was used to absolve Western governments from the effects of colonialism. It was used to absolve the Allies from the impact of the Treaty of Versailles. Only in this oversimplified view of history can the game of “what if” be played with such slight regard for accuracy. Pin the tail on the donkey of Lenin if you wish, but don’t close one’s eyes to the ample internal factors that produced upheaval and untold misery in each of the cases referenced herein.
16
What is amazing about all of this, is that Russia was a European backwater. While geographically Russia was a monster in 1917, economically and geopolitically it was insignificant. Militarily they entered World War I lacking any ability to fight a modern war; as can be seen by their embarrassing loss to the Japanese in 1905. The last time Russia had been significant on the world stage was 105 years earlier when they pushed Napoléon and is troops back to Versailles. It is incredible that the twentieth century became a century that was defined by Russians and the world's reaction to them. In 1917, you would have been insane to think that Russia was going to be anything more than what it had been, a second rate power.
30
The west should have supported Kerensky and the Whites. But they did only superficially to keep them in the war which the people did not want. Would that the people of the US would rise up against the Military -Industrial-Neocon-Caabal that has kept us fight and wasting trillions in the mideast fro decades past and in the future if they their way.
9
This presentation of history is absurd. The rise of Hitler was guaranteed by (1) the Treaty of Versailles, most of which was a punishment of Germany, a great blow to German pride, and most fundamentally, a transfer of wealth from Germany to other countries through payment of reparations; and (2) the Depression, after a few years of which the German people were willing to try anyone, however unusual, who would bring them out of poverty. Little, if any, of Hitler's rise was due to Lenin or Bolshevism. A revolution was bound to happen someplace - ever-growing numbers in the working class would require an uprising if they continued to be exploited and treated as just another piece of equipment. as frequently happened in industrialized companies. The USA and European countries precluded revolution by adopting some aspects of social democracy to improve the lives of ordinary people. Finally, it needs to be remembered that the Western powers did intervene in the Russian Civil War. Winston Churchill even directed the use of a chemical weapon against the Red Army. The agent was diphenylchloroarsine, which mostly causes vomiting but did also kill a small percentage of Russians who were attacked. Alas, Churchill started his chemical weapons campaign too late in the year - the weather turned cooler after the first attack, too cool for the diphenylchloroarsine to be in a gaseous form.
59
But if the Kerensky government had retained power in Russia the Eastern Front troops would not have been available for the Kaiser to send west, which might have led to a different outcome and a different treaty, or at least one that was caused by actual defeat thereby cutting the 'stab in the back' argument off at the knees. Also to be considered - without the perceived threat of soviet style worker's revolts, how would the capitalist countries have behaved and would that have changed the Great Depression?
All points to ponder, obviously we will never know but that's the beauty of alternate history speculation.
1
disagree - the people with money snf power in Germany supported Hitler - without out that support he never rises to power -
2
Nothing is ever "guaranteed". The use of the word "inevitable" is a fallacious ex-post facto argument, often but always inappropriately applied to historical events. Certainly it is wildly inaccurate to describe Hitler's rise as the only thing that could have happened.
A more interesting bit of historical speculation is what if Napoleon had won the battle of Waterloo? The British victory by Wellington is a source of great pride for the English. Discuss that freedom with the Irish, Indians, South Africans and other victims of English colonialism. More significantly, Waterloo kept the English king and Prussian, Russian and Austro Hungarian emperors in power for another 100 years and this victory was the source of World War I. The French replaced Napoleon with another king. All of these kings crushed democratic and popular revolutions in their own countries.
Imagine was the mid east would look like if the Ottoman empire had not sided with Germany in WW 1.
The French revolution was about the rights of man and shortly thereafter about the rights of the female citizen. The French did not solve the problem of democratic rule. What followed in Europe was (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_Woman_and_of_...
far worse. Imagine if "democracy" evolved during that period of time in a manner that it evolved after World War 2 to where Europe is now a zone of peace per Kant in the Democratic Peace. There have been no European wars for almost 75 years. Imagine a Russian in which democracy evolved instead of first communism and now a Putin as a new Czar.
26
Your dismay at 'English' colonialism is, of course, very well founded (in truth it was British; for example Wellington was Anglo-Irish) but these counter-factual games lead us to ask: What then? Would French victory in India or the West Indies have been better for the locals? I doubt it. BTW, what 'democratic and popular revolutions' were crushed in Britain after Waterloo? There was some early violence (e.g Peterloo) but there was overall a very slow and grudging extension of the franchise that was just sufficient to avoid revolution. It seems the British have now lost their talent for compromise.
2
So if not for Bolsheviks, none of the 20th-century atrocities would have happened. No Cold War, no Second World War, no First World War. Oh, wait, that war to redistribute colonies had happened before the Bolsheviks and was the reason they were able to take power. As well as all other capitalist wars that happened in the 19th century. I'll tell you what else wouldn't have happened if not for Bolsheviks taking power. No workers rights, no paid holiday, no free healthcare, no social mobility in most western countries. Having Soviet alternative made capitalists fear that their workers will rise up as Russians did and made them share some of their profits with the general population. The USSR is no more and the gap between rich and poor is widening to the pre-First World War levels. You cannot blame Putin's Russia on USSR either. The West did everything to dismantle USSR and recreate it in the wild capitalism image in the shortest time possible. This is what you get when you resurrect robber barons - an aggressive empire straight out of 19th century.
83
Those workers' rights in large part pre-dated the Russian revolutions. The rise of the Independent Labour Party and the unions from the 1880s led to a range of improvements for the British people such as pensions, workman's compensation for injury, extended franchise etc. The direction of travel was clear well before 1905 and 1917.
5
The author started 4 years too late. The "Great War" was started by the Kiaser. What if Wilhelm II had told the Austrians that he would not support them invading Serbia? Instead Wilhelm just said, in effect, "Whatever you do is OK with me."
12
"...a new Bolshevism of the right where the ends justify the means and acceptable tactics include lies and smears, and the exploitation of what Lenin called useful idiots."
The right-wing in this country has been using and perfecting this "new Bolshevism" for the last 40 years or so. Trump may be its most extreme practitioner to date, but it's hardly new.
27
In old anti -Catholic books, you will find the same "ends justifies the means" slogan supposedly being the byword of, not Lenin and the Communists, but Iqnatius Loyola and the Jesuits! Of course neither Loyola or Lenin ever said such a thing.
Yet you will find this error repeated over and over, even in non tabloids such as the TIMES, who routinely drop their normal journalistic standards in the service of anti-Communism.
4
Mr. Montefiore hangs a long train of historical changes on one series of contingencies, the events that enabled Lenin and the Bolsheviks to maintain their grip on power. The argument that the failure of the Bolsheviks to ignite a revolution in Russia would have altered the course of worldwide events seems sound, in accordance with the general principle that major historical trends do not develop in isolation.
But the notion that we can focus on one contingency (the success of the Bolsheviks) and use it confidently to predict an entire series of major historical trends defies logic. Montefiore stresses the many factors that could have derailed the Russian Revolution, but he then abandons this sound approach to historical analysis. If Lenin fails, then allegedly Hitler dies an obscure painter, because his rise to power depended on German fear of Russian communism. Perhaps, but this interpretation ignores the deep popular resentment over the Versailles treaty, which the Nazis exploited to build support for the overthrow of the Weimar Republic. The Great Depression qualifies as another unpredictable set of events which aided the Nazis by undermining acceptance of the political status quo.
Montefiore's other predictions seem even more problematic, because they hinge in part on the absence of Hitler and because they could have been sidetracked by other unknowable contingencies.
No historian has a reliable crystal ball.
28
Lenin has proved an easy person to vilify..."a revolution without firing squads is meaningless." In the same breath, this author bemoans the fact that the Russian government didn't find Lenin and kill him. Hmm. Fantasizing a world without V.I. Lenin, would still have left a very capable Leon Trotsky on the scene. So many accounts neglect to mention the importance of WW1 on the Russian people. The war was criminal, and they were sick of it. The Bolsheviks were resolutely opposed to it. There was a connection.
46
No Lenin, no Hitler?
How about if the allies hadn't imposed impossible reparation payments on Germany after World War 1? Remember that the war ended with an armistice, not a surrender but the allies acted like it was the latter and treated Germany as such.
America at least learned its lesson and rather than punishing Germany after WWII it helped it economically.
52
No lenin - no hitler - definately
Germany demanded harsh reparations from France in 1870 and then destroyed northeastern France and neutral Belgium in 1914-18.
Finland was the only country to repay its WWI debt to the US.
1
Without the Bolshevik Revolution, the world would certainly have been different. But how? Hitler's rise to power was caused by complex reasons -- yes, fear of Communist revolution was among them. But the desire for vengeance following German defeat in 1918 would have been just as strong, as would anti-Semitism, anti-Socialism, the legend of the "stab in the back," and so on. So the outcome of this particular counter-factual may not be no Hitler and no Nazi Germany, but Hitler victorious in 1939-1945, because there was no Red Army to oppose him at Stalingrad and all the way to Berlin. Not a justification for the crimes of Lenin and his successors -- but a caution against assuming that the removal of one evil would have translated into blocking another.
43
There was no Russian revolution; it was a putsch. Stalin just replaced Nicholas II and one dictator replaced another. Stalin brutally forced modernization on Russia just as Peter the Great had done earlier.
8
Stalin did not directly replace Nicholas II, you've missed whole Russian Civil War.
2
It appears you left out a few steps here. Kerensky replaced the Tsar, Lenin replaced Kerensky, and Stalin replaced Lenin
4
Lenin??
A compelling and chilling account of the "What If?" school of history. But an alternative past imagined only by the absence of the events of 1917 does not eliminate the equally plausible march of what the author termed tournaments of power leading to mass exterminations. Nor does it dispel fears about current trends of increased authoritarian rule in the US and worldwide. Isaac Asimov wrote, There are no happy endings in history, only crisis points that pass.
35
In terms of history, we end up where we were headed whether we take the short, easy road or the delays of the hard one.
9