The Essential Classroom

To Russia, With Love From, Germany.

The irony is thick. Because, obviously what Germany sent to Russia in WWI was anything but love.

They did send money though and that is what many people prefer, especially if they’ve ever been harmed or suffered from a lack of love. Money suffices and it satiates an emptiness where love should have been.

The receivers of this Germany money, the Bolsheviks, claimed to be righteous, to be justified in their righteous fight against their enemy, The Czar.

But they were in fact operating on behalf of evil. They were wolves in sheep’s clothing. The results of their revolution speak for themselves.

The Bolsheviks claimed to hate wealthy industrialists when in fact the truth was they loved the money they received from these wealthy industrialists and bankers. And their love of money- being the root of all evil, further supports the claim that they were operating on behalf of and motivated by darker forces that stir within all of us and within the world.

What I learned– the understanding I gained about humanity from researching this story helped me understand more deeply events that have happened in my lifetime and events that are happening right now.

It’s as if thousands of puzzle pieces clicked into place- confusion waned and understanding shone through.

Throughout history and still today, there are people who are harmed by violence- either targeted or random individual violence or collective indiscriminate or collective systematic violence.

There are people who are victims of this violence who attempt to heal. They find ways to heal, they struggle, they fall short, but they continue on. They attempt a life.

All of us are here today because our ancestors decided to go on- to push ahead and continue despite hardships and obstacles. We need to be thankful to them for that.

There are other people though- and I’d say a much smaller and violent percentage- that take that pain and injury and seek revenge. This is where evil comes in. Where they attempt to take revenge- to take the job of God into their own hands.

Those who seek violent revenge are succumbing to the darker forces of the world.

The desire to move on, to continue- is one guided by our design- it is in our coding.

Those who seek revenge are dangerous. Especially those with profound grievances. The greater the injury, the deeper the wound and the greater potential hateful energy exists to be hurled at another as a weapon.

Moving on does not mean that horror was not inflicted upon you- it simply means that you chose life instead of death.

These aggrieved who seek vengeance are many times from an oppressed group of people with little political power, so it is a wonder how throughout history they have been so successful in reeking so much havoc.

To the average person’s eye- the average person who is good and decent- they take actions at face value- and go on with their grocery shopping- they don’t have the time or interest to dig deeper.

They simply say, “Bolsheviks are Evil,” “Al Qaeda,” “Hamas is Evil,” “(insert said terrorist group) is evil” and go on with their day.

Yes, that may all be true, but where did they get their power?

We know as Al Pacino told us in Scarface, “First you get the money, then you get the power.”

By all accounts of life and history, Scarface Logic proves to be quite accurate.

So if these groups got the power, where did they get the money from?

This is where the rubber meets the road.

These groups, these aggrieved people get their money from rich and powerful individuals, businesses (which are now considered people in the U.S.A due to the ruling of citizens united) or countries who are well aware of the lethal nature of the group.

The rich and powerful use these dangerous people as a weapon against their enemies.

They leverage grievances of the injured and catapult them into the person or people whom they seek to destroy.

Levering injury is the foundational Modus Operandi or M.O of Satan.

The devil on your shoulder speaks words of division, destruction and injury. Tricks you that your anger is justified and fuels it so that. That evil tries to convince you that you are better off if you don’t forgive- that if you hate. Evil wants you to hold on to injury. Evil makes you the center of the story and it is intoxicating.

The devil on your shoulder is “gassing you up.”

And with enough push or force–money or resources, and just enough momentum brought about by a well hatched and executed plan- these sick, evil, manipulative war game masters can unleash the aggrieved, tormented people as a weapon on to the world.

That is just what happened to Russia in WWI.

Between 1914-1918, the German Empire under Kaiser Wilhem II was fighting the Russian Empire under Czar Nicholas II.

Russia was massive compared to Germany with a tremendous amount of food resources that Germany relied on for imports.

At the time, Russia was made up of 170 million strong spirited souls, 90% of whom were Orthodox Christians.

Germany had only around 65 million, far less. The German people were religious as well but divided. 61% percent were protestants and 37% were Catholic.

Germany was far more industrially developed compared to Russia’s agrarian society. Meaning they relied mostly on farming- that is why much of their exports were grain. (Fun fact- that is why the Ukrainian Flag is blue on top and yellow on the bottom- it represents the blue sky and they yellow grain fields). The former Russian Empire was the breadbasket of the world.

How on earth could Germany take down this behemoth of an enemy?

The German Empire consisted of around 208,000 square miles and the Russian empire consisted of about 8,800,000 square miles.

Well, Germany realized they’d have to implode Russia from within.

Germany was well aware of the revolutionary activity going on within Russia around the turn of the century. They knew of the anti-Czarist revolutionary activity stirring. Many revolutionaries fled to Germany and sought refuge in the hotbed of Marxist ideology.

After all, Marx was from Germany and that is where he spread his ideas. Marx had only died in 1883 and before his death he had plenty of time to share his ideas with revolutionaries from Russia and help them spread the ideas amongst those who were oppressed by the Czar and wanted to seek revenge.

Germany had the Marxists under control in their empire. But they were well aware of the dangerousness of the ideology.

So when they saw the aggrieved, angry revolutionaries from Russia thirsty for revenge against the Czar, they thought they could help them out and quench their thirst.

But this idea did not come to them on their own. Germany on it’s own did not devise a plot to utilize the Bolsheviks to take down Russia. They were aided along by a Russian revolutionary who had fled to Germany years early and made quite a name for himself. He became a successful businessman and had ties in Russian Revolutionary circles and the confidence of the German Government. He would propose the plan and draw up the plans for this plan- to use the Bolsheviks as a weapon against the Russian Empire.

This man was Alexander Parvus. He was a Russian Jew by birth who moved to Germany and became a successful business man and government agent.

He was the perfect agent. He was aggrieved and injured. There was internal conflict within Russia between the larger Christian population and the small Jewish population.

In 1881, in Odessa, there was a pogrom against the Jewish population after they were blamed for conspiring to assassinate Czar Alexander II.

Then, there were the May Laws of 1882 which gave restrictions to Jewish landlords and bankers. These laws provided regulations and limits on leases and mortgages.

There were not blanket laws against Jewish operations but there was definitely targeting and this created a great deal of dis-ease between the Czar, the 90% Orthodox Christian country and the small group of Jewish people, who made up only around 1.8% of the population.

Alexander Parvus presented his plan to Hans Freiherr von Wangenheim, who was German Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. He relayed the plan to Berlin. And was able to persuade them. Kaiser Wilhelm himself approved the plan. It was overseen by the Germany foreign office led by Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg. He approved high level decisions regarding the plan. Secretary of State Arthur Zimmerann was in charge of handling everyday operational approvals and communications.

Erich von Falkenhayn oversaw the military side of the operation. Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludenhorff continued the operation from there.

In fact Erich Ludenhorff wrote an autobiography in 1920 where he stated, “Our government, in sending Lenin to Russia, took upon itself a tremendous responsibility. From a military point of view his journey was justified, for it was imperative that Russia should fall.”

They knew extremely well that there was a high likelihood that Russia would fall if they sent in the Bolsheviks with a ton of funding.

Last but not least, if not most importantly, German Military Intelligence was on the Case. Also known as Section IIIb. Under the direction of Colonel Walter Nicolai and others, they provided operational support, including covert funding, transfers, propaganda dissemination, and coordination with Parvus as an agent.

In total, Germany used these agents and the network of spies, businessmen and bankers to funnel around 50 million gold marks into Russia. This is around a billion dollars or more in today’s money.

Funding had to look legitimate so it was necessary that a network of legitimate. banks and businesses were used to launder this money. Money was taken from the German Imperial Treasury as well as Government Subsidies and Staff Funds. All of this money was rerouted to the Bolsheviks.

How did they do this?

They used a network of operatives that moved money via Copenhagen in Denmark; Stockholm in Sweden and Bern in Switzerland as well as banks and businesses in Germany and Russia.

The operatives on the ground were as follows:

Jakub Furstenberg who was Polish Bolshevik. He was born in modern day Warsaw, Poland, which was then part of the Russian Empire. He was of German-Jewish descent and was a close friend with Lenin and Trotsky- the founders of Russian Bolshevism and the revolutionaries that would eventually take down the Czar (more about them later). Now Furstenburg was known in Russia as Yakov Ganetsky.

Furstenberg’s operation was to operate Parvus (the architect of the plan) Parvus’s trading firm in Stockholm, Sweden. This trading firm was legitimately set up for import/export to and from Russia. It dealt with medical supplies, chemicals and machinery.

The Russian Empire had been doing business with Parvus’ trading company and so there would be no red flag as long as the money appeared to be pouring into the company from business as usual. But the money was in fact pouring in from the German empire and this “profit” was being funneled to Lenin’s Bolshevik activities.

Out of all of the operatives, Furstenberg was the main recipient and distributor of the largest amount of money in both Scandinavia and Russia. Furstenberg gave Lenin some of his personal money as well and Lenin used it for his travel.

Let’s pause there. Lenin- for his travel. Travel where and why?

As Parvus’ plan was put in place and gaining steam, he knew the most important part of the plan would be getting Lenin, the leader of the Bolshevik revolutionaries back to Russia from exile in Switzerland.

Lenin had been exiled to Siberia in 1897. He then voluntarily exiled in Switzerland, Germany and France from 1900-1917.

And so, in 1917, under what became known as the “Sealed Train” or “Sealed Carriage,”this network of German military and intelligence spies was successful in smuggling Lenin, his wife and 30 revolutionaries back into Russia without detection of the Russian Empire.

The train was given kind of what we would think of as diplomatic immunity. This limited contact and avoided espionage accusations. The doors were were marked “sealed” in chalk. It was given high priority routing, even delaying the Crown Prince Wilhelm’s train).

The trip lasted about eight days, covering roughly 3,000 kilometers. It went from Zurich, Switzerland, through the German border; Frankfurt; Berlin; Sassnitz (on the Baltic coast), Trelleborg, Sweden; Haparanda/Tornio on the northern Swedish-Finland border); through various points in Finland and then finally landing in Petrograd in Russia which is the modern day St. Petersburg.

Once in Russia, Lenin did what he did best, stir up revolution and chaos. He, like all of the Bolsheviks was an atheist, he gave up God to become an Orthodox Marxist as he called himself. And he, just as Marx and Engels had written, used “violence as the midwife” or historical change.

Back to the operation–

Lenin was now in Russia, but he and his Bolsheviks would need money to continue their operations.

Another key operative was Georg Sklarz, a very mysterious individual. He was a German-Jewish financier and a German Intelligence agent. He founded a trading company in Copenhagen that sold military medical supplies and this served as a front for funneling money for the operation. This firm helped move money from Berlin to Stockholm to Petrograd and these funds were key in getting Lenin back into Russia.

Alexander Keskula was an Estonian revolutionary and politician who was a critical intermediary between the German government and Lenin. He first brought the ideas about Lenin to the German General Staff in 1914. The also helped funnel around 500,000 reichmarks to the Bolsheviks.

Next we have Karl Moor, codename “Bayer”. He was a Swiss democratic socialist and a high level German intelligence agent. He was a key operator in WWI. In 1917 he gave a “personal loan” to the Bolsheviks, when in fact the money came from the German office of foreign affairs. He was also a close confidant of Lenin.

Olof Ashberg was a Swedish banker of Russian Jewish descent, He was a leftist sympathizer and founded Nya Banken, a Swedish bank in 1912.

Ashberg facilitated Bolshevik financial transactions during and after the revolution. This included gold sales and loans to the regime in the early 1920s. He facilitated the transfer of funds from German sources to Russian bolsheviks. In return, the soviets allowed him to become a Soviet banker.

Last, but most certainly not least is Max Warburg, a German Jewish banker from a wealthy banking and philanthropic family.

Through his banks, he was able to coordinate that German state subsidies made their way to revolutionaries.

In 1938, after the blowback from the fall of Russia resulted in the inevitable fall of Germany and the rise of Hitler, Warburg emigrated to the United States .

Fun fact: Max’s brother Paul Moritz Warburg migrated to the U.S in 1902 before his brother.

Paul Warburg helped advocate for the ending of tariffs to support international trade, the creation of the federal income tax (to make up that treasury deficit) and the creation of a central banking system in the U.S. that became known as The Federal Reserve. Much of modern American banking practices were influenced by his advocacy.

Paul Warburg served as one of the original members of the Federal Reserve Board taking office in 1914. He also served as the second vice chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1916-1918. Paul will come up again later in this story, but for now we are just going to put him on pause and get to know a little about the Federal Reserve.

In the end, the operation was ultimately successful. And in 1918, the treaty of Brest-Litovsk ended Russia’s involvement in the war.

In addition, Germany secured far more favorable terms with regard to import costs.

Before 1914, Germany imported approximately 1.5 billion Reichsmarks worth of Russian goods annually. By 1927 they were importing similar volumes and only paying 433 million Reichsmarks. Cutting their expenditures by over two thirds. Being that they aided the revolution, they were able to negotiate far better trade terms.

Following the Revolution and Lenin’s successful seizure of power, he refused to let Parvus back into Russia. Parvus remained in Germany and became quite wealthy. He was successful as an industrialist and a political advisor.

Fate loves irony. A man who funded an ideology built on destroying property and industriousness because a wealthy industrialist himself.

Unfortunately, this was not the end of war and fighting. And history showed us that the revolutionaries did not provide peace, prosperity, land and bread to the Russian people as they promised.

The actions taken by the German Government and their networks of spies, businessmen and bankers, set off a chain of events- rather a shockwave the reverberated through a century.

The fall of the Russian Empire and the rise of Bolshevism not only led to the murder or death of millions of Russians, it led to the fall of the German Empire, the birth of the Weimar Republic and then with it’s devastating failure, the Rise of Hitler.

The irony and sadness is obvious. And it is visible in a small anecdotal story of Max Warburg–a German Jew who aimed to help the cause of the Jewish people in Russia by funding the Bolsheviks. Funding that helped the Rise of the Soviet Union and then the consequential destabilization of Germany (through war and revolutionary inspiration), which led to the rise of Hitler, which caused Warburg to flee Europe for the United States.

Violence begets violence. And funding violence does not absolve the person from the violence that ensues from the result of the funding.

The second World War was a simply a continuation of the momentum from the first World War, led to the invention of the atomic bomb. Where Oppenheimer, upon witnessing the testing of the bomb quoted the bhagavad gita when he said , “I am become death, destroyer of worlds.”

Violence begets violence. There is no end to the cycle of it.

Leo Tolstoy in his book The Kingdom of God is Within You is just the right person to end this episode. He was a Russian. He lived under the Czar. He, like many Russian writers and composer is one of the most spiritually deep human beings to have ever lived.

Tolstoy wrote of non-violence. In fact he spent the last bit of his life in self-imposed exile. He emphasized Christ’s teaching spreads “not by means of violence and the sword, but by means of non-resitence to evil, gentleness, meekness, and peaceableness.” He stressed that violence cannot overcome evil- only good can truly defeat it.

Just remember, the rich and powerful benefit when we fight.

They use the aggrieved and fund the injured to take down their enemies.

That is a truth of warfare that has not changed since the beginning of time.

No one wins in a World War. No One.

Peace Everyone.