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19.03.2005 00:07:01
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WWI; 1917-1939;
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Re: À òàê...
Âñå ñðàçó?:-))) Îíà äîâîëüíî áîëüøàÿ, êíèæêà ýòà:-))) Äëÿ íà÷àëà (âçÿòî â àðåíäó ó ñîñåäåé)
http://forum.vif2.ru:2003/nvk/forum/3/co/C3FECB67/746
The Under State Secretary to the State Secretary (At the time at General Headquarters]
TELEGRAM NO. 76
A 934 Berlin, 9 January 1915
The Imperial Ambassador in Constantinople has sent the following telegram under No. 70.
'The well-known Russian Socialist and publicist, Dr. Helphand, one of the main leaders of the last Russian Revolution, who was exiled from Russia and has, on several occasions, been expelled from Germany, has for some time been active here as a writer, concerning himself chiefly with questions of Turkish economics. Since the beginning of the war, Parvus's attitude has been definitely pro-German. He is helping Dr. Zimmer in his support of the Ukrainian movement and he also rendered useful services in the founding of Batsarias's newspaper in Bucharest. In a conversation with me, which he had requested through Zimmer,/ Parvus said that the Russian Democrats could only achieve their aim by the total destruction of Czarism and the division of Russia into smaller states. On the other hand, Germany would not be completely successful if it were not pos¬sible to kindle a major revolution in Russia. However, there would still be a danger to Germany from Russia, even after the war, if the Russian Empire were not divided into a number of separate parts. The interests of the German government were therefore identical with those of the Russian revolutionaries, who were already at work. However, there was as yet a lack of cohesion between the various factions. The Mensheviks had not yet joined forces with the Bolsheviks, who had already gone into actionTlHe saw it as his task to create a unity and to organize the rising on a broad basis. To achieve this, a congress of the leaders would first of all be needed—possibly in Geneva. He was pre¬pared to take the necessary first steps to this end, but would lieed considerable sums of money for the purpose. He therefore 'requested an opportunity of presenting his plans in Berlin. He confidently expected an Imperial Circular holding out to the [German] Social Democrats the prospect of an immediate improvement in primary schools and in average working hours, as a reward for their patriotic attitude, to have a considerable effect not only on German Socialists serving in the Army, but also on Russians sharing his own political opinions. Parvus has today travelled via Sofia and Bucharest to Vienna, where he will have discussions with Russian revolutionaries. Dr. Zimmer will arrive in Berlin at the same time as Parvus, and will be available to arrange meetings with him.
In Parvus's opinion, action must be taken quickly, so that the new Russian recruits will arrive at the front already con¬taminated. Wangenheim'
It would seem advisable for the Foreign Ministry to receive
Parvus.1 ~
Z.IMMERMANN
1 The State Secretary replied to this telegram on 10 January: 'Please receive Dr. Helphand in Berlin. Jagow.' On the same day, telegrams were dispatched from the Foreign Ministry to Vienna (No. 142), Constantinople (No. 66), and Bucharest (No. 37), requesting these missions and Dr. Zimmer to keep Helphand's connexion with the Batsarias affair secret. A 1110 in WK i ic seer, volume 3.
The State Secretary to the Foreign Ministry
TELEGRAM NO. 40
A 1451 General Headquarters, 13 January 1915, 12.20 a.m.
Received: 13 January, 1.4.3 a-rn-
We intend to send Riezler1 to meeting with Russian Revolution¬ary Parvus in Berlin with more detailed instructions. Please telegraph time of Parvus's arrival to me here. Parvus must not know that Riezler comes from General Headquarters.
JAGOW
" Kurt Riezler, born 1882. In May 1913 Riezler became a Permanent Assistant in the Foreign Ministry. In August 1914 he was detailed to attend the Kaiser at the General Headquarters. In January 1915 he was transferred to the Imperial Chancery. In September 1917 Riezler went to the Legation in Stockholm as a Counsellor to run the newly created Russian section there. In April 1918 he was recalled to Berlin, and in the same month he left to work with Count Mirbach, the Minister in Moscow. After Mirbach's assassination in July Riezler carried on the business of the Legation until his recall to Berlin at the end of August 19:8.
26 MARCH 1915
Hen Frbhlich to Minister Bergen at the Foreign Ministry
A 10739 1 Berlin, 26 March 1915
Subject: Dr. Alexander Helphand-Parvus
The Deutsche Bank has sent me the transfer note for a further 500,000 marks, which I enclose herewith.
I should like to draw your attention to my letter of 20 March, in which I observed that Dr. Helphand requires a total of one million marks,1 exclusive of losses incurred in exchange, and that any such losses incurred in Copenhagen, Bucharest, and Zurich, together with any other expenses, will thus have to be borne by us.
I would therefore ask you to make the necessary transfer to the Deutsche Bank, so that I may be able to pay Dr. Helphand
this difference also. „ 0
Yours, &c.,
FROHLICH
1 Helphand submitted his memorandum on the revolution in Russia to the Foreign Ministry sometime at the beginning of March (see Appendix I). On 6 March 1915 Zimmermann wrote to Drews, the Under State Secretary of the Ministry of Interior, asking him to free Helphand from any restrictions as to travel inside Germany, usually imposed on Rxissian subjects, and to provide Helphand with a police passport which he could use for travel in the neutral countries (A 8268 in WK nc seer, volume 5). The day after, Zimmermann wrote to the State Secretary of the Imperial Treasury, asking him for 2 million marks for the support of Russian revolutionary propaganda (AS 919, WK lie seer, volume 5). This request was approved on 11 March 1915 (WK i ic seer, volume 6).
The State Secretary of the Foreign Ministry to the State Secretary of the Treasury
AS 353o Berlin, 6 July, 1915
Five million marks are required here for the promotion of revolutionary propaganda in Russia. As this sum cannot be covered out of the funds at our disposal, I would like to request Your Excellency to put it at my disposal by charging it to Article VI, Section II of the extraordinary budget. I should beextremely grateful to Your Excellency if you would inform me
what action is taken.1 T
I
1 The request was granted on 9 July. AS 3632 in WK nc seer, volume 7.
The Minister in Copenhagen to the Under State Secretary
AS 4285 ' 14 August 1915
Your Excellency,
Dr. Helphand, with whom I have recently had repeated and detailed conversation, yesterday told me that he had received a telegram from Arthur Cohn's Verlag fur Sozialwissenschaften in Munich, informing him that only the first part of his essay had arrived. With the permission of the Foreign Ministry, I had sent three further instalments, but these have not yet arrived in Munich, Dr. Helphand is worried because he is afraid that the essay may appear too late and not, as he intends, by i September at the outside. Perhaps Your Excellency could make sure that the dispatch of the manuscripts is undertaken at once.
I have now got to know Helphand better, and I think that there can be no question that he is an extraordinarily important man whose unusual powers I feel we must employ for the dura¬tion of the war and should, if at all possible, continue to use later on—whether we personally agree with his convictions or not. He has a plan, conceived on a grand scale, of which he has al¬ready completed the first part, but, if the plan is not to be placed in jeopardy, he must be put into a position allowing him to pub¬lish the whole treatise not later than i September. His intention is to work on the German Social Democrats with this essay, for he has evidence that there is a strong current of opinion among them which already regards Russia as 'defeated and prostrate on the ground' and which, setting out from this false premise, would now like to be sentimentally indulgent towards Russia. His aim is energetically to counter this very dangerous trend. He has therefore, for technical and practical reasons, made certain concessions to the Socialists in his essay, of which he does not himself approve but which he thinks must win him the degree of influence over the broad sections encompassed by the party as a whole necessary to assure him sufficient authority at thiscritical moment, and to allow him later to step forward with an independent programme entirely his own.
Helphand told me that he was quite prepared to make altera¬tions if he were given suitable hints to this effect, but that he wished to insist that the manuscript be sent to the publisher. Any corrections or alterations required could be made by the readers in Munich.
This request seems perfectly justified to me, and I feel it neces¬sary that it should be granted if Helphand's plan is not to be impeded. As soon as he has drawn public attention to himself, and he does not doubt that he will succeed in doing this, he wants, in the middle of September, to publish a second essay, directed specially at Russia. Immediately after this he intends to proceed to the preparation of leaflets.
Helphand told me that he had been received by Your Excel¬lency and that he had had the opportunity of presenting his plans in person. Dr. Zimmer, with whom I spoke on the occasion of his last visit to Copenhagen, was going to report verbally on his most recent discussion with Helphand, so Your Excellency is presumably well informed about these plans. As far as I can see from here, they have the approval of the Foreign Ministry and the General Staff, whereas objections seem to have been raised by the Ministry of the Interior and the Imperial Office of the Interior [Reichsamt des Innern]. I think that it is un¬desirable that one-sided, and therefore short-sighted, objections, from whatever quarter, should be considered at this moment.
Otherwise we shall never achieve the great aim which I have before my eyes. I have the hope that we shall not only emerge from this war as the external victors and the greatest power in the world, but also that, after the tremendous test that the Ger¬man workers, indeed—to avoid invidious comparisons—'the common man' in particular, have now undergone, we may be able confidently to try to bring those elements to co-operate who, before the war, stood apart and seemed unreliable, and to group them around the throne.
It might perhaps be risky to want to use the powers ranged behind Helphand, but it would certainly be an admission of our own weakness if we were to refuse their services out of fear of not
being able to direct them. «-.
I have not yet abandoned this hope.
Those who do not understand the signs of our times will never understand which way we are heading or what is at stake at this moment.
Your Excellency, this moment is too grave for us to indulge in sentimentality, so let me close.
Yours, &c.,
BROCKDORFF-RANTZAU
The Minister in Bern to the Chancellor
REPORT NO. 794
A 28659 Bern, 30 September 1915
The Estonian Keskula1 has succeeded in finding out the con¬ditions on which the Russian revolutionaries would be prepared to conclude peace with us in the event of the revolution being successful. According to information from the well-known revolutionary Lenin, the programme contains the following points:
The establishment of a republic.
The confiscation of large land-holdings.
3. The eight-hour working day.
4. Full autonomy for all nationalities.
5. An offer of peace without any consideration for France, but on condition that Germany renounces all annexations / and war-reparations.
\Ja. Point 5, Keskula has observed that this condition does not exclude the possibility of separating those national states from Russia which would serve as buffer states.
6.The Russian armies to leave Turkey immediately—in
;other words, a renunciation of claims to Constantinople and the Dardanelles.
7. Russian troops to move into India.
"""I leave open the question as to whether great importance should in fact be attached to this programme, especially as Lenin himself is supposed to be rather sceptical of the prospects of the revolution. He seems to be extremely apprehensive of the counter-campaign recently launched by the so-called Social Patriots. According to Keskiila's sources, this counter-move¬ment is headed by the Socialists Axelrod, Alexinsky, Deutsch, Dneveinski, Mark Kachel, Olgin, and Plekhanov. They are unleashing vigorous agitation, and are supposed to have largefinancial resources, which they appear to draw from the govern¬ment, at their disposal. Their activities could be all the more dangerous to the revolution as they are themselves old revolutionaries, and are therefore perfectly familiar with the techniques of revolution. In Keskula's opinion, it is therefore essential that we should spring to the help of the revolutionaries of Lenin's movement in Russia at once. He will report on this matter in person in Berlin. According to his informants, the present moment should be favourable for overthrowing the government. More and more reports of workers' unrest are being received, and the dismissal of the Duma is said to have aroused universal excitement. However, we should have to act quickly, before the Social Patriots gain the upper hand.
I have the honour to enclose two agitationary publications of the Social Patriots, which they are supposed to be distributing in enormous quantities.2
Even if, as I have said, the prospects of a revolution are un¬certain and Lenin's programme is therefore of doubtful value, its exploitation could still do invaluable service in enemy terri¬tory. If skilfully distributed it could, in my opinion, be especially effective in France, in view of the notorious ignorance of the French in foreign, and particularly Russian affairs. If I receive no instructions from Your Excellency to the contrary, I shall give it to various French confidential agents for distribution among the ranks of the opposition. I can imagine that, by opening the prospect of a separate peace between Germany and the Russian Democrats, which would, of course, involve the loss of the French billions, one could provide the opposition with an extremely valuable trump card to play against M. Delclasse and in favour of a separate peace with us.3
Lenin's programme must not, of course, be made public, first because its publication would reveal our source, but also be¬cause its discussion in the press would rob it of all its value. I feel that it should be put out in an aura of great secrecy, so that it creates a belief that an agreement with powerful Russian circles is already in preparation.
Quite apart from the French aspect, I would ask you first of all to discuss this information with Keskiila. so that nothing may be spoiled by premature publication. TJ
* Keskiila was a member of the Estonian National Committee, working, in Switzerland and in Sweden, for the independence of his country from the Russian Empire. He was in contact with the German Legation in Bern from September 1914. Later, he worked with Steinwachs, the German agent (see document No. 12).
In April 1917 Keskiila apparently negotiated with the representatives of the Allied countries, especially of England and Russia, in Stockholm. When he got to know about these negotiations, Steinwachs dropped him. His activities are well docu¬mented in one of the Bern mission files, entitled 'Keskiila'. Of. O. H. Gankin and H. H. Fisher, The Bolsheviks and the World War, Stanford University Press, 1940, p. 249.
2 Only one of these enclosures remains in the file, the other was lost. It is a collec¬tion of essays entitled ' Voina'; Axelrod and Plekhanov were two of th e contributors.
3 Jagow's marginal note: 'I regard a distribution in France as dangerous; nothing ever remains discreet there. If this became public our work in Russia would become much more difficult, and the measures against the revolutionaries would be tightened. I shall telegraph Romberg to this effect.' The telegram (No. 1081) was dispatched on 4 October (Russland Nr. 61, volume 123).
The Minister in Copenhagen to the Chancellor
REPORT NO. 489
AS 6213 21 December 1915
Dr. Helphand, who returned from Berlin yesterday, visited me today and gave me his report on the results of his journey. He emphasized that he had been extremely civilly received in all the most important government offices, and that he had been given the definite impression that his suggestions had found approval with authoritative circles, both in the Foreign Ministry and in the Treasury. With reference to his financial plan,1 he had been given to understand that the State Secretary of the Treasury would have to decide whether there were any objections to his project from the point of view of the Imperial economy. In the course of a detailed discussion with State Secretary Helfferich he had been convinced that the State Secretary regarded his project very favourably, and that he not only agreed with it out of political considerations, but also recog¬nized its utility from the less specific point of view of the Imperial economy.
The State Secretary of the Treasury had only expressed doubts as to the immediate technical practicability of the pro¬ject, saying that a delay of eight to ten months would be re¬quired. At the same time, State Secretary Helfferich had pointed out that certain difficulties might be encountered in maintain¬ing the absolute security which was essential for the technical preparations.
Dr. Helphand stressed that, in these circumstances, there was even more reason to take the preparations in hand at once, since we shall in any case have to reckon with a third winter campaign and the course of action which he advocates may therefore become imperative.
Dr. Helphand continued by saying that about 20 million roubles would be required to get the Russian revolution com¬pletely organized. This total could not possibly be distributed at once, as there would then be a danger of its source being dis¬covered. However, in view of the fact that the beginning of the action was imminent, he had suggested at the Foreign Ministry that the sum of one million roubles should at once be put at the disposal of his confidential agent. This confidential agent en-tirely shared his view that the revolution would be set in motion about 9-22 January and that, even if it did not immediately take hold of the whole country, it would certainly prevent any return to stable conditions from taking place. In 1905 the bour¬geois parties had supported the revolution and had voluntarily paid the wages of the striking workers. Now, however, the bour¬geoisie was unfavourable to the movement and the revolution¬ary committee was therefore forced to bear the entire cost. On his return in about a week, his confidential agent would imme¬diately start on the organization of connexions between the various revolutionary centres, but this could not be done with¬out considerable financial means.
In the circumstances, Dr. Helphand asked me to reiterate the request, which he had made personally in Berlin, for the sum he had named to be put at the disposal of his confidential agent. He expressly stated that speed was essential, as his confidential agent could not delay his return to Petrograd any longer but would definitely travel to Russia in a week at the most, even if he had'not received the requested sum within that time.
I should like to request Your Excellency to send me instruc¬tions by telegram so that I can inform Dr. Helphand. May I also say that his suggestion is not, in my humble opinion, any attempt to press his own interests, but springs from practical considerations with no secondary personal aims.
BROCKDORFF-RANTZAU
1 Helphand maintained that confidence in the rouble could be shattered in Russia and abroad by certain nieasures of the German Treasury. See report No. 463, the Minister in Copenhagen to the Chancellor, 30 November 1915; in WK no seer, volume 10.