The Russian Revolution

by Richard Pipes

  The initial request for Allied protection came from the Murmansk Soviet, which on March 5 cabled Petrograd that “Finnish White Guards,” apparently assisted by German forces, were making preparations to attack Murmansk. The soviet contacted a British naval force and at the same time requested Petrograd for authorization to invite Allied intervention. Trotsky informed the Murmansk Soviet that it was free to accept Allied military assistance.86 Thus, the first Western involvement on Russian soil occurred at the request of the Murmansk Soviet and with the approval of the Soviet Government. In a speech which he delivered on May 14, 1918, Lenin explained that the British and French had landed “to defend the Murmansk coast.”87

  The Allied party which disembarked at Murmansk consisted of 150 British sailors and a few Frenchmen as well as several hundred Czechs.88 In the weeks that followed, Britain was in constant communication with Moscow on the subject of Murmansk: unfortunately, the contents of these communications have not been revealed. The two parties cooperated to prevent the Germans and Finns from seizing this important port. Later, under German pressure, Moscow issued protests against the Allied presence on Russian soil, but Sadoul, who was in close contact with Trotsky, advised his government not to take them to heart:

  Lenin, Trotsky, Chicherin accept, under the present circumstances, that is, in the hope of an entente with the Allies, the Anglo-French landings at Murmansk and Archangel, it being understood that in order to prevent giving the Germans an excuse for protesting this certain violation of the peace treaty, they themselves will address a purely formal protest to the Allies. They marvelously understand that it is necessary to protect the northern ports and the railroads leading there from German-Finnish ventures.

  89

  On the eve of the Fourth Congress of Soviets, the Bolsheviks held the Seventh (Extraordinary) Congress of their party (March 6–8). The agenda of this hastily convened meeting of forty-six delegates centered on Brest-Litovsk. The discussions in the intimate circle of the initiated, especially Lenin’s defense of his unpopular position, provide a rare insight into Communist attitudes toward international law and relations with other countries.

  Lenin vigorously defended himself against the Left Communists.90 He surveyed the recent past, reminding his audience how easy it had been to seize power in Russia and how difficult to organize it. One could not simply transfer the methods which had proven so effective in the capture of power to the arduous task of administration. He acknowledged that there could be no lasting peace with the “capitalist” countries and that it was essential to spread the revolution abroad. But one had to be realistic: not every industrial strike in the West spelled revolution. In a very un-Marxist aside, he conceded that it was far more difficult to make revolution in democratic and capitalist countries than in backward Russia.

  All this was familiar. Novel were some of Lenin’s candid reflections on the subject of war and peace. To an audience that feared that he had made perpetual peace with a leading “imperialist” power he gave reassurances. First, the Soviet Government had every intention of violating the provisions of the Brest Treaty: in fact, it had already done so “thirty or forty times” (in a mere three days!). Nor did peace with the Central Powers signify abandonment of the class struggle. Peace was by its nature transitory, an “opportunity to gather strength”: “History teaches that peace is a breathing space for war.” In other words, war is the normal condition, peace a respite: there could be no lasting peace with non-Communist countries but only a temporary suspension of hostilities, a truce. Even while the peace treaty was in force, Lenin went on, the Soviet Government—in disregard of its provisions—would organize a new and effective military force. Thus, Lenin comforted his followers, the peace treaty they were asked to approve was merely a detour on the road to global revolution.

  The Left Communists restated their objections,91 but failed to muster enough votes. The motion, approving the treaty, passed 28–9 with one abstention. Lenin then asked the Party Congress to pass a secret resolution, not subject to publication for an indefinite period, giving the Central Committee “the authority at any time to annul all peace treaties with imperialist and bourgeois governments and, in like manner, to declare war on them.”92 Readily approved and never formally rescinded, this resolution empowered the handful of men in the Bolshevik Central Committee, at their own discretion, to break all international agreements entered into by their government and to declare war on any and all foreign countries.

  There still remained the formality of ratification. Notwithstanding the sham apprehensions Trotsky had confided to the Allied representatives, the issue was never in doubt. The congress was not a democratically elected body but an assembly of initiates: of the 1,100 to 1,200 delegates who gathered on March 14, two-thirds were Bolsheviks. Lenin delivered his standard defense of the treaty in two long-winded and rambling speeches—they were those of a thoroughly exhausted man—in which he pleaded for realism.

  He was impatiently awaiting a response to his requests to the United States and British governments for economic and military assistance: he knew full well that as soon as the treaty had been ratified the chances of procuring it were nil.

  In the early years of Bolshevik power, knowledge of Russia and interest in Russia’s affairs were in direct proportion to a country’s geographic proximity to her. The Germans, who lived closest, despised and feared the Bolsheviks even as they were dealing with them. France and England were not terribly concerned about the actions and intentions of the Bolsheviks, as long as they stayed in the war. The United States, an ocean away, seemed positively to welcome the Bolshevik regime, and in the months that followed the October coup, lured by fantastic visions of large-scale business opportunities, sought to ingratiate herself with its leaders.

  Woodrow Wilson seems to have believed that the Bolsheviks truly spoke for the Russian people,93 and formed a detachment of that grand international army that he imagined advancing toward universal democracy and eternal peace. Their appeals to the “peoples” of the world, he felt, required an answer. This he provided in the speech of January 8, 1918, in which he presented the celebrated Fourteen Points. He went out of his way to praise Bolshevik behavior at Brest:

  There is … a voice calling for these definitions of principle and of purpose which is, it seems to me, more thrilling and more compelling than any of the many moving voices with which the troubled air of the world is filled. It is the voice of the Russian people. They are prostrate and all but helpless, it would seem, before the grim power of Germany, which has hitherto known no relenting and no pity. Their power, apparently, is shattered. And yet their soul is not subservient. They will not yield either in principle or in action. Their conception of what is right, of what it is humane and honorable for them to accept, has been stated with a frankness, a largeness of view, a generosity of spirit, and a universal human sympathy which must challenge the admiration of every friend of mankind; and they have refused to compound their ideas or desert others that they themselves may be safe. They call to us to say what it is that we desire, in what, if in anything, our purposes and our spirit differ from theirs; and I believe that the people of the United States would wish me to respond, with utter simplicity and frankness. Whether their present leaders believe it or not, it is our heartfelt desire and hope that some way may be opened whereby we may be privileged to assist the people of Russia to attain their utmost hope of liberty and ordered peace.

  94

  There existed one potentially serious obstacle to Bolshevik-Allied cooperation, and that was the issue of Russian debts. As noted, in January the Bolshevik Government defaulted on all Russian state obligations to both domestic and foreign lenders.95 The Bolsheviks took this step with considerable trepidation: they feared that such a violation of international law, involving billions of dollars, could spark a “capitalist crusade.” But the widespread expectation of an imminent revolution in the West overcame caution and the deed was done.

  There was no revolution i
n the West and no anti-Bolshevik crusade. The Western powers took this fresh assault on international law surprisingly calmly. Indeed, the Americans went out of their way to assure the Bolsheviks they had nothing to fear from them. Iurii Larin, Lenin’s closest economic adviser, had a visit from the American Consul in Petrograd, who told him that while the United States could not accept “in principle” the annulment of international loans, it was ready

  to accept it de facto, not to demand payment, and to open relations with Russia as if it were a state that had just made its appearance in the world. In particular, the United States could offer us [Soviet Russia] large-scale commercial credit, on the account of which Russia could draw from America machines and raw materials of all kinds with delivery to Murmansk, Archangel, or Vladivostok.

  To ensure repayment, the U.S. Consul suggested, Soviet Russia might consider depositing some gold in neutral Sweden and granting the United States concessions in Kamchatka.96

  What more proof was needed that one could do business with the “imperialist robbers” even while inciting their citizens to revolution? And why not play the business community of one country against that of another? Or pit capitalist industrialists and bankers against the military? The possibilities of such divide et impera policies were endless. And, indeed, the Bolsheviks would exploit to the fullest these opportunities to compensate for their appalling weakness, luring foreign powers with prospects of industrial imports in exchange for food and raw materials which they did not have, even as their own population was starving and freezing.

  Every message which the U.S. Government transmitted to the Bolshevik authorities in the early months of 1918 conveyed the sense that Washington took at face value the Bolsheviks’ professions of democratic and peaceful intentions and ignored their calls for world revolution. Hence Lenin and Trotsky had good reason to expect a positive response to their appeal to Washington for help.

  The impatiently awaited American response to the inquiry of March 5 arrived on the opening day of the Fourth Congress of Soviets (March 14). Robins handed it to Lenin, who had it immediately published in Pravda. It was a noncommittal note, addressed not to the Soviet Government but to the Congress of Soviets, presumably on the assumption that this body was the equivalent of the U.S. legislature. It refused for the present to grant Soviet Russia aid, but accorded the regime something close to informal recognition. The American President wrote:

  May I now take advantage of the meeting of the Congress of the Soviets to express the sincere sympathy which the people of the United States feel for the Russian people at this moment when the German power has been thrust in to interrupt and turn back the whole struggle for freedom and substitute the wishes of Germany for the purpose of the people of Russia?

  Although the government of the United States is, unhappily, not now in a position to render the direct and effective aid it would wish to render, I beg to assure the people of Russia through the congress that it will avail itself of every opportunity to secure for Russia once more complete sovereignty and independence in her own affairs, and full restoration to her great role in the life of Europe and the modern world.

  The whole heart of the people of the United States is with the people of Russia in the attempt to free themselves forever from autocratic government and become the masters of their own life.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Washington, March 11, 1918

  97

  The British Government reacted in a like spirit.98

  This was not what the Bolsheviks had expected: they had overestimated their ability to play one “imperialist” camp against the other. Hoping that perhaps Wilson’s cable was only the first installment, with more to come, Lenin kept on badgering Robins for a follow-up message. When it became obvious that no more would be forthcoming, Lenin drafted an insulting reply to the American “people” (rather than their President) in which he promised that the revolution in their country would not be long in coming:

  The congress expresses its gratitude to the American people, above all to the laboring and exploited classes of the United States, for the sympathy expressed to the Russian people by President Wilson through the Congress of Soviets in the days of severe trials.

  The Russian Socialistic Federative Republic of Soviets takes advantage of President Wilson’s communication to express to all peoples perishing and suffering from the horrors of imperialistic war its warm sympathy and firm belief that the happy time is not far distant when the laboring masses of all countries will throw off the yoke of capitalism and will establish a socialistic state of society, which alone is capable of securing just and lasting peace, as well as the culture and well-being of all laboring people.

  99

  Amid peals of laughter, the Congress of Soviets unanimously approved the resolution (with two minor changes), which Zinoviev described as a “resounding slap” in the face of American capitalism.100

  The congress duly ratified the Brest Treaty. The motion to this effect received 724 votes, 10 percent less than there were Bolsheviks present, but more than a two-thirds majority; 276 delegates, or one-quarter, nearly all of them Left SRs, with the addition perhaps of some Left Communists, voted against; 118 delegates abstained. After the results had been announced, the Left SRs declared that they were withdrawing from the Sovnarkom. This ended the fiction of a “coalition government,” although for the time being the Left SRs continued to work in lower-level Soviet institutions, including the Cheka.

  In a secret vote, the congress approved the resolution of the Bolshevik Central Committee authorizing the government to renounce the Brest Treaty and declare war at its discretion.

  Lenin has been widely credited by the Bolsheviks with prophetic vision in accepting a humiliating treaty that gave him the time he needed and then collapsed of its own weight. When the Bolsheviks renounced the Brest Treaty on November 13, 1918, following Germany’s capitulation to the Western Allies, his stock in the Bolshevik movement rose to unprecedented heights. Nothing he had done contributed more to his reputation for infallibility: he never again had to threaten resignation to have his way.

  And yet there is nothing to indicate that in pressuring his colleagues to accede to German demands Lenin had expected an imminent collapse of the Central Powers. In none of his speeches and writings between December 1917 and March 1918, private and public, when he used every conceivable argument to bring the opposition around, did he claim that time was running out for Germany and that Soviet Russia would soon regain all that she had to give up. Quite the contrary. In the spring and summer of 1918 Lenin seemed to have shared the optimism of the German High Command that they were about to deal the Allies a crushing defeat. Leonid Krasin certainly was not speaking only for himself when on his return from Germany early in September 1918 he assured the readers of Izvestiia that, thanks to her superb organization and discipline, Germany would have no difficulty staying in the war yet another, fifth, year.101 The Bolshevik faith in Germany’s victory is evidenced by the elaborate accords that Moscow concluded with Berlin in August 1918, accords viewed by both countries as a prelude to a formal alliance.102 How inconceivable Germany’s defeat appeared to Moscow is attested to by the fact that as late as September 30, 1918, when Imperial Germany lay in her death throes, Lenin authorized the transfer to Berlin of assets valued at 312.5 million deutsche marks, as provided for by the August 27 supplementary accord to the Brest Treaty, although he could have delayed this payment with impunity and then canceled it. One week before Germany sued for an armistice, the Soviet Government reconfirmed that German citizens could withdraw deposits from Soviet banks and take them out of the country.103 The inescapable conclusion from this evidence is that Lenin bowed to the German Diktat, not because he believed that Germany would be unable to enforce it for very long, but, on the contrary, because he expected Germany to win and wanted to be on the winning side.

  The circumstances surrounding the Brest-Litovsk Treaty furnish the classic model of what was to become Soviet forei
gn policy. Its principles may be summarized as follows:

  1. The highest priority at all times is to be assigned to the retention of political power—that is, sovereign authority and the control of the state apparatus over some part of one’s national territory. This is the irreducible minimum. No price is too high to secure it; for its sake anything and everything can be sacrificed: human lives, land and resources, national honor.

  2. Ever since Russia had undergone the October Revolution and turned into the center (“oasis”) of world socialism, its security and interests take precedence over the security and interests of every other country, cause, or party, including those of the “international proletariat.” Soviet Russia is the embodiment of the international socialist movement and the base from which the socialist cause is promoted.

  3. To purchase temporary advantages, it is permissible to make peace with “imperialist” countries, but such peace must be treated as an armed truce, to be broken when the situation changes in one’s favor. As long as there is capitalism, Lenin said in May 1918, international agreements are “scraps of paper.”104 Even in periods of nominal peace, hostilities should be pursued by unconventional means with a view to undermining the governments with which one has signed accords.

  4. Politics being warfare, foreign policy, as much as domestic policy, must always be conducted unemotionally, with the closest attention being paid to the “correlation of forces”:

  We have great revolutionary experience, and from that experience we have learned that it is necessary to follow the tactics of relentless advance whenever objective conditions allow it.… But we have to adopt the tactic of procrastination, the slow gathering of forces when the objective conditions do not offer the possibility of making an appeal to the general relentless advance.

  105

  Yet another fundamental principle of Bolshevik foreign policy was to be revealed after the enactment of the Brest Treaty: the principle that Communist interests abroad had to be promoted by the application of divide et impera, or, in Lenin’s words, by the