THE IMPACT OF THE 1920 KAMENEV TELEGRAM

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What was the Kamenev Telegram?

  • September 1920 = Daily Herald involved in a scandal surrounding allegations of its funding and work for the communist regime in Russia. The scandal was triggered by the publication of eight telegrams in The Times that had been intercepted by British intelligence. 

  • One telegram (from Lennin to Kamenev who was. the Communist Party Boss in Moscow) caused particular outrage among British enemies of socialism. 

What did the telegrams contain?

  • Kamenev also sent telegrams to Lennin in which he described £40,000 worth of funding for the Daily Herald with a further installment of £10,000 to follow. 

  • Telegrams from Bolsheviks in London suggest they were using the Daily Herald for information purposes and that the funds were justified as the paper acted as their organ. Money of £25,000 was also given directly to Lansbury. 

  • For Lansbury, the dilemma was not so much about being paid by foreign revolutionaires, but about taking money from such an impoverished state. 

The domestic tension that followed WW1 Britain and Anglo-Russian relations 

  • In 1917 the bolsheviks had seized power from a more liberal, moderate revolutionaries who themselves had disposed of the tsar six months previous.

  • Leaders of the former allies backed the Whites. The British were alarmed at reports of bolshevik support for rebellious movements in Northern India/ "the jeweled crown of the British Empire". 

  • The British government spent £100 million on military support for the Whites.

  • The Reds won the civil war and possibly emerged from using the Red Army to export communist revolution to other countries.

  • The War had initially gone well for the Polsih but by July 1920 The reds started pushing into Poland. So the British Government threatened to send arms to Poland unless they stopped at the Curzon Line (the Russo Polish Border). The Bolsheviks rejected this but the Labour Party

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