The Russian Revolution

by Richard Pipes

  On May 20, Mirbach sent home the first pessimistic report on the situation in Soviet Russia and the dangers confronting German policy there. Popular support for the regime, he wrote, had greatly eroded in recent weeks: Trotsky was said to have referred to the Bolshevik Party as a “living corpse.” The Allies were fishing in these muddied waters, generously distributing funds to the SRs and Mensheviks-Internationalists, Serbian prisoners of war, and Baltic sailors. “Never was corruptible Russia more corrupt than now.” Thanks to Trotsky’s sympathies for them, the Allies had increased their influence over the Bolsheviks. To prevent the situation from getting out of hand, he required money to renew the subsidies to the Bolsheviks which the German Government had terminated in January.37 Funds were needed to prevent both a shift of the Bolsheviks toward the Allies and a Bolshevik collapse followed by a power seizure by the pro-Allied SRs.38

  This report, followed by others couched in progressively gloomier tones, did not go unheeded in Berlin. Early in June, Kühlmann reversed himself and authorized Mirbach to initiate talks with the Russian opposition.39 He also allocated to him discretionary funds. On June 3, Mirbach cabled to Berlin that to keep the Bolsheviks in power he needed 3 million marks a month, which the Foreign Ministry interpreted to mean a total of 40 million marks.40 Kühlmann, who concurred that preventing the Bolsheviks from switching to the Allies “would cost money, probably a great deal of money,” approved the transfer of this sum to the Moscow embassy for secret Russian work.41 It cannot be established exactly how this money was spent. Only about 9 million was actually allocated: it appears that about one-half of that sum went to the Bolshevik Government and the rest to their opponents, mainly the anti-Bolshevik Provisional Government of Siberia, centered in Omsk, and the Kaiser’s favorite anti-Bolshevik, the Don Cossack ataman, P. N. Krasnov.*

  The stumbling block confronting the Germans in their effort to reach the anti-Bolshevik opposition was Brest. No political group other than the Bolsheviks would accept this treaty, and even the Bolsheviks were divided. As Mirbach had observed, atrocious as conditions were in Soviet Russia, no non-Bolshevik Russian would purchase German help against the Bolsheviks if the price was acceptance of the Brest Treaty. In other words, to gain support from anti-Bolsheviks, Germany had to agree to substantial treaty revisions. In Mirbach’s opinion, the opposition might acquiesce to the loss of Poland, Lithuania, and Courland, but not to the surrender of the Ukraine, Estonia, and probably Livonia.42

  Mirbach entrusted to Riezler the delicate task of dealing with Russian opposition groups under the noses of the Cheka and Allied agents. Riezler dealt mainly with the so-called Right Center, a small conservative circle formed in mid-June by respected political figures and generals who had concluded that Bolshevism posed a greater threat to Russia’s national interests than Germany and were prepared to come to terms with Berlin to be rid of it. Although they claimed solid contacts with financial, industrial, and military circles, they really had no significant following, because the overwhelming majority of politically active Russians regarded the Bolsheviks as a creation of Germany. The leading personality of the Right Center was Alexander Krivoshein, Stolypin’s director of agriculture, a decent and patriotic man who might have made an acceptable figurehead in a Russian Government installed by the Germans, but who, being a typical bureaucrat of the ancien régime, was more used to obeying orders than giving them. Involved also was General Aleksei Brusilov, the hero of the 1916 offensive. Through intermediaries, Krivoshein informed Riezler that his group was prepared to overthrow the Bolsheviks and had the military means to do so but in order to act required Germany’s active support.43 For such collaboration to materialize, the Germans had to consent to changes in the Brest Treaty.

  The Germans had little respect for the Russian opposition, even as they negotiated with it. Mirbach thought the monarchists “lazy,” while Riezler spoke scornfully of the “moans and whines of the [Russian] bourgeoisie for German aid and order.”44

  Ioffe arrived in Berlin with his mission on April 19. German generals, correctly anticipating that Russian diplomats would engage mainly in espionage and subversion, wanted the Soviet Embassy located at Brest-Litovsk or some other city away from Germany, but the Foreign Office overruled them. Ioffe took over the old Imperial embassy at Unter den Linden 7, which the Germans had maintained in immaculate condition throughout the war. Over it he unfurled the red flag emblazoned with hammer and sickle. Subsequently, Moscow opened consulates in Berlin and Hamburg.

  Initially, Ioffe’s staff consisted of 30 persons, but it kept on expanding, and in November, when the two countries broke relations, numbered 180. In addition, Ioffe gave employment to German radicals to translate Soviet propaganda materials and carry out subversive missions. He maintained constant cable communications with Moscow: the Germans intercepted and decoded some of this traffic, but the bulk of it remains unpublished.*

  The Soviet diplomatic representation in Berlin was no ordinary embassy: rather it was a revolutionary outpost deep in enemy territory, whose main function was to promote revolution. As an American journalist later put it, Ioffe acted in Berlin in “perfect bad faith.”45 Judging by his activities, he had three missions. One was to neutralize the German generals, who wanted the Bolshevik Government removed. This he accomplished by appealing to the interests of the business and banking community and negotiating a commercial treaty that gave Germany unique economic privileges in Russia. His second task was to assist revolutionary forces in Germany. The third was to collect intelligence on domestic conditions.

  Ioffe carried out revolutionary activities with remarkable brazenness. He counted on German politicians and businessmen developing such an overriding interest in subjugating Russia to their economic exploitation that they would persuade the government to overlook his violations of diplomatic norms. In the spring and summer of 1918, he engaged mainly in propaganda, working closely with the Independent Socialist Party’s extreme left wing, the Spartacist League. Later, as Germany began to disintegrate, he supplied money and weapons to stoke the fires of social revolution. The Independent Socialists, having turned into an affiliate of the Russian Communist Party, coordinated their activities with the Soviet Embassy: on one occasion, Moscow sent an official delegation to Germany to address that party’s convention.46 For this work, Ioffe was allocated by Moscow 14 million German marks, which he deposited with the German bank of Mendelssohn and withdrew as the need arose.*

  84. A. Ioffe.

  Ioffe opened branches of the Soviet Berlin Information Bureau in a number of German provincial cities as well as in neutral Holland, from where propaganda was fed to Allied media.47

  In 1919, Ioffe recounted, with evident pride, his accomplishments as Soviet representative in Berlin:

  The [Soviet Embassy] directed and subsidized more than ten left-socialist newspapers … Quite naturally, even in its informational work, the plenipotentiary representation could not confine itself only to “legal opportunities.” The informational material was far from limited to that which appeared in print. All that the censors struck out, and all that was not presented to them, because it was assumed beforehand that they would not pass it, was nevertheless illegally printed and illegally distributed. Very frequently it was necessary to utilize the parliamentary tribune: the material was passed on to members of the Reichstag from the Independent faction [of the Social-Democratic Party], who used it in their speeches; in this way it got into the papers anyway. In this work one could not confine oneself to Russian materials. The [Soviet mission], which had superb connections in all strata of German society and its agents in various German ministries, was much better informed even about German affairs than the German comrades. The information which it received it eventually passed on to the latter, and in this manner many machinations of the military party became in good time public knowledge.

  Of course, in its revolutionary activity the Russian Embassy could not confine itself to information. In Germany there existed revolutionary group
s which throughout the war had conducted underground revolutionary work. Russian revolutionaries, who had more experience in this kind of conspiratorial activity as well as greater opportunities, had to work, and indeed did work, in concert with these groups. All of Germany was covered with a network of illegal revolutionary organizations: hundreds of thousands of revolutionary pamphlets and proclamations were printed and distributed every week in the rear and at the front. The German Government once accused the Russians of importing into Germany agitational literature and, with an energy worthy of better application, searched for this contraband in the baggage of couriers, but it never entered its mind that that which the Russian Embassy brought into Germany from Russia represented only a drop in the sea compared to what was printed with the help of the Russian Embassy inside Germany.

  In sum, according to Ioffe, the Russian Embassy in Berlin “worked constantly in close contact with German socialists in preparing the German revolution.”48

  It further served as a channel for distributing revolutionary literature and subversive funds to other European countries: through it passed a steady stream of couriers (between 100 and 200 was the German estimate) carrying diplomatic pouches for dispatch to Austria, Switzerland, Scandinavia, and the Netherlands. Some of these “couriers,” after arriving in Berlin, vanished from sight.49

  The German Foreign Office received frequent protests from military and civil authorities concerning these subversive actions,50 but it refused to act, tolerating them for the sake of what it perceived to be higher German interests in Russia. When once in a while it ventured to object to some especially outrageous behavior on the part of the Soviet mission, Ioffe had an answer ready. As he explains:

  The Brest Treaty itself furnished the opportunity for its circumvention. Since the contracting parties were governments, the prohibition on revolutionary action could be interpreted to apply to governments and their organs. It was thus interpreted by the Russian side, and every revolutionary action which Germany protested against was at once explained as the action of the Russian Communist Party and not of the government.

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  Ioffe’s operations in Germany made the timid attempts of Mirbach and Riezler in Moscow to communicate with the opposition look like a harmless flirtation.

  From the point of view of Moscow’s immediate interests, no less important than promoting revolution in Germany was gaining the support of German business circles so they would act jointly to block the anti-Bolshevik forces there.

  Big business interests in Germany could hardly wait to lay their hands on Russia: and because they knew that only the Bolsheviks would allow them to do so, they turned into the most enthusiastic supporters of the Bolshevik regime. In the spring of 1918, following the signing of the peace treaty, numerous German Chamber of Commerce organizations petitioned their government to reopen commercial relations with Soviet Russia. On May 16, Krupp hosted in Düsseldorf a conference of prominent German industrialists, among them August Thyssen and Hugo Stinnes, to discuss this subject. The conference concluded that it was imperative to stop the penetration of “English and American capital” into Russia and to take steps that would enable German interests to establish there a dominant influence. Another business conference, held the same month under the auspices of the Foreign Office, stressed the desirability of Germany’s taking control of Russian transport, a goal facilitated by Moscow’s request for German help in reorganizing its railroads.52 In July, German businessmen sent a trade delegation to Moscow. The bankers lionized Ioffe on his arrival in Berlin. “The director of the Deutsche Bank frequently visits us,” Ioffe boasted to Moscow, “Mendelssohn has long sought a meeting with me, and Solomonssohn has already come three times under various pretexts.”53

  Such commercial zeal enabled Moscow to transform influential circles of German industry and finance into a friendly lobby. Here, the Bolsheviks reaped the advantages of superior knowledge. They were intimately familiar with the internal situation of Germany and with the mentality of her elite. Independent Socialists supplied them with sensitive information with which to exploit conflicts in German circles. The Germans with whom they dealt knew next to nothing about the Bolsheviks and did not take them or their ideology seriously. They adapted themselves to this situation with consummate skill, taking on a protective coloring that gave them a non-threatening appearance: it was a very sophisticated example of political mimicry. The tactic which Ioffe and his associates pursued was to pose as “realists” who spouted revolutionary slogans but in reality desired nothing better than a deal with Germany. This tactic had an irresistible attraction for hardheaded German businessmen because it confirmed their conviction that no person in his right mind could take Bolshevik revolutionary rhetoric seriously.

  How this deception worked is illustrated by the meetings Ioffe held in the summer of 1918 with Gustav Stresemann, a right-wing German politician, and other public figures of a liberal and conservative orientation. He was assisted by Leonid Krasin, who before and during the war had held high executive positions with Siemens and Schuckert and enjoyed excellent connections in Germany. At an informal talk on July 5, the two Russians assured the Germans that not only Lenin but also the pro-Allied Trotsky desired German “backing.” Given the anti-German mood in Russia, a formal treaty of alliance between the two countries would be premature, but that mood could change if Germany pursued correct policies. One step in this direction would be for the Germans to share some of the grain which they were shipping from the Ukraine. It would also be helpful if the Germans gave Moscow guarantees that they did not intend to resume military operations on the Eastern Front: this would enable Moscow to concentrate its armed forces on expelling the British from Murmansk and crushing the uprising of the Czech Legion, which had recently erupted in Siberia. Germany stood to reap great benefits from good relations with Russia, since the Russians could provide her with all the raw materials she needed, including cotton, petroleum, and manganese. The Germans had no reason to worry about Moscow’s revolutionary propaganda: “under the existing circumstances the Maximalist [Bolshevik] Government was prepared to give up its Utopian goals and pursue a pragmatic socialist policy.”54

  Ioffe and Krasin put on a brilliant show. If the Germans had been better informed, less arrogant, and less captivated by geopolitical fantasies, they would have seen through it. For the Russians were offering them commodities available only in areas outside their control—Central Asia, Baku, and Georgia—and minimizing the radicalism of their government, which, far from giving up “its Utopian goals,” was at this very time entering its most radical phase. But the deception worked. Stresemann thus summarized his impressions:

  It seems to me … that we have every inducement to establish a far-reaching economic and political understanding with the present government [of Russia], which, at all events, is not imperialistic and can never come to terms with the Entente, if only because by defaulting on Allied loans it erected an insurmountable barrier between itself and the Entente. If this opportunity is missed and the present Russian government falls, then any successor will, in any event, be more favorable to the Entente than the present rulers and the danger of a new Eastern Front … will draw palpably nearer.… If our opponents see that we and Russia are drawing together they will also give up the hope of defeating us economically—they have long ago given up the hope of military victory—and we will be in a position to withstand any assault. By cleverly exploiting this factor, we will also be able to raise the spirit of the country to the victorious heights of the past. I would, therefore, greatly welcome it if these efforts were to gain also the support of the Supreme Military Command.

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  The German Foreign Office shared these sentiments. An internal memorandum prepared by a member of its staff in May described the Soviet leaders as “Jewish businessmen” with whom Germany should be able to come to terms.56

  In this friendly atmosphere, the two countries initiated in early July talks on a commercial agreement.
Signed on August 27—immediately after the “Black Day” of the German armies on the Western Front which convinced even Ludendorff the war was lost—this so-called Supplementary Treaty established between the two countries a relationship that fell just short of a formal alliance.

  As if the situation in Russia were not complicated enough, in the spring a further complication arose in the shape of a revolt of Czechoslovak former prisoners of war that deprived the Bolsheviks of control of vast regions in the Urals and Siberia.

  During their successful campaign against the Austro-Hungarians in 1914, Russian armies had captured hundreds of thousands of prisoners, including 50,000 to 60,000 Czechs and Slovaks. In December 1914, the Imperial Government offered these prisoners, many of them passionately anti-German and anti-Magyar, an opportunity to form their own legion and return to the front to fight alongside Russian troops. Few Czechs took advantage of this offer; most were afraid that the Central Powers would treat members of this legion (called Druzhina) as traitors and, in the event of capture, put them to death. Even so, in 1916 there were two Czechoslovak regiments in existence: the nucleus of the future army of independent Czechoslovakia. Thomas Masaryk, the head of the Czechoslovak National Council in Paris, conceived the idea of forming the prisoners of war as well as civilians domiciled in Russia and elsewhere into a regular national army to fight on the Western Front. He initiated negotiations with the Imperial Government for the evacuation of the Czech POWs to France, but Petrograd proved uncooperative.

  He resubmitted the proposal to the Provisional Government, which reacted favorably. The formation of Czech military units proceeded apace, and in the spring of 1917, 24,000 Czechs and Slovaks, organized in a corps, fought on the Eastern Front, distinguishing themselves in the June 1917 offensive. It was planned to transport these units and the remaining POWs in Russian camps to the Western Front, but the Bolshevik coup intervened.