The Bolshevik Revolution in Petrograd in November 1917 was the result of the convergence of numerous factions and ambitions, brilliance and incompetence

Introduction

From the summer of 1918 until July 1919 the United States and its Allies in the World War carried out an invasion and occupation of North Russia. This North Russian Intervention centered on the occupation and defense of two city-ports; Murmansk on the Kola Peninsula and Archangel on the White Sea. These operations, involving around 10,000 Allied soldiers were only part of the intervention. In Eastern Siberia the Japanese fielded an army of more than 50,000 and backed various anti-Bolshevik groups. In the South British officers organized campaigns to guarantee the security of vulnerable Indian colonies. The effects and memories of this conflict affected relations between the West and the Soviet Union for decades after the intervention ended. This paper is limited to covering the events in North Russia and the decisions and planning that led up to the Allies Intervening there in 1918. As attempting to cover the full scope complexity of the Intervention in other parts of Russia would be impracticable, only those parts of the Allied, counter-revolutionary, and Bolshevik activities that relate to North Russia have been discussed.

The intervention took place during a very dangerous phase of the land war in Western Europe. The British, French, and American governments used scarce resources and precious soldiers to occupy territory far from the main front in France. The great cost involved in such a long distance operation, as well as the numerous problems involved in fighting in far-northern climates inevitably raise a question: Why did the Allied Powers in late 1917 and 1918 plan and carry out an occupation in force of Russian territory? And after the war had ended why did the Allies maintain an armed force in North Russia? Initially the intervention aimed to drain German strength by restoring the Eastern Front, protect war supplies at Archangel, and keep Murmansk open to the outside world; however, after the Allied victory in November 1918, the Allied troops committed to the North Russian operation remained in North Russia because of animosity towards the Bolsheviks; however the military intervention ended in North Russia because Wilson disagreed with the direction it was headed and ordered the withdrawal of American troops.

In March 1917, after thirty one months of fruitless fighting against Germany, three hundred years of Romanov rule in Russia ended when people, unwilling to cope with food shortages and the seemingly unending war, took up arms against the dynasty. When the garrison in the capital, Petrograd, did not disperse the rioters, but in fact backed them, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated the throne and passed sovereignty to his brother, Grand Duke Mikhail. The Grand Duke, seriously concerned for his own safety, as the mob in the streets of Petrograd was still out in force, declined to assume the office, dissolved the dynasty, and passed power to a Provisional Government.[1]

The United States was the first country to extend recognition to the Provisional Government. The Ambassador of the United States, David Francis put great store in the obviously liberal character of the new government. The European Allies extended formal recognition to the Provisional government immediately after the United States. Their alacrity in recognizing and courting the recently formed government was based as much on exigency as idealistic commitment to liberal government. The French and British leaders were fully aware of the consequences of Russia’s departure from the war might be. To prevent that dread occurrence, they extracted quickly the guarantee of the Provisional Government that the treaties that bound the Tsar also bound them.[2]

For whatever it is worth, the Provisional Government did attempt to carry out its obligations to the Allies. Between the government’s rise to power in March, and the November Revolution its leaders kept fulfillment of its military commitment against German as a high priority. Their commitment is evidenced by the harsh measures that were used to attempt a restoration of order in the ranks, namely permitting field commanders “to fire on Russian units fleeing the field of battle on their own.”[3] This and other extreme attempts to restore military discipline and enable the Russian Army to continue the war were in vain. As the demoralization of the army become more pronounced desertions and insubordination became widespread and intense.[4]

Alexander Kerensky, the head of the Provisional Government from July 1917, embroiled himself in scandal during August through his handling of the attempted coup d’état by General Kornilov. This incident, where then supreme commander Kornilov attempted to seize power in Petrograd, illustrated to many moderates in the capital the impotence of Kerensky’s government. Rumors implicating Kerensky in the plot drove many people farther to the left; towards more extreme socialist groups like the Bolsheviks. By not confronting his opposition effectively and not building strong support, Kerensky’s Provisional Government had little chance for a long tenure. As events unfolded, Kerensky lacked enough backing to survive politically for very long after the Kornilov affair. His weakened government failed to prevent the Bolsheviks from taking power on November 7-8 1917. [5]

The Bolsheviks seized power in Petrograd without significant bloodshed. They earned the immediate anger of the Western Allies by proclaiming that the newly formed socialist republic would immediately leave the war. They addressed this message not to the governments of the belligerents, but to the peoples at large. They then further embittered the Allies towards them by publishing all of the secret treaties between the old Russian governments and the Allies and denying liability for the immense foreign debt that the Tsarist and Provisional Governments had accumulated.[6]

In this way, relations between the Allies still fighting Germany on one hand and the newly proclaimed socialist government of Russia on the other set out on a very poor note. Because of the illegitimate method the Bolsheviks had employed to come to power, as well as their stated aim of leaving the war through a separate peace, the United States and the other Allies did not recognize the Bolsheviks as the real government of Russia. Nor did they establish regular relations with them as a de facto power either. Despite this, the Allies maintained their diplomatic missions in Petrograd.[7]

Although the Bolsheviks took power calling for an immediate end to the War World, the realities of their situation forced them to adopt a different approach. When the Bolsheviks issued their call to the laboring classes of the Allies and Central Powers to rise up and overthrow their governments, they expected a new order to emerge after the class struggle ended. This declaration did a great a deal to develop the Allied view of the Bolsheviks as an illegitimate and dangerous regime. In addition, by unilaterally calling for peace, the Bolsheviks violated the terms of the Entente, where the Allies pledged to seek no separate peace. [8]

In addition to poisoning their relations with the Allies, the Bolsheviks’ Decree on Peace did nothing to ease the danger of the German advance. Because upon taking power the Bolsheviks had disbanded the demoralized and ineffectual Russian Army, they were left without an effective force to face the Germans.[9] As the Germans were obviously disinclined to give peace “without annexation, and without indemnities,” as the Bolshevik Decree on Peace asked, they continued to pursue their offensives against little resistance.

The Bolshevik leadership felt their revolution to be in great peril from all sides, both inside Russia and from a still hostile Germany. In order to gain a respite from continued attacks they entered into negotiations with Germany on 2 December 1917.[10] News of their entry into peace negotiations with Germany was received with concern in the West and was protested by the ambassadors and heads of mission still in Russia. This protest had no perceivable effect on the Bolsheviks’ attempt to extricate their new nation from the World War.

In this increasingly desperate atmosphere elements of the British and French military and political leaderships began to form plans to bring Russia back to the fight. Both countries considered using military force to reopen the Eastern front. That the Allies even considered going to such lengths to keep Russia in the war indicates how desperate they found their situation. Considering their grave manpower and material shortages, the Allies knew these plans were not feasible without the assistance of the United States.[11] Therefore the Allies, especially Britain, began to lobby President Woodrow Wilson to join in planning for an armed intervention. Wilson however, as well as many of his closest advisors remained unconvinced of the need to invade or otherwise interfere with Russia’s internal affairs. It would be many months before the continuous pressure that the British brought to bear on Wilson and his advisors bore the fruit they desired.[12]

As the European Allied government began trying to bring the United States into intervention planning, new developments in Russia changed the situation. Diplomatic missions accredited to the now defunct Provisional Government began to make unofficial contacts with the Bolsheviks. The objective of these contacts was understood differently by the various Allied diplomats and by the Bolsheviks. The Allies, especially the Americans, hoped to bring the Russians back into the war by offering them military and technical advise and credits. In this they acted on a colossal misreading of the situation in Russia. Russia’s people had suffered through more than three years of war and by 1918 they were done with fighting a war into which the Tsar had brought them.[13]

In entertaining the Allied proposals to supply aid in return for a restoration of the Eastern Front, the Bolsheviks were only seeking to buy time and possibly critically needed supplies. The Bolsheviks did not expect much to come of the negotiations, but by appearing to they hoped to make the Germans concerned enough to honor the armistice in the east. By keeping up the appearance that there was still a chance of bringing Russia back into the war, they encouraged British hopes that intervention in Russia and the restoration of the Eastern front could be accomplished with Bolshevik blessing, or at least acquiescence. [14]

The Allies’ hopes for Russia’s return to the war persisted in spite of every action by the Bolsheviks to take Russia out of the war permanently. Discussions between the American military attaché, Colonel Riggs, and Trotsky, War Commissar, began before the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. These talks were aimed at working out an agreement on an Allied mission providing training officers and supplies to the Bolsheviks. Little progress was made because of how poorly the Allies understood the Bolsheviks. While the Bolsheviks considered their involvement in the World War over, they were already planning to face the enemies of their revolution inside Russia.[15] In order to have a chance to win, they needed all the supplies they could lay their hands on. This included the war supplies purchased on Allied credit by the Tsarist and Provisional governments. Since the port was icebound five to six months out of the year, the Allies had no way of taking any action more forceful than diplomatic notes. Although the Allied missions protested this seizure the Bolsheviks continued to remove the thousands of tons of materials at Archangel.[16]

In early February 1918, Edgar Sisson of the Committee on Public Information received documents that purported to prove that the Bolsheviks, in particular Lenin, were in the pay of the German General Staff. Convinced of their authenticity he brought them in April to the United States. The documents proved to enough leaders in the State Department to warrant withdrawing all non-Departmental personnel from Russia. By accepting the stiff terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on 3 March 1918 the Bolsheviks reinforced the suspicions of those who already doubted the veracity of their revolutionary claims. In addition to souring future contacts with the Bolsheviks, these rumors made the work of the Bolsheviks to swiftly remove war supplies from Archangel appear suspicious.[17]

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk greatly worsened the Allied situation on the Western Front and increased their sense of desperation. By ending general hostilities against Russia the treaty gave Germany the chance to redeploy hundreds of thousands of soldiers to France.[18] As these forces began to appear in France the British and French governments became increasingly concerned with the growing unfavorable balance of forces. On 21 March 1918 the Germans began a massive offensive against British positions on the Western Front. In less than four months the Allies sustained over 1,000,000, mostly British, battle casualties.[19] Understanding the desperate situation of the Allies in late 1917 and early 1918 is a prerequisite for comprehending the Allied policy of intervention. Although Allied leaders formulated many different plans for intervening in Russia emerged, the World War was the backdrop for all of them.[20]

American involvement in the World War and the United States’ relations with the Bolsheviks now needs to be introduced. The United States joined the Allies on 6 April 1917, just weeks after the March Revolution toppled the Romanov Dynasty and the Provisional Government began its brief rule of Russia. The United States extended hundreds of millions of dollars of credits to help Russia’s war effort. This funding supplied the Russian Army with critically needed arms, supplies, and material. The poor condition of infrastructure in Russia at this time caused large stockpiles of this material accumulated at Archangel and Murmansk in North Russia and Vladivostok in the Far East.[21]

The Soviet need to create an effective army led them to request from the American military mission a number of advisors and training experts. When Ambassador Francis passed the request for advisors to Washington, the State Department responded with the concern that this was only a ploy by the Germans “…to [divert] Entente efforts from the western front.” Francis himself effectively admitted the possibility that the Bolshevik revolution might be nothing more than a German plan to disrupt the Allied war effort. The French Ambassador, Joseph Noulens upon arriving in Vologda set about disrupting the plan to assist and train the proposed Red Army. He was motivated to disrupt the potential cooperation because of his great distrust of the communists. His viciously anti-Bolshevik agenda succeeded in blocking any possibility of France sending military advisors for the formation of a Bolshevik controlled army. The other Allies followed his lead and withdrew from discussions of military advisors pending the Bolshevik government assuming the Provisional Government and Imperial Russia foreign debt to the Allies. The gulf of misunderstanding that separated the western Allies and the Bolshevik leadership is apparent here again: while some of the Allied representatives were trying to reach agreements with the Bolshevik leaders for the purpose of building an army to use against Germany, Trotsky and the other Bolsheviks only wanted whatever war supplies and training they could get to protect themselves during the now looming civil war. [22]

[1] Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924, (New York: Penguin Books, 1996), 339-345.

[3] Alexander Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks Come to Power: The Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd, 2^nd ed (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2004), 28.

[6] Richard H. Ullman, Anglo-Soviet Relations, 1917-1921: Intervention and the War, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), 69; George F. Kennan, Soviet-American Relations 1917-1920: Russia Leaves the War, (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1958), 92-93.

[12] Eugene P. Trani, “Woodrow Wilson and the Decision to Intervene in Russia: A Reconsideration,” The Journal of Modern History 48, no. 3 (Sep 1976), 446.

[18] Ullman, Intervention and the War, 14, 128.

[20] Ullman, Intervention and the War, 330-334.

[21] George F. Kennan, Soviet-American Relations 1917-1920: The Decision to Intervene, (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1956), 17.