by Geoffrey Churchman

First a little historic clarification is needed: The Bolsheviks and Mensheviks were two factions of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party (RSDLP) that split in 1903 over ideological and organisational differences. Led by Lenin, the Bolsheviks were hardline revolutionaries advocating a small, disciplined vanguard party to seize immediate power. The Mensheviks, led by Martov, favored a broader, democratic party that aimed for gradual reform and collaboration with the bourgeoisie to reach socialism.

A lot has been written about the Bolshevik Marxist-Leninist revolution in Russia during 1917 which lasted in various ways to 1924. One of the books I have is the hardcover edition of Orlando Figes’ A People’s Tragedy which even in paperback runs to over 1000 pages.

The communist revolution in the Russian empire as it was then was arguably the most significant event of the 20th century as it led to the first, eventually succesful attempt to install communism in a country; it led to several other attempts, some also successful, to do the same in other countries. As a totalitarian system it was disasterous — until the end of Stalin’s psychopathic rule after Lenin died ended, it cost the lives of tens of millions of Russians by massacre, execution and starvation. Other than that it was a system that stiffled innovation and entrepreneurship, leaving the Soviets to obtain any way they could, technological designs from the West, and subjected their citizens to shabby and shoddy consumer products of all sorts. Its strict ideology was intolerant of criticism.

This book adds to the history of this dreadful episode by examining who were the masterminds of it. Their identity of the group of people who carried it out has been actively suppressed for more than a century. Famous author Alexander Solzhenitsyn is reported to have said: ‘You must understand, the leading Bolsheviks who ruled over Russia were not Russians. They hated Russians, they hated Christians. Driven by ethnic hatred they tortured and slaughtered millions of Russians.”

Lenin himself was a cruel murderer, whose attitudes towards members of the existing establishment made the Nazis in Germany in the pre-war period look tame. Hitler in 1936 called the Bolsheviks ‘blood-stained criminals.’

So who then were these people? According to Ron Asher they were mostly Jews. Of the Russian population of 158,400.000 at the time of WW1, 7,800,000 were Jews — although Russian territory at the time included some of Poland where the proportion of Jews was much higher than in Russia proper. There were also higher proportions in other territories Russia added in the 19th century, too.

Lenin himself was Russian but many of his comrades were Jews. After Lenin’s death, his successor Stalin was a Georgian but had Jewish in-laws and Jewish associates, especially in his early career. Later on Stalin became anti-Semetic.

I found that several aspects need more explaining. Jews have a general reputation for being hard business types — why then would they want to abolish capitalism? The other consideration is how much did it shape the Nazis’ attitudes to the Jews, particularly those in the East? To what extent were they a factor in the Nazis’ attitudes to the Russians? Did they conflate the two?

It is of course cause for more investigation, and it shouldn’t be considered anti-semitism, rather fact research. As in every country there is always a need to differentiate the people of a country and their government: some will support it, others will oppose it.

This uniquely candid book lists the names and shows the evidence of the group behind the Revolution and explains how they managed to bring it about. It is an important addition to the literature for anyone who wants to know the true history of this cataclysmic event which, in the course of time, was to affect and influence every country in the world, in some ways for the better, but in most ways for the worse.

It is a slim A5 size book of 98 pages plus endmatter of references and an index. There are no illustrations except for the cover.

Available for $NZ 30 (including postage) from Tross Publishing: www.trosspublishing.com