The Kennan-Russel Anti-Tsarist Propaganda Campaign among Russian Prisoners of War in Japan, 1904-1905

Abstract

In 1904-1905, during the Russo-Japanese War, George Kennan and Dr. Nicholas Russel conducted an extensive propaganda campaign among Russian prisoners of war in Japan, whose numbers reached some 70,000 by the end of the decisive battle of Mukden in March 1905. The campaign consisted of informal discussions, lectures, the organization of revolutionary circles, the widespread distribution of Peter Struve's liberal Osvobozhdenie (Liberation) and other literature, and ultimately, of a newspaper published by Russel entitled Iaponiia i Rossiia (Japan and Russia). Kennan and Russel believed that even liberal literature would be sufficiently anti-tsarist to convince many of the prisoners, including some of the younger officers, to become not only politically liberal in sympathy, but also, especially after the Revolution of 1905 had begun, disposed to support revolution as a necessary method to achieve significant change. By their own testimony, and that of Admiral Rozhdestvenskii, the campaign was a resounding success. Aside from its unique contribution to the revolutionary movement, the Kennan-Russel campaign is interesting for several other reasons. First, although this is not a focus of the present study, it may be regarded as a forerunner of the far more elaborate and extensive campaigns conducted by various political groups among prisoners of war during World War I. Second, it is virtually an unknown chapter in the career of George Kennan that illustrates the extent of his commitment not only to publicistic efforts on behalf of opposition elements in Russia, but also to active support of those elements. Third, the role of Russel, the pseudonym for over half a century of Nikolai Konstantinovich Sudzilovskii, typifies both the lifelong revolutionary activity of many emigr6 narodniki (populists) and also the accommodation that many of them made to Western liberalism in order to elicit the active support of men like Kennan for the 'liberation movement. Prior to 1885 George Kennan was a little known part-time writer and