No More Learning

The foreign revolutionaries in France had similar effects in reverse. Their presence in Paris made Europe appear ripe for revolution, and the testi- mony of such people as Anacharsis Cloots and the English and Irish dele- gations to the Convention in November 1792 strengthened the universalist hopes of the French radicals. French policy soon became more discriminat- ing and support for foreign revolutionaries declined, but groups such as the United Irishmen continued to receive French backing throughout the war. And just as the French took the activities of the emigres as evidence of a for- eign conspiracy against the revolution, their opponents saw the presence of the foreign revolutionaries in Paris as proof of the revolution's universalis- tic ambitions.
Finally, the diplomacy of revolutionary France also supports the claim that radical regimes will moderate their ideological ambitions in the face of external pressure. After renouncing foreign conquest in 1791 and launching a "crusade of liberty" in 1792, revolutionary France quickly reverted to the familiar pursuit of self-interest. French armies began to plunder their neigh- bors instead of liberating them, and support for foreign revolutionaries was largely abandoned. French diplomats eventually engaged in the same sort of territorial barters that the European states had practiced for centuries. By
1797, the Directory was willing to cede the Republic of Venice to the Haps- burgs at Campo Formio in exchange for territory elsewhere, a sure sign that the original principles of the revolution no longer held sway.
To summarize: I believe that the origins and course of the French revolu- tionary wars provide considerable support for my main arguments about the relatio11h1S ip between revolution and war. The revolution tempted other states to take advantage of a favorable shift in the balance of power, led both sides to exaggerate the hostility of their opponents, and created erroneous perceptions of vulnerability and overconfidence that cast the use of force in a more attractive light.
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"What, are we going to have foreign affairs? "
-V. I. Lenin, October 1917 "I shall issue some revolutionary proclamations to the peoples and then
close up shop. "
-Leon Trotsky, as commissar for foreign affairs, 1917 "Lenin . . . was one of the greatest realists, as well as one of the greatest
fanatics. "
-William Henry Chamberlin, 1935
The Russian Revolution caused a dramatic shift in the Eurasian balance of power that threatened the interests of the other great powers and pressed them to intervene in the subsequent civil war. The Bolsheviks and the West- em powers regarded each other with suspicion if not outright hostility, and the belief that tlhe 1917 revolution in Russia might spark similar upheavals elsewhere led the Soviet government to venture several ill-fated attempts to accelerate the process. The uncertainties unleashed by the revolution made accommodation more difficult, because both sides based their actions on unfounded hopes and fears and were unable to maintain consistent policies in the face of conflicting information.
Coexistence became feasible once these illusions were challenged. By the early 1920s, Western fears of a rising Bolshevik tide were declining, along with the hope that Bolshevik rule in Russia would be short-lived. Soviet leaders were more confident about their own ability to hold power but also were beginning to recognize that the revolution was unlikely to spread quickly. As mutual perceptions of threat declined, a more "normal"-albeit guarded-relationship began to emerge. Efforts to establish normal rela- tions fell short of each side's expectations, however, and the international position of the Soviet Union deteriorated sharply after 1924.
This chapter consists of five parts. In the first I describe Russia's foreign relations from the collapse of the tsarist empire to the end of World War I, focusing on the Bolsheviks' initial responses and the Allied decision to in-
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tervene. Next I examine the diplomacy of the Russian Civil War, the En- tente's confused attempts at dealing with the Soviet regime, and the brief but bloody war between Russia and Poland in 1920. In the third part; I turn to the new regime's efforts to normalize relations under the guise of "peace- ful coexistence," and in the fourth I describe how this process was gradually reversed under the doctrine of "socialism in one country. " Finally, I sum- marize the evidence and consider its theoretical implications.
FROM THE FEBRUARY REvoLUTION TO THE END oF WoRLD WAR I
In February 1917, the Romanov dynasty collapsed after thirty months of war. The monarchy was replaced by a Provisional Government, led by Alexander Kerensky, which shared power with the "soviets," or councils, of workers and soldiers that had brought down the tsar. The leader of the Bol- shevik Party, V. I. Lenin, returned from exile in April, and though they re- mained a distinct minority, the Bolsheviks' organization and internal discipline proved to be a potent political asset. Kerensky's attempt to con- tinue the war discredited his leadership, and the Provisional Government was finally toppled by a Bolshevik coup d'etat in October.
The Bolshevik Worldview
Once in power, the Bolsheviks' prospects were not auspicious, however, as Germany still occupied large areas of Russian territory, and authority within the former tsarist empire was disintegrating rapidly. 1 The Soviet re- sponse to tlhese challenges was shaped by a set of core beliefs that are re- markably consistent with the ideal type presented above in chapter 2. First, the Bolsheviks believed that capitalism was by its very nature hostile to so- cialism and that the imperialist powers would inevitably try to overthrow them. In Lerun's words: "International imperialism . . . could not, under any circumstances, under any conditions, live side by side with the Soviet Re- public. . . . In this sphere a conflict is inevitable. "2 At the same time, Lenin believed that the capitalist world was itself deeply divided by the inevitable
1 Bythesummerof1918,atleasttwenty-fourseparategovernmentshadbeenproclaimed on the territory of prerevolutionary Russia. See Edward Hallett Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923 (New York: Macmillan, 195o-53), 1:287-89, 340; William Henry Chamberlin, The Russian Revolution, 1917-1921 (1935; reprint, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987); 1:348, 378-81; and George F. Kennan, Soviet-American Relations, vol. 2: The Decision to Intervene (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958), 416.
2 Vladimir I. Lenin, Selected Works (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1970"-71), 2:581; and Carr, Bolshevik Revolution, 3:115.
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competition for markets and resources. As he later recalled, "If capital were to unite, we should be crushed. . . . Fortunately for us, it is in the nature of capital that it cannot unite. "3
As orthodox Marxists, Lenin and his followers also thought that a world- wide socialist revolution was inevitable and that their own survival de- pended on it. If the transition to socialism had begun in "backward" Russia, then more advanced capitalist societies such as Germany or Great Britain could not be far behind. Having previously advised that "any day may come the crash of European imperialism," Lenin told his associates in Sep- tember 1917, "We are on the eve ofa worldwide revolution. "4
The idea that the survival of Soviet Russia hinged on the spread of revo- lution flowed logically from the Bolsheviks' awareness of their own weak- ness and their perception of imperialism as irredeemably hostile. Lenin told the Congress of Soviets in March 1918, "We are in no condition to accept bat- tle at the moment," and though he warned against staking everything "on the assumption that the German revolution will begin immediately," he also argued that "the workers of the most backward country [Russia] will not be able to hold the banner [of revolution] unless the workers of all advanced countries come to their aid. " Or as Trotsky put it: "If the peoples of Europe do not arise and crush imperialism, we shall be crushed-that is beyond doubt. "5
The Bolsheviks' commitment to world revolution and their disregard for traditional diplomatic practice were apparent in the so-called Decree on Peace, issued November 8, 1917. The decree invited the "class-conscious workers of England, France, and Germany" to "bring to a successful end the cause of peace, . . . and the liberation of all who labor. " Another declaration called for the Muslims of "Russia and the East" to overthrow the imperial- ist "robbers and enslavers. "6 Nor was the commitment to world revolution merely rhetorical: the Soviet government allocated 2 million rubles to aid "the left internationalist wing of the labor movement of all countries" in De- cember, and the new Soviet ambassador to Germany, Adolf Joffe, devoted
3 Thus, Lenin argued, "We were able so easily to pass from victory to victory . . . due only to a special combination of international circumstances that temporarily shielded us from im- perialism. " Quoted in Richard H. Ullman, Anglo-SovietRelations, 1917-1921, vol. 1: Interven- tion and the War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), 12o-21; and Lenin, Selected Works, 2:581, 629.
4 Lenin, Selected Works, 2:385.
5 Quoted in Carr, Bolshevik Revolution, p7-18; and Lenin, Selected Works, 2:583, 586--87, 634, 639. Nikolai Bukharin offered a similar view in 1918, arguing, "The Russian revolution will either be saved by an international revolution, or it will perish under the blows of interna- tional capital. " Quoted in Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: A New Biography (New York: Free Press, 1994), 184.
6 See Jane Degras, ed. , Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy (London: Oxford University Press, 1951-5)), 1:1-J, 15-17.
[131]
? most of his energies to financing opposition groups. 7 The Soviet govern- ment renounced Russia's foreign debts in February and began publishing various tsarist treaties in an attempt to undermine the governments of the Entente. These steps had little immediate impact, but they do convey the Bolsheviks' initial rejection of "bourgeois" diplomacy and their desire to fo- ment unrest in other countries. 8
The Bolsheviks' faith in world revolution, however, was most apparent in their handling of the peace talks with Germany. When negotiations began in January 1918, the Bolshevik Party soon split between the advocates of an immediate peace (most notably Lenin) and supporters of a policy of revolu- tionary war. Led by Bukharin and Grigory Zinoviev, the latter group argued that the German terms were too harsh, that revolution in Europe was immi- nent, and that a peace agreement with Germany would betray foreign revo- lutionary forces on the eve of their triumph. Even Lenin could not persuade this faction to accept the German peace offer, despite the fact that by this time Russia had lost all capacity to resist. 9
Instead, the Party adopted Trotsky's compromise policy of "no war, no peace. " In an attempt to prolong the negotiations so that the anticipated revolution in Germany could begin, Trotsky declared that Russia would neither sign nor fight. The Germans merely resumed their advance and forced the Bolsheviks to sue for peace two weeks later, after a protracted debate between advocates of ,;revolutionary war" and those who believed that ending the war was necessary to keep the Soviet experiment alive. Unlike some of his more idealistic colleagues, Lenin's commitment to world revolution was tempered by his awareness of Russia's profound weakness. Instead of counting on an upheaval in the West, Lenin sought a
"breathing space" in which to recover. As he told his colleagues in March, "Yes, we shall see the world revolution, but for the time being it is a very good fairy-tale. . . . If the revolution breaks out, everything is saved. Of course! But . . . if it does not achieve victory tomorrow-what then? " Lenin's views finally prevailed, and the treaty was ratified by the Con- gress of Soviets on March 15. 10
7 Joffe later admitted providing more than 10 million rubles to revolutionary groups in Germany. See Carr, Bolshevik Revolution, pS-19, 76-78, 94-95; Kurt Rosenbaum, Community ofFate: German-Soviet Diplomatic Relations, 1922-28 (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1965), 2-3; Degras, Soviet Documents, 1:126-28; and John W. Wheeler-Bennett, Brest-Litovsk: The Forgotten Peace-March 1918 (London: Macmillan, 1956), 348-61.
8 Sovietdisdainforconventionaldiplomaticpracticeisalsorevealedintheiruseofthetitle "commissar" rather than "minister" and the term "plenipotentiary representative" in place of "ambassador. " See Leon Trotsky, My Life (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 196o), 337-38; and Carr, Bolshevik Revolution, 3:68-69.
9 For accounts of the negotiations, see Wheeler-Bennett, Brest-Litovsk, 183-97; and Louis Fischer, The Life ofLenin (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), 191-95.
10 Lenin, Selected Works, 2:589.
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[132]
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Within a few months of their gaining power, therefore, the Bolsheviks' be- lief that revolution would soon spread to the rest of Europe had given way to caution. The regime now sought to forestall a full-scale imperialist assault by maneuvering among the capitalist powers, until the anticipated wave of revolutionary upheavals eliminated the danger once and for all.
The Origins ofAllied Intervention
During 1917, the Entente's primary concern was to keep Russia in the war. They continued to provide the Provisional Government with military supplies and tried unsuccessfully to persuade Japan to send an expedi- tionary force to bolster the eastern front. U Foreign involvement in Russia in- creased steadily after the Bolsheviks seized power. By the end of the year, British, French, American, Chinese, and Japanese troops had arrived in northern Russia, Siberia, Transcaucasia, and the trans-Caspian region, usu- ally in league with various anti-Bolshevik groups. The various decisions to intervene illustrate the ways that revolutions increase the level of security competition.
Britain and France. Until World War I came to an end in November 1918, the goal of defeating the Central Powers dominated British and French re- sponses to the revolution. Bolshevik opposition to the war was well known, and a separate peace between Russia and Germany would have enabled Germany to shift the bulk of its forces to the western front and give the Cen- tral Powers access to Russian grain and other vital supplies. Accordingly,
British and Flt'ench policy after the Bolshevik coup focused on preventing the Central Powers from exploiting Russia's collapse.
Determining the best way to do this was not easy, however, and officials in both countries often differed over how to proceed. 12 Nonetheless, the En- tente warned the Soviet regime that a separate peace with Germany would "be followed by the most serious consequences" and tried to encourage loyal Russian forces to continue the war on their own. The British War Cab- inet authorized the distribution of ? 10 million to support Cossack forces in the Don River basin in December 1917, with an equivalent sum to be dis- tributed to Russian groups who were willing to fight on the Rumanian or Ukrainian fronts. France offered the new Ukrainian regime de facto recog-
11 See L. P. Morris, "The Russians, the Allies, and the War," Slavonic and Eastern European Re- view 50, no. 118 (1972); and James W. Morley, TheJapanese Thrust into Siberia, 1918 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957), 29-31.
12 See Michael Jabara Carley, Revolution and Intervention: The French Government and the Russian Civil War, 1917-1919 (Montreal: MeGill/Queen's University Press, 1983), 33-35, and "The Origins of the French Intervention in the Russian Civil War, January-May 1918: A Reap- praisal," Journal ofModern History 48, no. 4 (1976); and Ullman, Intervention and the War, 83--84.
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? Revolution and War
nition and financial support if it would continue the war with Germany, and Britain and France signed a formal convention dividing responsibility for supporting pl! 'o-Entente forces in the Ukraine and the Cossack territories. The British also dispatched a squadron of armored cars and a military aid mission to support the independence movement in Transcaucasia, and eventually sent aid to Cossack forces in the trans-Baikal region as well. 13
Britain and France wanted Japan and the United States to send troops to protect the Trans-Siberian Railway and maintain a lifeline to Rumania, which was still at war with the Central Powers. Intervention was also seen as a way to prevent Germany from seizing the military supplies that the Al- lies had previously shipped to the tsarist government, now languishing in vast stockpiles in Archangel and Vladivostok. Supporters of these schemes argued that the Russians would welcome some form of foreign interven- tion, that anti-Bolshevik forces were growing in strength, and that interven- tion would be the first step toward extensive Japanese participation on the eastern front. 14
These initiatives were not based on hostility to Bolshevik rule per se, however. Instead, the decision to aid the Cossacks and the other anti-Bol- shevik groups was motivated by the overriding Entente objective of defeat- ing the Central Powers. 15 British and French officials recognized that foreign intervention might drive the Bolsheviks and Germans closer together, so representatives of both powers made several attempts to reach a modus
13 See George F. Kennan, Soviet American Relations, vol. 1: Russia Leaves the War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956), 89-94, 170; Carley, Revolution and Intervention, 28-31; Ull- man, Intervention and the War, 22, 4o-54, 305-3o6; LouiS Fischer, The Soviets in World Afifa rs: A History of the Relations between the Soviet Union and the Rest of the World, 1917-1929, 2d ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951), 2:836; and George A. Brinkley, The Volunteer Army and Allied Intervention in South Russia, 1917-1921 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966), 28-30.
14 There were 648,000 tons of war materiel in Vladivostok and 212,000 tons of food and am- munition in Archangel by the end of 1917. In March, the leaders of France, Britain, and Italy sent a joint note to the United States warning of German domination of Russia and declaring that "since Russia cannot help herself she must be helped by her friends. " The note recom- mended an appeal to Japan to intervene, noting that "no steps could usefully be taken . . . which had not the active support of the United States," and asked for "favourable consider- ation from the U. S. government. " See David Lloyd George, War Memoirs ofDavid Lloyd George (Boston: Little, Brown, 1934-37), 6:165-66; Ullman, Intervention and the War, 87, 93-iJ4, 109; and Kennan, Russia Leaves the War, 3oo-303, 46o-67.
15 On December 22, an inter-Allied conference authorized relations with the Bolsheviks "through unofficial agents," stressed the need to prevent a separate peace, stated that the Al- lies' main goals were "to save Rumania" and "prevent Russian supplies from reaching Ger- many," and agreed that "it would be very desirable" if the Allies could persuade "the southern Russian Armies to resume the fight. " Foreign Relations ofthe United States, 1918, Rus- sia (Washington, D. C. : U. S. Government Printing Office, 1931), 1:33o-31. Two months later, the British foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, reminded a British agent in Petrograd that "in-
ternal affairs in Russia are no concern of ours. . . . We only consider them in so far as they af- fect the war. " Quoted in Ullman, Intervention and the War, 74?
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vivendi with the new regime. 16 The British sent a sympathetic young diplo- mat, R. Bruce Lockhart, to Petrograd in January 1918, where he soon became a vocal advocate of cooperation with Russia's new leaders. 17 Until March, the continuing threat of German invasion led Lenin and Trotsky to invite support from the Entente-as a hedge against renewed fighting with Ger- many and as a way to discourage Western intervention. Trotsky, hinting that Russia might reenter the war in exchange for Western aid, requested French, Italian, and U. S. assistance in reorganizing the Russian Army. 18 Entente offi- cials clearly regarded these overtures with suspicion, but their response suggests that they would have considered supporting the Soviet regime had
the Bolsheviks been willing to resume fighting. 19 This possibility was re- mote, however, as aid from the Entente would have taken months to arrive and the German Army would have made short work of the Soviet govern- ment in the interim. Thus, British and French efforts to persuade the Bol- sheviks to reenter the war were stillborn from the start, and pressure for direct intervention grew steadily after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
The growing interest in intervention was partly due to the deteriorating situation on the western front. 20 The Entente powers increasingly believed that the Bolsheviks were German agents or were under German control, a view reinforced by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the arrival of a new German ambassador in Moscow, and the German and Turkish advance into south-
16 Balfour and the British ambassador to Russia, Sir George Buchanan, warned that a com- plete break might "hasten the organization of [Russia] by German officials along German lines" and cautioned against giving "the Russians a motive for welcoming into their midst German officials and German soldiers as friends and deliverers. " See Lloyd George, War Memoirs, 5:111-14; and Ullman, Intervention and the War, 23-24, 31-33.
17 See Ullman, Intervention and the War, 58-62.
18 On March 5, Trotsky told Lockhart and Raymond Robins (head of the U. S.
Red Cross mission in Moscow) that Russia might resume the war in exchange for economic and mili- tary aid from the Entente. When a German-Finnish invasion of northern Russia seemed likely in April, Trotsky ordered the Murmansk soviet to accept British and American mili- tary aid and invited the Allies to submit "a full and proper statement of [the] help they could furnish. " See C. K. Cumming and Walter W. Pettit, eds. , Russian-American Relations: March 1917-March 1920 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920), 81-85; Ullman, Inter- vention and the War, 72--76, 159-"63; Carley, Revolution and Intervention, 37-38; and Carr, Bol- shevik Revolution, 3:43-50.
19 In a message requesting U. S. intervention in April, Balfour stated, "If the Bolshevist gov- ernment will cooperate in resisting Germany, it seems necessary to act with them as the de facto Russian government. " In addition, Allied military engineers reportedly aided Russian efforts to destroy rail lines in the path of the German Army. See Ullman, Intervention and the War, 161? 4; Carley, Revolution and Intervention, 37-38, and "Origins of French Intervention,"
42<r-21, 428; Carr, Bolshevik Revolution, 3:43-50; and Kennan, Decision to Intervene, 112-23.
20 Germany shifted forty divisions from the eastern front after the Russian surrender and launched a major offensive in April 1918. A British War Office memorandum declared in June, "Unless Allied intervention is undertaken in Siberia forthwith; we have no chance ofbeing ultimately victorious, and shall incur serious risk of defeat in the meantime. " Quoted in Ull-
man, Intervention and the War, 129. [1351
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em Russia and Ukraine. 21 These events convinced Lockhart that further at- tempts to accommodate the Bolsheviks would be futile, and he joined Am- bassador Joseph Noulens of France in arguing that intervention was necessary to prevent a German takeover. 22
In addition to the legitimate fear that Germany would exploit Russian raw materials and strengthen its forces in the west, British and French lead- ers were also fretting over a host of far-fetched scenarios about the strate- gic consequences of Soviet rule. The Entente powers worried that Germany might capture the military stockpiles in Archangel and Vladivostok and rearm the 8oo,ooo German and Austrian prisoners of war in Siberia, thereby permitting them to rejoin the fighting in the west. British officials were also concerned about their imperial possessions in the Near East and
India, and a British Imperial General Staff memorandum warned that Ger- many would "make use of the pan-Turanian movement and of Ma- hommedan fanaticism to fan into a flame the ever glowing embers of a religious war, in order to loose on India the pent-up tide of Moslem inva- sion. " By July, the chief of the General Staff advised the War Cabinet that "unless . . . democratic Russia can be reconstituted as an independent mil- itary power, it is only a question of time before most of Asia becomes a Ger- man colony, and nothing can impede the enemy's progress towards India. " In an even more bizarre fantasy, British military planners also worried that a German advance across Russia would enable the Germans to ship disas- sembled U-boats to Vladivostok, where they could be reassembled and used against Allied shipping in the Pacific! 23
Underlying these dire visions was the assumption that Russia was rapidly falling under German domination and only prompt intervention by the Entente could stave off disaster. In fact, however, most of the worries were groundless. Given the decrepit state of the Russian. railway network, a German attetnpt to seize the Allied military stores would have come up against the same logistical problems that had prevented tsarist Russia from using these same supplies during the war. The "threat" from German U-
21 The belief that the Bolsheviks were German agents was reinforced by a set of reportedly official documents obtained by Edgar Sisson, head of the U. S. propaganda office in Moscow. These documents, which suggested that the Bolsheviks were taking orders from Berlin, were actually forgeries produced by anti-Bolshevik forces. See Kennan, Russia Leaves the War, 441-57, and "The Sisson Documents," Journal ofModern History 28, no. 2 (1956).
22 Noulens stated this belief in a public interview on April 23, strengthening Bolshevik sus- picions about Allied intentions. See James Bunyan, Intervention, Civil War, and Communism in Russia: April-December, 1918 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1936), 71-'72; Kennan, Decision to Intervene, 21o-11; and Carley, Revolution and Intervention, 58-{io. lockhart and Noulens began providing financial support to several anti-Bolshevik factions; Lockhart was subse- quently arrested! and expeJled by the Soviet government. See Ullman, Intervention and the War, t86-,-9<> 231-35?
23 See Kennan, Decision to Intervene, 71-74, 77-82; and Ullman, Intervention and the War, 87-88, 156-58, 3o4-6.
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boats in Vladivostok was absurd for the same reason, and instead of repa- triating German and Austrian prisoners to support the German war effort, the Bolsheviks were more interested in recruiting them for revolutionary ac- tivities in their home countries. In any event, under the chaotic conditions in Russia, the prisoners could scarcely have reached the western front quickly and even then would have been in no condition to fight.
By May 1918, therefore, Britain and France had abandoned their efforts to cooperafte with the Bolshevik regime, yet neither state could spare the men that would have been needed to intervene. 24 While continuing to press the United States and Japan to take action, therefore, Britain and France dedded to use the. Czechoslovak Legion, a force of fifty thousand Czech and Slovak prisoners of war originally recruited in Russia to fight against the Central Powers. The Entente had previously decided to trans- port the legion to the western front via Vladivostok and the troops had begun to move across Russia in March. In April, however, the British sug- gested that the legion remain in Russia to provide order and protect Allied interests. As a result, Britain and France ordered part of the legion to head north toward Archangel while the remainder continued east toward Vladivostok. 25
Relations between the Czechoslovak Legion and various local soviets quickly deteriorated, and a series of misunderstandings soon led to armed clashes. 26 This development was a golden opportunity for the Bolsheviks' opponents; Ambassador Noulens urged the Czechs and Slovaks to resist Soviet efforts to disarm them, and ordered French military representatives in Russia not to try to resolve the dispute. The Czechs and Slovaks de- cided to fight their way across Russia by rail and had seized most of the key towns along the Trans-Siberian Railway by the end of June. Encour- aged by reports of growing opposition to Bolshevik rule, Prime Minister
Clemenceau of France agreed that the Czechoslovak Legion could remain in Russia "to constitute a center of resistance around which Siberian and Cossack elements could gather. . . [and] to prepare the way for . . . Allied intervention from the east. " By July, these developments convinced the Supreme War Council to recommend the dispatch of U. S. and Japanese troops to Russia "to prevent the unlimited military and economic domi-
24 According to Carley, "By the end of April 1918 Paris was thoroughly committed to over- throwing the Bolshevik regime. " British planning for intervention in Siberia and northern Russia began in May. See Carley, Revolution and Intervention, 53; and illlman, Intervention and the War, 193-94.
25 The saga of Rhe Czechoslovak Legion is recounted in Kennan, Decision to Intervene, chaps. 6 and 12; Ullman, Intervention and the War, 151-56, 168-72; Bunyan, Intervention, Civil War, and Communism, chap. 2; and John Swettenham, Allied Intervention in Russia, 1918-1919 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1967), 88-()9.
26 In the words of James Morley, "To send the Czechs through Siberia was to roll a powder keg through a forest fire. An explosion was inevitable. " Japanese Thrust, 235?
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nation of Russia by Germany . . . [and] to bring assistance to the Czecho- Slovak forces. "27
TheUnitedStates. AcrosstheAtlanticinWashington,PresidentWoodrow Wilson had seen the collapse of tsarism as a liberal triumph that removed his reservations about an alliance with Russia. 28 The Bolshevik coup was
? more problematic, but Wilson initially regarded the Bolsheviks as well in- tentioned, if naive. 29 His intimate advisor, Colonel Edward House, predicted moderate forces would soon regain power, and both he and Wilson were confident that Russia would choose to remain part of the liberal alliance against the autocratic Central Powers. A number of U. S officials were less optimistic, however, and virtually all favored a hands-off policy until the situation in Russia was clearer. 30
Pressed by Secretary of State Robert Lansing and others to counter Bol- shevik propaganda (and hoping to coopt the Bolsheviks into his vision of the postwar order), Wilson paid particular attention to the situation in Rus- sia in his "Fourteen Points" speech in January 1918. The sixth of his points called for the "evacuation of all Russian territory" by foreign armies and ad- vised other states to give Russia "a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing. " Wilson condemned Ger- many's territorial demands, praised the "true spirit of modem democracy" that he believed to be emerging in Russia, and lauded the "voice of the Russian people" that "will not yield either in principle or in action. "31 De- spite the growing evidence to the contrary, Wilson was still convinced that liberalism would emerge triumphant and Russia would continue to resist the Central Powers.
His optimism soon faded. The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly in January cast doubt on the Bolsheviks' commitment to democracy. Wilson
27 See Ullman, Intervention and the War, 172; Carley, Revolu tion and Intervention, 64? 6; and Foreign Relations, 1918, Russia, 2:241-46.
28 Wilson told Congress in April 1917 that Russia "was always in fact democratic at. heart . . . and the great, generous Russian people have been added . . . to the forces fighting for free- dom. " Quoted i. n N. Gordon Levin, Woodrow Wilson and World Politics: America's Response to War and Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), 42-43; and see also Kennan, Russia Leaves tlze War, 14-26; and Betsy Miller Unterberger, America's Siberian Expedition, 1918-1920:AStudyofNationalPolicy(Durham:DukeUniversity Press, 1956), ? 10.
29 In November, Wilson said to a group of labor leaders, "Any body of free men that com- pounds with the present German government is compounding for its own destruction," and he told his cabinet that the actions of Lenin and Trotsky "sounded like opera bouffe, talking of armistice when a child would know Germany would . . . destroy any chance for the democ- racy they desired. " Quoted in Levin, Wilson and World Politics, 5? 59?
30 See Levin, Wilson and World Politics, 68; Kennan, Russia Leaves the War, 156-57, 174"'78; and David W. McFadden, Alternative Paths: Soviets and Americans, 1917-1920 (New York: Ox- ford University Press, 1993), chap. 2.
31 See Cumming and Pettit, Russian-American Relations, 68-74; and Kennan, Russia Leaves the War, 253-55.
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grew more concerned after the Congress of Soviets answered his message of congratulations with a bellicose call for world revolution. 32 An image of the Bolshevik regime as hostile and illegitimate began to take shape, and U. S. officials began considering more extensive ways to influence or replace it.
Unlike its British and French allies, however, the United States rejected di- rect intervention until the summer of 1918. Wilson and his advisors, aware of Japanese ambitions in the Far East, did not want to give Japan an opportunity to increase its own influence on the mainland. U. S. leaders also feared that in- tervention would push Russia closer to Germany, and they opposed diverting military assets from the main struggle in Europe. Wilson himself was reluctant to help former tsarist elements regain power: his experiences with the Mexi- can Revolution (discussed in chapter 6 below) having taught him there were limits to what outside forces could accomplish in a revolutionary situation. 33
The breakthrough came in June, when the United States agreed to send troops to support a British and French expeditionary force in northern Rus- sia. 34 The Soviet government tried to head off intervention by offering a se- ries of economic concessions in May, but these gestures did not reverse the growing perception of the Soviet regime as unfriendly and illegitimate. The revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion overcame the rest of Wilson's reserva- tions, and he approved a plan for joint intervention by seven thousand U. S. and seven thousand Japanese troops in July. 35
At the most general level, the U. S. decision to intervene was shaped by Wilson's idealistic faith in the strength of Russian liberalism. Pressure from Britain and France played a key role as well, and Wilson told one confidant
32 Wilson's message had expressed "the sincere sympathy which the people of the United States feel for the Russian people" and pledged that the United States "would avail itself of every opportunity to secure for Russia once more complete sovereignty and independence. " In response, the Soviet government proclaimed, "The happy day is not far distant when the laboring masses . . ? . will throw off the yoke of capitalism and will establish a socialistic state of society. " See Foreign Relations 1918, Russia, 1:399-400; Chamberlin, Russian Revolution, 1:406; and Kennan, Russia Leaves the War, 509-14.
33 See Kennan, Russia Leaves the War, 323-24, 466-67; and Unterberger, America's Siberian Ex- pedition, 25, 31-33. Wilson compared the Russian and Mexican situations in a speech in June, saying that "we cai! Ulot make anything out of Russia. " Quoted in Eugene P. Trani, "Woodrow Wilson and the Decision to Intervene in Russia: A Reconsideration," journal ofModern History 48, no. 3 (1976), 444?
34 Under pressure from the other members of the Entente, Wilson had briefly approved a proposal for Japanese intervention on March 2, but he withdrew his approval three days later. See Kennan, Decision to Intervene, 46cr-83; and Unterberger, America's Siberian Interven- tion, 3D-34?
35 For Wilson, the intervention in northern Russia was intended to safeguard the allied mil- itary stores, while intervention in the Far East was designed to aid the evacuation of the Czechoslovak forces, but his written orders also referred to helping "steady any efforts at self-government or self-defense in which the Russians themselves may be willing to accept assistance. " See Carr, Bolshevik Revolution, 3:87-88; and Kennan, Decision to Intervene, chaps. 16-17 and 483-
? [139]
? ? Revolution and War
that he agreed to the intervention because it was an endeavor "upon which [the United States' allies] have so much set their hearts. " Wilson was also encouraged to act by the former tsarist ambassador in Washington and other prominent Russian exiles, and he shared the British and French fear that Russia was falling under German control. U. S. ambassador David Fran- cis had reported that the German ambassador "was practically dictator in Moscow"; British and French officials sounded similar alarms throughout this period. The growing belief that the Bolsheviks were either pro-German or German agents removed the fear that intervention might force Russia and Germany together, and some U. S. officials favored sending troops out of a fear that the Bolsheviks' internal opponents might turn toward Ger- many if they were unable to obtain Allied support. Wilson, who suspected that Japan was going to intervene anyway, decided that a U. S. presence would be the best way to keep Japan's ambitions in check. This objective linked U. S. intervention to Wilson's overall vision of a liberal Russian fu- ture: by preventing foreign powers from controlling Russia's destiny, the U. S. presence would help bring the liberal forces in Russia to the fore. Fi- nally, the plight of the Czechoslovak Legion provided a moral basis for in- tervention, as sending U. S. forces to "rescue" them was consistent with Wilsonian idealism and his commitment to national self-determination. Thus, on July 6, 1918, Wilson finally agreed to send approximately seven thousand U. S. troops to Vladivostok "to guard the line of communication of the Czecho-Slovaks . . . and cooperate with [them]," while stressing "that
there is no purpose to interfere with [the] internal affairs of Russia. "36
japan. For Japan, the Russian Revolution presented both a threat and an opportunity. On the one hand, the revolution threatened Japan's control over the former German territories it had seized at the beginning of the war and jeopardized the favorable concessions it had obtained from Russia in 1916. The Japanese government also worried that foreign intervention in Russia might lead to a long-term increase in Western influence in the re- gion. 37 On the other hand, the collapse of Russian power gave Japan the chance to expand its territorial control and political influence in Siberia and northern China. Given Western interests in the area, however, it had to pur- sue this objective without alarming the other great powers. 38 Japanese mili-
36 See Foreign Relations, 1918, Russia, 2:262-63, 287-90. On these various motives, see Trani, "Wilson and ? he Decision to Intervene," 442-445; Levin, Wilson and World Politics, 7o-71, 91-95, 109; Kennan, Russia Leaves the War, 94- 147-48, and Decision to Intervene, 365--69, 378-79; and Unterberger, America's Siberian Expedition, 30.
37 In addition to a secret defense pact, Russia had agreed to tum over part of the Chinese Eastern Railway to Japan in exchange for military aid. See Morley, Japanese Thrust, 55, 94; Kennan, Russia Leaves the War, 312-13; and Ian Nish, Japanese Foreign Policy, 1869-1942 (Lon- don: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977), 1o6-11.
38 On Japanese ambitions, see Morley, Japanese Thrust, 5o-59.
? ? TheRussian Revolution
tary leaders had begun preparing plans for intervention in Russia within a week of the Bolshevik coup, but they preferred to maximize their own free- dom of action and took no interest in British or French schemes for using Japanese troops against the Central Powers. Instead, Japanese advocates of intervention hoped to obtain an invitation from the United States that would enable them to expand their country's influence without damaging relations with the West. 39
These concerns did not mean Japan was idle.