IceBreakChron I: ULTIMATE WAR

[JasonPratt]

For the Introduction to this topic, and a table of contents to other major threads of the topic, CLICK HERE.

This is the first main thread, so the ToC/Intro is also the prior thread sequentially.

Note that this thread especially involves the background political and ideological context presented by Suvorov for understanding the choices of Stalin and his government during his reign. This macro-thread will take the chronology up to the start of Stalin's consolidation of power as Lenin is dying, and so tends to focus on World War I and its preceding and subsequent connections to Lenin's geopolitical strategy.

But the story starts with a quick and dirty overview of Marxian revolutionary philosophy, so I will have to beg some indulgence: the ideological context is important to Suvorov's thesis. Any extrapolations to any current or prior events by the reader, are yours to make and should be considered beyond the scope of commenting for this thread!

In other words, please don't drag this thread into RPFW -- I'm only trying to report about how post-Marxian revolutionary ideology, at least as presented by Suvorov, fits into the Suvorov's thesis for Stalin's plans and rationales, including those accepted by his government. (Critiques of Suvorov's representation of Marxism and post-Marxian revolutionary socialism, would be fair game for this thread I suppose.)

On to the chronological notes...

[JasonPratt]

To The Ultimate War
-----------------------

Late 19th century: German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles predict that determinative historical processes shall bring forth one final revolutionary world war lasting from ten to fifty years, as the workers rise up against the property owners. Engles writes (unsourced by Suvorov) that "The war of the poor against the rich will be the bloodiest people have ever waged." Marx and Engles don't exactly try to cause revolution, expecting rather that the workers shall rise up themselves under instinctive pressures (these natural instincts being what makes the conclusion supposedly inevitable); but they definitely look forward to the uprising which they regard as the only way to establish first socialism and then, from socialism, communism.

Socialism, the gathering of all authority, over all property and over all means of production, under the management and resource distribution of a few elite people, is regarded by Marx as a necessary transitional phase from "late-stage capitalism" to full "communism" where no more authority needs to exist and everyone shares and gives by trained habit: from everyone according to their ability, to everyone according to their need. Socialism needs to exist for the purpose of training all people to be good communists, and also for managing the final revolutionary war period, which includes imprisoning and/or killing all people unwilling or unable to accept communism (and its necessary socialist prelude), since such people must (on this theory) necessarily be enemies of the coming peace for all humanity.

June 12, 1883: letter from Friedrich Engels to Eduard Bernstein: "All these various sorts of ne'er-do-wells must first tear one another apart, grind one another to dust and compromise one another, thus paving the way for us." This is Suvorov's earliest quoted source for the idea that the workers' final world-war uprising against the property owners, will only be able to happen after the collapse of society into anarchy after a catastrophic war.

[JasonPratt]

Early 1900s, Russia becomes the first nation in the world to produce (not merely test) twin engine airplanes.


1913: absolute legend Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky builds the first four-engine heavy bomber, known as the Ilya Murometz. It is unrivaled for several years (throughout most or all of the coming Great War) for armament, bomb capacity, range, navigation system, and bomb-sight. It uses the first electrical bomb release mechanism in the world. For defense it has eight machine guns! -- with an attempt at installing a 76-mm cannon (though probably not for defense)!

Fortunately for Sikorky, his family, and the Western nations, he will go into exile upon the Communist takeover of Russia, where he will continue designing aircraft -- including the new coming helicopters. (That's beyond the scope of this work, but tracking Russian accomplishments and doctrines in air power up through the start of WW2? -- very much within the scope. Suvorov is justly proud of his people for such accomplishments; if not sometimes too proud perhaps. )

[JasonPratt]

pre-1914: Marxist theorists are perplexed and disappointed that Marx's (supposedly) scientific inevitability, which he had predicted about what he called "late-stage capitalism", has not yet happened. So they begin revising the theory. The more radical revolutionaries come to agree that the property owners have too thoroughly seduced the workers, with the benefits and pleasures of the market system, to expect a natural revolution; and so leading thinkers (such as themselves) must take active command to awaken, prod, and lead the workers into the predicted revolutionary world war against property owners. Of course, this means that they themselves should surely be the post-revolutionary leaders in charge of managing all the resources produced by the people during the transitional socialist era after the revolutionary war. This naturally leads to friction among the radical post-Marxian leaders, over which of them should be the ultimate controllers of all human and natural resources in the socialist age to come.

One group of these leaders, the Bolsheviks, are Lenin; Trotsky; Zinoviev; Kamenev; Molotov; and Kirov. These are all aliases -- their group is an organized secret society crime gang, although representatives from Lenin's "party" sit in the Imperial Russian parliament (the Duma). They literally rob banks (with violent casualties) to keep their "party" cashbox full. The most famous man of this gang has several nicknames, among them Vasiliev, Chizhikov, Ivanovich, and "son of the devil" (i.e. Besoshvili)! His closest comrades will have the right to use the nickname "Koba" for him during his many years as a bank robber, borrowed from the bandit protagonist of Kazbegi's "The Patricide". His name is Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvilli (a patronymic from his father Besarion Jughashvilli). He shall eventually rename himself as "steeler" or "the man of steel", Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (i.e. son of Besarionis).


1914: Imperial Russia becomes the first nation in the world to create a squadron (or any unit at all) of heavy bombers.


July 26, 1914, during an emergency session of the Duma, Lenin's Bolshevik party, an offshoot of another branch of the Russian Social Democrats, the Mensheviks, leave the meeting hall as "a protest against the current military insanity".

[JasonPratt]

Autumn of 1914: the next general European war has started, soon to be the largest war in human history so far.

However, this is clearly not the revolutionary war of the workers against the property owners. Lenin is unsure if this world war shall usher in the revolutionary world war, but he strategizes (in his thesis on the slogan "United States of Europe") that socialists should take this opportunity to reduce at least one of the Great Powers to civil war, to be won by the socialists, who should then use this nation as a base for starting a second world war -- or else converting the current world war to the predicted and desired revolutionary socialist war, which to Lenin at this time seems doubtful.

"The victorious proletariat of that country [to be conquered by the socialist uprising using the opportunity of the Great War] will rise up against the whole rest of the world." (Presumably Suvorov is quoting from Lenin's "United States of Europe", but he isn't clear about the source.) Lenin expects that this takeover shall by itself spark unrest and uprisings in other nations, but Lenin says that if necessary the first socialist nation shall "resort to outright use of armed force" against non-socialist, and improperly socialist, nations.

[JasonPratt]

The Butcher of Blood
------------------------

Early 1915: Mikhail Tukhachevsky graduated six months ago from (quick) training at a military school for junior officers (preceded by another military school equivalent to boot camp), and was assigned as the deputy commander to a company. Early this year he is taken prisoner. After four escape attempts, and then a successful fifth attempt from Ingolstadt fortress (where he shared a cell with none other than Charles de Gaulle!), he returns to a company in a reserve battalion of his old regiment, where the company troops elect him as the company commander, in accord with Tsarist Russian military doctrine. Naturally, troops in the Russian army at this time tend to elect commanders who will let them be lazy and do whatever they want; the soldiers liked Tukhachevsky.

He will not command for long, because an army with such a command system will soon fall apart. But don't worry! -- Tukhachevsky will soon become the top-ranked military officer in all of Russia, a legend in his own time and afterward, and the architect of the basic strategic policy of Russia's new government going into the Second World War!

De Gaulle later reported that Tukhachevsky played the violin, spouted nihilistic beliefs, and spoke against Jews whom he called dogs who "spread their fleas throughout the world".

[JasonPratt]

September 1916: the Great World War still rages with no end in sight. Lenin, in his "War Program of the Proletariat Revolution", makes a theoretical case that a "second imperialist war" will be necessary before the revolutionary world war against property owners can be triggered.

Leon Trotksy (date unclear, from his "Against National Communism"), "For us, Germany's 'national liberation' lies not in a war with the West, but in a proletarian [i.e. workers'] revolution encompassing both Central and Western Europe for unification with Eastern Europe in the form of the Soviet United States."


September 1917: the Central Powers are nearly beaten. Russian troops with many sacrifices and bloody toil have played their part in bringing an oncoming allied victory

By this time the Bolshevik party (the crime gang which split off from the Menshavik party) has seventy-five newspapers and magazines, with a total daily run estimated as high as 600,000 copies. Each one advocates for immediate peace, on top of millions of party books, brochures, pamphlets, and poster-proclamations, distributed free of charge in city streets, factories, military barracks, and trenches at the front. Soldiers are encouraged to try to establish friendly relations with the enemy.

How charitable! Who is paying for the production of all this material? -- aside from various banks by involuntary donations? What do you know! -- Germany is making significant voluntary contributions to the party! 

Communist sloagns include "Put down your rifles!" "Go home!" Another peace-loving appeal to ending the horrific slaughter and ongoing casualties is, "Let's transform the Imperialist War into a Civil War!" 

....oh. So... the gang of bank robbers aren't non-violent pacifists after all?

[JasonPratt]

October 1917, the "Red October": revolution and civil war break out in Russia. (Note: this actually happened way back in March, but Lenin's group was barely involved, if at all. Suvorov skips over the important preliminary months of the revolution, focusing on Lenin's efforts instead. For summarizing Suvorov's arguments chronologically, I've chosen to abruptly shift forward in the chronology like this.) In October, Lenin's party manages to seize power over the capital (Petrograd, i.e St. Petersburg) and its functions, although soon they will flee (with all government functions) to Moscow.

For the first time in world history, a group of people living and working under fake names, has gained control of a Great Power nation. The only nations which recognize the new authorities as legitimate, are Russia's war enemies: Germany and Austria-Hungary. In case you're wondering, Germany continues sending money secretly to the Bolshevik 'party'.

Trotsky, and Lenin (returning from exile), create and sign their first official document: the Peace Decree. They publicly call for all Russian workers to throw down their arms and return home.

Millions of Russian soldiers return home without throwing down their arms, supercharging the many factions of the Russian Civil War, allowing none of them to become strong enough (in fighting against all others) to retake the central power from Lenin's Communist party.

Trotsky creates the Red Army of the Workers and Peasants, and acts as its first supreme commander. Lenin turtles without launching many attacks, careful to gain small bits of Russia solidly under his control while he watches his enemies fight to the "universal exhaustion" that Marx predicted -- at least on the relatively small scale of one large nation. (Suvorov regards the destabilizing influx of these armed soldiers from the Central Powers' Eastern Front, as the first "icebreaker" move: Lenin and his party publicly called for a peaceful return, but expected and planned for an armed return to sow chaos among their enemies.)

In his "Military Program of the Proletarian Revolution", published this year, Lenin writes, "The victory of socialism in one country does not at one stroke eliminate all wars in general. On the contrary, it presupposes wars." He means that with one socialist nation now in existence, the socialists (at least the Marxist ones) and the capitalists must war against each other to the death of one or the other economic system. (Or both, but Lenin per Marx teaches that one will surely win: pre-communist socialism.)

October 26, 1917, Leon Trotsky, delivering the Third Speech at the Second All-Russian Conference of Soviets (during the seizure of power), "We rely entirely on the hope that our revolution will unleash a European revolution. If the rising people of Europe do not crush capitalism, we will undoubtedly be crushed ourselves. Either the Russian revolution creates a whirlwind of struggle in the West, or the capitalists of all nations will strangle our revolution."

[JasonPratt]

The Butcher of Blood Begins!
--------------------------------

Company officer 2nd Lieutenant Mikhail Tukhachevsky meets with Lenin and Trotsky after his own return (in September), and according to Suvorov he is immediately assigned by Trotsky (as the creator and commander of the Red Army) to command of the 1st Army of the Eastern Front of the Red Army: traditionally the longest running continuous army henceforward.

Suvorov skips over specifics of Tukhachevsky's Russian Civil War military record; although on the other hand www.military.wikia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Tukhachevsky skips over his command of the 1st Army (which might have been only nominal) to briefly relate his deep penetration (i.e. proto-blitzkrieg) tactics while in command of the 5th and then the 9th Armies during the Civil War. Suvorov (rightly or wrongly) is very explicit that company commander Tukhachevsky never commanded anything larger than a company (not a corps, not a division, not a brigade, not a regiment nor even a battalion) before being promoted to Army Commander. Military.wikia.org says that after becoming "an officer in the newly established Red Army" he "rapidly advanced in rank due to his great ability", but gives no details beyond that.

Tukhachevsky declares (in agreement with Lenin's gang) all those who oppose the illegal Communist leadership, to be "bandits", to be viciously exterminated, along with their relatives, their neighbors, and anyone happening to be nearby. Tukhachevsky phrased the main objective of the Civil War, and of any war, as "With an iron hand, crush the local enemy classes." (uncited by Suvorov).

[JasonPratt]

Early 1918: as Lenin's Soviets seize and secure power, they redistribute the land among the peasants -- rather fairly sized (per Suvorov) according to the number of members in a peasant's family. Now the dream of millions of Russian peasants for centuries has finally come true!

Of course, the peasants themselves don't own this property; the property is owned by all the people as an abstract gestalt, and managed for all the people by Lenin's gang and a few selected overlords. Also, no particular peasant owns any of the production grown on the land: all of it must be given to all the people, meaning it must all be given to the Soviet government to be distributed as the government sees best.

Once the peasants realize they are being swindled, despite propaganda otherwise, they naturally try to resist giving all their production to "the people", which under the socialist regime makes these people immediately the enemy of "the people".

Lenin's government therefore creates "food regulation" brigades and even entire armies: armed men to take away from the peasants all their production, and to put down all resistance.

[JasonPratt]

1918: this year, Lenin creates an academy for training commanders for a future German Red Army. Originally called the "Special School for German Red Commanders", its first rector was Oskar Obert.

The school will go through name changes, turning covert, then overt, then covert again. It will graduate many commanders, but because no German Red Army exists they have to serve in the Soviet Red Army. Some will rise to general's rank.

Later, in early 1941, the bulk of its graduates and those from similar schools will be assigned to the Soviet airborne forces: offensive troops intended for one or more preliminary invasions somewhere, ideally somewhere needing large numbers of commanders for a future German Red army.


January 1918: in Petrograd, Russian Communists create the German Communist "Spartakus" group, and the German Communist newspapers "Die Weltrevolution" (the World Revolution), and "Die Rote Fahne" (the Red Flag). Soon half a million German copies of the revolutionary manifesto "Die Fackel" (The Torch) are published and distributed.

[JasonPratt]

March 6-8, 1918: at the 7th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Pary (later known as the 7th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (of Bolsheviks)), specially called for this purpose, Lenin announces the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany and the Central Powers (arranged by Trotsky, the first Soviet diplomatic leader, acting as the Soviet representative at Brest).

This frees Germany to focus on fighting the Western Front instead of against Russian territory, and also hands Germany significant resources and reserves for continuing to fight against Western Europe: paying tribute in gold (per an August 27th financial agreement for Russia to pay war reparations of value equivalent to six billion Deutschmarks), and ceding around one million square kilometers of Russia's richest industrial and most fertile agricultural areas, more than a quarter of Russia's arable land in total. Fifty-six million people, about a third of Russia's entire population, live in this territory. 73% of Russia's iron and steel are cast here, connected by 26% of Russia's rail network. All of that needs coal of course; good news, 89% of Russia's coal is mined here, too!

This continuance of World War One naturally exhausts not only Germany but also the Entente. Lenin acknowledges that he engineered the Brest Treaty with a view to establishing communism (or at least socialism) in Russia, aiming at world revolution after the Great War. Later, in the Central Committee Report of the 8th Congress of the Russian Communist Party of Bolsheviks (distinct from those Menshaviks), Lenin will declare that he "placed worldwide dictatorship of the proletariat and world revolution ahead of any national sacrifices..." He's saying that achieving worldwide authority over workers and their production was more important than the casualties lost by Russia in fighting to defeat the Central Powers, and the even-more bloody and brutal casualties lost by Russia in the subsequent civil war.

Note that Lenin's strategy was to give resources to Germany to empower them to keep fighting other nations in Europe. Russia, through its flanking pressure, and its uncountable (though mismanaged) natural resources, had been about to help the Allies defeat the Powers in 1917. Lenin actively took steps, starting with the mass recall of troops in 1917, to prolong the world war, while removing Russia from their own forthcoming victory with the Entente. But that victory would not have been a communist victory, so the Russian casualties in gaining that victory had to be set aside. Also set aside: the casualties from the widespread never-ending famine instigated in the remaining Russian territories. Without bread, meat, gold, steel, iron, and coal, Russia cannot exist! -- not unless Russia manages to survive long enough to take it back.

Also from a resolution of the same 7th Party Congress, "The Congress stresses in particular that the Central Committee is being given full power to move at any moment to dissolve all alliances and peace treaties with imperialist and bourgeois states as well as to declare war on them." The Brest Treaty will last not one moment longer than the Party's leaders care for it.

This Communist Party decision (Suvorov reports) has never been repealed to this day (i.e. at least down to the mid 90s).

[JasonPratt]

November 11, 11 am local time on the western front, 1918: World War One ends.

Lenin immediately dissolves the Brest Treaty. Communist governments similar to the Leninist-Bolshevist regime will arise next year to create socialist states. When they start arising, they will form their own Red Armies and "extraordinary commissions in the struggle against counter-revolution", i.e. secret police death squads. These "extraordinary commissions" will immediately instigate a reign of terror against all layers of society, and the Red Armies will throw themselves into revolutionary wars to "liberate" the surrounding nations. However, this doesn't happen immediately upon the end of World War I. Communist states don't instantly rise up in the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), for example. Ohhhh, well, maybe later. 

France has no motive to start a new European war: despite being a main victor, their manpower and infrastructure have been wrecked, and politically the nation is unstable. The main concern of the French government, naturally, is to maintain the new existing situation in Europe as long as possible. French generals will choose strictly defensive strategies, including the Maginot Line along their border (designed to emulate the Great Wall of China).

Great Britain, the other major European victor, has no European territories, so aside from some zeppelin terror raids its infrastructure remains in good shape -- except for the strain. The production strain and manpower/casualty strains make their government somewhat unstable but not as much as France. Britain remains at the center of the greatest colonial empire in history, and its main interests are to preserve its colonies. The British government reduces back to a relatively small home army (also for use in fending off raids in its colonies), but they keep and expand a powerful navy to defend their colonies and trade routes.

Lenin and his gang in the Kremlin have an ongoing civil war across the world's largest nation to manage, but could otherwise devote themselves to the building of a peacetime economy -- which they desperately need to do, since Lenin gave away so much of Russia's key infrastructure to Germany, as to guarantee mass starvation!

All Lenin's gang has to do to avert war in Europe is make sure Germany stays weak. Also, obviously, they should not invade other nations!

    

[JasonPratt]

The First Second World War 
-------------------------------------------

November 13, 1918: less than 48 hours after World War One ends, Lenin and his party try to start World War Two! -- or a little more specifically, they aim to start the ultimate and final revolutionary world war predicted by Marx. The government of Russia issues an order for the Red Army to begin offensive operations against Europe. First targets? -- those Baltic nations (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) which didn't immediately set up communist governments.

November 29, 1918: the Communist government of Estonia is formed.

December 4, 1918: the Communist government of Latvia is formed.

December 8, 1918: the Communist government of Lithuania is formed, becoming a Soviet Socialist Republic on the 16th.

December 15, 1918, Josef Stalin at a speech in Moscow, "The West, full of imperialist cannibals, has turned into the hearth [?] of darkness and slavery. Our task lies in destroying this hearth [heart?], and bringing happiness and consolation to all worker nations."

December 17, 1918, the Communist government in Riga publishes a manifesto naming Germany as the next objective of the Red Army's offensive. The overall goal is a final worldwide revolutionary war bringing all workers, materials, and property, under management of Lenin's Bolshevik Party. Civil war is still raging in Russia itself, tying up the Russian Red Army on internal fronts fighting against those who oppose Communism.

End of 1918: the Finnish army has won its independence first from the Russian Empire, and then from local Bolshevik troops during the Russian civil war. Those were led by Otto Kuusinen, who created the Communist Party of Finland this year and tried to stage a coup, including himself among the new government of course. The Finnish commander-in-chief Mannerheim put a stop to that, but Kuusinen escaped to the criminal underground in Finland (such as it is). More on him later.

This year Finland starts an extensive buildup of traditional Slavic motte defenses on the Karelian Isthmus, forestalling any further more organized invasions by Lenin’s gangs. They do have nearby examples to be worried about, after all.

[JasonPratt]

January 1, 1919, Bolsheviks (run by Lenin) declare the creation of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic in far eastern Polish territory; a non-communist Republic of Byelorussia will emerge north of it.

January 10, 1919, a Soviet republic is declared in Bremen. It will last for 25 days. Lenin will instigate a communist military revolution in Berlin, too, this month, but it will be put down more quickly.

February 14, 1919, the Red Army doesn't have enough on its plate yet, so it invades its largest target yet: Poland! At this time, Poland holds much Ukrainian territory, which is where the Red Army will focus this year, but Poland will also launch counter-offensives to help root the Red Army out of the Baltic states. The Red Army will thereby create the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. (To be fair, Poland has been fighting a lot of people around its borders in setting up the 2nd Polish Republic. To be fair to Poland, they’ve been shuttled around like an American football for about two hundred years as one or another superpower dominates them.)

February 15, 1919, Lithuanian forces (with German volunteers) have been fighting an operation since Feb 8th against the Red Army, and today they finish halting the Red Army's advance. Lithuania will consequently declare independence from Soviet Russia tomorrow.

February 27, 1919, to strengthen remnants of the Lithuanian Soviet Republic, after Lithuania declared independence on February 16th, and after Germans start an offensive in Latvia and northern Lithuania, the remnants are merged with the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia.

March 2, 1919, The Red Army is still tied up dealing with internal civil war, and cannot advance farther than the overrun Baltic States, when Lenin and Trotsky host the First Congress of the Communist International (aka the ComIntern); self-defined as the Worldwide Communist Party and "the Headquarters of World Revolution", with the goal of establishing a World Soviet Socialist Republic. (The Byelorussian SSR is a founding member.)

At this time Lenin no longer speaks of expecting to need a Second Imperialist War, a World War Two, to ignite the world revolutionary war; instead he hopes he is igniting the final world revolutionary war right now through strategic invasions.

While allegedly all Communist parties in the world have an equal status, all parties are supposed to constitute sections of the Comintern, and so are subject to its leadership: Lenin and his gang. Not incidentally, all Communist parties across the world are supposed to contribute to the communal bank of the Comintern. At the moment, however, all funds in the Comintern budget come from the gold reserves of Soviet Russia; and all Communist Parties of the world (plus the Comintern itself) are paid for by Lenin's Moscow government and exist only through financing from the Kremlin.

Any elected leaders of the Executive Committee of the Comintern (overseeing all the Communists of the world, developing strategies and tactics), live and work in Moscow under tight control of Russian Soviet secret police. All Executive Committee directives come from the Kremlin; and only representatives who agree with Lenin's gang in the Kremlin and who carry out the gang's orders without dissent, are 'elected' to the Committee. In practically all nations of the world, from Japan to Uruguay and Chile, communist parties created by the Comintern (and thus by Lenin and his gang) will conduct a line of politics dictated by Lenin's group.

The Comintern's ideology, thus the ideology of each constituent Communist Party, is that the old world must be destroyed and a new one built in its place. To do this it is necessary to gain political power, which requires using all measures, not only open and peaceful but also violent and secret; and not only on a national scale but on a world scale. The interests of the World Revolution are more important than the interests of individual nations.