No More Learning

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.
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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.
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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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ternational socialism was still "weaker than international imperialism . . . and must do everything to avoid battle with it. " He was also convinced that the survival of Soviet Russia depended on divisions between the capitalist countries and warned at the end of World War I, "Now world capital will start an offensive against us. "94 In addition to the negative sentiments of the Whites and their Western supporters, hostility to Bolshevism was also apparentin the suppression of the Spartacist movement in Germany in Jan- uary 1919, the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht by govern- ment security forces in Berlin, and the deaths of four Russian Red Cross delegates at the hands of a group of Polish gendarmes. Allied support for the independence movements in the Baltic and Transcaucasia and their de- cision to allow German troops to remain in Eastern Europe as a "barrier to Bolshevism" further confirmed the Bolsheviks' belief in a powerful capital- ist alliance bent on their destruction.
At the same time, Lenin and his associates maintained that prospects for a world revolution had never been brighter. In a letter to the Central Committee on October 3, Lenin called for "an army of three million" to aid the "interna- tional worker's revolution," and subsequent messages urged Soviet diplomats in Berlin and Stockholm to devote greater efforts to propaganda work. A Cen- tral Committee resolution on October 22 summed up this blend of optimism and pessimism perfectly: "On the one hand, we have never been so close to an international prolletarian revolution as we are now; on the other hand, we have never been in such a perilous position as we are now. "95 Their response was a strategy of appeasement intended to divide the imperialist forces and buy time for the revolution to spread. Thus, apart from a few minor lapses (such as the harsh letter from Chicherin to Wilson in October 1918), the Soviet government began to emphasize its desire for an accommodation with the West. 96
The first clear sign of this policy was a resolution issued by the Sixth All- Russian Congress of Soviets on November 8, 1918. The resolution offered generous economic concessions in exchange for a peace agreement, an offer that Soviet emissary Maxim Litvinov repeated during talks with Western representatives in December. On December 23, Litvinov sent a letter to the Allied governments proposing negotiations for "a peaceful settlement of all
94 Quoted in Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 86; and Chamberlin, Russian Rev- olution, 2:155. Lenin also told Karl Radek, "The gravest moment has arrived. Germany is beaten. The Entente's road to Russia is cleared. Even if Germany does not take part in the campaign against us, the hands of the Allies are free. " Quoted in Piero Melograni, Lenin and and theMyth ofWorld Revolution: Ideology and Reasons ofState, 1917-1920 (Atlantic Highlands, N. J. : Humanities Press, 1989), 28.
149-50; and Carr, Bolshevik Revolu tion, 3:91-97.
% According to Thompson, "from October 1918 to January 1919 the Soviet government of-
ficially proposed peace to the Western powers on at least seven different occasions. " Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 88; and see also Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 87 n. 50.
95 See Lenin, Selected Works, 3:55-56; Bunyan, Intervention, Civil War, and Communism,
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the outstanding questions," which he followed with a conciliatory message to Wilson the next day. Addressing the "one-sided accusations against So- viet Russia," Litvinov appealed to Wilson's "sense of justice and impartial- ity," reiterated the Bolshevik desire for peace, and called for the Entente to withdraw its troops, lift the blockade, and "come to an understanding with the Sovnet Govemment. "97
AlliedResponses. TheSovietpeaceoffensivereceivedafavorableresponse from Britain and the United States. The Imperial War Cabinet authorized preliminary talks with Litvinov, and Wilson sent a young diplomat, William H. Buckler, to meet with Litvinov in Stockholm in January. Litvinov told Buckler his government was "prepared to compromise on all points, in- cluding the Russian foreign debt, protection to existing foreign enterprise, and the granting of new concessions in Russia. " He also declared that Bol- shevik propaganda would end as soon as a peace settlement was reached, and stated that the "Russians realize that in certain western countries con- ditions are not favorable for a revolution. "98
In response, Britain and the United States made several attempts to end the civil war and terminate their involvement in Russia. Buckler's talks with Litvinov convinced the Allies to approve a British proposal for negotiations on "conditions for a general settlement," and the Allied representatives at the Paris Peace Conference overcame French objections and voted on January 21 to invite representatives of the "organized groups now contending for the leadership and guidance of Russia" to a conference to be held at the Prinkipo
Islands in rnid-February. 99 The Soviet government accepted the proposal on February 4, 1919. The decision reflected its overwhelming desire to end the civil war and its confidence that any concessions it might be forced to make would be reversed once the revolution had spread to the West. 100 The leaders
97 Litvinov also requested outside aid and technical support to help the Soviet governme! 1lt "exploit [Russia's) natural richness . . . for the benefit of all countries. " See Degras, Soviet Doc- uments, 1:123, 129-32; and Foreign Relations 1919, Russia, 1-2. For a description of other Sovieft activities along these lines, see McFadden, Alternative Paths, 176-80.
98 See Foreign Relations 1919, Russia, 15-17.
99 See Foreign Relations 1919, Russia, 2-3, 3<r-31; Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 93--95 and passim; Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 95-100. French foreign ministe[ Stephen Piclhon protested that France would "make no contract with crime," and Ambas- sador Noulens made a dramatic presentation in which he portrayed the Soviet government as both an awesome menace and a weak and vulnerable foe. See Foreign Relations, 1919, Peace Conference, 3:623-42; and Mayer, Politics and Diplomacy, 427.
100 See Degras, Soviet Documents, 1:137-39; Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 115-18; and McFadden, Alternative Paths, 202-205. Trotsky had already declared, "All that we cede now will come back to us, because Soviet Russia gives in to lhe imperialists only tem- porarily," and Chicherin remarked that "Brest-Litovsk had shown that such [imperialist] an- nexations could be only of short duration. " Quoted in Piotr S. Wandycz, Soviet-Polish Relations, 1917-1921 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), 102.
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of the various ex-Russian territories accepted the Allied invitation as well, but the representatives of the anti-Bolshevik Whites refused to participate, on the grounds that negotiations would legitimize Bolshevik rule. 101 The French govemment encouraged the Whites to reject the invitation, and con- servatives in Britain and the United States waged a fierce press campaign against any contact with the Bolshevik IIcriminals. " The date for the confer- ence soon passed and the "Prinkipo proposal" merely confirmed each side's belief in the immutable malice of the other. 102
The next attempt to reach an accommodation with the Soviet regime began in February, when Wilson authorized an unofficial mission to Moscow by William Bullitt, a journalist attached to the U. S. delegation in Paris. The mission was originally intended to gather information about so- cial and political conditions in Russia, but as Bullitt later recounted, some Entente officials decided to use the opportunity "to obtain from the Soviet Government an exact statement of the terms on which they were ready to stop fighting. " Members of the British and U. S. delegations gave Bullitt sev- eral specific proposals for ending the civil war and restoring normal rela- tions between Russia and the West and asked him to determine whether these terms would be acceptable to the Bolsheviks. 103
Bullitt's observations in Russia convinced him that the Soviet regime en- joyed substantial popular support and was governing effectively in the ter- ritories it controlled. The Soviet leaders accepted his proposals with only minor modifications. Their willingness to concede vast amounts of territory to the Whites in exchange for the cessation of Allied assistance testifies to the importance they attached to ending foreign intervention and to Lenin's belief that the White armies could not survive on their own. 104
101 See Mayer, Politics and Diplomacy, 432-39; Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 123-24; and Nadia Tongour, "Diplomacy in Exile: Russian Emigres in Paris, 1918-1925,'' (Ph. D. diss. , Stanford University, 1979), 132-33.
102 The failure of the Prinkipo proposal is analyzed in Richard K. Debo, Survival and Con- s o l i d a t i o n : T h e F o r e i g n P o l i c y of S o v i e t R u s s i a , 1 9 1 8 - 1 9 2 1 ( M o n t r e a l : M e G i l l / Q u e e n ' s U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1992), 31-33; Chamberlin, Russian Revolution, 2:157-59; McFadden, Alternative Paths, chap 8; Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 107-17; Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 1 19-30; Mayer, Politics and Diplomacy, 436-49; and Carley, Revolution and Interven- tion, 152-53.
103 These proposals were worked out by Bullitt, Edward House, and Philip Kerr, Lloyd George's private secretary, and Wilson was not informed of this step (although Lloyd George probably was). The lack of clear agreement on the purpose of the mission contributed to its failure and underscored Soviet impressions of Western perfidy. See Debo, Survival and Con- solidation, 44-49; McFadden, Alternative Paths, chap. 9; Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Ver- sailles, 149-56; and Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 145-46.
104 As Lenin told a British journalist in 1920, "We proposed this treaty (to Bullitt] with the knowledge that if peace were signed, those [White] governments could never hold out. " Quoted in McFadden, Alternative Paths, 231; and also see Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 154, 164-75. For Bullitt's report, see Foreign Relations, 1919, Russia, 85-95.
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Bullitt hurriedly cabled these terms to Paris on March 16 but returned there to find that nothing had been done. As it turned out, the proposals he had submitted in Moscow did not even reflect a consensus among U. S. offi? ? cials (let alone the Entente as a whole), and both Lloyd George and Wilson faced strong domestic opposition to any compromise with the Bolshevilk regime. 105 Bullitt's own progressive sympathies made it easier for conserva- tives to discount his testimony, and though his conduct in Moscow showed him to be a tough and effective negotiator, the terms he achieved still con- tained significant flaws. Bullitt's efforts also fell victim to bad timing, as the agenda of the peace conference had shifted by the time he returned to Paris and his sponsors now chose to focus their energies on other issues. 106
With hindsight, the Bullitt mission is best seen as a lost opportunity for the Allies to end their involvement in Russia on far better terms than they ultimately obtained. The concessions offered to Bullitt did not mean that the Bolsheviks had abandoned their revolutionary ambitions, and a sincere ef- fort to follow up on Bullitt's initiative would hardly have guaranteed a sig- nificant improvement in Soviet relations with the West; however, the Soviets' response suggested that they were willing to pursue more or less normal relations with the Allied powers, even if out of necessity rather thal! 1l conviction. 107 And since their acceptance of virtually all Bullitt's conditions had gained them nothing, it is hardly surprising that they saw this episode as additional evidence of imperialist hostility.
The final attempt to reach an accommodation with the Soviet regime dur- ing the first half of 1919 was the so-called Hoover-Nansen plan, whiclh linked Western relief aid to a ceasefire between the Red Army and the Whites. The proposal suffered the same dim fate as its predecessors. The
105 Wilson refused to meet with Bullitt upon the latter's return to Paris, and Lloyd George answered Bullitt's pleas by waving a copy of the conservative Daily Mail and saying, "As long as the British press is doing this kind of thing, how can you expect me to sensible abouR Russia? " Lloyd George later recalled, "Personally I would have dealt with the Soviets as the defacto government of Russia. So would President Wilson. But we both agreed that we could! not carry to that extent our colleagues at the [peace conference] nor the public opinion of our own countries which was frightened by Bolshevik violence and feared its spread. " See hls Truth about the Peace Treaties, 1:331; Debo, Survival and Consolidation, 50; Levin, Wilson and World Politi! Cs, 214-15; and Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 153-56.
106 The agreement called for a cease-fire and a joint pledge of noninterference in domestic politics but did not explain how either provision would be enforced. It also required an end! to Allied support for the Whites, which in effect meant abandoning the policy the Entente had followed for over a year.
107 The Bolshevik decision to accept Bullitt's proposals was clearly controversial; Zinoviev refused to speak with Bullitt, and Trotsky referred to the delegation as "eavesdroppers" sent "to assess whether we should hold firm or not. " Chicherin defended the compromise, warn- ing that a refusal would lead to renewed support for the Whites, and Lenin reminded several party gatherings that "our country alone cannot overthrow world imperialism. . . . We have to make concessions [to it]. " See Debo, Survival and Consolidation, 47-48; and McFadden, Al- ternative Paths, 228-30.
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French governen\ nt reluctantly endorsed it on April t6 but Kolchak and the emigre Political Committee protested that relief aid would merely prolong Bolshevik rule. 108 The Soviet government did not even learn of the proposal until May 4, and then responded by blaming food shortages in Russia on the civil war and the Allied blockade and pointing out that the political is- sues raised in the proposal could only be addressed by formal peace talks. By the time this message was received, however, reports of Kolchak's early
successes had reached Paris, and the Hoover-Nansen plan was quickly dropped. Like the Prinkipo proposal and the Bullitt mission, the speed with which this initiative was abandoned underscores the Entente's continued ambivalence about the proper approach to the new regime in Moscow. 109
The failure of accommodation highlights some of the obstacles to im- proving relations with a revolutionary government. The first problem was the sheer difficulty of negotiating with an unrecognized regime: the Soviets were not present at the peace conference, and unlike the Whites, they had no community of sympathizers in Paris to lobby on their behalf. Communi-
cation was hampered further by the Entente's fear that contacts with the Soviet regime might imply recognition (although this objection did not pre- vent them from sending military attaches and other representatives to work directly with the Whites). As a result, negotiations were conducted either via erratic radio broadcasts or through semiofficial emissaries such as Bul- litt. These constraints increased uncertainty and made detrimental misun- derstandings more likely. 110
Second, the opposition to accommodation was reinforced by anti-Bolshe- vik propaganda, much of it traceable to Russian exiles and the White forces themselves. Not only did the exiles' Political Committee in Paris enjoy close ties with the French government (which shared its anti-Bolshevik world- view}, but the conservative opposition that constrained Lloyd George was fueled in part by misleading or fic. titious reports from unreliable anti-Bol- shevik sources. m Thus, the general lack of information was exacerbated by "facts" that were politically inspired and predictably biased.
Third, accommodation was hampered by disagreements among the Allies as a whole and within the individual Allied governments. These divisions
108 On the origins and outcome of the Hoover-Nansen plan, see Levin, Wilson and World Politics, 217-18; Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 256-62; Foreign Relations, 1919, Russia, 1oo-102, 108-10<); and McFadden, Alternative Paths, chap. 10.
109 According to Ullman, the Allied commissioners did not receive the Soviet reply until May 14, because the French receiving station in the Eiffel Tower refused to relay the message. See Britain and the Russian Civil War, 160; and Foreign Relations, 1 9 1 9, Russia, 1 1 1-15, 351-54.
110 See Thompson, Russia, Bolshevism, and Versailles, 16o-61.
111 These reports, published in a British government white paper, contained accusations that the Bolsheviks had nationalized women and established "commissariats of free love," that they were using Chinese torturers, and that churches were being converted into broth- els. See Ullman, Britain and the Russian Civil War, 141-44, 173-77-
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were partly due to normal political rivalries but were enlarged by the per- sistent dearth of information. The consequence was a stalemate: the Whites received enough support to continue but not enough to win, and the Allies never followed up on the Soviets' favorable responses to their halfhearted\ proposals for detente. 112
Finally, the failure of accommodation reflected the basic truth that the Bol- sheviks were more interested in a settlement than the Allies were. No West- em leader wanted Russia to remain under Bolshevik control, and even those who opposed intervention were unwilling to pursue accommodation in the face of domestic opposition or reports of White successes. The result was a self-defeating mixture of confrontation and conciliation that simultaneously reinforced Soviet perceptions of threat and helped them strengthen their hold on power.
The Diplomacy ofIsolation
After the demise of the Hoover-Nansen plan, the Soviet government sus- pended its efforts at accommodation in favor of greater reliance on revolu- tionary propaganda. An international congress of socialist parties convened in Moscow in March, and the delegates responded to a fiery speech by an Austrian representative by voting to establish the Third Communist Inter- national, or Comintern. 113 The congress also called for colonial revolts
against the imperialist powers (a theme that the Bolsheviks repeated throughout the year}, and Foreign Minister Chicherin began propaganda broadcasts encouraging foreign workers to oppose intervention in Russia. 114
Soviet relliance on propaganda during this period was partly ideological in origin and partly a matter of necessity. The failure of the peace offensive confirmed Soviet beliefs about capitalist hostility and the inevitability of
112 As an Itallian delegate later . recalled: "We had to choose in Russia between two policies equally logical and defendable. The first is that of intervention; to go to Moscow if necessary and crush Bolshevism by force. The second consists in regarding Bolshevism as a govern- ment defacto, and to establish relations with it, if not cordial at least more or less normal. We did not know how to adopt either one or the other and we have suffered the worst conse- quences for pursuing both at the same time. Without going to war, we are in a state of war with Russia. " Quoted in Wandycz, Soviet-Polish Relations, 104.
113 The Austrian delegate, Karl Steinhardt, told the congress that "all eyes [in Europe) are turned toward revolutionary Russia. They are only waiting for her to give them the password to go into action. " Quoted in Melograni, Lenin and World Revolution, 56; and see also James W. Hulse, The Forming ofthe Communist International (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1964), 19-20; and Carr, Bolshevik Revolution, 3:1 18-26.
114 As Chicherin described Soviet diplomacy during this period: "We write fewer notes to governments but more appeals to the working classes. " Two Years of Soviet Foreign Policy: the Relations of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic with Foreign Nations, from November 7, 1917, to November 7, 1919 (New York: Russian Soviet Government Bureau, 1920), 35? Also see Carr, BolshevikRevolution, 3:122-23, 235-36; and Degras, Soviet Documents, 1:15o-178.
? ? The Russian Revolution
war, while evidence of unrest in the West sustained the hope that the spread of revolution would undermine the imperialist powers and provide Soviet Russia with new allies. As Lenin told the Eighth Party Congress in March 1919: "We are living not merely in a state, but in a system ofstates; and it is in- conceivable that the Soviet republic should continue to exist for a long pe- riod side by side with imperialist states. Ultimately one or the other must conquer. "115 Although a Communist uprising in Berlin was crushed in Janu- ary, the Bolsheviks were heartened by mutinies that forced the French expe- ditionary force to withdraw from the Ukraine and by the establishment of a Soviet republic in Hungary in March. Indeed, when a Soviet government was proclaimed in Bavaria in April, Lenin declared, "Our victory on an in- ternational scale is now completely secure. " The head of the Comintern, Gregor Zinoviev, echoed this assessment by predicting that within a year, one would begin to forget that there was ever a struggle over Communism in Europe. Lenin made a similar forecast two months later, saying that '. 'this July will be our last difficult July, and next July we shall greet the victory of
the international Soviet republic. "116 Although statements such as these were probably intended to bolster morale, they also reveal a continued faith in the inevitability of world revolution. As it happened, neither the Hun- garian nor Bavarian regime would last more than a few months, and an at- tempted Communist uprising in Vienna was to be crushed in June. 117 For the moment, however, these events reinforced the Soviets' faith in Europe's rev- olutionary potential and encouraged their continued efforts to promote it.
The Soviet government also believed that the threat of revolution might convince the Allies to abandon their support for the Whites. Chicherin's radio broadcasts were intended to hasten this process, and the British So- cialist Party's "Hands Off Russia" campaign in February 1919 and an abortive general strike later in the spring convinced Soviet leaders that rev- olutionary propaganda was an effective way to undermine public support for intervention. As Lenin told a British journalist early in the year, "En- gland may seem to you untouched, but the microbe is already there. "118 The
115 Quoted in Carr, Bolshevik Revolution, 3:115 (emphasis in the original).
116 AsLenintoldtheComintemCongressinMarch,"Whenwehearhowquicklytheidea of Soviets is spreading in Germany and even in Britain, it is very important evidence that the proletarian revolution will be victorious. " See Lenin, Selected Works, 3:162, 176-77; and Carr, Bolshevik Revolution, 3:129.
117 On these events, see Werner T. Angress, "The Takeover that Remained in Limbo: The Ger- man Experience, 1918-1923," and Paul Ignotus, "The First Two Communist Takeovers of Hun- gary: 1919 and 1948," in The Anatomy ofCommunist Takeovers, ed. Thomas T. Hammond (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975); Mayer, Politics and Diplomacy, chaps. 17, 21, 24; and Peter Pastor, Hungary between Wilson and Lenin (Boulder, Colo. : East European Quarterly, 1976).
118 Quoted in Carr, Bolshevik Revolution, 3:128. For descriptions of domestic conditions in Europe, see Mayer, Politics and Diplomacy, 559-62 and chaps. 1 8-20, 25; and Walter Kendall, The Revolutionary Movement in Britain, 190o-1921 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969), 187--95?
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Bolsheviks' faith in these tactics was based partly on their own isolation; lacking reliable information about social conditions in Europe, they exag- gerated the strength of socialist forces in the West and failed to recognize how different conditions in Europe were from those in Russia in 1917.
Finally, the Soviets relied on propaganda simply because they had no other options. Attempting to spark other proletarian revolutions was not only consistent with Bolshevik ideology, it was the only policy available once the peace offensive failed. Even if full-fledged revolutions did not occur else- where, the threat of domestic disturbances might persuade the Entente to abandon its support for the Whites. Nor was this hope entirely fanciful, as the fear of domestic unrest was one reason why Lloyd George and others had opposed an all-out effort to topple the Soviet regime in the first place.