BOOK OF THE DAY: MAURICE EARLSreviews History's Greatest Heist: The Looting of Russia by the BolsheviksBy Sean McMeekin
UNLIKE BRIAN Lenihan, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin didn’t flinch when it came to nationalising the banks. He did it straight away. He had deposed the Romanovs and was about to descend on the hated bourgeoisie but he still had to pay his bills, particularly the wages of those handy Latvian riflemen who made the whole thing possible.
It is hardly surprising that quite soon he found it necessary to send down to the Russian State Bank for 10 million roubles.
It turned out the old Tsarist bankers were tougher than our lot. The messengers were turned away after being told they hadn’t filled out the right forms. Shortly afterwards, they all went on strike. This left VI scratching his head. It was not what he had in mind when he seized absolute power.
Bolsheviks who didn’t know how banks worked went in and tried to find the money. They found some, but not enough.
Lenin needed lots and lots of money to buy weapons in the West to kill those misguided Russians who failed to appreciate the simple fact that the wheel of history had been speeded up.
It was time to turn on the rich. All valuables were declared forfeit. The homes of the wealthy were raided and an enormous mountain of jewellery, antiques, painting, rugs and ornaments was collected. It was not possible to impose income tax as no one had an income. Following nationalisation, the economy ground to a halt. The Leninists had put a great deal of energy into revolutionary theory, but had omitted to address the question of establishing a functioning economy overnight.
The financial needs of the Bolsheviks were growing. If they didn’t get vital military equipment from the West, the revolution might collapse. They also needed chocolate and Rolls-Royce parts for the new elite. The only source was the wealth already in Russia, owned by the aristocracy, the middle classes, the church and the comfortable peasantry. Sean McMeekin’s valuable book tells the story of how these groups were robbed and how Russian gold overcame – with impressive speed – the scruples of western governments who, in exchange for the valuable metal, provided the soviets with the means to consolidate Leninist power.
The attack on the church involved the appropriation of icons, crosses and other sacred items made of precious stones and metals. Jewels were pulled from thousands of icons executed in the exquisite Orthodox Byzantine tradition; the surrounding metal was then hammered into blocks.
Of all the property stolen by the Bolsheviks, the crushed icons proved least valuable. The stones and metals used in their construction were of a fairly low grade. Those who, in their lamentable ignorance, sought to defend their churches and icons incensed Trotsky and were met with Red Army violence.
In addition to nationalising property and declaring all domestic debt void, Lenin repudiated Russia’s foreign loans.
Capitalist ethics forbade trade under those circumstances and required that if the Russians sent gold abroad it had to be seized and turned over to the owners of Tsarist debt. This moral bulwark proved short-lived. The Swedes immediately offered themselves as a clearing house for Russian gold. Others quickly followed including, in due course, Britain.
Whereas Lloyd George had no difficulty, Churchill was initially horrified at the idea of doing business with the Bolsheviks.
Furiously searching for words to convey his feelings he declared: “You might as well legalise sodomy.” A little later he relented (on Bolshevism), perhaps feeling in the words of Brian Lenihan senior that his was now “the party of practical socialism”.
- History's Greatest Heist: The Looting of Russia by the BolsheviksBy Sean McMeekin Yale University Press pp 302; £25
Maurice Earls is joint editor of Dublin Review of Books (www.drb.ie)