The 19 year old Ekaterina Schmidt, and her 17 year old sister Elizaveta had just inherited a small fortune. Vladimir Lenin saw an opportunity and came up with a plan. Waging a revolution required vast amounts of money and Lenin would use any means necessary to acquire wealth, including bank robbery, in furtherance of his pursuit for power.
His plan, in this instance, was simple, he would use two party operatives to seduce and marry the girls and then have them donate all of the money to the party. He selected Nikolai Andrikanas and Victor Taratuta to run the scheme. Both successfully married their target. Ekaterina and Nikolai donated a small amount of money to the party before moving to France and keeping the vast majority of the inheritance.
Victor however successfully convinced Elizaveta to give a substantial amount of money to Lenin. Speaking of Taratuta Lenin remarked “There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel.” Lenin knew what he needed in pursuit of power and he was willing to use whatever means necessary to get it.
William Wilberforce has been called an agitator for his commitment to ending the slave trade. One of his well known speeches on the subject was given on May 12, 1789.
Cardinal Richelieu has been hailed as a great statesman and as a subversive authoritarian. Depending on who you talk to he was a man needed to strengthen the monarchy in France, or he was a tyrant seeking personal power. Next week I will have a book review that may shed more light on Cardinal Richelieu.
When Lenin was working on his major writing projects he would often pace across the room formulating the ideas that he would write down by saying them out loud. Once he had the idea for what he wanted to write he would often repeat the idea to Nadezhda Krupskaya, who would provide feedback. Once this process was complete he would then write the ideas down.
Here is an AI rendering of what that might have looked like when he was drafting What is to be Done.
This month this community will focus on political subversion. What is subversion? When is it justified? What is the interplay between subversion and agitation? These are some of the topics to be discussed this month.
“You get used to the despot’s shortcomings, when they are not great vices, and the change of an autocratic ruler leads to involuntary fear.”
Sergei Trubetskoi
