of the financiers, the Bolsheviks all but drained their country of its gold—which included the Tsarist government's sizable reserve—

and shipped it primarily to American and British banks. In 1920

alone, one shipment came to the U.S. through Stockholm valued at 39,000,000 Swedish kroner; three shipments came direct involving 540 boxes of gold valued at 97,200,000 gold roubles; plus at least one other direct shipment bringing the total to about $20 million.

(Remember, these are 1920 values!) The arrival of these shipments was coordinated by Jacob Schiff's Kuhn, Loeb & Company and deposited by Morgan's Guaranty Trust.2

1. U.S. State Dept. Decimal File, 861.516/129, August 28,1922.

2. U.S. State Dept., Decimal File, 861.51/815, 836, 837, October, 1920. Also Sutton, Revolution, pp. 159-60,165.

THE BEST ENEMY MONEY CAN BUY

293

ITEM: It was at about this time that the Wilson Administration sent 700,000 tons of food to the Soviet Union which, not only saved the regime from certain collapse, but gave Lenin the power to consolidate his control over all of Russia.1 The U.S. Food Administration, which handled this giant operation, was handsomely profitable for those commercial enterprises that participated. It was headed by Herbert Hoover and directed by Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss, married to Alice Hanauer, daughter of one of the partners of Kuhn, Loeb & Company.

ITEM: U.S., British, and German wolves soon found a bonanza of profit in selling to the new Soviet regime. Standard Oil and General Electric supplied $37 million worth of machinery from 1921 to 1925, and that was just the beginning. Junkers Aircraft in Germany literally created Soviet air power. At least three million slave laborers perished in the icy mines of Siberia digging ore for Britain's Lena Goldfields, Ltd. W. Averell Harriman—a railroad magnate and banker from the United States who later was to become Ambassador to Russia—acquired a twenty-year monopoly over all Soviet manganese production. Armand Hammer—close personal friend of Lenin—made one of the world's greatest fortunes by mining Russian asbestos.

ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND: THE DEAF MUTE

BLINDMEN

In those early years, the Bolsheviks were desperate for foreign goods, services, and capital investment. They knew that they would be gouged by their "capitalist" associates, but what of it? It wasn't their money. All they cared about was staying in power.

And that was not as easy as it may have seemed. Even after the coup d'etat in which they seized control of the mechanism of government, they still did not control the country at large. In fact, in 1919, Lenin had almost given up hope of expanding beyond Petrograd and a part of Moscow. Except for Odessa, all of Southern Russia and the Crimea were in the hands of General Deniken who was strongly anti-Communist. Speaking before the Tenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party, Lenin laid it out plainly:

1- See George F. Kennan, Russia and the West under Lenin and Stalin (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1961), p. 180.

294

THE CREATURE FROM JEKYLL ISLAND

Without the assistance of capital it will be impossible for us to retain proletarian power in an incredibly ruined country in which the peasantry, also ruined, constitutes the overwhelming majority—and, of course, for this assistance capital will squeeze hundreds per cent out of us. This is what we have to understand. Hence, either this type of economic relations or nothing...

On another occasion Lenin further explained his rationale for accepting Wall Street's terms. He said:

The Capitalists of the world and their governments, in pursuit of conquest of the Soviet market, will close their eyes to the indicated higher reality and thus will turn into deaf mute blindmen. They will extend credits, which will strengthen for us the Communist Party in their countries; and giving us the materials and technology we lack, they will restore our military industry, indispensable for our future victorious attack on our suppliers. In other words, they will labor for the preparation of their own suicide.2

Arthur Bullard, mentioned previously as the representative in Russia of the U.S. Committee on Public Information, apparently understood the Bolshevik strategy well. Even as early as March of 1918, he sent a cablegram to Washington warning that, while it is true we ought to be ready to help any honest government in need, nevertheless, he said, "men or money sent to the present rulers of Russia will be used against Russians at least as much as against Germans.... I strongly advise against giving material help to the present Russian government. Sinister elements in Soviets seem to be gaining control."3

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