How Wall Street, the United States, and the European great powers helped the Bolsheviks take and consolidate power in Russia. A classic interview with Professor Antony C. Sutton, from 1987.
Professor A. Sutton taught economics at California State University and was a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution from 1968 to 1973.
During his time at the Hoover Institute, he wrote the major study “Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development” (in three volumes), arguing that the West played a major role in developing the Soviet Union from its very beginnings up until the present time (1970).
Sutton argued that the Soviet Union's technological and manufacturing base, which was then engaged in supplying the Viet Cong, was built by United States corporations and largely funded by US taxpayers.
What was the biggest sovereign default in history? Argentina in 2001? Greece in 2012?
By losses in real terms it was actually Russia in 1918, months after the Bolshevik Revolution.
Seen at the time as one of the world’s most investable bond markets, capital had flooded into Russian Tsarist bonds for years ahead of the revolution.
The default, when it came, was not just due to Russia’s willingness to repay, but also its ability: the economy was heavily indebted following war against Japan in 1905, and also WW1.
In this video, economic historian Hassan Malik is interviewed by M&G’s Jim Leaviss about his new book, Bankers & Bolsheviks – International Finance & the Russian Revolution (Princeton University Press).
