Spies and Commissars

by Robert Service

  Perhaps Churchill’s monarchist sentiments had an influence. He had stood out against those who called for the hanging of the Kaiser, and anyway he was with Lloyd George in trying to prevent harsh peace terms being imposed on Germany. It was Churchill’s habit to focus obsessively on chosen problems. His colleagues trembled when he was in one of his moods; and everyone remembered his pet military project in 1915–16 to land Allied troops at Gallipoli — people forgot that he thought that insufficient troops had been provided for the task. He was notorious for pushing forward with plans without having thought through how he would cope if things went wrong. When criticism was made, he grew obstinate and put himself beyond debate. Yet behind the frothing schemes and wild rhetoric there was his acuity of vision. His instincts told him that something deeply menacing — indeed evil — was in the making in the east. He knew no more than anyone else in the cabinet about the Soviet leadership and its intentions. But he had enough information to sense that they presented a fundamental threat. If the need arose, he was willing to stand alone and fight for his opinions.16

  In France, the attention paid to revolutionary Russia was less intense for a while. The Great War was barely over and all thoughts were focused on the securing of Allied authority over central Europe. Germany had to be stabilized and peaceful economic recovery facilitated in several countries precariously poised on the brink of famine — and most French politicians sought to punish the Germans for the four years of carnage.

  In America the State Department was fitful in its examination of Russian affairs. Ambassador Francis was no longer in northern Russia. By October 1918 his health had collapsed and he travelled to London for medical treatment.17 Meanwhile Lansing was too busy with German questions to occupy himself with the situation further east in Europe. Inside the State Department, sympathizers with Soviet Russia were acquiring influence. Among them was the young William C. Bullitt, who headed the Far Eastern desk. Already in March 1918 he had held discussions with Santeri Nuorteva of the pro-Soviet Finnish Information Bureau in New York.18 Bullitt and Nuorteva met and wrote to each other, and Nuorteva was pleased to have found a friend in high places.19 Bullitt took the line that the October Revolution had a vast importance for world affairs and that American policy ought to be based on an informed acquaintance with Soviet intentions. Yet there was more to it than just that. Bullitt was one of the few Americans outside the labour movement and certain business lobbies who favoured some kind of accommodation with Sovnarkom. He detested the Anglo-French military intervention in Russia and Ukraine and hoped to lessen and reverse his own country’s involvement in such ventures.

  Bullitt’s career had started in journalism. He had made a brilliant name for himself with interviews with politicians of the Central Powers that pointed to German complicity in Austria-Hungary’s declaration of war on Serbia.20 He came from a charmed background of well-to-do Philadelphia lawyers and had degrees from Yale University and the Harvard Law School. During the war he worked in Europe reporting for the Philadelphia Public Ledger and dabbled in writing novels. He married the aptly named socialite Aimee Ernesta Drinker and together they lived the high life until the call came for a posting at the State Department.21

  Bullitt used his imagination in delving for information about the Russian communist leadership. Whereas others shunned contact with John Reed as a traitor, Bullitt saw him as a man on the spot who could be of use in liaising with Lenin and Trotsky. The ‘awful diplomatic gulf’ had to be closed up. Bullitt had encouragement from the distinguished lawyer Felix Frankfurter in this effort. Frankfurter nominally belonged to the War Department but was really President Wilson’s special diplomatic aide and was keen to get a brief prepared on Russia. Using contacts such as Santeri Nuorteva, Frankfurter planned to send a cable directly to Trotsky. The State Department overruled him, sensing the need to restrain both Frankfurter and Bullitt in case they upset other US activities in Russia and cooperation with the Western Allies. The second-best step was an indirect one. Frankfurter received permission to approach the Red Finns with a view to using them as intermediaries with the Bolsheviks. Yrjö Sirola, their Foreign Minister until their defeat in mid-May 1918 in the Finnish Civil War, knew Lenin well and might be able to improve US–Soviet understanding on one of his trips to Petrograd. While normal diplomacy was failing, other methods had to be tried out.22

  Bolshevism was widely seen as a menace to political stability in North America, although many politicians worried that Wilson’s involvement in global affairs was distracting his administration from urgent domestic problems. Nonetheless, in early 1919 the Senate Committee on the Judiciary set up a sub-committee on Bolshevik propaganda under Senator Lee S. Overman. The stated purpose was to discover the extent of Russian subversion in America, but the proceedings were quickly fanned out to consider the situation in Russia itself. The sub-committee began meeting on 11 February 1919. The atmosphere was set by Attorney-General Alexander Mitchell Palmer who claimed that Russian Bolsheviks had used over a dozen ‘German brewers of America’ to buy up a great American newspaper with the intention of manipulating public opinion.23 The names of Nuorteva, Reed, Bryant and Rhys Williams cropped up — and it was intimated that the Englishman Ransome had suspect connections with Imperial Germany.24 Details were given of large quantities of Bolshevik material that had flooded into America since late 1917, and the smuggling methods were described.25

  The large number of Jews among the pro-Soviet agitators was also a theme of the sub-committee proceedings. Rev. George A. Simons, until recently the superintendent of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Petrograd, recounted that Trotsky and other Jewish revolutionary refugees had set out for Russia from New York in 1917. Now, said Simons, admirers of the Soviet model were growing in number in America:

  In fact I am very impressed with this, that moving around here I find that certain Bolsheviki propagandists are nearly all Jews. I have been in the so-called People’s House, at 7 East Fifteenth Street, New York, which calls itself also the Rand School of Social Science, and I have visited that at least six times during the last eleven weeks or so, buying their literature, and some of the most seditious stuff I have ever found against our own Government, and 19 out of 20 people I have seen there have been Jews.26

  Although Simons denied being anti-Jewish, he stated that he had confidence in the authenticity of anti-Semitic forgeries such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion that accused the Jews of a conspiracy to achieve global political dominion. He adjured the Senate to cease thinking of Bolshevism as a fad and treat it as a ‘monstrous thing’ with the capacity to undermine American society.27

  His testimony agitated America’s Jews. Lewis Marshall of the American Jewish Committee and Simon Wolf of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations sent in letters protesting against the slur that most Jews were Bolsheviks.28 The journalist Herman Bernstein appeared before the sub-committee to point out that Reed, Bryant, Rhys Williams and Robins were Christians — or rather lapsed Christians. Thus the threat to American political stability consequently had nothing to do with religion.29

  The Soviet sympathizers themselves were then called to testify. Louise Bryant was first. She defended her husband’s work for the Bolsheviks in 1917–18 on the grounds that he was seeking to provoke revolution in Germany — and she claimed that this conformed to America’s wartime interests. But she had to admit to having acted as a Bolshevik international courier.30 Her interrogation was lengthy and hostile and she complained of being treated worse than the earlier witnesses. John Reed received an equally severe questioning. Under pressure he acknowledged that he hoped for revolution in America. He added that he hoped for this to happen by peaceful due process and without the violence that had typically accompanied revolutions.31 Next up was Albert Rhys Williams, who rebuked the critics of Bolshevism; he laid claim to an open mind about whether the Soviet order was ‘a successful form of government’, and he denied advocating it for the USA. He affected to believe that the communist leadersh
ip were considering the idea of convoking a Constituent Assembly again.32 Raymond Robins was less enthusiastic about Soviet rule but continued to advocate trade with Soviet Russia.33

  A few days later it was the Senate Committee on Public Information that called on Reed and Bryant to give an account of themselves. Reed admitted to having worked for the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs in publishing Soviet newspapers in multi-language editions. The Senators had done their homework and compelled him to admit to having promised the State Department in 1917 that he would not get involved in Russian politics. But Reed argued that he had not given his word under oath — and he lied that he had received no money from the Soviet government and was not in communication with it.34

  When asked about atrocities under Bolshevik rule, he and Bryant cast doubt on the veracity of the reports. Bryant argued against America’s right to intervene in Russia; but when pushed by the Committee, she refused to approve or disapprove of ‘Bolshevist interference in American affairs’. She spoke up for the Cheka’s Yakov Peters, calling him ‘an aesthetic young man’ and disclaiming any knowledge of his murky activities in London before 1914.35 When Albert Rhys Williams took the stand, he too was open about the fact that he had been in the employ of the ‘Trotzky–Lenine government’. He stated that, when leaving Russia in June 1918, he had an assignment to set up a propaganda bureau in New York but assured the Committee that this had not come to pass. By staying on in Russia five months after the Reeds had departed, moreover, he had seen more brutality than they had. But he rejected reports of the killing of innocents by the communists, whom he declared to have ‘a sublime faith in the people’. He professed his abhorrence of violence and his feeling that if the communist experiment were to take place in the US, the means could and should be entirely peaceful.36

  Politicians and reporters were deepening a debate that had begun with the October Revolution. Bolshevik rule and the consequences for Western policy were a divisive topic, and it was far from being the case that the advocates of conciliation with Soviet Russia were confined to the labour movement. Business interests too were beginning to make themselves felt.37 On the other side of the debate, of course, there were political, commercial and ecclesiastical lobbies that wanted Russia and its communist rulers kept in strict quarantine. Dispute was often angry and seldom less than spirited. In Britain and France the press led the way in inviting public exchange; this also happened in the US, where the committees of the Senate gave additional propulsion to the process. Steadily the Russian question was rising up the public agenda. At a time when national governments had to concentrate their efforts on economic recovery, Russia and its communism could still not obtain priority of attention. But it was increasingly obvious that the revolutionary tide might at any moment surge across Russian frontiers into Europe, and many people in those countries as well as in North America doubted that their leaders had yet found sound measures to deal with this prospect — and the disarray of the Western powers on the Russian question at the Paris Peace Conference in the first half of 1919 was to do little to dispel these concerns.

  18. THE PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE

  On 4 December 1918 President Wilson boarded the SS George Washington to cross the Atlantic and attend the Paris Peace Conference. He ignored advice from Robert Lansing, who said he would dilute his influence by going to France instead of dictating his wishes from a distance.1 But Wilson held the Allied purse strings and controlled fresh military power, whereas Lansing was only his Secretary of State. He and not Lansing occupied the White House and he insisted on going to France. A terrible war had been brought to a close; a second one must be prevented.

  Although Wilson was being lionized on the Paris boulevards, he cut an unimpressive figure in the closed proceedings of the conference. His ‘Fourteen Points’ had prescribed no practical policy, only a set of objectives. Even his ideas about Germany lacked exactitude and he made things worse by forbidding his delegation to carry out preparatory discussion and drafting.2 He recognized his own lack of detailed knowledge about European controversies. His habit was to defer to Allied committees of experts, and Clemenceau and Lloyd George were adept at imposing their projects.3 Wilson’s ultimate passion was to gain approval for a League of Nations. The other delegations offered a flattering opinion of this project, and whenever they wished to obstruct one of his ideas they used the device of suggesting that only the League could resolve its complexities. The President forfeited advantage by never even raising his voice. His failing health was also finding him out and he simply lacked the energy for political disputes. He guarded his own counsel; even his confidant Colonel House had lost influence. French and British leaders saw that the President was a fading force and got used to agreeing the plans in advance of meeting him and gaining his imprimatur.

  ‘Reparations’ were on the lips of nearly every French politician except those few who sympathized with Lenin. Clemenceau aimed to make Germany incapable of striking France ever again. John Maynard Keynes offered this portrait:

  [Clemenceau] carried no papers and no portfolio, and was unattended by any personal secretary, though several French ministers and officials appropriate to the particular matter in hand would be present round him. His walk, his hand and his voice were not lacking in vigour, but he bore nevertheless, especially after the attempt upon [his life], the aspect of an old man conserving his strength for important occasions. He spoke seldom, leaving the initial statement of the French case to his ministers or officials; he closed his eyes often and sat back in his chair with an impassive face of parchment, his gray gloved hands clasped in front of him. A short sentence, decisive or cynical, was generally sufficient… 4

  Clemenceau behaved with elaborate courtesy, always asking Wilson for his opinion. But this was a feint: he wanted Germany punished.

  In this environment there was little scope for the Western Allies to give careful consideration to Russia and its communist leadership. French, British, American and Italian forces were masters of the continent. They were determined to finish their business in central Europe first and foremost. The Allied Supreme War Council, founded on Lloyd George’s initiative in November 1917 to oversee military strategy as well as plans for peace, did not entirely ignore the Russian question but quickly found it difficult to handle. There was no opportunity even to hear representations from Russia without offending one group or another. The Supreme Council (as it became known) began by keeping Sergei Sazonov, the tsar’s Minister of Foreign Affairs till 1916 and now fulfilling the same role for the White Russians, at arm’s length.5

  On 16 January 1919, Lloyd George spoke in the Council of Ten — representing the main victor powers — at the Quai d’Orsay. While arguing that something had to be done about Russia, he depressingly stipulated:

  Firstly, the real facts are not known;

  Secondly, it is impossible to get the facts, the only way is to adjudicate the question; and

  Thirdly, conditions in Russia are very bad; there is general misgovernment and starvation. It is not known who is getting the upper hand, but the hope that the Bolshevik Government would collapse had not been realized.6

  Intervention on an adequate scale would mean an occupation: ‘The mere idea of crushing Bolshevism by a military force is pure madness.’ And in any case it was almost inevitable that Allied troops would mutiny against any order to deploy them in yet another war, and a permanent blockade was objectionable since it would lead to mass starvation. The chances of the Whites overthrowing the Bolsheviks were therefore not the brightest. Lloyd George therefore felt it preferable to call the various sides in Russia’s armed struggles to the negotiating table in Paris and get them to agree on a definitive settlement under the eyes of the victor powers.7

  President Wilson agreed. In a memorandum of 19 January 1919, he urged the need to pull out the Allied expeditions as soon as possible: he had no intention of letting himself be ‘led further into the Russian chaos’. This was the dominant opinion in the US dele
gation expressed by General Tasker Bliss and Herbert Hoover. When Bliss heard of Marshal Foch’s proposal for a multinational army to invade Russia after the signing of the German peace treaty, he argued for American financial power to be brought to bear against it. Most countries in Europe, including France, were bankrupt. Even the United Kingdom would ruin its economy if it started a Russian crusade. Bliss argued that the US should use its economic strength to enforce the withdrawal of troops from Russia.8 Hoover too opposed the idea of an American invasion, telling Wilson that ‘our people at home’ would look askance at US soldiers being assigned to assist the reactionary Whites. Kolchak and Denikin, he maintained, had a poor reputation in America and Wilson would be wise to take account of public opinion. Hoover added that the arrival of American soldiers in Russia would have the counter-productive result of uniting the Russians behind Lenin and Trotsky. His advice was to put aside the Russian question until such time as peace prevailed in the rest of the world. Diplomatic pressures were desirable; big armies were not.

  But Allied officials who thought military intervention was the solution were still vociferous — and demanded to be heard. Joseph Noulens had left Archangel in mid-December, and on 20 January 1919 he addressed the conference with a plea for the violent overthrow of Soviet tyranny and terror since the communists were enemies of the Entente.9 The Danish ambassador Harald Scavenius took the same line. As the latest of the foreign diplomats to leave Petrograd he was up to date with recent news and stressed Moscow’s intention to spread its revolution abroad by whatever means came to hand.10