Intervention in Russia can be
explained
with a look at three broad themes: the balance of power, the growing fear of Bol- shevism, and the impact of uncertainty.
Revolution and War_nodrm
" The belief that the Czechs were in imminent danger was equally erroneous, and by the time U.
S.
troops arrived, the Czech forces had occupied Vladivostok and were aiding military operations by anti-Bolshevik forces.
Finally, Wilson's desire to aid "liberal" forces in Russia showed scant appreciation for the chaotic politican situation there, where none of the competing factions could reasonably be labeled "liberal.
" Like that of the other members of the Entente, in short, the U.
S.
involvement in Russia was founded on inaccurate and misleading in- formation from the beginning.
53
52 Wilson himself referred to the situation in Russia as "kaleidoscopic," and complained, "As soon as we have thought out a working plan there is a new dissolution of the few crys- tals that had formed there. " Quoted in Trani, "Wilson and the Decision to Intervene," 454; and see also Ullman, Intervention and the War, 194--95; and Kennan, Decision to Intervene, 41s-19.
53 In addition, a prophetic warning against intervention from the U. S. vice consul in Archangel was delayed in transmission and failed to reach Washington until after the deci- sion had been made. See Foreign Relations, 1918, Russia, 2:23o-31; Kennan, Decision to Inter- vene, 74-82, 363-65, 4oo-401; Levin, Wilson and World Politics, 104-105; and Unterberger, America's Siberian Expedition, 45-47. On this general point, see Kennan, Russia Leaves the War, 190.
? ? ? The Russian Revolution
THE GREAT PowERS AND THE RussiAN CIVIL WAR Why Did Intervention Continue?
As Allied intervention in Russia was motivated primarily by fear of Ger- many, the surrender of the Central Powers in November 1918 should have spurred the Entente to withdraw their troops without delay. 54 Instead, foreign involvement in Russia increased after the armistice, and its objective shifted from defeating Germany to overthrowing Bolshevik rule. Yet Western policy remained inconsistent: the Allies backed several desultory efforts to eliminate Bolshevik rule in Russia while simultaneously engaging in sincere but erratic attempts to reach a modus vivendi with the Soviet regirne. 55 Soviet policy was equally contradictory; while trying to persuade the Entente to recognize their government and to cease its support for the anti-Bolshevik Whites, the Soviet leaders also reaffirmed their commitment to world revolution and conducted a propaganda campaign that reinforced Western suspicions.
Overall, the history of foreign involvement in the Russian Civil War fur- ther supports my central arguments. Soviet Russia and the Entente Powers saw each other as a serious threat, but each expected the threat to collapse quickly if it were challenged. Relations between Russia and the outside world were also affected by rivalries among the great powers, exaggerated perceptions of hostility, and the inevitable uncertainties that accompany a revolutionary upheaval.
TheRiseandFalloftheWhites. BythetimeWorldWarIended,Russiawas already engulfed in a bitter civil war. The Czechoslovak Legion's uprising and the Allied intervention had combined to halt the spread of Bolshevik control in Siberia in 1918, and a coalition of anti-Bolshevik forces set up an All-Russian Provisional Government in Omsk in September. Two months later, a group of tsarist officers ousted the socialist members of the regime and appointed Admiral Alexander Kolchak "supreme ruler" of the White forces in Siberia. 56 Bolstered by British and French assistance and support
54 Lloyd George later wrote that with the end of World War I "every practical reason for continuing our costly military efforts in Russia disappeared," and Winston Churchill recalled that the armistice "had altered all Russian values and relations. . . . Every argument which had led to intervention had disappeared. " See David Lloyd George, The Truth about the Peace Treaties (London: Victor Gollancz, 1938}, 1:317; and Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis - 1918-1928: The Aftennath (New York: Charles Scribners, 1929), 165-66.
55 In August, the chairman of the British Eastern Committee, Lord Curzon, complained, "The situation is so complex, and the difficulties of arriving at a decision . . . are so great that, in some instances, it would be no exaggeration to admit that there is no policy at all. " Quoted in Churchill, Aftermath, 244? Chamberlin agrees: "One searches in vain . . . not only for a con- sistent Allied policy, but even for a steadfast policy on the part of the individual Allied pow- ecs. " Russian Revolution, 2:151.
56 The origins of the Kolchak regime are described in Richard Luckett, The White Generals: AnAccountoftheWhiteMovementandtheRussianCivilWar(NewYork:Viking, 1971},214-23;
? ? Revolution and War
from anti-Bolshevik exiles, Kolchak's forces launched a major offensive in the spring of 1919. Their advance brought them within six hundred miles of Moscow by May, but a Soviet counterattack in June soon sent Kolchak''s army reeling backacross Siberia. Omsk was abandoned in November, and Kolchak himself was captured and executed by the Red Army in February
1920. 57
A more serious challenge to the Bolsheviks came from the "Volunteer Army" led by General Anton Denikin. Denikin joined forces with several Cossack groups in 1918, and his forces also received considerable military aid from Britain and France. The Volunteer Army began an offensive nn. March 1919 and was only two hundred fifty miles from Moscow by early October. This proved to be the high-water mark of the Whites' fortunes, however. Denikin's troops were repulsed by a Red Army counterattack at the end of the month. The Volunteer Army was soon in full retreat, and Denikin resigned his command and fled into exile in April 1920. His succes- sor, General Pyotr Wrangel, managed to restore the Whites' morale and launch another abortive offensive in June, but the Volunteer Army no longer posed a real danger to Bolshevik rule. 58
The last White offensive was an unsuccessful assault on Petrograd by General Nikolai Yudenich's "Northwestern White Army," a force of roughly seventeen thousand partisans, prisoners of war, and former tsarist officers, based in Estonia. Beginning a mere hundred miles from its objective, the Northwestern Army had reached the outskirts of the city by October 20. Strengthened by reinforcements from Moscow and Trotsky's inspiring leadl- ership, the defenders soon drove Yudenich's forces back across the border, where they were disarmed and disbanded by the Estonian government. 59 Although the Soviet government still faced the remnants of the Volunteer Army and numerous rural revolts, victory over the Whites was virtually certain by the spring of 1920.
W. Bruce Lincoln, Red Victory: A History ofthe Russian Civil War (New York: Simon and Schus- ter, 1989), 234-49; and Richard M. Connaughton, The Republic of the Ushakovka: Admiral KolchakandtheAlliedIntervention in Siberia, 1918-1920(London: Routledge, 1990), 89-101. For evidence that British officers planned the coup that brought Kolchak to power; see Ullman, Intervention and the War, 279-'84.
57 This summary is based on Lincoln, Red Victory, chap. 7; Footman, Civil War in Russia, chap. 5; Chamberlin, Russian Revolution, 2:184-205; Connaughton, Republic of Ushakovka, chaps. 9-12; and Luckett, White Generals, 223-28, 26o-67, 293--99, 307-14, 343-47.
58 See Lincoln, Red Victory, chaps. 6 and 13; Luckett, White Generals, 174-95, 247-60, 271-93, 322-40, 34s-84; Brinkley, Volunteer Army and Allied Intervention, chaps. 6-8; Chamberlin, Russ- ian Revolution, vol. 2, chaps. 27, 32-33, 35; and Peter Kenez, Civil War in South Russia, 1 9 1 9-1920: The Defeat ofthe Whites (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977).
59 See Ullman, Britain and the R ussian Civil War, 285, 254-56. See also Lincoln, Red Victory, chap. 8; and Luckett, White Generals, 269-70, 299-306, 314-22.
? ? ? The Russian Revolution
Foreign Involvement in the Russian Civil War. Ironically, although Prime Minister David Lloyd George was extremely skeptical about the merits of in- tervention, Great Britain was more extensively involved in Russia than any of the other members of the Entente. 60 The British reinforced the expedi- tionary force in northern Russia after the armistice, and the Allied troops fought seve? ral engagements against Red Army units before finally being withdrawn in October 1919. 61 There was also a small British contingent in Siberia, reinforced by a battalion from India and four thousand Canadians,
although British activities there were limited to arming and training Kolchak's armies. Britain recognized Kolchak's regime as the legitimate gov- ernment of Russia following his successful offensive in the spring of 1919, but its support dwindled rapidly after the Bolsheviks gained the upper hand. The British mission in Siberia withdrew in March 1920, ending what Lord Curzon, now foreign secretary, termed a "highly discreditable enterprise. "62
In southern Russia, Britain provided extensive military aid to Denikin's Volunteer Army, and British troops occupied Baku, Batum, and Tbilisi after the Central Powers withdrew. British advisors helped train and direct the Volunteer Army, British naval units provided artillery support on several occasions, and British pilots and tank units performed minor combat roles during Denikin's drive towards Moscow. When the Soviet counteroffensive threatened to destroy the Volunteer Army in the fall of 1919, the British helped evacuate the survivors and then withdrew most of their own troops. The remainder departed in June and July 1920, thereby ending direct British involvement in the civil war. 63
60 On November 14, three days after the armistice, the War Cabinet decided "to remain in occupation at Murmansk and Archangel for the time being; to continue the Siberian Expedi- tion; to try to persuade the Czechs to remain in Western Siberia, to give General Denikin . . . all possible help in the way of military material; [and] to supply the Baltic States with mili- tary materials. " Quoted in Brinkley, Volunteer Army and Allied Intervention, 75? British opera- tions in Russia between November 1918 and October 1919 cost over ? 28 million, and Britain also provided between ? 20 and ? 50 million in military assistance to the White armies during the same period! . See Ullman, Anglo-Soviet Relations, vol. 2: Britain and the Russian Civil War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), 365-68; Chamberlin, Russian Revolution, 170; and Churchill, Aftermath, 246, 250, 256.
61 The British Commonwealth contributed 6,300 soldiers to the expeditionary force, while the United States and France sent 5,200 and 1,700 respectively. See Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 2o-28, 178-81, 19o-203; Swettenham, Allied Intervention, 53-54, 7o-82, 187-231; and John Silverlight, The Victors'Dilemma: Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War (New York: Weybright and Talley, 1970), 172-98.
62 Britain and France provided Kolchak with 200,000 uniforms, 500 million cartridges, 2,000 machine guns, 400 heavy guns, 135 airplanes, and a small number of tanks. See Foreign Rela- tions, 1919, Russia (Washington, D. C. , U. S. Government Printing Office, 1937), 389. British units also providled artillery support for the Whites on two occasions. See Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 28-3- 6, 253-
63 Ullman reports that the Volunteer Army received "more than 1,200 guns and nearly 2 million shells, 6,100 machine guns, 200,000 rifles, 500 million rounds of small-arms ammuni-
? ? Revolution and War
In the Baltic, the British gave direct military aid to the Northwestern Army and to the independent governments of Estonia, Lithuania, andl Latvia. The Royal Navy maintained the blockade of Russia that had been imposed during the latter stages of World War I. It also conducted severaR dramatic raids against Soviet naval bases during the summer of 1919. Lithuania and Latvia fell to the Bolsheviks in January 1919, but artillery sup- port and supplies from British naval forces helped Estonia retain its inde- pendence through the winter. 64
It was the French government that had been first to advocate intervention in Russia in 1918, but the struggle on the western front prevented them from playing a major role. After the war, however, France quickly reaffirmed the Anglo-French convention dividing southern Russia into French and British zones, and dispatched eighteen hundred troops to Odessa in December. Their objective, according to Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, was to achieve "the isolation of Russian Bolshevism with a view to bringing about its destruction. "65 The expedition proved to be a complete fiasco. Poorly in- formed about the chaotic political conditions in Ukraine, the French soon
? fc;mnd themselves facing Red Army units, Ukrainian separatists, and several hostile partisan groups. Efforts to convince the Ukrainians and the Whites to join forces against the Bolsheviks proved fruitless, and the expeditionary force was forced to withdraw in April. 66
Subsequent French involvement was limited to a small contingent in northern Russia, a military mission in Siberia (intended to lead the Czechoslovak Legion), and a training mission that was sent to aid Kolchak. These measures were meant to restore France's prewar position once the Bol'Sheviks were overthrown. However, French influence with Kolchak never equaled that of Great Britain, and the Czechoslovak Legion was a de-
tion, more than half a million complete uniforms, 629 trucks and ambulances, 279 motorcy- cles, 74 tanks, 6 armored cars, 100 aircraft, twelve 5oo-bed general hospitals, 25 field hospi- tals, and large amounts of communications and engineering equipment. " Britain and the Russian Civil War, 212-16. Also see Richard H. Ullman, Anglo-Soviet Relations, 1917-1921, vol. 3: The Anglo-Soviet Accord (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), 86-8- 7, 337; Lincoln, Red Victory, 198; Brinkley, Volunteer Army and Allied Intervention, 93-94, 100; and Luckett, White Generals, 259-6<>.
64 The Allied blockade of Russia was originally intended to prevent the shipment of war materiel from Russia to Germany; it was kept in place as a means of weakening the Soviet regime. See Geoffrey Bennett, Cowan's War: The Story ofBritish Naval Operations in the Baltic, 1918-1920 (London: Collins, 1964); and Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 52-58, 27}
65 See Brinkley, Volunteer Army and Allied Intervention, 75?
66 The French commander later described the expedition as "the complete failure of a ridiculous adventure. " Quoted in Carley, Revolution and Intervention, 176; and see also John Reshetar, The Ukrainian Revolution, 1917-1920 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952), esp. 233-49; Arthur Adams, Bolsheviks in the Ukraine: The Second Campaign, 1918-1919 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963), 95-99, 192-200; and Kenez, Civil War in South Russia, 17? 202.
? ? ? The Russian Revolution
moralized and ineffective force by the time the French military mission ar- rived. 67
Unlike that of the other great powers, U. S. involvement in Russia did not increase after the armistice with Germany. The United States had already sent fifty-five hundred troops to the Murmansk-Archangel region and roughly nine thousand troops to Siberia, and their activities there reflected the deep ambivalence that characterized U. S. policy throughout this period. 68
While Britain and France hoped to link the expeditionary force in the north with e]ements of the Czechoslovak Legion and other anti-Bolshevik groups, Wilson had restricted U. S. involvement to the protection of the Al- lied military stores. The armistice with Germany superseded this objective, of course, and Wilson announced in February that American forces would be withdrawn "at the earliest possible moment that weather conditions . . . permit. " The U. S. contingent eventually returned home in June 1919, after engaging in several skirmishes with Red Army units in the winter and spring. 69
The U. S. involvement in Siberia was even more limited. U. S. troops did not engage in combat operations, and direct U. S. support for Kolchak was confined to modest amounts of humanitarian aid. 70 Instead, U. S. efforts cen- tered on maintaining the Chinese Eastern and Trans-Siberian railways, re- sulting in a series of confrontations with Japanese troops who were seeking to gain control of the railway zone. The United States and Japan tried to al- leviate these problems by negotiating an Inter-Allied Railway Agreement in January 1919, but tensions persisted throughout the year. 71 Wilson was re-
peatedly pressed to recognize the Kolchak government and support it eco- nomically or militarily, but Kolchak's deteriorating military position and
67 See Carley, Revolution and Intervention, 78-&>, 19<H)2; Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 32-35.
68 See Kennan, Decision to In tervene, 426; Swettenham, Allied Intervention, 54?
69 See Foreign Relations ofthe United States, 1919, Russia, 617-18; and Ernest M. Halliday, The Ignorant Armies (New York: Harper, 1958), 195-96.
70 The U. S. government assisted the relief efforts of the Red Cross, YMCA, and U. S. War Trade Board and helped ship rifles and other supplies purchased by the Russian mission in Washington, using credits extended to the Provisional Government in 1917. See Foreign Rela- tions, 1919, Russia, 325-26, 389, 401-402, 424-25, 435; Unterberger, America's Siberian Expedi-
tion, 150, 162; and John W. Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and the Versailles Peace (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), 284.
71 The Chinese Eastern Railway Zone was formally part of China, but Russia had held de facto control for several decades and the railway was managed by a Russian company. A technical mission fled by John Stevens had been supervising operations on the Far Eastern Railway since 1917 and continued its activities until theJapanese withdrawal in 1922. See Un- terberger, America's Siberian Expedition, 9-10 and chap. 6; Kennan, Decision to Intervene, 64-65, and Russia Leaves the War, 287-90; Foreign Relations, 1919, Russia, 573-78, 588-94; Peter S. H. Tang, Russian and Soviet Policy in Outer Mongolia and Manchuria, 1911-1931 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1959), 123-28; and Pauline Tompkins, American-Russian Relations in the Far East (New York: Macmillan, 1949), 119-33.
? ? Revolution and War
Wilson's continued reservations kept the United States from offering the Omsk regime direct assistance. U. S. officials moved steadily toward with- drawal as Kolchak's prospects faded, although concern over Japanese am- bitions and the desire to safeguard the remaining Czechoslovak troops delayed the departure until April 1920. n
Because the Japanese decision to intervene was not inspired by the goal of defeating Germany, it is not surprising that their presence in Russia did not decline after the war in Europe ended. In addition to the expedition to Vladivostok, Japan sent troops to the Chinese Railway Zone and Russia's Maritime Province and provided arms and advisors to Cossack forces in the trans-Baikal region and to General Horvath's regime in Harbin. 73 These ac- tivities aroused increasing controversy, however, and Japan eventually withdrew its forces from the Amur and trans-Baikal regions early in 1920. Support for a policy of expansion was still strong, however, and hardliners within the army eventually used the massacre of several hundred Japanese civilians by a group of Bolshevik partisans in Nicolaevsk in May 1919 to jus- tify the seizure of Vladivostok, the Maritime Province, and the northern half of Sakhalin Island? 4
Explaining Intervention.
Intervention in Russia can be explained with a look at three broad themes: the balance of power, the growing fear of Bol- shevism, and the impact of uncertainty.
For Great Britain, the desire to profit from Russia's distress gradually overcame the initial doubts about the merits of continued involvement in Russia. 75 Great Britain and Russia had been rivals in Asia for decades, and many British officials gladly saw a weak and divided Russia as a less seri- ous threat to their imperial interests. The British government moved quickly to support the independent states in the Baltic region and Transcaucasia, and British strategic planners also hoped to gain control of the rich Baku oil! fields, if only to deny them to France. In addition, British officials worried!
n LevinarguesthatWilson'spolicywasacompromisebetweenhisreluctancetointervene and his desire to see liberal forces triumph. See Wilson and World Politics, 227-29; and also Un- terberger, America's Siberian Expedition, chap. 10.
73 See Morley, Japanese Thrust, 93-100, 172-76, and chap. 9; and Tatsuji Takeuchi, War and Diplomacy in the Japanese Empire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1935), 204-209.
74 The decision to seize these regions had been made prior to the incidents at Nicolaevsk. See Carr, Bolshevik Revolution, 1:356-57; Canfield F. Smith, Vladivostok under Red and White Rule: Revolu tion and Counterrevolution in the Russian Far East, 192o-1922 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1975), 33-43; and John Albert White, The Siberian Intervention (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950), 286-92.
75 Some British leaders also believed that they had a moral obligation to the Russians who had remained loyal to the Entente during the war. See Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 1 1-14; Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 54; Brinkley, Volunteer Army and Al- lied Intervention, 91-94; and W. P. Coates and Zelda K. Coates, Armed Intervention in Russia, 1918-1922 (London: Victor Gollancz, 1935), 135-37.
? ? The Russian Revolution
that Germany might "restore order" in Russia and eventually forge a pow- erful revisionist alliance. If the original goal of British intervention was now irrelevant, in short, new goals had emerged to replace it_76
French policy during this period revealed similar concerns. Although French hostility to Bolshevism exceeded that of the other great powers, its overriding goal was the future containment of Germany. The French gov- ernment therefore supported the creation of independent buffer states in Eastern Europe and the reconstitution of a stable Russian government in which they enjoyed predominant influence. The expedition to Odessa and French support for Kolchak were also based on the desire to protect French investments in Russia and prevent other great powers from gaining a foothold there once the Bolsheviks were gone. 77
U. S. and Japanese policy evinced a similar attention to relative position.
Japan sought to expand its influence in the Far East while preventing other states from doing the same thing, whereas Wilson's commitment to a liberal world order led him to oppose any attempts to exploit Russian weakness. Thus, in addition to countering Japanese expansion in Siberia, the United States aimed to preserve Russian unity by declining to recognize the new governments in the Baltic and Transcaucasia. 78
Although foreign intervention in revolutionary Russia was originally in- spired by other motives, in short, the intervening powers also saw it as a way to protect or enhance their relative positions. This motivation was most apparent in the case of Japan, but competition among the Entente reemerged once the Central Powers had been defeated. As Lenin had fore-
76 In November, both Lloyd George and Balfour questioned the wisdom of British involve- ment in Russia, and the chief of the Imperial General Staff recommended that Britain "liqui- date" its commitments as soon as possible. Less than a month later, however, the General Staff warned of French influence in the Caucausus and stated, "It would be most undesirable for the approaches to India from South Russia, the Black Sea, and Turkey . . . to be placed at the disposal of an ambitious military power, which, although friendly to us at the moment, is our historical world rival. " See Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 51-56; Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 11-15, 54-55, 66-S6; and Silverlight, Victors'Dilemma, 86-91.
n At times, the French also favored creating pro-French states in the Crimea and Ukraine, as a further buffer against Germany and as an avenue for French trade and investment. French officials also tried to establish several banques d'emission to issue new currency in the White areas of Russia, in order to weaken the Bolshevik regime and enhance France's own in- fluence. See Carley, Revolution and Intervention, chaps. 7-8; Amo J. Mayer, Politics and Diplo- macy ofPeacemaking: Containment and Counterrevolution at Versailles, 1918-1919 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967), 181-83; Unterberger, America's Siberian Expedition, 214; Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 57-59; Brinkley, Volunteer Army and Allied Intervention, 75--'7,7 88--9o; and Silverlight, Victors'Dilemma, 118--19.
78 Wilson also encouraged Kolchak to recognize the autonomy of these regions until their final status could be determined. In the end, however, Wilson favored allowing the Russians "to fight it out among themselves" and made aid to the Whites conditional on pledges to im- plement democratic reforms. See Levin, Wilson and World Politics, 109-110, 197-207, 224-26, 231; and Foreign Relations, 1919, Russia, 367-70.
[1531
? ? Revolution and War
seen, these concerns both encouraged continued foreign involvement in Russia and made it harder for the intervening powers to coordinate their af- tivities.
Foreign powers were also encouraged to intervene in Russia by thenr growing fear of ideological contagion. This concern had lain dormant as long as Germany posed the greater danger, but the threat of revolutionary subversion began receiving more attention after the Central Powers' defeat. In December 1918, Curzon justified British intervention in southern Russia by claiming that "anarchy, disorder or Bolshevism there" would "in- evitably" affect the British position in the Near East and India. In the same spirit, Winston Churchill accused the Bolsheviks of seeking "to make the soldiers mutiny against their officers, to raise the poor against the bour- geois, . . . the workmen against the employers, . . . [and] to paralyze the country lby general strikes. " According to General Sir Henry Wilson, chief of the Imperial General Staff, by October 1918 the British Cabinet was united in the belief that "our real danger now is not the Boches but Bolshevism. "79
Other Allied officials held similar views. Woodrow Wilson told his Cabi- net that "the spirit of the Bolsheviki is lurking everywhere. " U. S. Secretary of State Robert Lansing described Bolshevism as "the most hideous and monstrous thing that the human mind has ever conceived" and lamented that it was now "spreading westward. " The commander of the Allied armies, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, agreed to allow German units to remain nn Eastern Europe to protect the local population "against the horrors of Bol- shevism," and the French General Staff described Russia as "an immense hotbed of anarchist propaganda. " Not to be outdone, the Quai d'Orsay now declared that the danger from Bolshevism was "more fearful for humanity" than a German victory would have been. 80
This fear of Bolshevism was magnified by a belief that World War I had left Europe especially vulnerable to revolutionary subversion. The war had discredited the old European order, the German and Austro-Hungarian monarchies had already collapsed, and famine and poverty were wide- spread. As a French General Staff memorandum put it, "this new and mon- strous form of imperialism represented a danger all the more fearful as it arose at the precise moment when the impending end of the war would pro- voke in every country a grave social and economic crisis. " Lloyd George re-
79 Even before the war was over, a British Foreign Office memorandum warned of the d. m- ger preselllted by the Bolshevik "doctrine of irreconcilable class war. " Quoted in Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 11, 67; Churchill, Aftermath, 274-75; and Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 21.
80 Lansing also believed that Bolshevism "finds its adherents among the criminal, the de- praved, and the mentally unfit" and "seeks to devour civilized society and reduce mankind to the state of beasts. " Quotations from Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 14-15, 29-30; and Carley, Revolution and Intervention, 106-10.
? ? The Russian Revolution
portedly believed that revolution in England was not out of the question; both he and French premier Clemenceau thought "anything was possible in Italy"; and Wilson regarded Central Europe as especially vulnerable. Fear of Bolshevism also raised Japan's interest in Siberia, which it saw as a potential buffer against Communist subversion. Thus, intervention was sustained by two key elements of threat: the belief that Soviet Russia was hostile and the fear that Bolshevism might be contagious. 51
Despite the widespread consensus that Bolshevism was a threat, how- ever, there was little agreement on how to respond to it. 82 One barrier to co- operation has already been noted: once Germany was defeated, each member of the Entente began pursuing its own interests even when this in- terfered with the shared goal of containing Bolshevism. 83 A second barrier was the lack of reliable information on the conditions in Russia or the likeli- hood that the revolution would spread. The effects of this lack were mixed, however, as it both encouraged attempts to isolate the Soviet leadership and discouraged an all-out effort to remove it. In the end, the Allies did enough to sustain the Whites and solidify Soviet animosity, but not enough to re- place the Soviet regime with one more to their liking. 84
Not surprisingly, supporters of all-out intervention (such as Churchill, Foch, and Clemenceau) saw Bolshevism in Russia as a particularly grave threat and stressed that ousting the Bolsheviks would be relatively easy. 85 By
81 House also believed that "Bolshevism is gaining ground everywhere," and a confiden- tial memorandum by Lloyd George stated that "the whole of Europe is filled with the spirit of revolution. " See Charles Seymour, ed. , The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1926-28), 4:118-19; Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 14, 389-91; Levin, Wilson and World Politics, 186-3-9 ; Carley, Revolution and Intervention, 110; Carr, Bolshevik Revolution, 3:126-30; Smith, Vladivostok under Red and White Rule, 34, 43; and Cham- berlin, Russian Revolution, 2:152.
82 On February 14, Churchill proposed sending "volunteers, technical experts, arms, muni- tions, tanks [and] aeroplanes" to the Whites; two weeks later, Foch suggested that the Allies equip and train a large body of Poles, Finns, Czechs, Rumanians, and Greeks for intervention in Russia, thereby eliminating the need for Allied troops. He offered a less ambitious plan for aid to Poland and Rumania on March 17 and reiterated the proposal ten days later, but each of these suggestions was vetoed by Great Britain and the United States. In May, Lloyd George suggested that Allied troops in northern Russia should "march to meet Kolchak," but Wilson rejected the suggestion. Churchill and others again pressed for Allied action during the fall of 1919, without success. See Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 119-28, 136-40, 164--65, 222-23, 261--62; and Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 134-40.
83 According to Thompson, "There was more improvization than far-sighted planning, more disparity than unity of purpose, and more inconsistency than steadfastness in the var- ious policies and plans of the Western statesmen. " Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 6o; and also Bradley, Allied Intervention, 132-33.
84 Churchill later recalled that "enough foreign troops entered Russia to incur all the objec- tions which were patent against intervention, but not enough to break the then gimcrack
structure of the Soviet power. " See Churchill, Aftermath, 285.
85 The French chief of staff endorsed Churchill's February 14 proposal for intervention by
noting that the Red Army had "irremediable sources of weakness," that its successes were
? ? Revolution and War
contrast, opponents of intervention argued that removing the Bolsheviks would be costly and difficult, that the war-weary Allied populations would not support the effort, and that foreign intervention would merely increase popular support for the Bolshevik regime. Thus, Lloyd George opposed Churchill's proposal for an anti-Bolshevik crusade by arguing that "aggres- sion against Russia is a way to strengthen Bolshevism in Russia and create it at home," and Wilson countered proposals for military action by saying,
"To attempt to arrest a revolutionary movement by means of deployed armies is like trying to use a broom to sweep back the tide. " Opponents also maintained that relief aid to Europe would be a better antidote; as Wilson put it, "The only way to take action against Bolshevism was to eliminate its causes. "86
Without reliable information about conditions in Russia or the likelihood that the revolution would spread or collapse, neither side could marshal de- finitive evidence to support its policy recommendations. Advocates of in- tervention pointed to the Whites' successes during the spring and summer of 1918 while opponents invoked the growing strength of the Red Army, the sheer size of Russia's territory, and the dissension and corruption that af- flicted the Whites. In the absence of solid information about Bolshevik and White Russian prospects, however, weighing the pros and cons of alterna- tive policies proved to be extremely difficult. 87
Evidence of Bolshevik intentions was equally ambiguous. The Soviets had made no secret of their revolutionary aims, of course, and the image of Bol-
due to the fact that "it has never encountered adversaries superior to it as regards either num- bers, supplies, or moral[e)," and, in conclusion, that "even though numerically inferior, reg- ular Allied troops would easily defeat it. . . . Such a success could be won at very slight cost. " On February 25, Marshal Foch made a sweeping proposal for intervention and argued that "the Eastern problem would not be more difficult to solve than the Western problem. . . . To fight against such an enemy, troops . . . need not be strongly organised or of superior quality. . . . But great numbers were required which could be obtained by mobilizing the Finns, Poles, Czechs, Rumanians, and Greeks, as well as the Russian pro-Ally elements still available. . . .
If this were done, 1919 would see the end of Bolshevism, just as 1918 had seen the end of Prussianism. " See Foreign Relations, 1919, Paris Peace Conference (Washington, D. C. : U. S. Gov- ernment Printing Office, 1942-47), 4:to-t3, 122-23; and Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 182-84.
86 In November 1918, Balfour noted that Britain "would certainly refuse to see its forces . . . dissipated over the huge expanse of Russia in order to carry out political reforms in a State which is no longer a belligerent Ally. " Quoted in Lincoln, Red Victory, 272; and Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 11, 126, 139. See also Levin, Wilson and World Politics, 204-205; For-
. eign Relations, 1919, Peace Conference, 3:648-50; Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 94, too; Mayer, Politics and Diplomacy, 457-58; and Carley, Revolu tion and Intervention, 112.
87 As Ullman points out, "From the departure of Bruce Lockhart from Russia at the end of September 1918 until the arrival in Moscow of the first British mission in March 1921-Lon- don had no overt official source of information about conditions within the territory con- trolled by the Soviet regime. " See Britain and the Russian Civil War, 173-77; and Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 378-84.
? ? ? ? ? The Russian Revolution
shevik aggressiveness was reinforced by the Red Terror that swept Moscow in September 1918, together with Joffe's subversive activities in Germany and a bellicose message from the Soviet commissar for foreign affairs, Gyorgy Chicherin, to Wilson in October 1918. 88 On the other hand, the Soviet govern- ment also made several conciliatory gestures at the end of the war and seemed genuinely interested in a formal peace settlement. Thus, Lansing, Churchill, and Foch concluded that the Soviet government was irrevocably hostile while Lloyd George and Wilson thought some form of accommodation might be possible, and both sides found evidence to support their positions. 89
These uncertainties help explain why the Allied leaders could not agree on a consistent policy toward the Bolshevik regime. In some cases, lack of infor- mation encouraged greater involvement; for example, the disastrous expedi- tion to Odessa was largely the result of France's ignorance about political conditions there. Similarly, Wilson's early faith in the strength of "liberal" forces in Russia accounts in part for his own decision to intervene, and he moved to end U. S. intervention once he realized this view was incorrect. 90
On balance, uncertainty about the situation in Russia probably did more to restrain intervention than to promote it. In December 1918, for example, Lloyd George noted "the absolute contradiction between information sup- plied from Russia by men of equally good authority" and complained that "Russia was a jungle in which no one could say what was within a few yards of him. " Four months later, he told the House of Commons that "there is no longer even an entity that could accurately be called 'Russia' " and de- clared it impossible to know which authorities actually controlled what ter- ritories. Because Russia was a volcano "still in fierce eruption," he concluded that the prudent course was to keep one's distance while trying to prevent the lava from spreading. Aid to the Whites was justified by the need to honor wartime commitments and support for the border states was a way to contain the Bolshevik "eruption," but the unclear situation within
Russia advised against a direct Allied attempt to remove the Bolsheviks by force. 91 Similarly, Wilson admittedly privately that his impressions of Russia
89 I n January 1918, Lansing wrote that Lenin and Trotsky "were so bitterly hostile to the present social order . . . that nothing could be said which would gain their favor or render them amenable to reason. " See Arno J. Mayer, Political Origins of the New Diplomacy, 1917-1918 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), 343? His view had not changed by No- vember 1919, when he warned the British and French governments that Lenin and the other Bolsheviks would never "give up permanently the dream of a world-wide revolution and loyally enter into friendly relations with governments which are not communistic. " See For- eign Relations, 1919, Russia, 129-30.
90 Lloyd George shared Wilson's skepticism, but his freedom of action was constrained by Conservative opposition. See Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 240; Levin, Wilson and World Politics, 231-32; and Ullman, Anglo-Soviet Accord, 9-11.
91 See Lloyd George, Truth about the Peace Treaties, 1:325-30; and Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 96-97, 153-55, 173-77-
88 See Degras, Soviet Documents, 1:112-20; and Foreign Relations, 1918, Russia, 1:68<>--91.
? ? Revolution and War
were based on "indefinite information," and he told the other Allied leaders in May that he no longer felt "the same chagrin that he had formerly felt a? having no policy in regard to Russia. It had been impossible to have a pol? ? icy hitherto. " Now, he argued, "the proper policy of the Allied and Associ? ? ated Powers was to clear out of Russia and leave it to the Russians to fight it out among themselves. "92
Given tlhis pervasive uncertainty, it is hardly surprising? that Allied ambi- tions rose whenever the Whites did well and fell whenever they faltered. In the spring of 1919, for example, the establishment of a short-lived Commu- nist regime in Hungary and Kolchak's successful offensive in Siberia brought renewed calls to recognize the Whites and provide them with ad- ditional military support. Even Lloyd George now endorsed plans for a joint offensive by Kolchak' s White Army and the Allied expeditionary force in northern Russia, with the aim of eliminating the Soviet regime once and for all. The information upon which these hopes were based was already outdated, however, and the pledge of additional military support did not reach Kolchak until after the Red Army had launched the counteroffensive that would destroy his army and cost him his life. 93 The offensives by Denikin and Yudenich rekindled Allied hopes in the summer and fall and sparked new debates over Allied involvement, but the eventual failure of these campaigns fed the growing awareness that the Soviet regime would be around for some time.
The Failure ofAccommodation
The Entente's halfhearted efforts to overthrow the Soviet regime were ac- companied by equally feeble attempts to include Russia in the postwar peace settlement. Despite having sent additional troops to Russia and pro- vided the White armies with generous military assistance, the Western pow- ers repeatedly disavowed any desire to interfere in Russia's internal affairs and tried to end the civil war on several occasions. These contradictory and unsuccessful initiatives exemplify the obstacles that can hamper efforts to improve relations with a revolutionary regime.
The Soviet Peace Offensive. The Soviets started trying to reach a modus vivendi with the Entente as soon as World War I ended. Like the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Soviets' peace offensive was based on a candid appraisal of their present weakness-and on their optimistic faith that the revolution would eventually spread to other countries. Lenin was well aware that in-
92 Quoted in Frederick S. Calhoun, Power and Principle: Armed Intervention in Wilsonian For- eign Policy (Kent: Kent State University Press, 1986), 232, 238.
93 See Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 164-65; and Foreign Relations, 1919, Russia, 632-33?
? ? ?
52 Wilson himself referred to the situation in Russia as "kaleidoscopic," and complained, "As soon as we have thought out a working plan there is a new dissolution of the few crys- tals that had formed there. " Quoted in Trani, "Wilson and the Decision to Intervene," 454; and see also Ullman, Intervention and the War, 194--95; and Kennan, Decision to Intervene, 41s-19.
53 In addition, a prophetic warning against intervention from the U. S. vice consul in Archangel was delayed in transmission and failed to reach Washington until after the deci- sion had been made. See Foreign Relations, 1918, Russia, 2:23o-31; Kennan, Decision to Inter- vene, 74-82, 363-65, 4oo-401; Levin, Wilson and World Politics, 104-105; and Unterberger, America's Siberian Expedition, 45-47. On this general point, see Kennan, Russia Leaves the War, 190.
? ? ? The Russian Revolution
THE GREAT PowERS AND THE RussiAN CIVIL WAR Why Did Intervention Continue?
As Allied intervention in Russia was motivated primarily by fear of Ger- many, the surrender of the Central Powers in November 1918 should have spurred the Entente to withdraw their troops without delay. 54 Instead, foreign involvement in Russia increased after the armistice, and its objective shifted from defeating Germany to overthrowing Bolshevik rule. Yet Western policy remained inconsistent: the Allies backed several desultory efforts to eliminate Bolshevik rule in Russia while simultaneously engaging in sincere but erratic attempts to reach a modus vivendi with the Soviet regirne. 55 Soviet policy was equally contradictory; while trying to persuade the Entente to recognize their government and to cease its support for the anti-Bolshevik Whites, the Soviet leaders also reaffirmed their commitment to world revolution and conducted a propaganda campaign that reinforced Western suspicions.
Overall, the history of foreign involvement in the Russian Civil War fur- ther supports my central arguments. Soviet Russia and the Entente Powers saw each other as a serious threat, but each expected the threat to collapse quickly if it were challenged. Relations between Russia and the outside world were also affected by rivalries among the great powers, exaggerated perceptions of hostility, and the inevitable uncertainties that accompany a revolutionary upheaval.
TheRiseandFalloftheWhites. BythetimeWorldWarIended,Russiawas already engulfed in a bitter civil war. The Czechoslovak Legion's uprising and the Allied intervention had combined to halt the spread of Bolshevik control in Siberia in 1918, and a coalition of anti-Bolshevik forces set up an All-Russian Provisional Government in Omsk in September. Two months later, a group of tsarist officers ousted the socialist members of the regime and appointed Admiral Alexander Kolchak "supreme ruler" of the White forces in Siberia. 56 Bolstered by British and French assistance and support
54 Lloyd George later wrote that with the end of World War I "every practical reason for continuing our costly military efforts in Russia disappeared," and Winston Churchill recalled that the armistice "had altered all Russian values and relations. . . . Every argument which had led to intervention had disappeared. " See David Lloyd George, The Truth about the Peace Treaties (London: Victor Gollancz, 1938}, 1:317; and Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis - 1918-1928: The Aftennath (New York: Charles Scribners, 1929), 165-66.
55 In August, the chairman of the British Eastern Committee, Lord Curzon, complained, "The situation is so complex, and the difficulties of arriving at a decision . . . are so great that, in some instances, it would be no exaggeration to admit that there is no policy at all. " Quoted in Churchill, Aftermath, 244? Chamberlin agrees: "One searches in vain . . . not only for a con- sistent Allied policy, but even for a steadfast policy on the part of the individual Allied pow- ecs. " Russian Revolution, 2:151.
56 The origins of the Kolchak regime are described in Richard Luckett, The White Generals: AnAccountoftheWhiteMovementandtheRussianCivilWar(NewYork:Viking, 1971},214-23;
? ? Revolution and War
from anti-Bolshevik exiles, Kolchak's forces launched a major offensive in the spring of 1919. Their advance brought them within six hundred miles of Moscow by May, but a Soviet counterattack in June soon sent Kolchak''s army reeling backacross Siberia. Omsk was abandoned in November, and Kolchak himself was captured and executed by the Red Army in February
1920. 57
A more serious challenge to the Bolsheviks came from the "Volunteer Army" led by General Anton Denikin. Denikin joined forces with several Cossack groups in 1918, and his forces also received considerable military aid from Britain and France. The Volunteer Army began an offensive nn. March 1919 and was only two hundred fifty miles from Moscow by early October. This proved to be the high-water mark of the Whites' fortunes, however. Denikin's troops were repulsed by a Red Army counterattack at the end of the month. The Volunteer Army was soon in full retreat, and Denikin resigned his command and fled into exile in April 1920. His succes- sor, General Pyotr Wrangel, managed to restore the Whites' morale and launch another abortive offensive in June, but the Volunteer Army no longer posed a real danger to Bolshevik rule. 58
The last White offensive was an unsuccessful assault on Petrograd by General Nikolai Yudenich's "Northwestern White Army," a force of roughly seventeen thousand partisans, prisoners of war, and former tsarist officers, based in Estonia. Beginning a mere hundred miles from its objective, the Northwestern Army had reached the outskirts of the city by October 20. Strengthened by reinforcements from Moscow and Trotsky's inspiring leadl- ership, the defenders soon drove Yudenich's forces back across the border, where they were disarmed and disbanded by the Estonian government. 59 Although the Soviet government still faced the remnants of the Volunteer Army and numerous rural revolts, victory over the Whites was virtually certain by the spring of 1920.
W. Bruce Lincoln, Red Victory: A History ofthe Russian Civil War (New York: Simon and Schus- ter, 1989), 234-49; and Richard M. Connaughton, The Republic of the Ushakovka: Admiral KolchakandtheAlliedIntervention in Siberia, 1918-1920(London: Routledge, 1990), 89-101. For evidence that British officers planned the coup that brought Kolchak to power; see Ullman, Intervention and the War, 279-'84.
57 This summary is based on Lincoln, Red Victory, chap. 7; Footman, Civil War in Russia, chap. 5; Chamberlin, Russian Revolution, 2:184-205; Connaughton, Republic of Ushakovka, chaps. 9-12; and Luckett, White Generals, 223-28, 26o-67, 293--99, 307-14, 343-47.
58 See Lincoln, Red Victory, chaps. 6 and 13; Luckett, White Generals, 174-95, 247-60, 271-93, 322-40, 34s-84; Brinkley, Volunteer Army and Allied Intervention, chaps. 6-8; Chamberlin, Russ- ian Revolution, vol. 2, chaps. 27, 32-33, 35; and Peter Kenez, Civil War in South Russia, 1 9 1 9-1920: The Defeat ofthe Whites (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977).
59 See Ullman, Britain and the R ussian Civil War, 285, 254-56. See also Lincoln, Red Victory, chap. 8; and Luckett, White Generals, 269-70, 299-306, 314-22.
? ? ? The Russian Revolution
Foreign Involvement in the Russian Civil War. Ironically, although Prime Minister David Lloyd George was extremely skeptical about the merits of in- tervention, Great Britain was more extensively involved in Russia than any of the other members of the Entente. 60 The British reinforced the expedi- tionary force in northern Russia after the armistice, and the Allied troops fought seve? ral engagements against Red Army units before finally being withdrawn in October 1919. 61 There was also a small British contingent in Siberia, reinforced by a battalion from India and four thousand Canadians,
although British activities there were limited to arming and training Kolchak's armies. Britain recognized Kolchak's regime as the legitimate gov- ernment of Russia following his successful offensive in the spring of 1919, but its support dwindled rapidly after the Bolsheviks gained the upper hand. The British mission in Siberia withdrew in March 1920, ending what Lord Curzon, now foreign secretary, termed a "highly discreditable enterprise. "62
In southern Russia, Britain provided extensive military aid to Denikin's Volunteer Army, and British troops occupied Baku, Batum, and Tbilisi after the Central Powers withdrew. British advisors helped train and direct the Volunteer Army, British naval units provided artillery support on several occasions, and British pilots and tank units performed minor combat roles during Denikin's drive towards Moscow. When the Soviet counteroffensive threatened to destroy the Volunteer Army in the fall of 1919, the British helped evacuate the survivors and then withdrew most of their own troops. The remainder departed in June and July 1920, thereby ending direct British involvement in the civil war. 63
60 On November 14, three days after the armistice, the War Cabinet decided "to remain in occupation at Murmansk and Archangel for the time being; to continue the Siberian Expedi- tion; to try to persuade the Czechs to remain in Western Siberia, to give General Denikin . . . all possible help in the way of military material; [and] to supply the Baltic States with mili- tary materials. " Quoted in Brinkley, Volunteer Army and Allied Intervention, 75? British opera- tions in Russia between November 1918 and October 1919 cost over ? 28 million, and Britain also provided between ? 20 and ? 50 million in military assistance to the White armies during the same period! . See Ullman, Anglo-Soviet Relations, vol. 2: Britain and the Russian Civil War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), 365-68; Chamberlin, Russian Revolution, 170; and Churchill, Aftermath, 246, 250, 256.
61 The British Commonwealth contributed 6,300 soldiers to the expeditionary force, while the United States and France sent 5,200 and 1,700 respectively. See Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 2o-28, 178-81, 19o-203; Swettenham, Allied Intervention, 53-54, 7o-82, 187-231; and John Silverlight, The Victors'Dilemma: Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War (New York: Weybright and Talley, 1970), 172-98.
62 Britain and France provided Kolchak with 200,000 uniforms, 500 million cartridges, 2,000 machine guns, 400 heavy guns, 135 airplanes, and a small number of tanks. See Foreign Rela- tions, 1919, Russia (Washington, D. C. , U. S. Government Printing Office, 1937), 389. British units also providled artillery support for the Whites on two occasions. See Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 28-3- 6, 253-
63 Ullman reports that the Volunteer Army received "more than 1,200 guns and nearly 2 million shells, 6,100 machine guns, 200,000 rifles, 500 million rounds of small-arms ammuni-
? ? Revolution and War
In the Baltic, the British gave direct military aid to the Northwestern Army and to the independent governments of Estonia, Lithuania, andl Latvia. The Royal Navy maintained the blockade of Russia that had been imposed during the latter stages of World War I. It also conducted severaR dramatic raids against Soviet naval bases during the summer of 1919. Lithuania and Latvia fell to the Bolsheviks in January 1919, but artillery sup- port and supplies from British naval forces helped Estonia retain its inde- pendence through the winter. 64
It was the French government that had been first to advocate intervention in Russia in 1918, but the struggle on the western front prevented them from playing a major role. After the war, however, France quickly reaffirmed the Anglo-French convention dividing southern Russia into French and British zones, and dispatched eighteen hundred troops to Odessa in December. Their objective, according to Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, was to achieve "the isolation of Russian Bolshevism with a view to bringing about its destruction. "65 The expedition proved to be a complete fiasco. Poorly in- formed about the chaotic political conditions in Ukraine, the French soon
? fc;mnd themselves facing Red Army units, Ukrainian separatists, and several hostile partisan groups. Efforts to convince the Ukrainians and the Whites to join forces against the Bolsheviks proved fruitless, and the expeditionary force was forced to withdraw in April. 66
Subsequent French involvement was limited to a small contingent in northern Russia, a military mission in Siberia (intended to lead the Czechoslovak Legion), and a training mission that was sent to aid Kolchak. These measures were meant to restore France's prewar position once the Bol'Sheviks were overthrown. However, French influence with Kolchak never equaled that of Great Britain, and the Czechoslovak Legion was a de-
tion, more than half a million complete uniforms, 629 trucks and ambulances, 279 motorcy- cles, 74 tanks, 6 armored cars, 100 aircraft, twelve 5oo-bed general hospitals, 25 field hospi- tals, and large amounts of communications and engineering equipment. " Britain and the Russian Civil War, 212-16. Also see Richard H. Ullman, Anglo-Soviet Relations, 1917-1921, vol. 3: The Anglo-Soviet Accord (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), 86-8- 7, 337; Lincoln, Red Victory, 198; Brinkley, Volunteer Army and Allied Intervention, 93-94, 100; and Luckett, White Generals, 259-6<>.
64 The Allied blockade of Russia was originally intended to prevent the shipment of war materiel from Russia to Germany; it was kept in place as a means of weakening the Soviet regime. See Geoffrey Bennett, Cowan's War: The Story ofBritish Naval Operations in the Baltic, 1918-1920 (London: Collins, 1964); and Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 52-58, 27}
65 See Brinkley, Volunteer Army and Allied Intervention, 75?
66 The French commander later described the expedition as "the complete failure of a ridiculous adventure. " Quoted in Carley, Revolution and Intervention, 176; and see also John Reshetar, The Ukrainian Revolution, 1917-1920 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952), esp. 233-49; Arthur Adams, Bolsheviks in the Ukraine: The Second Campaign, 1918-1919 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963), 95-99, 192-200; and Kenez, Civil War in South Russia, 17? 202.
? ? ? The Russian Revolution
moralized and ineffective force by the time the French military mission ar- rived. 67
Unlike that of the other great powers, U. S. involvement in Russia did not increase after the armistice with Germany. The United States had already sent fifty-five hundred troops to the Murmansk-Archangel region and roughly nine thousand troops to Siberia, and their activities there reflected the deep ambivalence that characterized U. S. policy throughout this period. 68
While Britain and France hoped to link the expeditionary force in the north with e]ements of the Czechoslovak Legion and other anti-Bolshevik groups, Wilson had restricted U. S. involvement to the protection of the Al- lied military stores. The armistice with Germany superseded this objective, of course, and Wilson announced in February that American forces would be withdrawn "at the earliest possible moment that weather conditions . . . permit. " The U. S. contingent eventually returned home in June 1919, after engaging in several skirmishes with Red Army units in the winter and spring. 69
The U. S. involvement in Siberia was even more limited. U. S. troops did not engage in combat operations, and direct U. S. support for Kolchak was confined to modest amounts of humanitarian aid. 70 Instead, U. S. efforts cen- tered on maintaining the Chinese Eastern and Trans-Siberian railways, re- sulting in a series of confrontations with Japanese troops who were seeking to gain control of the railway zone. The United States and Japan tried to al- leviate these problems by negotiating an Inter-Allied Railway Agreement in January 1919, but tensions persisted throughout the year. 71 Wilson was re-
peatedly pressed to recognize the Kolchak government and support it eco- nomically or militarily, but Kolchak's deteriorating military position and
67 See Carley, Revolution and Intervention, 78-&>, 19<H)2; Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 32-35.
68 See Kennan, Decision to In tervene, 426; Swettenham, Allied Intervention, 54?
69 See Foreign Relations ofthe United States, 1919, Russia, 617-18; and Ernest M. Halliday, The Ignorant Armies (New York: Harper, 1958), 195-96.
70 The U. S. government assisted the relief efforts of the Red Cross, YMCA, and U. S. War Trade Board and helped ship rifles and other supplies purchased by the Russian mission in Washington, using credits extended to the Provisional Government in 1917. See Foreign Rela- tions, 1919, Russia, 325-26, 389, 401-402, 424-25, 435; Unterberger, America's Siberian Expedi-
tion, 150, 162; and John W. Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and the Versailles Peace (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), 284.
71 The Chinese Eastern Railway Zone was formally part of China, but Russia had held de facto control for several decades and the railway was managed by a Russian company. A technical mission fled by John Stevens had been supervising operations on the Far Eastern Railway since 1917 and continued its activities until theJapanese withdrawal in 1922. See Un- terberger, America's Siberian Expedition, 9-10 and chap. 6; Kennan, Decision to Intervene, 64-65, and Russia Leaves the War, 287-90; Foreign Relations, 1919, Russia, 573-78, 588-94; Peter S. H. Tang, Russian and Soviet Policy in Outer Mongolia and Manchuria, 1911-1931 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1959), 123-28; and Pauline Tompkins, American-Russian Relations in the Far East (New York: Macmillan, 1949), 119-33.
? ? Revolution and War
Wilson's continued reservations kept the United States from offering the Omsk regime direct assistance. U. S. officials moved steadily toward with- drawal as Kolchak's prospects faded, although concern over Japanese am- bitions and the desire to safeguard the remaining Czechoslovak troops delayed the departure until April 1920. n
Because the Japanese decision to intervene was not inspired by the goal of defeating Germany, it is not surprising that their presence in Russia did not decline after the war in Europe ended. In addition to the expedition to Vladivostok, Japan sent troops to the Chinese Railway Zone and Russia's Maritime Province and provided arms and advisors to Cossack forces in the trans-Baikal region and to General Horvath's regime in Harbin. 73 These ac- tivities aroused increasing controversy, however, and Japan eventually withdrew its forces from the Amur and trans-Baikal regions early in 1920. Support for a policy of expansion was still strong, however, and hardliners within the army eventually used the massacre of several hundred Japanese civilians by a group of Bolshevik partisans in Nicolaevsk in May 1919 to jus- tify the seizure of Vladivostok, the Maritime Province, and the northern half of Sakhalin Island? 4
Explaining Intervention.
Intervention in Russia can be explained with a look at three broad themes: the balance of power, the growing fear of Bol- shevism, and the impact of uncertainty.
For Great Britain, the desire to profit from Russia's distress gradually overcame the initial doubts about the merits of continued involvement in Russia. 75 Great Britain and Russia had been rivals in Asia for decades, and many British officials gladly saw a weak and divided Russia as a less seri- ous threat to their imperial interests. The British government moved quickly to support the independent states in the Baltic region and Transcaucasia, and British strategic planners also hoped to gain control of the rich Baku oil! fields, if only to deny them to France. In addition, British officials worried!
n LevinarguesthatWilson'spolicywasacompromisebetweenhisreluctancetointervene and his desire to see liberal forces triumph. See Wilson and World Politics, 227-29; and also Un- terberger, America's Siberian Expedition, chap. 10.
73 See Morley, Japanese Thrust, 93-100, 172-76, and chap. 9; and Tatsuji Takeuchi, War and Diplomacy in the Japanese Empire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1935), 204-209.
74 The decision to seize these regions had been made prior to the incidents at Nicolaevsk. See Carr, Bolshevik Revolution, 1:356-57; Canfield F. Smith, Vladivostok under Red and White Rule: Revolu tion and Counterrevolution in the Russian Far East, 192o-1922 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1975), 33-43; and John Albert White, The Siberian Intervention (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950), 286-92.
75 Some British leaders also believed that they had a moral obligation to the Russians who had remained loyal to the Entente during the war. See Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 1 1-14; Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 54; Brinkley, Volunteer Army and Al- lied Intervention, 91-94; and W. P. Coates and Zelda K. Coates, Armed Intervention in Russia, 1918-1922 (London: Victor Gollancz, 1935), 135-37.
? ? The Russian Revolution
that Germany might "restore order" in Russia and eventually forge a pow- erful revisionist alliance. If the original goal of British intervention was now irrelevant, in short, new goals had emerged to replace it_76
French policy during this period revealed similar concerns. Although French hostility to Bolshevism exceeded that of the other great powers, its overriding goal was the future containment of Germany. The French gov- ernment therefore supported the creation of independent buffer states in Eastern Europe and the reconstitution of a stable Russian government in which they enjoyed predominant influence. The expedition to Odessa and French support for Kolchak were also based on the desire to protect French investments in Russia and prevent other great powers from gaining a foothold there once the Bolsheviks were gone. 77
U. S. and Japanese policy evinced a similar attention to relative position.
Japan sought to expand its influence in the Far East while preventing other states from doing the same thing, whereas Wilson's commitment to a liberal world order led him to oppose any attempts to exploit Russian weakness. Thus, in addition to countering Japanese expansion in Siberia, the United States aimed to preserve Russian unity by declining to recognize the new governments in the Baltic and Transcaucasia. 78
Although foreign intervention in revolutionary Russia was originally in- spired by other motives, in short, the intervening powers also saw it as a way to protect or enhance their relative positions. This motivation was most apparent in the case of Japan, but competition among the Entente reemerged once the Central Powers had been defeated. As Lenin had fore-
76 In November, both Lloyd George and Balfour questioned the wisdom of British involve- ment in Russia, and the chief of the Imperial General Staff recommended that Britain "liqui- date" its commitments as soon as possible. Less than a month later, however, the General Staff warned of French influence in the Caucausus and stated, "It would be most undesirable for the approaches to India from South Russia, the Black Sea, and Turkey . . . to be placed at the disposal of an ambitious military power, which, although friendly to us at the moment, is our historical world rival. " See Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 51-56; Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 11-15, 54-55, 66-S6; and Silverlight, Victors'Dilemma, 86-91.
n At times, the French also favored creating pro-French states in the Crimea and Ukraine, as a further buffer against Germany and as an avenue for French trade and investment. French officials also tried to establish several banques d'emission to issue new currency in the White areas of Russia, in order to weaken the Bolshevik regime and enhance France's own in- fluence. See Carley, Revolution and Intervention, chaps. 7-8; Amo J. Mayer, Politics and Diplo- macy ofPeacemaking: Containment and Counterrevolution at Versailles, 1918-1919 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967), 181-83; Unterberger, America's Siberian Expedition, 214; Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 57-59; Brinkley, Volunteer Army and Allied Intervention, 75--'7,7 88--9o; and Silverlight, Victors'Dilemma, 118--19.
78 Wilson also encouraged Kolchak to recognize the autonomy of these regions until their final status could be determined. In the end, however, Wilson favored allowing the Russians "to fight it out among themselves" and made aid to the Whites conditional on pledges to im- plement democratic reforms. See Levin, Wilson and World Politics, 109-110, 197-207, 224-26, 231; and Foreign Relations, 1919, Russia, 367-70.
[1531
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seen, these concerns both encouraged continued foreign involvement in Russia and made it harder for the intervening powers to coordinate their af- tivities.
Foreign powers were also encouraged to intervene in Russia by thenr growing fear of ideological contagion. This concern had lain dormant as long as Germany posed the greater danger, but the threat of revolutionary subversion began receiving more attention after the Central Powers' defeat. In December 1918, Curzon justified British intervention in southern Russia by claiming that "anarchy, disorder or Bolshevism there" would "in- evitably" affect the British position in the Near East and India. In the same spirit, Winston Churchill accused the Bolsheviks of seeking "to make the soldiers mutiny against their officers, to raise the poor against the bour- geois, . . . the workmen against the employers, . . . [and] to paralyze the country lby general strikes. " According to General Sir Henry Wilson, chief of the Imperial General Staff, by October 1918 the British Cabinet was united in the belief that "our real danger now is not the Boches but Bolshevism. "79
Other Allied officials held similar views. Woodrow Wilson told his Cabi- net that "the spirit of the Bolsheviki is lurking everywhere. " U. S. Secretary of State Robert Lansing described Bolshevism as "the most hideous and monstrous thing that the human mind has ever conceived" and lamented that it was now "spreading westward. " The commander of the Allied armies, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, agreed to allow German units to remain nn Eastern Europe to protect the local population "against the horrors of Bol- shevism," and the French General Staff described Russia as "an immense hotbed of anarchist propaganda. " Not to be outdone, the Quai d'Orsay now declared that the danger from Bolshevism was "more fearful for humanity" than a German victory would have been. 80
This fear of Bolshevism was magnified by a belief that World War I had left Europe especially vulnerable to revolutionary subversion. The war had discredited the old European order, the German and Austro-Hungarian monarchies had already collapsed, and famine and poverty were wide- spread. As a French General Staff memorandum put it, "this new and mon- strous form of imperialism represented a danger all the more fearful as it arose at the precise moment when the impending end of the war would pro- voke in every country a grave social and economic crisis. " Lloyd George re-
79 Even before the war was over, a British Foreign Office memorandum warned of the d. m- ger preselllted by the Bolshevik "doctrine of irreconcilable class war. " Quoted in Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 11, 67; Churchill, Aftermath, 274-75; and Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 21.
80 Lansing also believed that Bolshevism "finds its adherents among the criminal, the de- praved, and the mentally unfit" and "seeks to devour civilized society and reduce mankind to the state of beasts. " Quotations from Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 14-15, 29-30; and Carley, Revolution and Intervention, 106-10.
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portedly believed that revolution in England was not out of the question; both he and French premier Clemenceau thought "anything was possible in Italy"; and Wilson regarded Central Europe as especially vulnerable. Fear of Bolshevism also raised Japan's interest in Siberia, which it saw as a potential buffer against Communist subversion. Thus, intervention was sustained by two key elements of threat: the belief that Soviet Russia was hostile and the fear that Bolshevism might be contagious. 51
Despite the widespread consensus that Bolshevism was a threat, how- ever, there was little agreement on how to respond to it. 82 One barrier to co- operation has already been noted: once Germany was defeated, each member of the Entente began pursuing its own interests even when this in- terfered with the shared goal of containing Bolshevism. 83 A second barrier was the lack of reliable information on the conditions in Russia or the likeli- hood that the revolution would spread. The effects of this lack were mixed, however, as it both encouraged attempts to isolate the Soviet leadership and discouraged an all-out effort to remove it. In the end, the Allies did enough to sustain the Whites and solidify Soviet animosity, but not enough to re- place the Soviet regime with one more to their liking. 84
Not surprisingly, supporters of all-out intervention (such as Churchill, Foch, and Clemenceau) saw Bolshevism in Russia as a particularly grave threat and stressed that ousting the Bolsheviks would be relatively easy. 85 By
81 House also believed that "Bolshevism is gaining ground everywhere," and a confiden- tial memorandum by Lloyd George stated that "the whole of Europe is filled with the spirit of revolution. " See Charles Seymour, ed. , The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1926-28), 4:118-19; Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 14, 389-91; Levin, Wilson and World Politics, 186-3-9 ; Carley, Revolution and Intervention, 110; Carr, Bolshevik Revolution, 3:126-30; Smith, Vladivostok under Red and White Rule, 34, 43; and Cham- berlin, Russian Revolution, 2:152.
82 On February 14, Churchill proposed sending "volunteers, technical experts, arms, muni- tions, tanks [and] aeroplanes" to the Whites; two weeks later, Foch suggested that the Allies equip and train a large body of Poles, Finns, Czechs, Rumanians, and Greeks for intervention in Russia, thereby eliminating the need for Allied troops. He offered a less ambitious plan for aid to Poland and Rumania on March 17 and reiterated the proposal ten days later, but each of these suggestions was vetoed by Great Britain and the United States. In May, Lloyd George suggested that Allied troops in northern Russia should "march to meet Kolchak," but Wilson rejected the suggestion. Churchill and others again pressed for Allied action during the fall of 1919, without success. See Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 119-28, 136-40, 164--65, 222-23, 261--62; and Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 134-40.
83 According to Thompson, "There was more improvization than far-sighted planning, more disparity than unity of purpose, and more inconsistency than steadfastness in the var- ious policies and plans of the Western statesmen. " Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 6o; and also Bradley, Allied Intervention, 132-33.
84 Churchill later recalled that "enough foreign troops entered Russia to incur all the objec- tions which were patent against intervention, but not enough to break the then gimcrack
structure of the Soviet power. " See Churchill, Aftermath, 285.
85 The French chief of staff endorsed Churchill's February 14 proposal for intervention by
noting that the Red Army had "irremediable sources of weakness," that its successes were
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contrast, opponents of intervention argued that removing the Bolsheviks would be costly and difficult, that the war-weary Allied populations would not support the effort, and that foreign intervention would merely increase popular support for the Bolshevik regime. Thus, Lloyd George opposed Churchill's proposal for an anti-Bolshevik crusade by arguing that "aggres- sion against Russia is a way to strengthen Bolshevism in Russia and create it at home," and Wilson countered proposals for military action by saying,
"To attempt to arrest a revolutionary movement by means of deployed armies is like trying to use a broom to sweep back the tide. " Opponents also maintained that relief aid to Europe would be a better antidote; as Wilson put it, "The only way to take action against Bolshevism was to eliminate its causes. "86
Without reliable information about conditions in Russia or the likelihood that the revolution would spread or collapse, neither side could marshal de- finitive evidence to support its policy recommendations. Advocates of in- tervention pointed to the Whites' successes during the spring and summer of 1918 while opponents invoked the growing strength of the Red Army, the sheer size of Russia's territory, and the dissension and corruption that af- flicted the Whites. In the absence of solid information about Bolshevik and White Russian prospects, however, weighing the pros and cons of alterna- tive policies proved to be extremely difficult. 87
Evidence of Bolshevik intentions was equally ambiguous. The Soviets had made no secret of their revolutionary aims, of course, and the image of Bol-
due to the fact that "it has never encountered adversaries superior to it as regards either num- bers, supplies, or moral[e)," and, in conclusion, that "even though numerically inferior, reg- ular Allied troops would easily defeat it. . . . Such a success could be won at very slight cost. " On February 25, Marshal Foch made a sweeping proposal for intervention and argued that "the Eastern problem would not be more difficult to solve than the Western problem. . . . To fight against such an enemy, troops . . . need not be strongly organised or of superior quality. . . . But great numbers were required which could be obtained by mobilizing the Finns, Poles, Czechs, Rumanians, and Greeks, as well as the Russian pro-Ally elements still available. . . .
If this were done, 1919 would see the end of Bolshevism, just as 1918 had seen the end of Prussianism. " See Foreign Relations, 1919, Paris Peace Conference (Washington, D. C. : U. S. Gov- ernment Printing Office, 1942-47), 4:to-t3, 122-23; and Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 182-84.
86 In November 1918, Balfour noted that Britain "would certainly refuse to see its forces . . . dissipated over the huge expanse of Russia in order to carry out political reforms in a State which is no longer a belligerent Ally. " Quoted in Lincoln, Red Victory, 272; and Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 11, 126, 139. See also Levin, Wilson and World Politics, 204-205; For-
. eign Relations, 1919, Peace Conference, 3:648-50; Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 94, too; Mayer, Politics and Diplomacy, 457-58; and Carley, Revolu tion and Intervention, 112.
87 As Ullman points out, "From the departure of Bruce Lockhart from Russia at the end of September 1918 until the arrival in Moscow of the first British mission in March 1921-Lon- don had no overt official source of information about conditions within the territory con- trolled by the Soviet regime. " See Britain and the Russian Civil War, 173-77; and Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 378-84.
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shevik aggressiveness was reinforced by the Red Terror that swept Moscow in September 1918, together with Joffe's subversive activities in Germany and a bellicose message from the Soviet commissar for foreign affairs, Gyorgy Chicherin, to Wilson in October 1918. 88 On the other hand, the Soviet govern- ment also made several conciliatory gestures at the end of the war and seemed genuinely interested in a formal peace settlement. Thus, Lansing, Churchill, and Foch concluded that the Soviet government was irrevocably hostile while Lloyd George and Wilson thought some form of accommodation might be possible, and both sides found evidence to support their positions. 89
These uncertainties help explain why the Allied leaders could not agree on a consistent policy toward the Bolshevik regime. In some cases, lack of infor- mation encouraged greater involvement; for example, the disastrous expedi- tion to Odessa was largely the result of France's ignorance about political conditions there. Similarly, Wilson's early faith in the strength of "liberal" forces in Russia accounts in part for his own decision to intervene, and he moved to end U. S. intervention once he realized this view was incorrect. 90
On balance, uncertainty about the situation in Russia probably did more to restrain intervention than to promote it. In December 1918, for example, Lloyd George noted "the absolute contradiction between information sup- plied from Russia by men of equally good authority" and complained that "Russia was a jungle in which no one could say what was within a few yards of him. " Four months later, he told the House of Commons that "there is no longer even an entity that could accurately be called 'Russia' " and de- clared it impossible to know which authorities actually controlled what ter- ritories. Because Russia was a volcano "still in fierce eruption," he concluded that the prudent course was to keep one's distance while trying to prevent the lava from spreading. Aid to the Whites was justified by the need to honor wartime commitments and support for the border states was a way to contain the Bolshevik "eruption," but the unclear situation within
Russia advised against a direct Allied attempt to remove the Bolsheviks by force. 91 Similarly, Wilson admittedly privately that his impressions of Russia
89 I n January 1918, Lansing wrote that Lenin and Trotsky "were so bitterly hostile to the present social order . . . that nothing could be said which would gain their favor or render them amenable to reason. " See Arno J. Mayer, Political Origins of the New Diplomacy, 1917-1918 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), 343? His view had not changed by No- vember 1919, when he warned the British and French governments that Lenin and the other Bolsheviks would never "give up permanently the dream of a world-wide revolution and loyally enter into friendly relations with governments which are not communistic. " See For- eign Relations, 1919, Russia, 129-30.
90 Lloyd George shared Wilson's skepticism, but his freedom of action was constrained by Conservative opposition. See Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 240; Levin, Wilson and World Politics, 231-32; and Ullman, Anglo-Soviet Accord, 9-11.
91 See Lloyd George, Truth about the Peace Treaties, 1:325-30; and Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 96-97, 153-55, 173-77-
88 See Degras, Soviet Documents, 1:112-20; and Foreign Relations, 1918, Russia, 1:68<>--91.
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were based on "indefinite information," and he told the other Allied leaders in May that he no longer felt "the same chagrin that he had formerly felt a? having no policy in regard to Russia. It had been impossible to have a pol? ? icy hitherto. " Now, he argued, "the proper policy of the Allied and Associ? ? ated Powers was to clear out of Russia and leave it to the Russians to fight it out among themselves. "92
Given tlhis pervasive uncertainty, it is hardly surprising? that Allied ambi- tions rose whenever the Whites did well and fell whenever they faltered. In the spring of 1919, for example, the establishment of a short-lived Commu- nist regime in Hungary and Kolchak's successful offensive in Siberia brought renewed calls to recognize the Whites and provide them with ad- ditional military support. Even Lloyd George now endorsed plans for a joint offensive by Kolchak' s White Army and the Allied expeditionary force in northern Russia, with the aim of eliminating the Soviet regime once and for all. The information upon which these hopes were based was already outdated, however, and the pledge of additional military support did not reach Kolchak until after the Red Army had launched the counteroffensive that would destroy his army and cost him his life. 93 The offensives by Denikin and Yudenich rekindled Allied hopes in the summer and fall and sparked new debates over Allied involvement, but the eventual failure of these campaigns fed the growing awareness that the Soviet regime would be around for some time.
The Failure ofAccommodation
The Entente's halfhearted efforts to overthrow the Soviet regime were ac- companied by equally feeble attempts to include Russia in the postwar peace settlement. Despite having sent additional troops to Russia and pro- vided the White armies with generous military assistance, the Western pow- ers repeatedly disavowed any desire to interfere in Russia's internal affairs and tried to end the civil war on several occasions. These contradictory and unsuccessful initiatives exemplify the obstacles that can hamper efforts to improve relations with a revolutionary regime.
The Soviet Peace Offensive. The Soviets started trying to reach a modus vivendi with the Entente as soon as World War I ended. Like the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Soviets' peace offensive was based on a candid appraisal of their present weakness-and on their optimistic faith that the revolution would eventually spread to other countries. Lenin was well aware that in-
92 Quoted in Frederick S. Calhoun, Power and Principle: Armed Intervention in Wilsonian For- eign Policy (Kent: Kent State University Press, 1986), 232, 238.
93 See Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 164-65; and Foreign Relations, 1919, Russia, 632-33?
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