Chapter 53: Red Storm
The spring of 1918 was supposed to be a season of prosperity, but there was not a trace of life in the vast territory of Tsarist Russia, leaving passers-by with nothing but desolation and ruin.
In late 1917, the British Empire, with a foreign policy of making the suffering of its enemies its own pleasure, quietly sent Pyotr Aleksevich Kropotkin back to Russia, his father was a hereditary prince, and he himself was a geographer, the supreme spiritual leader and theoretician of the anarchist movement. As an officer in Siberia, he engaged in geographical expeditions and animal research in his spare time, corrected maps of East Asia, and enriched his knowledge of glaciation in Asia during the Ice Age. It gives the impression of an aristocratic intellectual born and raised on the grassland.
At the age of 15, Kropotkin was recommended by the tsar himself because of his noble status and his father's title and status, and entered the St. Petersburg Non-commissioned Officer School, which was composed of more than 100 children of nobles aged 15 years old, and after five years of study, they could go to the army to hold important positions, and those with particularly good grades were sent to the court to serve as attendants and military attachés to the emperor or members of the imperial family. Kropotkin's years at the acolyte's school coincided with a time of great socio-political and economic upheaval in Russia. The revolutionary situation continued to develop, and the crisis of serfdom deepened until it finally collapsed. Petersburg was the center of the national revolutionary movement at that time. The ideas of the revolutionary democrats, led by Chernyshevsky, spread so widely that even the high walls and deep courtyards of the squire school could not stop it. Kropotkin read a large number of books, especially French history and encyclopedias, and he became interested in the current situation of the Russian peasantry, greatly influenced by the literature of the liberal revolution. At that time, he read many of the country's first-line revolutionary newspapers with great interest, and was determined to reform the feudal serfdom in order to achieve "Russia on a par with the European countries." In February 1861, after the proclamation of the abolition of serfdom was issued, he took to the streets with joy and cheers. Emboldened, he became directly involved in the operation, and the aristocratic young master was eventually arrested for advocating the abolition of all forms of government and engaging in anti-tsarist activities. With the help of relatives and friends, he escaped from prison and lived in Switzerland, France and England for a long time. Just in time for the good time, he took advantage of the collapse of Tsarist Russia in World War I, and the British, who lacked the strength to suppress the German army's eastern front, was forced to carry him out, send money, people and ships, and send him to Russia as a god. But at this time, the Russian warlords divided their territories and attacked each other, and those who supported him did not look down on him, and those who looked up to him did not want him. After returning to China, he has not made any achievements, but at this moment he has ushered in a strong opponent. Lenin, who had been taking refuge in Switzerland, returned to Russia with the help of 15 million gold marks in Germany after traveling to several countries. The British were so anxious that Kropotkin repeatedly asked him to hurry. But Kropotkin had no experience in this area at all, and the little warlords he had despised before had come to his door again, and they had all been brought under the command of Lenin. Seeing that it was difficult to do so, Kropotkin simply ignored the life and death of the British, and ran to Petrograd to join Lenin. The British, when they heard the news, were furious and directly listed Kropotkin as persona non grata.
Lenin, who quickly became the leader of the revolutionary movement upon his return, put forward a revolutionary program, pointing out that the Russian revolution must make the transition from a bourgeois-democratic revolution to a proletarian socialist revolution, opposing the so-called "bourgeois provisional government", protesting against its deliberate delay in the election of the Constituent Assembly, and raising the slogan "All power to the Soviets". He used both prongs, one to co-opt the other, and the speed of integration was astonishingly fast, and within half a year Lenin had brought most of the whole of Russia under the Soviet government.
Adrian closely followed everything that was happening in the east in Germany, and after learning about Lenin's development speed, he couldn't help but sweat for Britain and Germany.
Without Kropotkin, Britain set its sights on the Czechoslovak Legion, an armed rebellion planned by Britain, France and other countries during the Russian Civil War and foreign armed intervention. The Czechoslovak Corps was formed in Russia in the second half of 1917 when the main German forces were advancing westward, and was composed of prisoners of war of the former Austro-Hungarian army who were captured by Russia in World War I and Czechoslovakians living in Russia, and after several reorganizations, it also reached the scale of nearly 100,000 people. At that time, the warlords in Russia were fighting, and neither of them was willing to use their own strength to destroy this rebel army, so they had to let it go, trying to weaken the other party's power. Lenin also tried to negotiate with this armed force after returning home, but was repeatedly refused. As a last resort, Lenin had no choice but to form a central army to encircle and suppress it. The Czechoslovak Legion, which lacked sufficient armament, fought and withdrew, leaving chickens and dogs behind everywhere it went, destroying the Urals, the Volga River valley and most of Siberia, and the Russian army, which had not yet recovered, had to give up continuing to pursue it as the supply pressure increased greatly, and only drove the Czechoslovak Legion out of the area east of the Volga River basin and let it go.
While Germany was still watching from the other side, a revolutionary movement was rapidly spreading in Germany.
The naval command, which adhered to the policy of war under the orders of Wilhelm II, ordered the ocean-going fleet to go to sea for a decisive battle with the British Navy in August 1918, and if it could not win, it would be "sunk with honor". This shameless act of sending soldiers to their deaths aroused great indignation among the officers and men of the navy. Soldiers stationed in the harbor refused to lift anchor and go to sea, and anti-war leaflets appeared on warships.
The Spartacus Regiment, the revolutionary organization of the German Left Social Democrats, launched an armed uprising against sailors who refused to go out of the port to fight and workers in the factories in the north. Kaiser Wilhelm II hurriedly sent troops to suppress it, and as a result, the troops sent to suppress it also participated in the rebellion, and Wilhelm II, who had nothing to do, had to announce his abdication amid many persuasions. Albert, the leader of the right wing of the Social Democratic Party, fearing the continued spread of Soviet power, tried to limit the development of the revolution and hurriedly contacted Hindenburg and others to ask for troops to suppress the uprising. Hindenburg refused on the grounds that the front line was tight, and Albert had no choice but to set his sights on Eric Adrian, who was waiting for the birth of his child in Hanover, and asked someone to take a picture of the telegram.