Spy vs. spy

Posted by Ross Wolfe

Parvus & Harry Dexter White

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Image: Richard Burton in the Cold War classic,
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, (1965)
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Was Harry Dexter White an inverted Parvus?

Aleskandr Parvus, German imperial spy and prominent Marxist theoretician

Aleskandr Parvus, German imperial spy and prominent Marxist theoretician of permanent revolution

1. A German imperial agent planted into the highest echelons of Second International Marxism substantially contributes to Leon Trotsky‘s theory of permanent revolution and helps smuggle Vladimir Lenin out of Zurich into Russia following the February 1917 revolution, thus paving the way for the glorious October Revolution that same year.

Harry Dexter White

Harry Dexter White, Soviet spy and savior of the postwar US financial system at Bretton Woods

2. A Soviet double-agent planted in the highest echelons of the US financial establishment helps devise the Bretton Woods system, fastening international currency to the gold standard and thereby saving postwar capitalism from itself (until the rise of stagflation).

“Comrades!

The twin fires of war and revolution have devastated both our souls and our cities. The palaces of yesterday’s grandeur stand as burnt-out skeletons. The ruined cities await new builders[…]

To you who accept the legacy of Russia, to you who will (I believe!) tomorrow become masters of the whole world, I address the question: with what fantastic structures will you cover the fires of yesterday?” ⎯ Vladimir Maiakovskii, “An Open Letter to the Workers” (1918)

“Utopia transforms itself into actuality. The fairy tale becomes a reality. The contours of socialism will become overgrown with iron flesh, filled with electric blood, and begin to dwell full of life. The speed of socialist building outstrips the most audacious daring. In this lies the distinctive character and essence of the epoch.” ⎯ I. Chernia,“The Cities of Socialism” (1929)

“The idea of the conquest of the substructure, the earthbound, can be extended even further and calls for the conquest of gravity as such. It demands floating structures, a physical-dynamic architecture.” ⎯ El Lissitzky, The Reconstruction of Architecture in the Soviet Union (1929)