Friday, February 9, 2018

50 Years Ago: The Invasion of Russia (1968)

The 50 Years Ago column from the September 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nor is this by any means the worst. Fearful that if the Bolshevik enterprise should meet with success it might prove contagious, they have determined to crush it and restore their friends and allies, the Russian capitalists, to dominance. So we have a “league of nations” in being against the Bolshevik Government. Under the plea that f they are going to save Russia from the Germans they invade the country at various points. “We come as the friends of Russia." they declare, and disown any intention of interfering with “the internal politics of the country.”

Now with regard to the ludicrous statement that there is no intention of interfering with Russian internal politics. Everyone knows that it is openly admitted that one of the main objects of the Allies in invading Russia is “to save Russia from the Bolsheviks.” The capitalist Press has made no secret of it. Capitalist agents, both here and in Russia, have striven for it. In particular one may instance Dr. Harold Williams, when special correspondent to the “Daily Chronicle" in Petrograd. and since his return to this country. His filthy diatribes against the Bolsheviks leave no doubt as to their object — the overthrow of those against whom he inveighed.

What sort of game has been played is unwittingly revealed in an eulogy of Capt. Cromie which appeared in the “Daily Chronicle" on Sept. 14th. wherein after retailing some of Cromie’s activities in favour of the capitalist interests, it is stated that he went to Petrograd and strove to hold the forces of “sanity and reason" together. Needless to say, in the capitalist view, neither sanity nor reason can reside in Bolshevik craniums, and to scheme their overthrow is not interfering in internal politics, of course!

From the "Socialist Standard", September 1918.

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