During the early 1800’s, Russia repelled Napoleon’s great invasion, a conflict fought over control of Poland and other reasons. Russians were very proud of their victory in the first “Great Patriotic War”. So much so that Tsar Alexander I signed a manifest on Christmas Day in 1812, declaring his intention to build a grand cathedral in honor of Christ the Savior “to signify our gratitude to Divine Providence for saving Russia from the doom that overshadowed Her” and as a memorial to the sacrifices of the Russian people.
The awe inspiring Moscow cathedral took 40 years to build and still more to decorate. Christ the Savior Cathedral holds a special spiritual, cultural, and historic significance for the Russian faithful. Keep this in your memory bank because we will again visit this Cathedral at future points of this narrative.
During the 1850’s there was the Crimean War against Britain, France and the Ottoman Turkish Empire; a war which was imposed upon Russia by the two Western imperial powers. Russia lost that war.
From 1877-1878, Russia fought and won, the Russo-Turkish War. But when Britain’s Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli aggressively injected himself into the peace treaty (Treaty of Berlin), Russia and its Slavic allies in south eastern Europe were forced to accept a ‘raw deal’; a deal so flawed that it would later play a role in the outbreak of World War I (by driving a nasty wedge between Russia and its Austro-Hungarian ally).{3} It’s a fascinating story, but again, it digresses. Just know that the long history of Western powers maneuvering against Russia repeats itself time and again.
During the 1800’s, Britain actually fought two wars in Afghanistan, on Russia’s southern border. The ludicrous pretext for the Anglo-Afghan Wars was to “protect India” from Russia. The real reason was Britain’s desire to compete against Russia for influence in Central Asia. Disraeli once wrote to Queen Victoria of his plan to: “to clear central Asia of Muscovites (Russians) and drive them into the Caspian Sea.”{4}
It should be noted that Benjamin Disraeli was very closely attached to the House of Rothschild;{5} the wealthiest family in world history.{6} The Rothschild enmity towards Russia is now 200 years old. As we shall see later on, the anti-Putin Rothschild Banking Dynasty is still working against Russia to this very day.
Disraeli’s invasion of Afghanistan ended badly for the British. They withdrew in 1880 and Disraeli’s political influence was finally checked. This fierce historic rivalry became known as “The Great Game”; the chess players being between Russia and the West; the chess board being Afghanistan. Indeed, the “Great Game” is still being played to this day. And you thought we went into Afghanistan to get “Osama Bin Laden”!
In 1881, Tsar Alexander II was assassinated after the 5th attempt on his life. Bomb throwing Red terrorists (Communists/Anarchists) were responsible. The Tsar’s son, Alexander III, and grandson, Nicholas watched the Tsar’s legs get blown off. The resulting anti Red backlash caused many Reds to flee to America. Wonderful!
By 1905, the Reds, partially funded from western sources (long story but true) were strong enough to attempt a violent overthrow of the Tsar. That fateful year also witnessed the bombing assassination of Tsar Nicholas’s uncle, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, and the loss of a war with Japan. During that war, the Japanese received massive financial assistance from Wall Street banker Jacob Schiff,{7} as well as some final diplomatic favoritism from Wall Street’s wholly owned warmonger, President Theodore Roosevelt.{8} (The historical image of a blue blooded TR being the scourge of the Wall Street “Robber Barons” is mythical; as is the image of TR the ‘war hero’.)
After the war, Japan expressed its gratitude to Schiff by awarding him the Order of the Sacred Treasure. In 1907 he was again honored with the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun. Schiff was personally awarded the Order by Emperor Meiji in the Imperial Palace.
Schiff’s support of the Japanese military was not motivated by any special love for Japan, of course. What motivated Schiff was the ongoing mutual animosity between Tsarist Russians and the Jews of Russia; an animosity that was also shared by the House of Rothschild. During the late 1700’s, ancestors of the Schiffs and the Rothschilds had actually shared a double house in Frankfurt, Germany.{9}
Though the Red uprising was finally put down, Russian prestige and position had been weakened, both at home and abroad. Many of the Red terrorists who managed to get out of Russia obtained refuge in Western Europe or America. Leon Trotsky and his gang actually settled in Brooklyn; where they plotted their future return.
In 1911, Russia’s popular reformist Prime Minister, Pyotr Stolypin, was shot to death in the Kiev Opera House; in front of Tsar Nicholas and his daughters.
In 1914, Russia, having been cleverly lured into an alliance with new “friends” France and Britain, and seeking to settle old scores with the Ottoman Turks, joined what would soon turn into “World War I”. Unfortunately for Russia, Turkey was party to an alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary (both of which had been Russian allies until British Prime Minister Disraeli caused a ‘divorce’ in 1878). (8) This therefore pitted Russia against Germany and Austria-Hungary in a mutually destructive war that was to soon bring down all three Empires and Ottoman Turkey too.
CHAPTER 2
The Bolshevik / Soviet Revolution
As they had during the 1905 War with Japan, the Communist revolutionaries used popular discontent over World War I and an economic crisis to foment another attempt at Revolution in 1917. The Bolshevik Reds promised agitated mobs that they would bring about a “worker’s paradise” — an earlier version of “Hope & Change”. Red leader Lenin returned to Russia in “the sealed train”, bringing with him sacks of gold given to him by the German banker Max Warburg; whose brother Paul was the chief architect behind the 1913 founding of the Federal Reserve System (Central Bank of the United States). Warburg and the German government knew that a revolution would undermine the Russian government and ultimately knock Russia out of the war. But Warburg’s motives were less than “patriotic”.
Financiers such as the Warburg Brothers, the Rothschild Clan, John D Rockefeller, JP Morgan and Jacob Schiff coveted control over Russia’s vast territory and resources. They saw the mighty Empire as the chief obstacle to their ultimate vision of global economic integration; an ambitious idea which, even back then, was openly discussed within the elite circles of London, Paris and New York.