Understanding the Russian Revolution | Hacker News Reader

Understanding the Russian Revolution

smithsonianmag.com

52 pointssamclemens44 comments

What's not often mentioned when discussing the revolution was that western powers, including the USA immediately invaded the Soviet Union to attempt to overthrow the government. This explains a lot in the ensuing history, including the paranoid militancy of the Soviet Union.

Yes, there are some fascinating pictures of Allied troops marching through Vladivostok in 1918. [1] The Red Scare followed that immediately, and wasn't caused by any Russian aggression towards the US. [2]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Force_S...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare

>The Red Scare followed that immediately, and wasn't caused by any Russian aggression towards the US.

One of the pillars of the Bolsheviks world view (based on the Marx's economical and political class theory) was "worlwide revolution", and it was really happening in many parts of the world at the time (almost whole Europe was basically on fire and China too - one can see why US had reasons to worry especially given the active communist movement in US back then) And for Bolsheviks it wasn't just passive view though, they did for example tried to militarily help German revolutionary comrades and if not for the new Poland state and army which happened to be on the way to Germany, the 20th century in Europe may have looked somewhat differently.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_westward_offensive_of_1... :

"The Bolsheviks were also implementing a new strategy, "Revolution from abroad" (Revolutsiya izvne—literally, "revolution from the outside"), based on an assumption that revolutionary masses desire revolution but are unable to carry it out without help from more organized and advanced Bolsheviks. Hence, as Leon Trotsky remarked, the revolution should be "brought on bayonets" (of the Red Army), as "through Kiev leads the straight route for uniting with Austro-Hungarian revolution, just as through Pskov and Vilnius goes the way for uniting with German revolution. Offensive on all fronts! Offensive on the west front, offensive on the south front, offensive on the all revolutionary fronts!"."

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Soviet_War :

" Lenin, meanwhile, saw Poland as the bridge the Red Army had to cross to assist other communist movements and bring about other European revolutions."

Yes communnism represented a real threat to the American ruling class, the threat of workers taking matters in their own hands. We must also look at the US labor history which is among the most violent in the world, (except Tsarist Russia) After many bloody labor wars, US labour was basically crushed in the 20's only to rise again in the 30's and then be mostly deestroyed after WW2 again.

https://chomsky.info/nothing-for-other-people-class-war-in-t...

> Yes communnism represented a real threat to the American ruling class, the threat of workers taking matters in their own hands

No offence but we know exactly what Trotsky and Lenin represented ... and it very much wasn't "workers taking matters in their own hands". This may have been unknown at the time, maybe even to those men themselves, but it is not unknown to me, or to you.

Of course, the same is true of capitalists; we don't notice anymore because their program for world domination has mostly succeeded. It wasn't peaceful either.

>capitalists; ... their program for world domination has mostly succeeded

Unfortunately human race hasn't been able to come up with a better thing yet. Most of the 20th century was spent on implementation (and dealing with consequences) of the 2 most progressive (as they looked back then and as the theories like the Marx's state) approaches - communism and fascism (the both actually almost the same in the core - total government economical and political control). We all know the results of those approaches.

There is libertarian socialism, or anarchism - which seems very promising. Essentially the extension of democracy into the workplace. In Spain in 1936 by all accounts it was very successful and popular. Productivity improved dramatically and petty crime became non existent. However it was crushed by the combined force of western democracies, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. They hate democracy. Not surprising - democracy is a threat to any power system.

Libya until recently had a very interesting political system where all decisions had to be ratified by the population. Unfortunately that was also overthrown by an invasion, unfortunately a rather common pattern with this kind of thing (Chile under Allende, Guetemala 1953, etc.)

Not sure what to expect from the article which can't even get names right. It's Sukhomlinov, not Suklominov.

A minor difference in an anglicisation of Russian which can vary anyway.

Not really. Suhomlinov is pronounced very differently from Suhlominov.

EDIT: It's as different as Sherlock Holmes versus Sherlock Hlomes and roughly as grating to one's ear.

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