Russia in Manchuria by Paul Dukes

Author:Paul Dukes [Dukes, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Ethnic Studies, General, Research, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9781000452969
Google: RtVVEAAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 57632893
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2022-01-31T00:00:00+00:00

5 Soviet Russia, Imperial Japan and the USAHarbin, 1918–29

DOI: 10.4324/9781003161769-5

The Paris Conference: revolution, civil war and intervention in the Far East

Soon after the Armistice of November 1918, the Peace Conference opened in Paris in January 1919, with US President Wilson keen to push his Fourteen Points for peace in the face of the scepticism of British Prime Minister Lloyd George and the French Premier Clemenceau, who complained that God Almighty had made no more than Ten. The Japanese delegation failed to get support for its suggestion that the equality of nations be recognised. It also found acceptance of the takeover of German rights in the Shantung peninsula and the Pacific Islands difficult to obtain until it revealed that Britain, France, Italy and the USA had pledged them in secret treaties of 1917; it threatened to stay out of the League of Nations if the promise was not kept. China, which had entered the war after much Allied pressure in February 1917, acquiesced with reluctance.

Regarding the other Far Eastern power, Russia, on 22 January the Big Three adopted a proposal for every organised group exercising political authority or military control anywhere in Siberia or Europe to come to Prinkipo Island near Istanbul for discussion with representatives of the Allies about achieving ‘happy co-operative relations’ between the Russian peoples and the other peoples of the world. Commissar for Foreign Affairs Chicherin, who had been continuing his denunciation of intervention along with his appeals for peace, gave a positive response on 4 February to the invitation that had been broadcast by radio to the Soviet government and its opponents, offering to repay the tsarist foreign debts among other concessions. However, the White opposition in Paris joined the sceptical French and American representatives to speak out against any dealings with the Bolsheviks. Woodrow Wilson, who insisted that he was not looking for ‘a rapprochement with the Bolsheviks,’ nevertheless later in February sent a representative from the State Department, William C. Bullitt, to Moscow to explore the possibilities of peace with Lenin and his comrades. In return for the cessation of the Allied Intervention in Russia and recognition of de facto governments on the territory of the former Russian Empire, the Bolsheviks were prepared to offer a general amnesty while reiterating their readiness to repay tsarist foreign debts although insisting that, because of their parlous financial position, the Russian gold seized by the Czecho-Slovaks in Siberia or taken from Germany by the Allies would be regarded by them as part payment. Disappointed by Wilson’s reaction to the Bolshevik concessions, Bullitt resigned from the State Department on 17 May, observing that Russia had not been understood while the USA had not acted in the spirit of Wilson’s Fourteen Points. In spite of Bullitt’s remarks and further reservations by General Graves about the lack of popular support for Admiral Kolchak in Siberia, Wilson joined the Allies in an invitation of 26 May to the White leader ‘to form a single government and army command’ as soon as the military situation made it possible and provided that he accepted the principle of democracy.

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