The Origins of British Bolshevism

The Origins of British Bolshevism PDF Author: Raymond Challinor
Publisher: London : C. Helm ; Totowa, N.J. : Rowman and Littlefield
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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The Origins of British Bolshevism

The Origins of British Bolshevism PDF Author: Raymond Challinor
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000706680
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 375

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Book Description
First published in 1977. This book describes the growth of revolutionary organisations in Britain from 1900 onwards. It shows that there was an indigenous movement that developed quite independently from the left in other countries, although its basic outlook was remarkably similar to that of the Bolsheviks in Russia. The study concentrates the activities of the Socialist Labour Party, a small group of dedicated revolutionaries, whose impact on working-class politics had not been fully recognised. The most controversial section of the book deals with the Russian influence on the machinations that led to the formation of the British Communist Party. It is critical of Lenin, who sometimes gave advice on the basis of insufficient knowledge, and of Comitern agents, like Theodore Rothstein, with dubious political backgrounds. This title will be of great interest to students of politics, philosophy, and history.

The Spectre of War

The Spectre of War PDF Author: Jonathan Haslam
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691233764
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 504

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Book Description
A bold new history showing that the fear of Communism was a major factor in the outbreak of World War II The Spectre of War looks at a subject we thought we knew—the roots of the Second World War—and upends our assumptions with a masterful new interpretation. Looking beyond traditional explanations based on diplomatic failures or military might, Jonathan Haslam explores the neglected thread connecting them all: the fear of Communism prevalent across continents during the interwar period. Marshalling an array of archival sources, including records from the Communist International, Haslam transforms our understanding of the deep-seated origins of World War II, its conflicts, and its legacy. Haslam offers a panoramic view of Europe and northeast Asia during the 1920s and 1930s, connecting fascism’s emergence with the impact of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. World War I had economically destabilized many nations, and the threat of Communist revolt loomed large in the ensuing social unrest. As Moscow supported Communist efforts in France, Spain, China, and beyond, opponents such as the British feared for the stability of their global empire, and viewed fascism as the only force standing between them and the Communist overthrow of the existing order. The appeasement and political misreading of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy that followed held back the spectre of rebellion—only to usher in the later advent of war. Illuminating ideological differences in the decades before World War II, and the continuous role of pre- and postwar Communism, The Spectre of War provides unprecedented context for one of the most momentous calamities of the twentieth century.

Bolshevism and the British Left: Labour legends and Russian gold

Bolshevism and the British Left: Labour legends and Russian gold PDF Author: Kevin Morgan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
Morgan goes far beyond the question of Russian gold, to dig beneath a host of myths and misconceptions. He shows that Labour's parliamentary advance was itself inconceivable solely on the basis of the workers' and trade union 'pennies' with which it is usually identified. In addition to the virtual market that developed in Labour's parliamentary nominations, there was almost always a need to cultivate private benefactors - not excluding Russian ones. Thus, as Morgan shows, George Lansbury drew on a wide variety of financial sponsors to create the space both for his own political career and for Labour's daily newspaper, the Daily Herald. As for the communist party itself, Russian subsidies often gave rise to fierce internal conflict and controversy: it was certainly regarded as mixed blessing by many. Kevin Morgan has uncovered some fascinating new material on this period of left history, and through his insightful analysis a much more complex picture than hitherto emerges, both of Labour-communist relations and those between the CPGB and the Comintern.

British Labour and the Russian Revolution, 1917-1924

British Labour and the Russian Revolution, 1917-1924 PDF Author: Stephen Richards Graubard
Publisher: Cambridge, Mass., Harvard U. P
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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A Specter Haunting Europe

A Specter Haunting Europe PDF Author: Paul Hanebrink
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674047680
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
“Masterful...An indispensable warning for our own time.” —Samuel Moyn “Magisterial...Covers this dark history with insight and skill...A major intervention into our understanding of 20th-century Europe and the lessons we ought to take away from its history.” —The Nation For much of the last century, Europe was haunted by a threat of its own imagining: Judeo-Bolshevism. The belief that Communism was a Jewish plot to destroy the nations of Europe took hold during the Russian Revolution and quickly spread. During World War II, fears of a Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy were fanned by the fascists and sparked a genocide. But the myth did not die with the end of Nazi Germany. A Specter Haunting Europe shows that this paranoid fantasy persists today in the toxic politics of revitalized right-wing nationalism. “It is both salutary and depressing to be reminded of how enduring the trope of an exploitative global Jewish conspiracy against pure, humble, and selfless nationalists really is...A century after the end of the first world war, we have, it seems, learned very little.” —Mark Mazower, Financial Times “From the start, the fantasy held that an alien element—the Jews—aimed to subvert the cultural values and national identities of Western societies...The writers, politicians, and shills whose poisonous ideas he exhumes have many contemporary admirers.” —Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs

Churchill's Secret War With Lenin

Churchill's Secret War With Lenin PDF Author: Damien Wright
Publisher: Helion and Company
ISBN: 1913118118
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 578

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Book Description
An account of the little-known involvement of Royal Marines as they engaged the new Bolsheviks immediately after the Russian Revolution. After three years of great loss and suffering on the Eastern Front, Imperial Russia was in crisis and on the verge of revolution. In November 1917, Lenin’s Bolsheviks (later known as “Soviets”) seized power, signed a peace treaty with the Central Powers and brutally murdered Tsar Nicholas (British King George’s first cousin) and his children so there could be no return to the old order. As Russia fractured into loyalist “White” and revolutionary “Red” factions, the British government became increasingly drawn into the escalating Russian Civil War after hundreds of thousands of German troops transferred from the Eastern Front to France were used in the 1918 “Spring Offensive” which threatened Paris. What began with the landing of a small number of Royal Marines at Murmansk in March 1918 to protect Allied-donated war stores quickly escalated with the British government actively pursuing an undeclared war against the Bolsheviks on several fronts in support of British trained and equipped “White Russian” Allies. At the height of British military intervention in mid-1919, British troops were fighting the Soviets far into the Russian interior in the Baltic, North Russia, Siberia, Caspian and Crimea simultaneously. The full range of weapons in the British arsenal were deployed including the most modern aircraft, tanks and even poison gas. British forces were also drawn into peripheral conflicts against “White” Finnish troops in North Russia and the German “Iron Division” in the Baltic. It remains a little-known fact that the last British troops killed by the German Army in the First World War were killed in the Baltic in late 1919, nor that the last Canadian and Australian soldiers to die in the First World War suffered their fate in North Russia in 1919 many months after the Armistice. Despite the award of five Victoria Crosses (including one posthumous) and the loss of hundreds of British and Commonwealth soldiers, sailors and airmen, most of whom remain buried in Russia, the campaign remains virtually unknown in Britain today. After withdrawal of all British forces in mid-1920, the British government attempted to cover up its military involvement in Russia by classifying all official documents. By the time files relating to the campaign were quietly released decades later there was little public interest. Few people in Britain today know that their nation ever fought a war against the Soviet Union. The culmination of more than 15 years of painstaking and exhaustive research with access to many previously classified official documents, unpublished diaries, manuscripts and personal accounts, author Damien Wright has written the first comprehensive campaign history of British and Commonwealth military intervention in the Russian Civil War 1918-20. “Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War remains forgotten. Wright’s book addresses that oversight, interspersing the broader story with personal accounts of participants.” —Military History Magazine

The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism

The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism PDF Author: S. A. Smith
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191667528
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 834

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Book Description
The impact of Communism on the twentieth century was massive, equal to that of the two world wars. Until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, historians knew relatively little about the secretive world of communist states and parties. Since then, the opening of state, party, and diplomatic archives of the former Eastern Bloc has released a flood of new documentation. The thirty-five essays in this Handbook, written by an international team of scholars, draw on this new material to offer a global history of communism in the twentieth century. In contrast to many histories that concentrate on the Soviet Union, The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism is genuinely global in its coverage, paying particular attention to the Chinese Revolution. It is 'global', too, in the sense that the essays seek to integrate history 'from above' and 'from below', to trace the complex mediations between state and society, and to explore the social and cultural as well as the political and economic realities that shaped the lives of citizens fated to live under communist rule. The essays reflect on the similarities and differences between communist states in order to situate them in their socio-political and cultural contexts and to capture their changing nature over time. Where appropriate, they also reflect on how the fortunes of international communism were shaped by the wider economic, political, and cultural forces of the capitalist world. The Handbook provides an informative introduction for those new to the field and a comprehensive overview of the current state of scholarship for those seeking to deepen their understanding.

The Firebird and the Fox

The Firebird and the Fox PDF Author: Jeffrey Brooks
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108484468
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
A century of Russian artistic genius, including literature, art, music and dance, within the dynamic cultural ecosystem that shaped it.

The Bolsheviks and the Russian Empire

The Bolsheviks and the Russian Empire PDF Author: Liliana Riga
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107014220
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
This book offers a new interpretation of the Russian Revolution, finding that nearly two-thirds of the Bolsheviks were ethnic minorities.

Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution

Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution PDF Author: Antony Cyril Sutton
Publisher: CLAIRVIEW BOOKS
ISBN: 1905570619
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
Why did the 1917 American Red Cross Mission to Russia include more financiers than medical doctors? Rather than caring for the victims of war and revolution, its members seemed more intent on negotiating contracts with the Kerensky government, and subsequently the Bolshevik regime. In a courageous investigation, Antony Sutton establishes tangible historical links between US capitalists and Russian communists. Drawing on State Department files, personal papers of key Wall Street figures, biographies and conventional histories, Sutton reveals: The role of Morgan banking executives in funnelling illegal Bolshevik gold into the US; the co-option of the American Red Cross by powerful Wall Street forces; the intervention by Wall Street sources to free the Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky, whose aim was to topple the Russian government; the deals made by major corporations to capture the huge Russian market a decade and a half before the US recognized the Soviet regime; the secret sponsoring of Communism by leading businessmen, who publicly championed free enterprise. Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution traces the foundations of Western funding of the Soviet Union. Dispassionately, and with overwhelming documentation, the author details a crucial phase in the establishment of Communist Russia. This classic study - first published in 1974 and part of a key trilogy - is reproduced here in its original form. (The other volumes in the series include Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler and a study of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1933 Presidential election in the United States.)