When the United States Invaded Russia by Carl J. Richard

Author:Carl J. Richard [Richard, Carl J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2012-11-26T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

In Search of a Russian Policy

[Russia] was the Banquo’s ghost sitting at every Council Table.

—Herbert Hoover, regarding the Paris Peace Conference.1

In the first half of 1919 the Allies made five attempts to formulate a common policy for Russia at the Paris Peace Conference. All of these attempts failed.

The Prinkipo Proposal

The first attempt was the Prinkipo proposal. In early December 1918 an inter-Allied conference, lacking only American participation, was held in London. At this conference the subject of the representation of Russia at the Paris Peace Conference (see photo p. 101) was discussed. French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau vehemently opposed any Russian participation in the conference. The secretary recorded, “He would resist with great energy any representation of Russia, which had betrayed the Allied cause during the war. The peace which was yet to be settled did not concern her.” British Prime Minister Lloyd George strongly disagreed:

It must be recognized that, great as had been the suffering of the other Allies, Russia had probably lost more lives than any. Their troops had fought without arms or munitions; they had been outrageously betrayed by their Government, and it was little to be wondered at if, in their bitterness, the Russian people had rebelled against the Alliance. He doubted whether any other country would have borne as much as Russia and remained in the war so long. . . . It was not possible to say that the Tartars, the Finns, the Letts, should come to the Peace Conference and not the Bolsheviks, who stood for two-thirds of the whole population. The Bolsheviks, whatever might be thought of them, appeared to have a hold over the majority of the population. This was a fact, a sinister one no doubt, but facts could not be neglected because they were unpalatable. He reminded the meeting that 120 years ago similar feelings had been experienced, and similar views expressed, in that very room, with Mr. [William] Pitt, whose portrait was hanging on the wall, in the Chair, in regard to the French revolutionaries, and the dissidents in Vendee, and in the south of France. He therefore strongly deprecated the adoption of any fixed attitude towards Central Russia.

A further reason which weighed with him was the danger that the military intervention would only strengthen the very force which we set out to destroy. It was impossible to ignore the parallel of the French Revolution. There, too, had been horrors as bad as, or worse than, those of the Bolsheviks, perpetrated by a small faction, who had secured the control of the French. There, too, we were invited to help. Toulon and La Vendee corresponded to Riga and the Ukraine. But the very fact that we intervened enabled Danton to rally French patriotism and make the terror a military instrument. When the Revolution was followed by a military dictatorship we were worse off. France became organized as a great military machine imbued with a passionate hatred against us.

Were we prepared to face a revolutionary war against a

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