Soviet Life - What Was Gained From the Russian Revolution?

[James1941]

A minor correction to your post above. The Black Hand was a Serbian secret society, not an Austrian one. It had been organized some years earlier by young Serbian army officers to overthrow King Alexander and Queen Draga, which it did with some brutality, and put King Peter on the throne. It was not an official part of the Serbian government, but its influence was powerful. In 1914 the head of the Serbian secret service was a member of the Black Hand.
The young students (only one was older than nineteen) were not Serbian. They were Bosnian and subjects of Emperor Franz Josef. But, just like today, they wanted Bosnia to be free, even perhaps part of a greater Serbian nation. Their plot was to strike a blow at Austrian rule and perhaps forment a revolution that would free their country. They travelled to Serbia where they were given training by the Black Hand in weapons use, bombs and weapons, and papers, and they went back to Sarajevo to try and assassinate the Archduke. This was the tentative thread by which Austria hung its accusation that Serbia had planned the assassination.
Serbia did hope that turmoil in Bosnia and the failure of Austrian rule would give it a chance to pick up the pieces, but the Serbian government did not directly order nor take part in the plot on the Archduke's life.
As far as I know no Austrian officials were involved in the plot. Their only offense was their lax attention to security for the Archduke's visit.
Once Austria had determined that it would crush Serbia by military means and held firm and fast to that course, refusing diplomatic negoiation or any other method to settle the affair, war was inevitable.

[Silja]

I think the primary reason Germans have managed to dispel the shadow of their Nazi past so quickly is that it did not have the deep roots in a national political or religious culture that many westerners assume with all their joking about militaristic marching martinets.  They were exorcising something that they view as an aberrant response to the depredations of hyper-inflation induced by an overly-punitive settlement arising from their defeat in a war.  (Remember that the 1920's and early 30's saw the peak of Ku Klux Klan membership in a United States trying to grapple first with social dislocation and then with severe economic depression.).

While I agree with you to a great extent, there's still no denying that in comparison with countries such as Britain, France or the United States the  democratic traditions of Germany have been considerably weaker throughout German history. The rise of Hitler was certainly a result of what you described above, but also because of a certain scorn for "democracy" because in some way to the Germans "democracy" meant "disagreement" and useless competition. Germans have always been sort of partial to the idea of unison and egalitarianism. Accordingly, the prime aim of the Revolution of 1848 was the unification of Germany and only to a lesser degree the ideals of liberty and democracy.

 

Modern Germans have become thoroughly comfortable with democracy because it builds on a long-standing sense of individual self-reliance.  If there really is such a thing as a German national character with roots in the region's history, it's marked not by militarism (which was mainly a Prussian phenomenon to the extent it existed at all) or subservience to autocrats, but by a belief in technological progress, a spate of internationally-famous universities that were centers of free thinking, a heritage of challenge to central religious authority, a literature grounded in the Enlightenment, and a political tradition going back at least to 1848 that imperial crowns were to be placed on royal heads by consent of the people.

Again, I agree. And yet there is this German inclination to subservience not so much to "autocrats" perhaps but to the authorities and the rules set by them. You yourself  mentioned the example of the red traffic lights and similar ridiculous things. But there are other, more important examples.

Besides, I wouldn't be too over enthusiastic about the comfort "the Germans" feel with the democratic system. Only recently a poll conducted by the Friedrich Ebert foundation revealed that 25% of Germans would prefer the dictatorship to the democratic system. Of course one should never overestimate a poll, and many of these 25% may be people of former Eastern Germany who now feel some nostalgia for the former communist state which provided them with work and gave them security, but this latter thing is actually the very point. Germans have been happy with democracy, or actually with any other system, as long as this system provided them with the financial and social security they love. Germans have liked to look to the state to provide for them, and this is one reason they now have so much trouble coming to terms with all these cuts made to the welfare state. People become increasingly disappointed with the democratic system because it seems to have no weapon against the threat of globalization and the underlying destruction of the egalitarian society.

I'm generalizing of course. The majority does indeed appreciate the benefits of democracy and would do everything to defend it, but democracy must continue to prove its worth . . .

[Silja]

The national characteristic of Germans that I do think is more relevant to this issue is their propensity for extreme manifestation.  When they follow rules, they follow them to the letter.  When they become conservative, they wind up following Nazis.  When they become liberal, they wind up Greens.  A friend who also studied in Germany once observed that when Americans paint a room blue, they paint it blue.  When Germans paint a room blue, they paint it BLUE!  What I find to be the constant in German character is its lack of a sense of subtlety.

Haha. Yes, there's a lot of truth in this. But I think this has indeed to do with the Germans' lack of pragmatism and predilection for idealism. They aim at perfection . . .
Alluding to the nazi past, A Dutch writer once commented in the newspaper that the Dutch sold goods whereas the Germans sold their souls . . . . It's not a coincidence that the German national drama is Goethe's Faust.

[Silja]

Before World War I, Kaiser Wilhelm's sudden realignment of Germany's long-standing and widely understood foreign policy, his pursuit of a naval policy that could only be read as a challenge to Great Britain,

Absolutely - from the British point of view. Naturally anyone threatening the British empire and control over large parts of the globe was a threat to British interests . . . .   .

[Alixz]

James1941,

You answered my questions quite nicely.  I knew that the Black Hand was a Serbian Secret Society, but I have often wondered if at any time, there could have been Austrian complicity.
And if, in 1914, the head of the Serbian Secret Service was a member of the Black Hand, indirectly as an employee of the Serbian Government, he involved the Serbian Government in the assassination.  But I know what you mean.  The act was not "sanctioned" by the Serbian government.

As to the German need for "perfection".  I have heard that posed before.  It is interesting that so many see this facet of the German mind set.  It has been suggested that this is because of the miltary background of the Prussians and their strict adhearance to the every law and code and rule.

However, this need for "perfection" has produced some of the most incredible engineering in the world.

Being about 1/4 German, myself, and being brought up by an authoritarian father who was very proud of his German roots, I understand the irreistable urge to paint any room BLUE. not just blue.

My father used to say things like, "The proper tool for the proper job."  No using a nail file as a scew driver in our house.

But is this trait genetic?  Or do "we have to be carefully taught'?  (Rogers and Hammerstein's South Pacific).

I do know that democracy is messy, and it would seem that the Germans do not like messes.  Be straight forward and follow the rules and just get it done and done right.

Witness the Autobahn.  Is there any road anywhere else in the world so finely built?  Certainly not on American pot hole infested interstates. And if you have the great satisfaction of never having had to sit for hours on an interstate highway that is doing an admirable imitation of a parking lot, you are so blessed.   

[Silja]

James1941,

You answered my questions quite nicely.  I knew that the Black Hand was a Serbian Secret Society, but I have often wondered if at any time, there could have been Austrian complicity.

In a documentary shown two years ago in commemoration of the assassinations at Sarajevo, it was claimed that, on the contrary, the Russian secret service may have been involved, but that Russia does not grant access to its archives over this matter.

Anyway, we have again been deviating from the original subject of the thread, haven't we? 

[James1941]

To Alixz, my apologies. I misunderstood your question. I should read more carefully.
As to Austrian involvement with the Black Hand, since the Black Hand was dedicated to the destruction of Austria, or at least to eradicating Austrian influence in the area, and to the agrandizement of Greater Serbia at Austrian expense, I can't see why Austrian agents would be working with it. They may have tried to infiltrate it but I would doubt they would have cooperated with it. However, anything is possible in the murkey world of secret societies.
I too have read that Russian intelligence agents were working closely with Serbian intelliegence and probably societies like the Black Hand to further Russian interests in the area. And these agents had powerful influence on both the official Serbian government agencies and on the secret societies.
Serbian Prime Minister Pasic was aware of the plot to kill the Archduke, or at least that some sort of an attempt would be made. He knew Serbia needed time to absorb the gains of the Second Balkan War and to rebuilt its army. He was also afraid of the Black Hand which wasn't adverse to killing Serbian politicians that it felt weren't working for Serbia's interest. So he sent a vaguely worded warning of the plot in Sarajevo to the Austrian Finance Minister, which by some strange logic of Austrian administration was responsible for the governmnet of Bosnia. The Austrians got the warning but because it was so vague and didn't contain specifics they disregarded it.

[Alixz]

James 1941,

Thank you again.  There are so many cases of counter-intellegence and double agents that I thought perhaps someone in Austria would have thought the assassination of the Grand Duke would have given Austria, just what it did give.  The reason to crush the Serbs.  The reason to go to war over the Balkans and to secure Austrian rule in that area.

However, with national alliances being what they were and Russia's constant agitaion over its place in the Balkins, it was only inevitable that Russia would come to the aid of Serbia and Germany would back Austria.

However, why the Kaiser felt that it was necessary to invade Belgium over the Balkin question boggles the mind. (I know that he was just getting started on his plans for European domination but the lack of connection between the two is so apparent.)  His treaty to come to the aid of Austira had nothing to do with that.  Belgium was not threatening Austria and had no involvement in th Balkins.

By invading Poland, the Kaiser was, of course, going to war with Russia to spread out Russia's defences and help Austira, but anything on the western front was just the Kaiser's egomania showing.

Perhaps if the Serbian problem and the Austrian/Russian collision over it had been kept to the diplomatic circle, the war could have been avoided.

I would not doubt that there was Russian counter intellegence acting in the area.  The Tsar's had been coveting the Balkins for a long time.  Perhaps Nicholas thought that a "small victorious war" with Austria would help him regain the prestige lost after the Russo/Japanese debacle.

And, yes, we are deviating from the original question.  So, I can think of two things (although the ultimate conclusion of these two events were not good things).

Lenin - got Russia out of the war.  And for Russia's sake, that was a good thing.  No more wholesale slaughter of unarmed and under-armed troops.

Stalin was in charge during World War II.  Nicholas would not have been much of a leader for the country during another war with Germany.
I beleive that Stalin (as much of a tyrant as he was) was a good ally for the Allied Governments.  The Russian people suffered under him, but the second war could have gone much differenty without Stalin's leadership and his troops on the Eastern Front to thwart Hitler.

[Tsarfan]

However, why the Kaiser felt that it was necessary to invade Belgium over the Balkin question boggles the mind. (I know that he was just getting started on his plans for European domination but the lack of connection between the two is so apparent.)  His treaty to come to the aid of Austira had nothing to do with that.  Belgium was not threatening Austria and had no involvement in th Balkins.

Germany invaded Belgium for military, not political, reasons.

Prussia (and Germany after 1871) had been plagued since at least the time of Frederick the Great by her position in the middle of the Great Powers -- Britain and France to her west and Russia to her east.  Her only chance of prevailing in any European conflict was in reducing the risk of a two-front war.  Bismarck, understanding that German unification had heightened this risk, was determined to address the problem by diplomatic means and built perhaps the most complex treaty structure in European history to do it.

However, Kaiser Wilhelm was both too short-sighted and too lacking in the subtlety required to maintain Bismarck's delicate diplomatic balancing act.  In 1904 (with Bismarck long gone) England and France joined in a defensive treaty aimed at the possibility of German aggression.  When discussions began shortly thereafter to include Russia in this new alliance, the worst fears that had kept Bismarck awake in the later 19th century were now realized -- diplomatic encirclement of Germany.

Consequently, Alfred von Schlieffen was asked to develop a military response to this risk of encirclement.  He devised a plan that required that, in the event hostilities broke out, 90% of Germany's forces were to be thrown at France to deliver a quick knock-out punch.  However, as France's border with Germany was well-fortified, this plan dictated a quick march arching northward through the low countries.  The plan was adjusted a bit in 1906 by von Moltke to restrict the march mainly to Belgian territory, which was thought to be the least-defended of the low countries.

When Germany actually executed this plan in August 1914, Murphy's law took over (at least from the German perspective), and everything that could go wrong did go wrong.  First, Belgium put up much more effective resistance than was anticipated.  Second, the British Expeditionary force arrived to Belgian and French assistance much quicker than thought possible.  And, perhaps most importantly, Russia defied German expectations.  von Moltke thought 8 divisions would be sufficient to hold Russia at bay while over 30 divisions were used to sweep up France quickly.  Instead, Russia came crashing all the way into East Prussia before the Germans knew what hit them.

Within weeks the Schlieffen Plan was in shambles.  The price Germany had paid -- triggering the treaty obligations that drew Great Britain into the war from the very outset and solidifying international opinion that Germany was a wanton aggressor with unbridled ambitions -- had been for naught.

[Alixz]

I know about the von Schlieffen plan.  But what I don't understand is why Germany thought that it needed to invade anyone while the trouble was between Austria and her Serbian Protectors.

As a response to an assassination that was on the other side of the world to France and Belgium, Germany declared war on everyone.  (I know that was because of all the treaties.)

My only thought is that finally Kaiser Wilhelm had gone too far and by mobilizing against Russia (supposidly to help Austria defend herself) he began a war on two fronts.  (I also know about Bismarck's plan and how Wilhelm messed it up.)

I don't think he truly cared about Austria or Serbia, he was only intent on a European war which would put Germnay in charge of  everything if he was successful.  I think he was more intent of subduing France as Wilhelm I had done not too long before.

However, and perhaps I am too limited in my understanding of the times, I would think that he would have mobilized his forces and sent them toward Serbia, not west toward neutral Belgium.

Perhaps I am more confused than Wilhelm II was.

[Tsarfan]

I know about the von Schlieffen plan.  But what I don't understand is why Germany thought that it needed to invade anyone while the trouble was between Austria and her Serbian Protectors.

There are some indications that Germany was becoming seriously worried about Russia's rapid recovery from the events of 1905 (both the loss to Japan and the internal revolution) and felt that the clock was ticking toward the day when Russia would become invincible against Germany.  So, while caught up in the immediate need to support Austria against the Serbs, there is a good possiblity Germany had one monocled eye cocked on Russia for reasons that went well beyond her pan-Slavic tendency to succor the Serbs.

So, if this was at all about Russia, then it was inevitably about France, which made it about Belgium.  Indeed, diplomatically speaking, the hip bone was connected to the thigh bone was connected to the knee bone . . . .

I think it's important to survey the situation as it had evolved during Kaiser Wilhelm's reign.  During most of Bismarck's tenure, the diplomatic map of Europe looked something like this:

• Britain was largely neutral in continental affairs but occasionally in conflict with France over both their colonial dominions.  (This was one of the reasons Bismarck studiously resisted pressure to venture into Africa and westward, where he would inevitably run afoul of Britain, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.  Hence his famous nostrum, "my map of Africa lies in Europe.")
• Britain and France shared a centuries-long antipathy that made cooperation between them on other matters difficult and transitory.

• Germany was aligned with Russia and Austria-Hungary through the Three Emperors League.  They were viewed as natural allies both by virture of their similar political attitudes and by their lack of colonial aspirations that would put them in contention with each other outside of the European theater.  (This was the other reason Bismarck shied away from colonial aspirations, where any designs in the Pacific rim would put him on a collision course with Russia.)

The first crack in this German diplomatic armor was when the Three Emperors League fell apart over the Alexander von Battenberg affair in Bulgaria.  Bismarck hastily cemented a new defensive alliance with Russia in the Reinsurance Treaty of 1887.  When Wilhelm dismissed the 75-year-old Bismarck in 1890, Wilhelm stupidly failed to grasped the importance of renewing this treaty, driving a now-isolated Russia into the arms of France.

While all this was going on, France and Britain were begining to turn their tenuous 1881 overtures to each other into a serious wooing.  This resulted in marriage in 1904 with the Entente Cordiale, which was a sweeping set of accords that defused the colonial issues that had been constant irritants and occasional triggerpoints between them.  Then Russia joined in 1907, thereby encircling Germany in a mesh of diplomatic understandings which even brought the United States, Spain, and Japan into alignment against Germany in some scenarios.

Then, as if all this weren't bad enough, Wilhelm began making noises about colonial aspirations -- which, given the fact that all the good stuff was already taken, was certain to make the U.S., western Europe, and Russia nervous -- and he began making more than noise about building a Germany navy to support those aspirations -- certain to drive Britain to a distraction of worry.  (One has to remember that Britain, a tiny island nation of virtually no consequence as a land power, had become a major world power by amplifying herself via her navy into a global empire.)

So -- in a nutshell -- if Germany was to have any hope of dealing with Russia at all, she had to take France out of the equation.  Hence the march through Belgium.  If only old Herr von Schlieffen had gotten it right, much of 20th-century history would have gone very differently.

[Elisabeth]

Stalin was in charge during World War II.  Nicholas would not have been much of a leader for the country during another war with Germany.
I beleive that Stalin (as much of a tyrant as he was) was a good ally for the Allied Governments.  The Russian people suffered under him, but the second war could have gone much differenty without Stalin's leadership and his troops on the Eastern Front to thwart Hitler.

If Stalin and Hitler were in a competition to see who was most evil, they'd undoubtedly come out tied for first place (with Mao a close runner-up). I don't think Stalin was such an asset to the Soviet Union or to the Allies in fighting World War II. First of all, because of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which enabled Hitler to start  World War II, since Hitler and Stalin agreed to carve up Poland between themselves (Stalin got the Baltic states thrown in for good measure). Thanks to this treaty with Stalin, Hitler didn't have to worry about a second front should France and Britain declare war after the Nazi invasion of Poland. Secondly, Stalin's purges had depleted the entire Soviet officer corps on such a scale that when Nazi Germany finally did invade the Soviet Union in June 1941, the army was ill-equipped to defend itself, much less the country. Finally, Stalin was a bad leader because he refused to heed the warnings he received from numerous quarters that Hitler was planning to invade that June. Thus the entire Soviet leadership and army were caught completely off guard when the Nazis invaded, with the result that hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers were surrounded by the enemy and forced to surrender (and as POWs, these men had a particularly horrible fate - dying en masse from starvation in German POW camps; those few that survived and returned to the Soviet Union after the war were promptly arrested and packed off to Soviet concentration camps). Moreover, because the Red Army was forced to retreat so far eastward, more than a million Soviet Jews were left stranded behind enemy lines, easy prey for the Nazi extermination units, or Einsatzgruppen, that followed in the Wehrmacht's wake.

So I might ask, how were any of these things of any possible long-term benefit to the Soviet Union? Indeed, the entire course of World War II might have gone differently, and who knows, the Allies might even have won sooner, and millions of lives have been saved, if Stalin hadn't pursued these destructive courses of action. Furthermore, you can't assume that the only alternative to Stalin was Nicholas II - let's remember the March Revolution, and the provisional government that replaced the monarchy. By the late 1930s, if the provisional government had survived, one would think it would have produced leaders far more competent, percipient, and humane than Stalin. IMHO, the Soviet Union emerged as a victor from World War II not because of Stalin, but in spite of Stalin.

[Elisabeth]

Many historians view the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 as the turning point in the history of the Holocaust. Up until that time, and even for the duration of that summer, Nazi specialists on the “Jewish Question” were still discussing the relocation of European Jews to the island of Madagascar. But meanwhile special SS units, called Einsatzgruppen, were following in the wake of the advancing Wehrmacht, murdering Jews, Gypsies, and Communists as they found them in the conquered villages and cities of the western Soviet Union. At first they seem to have focused on killing the men of these designated groups  – women and children were for the most part spared until the autumn of 1941. But around that same time, the autumn of 1941, Nazi policy evolved into something entirely new – the extermination of all the Jews in the former Soviet territories, and, out of this development, in turn, emerged a new “final solution” (Endlösung) to the so-called “Jewish Question”: the decision to exterminate all the Jews of Europe. The first gassing facilities and death camps, solely devoted to extermination, at Chelmno and Belzec, were put into action in November 1941, even before the famous Wannsee Conference of January 20, 1942, which under Reinhard Heydrich’s leadership sought to determine the overall administrative plan for killing the European Jews. The death camps of Treblinka and Sobibor, as well as the combination labor-death camp of Auschwitz, were set up only in the spring of 1942.

Do you think it was always Hitler’s plan to exterminate the Jews of Europe or do you think this plan grew out of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941? Was it a question of ideology, logistics, and/or losing the war on the eastern front that caused the Nazis to adopt the “Final Solution” (Endlösung)? 

[lexi4]

Very interesting question, Elisabeth. I'm surprised no one has responded.
I don't know what I think at this point. I will have to put some thought into it. Perhaps, it was the "final solution" was the plan all along and Russia was, for lack of a better term, a test to see if the world would notice. Or to be more specific, to see if the Allies would notice. I also find it interesting that when the Halocaust is discussed, it is discussed in terms of what happened to the Jews in Germany. Rarely is there any discussion about the Russian Jews. (Just an observation that could be entirely wrong.) I will give this some thought.
Lexi

[Brycik]

There are some nice recent photos of Harbin on the following link. I was surprised to read that it is now a city with 9 million people

http://www.rtoddking.com/chinawin2003_hb_dl.htm

Best wishes

Brycik