I admire Martov's attempts to force the Bolsheviks to the table on issues like press censorship. The problem is that these are pretty theoretical topics to be considering in the midst of a civil war. Trotsky said of Martov: "The man's misfortune was that fate made him a politician in a time of revolution, without endowing him with the necessary resources of will power." I think attempting to take Bolsheviks to court instead of organizing their overthrow bears this out.
tbh there was no way to overthrow the Bolsheviks. Mensheviks were definition of spent force by end of 1917, and were largely absorbed by either White or Red organisations. They simply had nothing new to offer to people and dissapeared. They had those few months, but partly due to being, well, socialdemocrats which in itself is political nonsense; and partly due to truly difficult situation, they mismanaged the country horribly and dissapeared from floorboards of history. They simply represented a political dead end - the only people who could improve the situation were bolsheviks themselves
The right Mensheviks tried to overthrow the Bolsheviks by force in conjunction with White armies. That didn't work either. Also worth noting that April 1918 pre-dates the start of the civil war.
There's so much online history of the USSR but I've yet to come across even one other site which has such a detailed, minute-by-minute ground level approach like yours does. I 'd never heard of this incident before, but it's another excellent demonstration of the confused and conflicted patchwork that eventually stumbled into the Soviet (in name only) State. Most historians take the easy way out, shoehorning a linear structure on very loose events.I really feel you may be breaking new ground here, methodologically speaking.More please!!!
Thank you! Glad to hear you enjoyed it. I was surprised to find this topic is practically unknown, at least on RU-vid, but it serves as such a fascinating case study for the state of affairs at the time. I have quite a few ideas for similar videos, coming soon...
@@thinkinsidetheboxsquarecir3303No one really, I was just a nickname given to Stalin by his very close associates, like Kirov, Molotov and some few bodyguards he was close with. An example of this is in Berias journal, he says: "After reading about the red army struggle at stalingrad, i saw tears in the eyes of the Koba for the first time in my life".
As a Russian with a special love for the XX century history I have never heard about this court case before. Really love your videos, they’re always informative, rooted in context and easy to watch and process!
i love when people can use a sorta small situation like this to illustrate how widely unstable and fractured all of Soviet Russia was at the time as well as the increasing distaste towards criticism directed at the bolsheviks. fantastic work!
Thank you! I agree, I was originally drawn to this topic since it's funny and unexpected, but I came to realize it says a lot about the state of affairs at the time.
yes thats what happens in a civil war where you need to mobilize all avaible resources for war as your nation is invaded by both imperialists and their collaborators.
@@justarandompersonininterne6583Yes which is perhaps why the Bolsheviks shouldn't have rejected the calls from Martov and leaders of other leftist parties for a coalition, or engaged in widespread forced requisition from the peasants or destroyed any popularly elected element of the government that didn't completely agree with them. Besides the fans of Leninism never seem to give up the "state of siege" mentality not after the civil war and not even by 1970 when the USSR was the 2nd largest economy on earth and a military superpower with enough nuclear ordinance to destroy the entire planet. At what point does "the bad people are against us" stop being an excuse for everything and anything the Bolshevik/CPSU leadership did?
@@justarandompersonininterne6583 the soviets lost power when Lenin put his party commissars in charge of them in an effort to quell unrest. These were the days when the bureaucracy you complain about was established.
Woops, I think you're right. For whatever reason he seems to come up when searching for pictures of Sosnovsky, thank you for bringing that to my attention.
you've heard it a lot in this comment box already but thank you for your work man, as a russian i can tell you that there are no videos on the subject of revolutionary Russia in russian which were as good and informative as yours are. is the next video gonna be about the 4th soviet congress?
Thank you for the support! I'm glad to hear you find these videos informative. Yes, I am currently working on the 4th Soviet Congress video, which I think will be released soon.
What I also find interesting is that Lavrentiy Beria was reportedly supposed to be executed by the Bolsheviks during the Civil War - could be interesting to imagine what could’ve happened had Beria not become Stalin’s right-hand man during the purges or been overthrown after Stalin’s death…
even more interesting, as far as Beria goes, supposedly it came out, after Stalin died, that he, "deep down", actually was considerably "divergent" with Stalin's views on many 'key' things, which one wouldn't quite expect from a secret police leader as "hardline" as him. For example, it seems that, after Stalin's death, Beria presided over *actual* investigations of the doctors accused by Stalin in the "Doctor's Plot" and... *had them freed*. Huh... Not only that, but he supposedly *admitted* that the plot was fabricated, *and* the secret policemen who directly had a hand in it were arrested! :o interesting FWIW, Kruschchev, supposedly, also "claims" that Beria, during the final days of Stalin's life, "secretly cursed" his name, so to speak, whenever Stalin lost consciousness. lol Not to mention this tidbit: "Shortly after Stalin's death, Beria announced triumphantly to the Politburo that he had "done [Stalin] in" and "saved [us] all", according to Molotov's memoirs" Hard to know what to make of all of said post-Stalin revelations regarding Beria. Was he just a "shrewd and conniving" Soviet leader who "knew how to get and keep power for a while", esp. to keep himself from 'being done in' by things like the Purge, while having "secretly anti-Stalinist views along" (while also, to some degree, probably being a psychopath) Or... after first joining the NKVD, for example, did he "have a big change of heart" on a lot of major issues by 1953?? Hmmm... we may never know, sadly.
@@Whoo711Beria also apparently asked Kruschev, after Stalin's death, "why don't we just take the Marshall Plan money the Americans are offering and ditch the whole Marxism thing?"
Would really love a full series on the "narrowing" of political speech/opposition throughout 1918, would be interesting to learn how Soviet Russia went from a "multi"-party state to a single party one
The next few videos in the Election Series (as well as the "How the Bolsheviks Destroyed the Soviets" video if you haven't seen it already) will cover this in more detail. After that, I'd be happy to make some more videos going into detail about specific events, similar to this video.
This channel is truly underrated. Nice audio quality, not too impressive but good looking editing and of course very high quality content always informative, presented in an interesting way and historically as accurate as one can get in this field. Your videos are all gems in a sea of garbage history content, please continue releasing them. You can’t get better bite sized info on very niche topics anywhere else. Much love.
Another gem! I’ve been trying to find a good English book on the power struggle following Lenin’s death that isn’t specifically a Stalin biography. Do you know of any such book? I know James Harris has one in the works. Thanks!
I'll be covering this in a few videos from now, but here's a few books to start with. I know you said a non-Stalin biography, but Stephen Kotkin's "Stalin" (volume one) in my opinion goes far beyond just Stalin, and covers that period of history is great detail. Moshe Lewin's "Lenin's Last Struggle" is pretty much one of the classics on this question, if a bit old (focusing more so on the period just before Lenin's death, but it carries over). Robert V. Daniels has also written a lot on this topic; "Conscience of the Revolution" for example is a great overview of all the various power struggles during the first decade after the revolution.
If I may chime in here, if memory serves, there was also very-interesting book I came across a while ago- supposedly part of a 7-part series. I think the author's name was Vadim Rakov or Rygov or something like that. I know his first name was Vadim. Anyway.. the book is called "Was There An Alternative?" I'm not sure how 'in-depth' it goes regarding the power struggles post-Lenin, but, nonetheless, it does do a pretty-good job of being quite informative, nonetheless. supposedly the author had pretty-good access to archives, for one The author is, admittedly, a Trotskyist, and the book's subtitle- now that I've re-checked, for memory's sake- is largely about "Trotskyism" as a 'potential alternative' (though Vadim also discusses the Left Opposition, fwiw) but, nonetheless, he probably does cover a lot of ground (esp. given how many parts there are).
@@Whoo711 Yes that's right, "Was There An Alternative?" by Vadim Rogovin. I haven't read his entire series, only the standalone English version, but from what I remember I would say it's fairly informative. It was also influential in disspelling many misconceptions in regards to Trotsky in the post-Soviet period. However, you also have to keep in mind that it is coming from a Trotskyist perspective, which colors some of the conclusions about Trotsky as a "more correct" alternative.
Dmitri Volkogonov's biographies of Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky are excellent because he used secret documents from KGB and other "soviet" archives to write them.
in a revolution, one must be like either a dog, or a wolf. the dog follows blindly the promise of a treat, believing his leader’s promise is true and just. the wolf, however, does not blindly trust his leader, but seeks out his own meal. this is the lesson we learn from the suit filed by stalin against mertov.
Hello Noj Rants, I have very much enjoyed your videos regarding the USSR and I have just one question. It's regarding the chairman of the revolutionary tribunal. From what I found is that his name was Pechak (surname) but I am having trouble finding other information about him and the photo you used for the judge. He might have been sympathetic or in league with Stalin. If you can provide a source link from where you got that photo and information regarding Pechak it would be much appreciated. Thank you for attention. Edit: From what I have found his name is К.Я. Печак and was latvian but I found no info on the picture and biography.
To my knowledge, there isn't a picture of Pechak available online, so for the visual I just used a generic picture of a Bolshevik tribunal chairman. I haven't come across anything saying he was in league with Stalin necessarily, nor was that the angle of attack the Mensheviks seem to have took, but considering the Bolsheviks set up and operated such tribunals, it's probably safe to say he was at least sympathetic to Stalin. In partially siding with Martov in the end though, he seems to demonstrate he was by no means sycophantic to Stalin specifically.
@@nojrants Thank you very much for your answer. I neither myself looking through CPSS archives found any more information about Pechak or pictures of him. The chairman you used looks like a Tsarist general.
Yes, for example Rech' (the main Kadet newspaper) was closed down just after the October Revolution. The Kadet Party itself was actually suppressed in its entirety by this time.
Looks like it's going to be a fruitful May that year, and this year! Looking forward to alternated Soviet History for once with Cody, and an entire series of Soviet History with Noj Rants!
Thank you for being able to resarch and debunk myths of the bolshievks has being unquestioned and uncontested popular revoultionaries. your videos bring a needed complexity to truly understanding the climate of revoutlionary russian that i have yet to see anywhere else.
It's truly insane to me that the revolutionaries actually managed to make institutions and a long lasting government out of the chaos of the Russian Revolution
To me, the voice is so reminiscent of a particular radio ad for Geico insurance from some years back. In response to his weeping girlfriend (mistress?) who has just told him, 'So long as you're with Jessica, there can be nothing between us,' we hear the guy, in this voice, say: 'Cass, there's no need for you to cry. And besides, I've got some really great news.' 'You're leaving Jessica?' [she says, hopefully] 'No. I just saved a ton on money on car insurance by switching to Geico!'
Fascinating! Were such cases mainly just talked about and reported on in the press and among various folks involved (not to mention the parties themselves), or were, in fact, special 'revolutionary tribunal records/archives' also kept that scholars have, from time to time, consulted for "confirmation" of this or that? Or did Bolshevik leaders simply that think that, because theirs was a "special system", keeping such official judicial records wasn't quite "essential" or "necessary"? Interestingly enough, if memory serves, I think that I heard that, for one reason or another, official 'records'/archives of Cheka operations have never been 'made public', and it's rumored, if not confirmed, that they were likely "destroyed" or "lost" shortly thereafter? Though, funny enough, I recently found out that one of the former leaders behind glasnost and perestroika, Alexander Yakovlev, actually wrote a book supposedly "chronicling" a 'shitload' of folks killed by the Soviet regime (esp. under Stalin), though I'm not sure if it goes as "far back" as the Cheka era (though, if memory serves, I think I actually heard about Yakovlev's book, funny enough, *on* a Wiki page about the Red Terror?)
Yes, we actually have the transcript of the case preserved in the Russian archives. So not only can we compare the Menshevik version of the story from Vpered and the Bolshevik version from Izvestiia, we can compare both to the transcript (which has become available in the last few decades). So for example we can see that Izvestiia left out any mention of Martov's witnesses, since that would be problematic for Stalin, but the transcript confirms they were named during the trial after all. In general, stenographic reports were taken for all such cases, but they wouldn't necessarily be published verbatim. Individuals would still report what happened in newspapers and could be reasonably trusted as accurate, which is part of the reason why the trials were quietly shelved. The version published in Vpered pretty much follows the transcript in terms of the events. Perhaps I will make a video on this in the future, but in general the Soviet archives began to open in the 1980s and 90s, leading to a renaissance of scholarship, but in the past 20 years that openness has been quietly reversed. Certain records, especially those having to do with the secret police, were either never fully explored in the first place or have since become closed. With recent events in Russia, access to archives (especially uncovering new documents) has become a lot more challenging.
So are you going to suspend the Elections series a bit and go over some civil war era stuff? Knowing more about the various White Governments would be nice
I'm still working on the election series, but I plan to make one-off videos like this along the way, maybe in an alternating pattern roughly. The next video will be the 4th Soviet Congress, which should be coming soon. And I agree, a video on the White Movement is needed.
Nice to see someone on RU-vid who is reading Vladimir Brovkin's work. Alexander Rabinowitch did a good paper on how Trotsky organized the first "soviet" show trial against Alexey Schastny which is ironic given how such trials were later used against Trotsky and his alleged supporters.
I liked this video. I don't have questions or complaints but I do have a suggestion: This story of Stalin's trial has the potential to be a part of a longer video series looking at how this early period in the post-revolutionary USSR developed and evolved from democratic norms towards - and culminating in - dictatorship, oppression, and ultimately the terror of Stalin. You should develop this theme further in future videos.
Thank you! I agree, there's a lot of potential to continue this theme throughout the rest of Soviet history, and I definitely plan to continue in similar videos.
@@バスネット咲希 Well, I will admit it wasn't funny for those who had to live under it; it was just a kind of tragic-comedy for the historians who have studied the difference between reality and what is written on a piece of paper.
All the music is stuff I improvise for the videos myself, although toward the end here I went into something sort of like the song "At Dawn" by the Soviet band Alliance.
All the books mentioned in the description I definitely recommend. Kotkin's two (soon to be three) books on Stalin are all very detailed, and talk a lot about the surrounding history, not just the man himself. Brovkin's book is great, although it's more focused on the Menshevik perspective. There's a chapter there regarding this event if you want to read in more detail. Depending on what you are interested in I can give a more specific book recommendation.
@@nojrants thank you so much, I know its later than youve discussed, but I am very interested in the Stalin/Bukharin power struggle & the overall fight around New Economic Policy. lmk if you have any other recs, imma definitely check out Kotkin's biography.
@@nojrants thanks i just seen the bib good looks; Its a little later than what youve covered so far, but I am v interested in the Stalin/ Bukharin power struggle, and the political struggle for New Economic Policy overall. I just got Kotkin's first two volumes (i loved magnetic mountain), any other specific recs on that?
@@jamontiqueq8763 In that case, another good book to check out might be Robert V. Daniels' "Conscience of the Revolution". It focuses on all the various oppositions within the Communist Party, including in regards to the debate surrounding the NEP.
Was it a democracy though? I am no expert on the topic but the videos on this channel depict the bolsheviks as a thuggish political force which only tolerates any democratic action when it doesn't contradict the bolsheviks themselves. Every time the Soviets or non-bolshevik socialists or disillusioned bolsheviks try to oppose Lenin's party, they get crushed without mercy. Therefore, the transformation which actually seems to appear, is that a de facto one-party state, which doesn't yet have the resources to smother all opposition and so tactically "tolerates" them, morphs into a one party state which is strong enough to prevent any opposition from gaining any power.
Misleading headline for this video. '...was brought to court' makes it sound as though Stalin was the defendant in the case, rather than the plaintiff.
1:52 didn’t you just say that they were involved in a robbery where several bystanders were killed ? Politically motivated gangster killers would surely lose their heads under a oppressive regime
Yes, the perpetrators would have normally faced the death penalty. But in regards to the people shown, they were all arrested outside Russia and managed to escape execution. Kamo was arrested in Germany and actually feigned insanity for a long period of time (which is a funny story in of itself). Any prospect of a death sentence was delayed until he "mentally recovered", but he ended up escaping from the asylum before then. Litvinov wasn't a participant in the robbery, but rather one of the people meant to fence the stolen bills. He was caught in France with marked banknotes and was deported; the Russian government clamored for extradition, but this was rejected. Most of the Bolsheviks who were caught were similarly people trying to use the bills in continental Europe. Stalin was arrested in March 1908, but it appears they could not pin the Tiflis robbery on him at the time, so he was exiled instead. There are also unsubstantiated rumors that Stalin may have informed on people to reduce his sentence, which if true would help explain his survival during this period.
For this topic, the books in the description are a good place to start. But was there something in particular you were curious about? If so I can give you more specific book recommendations.
Yes, Stalin was elected to the Constituent Assembly as a deputy for the Petrograd City district, and was also a delegate to every Soviet Congress until his death.
Kotkin openly rejects Western data on industrialisation and drought conditions because of "Soviet statistical distortion" which apparently could affect unrelated foreign agencies... He is a rabid anticommunist.
@@nojrants 'Vperyod' would be the more phonetic transliteration. Just pretend you're saying 'peer-YOD,' while sticking a 'v' sound at the very beginning (or an 'f' sound if that's easier -- but not an 's').
There is no line in how far one should go to criticize Stalin. Criticism, constructive OR destructive, is the basis for all political communication. Without criticism, progress in ANY direction is impossible, let alone deciding what direction to progress in, LET ALONE actually MAKING any progress. The diversity of opinions naturally tends towards working itself out, no matter how disparate and antithetical- IF everyone can agree to let speech that is not inherently dangerous- (like, if you're at a football game and you start shouting "BOMB THERE'S A BOMB" so everyone panics- people literally can and probably will die in the ensuing chaotic stampede; this is the quintessential example of limits on free speech in the US, often referred to as shouting "FIRE!" in a movie theater- but honestly movie theaters aren't that big, they all have emergency fire exits at the back end, there's the front entrance, and much more advanced fire suppression systems than existed when that case was adjudicated, so I think the bomb example is a better one for the present day, even though it's not a case that's been tried- it's inherently MUCH worse of an example than fire in a Movie theater. Another example is direct threats of violence, such as that Indian lady who told Republican senators "we will come to your house and kill you"- that's ABSOLUTELY unacceptable. She did it in public, to their faces, too. That's literally what the officer-of-the-law is there for. I mean, he's also there to shoot terrorists and stuff, but usually no one just walks up to a Senator and goes "I'M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU", so she got arrested, she'll stand trial, and will do serious prison time, because it's illegal to do that to ANYONE- it's just WAY easier to prove when she did it at a public forum, in front of a police officer, in front of an audience and the Senators themselves, at a forum that was literally being live streamed, MUCH easier to get a conviction (read: "literally as close to guaranteed as any criminal case can ever be in America") than if she confronted her neighbor in the alley and did the same, because in the latter case, it would be a "he-said-she-said", and there ARE ways of working out who's telling the truth, but it's just a lot more work than if someone is stupid enough to literally tell a senator they're going to kill them in front of a police officer. THESE are the kinds of limits that exist on Freedom of Speech. Fairly narrow, aside from slander, defamation, and libel laws, which, due to abuse by people like Donald Trump, who use frivolous litigation to silenc- sorry, USED to use frivolous litigation to silence anyone that he doesn't like(he can't afford it anymore lol) have ubiquitously become narrower and narrower over time since their passing. That's why it's SUCH a big deal when someone is found guilty, like Trump was, of Defamation- because there are REALLY, REALLY FUCKING HIGH standards of what it takes for that kind of judgement. [Sidebar: Anti-BDS laws are COMPLETELY unconstitutional; that is almost literally the definition of an unconstitutional law limiting freedom of speech, expression, and choice.]) be spoken, and all parties involved can agree to disagree, AND all parties involved both choose not to do violence because of speech, and, when they get angry (because politics almost ALWAYS makes SOMEBODY angry- it's literally so fucking important it'd be weirder if you DIDN'T get angry about it sometimes) restrain themselves from making bad choices, you get to a place where you begin to understand why Churchill said: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for every other kind of government". Because governing is never easy. It's so unimaginably complex at the highest levels that the average person LITERALLY cannot understand what's going on, even if the leader just says it all straight-up, there's ALWAYS missing context, ALWAYS room for backroom manipulations, and most importantly- even when speaking the same dialect of the same language with someone you've known your entire life, with whom you agree on basically everything- there is ALWAYS room for misunderstanding and misinterpretation.
That was how things broke down at the 1903 RSDLP conference in London where the split first occurred -- with the Bolsheviks as the larger faction. But it didn't necessarily stay that way (even though the names stuck) over the years that followed.
@@ronmackinnon9374 not really. Lenin got majority only because same mansevik live room during voting and nobody told them there is voting that day. Manseviks ask new voting but Lenin refused. That's how socialist party split. And manseviks have majority all the way to october revolution.
Not sure if you're making an Elder Scrolls joke or not, but the Red Guards were the name of the Soviet (para)military volunteer forces, which among other things guarded government buildings. In our account of the trial, it says that the chairman called in the Red Guards to clear the spectators.
Your single source of truth seems to be Brovkin ? All your videos are almost exclusively based on Brovkin's work (which is not brillant, judging by his videos on youtube). Btw your framing of the whole scene is very partial and hardly related to a judicial case. OK we got this is a pro-Martov and anti-Stalinist video. You don't need to pretend any half-baked objectivity.
Do you have a substantive example of how the video is biased or unobjective? On what grounds are you calling the framing wrong? Or are you just assuming that it's wrong because it's not positive for Stalin?
@@JB4489-nu2qs Well judging not only by this video, but many of the videos the same author already posted. It is always the same basic framing. Bolsheviks are bad and we do not even see criticisms on everyone else. I guess all Mensheviks, SRs, Anarchists, or even Kadets were flawless dudes. All accusations enjoy the benefit of doubt but in favour of those accusing the Bolsheviks. I already commented on ohter videos that fact that most of the newspapers quoted here are from émigrés and they were not even based in Russia. Hard to believe they had all the details they claimed to have. Another use said that the papers are indeed Russian, I asked for evidence that suggests that, but I am still waiting for his reply.
@@JB4489-nu2qs I believe you are ignoring the basic framing of not only this, but all his videos as a whole. The Bolshevik framing is essentially negative and the other forces are practically not mentioned or framed as not so bad when compared to the Bolsheviks. But well, each one is entitled to have his own opinion on those videos. For me it is clear that the intent is to portray the Whites as a better "what if" alternative to the Reds.
@@parallax9084you want to give your arguments backed with academic sources like this video or am I supposed to take the angry internet Stalinist’s word?
