Catastrophe

Ages of Enlightenment

		Frontispiece
		Prologue
	Chapter I	Voltaire and the Encyclopedists
	Chapter II	The Hegelians
	Chapter III	Heaven on Earth
	Chapter IV	Empire of the Czars
	Chapter V	Llano Estacado
	Chapter VI	Dawn of the New Age
	Chapter VII	Man of Steel
	Chapter VIII	Wolves are Closing In
	Chapter IX	Stalin and Roosevelt
	Chapter X	Shifting Alliances
	Chapter XI	Cold War
	Chapter XII	Lost Empire
	Chapter XIII	Apre le Deluge
	Chapter XIV	Paper Centerfolds
		Postscript

Sound clip: Internationale

Dawn of the New Age
The last Romanov, Nicholas II, was succeeded by Vladimir Lenin who did his utmost to end the First World War. Russia was renamed The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the imperial eagles were replaced by the symbols of unity of the working people. Instead of reading about Vladimir Lenin, consider the following excerpt from Lenin's (1914) book Hegel's Science of Logic.

The system of natural numbers shows a nodal line of qualitative moments which emerge within a sequence of quantitative progress and regress, a perpetual adding or subtracting. However, the natural numbers also have a numerous relations to other numbers preceding and following them.

In the musical scale which is built up on quantitative differences, a quantum jump can result in a harmonious accord or a cacophonic discord. While successive notes seem to be at an ever-increasing distance from the keynote, this progression can be broken per saltum, resulting in a surprising accord, of which no hint was given by the quality of what immediately preceded it, but which appears as an actio in distans, as a connection with something far removed. It is said, natura non facit saltum; and ordinary thinking when it has to grasp a coming-to-be or a ceasing-to-be, fancies it has done so by representing it as a gradual emergence or disappearance. But we have seen that the alterations of being in general are not only the transition of one magnitude into another, but a transition from quality into quantity and vice versa.

Books are windows into their authors' minds and reading the original sources is one of the best methods of defense against the biased descriptions of various historical figures.

The Clown The ascendancy of Vladimir Lenin was paralleled by the raising fortunes of Felix Dzerzhinsky. Felix Dzerzhinsky, former aspiring Catholic priest, gained notoriety during the Bim-Bom affair. Bim-Bom was a Moscow circus clown known for his jokes about the prominent figures of the Communist party. In 1918, after Felix Dzerzhinsky settled in the Lubyanka offices of Lloyds of London as the head of the Commission for Combating Counterrevolution and Sabotage (Cheka), he attempted to arrest Bim-Bom during his circus performance. The audience thought that this was a part of the Bim-Bom's act. Bim-Bom fled and Felix Dzerzhinsky was ridiculed as a clown chasing a clown. The Bom-Bom fiasco did not discourage the failed cleric, but on the contrary, steeled his resolve. He worked day and night, rarely leaving his Lubyanka office, and at the end of his first year as the head of Cheka he became known as the 'Iron Felix' and Lubyanka became the Moscow's feared prison.

Lockhart in Russia Felix Dzerzhinsky solidified his 'iron' reputation during the Lockhart's Affair. Bruce Lockhart was the British consul in pre-Revolutionary Moscow, known for his erotic escapades second only to those of Gregory Rasputin. In his (1932) book Memoirs of a British agent: Being an account of the author's early life in many lands and of his official mission to Moscow Bruce Lockhart describes his arrival in Moscow excerpted as follows.

After my arrival in January of 1912 to Moscow, a little bewildered but full of curiosity I proceeded to examine my new surroundings. After several weeks I discovered the Palm Court, surrounded by a balcony on all sides. Along the balcony were gaily lit windows and doors opening into the private rooms known in Russia as "cabinets" where, hidden from prying eyes, dissolute youth trafficked with debauched old.

I had entered into a kingdom where money was the only God. As in a dream I followed the others into a large pine walled cabinet. The wine waiter brought the champagne, and then Maria Nikolaievna came in followed by girls with eyes like sloes and sinuous graceful bodies. When I met her that night for the first time, there was a wistful sadness in her large, grey eyes, but when she spoke the lines in her face vanished into smiles. Her task in life was to collect foolish and preferably rich young men, sing to them, and make them drink oceans of champagne until the wealth of their fathers was transferred from their pockets to her own.

I drank my first glass of vodka and for the first time ate caviar. Had an eldritch soothsayer appeared before me and foretold that seven years later I should again be sitting in that hall surrounded by Bolsheviks, I should have laughed her to scorn. Yet it was here that in 1918, as the guest of Trotsky, I was to attend a meeting of the Bolshevist Central Executive Committee and that I was to shake hands for the first and only time with Stalin.

British Invasion of Russia 1918-1922
On March 3, 1918, Vladimir Lenin negotiated the separate peace at Brest-Litovsk. Shortly afterwards, on July 23, 1918, British Armies invaded Russia. The initial goal of this intervention that lasted over four years and ended with evacuation of the British troops at Vladivostok in October of 1922 was to bring Russia back into the war against Germany. The Great Britain and her Allies attacked Russia from the North, landing troops in Murmansk and Archangelsk, from the East, landing troops in Vladivostok and from the South, landing troops at Batumi. The coalition lead by Britain lost about 235,000 soldiers, the Red Army about 1,000,000. Joseph Stalin took part in this war which helps to explains his initial reluctance to enter the war against Germany on the side of the Great Britain two decades later.

Lockhart’ Plot
At the time of the British invasion of Russia, Lockhart received sealed orders from the British government to - at any cost - engineer Russia's reentry to the First World War at the side of the Great Britain. A close friend of Lockhart was Sigmund Rosenblum (known in England as Sidney Reilly) with contacts in Russia to the Jewish faction of the Communist Party. Lockhart and Sir Mansfield Cumming, the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service elaborated a plan to murder the leaders of the Communist Party of Russia. Cumming dispatched agents of British Secret Intelligence Service to Moscow and Lockhart bribed to the tune of over 10 million rubles a faction of the Russia's military. On August 30, 1918, in Moscow, Fanya Kaplan (suspected of ties with Rosenblum), lodged a bullet into the lung of Vladimir Lenin and in Petrograd, a military faction, bribed by Lockhart, attempted to take over the Petrograd Cheka's headquarters. However, the Cheka under the 'Iron Felix' prevailed and the coup failed.

Fanya Kaplan
The assassin of Vladimir Lenin, Fanya Kaplan (Фанни Каплан; 1883–September 3, 1918), was born into a Jewish family and at the age of 23, in 1906, participated in an attempted assassination of a government official. The plot failed and Kaplan was exiled to Akatui, Siberia where she stayed for about 10 years. She was released when the February Revolution of 1917 overthrew the Imperial Government. Fanya Kaplan suffered from continuous headaches and periods of blindness.

On August 30, 1918, Lenin was speaking at a Moscow factory. As Lenin left the building and before he entered his car, Kaplan called out his name. When Lenin turned towards her, she fired three shots, lodging bullets in his left shoulder and left lung. Lenin's never fully recovered from this attack and died afterwards. Kaplan was taken into custody and made the following statement.

My name is Fanya Kaplan. Today I shot at Lenin. I did it on my own. I will not say from whom I obtained my revolver. I will give no details. I had resolved to kill Lenin long ago. I consider him a traitor to the Revolution.

The sequence of events, relevant to the attempted assassination of Lenin, is as follows. On March 3, 1918 Lenin negotiates the separate peace at Brest-Litovsk and on July 23, 1918 the British Armies invade Russia. On August 30, 1918 the head of Petrograd Cheka, Uritskii is assassinated in the morning and in the evening Fanya Kaplan attempts to assassinate Lenin. On August 31, 1918 Cheka arrests Robert B. Lockhart.

An experienced police interrogator is usually able to obtain details of the murder in several interrogative sessions. However, Fanya Kaplan was briefly questioned and shot four days later. Lenin opposed the execution of Fanya, but she was shot anyway. The time sequence of the events preceding this assassination attempt suggests that this plot was a part of the Cumming's plan to eliminate leaders of the Communist Party and to contrive the reentry of Russia to the war at the side of the Great Britain.

Trotsky, Frieda, and Paul Wolfowitz
After Lenin's death, a power struggle between Leo Trotsky and Joseph Stalin ensued. Trotsky lost and was exiled. From abroad, Trotsky continued his campaign of against Joseph Stalin, initially from Turkey and France, and later from the house of his Mexican friend (some say lover) Frida Kahlo, portrayed by Salma Hayek in the 2002 movie Frida. Because of their long battles against Stalinism, Trotsky's supporters and their students were perfect recruits for the renewed struggle against Soviet communism during the Reagan administration. Their publications filled the pages of neo-conservative journals that inspired, among others, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz.

Sir Robert Hamilton Bruce Lockhart (September 2, 1887-February 27, 1970), was a British diplomat in Moscow and in Prague.
R. H. Bruce Lockhart.
(1887-1970). Restored
portrait.

Lockhart was born in Anstruther, Scotland, the son of a schoolmaster. After an attempt at being a rubber planter in Malaya, Lockhart joined the British Foreign Service and was posted to Moscow as Vice-Consul. After Lenin concluded the separate peace with Germany and Austria toward the end of the World War I, he strenuously tried to persuade the Russia's government to resume war at the side of the Great Britain. He also attempted (unsuccessfuly) to persuade the new Soviet government to allow the Japanese army onto Soviet territory to fight Germany on the Eastern Front. In August of 1918, Lockhart and fellow British agent Sidney Reilly (Sigmund Rosenblum) were implicated in a plot to assassinate Vladimir Lenin. On August 31, 1918, Lockhart was arrested and sentenced to death, however, he was later exchanged for the Russian spy Maxim Litvinov.

During World War II, Lockhart received Order of St. Michael and St. George for coordinating the British propaganda against Germany. He also served as a liaison officer to the London-based Czechoslovak Government in Exile. After the war, he resumed writing, lecturing, and broadcasting to Czechoslovakia, invariably ending his anti-communist propaganda with the sign-off ''Dobrou noc a pevnou nadeji'' (Good night and chins up). Lockhart died in 1970 at the age of 83.

Books by R. H. Lockhart

''Memoirs of a British Agent'' (Putnam, London, 1934)
''Retreat from Glory'' (Putnam, London, 1934)
''Return to Malaya'' (Putnam, London, 1936)
''My Scottish Youth'' (Putnam, London, 1937)
''Guns or Butter: War countries and peace countries of Europe revisited'' (Putnam, London, 1938)
''A Son of Scotland'' (Putnam, London, 1938)
''What Happened to the Czechs?''
''Comes the Reckoning'' (Putnam, London, 1947)
''My Rod, My Comfort'' (Putnam, London, 1949)
''The Marines Were There: the Story of the Royal Marines in the Second World War'' (Putnam, London, 1950)
''Scotch: the Whisky of Scotland in Fact and Story'' (Putnam, London, 1951)
''My Europe'' (Putnam, London, 1952)
''Your England'' (Putnam, London, 1955)
''Jan Masaryk, a Personal Memoir'' (Putnam, London, 1956)
''Friends, Foes, and Foreigners'' (Putnam, London, 1957)
''The Two Revolutions: an Eyewitness Study of Russia, 1917'' (Bodley Head, London)
''The Diaries of Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart'' (St Martin's Press, London, 1974)