Wall Street & the Bolshevik Revolution, by Anthony C. Sutton

The main points

Subtitle, “A remarkable true story of the American capitalists who financed the Russian communists.”

[It] may be observed that both the extreme right and the extreme left of the conventional political spectrum are absolutely collectivist. The national socialist (for example, the fascist) and the international socialist (for example, the Communist) both recommend totalitarian politico-economic systems based on naked, unfettered political power and individual coercion. Both systems require monopoly control of society. . . . Under such an ordering, the corporate welfare state and socialism are at the same end of the spectrum. Hence, we see these attempts at monopoly control of society can have different labels while owning common features. Consequently, one barrier to mature understanding of recent history is the notion that all capitalists are the bitter and unswerving enemies of all Marxists and socialists. This erroneous idea originated with Karl Marx and was undoubtedly useful to his purposes. In fact, the idea is nonsense (Sutton, p. 16,17).

“Trotsky Leaves New York to Complete the Revolution”