Paul Rigby Wrote:Lauren Johnson Wrote:Paul Rigby Wrote:Truth Is A Lonely Warrior - James Perloff interviewed:
[video=youtube_share;rt6dth535m4]http://youtu.be/rt6dth535m4[/video]
http://www.amazon.com/Truth-Lonely-Warri...966816021/
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion? Ufda.
EDIT: The Rapture? Ufda.
I should have explained: at 12 mins 30 secs - or thereabouts - Perloff places a very precise figure on the amount Kuhn & Loeb placed at Trotsky's disposal. I can't recall hearing and/or seeing a figure that large before. Compare and contrast with the amount offered by Nikolay Starikov in the following, rather spiffing, extract:
Quote:Trotsky was a different story. At that same time in February, he was in faraway America, where, in his own words, he was doing nothing. Trotsky's profession was to be a professional revolutionary. Apparently this sort of work pays extremely well, as Trotsky returned to the Motherland with $10,000 in his pockets. Today, now that the ole' greenbacks have devalued considerably, this amount seems laughable, but at the turn of the century American currency was a force. Therefore, in present-day terms this amount was worth 20-30 times as much and this was just what he had tucked in his pocket, mind you. For incidentals, so to speak. The main funding supplied to the Russian Revolution from American bankers was transferred through accounts in neutral Sweden and briefcases of inconspicuous figures stealthily entering the country. No one disputes that Vladimir Lenin was brought home in the "closed wagon" with a bulging suitcase full of cash. No, it is an indisputable fact that the Bolsheviks were swimming in money. Who gave it to them? The Germans? Partly, but it should be understood that a substantial part of Lenin's "German" money originated from American loans given out to German government. Just like Lenin, Trotsky was connected to some dark circles and had relationships with various intelligence agencies. Having returned to their homeland, Trotsky and Lenin quickly teamed up, instantly forgetting their past enmity. It should be noted that Trotsky joined the Bolshevik Party only in the summer of 1917, however, in organizing the October uprising, he put in more effort than any other Bolshevik leader, Lenin included.
In other words, Leon Trotsky was representing American investment (or Anglo-Saxon intelligence) in the new revolutionary Russia. Therefore, he took the appropriate actions and expressed the appropriate ideas…
It's enough to cite a single fact about Comrade Trotsky and all becomes clear. In the early 20′s, he headed the People's Commissariat of Communications. It was under his leadership that this organization contracted with Swedish firm Nydkvist and Holm for a massive purchase of steam locomotives.
Everything about this order is interesting. Firstly, the quantity 1,000 locomotives. Secondly, the price 200 million gold rubles. The other details are no less curious. It's no secret that Sweden is not a habitat for elephants, but the fact that the Scandinavian country is far from being the world leader in locomotive production also somehow escaped everyone. Nydkvist and Holm did not even have the production capacity to meet the Soviet order at the time. Therefore, the two sides agreed to a transaction under this scheme: Red Russia would pay up front, the Swedes would then build factories, and then send us the locomotives.
In the entire history of the firm, Nydkvist and Holm had never produced more than 40 locomotives per year. But, it decided to muster its strength and produced as many as 50 in 1921! Further down the road, the order was distributed evenly over the course of five years, during which the Swedes used our money to build a factory! In 1922, the buyer received 200 locomotives, and from 1923-1925 it received 250 per year. In addition, the Soviet Union played the role of not only the buyer, but also the lender in this deal. And this had nothing to do with an advance payment for the locomotives. In May 1920, the firm received not only an advance of 7 million Swedish krona, but also an interest-free loan of 10 million krona "for the construction of a machine shop and boiler room." According to the loan agreement, this was to be repaid upon delivery of the final 500 locomotives. Had the Soviet order been reduced, then the Swedes could have easily kept the money! For example, the Swedish side could have delayed the shipment, and the text of the document did not provide for cases in which the contract with the Swedish company could be terminated.
But that's not all. The locomotives were ordered at twice the pre-war price and they were not bought in depreciating currency, but gold rubles! It was quite a scandalous picture: excessive price, advance payment, no goods. And when would they arrive? Who knows? Any tax inspector or auditor who saw anything like this would begin to lick his chops. The deal smelled like a huge scandal and major promotion for anyone who uncovered the fraud.
The Soviet magazine, Economist, wrote about the strange deal in 1922. The article expressed bewilderment over such a strange way to do business. Furthermore, Frolov, the author, posed a logical question: why was it necessary to order the locomotives from Sweden in the first place? Would it not be better to develop, or rather, advance domestic industry? The Putilov firm in Petersburg produced 250 locomotives per year before the war. Why not give it a loan? Such an enormous sum of money could "enhance all of its locomotive plants and feed its workers."
Does such odd management by Comrade Trotsky surprise you? You'd be even more surprised by Lenin's reaction to this Economist article. "These are clearly all counter-revolutionaries, Entente henchmen, organized by servants and spies attempting to influence our youth. We must see to it that we capture and continue to constantly, systematically capture these "military spies" and send them back", the leader of the proletariat wrote. He then asked Felix Dzerzhinsky, head of the Cheka secret police to close the magazine.
But back to the price of this deal that was so unprofitable for Russia and that is forbidden to criticize: 200 million gold rubles that is not only a colossal sum. It was a quarter of the country's gold reserves at the time!
So what does this strange behavior of Lenin and Trotsky really mean? It means that debts must be paid, and promises kept. The money spent on Russia's collapse had to be returned. This was one of the agreements between the representatives of Western governments and the Bolsheviks. Because Lenin remained in power for so long, he broke his agreements with his "partners" in British intelligence only gradually, and in the end it was only a few. Having been put at Russia's helm only to ruin it, he used this cover to do the opposite sew its territory back together. Hence the logic of his actions. We will not pay off the Tsar's debts. We will make concessions. We will not give up our authority, and the spent money will be returned.
So, with Trotsky it is more or less understood. What does Hitler have to do with this? We'll get to that in the next chapter.*
Perloff also specifies that Lenin had $50 million lodged for him in a Swedish bank. That piqued my interest, for it, too, chimed with Starikov's references - see above - to the Nydkvist and Holm contract.
So just how much money did Wall Street's finest make available to Lenin and Trotsky? Does Anthony Sutton answer this?
*http://orientalreview.org/2010/11/04/epi...nazism-ii/
The answer supplied by Nikolay Starikov is...Maxim Litvinov
See:
Rouble Nationalization: The Way to Russia's Freedom (St. Petersburg
iter, 2013), chapter 8, "How Comrade Stalin appreciated
and cherished the Chubais' of his time and what came out of it," 182-211.
http://lit.md/files/nstarikov/rouble_nat...reedom.pdf
Extracts:
Quote:But let us go back to the story of wonderful Bolshevik Maxim Litvinov. What is the main problem of revolutionaries of all ages? They always
need money. This is the main hindrance in the way of revolution. And, vice versa, an influx of cash facilitates and speeds up the transition to the bright future'. In 1903 the Russian revolutionaries received a*rather modest allowance from foreign intelligence services. But they did. Otherwise the revolutionary swamp would have dried out without the vital financial injections. Being a*grown-up person, it is quite easy to answer the question of how these injections should be organised. Give each separate revolutionary their own allowance or choose one "cashier' and only work with them? It is obvious that one or two revolutionaries are more reliable in keeping the secret of the source of this vital stream than two or three hundred...
The range of Litvinov's activities was stunning. A bureau was opened in Paris at the beginning of 1906 which Litvinov used as a*cover for placing orders for weapons at European factories. He decided to order several thousand Mauser and Mannlicher rifles, a*sufficient quantity of ammunition as well as machine guns and smaller weapons'. 1 Litvinov bought a*yacht to transfer the weapons. And then, as his biographer says, there was an issue of a*financial nature'. A report filed by an undercover agent of the Russian police tells us how decisive Maxim Vallach could be when it was required: Litvinov is here now. He has had a*misunderstanding with the Central Committee. The Central Committee spent 40,000 roubles and will not give it back. Therefore Litvinov sent two Georgians to the Central Committee demanding the money be given back, otherwise the Georgians will do in someone from the Committee. The Georgians themselves are raging. They will most likely receive the money but for now there is a*delay'... 2
But the hero of our story did not spend a*long time in jail; ten days later he was released. London and Moscow agreed to exchange the arrested diplomats. Maxim Litvinov found himself in Russia. But he had no time to waste; important business was awaiting him. It was money again. And diamonds. The Bolsheviks were beginning to pay back the banking underworld the money allocated to the revolution in Russia. They paid back via Scandinavia. 2 This is why Litvinov went to Copenhagen. His task was to secure fast outflow of gold and jewellery from Russia. As an excuse, Moscow bought a*thousand steam trains in Sweden. The amount of money exported exceeded the cost of the purchased engines multiple times. Basically, the Bolsheviks sent to Sweden a*quarter of the country's gold reserves! 3 Steam engines were a*vital necessity. And they needed to be paid for with gold. Litvinov was out in charge of transferring this gold to Sweden. The whole operation was kept top-secret. No one knew of it except for a*very few people whom Litvinov trusted like himself. And when everything had been counted and checked again and again, on the arranged day gold in boxes was loaded onto ships and sent to Sweden. And later on Litvinov sent gold to France, Switzerland and other countries'. 4 We will do him justice if we note that Litvinov was not the only one who sent Russian gold abroad. He was not the only agent of the British special forces and the banking underworld who appeared in Soviet Russia. There were plenty of them. And the scale of work was enormous* they needed to efficiently and quickly take a*lot of valuables out of Russia and take control over its natural resources.
The Geopolitical Vision of Alfred Thayer Mahan
One hundred years later, the insights of the American strategist continue to have extraordinary relevance today.
By Francis P. Sempa
December 30, 2014
http://thediplomat.com/2014/12/the-geopo...yer-mahan/
Quote:December 1, 2014, was the 100th anniversary of the death of Alfred Thayer Mahan, the renowned naval historian, strategist, and geopolitical theorist. It was an anniversary, unfortunately, that went largely unnoticed. Beginning in 1890 and continuing for more than two decades, Mahan, from his perch at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, wrote twenty books and hundreds of articles in an effort to educate the American people and their leaders about the importance of history and geography to the study and practice of international relations. His understanding of the anarchical nature of international politics, the importance of geography to the global balance of power, the role of sea power in national security policy, and history's ability to shed light on contemporary world politics remains relevant to the 21st century world.
Mahan, the son of the legendary West Point instructor Dennis Hart Mahan, was born in 1840, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1859, served in the Union Navy during the Civil War, and thereafter served on numerous ships and at several naval stations until finding his permanent home at the Naval War College. In 1883, he authored his first book, The Gulf and Inland Waters, a study of naval engagements in the Civil War. It was his second book, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History 1660-1783 (1890), however, that brought him national and international fame. The book, largely based on Mahan's lectures at the Naval War College, became the "bible" for many navies around the world. Kaiser Wilhelm II reportedly ordered a copy of the book placed aboard every German warship.
In his memoirs, From Sail to Steam, Mahan credited his reading of Theodore Mommsen's six-volume History of Rome for the insight that sea power was the key to global predominance. In The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, Mahan reviewed the role of sea power in the emergence and growth of the British Empire. In the book's first chapter, he described the sea as a "great highway" and "wide common" with "well-worn trade routes" over which men pass in all directions. He identified several narrow passages or strategic "chokepoints," the control of which contributed to Great Britain's command of the seas. He famously listed six fundamental elements of sea power: geographical position, physical conformation, extent of territory, size of population, character of the people, and character of government. Based largely on those factors, Mahan envisioned the United States as the geopolitical successor to the British Empire.
Eight years before the Spanish-American War resulted in the United States becoming a world power with overseas possessions, Mahan wrote an article in the Atlantic Monthly entitled "The United States Looking Outward," (1890) in which he urged U.S. leaders to recognize that our security and interests were affected by the balance of power in Europe and Asia. Mahan understood that the United States, like Great Britain, was geopolitically an island lying offshore the Eurasian landmass whose security could be threatened by a hostile power or alliance of powers that gained effective political control of the key power centers of Eurasia. He further understood that predominant Anglo-American sea power in its broadest sense was the key to ensuring the geopolitical pluralism of Eurasia. He famously wrote in The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire that it was the navy of Great Britain ("those far distant storm-beaten ships") that stood between Napoleon and the dominion of the world.
This was a profound geopolitical insight based on an understanding of the impact of geography on history. In later writings, Mahan reviewed the successive moves toward European continental hegemony by the Spanish and Austrian Hapsburgs, Louis XIV's France, and Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, and the great coalitions, supported by sea power, that successfully thwarted those would-be hegemons.
In subsequent articles and books, Mahan accurately envisioned the geopolitical struggles of the 20th and 21st centuries. In The Interest of America in International Conditions (1910), Mahan foresaw the then-emerging First World War and the underlying geopolitical conditions leading to the Second World War, recognizing that Germany's central position in Europe, her unrivalled industrial and military might on the continent, and her quest for sea power posed a threat to Great Britain and ultimately the United States. "A German navy, supreme by the fall of Great Britain," he warned, "with a supreme German army able to spare readily a large expeditionary force for over-sea operations, is one of the possibilities of the future." "The rivalry between Germany and Great Britain to-day," he continued, "is the danger point, not only of European politics but of world politics as well." It remained so for 35 years.
Mahan also grasped as early as 1901 the fundamental geopolitical realities of the Cold War that emerged from the ashes of the first two world wars. In The Problem of Asia, Mahan urged statesmen to "glance at the map" of Asia and note "the vast, uninterrupted mass of the Russian Empire, stretching without a break . . . from the meridian of western Asia Minor, until to the eastward it overpasses that of Japan." He envisioned an expansionist Russia needing to be contained by an alliance of the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, and Japan, which is precisely what happened between 1945 and 1991.
Mahan's prescience did not end there, however. He also recognized the power potential of China and foresaw a time when the United States would need to be concerned with China's rise. In 1893, Mahan wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Times in which he recommended U.S. annexation of Hawaii as a necessary first step to exercise control of the North Pacific. If the United States failed to act, Mahan warned, "the vast mass of China . . . may yield to one of those impulses which have in past ages buried civilization under a wave of barbaric invasion." Should China "burst her barriers eastward," he wrote, "it would be impossible to exaggerate the momentous issues dependent upon a firm hold of the [Hawaiian] Islands by a great civilized maritime power."
Similarly, in The Problem of Asia, Mahan depicted a future struggle for power in the area of central Asia he called the "debatable and debated ground," and identified the "immense latent force" of China as a potential geopolitical rival. "t is scarcely desirable," Mahan wrote, "that so vast a proportion of mankind as the Chinese constitute should be animated by but one spirit and moved as a single man." Mahan knew that Western science and technology would at some point be globalized and wrote that under such circumstances "it is difficult to contemplate with equanimity such a vast mass as the four hundred millions of China concentrated into one effective political organization, equipped with modern appliances, and cooped within a territory already narrow for it."
Like Germany before the First World War, China in the 21st century has embraced Mahan. Naval War College professors Toshi Yoshihara and James Holmes have examined the writings of contemporary Chinese military thinkers and strategists in this regard in their important work, Chinese Naval Strategy in the 21st Century: The Turn to Mahan. With regard to Mahan's elements of sea power, China is situated in the heart of east-central Asia and has a lengthy sea-coast, a huge population, a growing economy, growing military and naval power, and, at least for now, a stable government. China's political and military leaders have not hidden their desire to supplant the United States as the predominant power in the Asia-Pacific region. Under these circumstances, China's embrace of Mahan is reason enough for Americans to reacquaint themselves with the writings of that great American strategic thinker.
Francis P. Sempa is the author of Geopolitics: From the Cold War to the 21st Century (Transaction Books) and America's Global Role: Essays and Reviews on National Security, Geopolitics, and War (University Press of America). He has written articles and reviews on historical and foreign policy topics for Strategic Review, American Diplomacy, Joint Force Quarterly, the University Bookman, the Washington Times, the Claremont Review of Books, and other publications. He is an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, an adjunct professor of political science at Wilkes University, and a contributing editor to American Diplomacy.
"Belgian Neutrality and the British Decision for War" Terry Boardman
Gerry Docherty - "Feeding the Enemy"
R.K. Locke Wrote:"Belgian Neutrality and the British Decision for War" Terry Boardman
The reconfiguration of British foreign policy in 1887 to merge with the US and destroy Russia - so many pieces fitted in to place here, it's terrific.
Great spot, RJ.
Paul Rigby Wrote:R.K. Locke Wrote:"Belgian Neutrality and the British Decision for War" Terry Boardman
The reconfiguration of British foreign policy in 1887 to merge with the US and destroy Russia - so many pieces fitted in to place here, it's terrific.
Great spot, RJ.
This tour de force in full:
http://www.peacepalacelibrary.nl/pmfiles/G16-20-002.pdf
Paul Rigby Wrote:This tour de force in full: http://www.peacepalacelibrary.nl/pmfiles/G16-20-002.pdf
E. D. Morel: The man and his work by F. Seymour Cocks (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1923):
https://archive.org/details/edmorelmanhiswor00cockiala
Hull University records of the Union of Democratic Control:
http://www.hull.ac.uk/arc/downloads/DDCcatalogue.pdf
Historical background
The UDC was established during the first days of the First World War to work for parliamentary control of foreign policy and a moderate peace settlement. There was a belief in some quarters that Britain had been dragged into the war because of secret military agreements with France and Russia. The early leaders of the group initially called the Committee of Democratic Control, were Charles Trevelyan (the only member of the Liberal government to resign over the declaration of war), James Ramsay Macdonald, Arthur Ponsonby, Norman Angell and ED Morel. Morel became the secretary and initial driving force behind what was soon re-named the Union of Democratic Control. The group was formally launched with an open letter to the press in early September 1914. The UDC's stated objectives were: parliamentary control over foreign policy and the prevention of secret diplomacy, a movement for international understanding after the war, and a just peace. A Committee of 18 members was established, including Arthur Henderson, JA Hobson and Bertrand Russell. Operations were initially based at Charles Trevelyan's London home, but offices were quickly acquired off the Strand, and later, on Fleet Street. Running costs were met from subscriptions, plus large donations received from several major Quaker business concerns. In late 1917 the UDC reached its maximum membership of some 10,000 individuals in over 100 branches. By 1918, 300 other groups (mainly co-operatives, trade unions and women's organisations) with 650,000 members were also affiliated to the UDC.
Paul Rigby Wrote:Paul Rigby Wrote:This tour de force in full: http://www.peacepalacelibrary.nl/pmfiles/G16-20-002.pdf
E. D. Morel: The man and his work by F. Seymour Cocks (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1923):
https://archive.org/details/edmorelmanhiswor00cockiala
Hull University records of the Union of Democratic Control:
http://www.hull.ac.uk/arc/downloads/DDCcatalogue.pdf
Historical background
The UDC was established during the first days of the First World War to work for parliamentary control of foreign policy and a moderate peace settlement. There was a belief in some quarters that Britain had been dragged into the war because of secret military agreements with France and Russia. The early leaders of the group initially called the Committee of Democratic Control, were Charles Trevelyan (the only member of the Liberal government to resign over the declaration of war), James Ramsay Macdonald, Arthur Ponsonby, Norman Angell and ED Morel. Morel became the secretary and initial driving force behind what was soon re-named the Union of Democratic Control. The group was formally launched with an open letter to the press in early September 1914. The UDC's stated objectives were: parliamentary control over foreign policy and the prevention of secret diplomacy, a movement for international understanding after the war, and a just peace. A Committee of 18 members was established, including Arthur Henderson, JA Hobson and Bertrand Russell. Operations were initially based at Charles Trevelyan's London home, but offices were quickly acquired off the Strand, and later, on Fleet Street. Running costs were met from subscriptions, plus large donations received from several major Quaker business concerns. In late 1917 the UDC reached its maximum membership of some 10,000 individuals in over 100 branches. By 1918, 300 other groups (mainly co-operatives, trade unions and women's organisations) with 650,000 members were also affiliated to the UDC.
E D Morel's
Truth and the War (London: The National Labour Press, 1916):
https://archive.org/details/truthwar01more