Russian Use of Terrorism in WWI

[Iron_Bismarck]

In 1894, Russia began backing Armenian Christian separatists in Turkey to destabilize the Ottoman Empire in preparation for invasion. These Armenian terrorists, who happened to be Marxists, used assassination and murder in order to incite hatred, division, and violence between Christian Armenians and their Islamic Turkish overlords. This unrest did indeed assist Russia in her invasion of Turkey through the Caucuses in 1914.

Note: This 1894 shift in Russian foreign policy in Armenia coincides with: (1) the formal ratification of the Franco-Russian Alliance (Jan.); (2) the sudden death of the conservative Czar Alexander III (Nov.)

Likewise, it is known that Russia aggressively backed independent Serbia, along with its expansionist goal of building a Pan-Slavic Yugoslavia. And, amidst this Russian support, Serbia in turn backed the terrorist Black Hand who, through similiar means, aggressively destabilized the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Turkey's ally, Russia's foe) in the Balkans.


Thus, from 1894 onwards — to wit, under the new Czar Nicholas II — Russia aggressively employed violent and unorthodox subversion to undermine its Turkish and Austrian foes in preparation for invasion (and expected Imperialist expansion) during WWI.

Note: In this respect, Stalin's use of Communist subversion in Nazi occupied territories during WWII — to wit, the "continuation" of WWI — represents a parallel and continuation of this general trend.

[Iron_Bismarck]

There are clear parallels between the Pan-Slavic nationalist Black Hand in Serbia and the People's Will in Russia (founded in 1879), who perpetrated violence, terrorism, and assassination in Russia — notably the murder of Czar Alexander II (1881).

Thus, Russia's incorporation of terrorism into its foreign policy in 1894 represents an incorporation of the methods of the very revolutionaries undermining the Czarist regime at home. It seems plausible that Czarist officials realized, through first hand experience, the efficacy of such violent subversion, and turned it upon their regime's own enemies.

[John Kilmartin]

Wasn't Stalin originally an agent provocateur paid by the Czar's secret police? The idea being that it was more effective to choose where you were going to be attacked so you can be prepared to counter it and possibly destroy the threat.