The Lenin Plot
The Unknown Story of America's War Against Russia
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- US$11.99
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- US$11.99
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It remains the most audacious spy plot in American history—a bold and extremely dangerous operation to invade Russia, defeat the Red Army, and mount a coup in Moscow against Soviet dictator Vladimir Ilich Lenin. After that, leaders in Washington, Paris, and London aimed to install their own Allied-friendly dictator in Moscow as a means to get Russia back into the war effort against Germany. The Lenin Plot had the “entire approval” of President Woodrow Wilson. As he ordered a military invasion of Russia, he gave the American ambassador, the U.S. Consul General in Moscow, and other State Department operatives a free hand to pursue their covert action against Lenin. The result was thousands of deaths, both military and civilian, on both sides. A must-read for anyone seeking to understand the true beginning of the Cold War, The Lenin Plot tells the shocking story of this untold episode in American history in fascinating and striking detail.
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Journalist Carr (Operation Whisper) delivers a lively, if somewhat speculative, account of the U.S.-concocted plot to remove Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin and install an "Allied-friendly dictator" in Russia during WWI. Shortly after the October Revolution brought the Bolsheviks to power in 1917, the U.S. Consul General in Moscow, DeWitt Clinton Poole, left the city on a covert mission to hire a Cossack army to overthrow the new government. The plan, which had the approval of President Woodrow Wilson and the backing of France and Britain (all of whom wanted to draw Russia back into the Allied war effort), also involved American-Russian tractor salesman Xenophon Kalamatiano, who recruited the Red Army's head of communications as an informant, and a French saboteur hired to blow up Soviet bridges, airfields, and ammunition dumps. Piecing together the increasingly convoluted and elaborate scheme through newspaper accounts, archival records, letters, and biographies, Carr contends that it failed because of a lack of funds and disagreements among Cossack leaders, though he admits some pieces of the puzzle are still missing, including whether the plotters were behind Fanny Kaplan's attempted assassination of Lenin in summer of 1918. Fluidly written and impressively researched, this espionage tale delights.
