matthews@harvard.ARPA (Jim Matthews) (04/07/85)
> Not at the request of the russian government. By 1919, the Bolsheviks > had been the government for nearly 2 years. Dead wrong. The original contingent of American and British troops landed in Murmansk at the request of Leon Trotsky, the military head of the Bolshevik regime. Trotsky was afraid of the Germans marching north to take the military stores there, as were the Allies. > But the intervention was too little, and probably too late. We were, > in fact "imperialist aggressors" sending our troops to invade Russia > and overthrow the Government (unfortunately, Russia is bigger than > Grenada or the Dominican Republic). > > Martin Taylor (1) There was nothing "imperialist" about it -- Russia could not conceivably become part of any U.S. "empire." If it's economic imperialists you're talking about, then that charge should be leveled at the western businessmen who rushed to trade with the Bolsheviks -- in contrast, there was no interest on the part of Western industrialists in funding the White armies. (2) We did not "invade Russia" -- we gave very limited support to one side of a civil war. There was no effort to take territory or extract economic concessions, the common aims of invasions. (3) We didn't try to "overthrow the Government", partly because Russia had several governments at the time. If we had really wanted to overthrow Bolshevik control of either Moscow or St. Petersburg it would have been a very simple matter. The Bolsheviks were on the edge of collapse. (4) It is unfortunate that Russia is so big, if only because it magnifies the cruelty that its government can inflict on that country's people. But Russia's size does not mean that we were impotent to effect any change in 1918-19. What stopped us was not size, or the Bolshevik's power, but rather a lack of forsight and will. Jim Matthews matthews@harvard
tan@ihu1e.UUCP (exit) (04/09/85)
Jim Mathews states: > The original contingent of American and British > troops landed in Murmansk at the request of Leon Trotsky, the military > head of the Bolshevik regime. Trotsky was afraid of the Germans marching > north to take the military stores there, as were the Allies. I have done a lot of reading about the Russian Revolution and the subsequent civil war, and this is the first time I have heard anyone make this claim. Everything I have read indicates the troops were sent there to help fight the Bolsheviks. Can anyone produce any evidence to support Mathews' statement? Even paranoids have real enemies: Bill Tanenbaum Please forgive the lack of a signature at the beginning. I haven't posted to the net from this machine before, and neglected to set up a signature file.
baba@spar.UUCP (Baba ROM DOS) (04/09/85)
> > Not at the request of the russian government. By 1919, the Bolsheviks > > had been the government for nearly 2 years. > > Dead wrong. The original contingent of American and British > troops landed in Murmansk at the request of Leon Trotsky, the military > head of the Bolshevik regime. Trotsky was afraid of the Germans marching > north to take the military stores there, as were the Allies. Well, the way I heard it was that the *British* had indeed landed at Murmansk with the consent of the Bolsheviks before the outbreak of civil war. The initial objective of the subsequent US intervention against the Reds was to aid in the escape of some 30,000 Czechs who found themselves on the wrong side of both the Civil War and the Volga, while appeasing the anti-Bolshevik lobby at home. President Wilson had resisted earlier demands for action against the Communists. I really don't know how much US intervention was motivated by ideology and how much it arose from anger over the Lenin's separate peace with the Central Powers. Both seem to have been factors. > (4) It is unfortunate that Russia is so big, if only because it > magnifies the cruelty that its government can inflict on that country's > people. But Russia's size does not mean that we were impotent to > effect any change in 1918-19. What stopped us was not size, or the > Bolshevik's power, but rather a lack of forsight and will. > > Jim Matthews > matthews@harvard It is not entirely clear what ultimate benefit we would have had from overthrowing the Bolsheviks in 1919. The first World War was over. We would very probably have found ourselves in conflict with Russia as a power by midcentury regardless of who ruled it, or, if the old Russian Empire had been somehow dismembered in 1919, the outcome of Hitler's war in Europe could have been quite different. Baba
orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) (04/09/85)
Mr. Matthews: you certainly have an inventive mind to come up with this amusing recreation of history. Will the Holocaust be the next "hoax" to be exposed? Here is your fictional account: > > From Martin Taylor: > > Not at the request of the russian government. By 1919, the Bolsheviks > > had been the government for nearly 2 years. > Jim Matthews reply: > Dead wrong. The original contingent of American and British > troops landed in Murmansk at the request of Leon Trotsky, the military > head of the Bolshevik regime. Trotsky was afraid of the Germans marching > north to take the military stores there, as were the Allies. > Leon Trotsky was the head of the Red Army. He was not about to invite Western capitalist armies to intervene in the Russian Civil War. Here is a quote from "A History of the Modern World" on the Allied intervention: "Not only old tsarist reactionaries, and not only liberals, bourgeois, zemstvo men, and Consitutional Democrats, but all types of anti-Leninist socialists as well, Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries, scattered in all directins to organize resistance against the regime of soviets and people's commissars. They found followers among the peasants and *obtained aid from the western Allies.* .............. "The Allied governments believed that Bolshevism was a temporary madness that with a little effort could be stopped. They wished also to bring Russia back into the war against Germany. So long as the war in Europe lasted, they could not reach Russia by the Black or Baltic Sea. A small Allied force took Murmansk and Archangel in the North. But for Allied military intervention the best opening was in the Far East, through Vladivostock. ......... It was agreed that an interallied military force should land at Vladivostock, cross Siberia, join with the Czechs, break up Bolshevism, and fall upon the Germans in eastern Europe. For this ambitious scheme Britain and France could supply no soldiers, engaged as they were on the western front; the force turned out to be American and Japanese, or rather almost purely Japanese since Japan contributed 72,000 men and the United States only 8,000. The civil war lasted until 1920, or even later in some places. It became a confused melee in which the Bolsheviks struggled against dissident Russians and against foreign intervention. They fought in the Ukraine first against the Germans, and then against the French, who occupied Odessa as soon as the war ended in Europe....... British, French, and American troops remained at Archangel until the end of 1919, the Japanese at Vladivostock until the end of 1922." From "A History of the Modern World" by R.R. Palmer and Joel Colton Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1965 If people doubt this account, I suggest they look it up in any reputable history book. tim sevener whuxl!orb
matthews@harvard.ARPA (Jim Matthews) (04/10/85)
Jim Mathews states: > The original contingent of American and British > troops landed in Murmansk at the request of Leon Trotsky, the military > head of the Bolshevik regime. Trotsky was afraid of the Germans marching > north to take the military stores there, as were the Allies. Jim Matthews corrects himself: The original *British* landing was invited by Trotsky, the American one wasn't. Sorry about the mistake. The British came while WWI was still on, and the Bolsheviks wanted to deter the Germans from waltzing up to Murmansk to capture military equipment stockpiled there. The Americans came later, but made no attempt to overthrow the Bolsheviks (source -- George Keenan). The British were the only allies to see military action against the Red Army. Jim Matthews matthews@harvard