"The cause of revolution should not be tarnished with dirty hands."
The vivid personality of Israel (Alexander) Lazarevich Gelfand (Parvus) - Russian revolutionary and German imperialist, Marxist scholar and major entrepreneur, cosmopolitan and German patriot, backstage politician and international financier, social democratic publicist and political adventurer - has long attracted the attention of historians . This interest is clear: without Parvus, as well as without “German money”, there probably would not have been a Bolshevik revolution in the form in which it occurred in Russia in 1917 year.DOCTOR ELEPHANT
Alexander Parvus, also known as Israel Lazarevich Gelfand, was born on September 8 on 1867 in the town of Berezino, Minsk province, in a family of a Jewish artisan. After the pogrom, the Gelfand family was left without a home and property and moved to Odessa, where Lazar worked as a loader in the port, and Israel studied at the gymnasium. Apparently, it was precisely the Odessa gymnasium that Israel Gelfand owed his beautiful literary Russian language and knowledge of European languages: linguistic barriers for him did not exist. In Odessa, the young high school student Gelfand joined the people groups. In 19 years he went to Switzerland, in Zurich, where he met with the members of the "Labor Liberation Group". Under their influence, Gelfand became a Marxist. In 1887, he enrolled at the University of Basel, graduating from 1891, receiving his Ph.D. His thesis was called: "Technical organization of labor (" cooperation "and" division of labor "))". Israel Gelfand often appeared in the socialist press under the pseudonym Alexander Parvus (“small” - Latin), which became his new name.
Dr. Parvus did not return to Russia, but moved to Germany, where he joined the Social Democratic Party. The leader of the German Social Democracy, Karl Kautsky, reacted to Parvus with sympathy, giving him the playful nickname Dr. Elephant. Indeed, in the appearance of Parvus was something elephant.
Publicist Parvus writes a lot and is snooty. His articles are credited young Russian Marxists. Vladimir Ulyanov, in a letter from the Siberian exile, asks his mother to send him copies of all the articles of Parvus. Out of friendship with the Russian Marxists, the Iskra newspaper was born, which from the second issue began to be printed in a printing house arranged at Parvus’s apartment in Munich. Parvus’s apartment became a meeting place for Russian revolutionaries, especially Parvus became close to Trotsky. Essentially, it was Parvus who advanced the thesis of the permanent revolution that Trotsky later adopted. Parvus predicted the inevitability of world war and the Russian revolution.
In 1905, with the beginning of the first Russian revolution, Parvus went to Russia. Together with Trotsky, he heads the St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies. After the defeat of the revolution, Parvus finds himself behind bars in the “Crosses”, he is sentenced to three years of exile in Turukhansk. But everything is ready for escape: a fake passport, turnout, money. In Yeniseisk, having drunk the escorts, Parvus runs, is announced in Italy, then finds himself in Germany and never returns to his homeland.
The name of Parvus is associated with a series of scandals: he throws, without means of livelihood, two wives and sons, spends on his mistress the income from the copyright of Maxim Gorky abroad, who were entrusted to him. The Bolsheviks and Gorky are demanding a refund, Germany is starting to hand over to Russia runaway revolutionaries, and Parvus disappears from the sight of the German and Russian authorities for several years.In 1910, he emerges in Turkey as a successful merchant, becoming the largest supplier of food for the Turkish army, the representative of the trader weapons Basil Zakharov and Krupp concern.
MEETING GOALS
Parvus's finest hour begins with the beginning of the First World War. He advocates the victory of Germany, since this should lead first to a revolution in Russia, and then to a world revolution. “Germany’s victory over Russia is in the interests of European socialism, therefore the socialists must conclude an alliance with the German government to overthrow the tsarist regime, including by revolutionary means,” he said.
In 1915, the goals of Germany, who was seeking victory on the Eastern Front and Russia's withdrawal from the war, and Parvus, who had inflamed the revolutionary fire in Russia, coincided. Germany struck at Russia from the front, and revolutionaries from the rear.
In the course of his political and trade activities, Parvus met Dr. Max Zimmer, who was authorized by the German and Austrian embassies for anti-Russian nationalist movements, which were funded by Germany and Austria-Hungary. In early January, 1915, Parvus asked Dr. Zimmer to arrange a meeting with the German ambassador in Turkey, von Wangenheim. At the 7 reception on January 1915, the merchant socialist told the German ambassador: “The interests of the German government completely coincide with the interests of the Russian revolutionaries. Russian democrats can achieve their goals only if the autocracy is completely destroyed and Russia is divided into separate states. On the other hand, Germany will not be able to achieve complete success if there is no revolution in Russia. In addition, even in the event of a German victory, Russia will pose a considerable danger to it if the Russian Empire does not fall apart into separate independent states. ”
The next day, January 8 1915, von Wangenheim sent a telegram to Berlin to the German Foreign Ministry with detailed information about the conversation with Parvus, expressed a benevolent attitude to his ideas and conveyed his request to personally present to the Foreign Ministry a developed plan for bringing Russia out of the war through revolution.
10 January 1915-th State Secretary of the German Foreign Ministry Gottlieb von Yagov telegraphed to the Great Kaiser General Staff: "Please accept Dr. Parvus in Berlin."
At the end of February 1915, Parvus was admitted to the German Foreign Ministry Yagov, a representative of the military department Dr. Ritzler (authorized representative of the Reich Chancellor) and Dr. Zimmer, who returned from Turkey, participated in the conversation. Minutes of the conversation were not kept, but following its 9 March 1915, Parvus submitted a memorandum on the 20 pages to the Foreign Ministry, which was a detailed plan for the overthrow of the autocracy in Russia and its division into several states.
“Parvus’s plan,” write the biographers of Gelfand Z. Zeman and U. Sharlau, “contained three major points. First, Gelfand offered to support the parties fighting for the socialist revolution in Russia, first of all the Bolsheviks, as well as nationalist separatist movements. Secondly, he considered the moment suitable for conducting anti-government propaganda in Russia. Third, it seemed important to him to organize an international anti-Russian campaign in the press. ”
PLAN FOR FIGHTING
Here is a fragment of the plan of Parvus, written by him on the sheets of a notebook of the Berlin Hotel Kronprinzenhof at the end of December 1914: “Siberia. We need to pay special attention to Siberia also because the huge supply of artillery and other weapons from the United States to Russia will probably pass through Siberia. Therefore, the Siberian project should be considered separately from the rest. It is necessary to send several energetic, cautious and well-equipped agents to Siberia with a special task for the explosion of railway bridges. They will find enough helpers among the exiles. Explosives can be delivered from the Ural mining plants, and their small quantities - from Finland. Technical directions could be developed here.
The campaign in the press. Assumptions about Romania and Bulgaria were confirmed after the work on this memorandum was completed and during the development of the revolutionary movement. The Bulgarian press is now exclusively pro-German, and there has been a noticeable change in the Romanian press. The measures we have taken will soon yield even more tangible results. Now it is especially important to get to work.
1. Financial support for the Bolshevik Social Democratic faction, which by all available means continues to fight against the tsarist government. It is necessary to establish contacts with its leaders in Switzerland.
2. Establishment of direct contacts with the revolutionary organizations of Odessa and Nikolaev through Bucharest and Iasi.
3. Establishing contacts with organizations of Russian sailors. Such a contact is already through one gentleman in Sofia. Other connections are possible through Amsterdam.
4. Support for the activities of the Jewish socialist organization "Bund" - not the Zionists.
5. Establishment of contacts with authoritative figures of Russian social democracy and Russian social revolutionaries in Switzerland, Italy, Copenhagen, Stockholm. Support of their efforts aimed at immediate and tough measures against tsarism.
6. Support for those Russian revolutionary writers who take part in the struggle against tsarism even in the conditions of war.
7. Relationship with the Finnish Social Democracy.
8. Organization of congresses of Russian revolutionaries.
9. Influence on public opinion in neutral countries, especially on the position of the socialist press and socialist organizations in the struggle against tsarism and for joining the central powers. In Bulgaria and Romania, this is already being successfully implemented; continue this work in the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland and Italy.
10. The equipment of the expedition to Siberia with a special purpose: to blow up the most important railway bridges and thereby prevent the transport of weapons from America to Russia. At the same time, the expedition should be provided with rich funds to organize the transfer of a certain number of political exiles to the center of the country.
11. Technical preparation for the uprising in Russia:
a) providing accurate maps of the Russian railways, indicating the most important bridges that must be destroyed in order to paralyze transport links, as well as indicating the main administrative buildings. Arsenals, workshops, which should be given maximum attention;
b) a precise indication of the amount of explosives necessary to achieve the goal in each individual case. Thus it is necessary to take into account the lack of materials and the difficult circumstances in which the actions will be carried out;
c) clear and popular instructions for handling explosives in the explosion of bridges and large buildings;
d) simple recipes for the manufacture of explosives;
e) development of a plan of resistance of the insurgent population in St. Petersburg against the armed government, with particular reference to the workers' neighborhoods. Protection of houses and streets. Protection against cavalry and infantry. The Jewish socialist "Bund" in Russia is a revolutionary organization that relies on the working masses and that played a certain role back in the 1904 year. He is in opposing relations with the "Zionists", from whom nothing can be expected for the following reasons:
1) because their party membership is fragile;
2) because the Russian patriotic idea has become popular in their ranks since the beginning of the war;
3) since after the Balkan war, the core of their leadership actively sought the sympathy of the British and Russian diplomatic circles, although this did not prevent them from also cooperating with the German government. Because he is not capable of any political actions at all. ”
Parvus has compiled a list of urgent financial and technical measures. Among them: the provision of explosives, maps showing the bridges to be exploded, the preparation of couriers, contacts with the Bolshevik faction located in exile in Switzerland, the financing of radical left-wing newspapers. Parvus asked the German government (in mid-March 1915, he became the main government consultant for the Russian revolution) to finance his plan.
MILLIONS IN TOPKOVA REVOLUTION
March 17 1915 th von Yagov telegraphs to the German state treasury: "To support revolutionary propaganda in Russia 2 million marks are required." A positive response comes in two days. It was an advance. From 2 million, Parvus receives immediately and transfers them to his accounts in Copenhagen. There he founded a commercial empire that deals with trading operations. Including illegal deals on the sale of coal, metals, weapons to Germany, Russia, Denmark and other countries. Parvus received huge profits, which he left in Russia or transferred to accounts in other countries. Most of the funds Parvus invests in creating media around the world. They had to tune the world and the population of Russia against the tsarist regime.
The Leninist slogan of turning the imperialist war into a civil war is the essence of the Parvus program. Only Parvus talked about 5 – 10 million marks on the Russian revolution, and in the end, the figure is much larger. In addition to Gelfand, who was the main link between the Bolsheviks and the German imperial government, in the summer of 1917, the Bolsheviks had other channels of communication with Berlin. German Social Democrat and Lenin’s ardent critic Edward Bernstein estimated the total amount of “German aid” at about 50 million gold marks. The figure in 50 million marks, received by the Bolsheviks from Germany, calls the English historian Ronald Clark.
Parvus's personal funds served as a cover for "German money", which still confuses researchers. No matter how large sums the “sponsors of the Russian revolution” spent, they expected not only to acquire political capital for their own money, but also to compensate their financial expenses with excess. Reforms, restructuring, revolutions and civil wars, which led Russian society to a state of destruction and discord, were always accompanied by a drain of tremendous wealth to the West.
Particularly sensitive issue is the relationship between Parvus and Lenin. “Lenin is needed in Russia for Russia to fall,” wrote Parvus. This is the whole essence of Parvus’s relationship to the Bolshevik leader. They were familiar even before the 1905 revolution of the year: they were creating the Iskra newspaper together. After Parvus received an advance in 2 million marks from the German authorities, his first intention was to go to Switzerland to Lenin to include him in his plan.
In mid-May, 1915-th Parvus arrived in Zurich to talk with Lenin. Alexander Solzhenitsyn more or less accurately described the circumstances in which Parvus imposed his society on Lenin, but Solzhenitsyn could not know the content of their conversation. Lenin, naturally, preferred not to mention this episode. Parvus, on the other hand, was brief: “I expounded to Lenin my views on the social revolutionary consequences of the war and drew attention to the fact that while the war continues, a revolution cannot happen in Germany; that now the revolution is possible only in Russia, where it can break out as a result of Germany’s victories. He dreamed, however, of publishing a socialist journal, with the help of which, he believed, he would be able to immediately throw the European proletariat from the trenches into the revolution. ” The irony of Parvus is understandable even in hindsight: Lenin did not go into direct contact with Parvus, but kept the channel of communication with him constantly free.
Austrian researcher Elizabeth Heresh, Parvus had published a plan quoted as saying the chairman of the Bolshevik Cheka, Felix Dzerzhinsky in 1922 year, "Kuzmich (. One of the nicknames of the party of Lenin - BH) was really hooked in 1915, the representative of the German General Staff Alexander Gelfand Lazarevich (he is Parvus, he is Alexander Moskvich) ”.
Lenin in 1915 continued to rave about the idea of a world revolution, no matter where — in Switzerland, America or Russia. Parvus, on the other hand, offered enormous money to organize the revolution in Russia. Whose money is that for Lenin did not matter. Although Lenin did not officially tell Parvus: “Yes, I will cooperate with you,” a quiet agreement to act in compliance with the secrecy rules, through intermediaries, was reached.
Can Parvus Lenin's proposal be considered a recruitment? In the narrow "spy" sense of the word - probably not. But politically, the anti-Russian goals of Kaiser Germany, the “businessman from the revolution” Parvus and the “revolutionary dreamer” Lenin at this stage coincided. For Lenin, as a revolutionary internationalist, it was perfectly acceptable to cooperate with the German Empire against the Russian Empire, of which he was an irreconcilable enemy. Simply put, the Bolsheviks did not care on whose money to make a revolution.
At the same time, the German authorities, by giving Parvus the money, opened the Pandora’s box. The Germans had no idea about bolshevism. Walter Nikolai, head of the German military intelligence, wrote: “At that time, like any other, I did not know anything about Bolshevism, and I only knew about Lenin that I lived in Switzerland as a political emigrant Ulyanov, who delivered valuable information to my service about the situation in tsarist Russia, against which he fought. " The Kaiser’s military intelligence, together with the German Foreign Ministry, ensured that Parvus’s plan was fulfilled in the part in which he was in line with the goals of Germany to withdraw Russia from the war.
OWN GAME
However, Parvus would not have been a financial genius and political adventurer of a world scale if he had not played his own game: the revolution in Russia was only the first part of his plan. It was to be followed by a revolution in Germany. At the same time, the financial flows of the world revolution would be concentrated in the hands of Parvus. Of course, the Germans did not know about the second part of the plan of Parvus.
Parvus took up the creation of his own organization to influence events in Russia. The headquarters of the organization Parvus decided to locate in Copenhagen and Stockholm, through which the illegal connections of the Russian emigration with Russia, Germany with the West and Russia were carried out. First of all, Parvus created in Copenhagen the Institute for Scientific and Statistical Analysis (Institute for the Study of the Consequences of War) as a legal “roof” for conspiracy and information gathering. He brought five Russian émigré socialists from Switzerland to Copenhagen, ensuring them unimpeded passage through Germany, thus anticipating the famous history with a "sealed car". Parvus was nearly acquired by the staff of his institute Nikolai Bukharin, who refused this offer only under Lenin pressure. But Lenin provided Parvus as a contact person for his friend and assistant Jacob Fürstenberg-Ganetsky, a former member of the Central Committee of the united RSDLP.
Political, analytical and intelligence work Parvus combined with commercial activities. He created an export-import company that specialized in secret trade between Germany and Russia and financed revolutionary organizations in Russia from its revenues. For this company, Parvus received special import and export licenses from the German authorities. In addition to business, Parvus's company was also involved in politics, had its own network of agents who, traveling between Scandinavia and Russia, maintained contact with various underground organizations and strike committees, coordinated their actions. Soon the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States entered the scope of Parvus's activities, but its main commercial interests were focused on trade with Russia. Parvus bought copper, rubber, tin and grain, which were badly needed for the German military economy, and supplied chemicals and machinery there. Some goods were transported across the border legally, others were smuggled.
Dr. Zimmer got acquainted with the structures of Parvus and made the most favorable impression about them. He conveyed his positive opinion to Count Brokdorf-Rantzau, the German ambassador to Copenhagen, who opened the doors of the German embassy before Parvus. The first meeting between Count Brokdorf-Rantzau and Parvus took place at the end of 1915. “Now I have learned Gelfand better and I think there can be no doubt that he is an extraordinary person whose unusual energy we simply have to use as now, when the war is going on, and later - regardless of whether we personally agree with his convictions or not, "wrote Count Brokdorf-Rantzau. He took Parvus's ideas about Russia to heart and became a constant intercessor for his affairs at the German Foreign Ministry.
Parvus and his structures vigorously prepared X-day in Russia: they should have been the next anniversary of Bloody Sunday - January 22, 1916. On this day, a general political strike was planned, designed, if not to bury, then to shake the Tsarist regime as much as possible. The strikes in the country did occur, but not as many as Parvus had expected. So the revolution did not happen. The German leadership considered this to Parvus to defeat. During the year, Parvus was not approached from Berlin on the sensitive issues of organizing subversive activities in Russia.
THIRD OPTION
The situation has changed the revolution in Russia, which occurred in February 1917 year. Germany needed Parvus again. In a conversation with Count Brokdorf-Rantzau, Parvus expressed the conviction that after the revolution only two versions of Germany’s relations with Russia are possible: either the German government decides to extensively occupy Russia, destroy its imperial state system and dismember Russia into several states dependent on Germany, or it makes a quick peace with the Provisional Government. For Parvus himself, both options were equally unacceptable: the first was associated with the risk of a rise in the patriotism of the Russian people and, accordingly, the morale of the Russian army; the second - with the slowdown in the implementation of the revolutionary program Parvus.
However, there was also a third option: Lenin. The German side, through the mediation of Parvus, forwards the leader of the Bolsheviks to Russia, where Lenin immediately unleashes anti-government activities, inclines the Provisional Government to sign the peace, or, with German assistance provided through Parvus, comes to power and signs a separate peace with Germany.
In the delivery of Lenin to Russia, Parvus enlisted the support of the German General Staff and entrusted Furstenberg-Ganetsky to inform Lenin that a railway corridor was arranged for him and for Zinoviev in Germany, without specifying that the proposal came from Parvus.
The departure of Russian émigrés from Zurich was appointed to 9 on April 1917. Together with Lenin, several dozen Russian revolutionaries left Zurich. There were several "Russian" trains. Parvus immediately informed the German Foreign Ministry that he was going to meet Russians in Sweden. The main goal of Parvus was contact with Lenin. This contact was provided by Furstenberg-Ganetsky, who was waiting for Lenin and his companions in Malmo and escorted them to Stockholm. Lenin did not go to a personal meeting with Parvus: for the leader of the Bolsheviks it was impossible to come up with anything more compromising than showing a connection with Parvus.
The role of the main negotiator with Parvus on the part of the Bolsheviks was assumed by Radek. 13 April 1917, Parvus and Radek talked in complete secrecy all day. Apparently, it was then that Parvus directly offered his support to the Bolsheviks in the struggle for power in Russia, and they, in the person of Radek, accepted it. Russian emigrants moved further to Finland, and Parvus - to the German embassy. He was summoned to the German Foreign Ministry, where a secret, without protocol, conversation with Secretary of State Zimmermann took place.
On 3 on April 1917, the German treasury, by order of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, allocated to Parvus 5 million marks for political purposes in Russia; Apparently, Zimmermann agreed with Parvus on the use of these huge funds. From Berlin, Parvus departed again to Stockholm, where he was in constant contact with members of the foreign bureau of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party Radek, Vorovskiy and Furstenberg-Ganetsky. Through them there was a transfer of German money to Russia, to the Bolshevik box office. Lenin's letters from Petrograd to Fürstenberg in Stockholm are full of phrases: "We still have not received money from you."
A year later, in 1918, Erich von Ludendorff, Chief of the Big Kaiser General Staff, admitted: “We took upon ourselves a great responsibility by bringing Lenin to Russia, but this had to be done to make Russia fall.”
CALCULATIONS DON'T EQUITABLE
October Revolution in Russia Parvus received with enthusiasm. But Parvus’s calculations that Lenin would give him a portfolio of the People's Commissar in the Soviet government were not justified. Radek told Parvus that the Bolshevik leader could not allow him to return to Russia. According to Lenin, “the cause of the revolution should not be stained with dirty hands.” After the Bolsheviks took power, Parvus began to interfere with both the Germans and the Bolsheviks: he knew too much.
Already in 1918, Parvus became a vehement critic of Lenin. Especially after Lenin's Sovnarkom announced a program for the nationalization of banks, land and industry. This program, which Parvus called criminal, struck his commercial interests. He decided to politically destroy Lenin and began collecting millions to create an empire of Russian-language newspapers from China to the borders of Afghanistan and their delivery to Russia. But it was too late. Lenin and the Bolsheviks were strengthened in power.
Disillusioned with Bolshevism, Parvus withdrew from public affairs and decided to spend the rest of his life in Switzerland, but he was expelled from there, because his true role in the destruction of Russia gradually began to emerge.
After the Kaiser Empire fell in 1918, they began to ask who was behind all these events (the second part of Parvus’s plan came up). The Swiss found a reason to invite Parvus to leave the country. He moved to Germany, where he bought a large villa near Berlin, where he died in the same year as Lenin - in the 1924 year. The death of the “chief financier” of the Bolshevik revolution did not cause sympathetic comments either in Russia or in Germany. For the right, Parvus was a revolutionary and a destroyer of foundations. For the left, the “pimp of imperialism” and a traitor to the cause of the revolution. “Parvus is part of the revolutionary past of the working class, trampled into the mud,” Karl Radek wrote in an obituary in the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda.
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