Josef Retinger and the secrets of the communist revolution part 5. NATALIE MAGNETIC GUIDE
The 18th century was a period of rapid industrialization. Britain especially was a place of intellectual and scientific exchange often cultivated by the masonic lodges and secret societies. In places like the Royal Society or Lunar Society in Birmingham philosophers and inventors teamed up with the industrialists to form join ventures. It was in the Lunar Society where Scottish inventor James Watt met the English manufacturer Matthew Boulton and discussed the idea of improving the device that managed to harness steam to produce mechanical work. In 1781 the two men produced a new steam engine in Boulton's Manufactory in Birmingham that soon saw it widespread use as driving machinery in factories mills and mines and later transport appliances such as railway locomotives ships and road vehicles. The opening of the Stockton & Darlington Railways in 1825 heralded the beginning of the age of steam railways which boosted travel, trade, growth of industries and towns thus shifting population from rural to urban areas.
THE RISE OF THE HOUSE OF ROTHSCHILD
At the same time City of London saw rise of a capitalist and banking class. In the 19th century, the City's most powerful banking family was the House of Rothschild. The Rothschild family originated in the Frankfurt ghetto at the house which bore a small red shield hence the name of the family - in German - Rothschild. Since the Jews were prohibited from owning land or holding various occupations in Europe, they often engaged in goods trading and currency exchange. Mayer Amschel Rothschild secured an apprenticeship under Oppenheimer banking family who succeeded in branching out from Frankfurt ghetto to Vienna Stuttgart Bonn and Hanover. Since Oppenheimers had been court agents to the Austrian Emperor, the Rothschild family came into direct contact with the privileged world of court agents. Mayer soon started to work for the German Prince of Hess who amassed great wealth by supplying Britain with Hessian soldiers. The British did not always pay in cash but rather bills of exchange that had to be discounted. To deal with such international transactions the Crown officials employed agents often Jews. Realizing that it was much better to lend money to governments and kings Mayer made various investments with prince's fund including lending money to the Court of Denmark. He also sent his sons to other European capitals. Nathan Rothschild first went to Manchester where he invested in textiles colonial goods such as indigo wine sugar and coffee. He then moved to London where Moses Montefiore initiated him into the tricks of London trade and business. In due course, he set up a firm N.M. Rothchild and Sons at New Court in City of London, a firm that is, by the way, still around in 2026 - operating under name Rothschild & Co.
GROWTH OF BRITISH EMPIRE AND THE RULE OF HOLY ALLIANCE
The Rothschild family had made greatest fortune during Napoleonic Wars financing anti-French coalition of England Prussia Russia and Austria. Nathan first helped England by purchasing gold from East India Company to help Duke Wellington pay his troops in Europe. One day he boasted of this successful deal at the dinner table: 'When I was settled in London, the East India Company had 800,000 worth of gold to sell. I went to the sale and bought it all. I knew Duke of Wellington must have it. I had bought a great many of his bills at a discount. The government sent for me and said they must have it. When they had got it, they did not know how to get it to Portugal. I undertook all that and I sent it through France and that was the best business I ever did.'
After the fall of France at the battle of Waterloo, the role of the Rothchilds was to assist the British elites in preserving 'the balance of power' in Europe established at the Congress in Vienna. They did this by becoming the prime bankers of the Holy Alliance of Prussia Russia and Austria dealing with debts and war indemnities and lending them money to quash revolutionary movements across Europe. In Britain they assisted the British government in various investments - strategic metals precious stones armaments and strategic geopolitical investments like the purchase of Suez Canal thus laying foundation of the British Empire. The family had offices in London Paris Frankfurt Vienna and Napoli becoming major advisors to the central banks of these European powers. To keep and expand their wealth they married into other Jewish banking families but also practiced inbreeding including marriages between first cousins.
Thus through the combination of such factors as financial focus collective cooperation proximity to royals and politicians and close inbreeding within few generations the Rothschilds amassed incredible wealth and power. They often financed both conflicting sides hedging their bets. Being Jewish they did not look favorably at Catholic Poland and financed its occupying powers - the Holy Alliance of Prussia Russia and Austria as part of post Napoleonic deal established at the Congress in Vienna.
BIRTH OF SOCIALISM
The tight rule of the Holy Alliance and the rise of wealthy capitalist class boosted the emergence of nationalist and socialist ideology which attracted all marginalized groups like workers Jews and women. Socialist movement was particularly strong in France having roots in the egalitarian slogans of the French Revolution. In 1840, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, a French intellectual published his major work: What is property? where he provided a radical critique of private property arguing that it is the root cause of men's exploitation. The French ideas inspired other political thinkers. One of them was Karl Marx. Born in Trier, he came from a family with a long distinguished lineage of Jewish rabbis albeit his father converted to lutheranism to escape antisemitic laws. Marx studied at the university of Bonn and Berlin where he absorbed the ideas of Georg Hegel. There were two main ideas in Hegel's philosophy: the glorification of State and Dialetic. As opposed to classical liberalism where State is always sub-ordinate to the individual in Hegelianism the individual existed only to serve the State. The progress in the Hegelian State was through contrived conflict - the clash of opposites made for progress. This was described as a three-step process: thesis (problem), antithesis (reaction) and synthesis (solution). Karl Marx adopted Hegel's dialectical method to criticize established society preach about class conflict and revolution.
In Paris Karl Marx met another socialist activist Friedrich Engels who showed him his recently published work The Condition of the Working Class in England that focused on detrimental effects that the Industrial Revolution had on living conditions of the working class in Britain. The exploitation of the workers led Marx to conceive of a historical dialectic in terms of class conflict and to see the modern working class as the most progressive force for revolution. After being expelled from Paris and Brussels for subversive activity, Marx moved to London where he joined Engels and the Communist League - a group of German born revolutionary socialists. Marx and Engels wrote declaration of League's position - the Communist Manifesto - in which they propagated the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of the rule of the working class where society would be free of private property social classes religion and nationality. Communist Manifesto was published in 1848 and its catchy slogan 'workers of the world unite' went viral sparking socialist revolutions across Europe.
CITY'S FINANCING OF COMMUNIST REVOLUTIONARIES
Consequently, the second half of 19th-century, the Holy Alliance of Prussia Austria and Russia started to crumble. Russia's growing ambitions in the Balkans and in the Far East prompted the Rothschilds to shift their support to the Ottoman Empire and Japan. Realizing that the revolutionary change was inevitable they also lent support to socialist revolutionaries. It started with James Rothschild helping Alexander Herzen the father of Russian socialism to finance Proudhon's journal Voice of People. Herzen then moved to London and engaged in organizing First International Workingmen's association becoming friends with Karl Marx who was at the time in the process of writing his major work Das Capital. The engagement of the Rothschild in the revolutionary movement in Russia had increased after the Paris house of Rothschild made investments in oil pipelines in Baku. In 1883, the Rothschild Bank formed the Caspian and Black Sea Petroleum Company which become region's second largest oil producer among the dynamite manufacturer, the Nobles. The Rothschilds had thus became interested in the deposition of Russian Tsar who additionally was becoming increasingly hostile towards the Jews.
BIRTH OF ZIONISM
The increase of migration of the persecuted Jews from Russia and the rise of nationalism in Europe prompted the rise of Jewish nationalism known as Zionism from the Hebrew word Sion, a mount in Jerusalem. In 1862, Moses Hess, a socialist activist published his work: Rome and Jerusalem: the Last National Question. Therein he argued that Jewish assimilation would not eradicate anti-semitism in Europe, that the Germans would not be tolerant to national aspirations of others and would be particularly intolerant to the Jews. Thus he called for the establishment of the Jewish socialist commonwealth in Palestine. Concurrently in Vienna, Jewish journalist Theodore Herzl published a pamphlet called 'The Jewish State' advocating the creation of the Jewish State in Palestine at the first World Zionist Organization in Basle Switzerland 1897. Soon thereafter, Jewish Colonial Trust was incorporated in London and Anglo-Palestine Bank as subsidiary. Initially, the London house of Rothschild was not interested in the project however the French branch would assist with Baron Edmond de Rothschild establishing first colonies in Ottoman-controlled Palestine. He admitted he treated it as social laboratory experiment.
POLISH FIGHT & DIVISONS
In Poland, Polish patriots were divided - like the Polish flag - into two camps. There were the militant nationalists led by Roman Dmowski under slogan 'Poland for the Poles'. They viewed Germany as the major threat as well as the existence of other minorities in Poland especially Jews. This movement turned into National Democratic Party which believed the route to independence led through lobbying for autonomy within the Russian Empire. The second group were the socialist revolutionaries led by Josef Pilsudski who believed independence of Poland would be achieved with support of the working class and who envisaged Poland as multinational federation. They formed the Polish Socialist Party and opted for an armed rising against Russia. Pilsudski and his men organized successful raids on Russian banks and trains transporting money. In 1902, Pilsudski moved his base of operation to Krakow and Galicia region which being under the Austrio-Hungarian rule gave him much more operational freedom.
SECRET AGENT
Another activist connected to Kraków and commemorated by a large plaque near main market square in Krakow was Josef Retinger and he chose a much different way. His father was of German heritage and his family produced a number of scholars connected with the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. Joseph Retinger spent his teenage years in Poland and found 'life went on without excitement of international activities as in England, the United States or France, without pride in the presence and hope in the future'. He once exclaimed in school 'I wish Poland would soon be free again so I would not have to bee a damn patriot'. Retinger subsequently went to Paris and graduated from Ecole des Sciences Politiques, an incubator of political agents. Afterwards he was sent to London. After meeting prominent leaders of the Zionist movement Chaim Weizman and Vladimir Zabotynski he realized that lobbying for Poland was a futile effort. He thus aborted the Polish cause and became a secret agent of the communist and zionist agenda. He was then assigned to go to Mexico and advise Mexican government on the implementation of Marxists revolution as best way to control capital and society.
Meanwhile, Nathan Rothschild worked closely with another bankers like Jacob Schiff and Samuel Montagu in London and a journalist Paul Nathan in Berlin on sending funds under cover of charitable donations to communist revolutionaries who were causing unrest in Russia. City of London became a refuge for main communist leaders and the seat of the fifth Congress of Russian Social Democratic Labour Party that took place in 1907. The more radical Bolshevik faction was represented at the time by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky. There were also the founders of Russian socialist movement like Plekhanov Zinoviev Kamenev and Stalin none of whom were important in 1907 but who one day would become the most powerful man in Russia.
How did the geopolitical situation change in the 20th century enabling Poland to regain independence in 1918? What were the key factors that contributed to the outbreak of the most destructive war in Europe?
Well… that’s for next time. So stay tuned, leave your comments - and if you prefer history with actual walking join me on my Free Walking Tours in Kraków Old Town.
