Tag: non-fiction

Jonathan Schneer interview – WWI history – The Lockhart Plot (Oxford University Press, 2020)

World War 1 – An interview with Jonathan Schneer about his new book The Lockhart Plot: Love, Betrayal, Assassination and Counter-Revolution in Lenin’s Russia published by Oxford University Press. The book discusses a British assassination plot directed against Lenin and Trotsky. Check out the book here   https://amzn.to/35MCf82

How did you become interested in studying and writing on the subject of your book?

I met Tania Alexander in London in about 1985. She had been born in Petrograd, Russia, (Petersburg today) in 1915 and had moved to the UK sometime during the 1930s. She passed away in 2004. We became good friends, and I would stay with her whenever I went to England to research a book. She had written an autobiography called An Estonian Childhood and, in fact, she had led a most interesting life. But the book was as much about her extraordinary mother as it was about her.

Her mother was the Baroness Budberg. Many historians have written about the Baroness, and she is the subject of two biographies. But the Baron Budberg was her second husband (and one with whom she did not spend much time). Previously she had been married to Djon von Benkendorff, a Russian diplomat and aide de camp to the Tsar during World War I, who was also Tania’s father, and who was murdered in 1918. Tania’s mother loved deeply, and romantically, only one man, however, and it was neither Budberg nor von Benckendorff, but rather Robert Hamilton Bruce Lockhart, whom she met in February 1918, when he arrived in Petrograd as Lloyd George’s emissary to the Bolsheviks.  I first learned about the Lockhart Plot from Tania, while discussing her mother. I realized immediately that the Plot could be the subject of a great book. Eventually it dawned on me that I could write it.

What is the book about and what major themes do you focus on?

On the one hand, the book traces how Bruce Lockhart and his circle came to develop a plot to murder Lenin and Trotsky and to overthrow the Bolsheviks in order to install a Government that would bring Russia back into the war against Germany. And how the Bolshevik secret police, the Cheka, led by “Iron Felix” Dzerzhinsky, penetrated the plot, defeated it and launched a Red Terror.  On the other hand, the book is about the all-consuming love affair between Bruce Lockhart and Moura von Benckendorff. It is very much a true historical thriller and romance.

Also, it is a story about the curdling of idealism on both sides: for Bruce Lockhart’s circle began as idealists who hoped to establish good relations with the Bolsheviks – and wound up planning to kill them; while, of course, the Bolsheviks themselves began with the intention of turning their country into a socialist paradise. Moreover, despite his genuine protestations of undying love, Bruce Lockhart basically left Moura in the lurch. And this, as the book shows, despite her probably having saved his life.

What sort of terms did Lockhart and/or the British feel they could negotiate over with the Bolsheviks before the plot began?

Prime Minister David Lloyd George sent Bruce Lockhart to Russia to persuade the Bolsheviks to stay in the war with Germany or, if they insisted on getting out, to sign a peace treaty with Germany that did not hurt British interests. It was Mission Impossible. The Bolsheviks took Russia out of the war anyway, without regard to what Britain wanted.

Bruce Lockhart thought, however, that Russia might get back into the war, if Britain offered economic and even military aid. Britain wanted to safeguard three Russian ports that were filled with war materials: Murmansk and Archangel in the northwest and Vladivostok in the far east. For a few months Bruce Lockhart genuinely believed Russia still needed Britain as a counterweight to Germany, even though Russia was out of the War. He thought that if Britain offered aid to Russia, the Bolsheviks would let them into the ports in return. And, indeed, the Bolsheviks did fear that Germany might invade and overthrow them.

But when the German General, Ludendorff, launched the last great offensive on the western front, the Bolsheviks realized Germany presented no threat to them anymore, and they ignored Bruce Lockhart’s proposals. So, Bruce Lockhart advised Britain to occupy the ports without Russian permission. It was a short step from that to advising that Britain and the Allies join with Russian counterrevolutionaries to overthrow the Bolsheviks.

Why did Lockhart or others involved in this plot have reason to believe they could reverse the Revolution by simply killing Lenin and/or Trotsky?

Killing Lenin and Trotsky was hardly the entire plan. Bruce Lockhart thought he had bribed the leaders of the Latvian Rifle Brigade, which, at a time when the Russian Army was simply melting away, had been the Bolsheviks’ most reliable military support. The plan was for Allied forces to head south from Archangel, and west along the Trans-Siberian Railway, shepherded by the Latvian Rifle Brigade, and to meet in a town called Vologda, from which they could threaten both Moscow and Petrograd. With the help of the Rifle Brigade again, and White Russian counter-revolutionary forces, they could take those two most important cities.

Allied agents and counter-revolutionaries already were destroying crops, blowing up infrastructure, to make governing Russia, and feeding it, harder for the Bolsheviks. Simultaneously, they were stockpiling food to be released as soon as a new regime took over. A meeting of top Bolsheviks was to take place in Moscow on September 14, 1918. That was when, and where, Bruce Lockhart’s group thought they could capture and kill Lenin and Trotsky – once again with the help of the Latvians. For further details of the Plot, read the book.

Was there any German involvement in trying to stop this plot?

No.

What happened to British and Soviet relations after this event?

Well, obviously, the Lockhart Plot did not improve them. In fact, it hardened Bolshevik suspicion of the West. And what goes around, comes around: now we have Putin meddling here. (Not as a direct consequence of the Lockhart Plot, of course.)

Bruce Lockhart’s original plan was a better one: if Britain had followed his earlier advice, and worked with, rather than against, the Bolsheviks, then British-Soviet relations would have evolved much more smoothly. Also, if the Soviets had less reason to fear and hate the West, they might have softened their hardline domestic policies. But that is a “what if,” nothing more.

What resource materials or archives did you primarily use for your research?

I spent many months at the National Archive in Kew mainly going through Foreign Office and Admiralty files, but many others too, including recently released MI5 documents. I saw Lockhart’s diaries at the House of Lords Records Office. I visited archives at the Imperial War Museum, Cambridge University, Oxford University, Leeds University, Kings College, London.  Oddly, Lockhart’s papers are held by two US institutions, the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, and Indiana University. The Hoover Institute holds many other relevant collections. The Wisconsin Historical Society has the diary of one of Bruce Lockhart’s close associates, Raymond Robins.

Also, I was enormously lucky to find a research assistant, Andrey Shlyakhter, who is just now defending his PhD dissertation for the University of Chicago. Andrey, who was born in Russia, helped me find, and then translated for me, not only the obvious Russian sources, but many obscure ones.  Through Andrey, I corresponded with Russian and Ukrainian scholars, and accessed documents few Westerners have seen.

Finally, an American historian of Russia, Richard Spence, gave me Russian documents he obtained years ago, the originals of which are no longer available to scholars. Through Richard, I also viewed French Intelligence documents.

Was there a particularly difficult issue to research because of lack of information or access to information?

Yes, and this is key.  The central theme of the book is difficult to research. Bruce Lockhart’s plot was an illegal, early, attempt at regime change. The British Government claimed never to have sanctioned it. Bruce Lockhart, himself, claimed that it was not his plot but Sidney Reilly’s. I am certain he lied about that, but I cannot prove it. There are no entries in his diary for the twenty or so days before the Plot was supposed to launch. Anyway, he always knew the diary might be confiscated, so was careful what he wrote in it.  The same is true for the cables he sent to the Foreign Office and that the Foreign Office sent to him. There is no smoking gun cable announcing, or authorizing, the Plot. I suspect, but cannot prove, that Foreign Office officials weeded the files. In the book, I never state positively something that I only suspect.  I lay out the evidence and let the reader decide.

Secondly, Russian files, notably the Cheka files held at the FSB Academy, would certainly cast light into the Plot’s shadowy corners. For a moment, while Gorbachev held power, researchers could have seen them. I do not believe any historian was working on the Plot then, however. And then, when Gorbachev fell, that window slammed shut.

Were the Cheka particularly skillful at what they did or they mostly use terror and brutality to combat what they perceived to be problems?

The Cheka was extraordinarily skillful. Its leader, “Iron Felix” Dzerzhinsky, is one of the Revolution’s most striking characters, a Bolshevik Savonarola “rooting out the heretics.” He had spent a quarter-century plotting against the Tsar, so knew all there was to know about plotting.  With regard to the Lockhart Plot, he knew that British and French and American officials in Russia were plotting against the Bolsheviks, and that they were interested in the Latvian Rifle Brigade, but he had no details. Basically, he sent three Latvian Cheka agents pretending to be counter-revolutionary officers in the Rifle Brigade to meet Bruce Lockhart and colleagues. Bruce Lockhart thought he finally had found the military support he needed to ensure success. The rest is history.

Afterwards, the Cheka grew increasingly brutal. Dzerzhinsky launched the first “Red Terror” when he thought Bruce Lockhart’s plotters had somehow gotten a step ahead of him. That set an awful precedent. Dzerzhinsky is a fascinating figure who was prepared to build and defend what he truly thought was going to be a socialist paradise in Russia — by whatever means were necessary.

What is your current or next writing project?

I am in the midst of writing a big book about the British General Strike of 1926. I began as a labor historian, and I am now returning to my roots.

Where can people find you online?

I do not blog or have a web page. People can Google my name and find many, many entries. They show my other books, interviews, etc. There is also a Wikipedia entry.

Biographical information

Name: Jonathan Schneer (Emeritus Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology)

Position and specialty: Historian of Modern Britain

Project/work being discussed: The Lockhart Plot: Love, Betrayal, Assassination and Counter-Revolution in Lenin’s Russia, OUP, 2020.

Links of interest

Check out the book here   https://amzn.to/35MCf82

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-lockhart-plot-9780198852988?cc=us&lang=en&

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

 

 

 

Alan Covey interview – Spanish wars of conquest – Inca Apocalypse (Oxford University Press, 2020)

Spanish wars of conquest – An interview with Alan Covey about his new book Inca Apocalypse published by Oxford University Press. The book discusses the Spanish conquest of the Incas. Check out the book here https://amzn.to/2EAvVFj

How did you become interested in studying and writing on the subject of your book?

The Spanish conquest of the Incas has always been an important aspect of the work that I do in the Andes.  It lies between the two lines of evidence that I work with:  prehistoric archaeology and colonial archival documents.  The conquest story stands apart from those two records, and the Spanish chronicles that provide the most vivid detail aren’t always easy to line up with the other evidence, so I was always a little intimidated about trying to work them all together.

What is the book about and what major themes do you focus on?

The book features the religious worldview of the Incas and Spaniards, presenting the conquest of the Andes as a drawn-out transformation that could be interpreted as the end of the world, or the start of a new era.  I focus on the ways that the Inca and Spanish empires were both engaged in building civilizations, and how the Spanish conquest was only possible with indigenous support.  Even though most of the Incas became Christians and supported the Spanish crown, it took decades for the Spaniards to establish dominance over much of what remained of the Inca world.

Did any of the evidence you found address whether either the Spaniards or Incas were surprised to have discovered each other?  In other words, in their respective worldviews did either expect a cataclysmic clash of civilizations at some point as their empires grew?

The Spaniards were probably less surprised to encounter the Incas than the other way around.  When Columbus sailed, he thought he would reach the Mongol Empire and seek an alliance against Spain’s Muslim enemies, and in the 40 years that followed, Spaniards recognized that many native societies had hereditary leaders who could be quite powerful.  Pizarro sailed south from Panama to follow the rumor of a wealthy lord living just beyond where other Spaniards had explored.  The Incas probably expected that their world would end in natural disasters (earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes) rather than a foreign invasion.

What did you find to be the biggest culture clashes between the two empires?  Both obviously were ready to engage in war to protect themselves but were there approaches that stood in stark contrast to each other?

Although there were a lot of ways that the two empires were alike, there were also important ways that they differed, which created misunderstandings about each other.  For example, the Spaniards thought that the Pope had granted them dominion over half of the world, so they felt comfortable taking food and clothing and native porters from the communities they passed through.  The Incas saw them as a lawless men who didn’t know the land or even how to eat properly, and when the Spaniards ate Inca food and drank Inca beer, it signaled that they were Inca subjects, rather than the other way around.  As Spaniards and Andean lords worked to forge alliances and gain the greatest advantage as the world changed, their interactions could be ambiguous, interpreted in different ways by European and Andean people.  When it came to fighting, the Incas had shown that they were capable of brutal campaigns that relied on shock troops and violent retribution to bring frontier peoples in line.  The Spaniards didn’t fight by the same rules–they attacked without warning, tortured and burned their allies, and brought new weapons to the battlefield (like horses and firearms).  Over time, native people acquired those weapons and learned to fight against them successfully, and they learned guerilla tactics that worked when Spaniards were few in number and in remote places.

Were the smaller groups that had been previously conquered by the Incas ready to turn against them and why?  Or were the Incas seen as the better alternative to the new Spanish Empire?

The Inca civil war that was wrapping up when Pizarro went into the Andean highlands had forced local lords to choose sides, and Atahuallpa (the victorious Inca prince) had passed through the north Pacific coast where Pizarro arrived just months earlier, killing local people and taking their women.  Atahuallpa’s captains had occupied Cuzco, the Inca capital, where they wiped out some royal families and declared an intent to force the nobility to migrate to Quito.  And there were provinces that had ceased to pay Inca tribute during the war, which Atahuallpa planned to visit and punish.  So the Spaniards turned up on a landscape where lots of Andean people were either looking for revenge, trying to survive, or hoping to maintain newfound independence.  The Spaniards didn’t seem like an especially formidable force when it came to fighting across the entire Andean region, but they were dangerous and violent, and when they offered to fight for native lords, or to protect them, it was an appealing offer.

What resource materials or archives did you primarily use for your research?

To discuss the Inca Empire and its claims to civilize the Andes, I used recent archaeological evidence alongside colonial descriptions of the Inca world.  For other parts of the book, I used published chronicles, as well as a large body of unpublished manuscripts from libraries and archives in South America and Europe.  I also consulted scholarly studies of literature that was beyond my own expertise.

What did you discover in your research that most surprised you?

I think the thing that surprised me most was how much the first-hand descriptions differ from the popular versions of the story that have been published in recent years.  One theme that really stood out was how Pizarro and his allies knowingly violated the terms that they had agreed to with royal officials, and how the Spanish crown had to spend decades trying to figure out how to rein in unruly conquistadores–often with the Incas and other Andean lords as their allies.

Was there a particularly difficult issue to research because of lack of information or access to information?

Probably the biggest challenge to assembling this book was the sheer scale of documents and other evidence that could be used for a big-picture story like the one I wanted to tell.  As a social scientist, I went into the project trying to bring in as much evidence as possible, but I realized that I could fill a book (and more) just with a bibliography of publications and archival manuscripts.

Did you have any difficulties in finishing or publishing and how did you overcome those?

I was fortunate to have support from the University of Texas to devote a semester to writing, which allowed me to build a momentum that I was able to keep for the rest of the project.  My wife, who is also a professor, was really supportive and patient at times when the project required more time and focus.  The folks at Oxford University Press were really accommodating, and I felt like I had room to write the book that needed to be written.

What is your current or next writing project?

Right now, I am in the early stages of a project that builds on some of the things I learned writing Inca Apocalypse.  The Incas became an important point of debate among early modern Europeans, and I am working on a book that explores how representations of the Incas evolved as Europeans moved out of medieval modes of thought, through the Enlightenment, and into the theories that drive the social sciences today.

Where can people find you online?

I don’t do social media, so my page at the University of Texas is the best place to keep up with my work.

Biographical information

Name:  Professor Alan Covey

Bio:  AB Dartmouth College (1996), PhD University of Michigan (2003), postdoctoral training at the American Museum of Natural History.  I’ve held tenure at Southern Methodist University and Dartmouth College before coming to my present position.

Position and specialty:  Professor of Anthropology

Affiliation:  University of Texas at Austin

Project/work being discussed:  Inca Apocalypse

Links of interest

Check out the book here https://amzn.to/2EAvVFj

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/inca-apocalypse-9780190299125?cc=us&lang=en&

https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/anthropology/faculty/rc39628

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

US Civil War – Rebels in the Making (Oxford University Press, 2020) – William Barney interview

American Civil War – An interview with William Barney about his new book Rebels in the Making, published by Oxford University Press, on Southern secession in 1860 to 1861. Check out the book here   https://amzn.to/30aBXVl

How did you become interested in studying and writing on the subject of your book?

I first became interested in the American Civil War after reading Bruce Catton during high school. I latched on to secession as a research topic in my years of professional training at Columbia University in the 1960s and always wanted to write a major work on the topic.

What is the book about and what major themes do you focus on?

Rebels in the Making focuses on the years of 1860-1861 when the secession movement climaxed and triggered the Civil War. I found that any persuasive explanation of the politics of secession necessitated placing the drive for secession in the social, economic, and cultural context of the slave South as it matured in the 1850s and constricted opportunities for common whites in acquiring slaves and good land. The need to protect slavery where it existed and leave open the possibility of its future expansion was the main motivating force behind secession. This was the core argument used to attract the support of younger slaveholders aspiring to attain planter status. In presenting my findings, I examined secession, and its success or failure, in all of the fifteen slave states and traced how the vision of the secessionists for the South was embodied in the crafting the constitution and government for the Confederate States of America.

What resource materials or archives did you primarily use for your research?

I cast as wide a net as possible in locating resource material – letters, diaries and journals; slave narratives; court records; contemporary periodicals and newspapers; and legislative proceedings and debates.

What did you discover in your research that most surprised you?

What most surprised me was the extent and depth of the economic depression that gripped the South once credit lines from the North were largely shut down in the financial freeze that accompanied Lincoln’s election. Most economic activity ground to a halt and the ensuing sense of desperation added fuel to the argument of the secessionists that the South had to liberate itself from the financial shackles of the North.

Why did the North shut down the credit lines for the South and what about Lincoln’s election prompted this action? Were there Southern states that were hit particularly harder by this credit crunch than others?

Capital abhors uncertainty and everyone foresaw a major political crisis in the event of Lincoln’s election. Consequently, Northern banks and mercantile houses sought to preserve capital and prevent bankruptcies by tightening or refusing to extend the credit (technically discounting the notes of indebtedness) to Southern factors and planters that was necessary to move cotton to market. The economic crisis was a national one because of uncertainty over whether Southern markets would remain open to Northern merchants and farmers. All states were affected, though the shutdown was probably the deepest in the cash-starved Cotton South.

Was there a particularly difficult issue to research because of lack of information or access to information?

The hardest part of the story to tell was the role played by the slaves, over forty percent of the population in the seven original states that seceded. Slaves, unsurprisingly, left very few first-hand accounts of their feelings or actions and their reaction to the crisis in large measure had to be inferred by what whites wrote of what they thought the slaves were up to. I argue that the slaves were well aware that their day of deliverance was about to come and that they exploited the unrest and excitement in the South in 1860 by setting a rash of fires that further unnerved whites into believing that only a clean break from the North could save them from what they convinced themselves were hordes of abolitionist incendiaries descending on the South and stirring up the slaves.

When you say that Southern slaves started a rash of fires, can you explain that in a little more detail?

Southern newspapers reported an outbreak of fires that began in the spring of 1860 and peaked in the late summer and fall. The fires were attributed to abolitionist emissaries and slaves. The fires destroyed many businesses and some private homes. Most of them, and those almost certainly set by plantation slaves, torched highly combustible cotton gins and the cotton stored therein. The fires were set at night in isolated areas where it was extremely difficult to identify the perpetrators.

Did you have any difficulties in finishing or publishing and how did you overcome those?

Fortunately, the only hurdle in the writing of Rebels was carving out the time for framing and detailing the argument. As in the past, Oxford University Press was an understanding and helpful publisher. The comments and advice of Editor Susan Ferber were all I could have hoped for.

What is your current or next writing project?

I’m currently plunging into a new topic, the nature and extent of Confederate nationalism and the interpretive folly of conflating it with the Confederate state.

Where can people find you online?

I can be found at the website for the Department of History, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. My email is: wbarney@email.unc.edu.

Links of interest

Check out the book here   https://amzn.to/30aBXVl

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/rebels-in-the-making-9780190076085

https://history.unc.edu/faculty-members/william-l-barney/

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.