A few times now I have talked about how frustrating it is to find out that I have bought into nonsensical conventional wisdom. In "An Interesting Discovery", for example, I discussed my embarrassment to discover I had bought into the silly propaganda about England lacking gun injuries, when the truth is quite different. There were other, earlier complaints along the same lines, but as I cannot find them, I will leave it at a single example.

Yesterday, while I was reading an interesting collection of essays entitled "The Military History of Tsarist Russia" (bought because I enjoyed the earlier work of the editor, Frederick Kagan - see "Strange Coincidence"), I can across the essay "The Imperial Army in World War I" by David R Jones. And as soon as I read it, I was stunned. Just as reading Kagan's work on the War f the Third Coalition change dmy thinking on Austerlitz, and made me realize how much  historians accepted Napoleonic propaganda at face value, even two centuries later, reading this essay made me realize how completely I, and everyone I had ever read, had bought into communist propaganda about the events immediately preceding the Russian Revolution.

Jones' contention, and he backs it up quite well, is that the story of the woefully under supplied and criminally unmanaged Russian army is simply false. He points out that between the battle of Tannenburg and "the Great Retreat" of 1915, there were considerable successes not only against the Austrians, pushing them past the Carpathians, but even against the Germans. And, even after the Great Retreat, the Russians managed to hold the Germans and Austrians, establish trench warfare as in the west, train and equip fresh troops, win considerable successes against Turkey in Armenia, Mesopotamia and Persia, and even make a few small gains against the central powers. Even specific issues such as supply, were not only transitory, but also were shared by the other powers. All the powers involved, having planned for a rapid "war of maneuver" had stocked for a three to six month offensive at most, and had not geared up their industrial base at the start of the conflict to produce more, and so all powers suffered form shortages in late 1914. Russia had later shortages as well, mainly due to supply issues and corruption, but by 1917 supply was no longer an issue, at least not until strikes began.

And that is probably why the story of chronic shortages, of soldiers going to the front without ammunition, of starving troops and civilians got such play from the communists and sympathizers. In truth, there were shortages, and logistical problems, but they were exaggerated by the liberals in the duma to get more concessions from the tsar. And so, the public reacted not to real shortages, but to propaganda spread by politicians and, later, crises created by strikes that propaganda inspired. In other words, the communists staged a revolution based, not on real economic inadequacies, but rather on small economic problems exacerbated by propaganda, strikes and xenophobic whispers about the tsarina and conspiracy theories involving Rasputin. But that hardly fits the image the communists wished to project, that of being the righteous liberators saving their fellows from an oppressive monster they later righteously executed. The tsar was hardly a paragon of virtue, and his regime was inefficient and oppressive, but it was hardly what communist propaganda, and subsequent western history which accepted that propaganda, have taught us.

The one question I have is why westerners did not challenge the communist version? I know it was supported by a number poroto-Duranties, those western fellow travelers who visited Russia, or even fought there, and returned to tell the same story the communists put forth. But they could only have gone so far. Likewise, the natural affinity many activist journalists and intellectuals had for communism did not work well enough to hide even the much more embarrassing realities of communism's "brotherhood of all men" not extending to Jews, or the famine in the Ukraine. So, what kept this story from falling apart? Why didn't we realize sooner that the tsar's armies had actually fought a good fight before revolution defeated them?

There are two arguments, one more plausible than the other. The first, and less plausible, is that the communists, having control over all pre-revolution military records as well, simply did not allow historians to see records that contradicted their views, and thus suppressed the story until the fall of communism. And there is some truth to that. It is not a coincidence that a lot of revisionist history of not just communist, but tsarist Russia as well, started after the fall of communism.However, in this case, there is evidence that could not be kept under lock and key. The Hapsburg empire fell apart after World War I, but Germany survived, and Austria and Hungary retained most of the records of the Empire, and so the records of these campaigns from the opposite side, as well as military assessments of their capabilities, intelligence reports and many other sources were available long before communism fell. So it seems unlikely lack of access to archives alone could explain the silence.

More likely, historians accepted the excuse of a lack of records, and maybe the validity of the pro-communist reports, because the conclusions were pleasing to them. It is hard to imagine now, but reading first hand sources from the late teens and early twenties show a real visceral fear of communism in many nations, including the US. There was a reason so many anarchists and communists were deported, why Sacco and Vanzetti made headlines and why the IWW struck fear into many, communism seemed a palpable threat at the time.

And that real fear of communism makes it easier to explain the tendency to accept the incompetence of the tsarist army. After all, if the tsar were competent, his armies capable, his economy mostly sound, then there was no explanation of communist uprising, it could happen anywhere. But, if it was the outcome of a backwards ruler in a distant, primitive land, who mismanaged a war badly and inspired a communist uprising, then it seemed an unlikely event, a once in a lifetime thing, which would be a very comforting thought to those afraid of a local revolution.

And it is for that reason I think there were many who did not bother to look any deeper at the time, and the years immediately afterward, and, having established that story quite firmly, those who followed, for the most part, simply accepted the monolithic opinion. Only once access was granted to previously unavailable information did anyone realize how off base that traditional understanding might have been, and start to look into the issue once again.

Still, though it is understandable why the story survived so long, and it is easy to see why I never thought to question the conventional wisdom, I still find it embarrassing to have been taken in once more by bogus history, and if I thought it would help, I would swear to be more vigilant in the future. But I know, no matter how hard I try, somewhere out there is another bit of false history to which a majority subscribe, and which I incorrectly accept. And so the best I can promise is, when I find my own mistakes, I will make them known to save everyone else from the same mistake.