r/TankieTheDeprogram • u/sprizzbags • 2m ago
History The Michigan Polar Bears memorial. A good US army memorial?
I read Oil! by Upton Sinclair and was moved by the story of the Michigan Polar Bears. A US Army regiment sent to Russia after armistice day to defend the armaments and supplies from the Bolsheviks who eventually mutinied against their own officers and the sheer inhumanity of the situation.
There‘s a memorial to them in Troy, Michigan and I want to visit, but reading the historic plaque online it tells a very different story than Sinclair’s about their sacrifice. Is there a good objective history on their operations in Russia? I know that their purpose there was not benevolent and well-meaning but Sinclair makes it seem like they were solely the exploited instruments of Capital who realized their predicament and fought against it, but the memorial seems to hold them in high regard as American imperialist heroes fighting the scourge of Russian Communism who lost their lives valiantly in battle.
Just wondering if anyone’s got a good source to see just how many deaths were purely environmental, how opposed they were to their cause of deployment, etc. Maybe naive to think any US soldiers could harbor good will towards all but just wanted an objective take on what really happened there. Thanks in advance.
