“WWW“WWW!WWWlHlHHNWi' human A“Mm-I sum Humanity This is to certify that the thesis entitled A HISTORIOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS OF THE AMERICAN INTERVENTION IN RUSSIA FROM I918 T0 I920 presented by Craig Christopher Larsen has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for M.A. my” in History WM Zd/é—rw Major professor / Date May 20, 1987 0.7539 MS U is an Aflirman'w Action/Equal Opportunity lmtitution MSU LIBRARIES “ RETURNING MATERIALS: Piece in book drop to remove this checkout from your record. FINES wiII be charged if book is returned after the date stamped beIow. A HISTORIOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS OF THE AMERICAN INTERVENTION IN RUSSIA FROM 1918 TO 1920 by CRAIG amrs'roem LARSEN A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State university in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of History 1987 ABSTRACT A HISTORIOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS OF THE AMERICAN INTERVENTION IN RUSSIA FROM 1918 TO 1920 by Craig Christopher Larsen The following essay is a historiographical analysis of the American intervention in Russia from 1918 to 1920. The objective of this paper is to analyze the arguments of nine historians who address all or some of the aspects of Whodrow Wilson's policy toward Russia starting after the Bolshevik revolution in Nbvember 1917, and ending in January 1920. The method utilized here entails the examination of primary evidence found mainly in several volumes of Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the united States and then evaluating each author's argument in light of these documents. This method of analyses reveals that those authors who argue that Wilson prompted the intervention in response to ”external” pressure provide the strongest explanation for the president's motivation to dispatch troops. On the other hand, those authors who contend that the motivation to continue troop deployment after the war was based on the pursuit of economic objectives provide a cogent explanation for prolonging the intervention in 1919. This paper represents the culmination of my academic years at Michigan State University. My time at this institution was made possible in many ways by Lottie M. Sumeracki whose sole purpose in life was to create a better existence for her family. She passed away before I completed my work. This paper is dedicated to her memory. 111 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to take this opportunity to express my most profound gratitude to Dr. John Coogan. When I first started studying history at the graduate level, I was unable to shed the integument of looking at history through the eyes of an undergraduate in Political Science. It was the patience and dedication that Dr. Coogan demonstrated in teaching the subject that finally enabled me to read, write and think like a student of history. Further appreciation is extended to Dr. Alan Fisher and Dr. Adelle Newson, who took time out from their schedules to read my work and provide invaluable suggestions. Also, I would like to thank Carey Draeger, who spent an inordinate amount of time typing my drafts and providing me with a great deal of moral support. Lastly, my appreciation goes to my family and friends who helped ease the pressure both mentally and financially that afflicts every graduate student. iv The cornerstone of America's Russian policy during and after the First WOrld war was the decision by President WOodrow Wilson to send American troops to north Russia and Siberia in July 1918 and to retain them there until the winter of 1919-1920. The motivating factors behind Wilson's decision on Russia are difficult to discern because he did not leave any comprehensive record of his thoughts on this issue. The available records and documents pertaining to his decision were mainly those left by senior administration officials and other more peripheral individuals inside and outside the administration. These records indicate a wide variety of opinions over the best policy the united States could adopt toward Russia. The Russian question not only created disagreement among policy makers of 1918, but has created.much debate among historians. What prompted the decision to intervene? Did public opinion or domestic politics have any effect on the decisions? What did the decision makers know of events in Russia, and what effect did their perceptions have on the decisions? Was there an ideological motivation? were the north Russian and Siberian interventions based on the same policy? Why did American troops remain in Russia after the Armistice that ended World War I? What effect did the peace talks at Versailles have on American intervention in Russia? Why did the troops withdraw when they did? These questions are major points of contention that surround the intervention. There were actually two decisions to send American military forces to Russia in 1918. The first decision, contained in a July 6, 1918, memo, called for roughly 7,000 American troops to intervene in Siberia jointly with a contingent of Japanese forces of the same size. The declared purpose for the Siberian intervention was to aid Czecho-Slovak forces which had become embroiled in the Russian Civil war. Allied Supreme commander Ferdinand Foch ordered the Czechs to exit Russia through Siberia in order to reach the western Front and rejoin the war against Germany. Halfway through Russia, however, the Czechs had been caught up in the internal strife that surrounded them. Their situation created the apparent need for western assistance.1 The second decision to send American troops to Russia came on July 17, 1918, when Wilson issued a oomnunique to Allied ambassadors in washington announcing that he intended to ”establish a small force at Murmansk and to guard the military stores at Kola."2 This announcement, known as the Aide-Memoirs, is Wilson's most elaborate statement of his Russian policy. The Aide Memoirs is one of the most heavily scrutinized documents on the intervention. It is quite vague on policy implementation. Moreover, it failed to define the president's long term.objectives in Russia, leaving American policy ill-defined and confusing. Lastly the issuance of a document that approved military intervention seemed to contradict Wilson's obdurate opposition to intervention throughout the first six months of 1918. As a result, scholars have had difficulty understanding Wilson's explanations for the intervention. Few have been willing to accept those explanations at face value. Historians have interpreted the intervention on three broad levels: reactive, ideological and economic. The reactive interpretation suggests that the president had no policy of his own, but responded to his perception of events in Europe and Siberia. The ideological interpretation portrays the intervention as a military policy designed to effect an economic or political change in Russia. The economic interpretation suggests that Wilson moved to preserve the "open door" for American comercial gain in Siberia. The authors who depict the initiation of the intervention as a reaction by Wilson to the events that took place in EurOpe in 1918 provide the most compelling explanation for the president's motivation to dispatch troops to Russia. 0n the other hand, those authors who argue that the president's motivation to dispatch troops to Russia was primarily economic provide the best explanation for the continuation of troop deployment in Russia after the Armistice. George Kennan is among the scholars who portray Wilson's decision as reactive. In the second book of his two volume work, Soviet-American Relations 1917-1920 (Princeton university Press, 1960), Kennan.maintains that the president succumbed to the steady pressure from.Allied governments who pleaded that intervention in North Russia was of the utmost importance to the war effort against Germany. He further contends that Wilson's decision on Siberia resulted from this same diplomatic pressure as well as from his desire to rescue the Czech forces. Other scholars in the reactive category include Richard Ullman and.Adam Ulam. In Anglo Soviet Relations 1917-1921 (Princeton university Press, 1961) Ullman narrows Kennan's thesis somewhat by emphasizing that British pressure on the Wilson administration had the greatest influence on the president's July 1918 decision to send troops to Nerth Russia. Ulam argues inqupansion and Coexistence (Praeger 1968) that the intervention resulted from a desire on the part of the Wilson administration to reestablish the Eastern Front. Where Ullman and Kennan see Wilson responding primarily to diplomatic pressure, Ulam contends that the president reacted to the immediate military situation the Allies faced with Russia's withdrawal from the war against Germany. . Peter Filene adds yet another dimension to the reactive argument. Though he agrees with Kennan that diplomatic pressure was the primary cause of Wilson's decision, he asserts in Americans and the Soviet Experiment (Harvard Univ. Press 1967) that the president justified his decision for intervention because of the American public's dislike for the "German serving Bolsheviks.” 0n the one hand, Filene agrees that Wilson's Russian policy was reactive, but on the other, he identifies a deep-seated ideological aspect underlying Wilson's decision. Like Filene, Beatrice Farnsworth agrees with Kennan's thesis, but also sees an ideological dimension in the decision to intervene. In William C. Bullitt and the Soviet gnigg (Indiana university Press, 1967) she describes the intervention as a manifestation of Wilson's and Secretary of State Robert Lansing's private hope that intervention would spark a movement by democratic elements toward the establishment of a representative government in Russia. Farnsworth further contends that intervention was ostensibly designed to rescue Czech forces. This ideological aspect identified by Filene and Farnsworth provides the framework for the second broad category of interpretation. Scholars who argue from the ideological perspective generally assert that Wilson's aversion to Bolshevism shaped his entire Russian policy. In this vein, Arno Mayer argues in The Politics and Diplomacy of Peacemaking: Containment and Counterrevolution at versailles (Knopf, 1968), that the political right wing in each of the victorious Allied nations sought to pressure the relatively liberal decision-makers at the versailles peace negotiations into taking.an aggressive stand against the Russian Bolsheviks.3 This pressure resulted in several counterrevolutionary’measures adopted by the Allied and Associated governments to displace the Bolsheviks. Mayer contends that despite the justifications used by Wilson when he initiated intervention, the dispatch of American troops was an attempt to create a counterrevolutionary thrust against Bolshevism. While William Appleman Williams agrees that ideology was the impetus behind Wilson's decision, he does not agree that any individual or any group pushed the president into promulgating an anti-Bolshevik policy. In America Confronts a Revolutionary WOrld 1776-1976 (William.Morrow Co. 1976), Williams maintains that American foreign policy historically reflected a missionary zeal. Its gospel was liberal-capitalism, which naturally clashed with radical Bolshevism. Consequently, the intervention in Russia was meant to displace Bolshevism with liberal capitalism. N. Gordon Levin's thesis straddles the fence between the ideological and the economic planes. In woodrow Wilson and WOrld Politics (Oxford Press, 1968), Levin agrees with Williams that liberal capitalism shaped Wilson's Russian policy. He asserts, however, that the primary thrust of intervention in Siberia (Levin does not discuss the north Russian intervention) was to check Japanese imperialism and to establish liberal-capitalist economic cooperation in the Far East. Levin maintains that the elimination of Bolshevism was not necessarily the primary thrust of intervention. It was, however, a factor. In The Midnight War (McGraw-Hill 1978), Richard- Goldhurst emphasizes economics in his interpretation of the Siberian intervention. He maintains that the intervention in north Russia was actually an ideologically motivated, undeclared war against the Soviet government of V. I. Lenin, while intervention in Siberia came as the result of Wilson's desire to check Japanese imperialism and to maintain the open door for calmercial trade in the Far East.4 Bet-Ly Miller Uhterberger brings this argument for commercial motivation into bold relief. She is the only significant western historian to argue for a strictly economic interpretation. In America's Siberian Expedition (Duke university Press, 1956) she maintains that united States intervention in Siberia was designed to protect the open door in the Far East for American capitalism. Uhterberger contends that Wilson's stated reasons for intervention, to guard war stores in Siberia and to rescue the Czechs, were mere rationalizations for this policy of economic expansionism. A On.a broad level, each author's interpretation fits fairly well into one of the these categories with some measure of overlapping. On a more specific level, some authors may agree on given points even though their overall conclusions may be different at the more general level of their analyses. Is there any sort of consensus shared by these historians on any of these major issues? The key issue which almost all of these authors address is the primary motivation behind the decision to intervene. In the reactive category, Kennan, Ullman and Farnsworth argue that intervention in North Russia came as the result of diplomatic pressure. They contend that this same diplomatic pressure, compounded by the desire to rescue the Czecho- Slovak forces, accounted for the decision on Siberia. While their overall conclusions about the effect of diplomatic pressure are the same, they differ somewhat in their specific arguments. Kennan suggests that north Russian intervention was due in large measure to British diplomatic pressure as well as pleas from the French government. While the available evidence does not necessarily diminish the strength of the idea that external pressure influenced Wilson's decision, it does not support the specific contentions of Kennan and Ullman. The evidence seems to indicate that in the late spring of 1918 military pressure played a more substantial role in the president's decision to dispatch troops than did diplomatic pressure. Wilson's decision to send troops to Siberia predated the north Russian decision. The evidence indicates that although the president did favor providing aid to the Czech forces in Siberia, initially he refused to dispatch troops to accomplish this goal. Wilson's opposition to the use of American forces in Russia changed shortly after he received a memo from.Foch on June 27, 1918. Prior to this, Wilson seemed impervious to all Allied tmportunities that called for American troop intervention.4 Kennan and Ullman both contend that after a series of talks between Lansing and British Ambassador Lord Reading, the president responded positively to the British arguments concerning the strategic merit of the north Russian ports of Murmansk and Archangel. These authors further contend that the apparent catalyst that moved the president to decide in favor of intervention came when British Foreign Minister Arthur J. Balfour sent Wilson a personal appeal to dispatch troops on May 28, 1918. However, there is a definite distinction between the president's change in attitude toward the merit of intervention in general and the actual decision to dispatch troops. On the surface, it appears that the president did cave 10 in to diplomatic pressure as Kennan and Ullman assert. Two factors, however, weaken this conclusion. First, the president dismissed the British proposals for intervention. Balfour argued in favor of a two-pronged offensive designed to push westward from.the ural Mountains in central Russia and south from the arctic port of Archangel through European Russia to re-establish the eastern front. Yet, Wilson rejected this scheme. In a memo to Lansing, Wilson stated that the "two parts" of the strategic merit of intervention "cannot be confused and discussed together."5 Moreover, there is ample evidence that the president had little or no intention of accepting any other proposals for intervention. In his Aide-Memoirs Wilson expressly stated: ...the Government of the united States wishes to say...that none of the conclusions here stated is meant to wear the least color of criticism of what the other governments associated against Germany may think it wise to undertake [emphasis added]. All that is intended here is a perfectly frank and definite statement of the policy which the united States feels obliged to adopt far herself and in the use of her own military forces. It is difficult to gauge the amount of influence the British appeals exerted or did not exert on Wilson's decision to intervene. The only link between the president's reversal of his position against intervention and British pressure appears to be that the president for the first time expressed his willingness to send troops shortly after he received Balfour's May 28 appeal. Yet, 11 Wilson not only rejected the foreign minister's plan, he also refused to divert forces without Foch's approval.7 The second factor that weakens the diplomatic pressure thesis is that the first decision to intervene was on Siberia and it came on the heels of Foch's June 27 memo to Wilson as well as a direct appeal to the president by the Supreme war Council on July 1.8' The decision on the north Russian intervention took place six weeks after Balfour's May 28 appeal. Pooh's appeal on June 27 approved the diversion of American forces and stated several reasons for intervention. The most important were "to deny to Germany the supplies of western Siberia and important military stores at Vladivostok and...[t]o bring assistance to the Czecho-Slovak forces."9 On July 6, at a meeting with his top advisors, the president announced his decision to order a limited number of American troops to aid the Czechoslovak forces in Siberia. On July 17, Wilson outlined this policy in his Aide-Memoir. This pronouncement not only highlighted the president's justification for his Russian policy, it also repeated some of the reasons Foch cited to justify the Siberian intervention: Whether from Vladivostok or from Murmansk and Archangel the only legitimate object for which American or Allied troops can be employed, [the united States] submits, is to guard military stores... For helping the Czecho-Slovaks there is immediate necessity and sufficient justification...the Government 12 of the united States is glad to contri e the small force at its disposal for that purpose. Kennan's observation that the president desired to aid the Czechoslovak legion as the primary thrust of his Siberian policy seems well founded. Still his overall thesis was that Wilson's decision on Siberia, as well as the north, came as the result of diplomatic pressure. The idea that Wilson rejected British proposals as well as the timing of his decision weakens Kennanfs thesis. Fbch's appeal and that of the Supreme war Cbuncil were the more likely catalysts for that decision. [The united States] yields, also, to the judgment of the Supreme Command in the matter of establishigg_§ small force at Murmansk to guard the military stores at Kola and to make it safe for Russian forces to come togetheflin organized bodies in the north [emphasis added]. Kennan and Ullman present one of several arguments for intervention that would suggest Wilson's policy was reactive. Kennan's thesis in particular is a benchmark analysis of this topic. Another argument in the reactive category contends that the president ordered intervention to reestablish the Eastern Front. Ulam is the chief proponent of this claims He argues that intervention was designed exclusively to reactivate the Eastern front in the war against Germany and contends that the intervention was not ideologically motivated as Soviet historians claim. According to Ulam the "story propagated by Soviet historians that from the very beginning, the intervention of the 13 western Powers was based on their hostility to communism is thus without foundation."12 The intervention, in Ulamfs view, was predicated upon the military necessity to reestablish the Eastern Front vacated by the Russian army. Ulam.fails to clarify whether Wilson actually reacted to the Allied diplomats who argued in favor of the reestablishment of the Eastern front or whether the president acted to achieve this on his own initiative. At any rate, the available evidence does not support the idea that Wilson favored the reestablishment of the Eastern Front using western forces. The deployment of American forces was limited and defensive. The president was against using Russia as a staging ground for offensive Allied military action against Germany: ...military intervention there would add to the present sad confusion in Russia rather than cure it, injure her rather than help her and that it would be of no advantage in the prosecution of our main design, to win the war against Germany... Military intervention would in [the United States] judgment, even supposing it to be efficacious in its immediate avowed object of delivering an attack upon Germany from.the east, be merely a.methgg of making use of Russia, not a method of serving her. This comment by the president indicates that he did not agree with the idea of reestablishing the Eastern Front using western troops. Great Britain and France pleaded with Wilson throughout the first half of 1918 to accomplish this military objective. Most of their schemes called for large l4 amounts of American military aid.or American agreement for massive Japanese military intervention in Siberia. The evidence indicates that his main goal was to win the war in the west. He diverted.military resources only reluctantly and sparingly from western Europe to Russia in the summer of 1918. Filene's argument that diplomatic pressure as well as growing public clamor against Bolshevism prompted Wilson's decision to deploy troops to Russia is also unsupported by the available documents. While there is a link, albeit tenuous, between British pressure and.Wilson‘s decision, there is no evidence that would indicate public outcry on Russia found a listening ear in the White House. The bulk of the evidence Filene cites consists of contemporary newspapers and journals. Whether these publications represented actual public opinion during 1918 and 1919 is uncertain. Moreover, Filene provides no evidence that public opinion in 1918, whatever it might have been, influenced the president's decision on Russia. Some of the scholars who argue that the decision to intervene came as a result of diplomatic pressure or, more generally, a reaction to perceived events in Europe and Russia, agree with Kennan. While Filene sees an ideological dimension to Wilson's decision, he still maintains that the president also reacted to diplomatic pressure. Ulam is the only author considered here who argues from a reactive 15 perspective yet draws a completely different conclusion about what prompted the president's decision on intervention. He argues that Wilson's motive was to reestablish the eastern front. It appears that the evidence provides some support for the diplomatic pressure thesis. On the other hand, there is no evidence that indicates Wilson moved to reestablish the eastern front or reacted to public outrage directed against Bolshevism. Scholars who argue that intervention was primarily ideological in nature do not suggest that the president reacted to events. Rather they argue that intervention came as the result of perception on the part of American decision makers that ideologies other than liberal capitalism should be eliminated. According to these scholars, intervention was deliberate. Its aim was to prevent a new ideology, economic structure, and form.of government from consolidating itself in Russia. Goldhurst asserts that intervention in north Russia by American forces came as the result of an overt desire to crush Bolshevism. He does not cite a substantial amount of evidence to support this conclusion, however. The available documents indicate that after a long period of expressed reluctance, Wilson ordered troops to north Russia in small numbers to guard war materials as well as to maintain a defensive posture in Archangel and Murmansk. Due to the 16 nature of troop deployment it does not appear likely that military intervention was designed as an offensive measure against Lenin's regime. As a result, it does not seem likely that the desire to eliminate Bolshevism prompted the president to act. Williams and Levin argue that the decision to intervene in Russia was predicated upon the desire by Wilson to advance liberal-capitalism through military force. While Williams maintains that the intervention was meant to displace Bolshevism and establish a "liberal-capitalist" regime in Russia, Levin sees the intervention as the administration's desire to check Japanese imperialism through the establishment of liberal-capitalism in the Far East. Levin does not, however, assert that the intervention arose from.the desire to crush Bolshevism pgr se. While there is quite a bit of evidence to support the notion that Wilson would have liked to see a liberal-capitalist regime in Russia, there is little evidence to suggest this notion prompted the president's decision to dispatch American forces there. Williams bases his arguments on the idea that, historically, American foreign policy sought to displace all regimes that were not patterned after the liberal- capitalist, American model. He supports this contention by citing early American documents. His argument concerning Wilson's decision to send troops is intuitive in the sense 17 that he describes Wilson's foreign policy as part of a historical trend that began as early as the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. Williams does not cite actual documents, however, that pertained to Wilson's motivation to dispatch troops. Consequently, Williams contention about Wilson's Russian policy is week because it is based on an assumption about the historical nature of American foreign policy rather than an analysis based on documents pertaining to the actual decision to intervene. Levin's argument about Wilson's Russian policy focuses on the Siberian intervention. Unlike Williams, Levin bases his conclusions upon the documents of Wilson administration officials. He uses this evidence to demonstrate how the notion of liberal-capitalism (labelled "Wilsonianism" by the author) pervaded the thinking of this group. The author is unable to demonstrate, however, to what extent the president shared this ideology or whether it prompted Wilson's decision on intervention in Siberia. Levin bases his argument upon the assumption that the ideology of economic expansion was the key element in Wilson's foreign policy decision on Siberia in 1918. If commercial gain was the primary reason for intervention in Siberia, then all the other stated purposes for intervention are either of secondary importance or a justification for Wilson's policy. The evidence indicates that in years prior 18 to intervention, the Wilson administration openly aired its concerns with the Japanese government over the perceived military and commercial threat Japan posed to the Far East . 14 What changed? Did the administration, in July 1918, seek a justification to thwart militarily the perceived threat an associate in the war against Germany posed to the Uhited States business interests' access to trade in the Far East? If the intervention was designed to check Japanese imperialism what purpose did bringing aid to the Czechs serve? How accurate is Levin's assumption? was Wilson's decision on Siberia primarily grounded in economics? Uhterberger and Goldhurst argue that it was. Goldhurst provides only a cursory analysis of the Siberian intervention. He argues that Wilson's desire to maintain the open door in Siberia prompted the decision to intervene. He does not, however, provide documents or any sort to support this conclusion. Goldhurst's work is a day to day account of the various military campaigns in Civil War era Russia, with little attention to larger issues such as the motives for the presence of American troops. While Goldhurst provides a plausible interpretation of Wilson's motivation to dispatch troops to Siberia, his argument appears more as an afterthought than a solid explanation of Wilson's motives. Uhterberger on the other hand, does provide a detailed 19 analysis of the evidence from the intervention period. Although she argues that the president decided on Siberian intervention because of his desire to preserve the open door in Siberia, an argument that is primarily economic, she also asserts that circumstances ”forced Wilson's hand" to implement this policy. This contention reflects a reactive tendency to the author's argument about Wilson's decision. Specifically, Uhterberger asserts that Allied diplomatic pressure for intervention by Japan coupled with the zeal displayed by Japanese armed forces over the prospect of intervention caused the president to dispatch troops to Siberia. Uhterberger suggests that the Czech dilemma in Siberia provided a "moral” justification for Wilson to send troops to that region. As a result, she implies that the pursuit of the open door, in lieu of Japanese pressure may have been difficult for the president to justify to the American public as well as the co-belligents in the war against Germany. Diplomatic appeals for intervention did continue throughout the spring of 1918. Further, the president at one point expressed his uneasiness about the Japanese military presence in the Russian Maritime region.15 It did not appear, however, that this pressure moved the president to decide. As late as six days before the decision on Siberia came, American Ambassador to France William Sharp 20 reported to the State Department the Japanese and the French governments were in favor of immediate intervention into Siberia. The Secretary of State cabled back to Sharp: "there seems to be no justification for a change in the policy of this Government" to favor intervention.16 The reply was immediate and to the point. Wilson did not appear ready to budge on intervention only one week prior to his decision to deploy American forces in Siberia. When the final decision did come on Siberia, the evidence does not indicate that the maintenance of the open door was a salient reason for it. In the president's July 6 memo he called for equal, albeit limited, Japanese military participation. Specifically, Wilson called for: The assembling of a military force at Vladivostok composed of approximately 7,000 Americans and 7,000 Japanese to guard the line of communicatigg of the Czecho-Slovaks proceeding toward Irkutsk. This observation does not suggest that the open door thesis should be rejected altogether. The question of Japanese- American relations over the commercial aspects of the Far East may have been peripheral to the Russian question in 1918. The evidence does suggest that by 1919, the future of the open door had become of more central importance to the Wilson administration.18 In July 1918, however, Wilson does not appear to have made his initial decision for Siberian intervention because of the open door policy. All these authors assume implicitly or explicitly that 21 president either had in mind what he wanted to achieve and acted, or he acted on his own perceptions of the events taking place in Europe and Russia without public or congressional input. Except for the input from his immediate circle of advisors, these authors assume the president made decisions on Russia in a vacuum, free from domestic influence. How accurate is this assumption? Did public opinion or domestic politics in the united States bring any pressure to bear on the president's policy toward Russia in 1918 or 1919? Kennan and Uhterberger suggest that there was no domestic influence upon the administration's Russian policy in 1918. Their analyses of the impact of private citizens groups as well as of the press and Congress suggest that Wilson was impervious to outside influence. The logic of events substantiates this point. Wilson resisted ceaseless attempts by groups and individuals to influence his Russian policy in 1918.19 Yet, in the winter of 1919, the evidence does seem to indicate that public pressure was sigificant in the decision to withdraw forces from north Russia.20 This is where Unterberger and Kennan differ on their analyses of the domestic influence issue. Kennan does not address the possibility that domestic pressure influenced the president in his decision to withdraw troops from north Russia in the winter of 1919. Uhterberger does address this possibility 22 and suggests domestic influence was a factor in the withdrawal from Nbrth Russia. Mayer, on the other hand, argues that domestic pressure on the governments of the Allied and Associated nations played a key role in shaping their intervention policies. Specifically, the author contends that after the war "forces of order" or the right wing in the victorious nations gained enough political clout from.the victory to pressure foreign policy moderates into taking an aggressive stand against the Bolsheviks in Russia. The "forces of order" sought the complete elimination of Bolshevism in Russia and eastern Europe. Yet Mayer is unable to demonstrate, at least in the Uhited States, how the conservatives actually changed Wilson's policy toward Russia. The most cogent evidence the author produces that would suggest the ”forces of order” wielded any influence over the president was when Wilson's Democrats lost their majority in both houses of Congress in the November midrterm.elections of 1918. Meyer maintains that this development had a debilitating effect on the Wilson administration's foreign policy. This circumstance forced Wilson to take greater head of conservative demands in the Congress and the nation. Mayer cannot demonstrate the actual impact this development had on the president's Russian policy. Moreover, he undermines his point, at least in one instance, when~hewdes6fI5é§TH5W‘therpresidenterS‘abie-to—eircumvent 23 when he describes how the president was able to circumvent Congressional pressure over the Russian question by keeping legislators uninformed on a particular issue. As a result, the overall connection the author tries to make between the loss of the Democratic majority in Congress and its crippling affect on Wilson's intervention policy lacks strength. These authors who argue that Wilson remained impervious to domestic political interference provide the strongest argument. There does not appear to be a great deal of . evidence that suggests otherwise. consequently, the picture emerges of Wilson making foreign policy decisions, especially on Russia, in a virtual vacuum. If the president did limit political advice on foreign policy to a select few people, then how did information he received shape his perceptions of events in Russia and what effect did it have on American policy? Kennan suggests that the intervention was conceived through confused military intelligence as well as conflicting consular and diplomatic reports from.Russia. This contention is well founded because the evidence indicates that a great deal of confused intelligence emanated from Russia. This observation also provides a powerful explanation for the confusion that was manifest in Wilson's Aide-Memoire. In Kennan's view, the president's decision was conceived and borne of confusion and 24 misunderstanding. Uhterberger assumes that because the president's decision was predicated upon restraint of the Japanese, the most salient information that traveled from Siberia to Washington must have been information concerning Japanese intrigue. There is evidence to support the author claims that reports of the Japanese military presence in the Vladivostok area gave Wilson an uneasy feeling.21 However, the bulk of the military intelligence and consular reports that flowed from Siberia during the entire period from December 1917 to June 1918 concerned Bolshevik atrocities and German-Austrian war prisoner activity. By April 1918, a deluge of new reports concerning the progress of the Czech forces and their embroilment in the Russian Civil war was added to the intelligence picture. Moreover, the content of the president's July 6 memo and the Aide Memoirs reflected Wilson's concern over the Czech dilemma in Siberia as well as the necessity of keeping the war stores piled on the wharves of Vladivostok out of Austrian or German hands. consequently, if the president did decide to send forces to Siberia in 1918 to check Japanese imperialist ambitions, his public statements do not indicate it, nor do his few available private statements. Mayer asserts that the intelligence provided by the commissions sent to gather information was indicative of the 25 outlook of the separate peace delegations they represented at Versailles. The author notes that the various members of the intelligence networks "shared a minimum consensus" concerning the need to eliminate Bolshevism from eastern Europe and Russia. Mayer does not demonstrate this point forcefully. The only evidence he provides to back the assertion that all members of the Allied and Associated intelligence networks were hostile toward Bolshevism is a "stray British draft-proposal"22 that showed clear anti- Bolshevik bias. While there are indications that many intelligence reports demonstrated an anti-Bolshevik tendency this does very little to indicate that an intelligence ”consensus" actually existed. Moreover, Mayer does not show any specific instances of how these anti-Bolshevik biased reports provided the basis for settling European and Russian questions. Consequently, his conclusions on this issue are weak. His assumptions concerning ideological bias in intelligence reporting raise other questions that concern the president's motivation behind American policy on Russia. Did the Wilson have a preconceived aversion toward Bolshevism or did anti-Bolshevik intelligence shape his thinking? was there an ideological motivation behind the decision to intervene? Levin, Williams, Mayer and Goldhurst all argue that the purpose of intervention was to create political or economic changes in Russia, changes that would make that country 26 politically more agreeable to the united States, economically more accessible, or both. Levin and Williams maintain that Wilson's foreign policy aimed to spread liberal-capitalism wherever possible. While Williams concentrates on the political implications of liberal- capitalism especially as it pertained to the elimination of radical as well as reactionary politics in Russia, Levin concentrates on how the introduction of liberal-capitalism in Siberia through American intervention was meant to create a political climate conducive to American commercial expansion. Mayer and Goldhurst contend that the central purpose of intervention was to eliminate Bolshevism. Goldhurst differs from.Mayer insofar as he argues that intervention in north Russia, but not Siberia, was designed as an anti-Bolshevik thrust while Mayer suggests that intervention was aimed at eliminating Bolshevism throughout Russia. While the evidence supports the idea that Wilson was decidedly anti-Bolshevik, it does not indicate that Wilson's. objective in sending troops to Russia was the elimination of Bolshevism. The evidence does indicate that the president refused to commit American troops to Russia for over six months or from.the time that almost a complete reduction in Russian forces weakened the Eastern Front in December 1917 through July 1918. When the troops were dispatched the president 27 ordered them to defend the railways in eastern Siberia and guard the war stores in Vladivostok. Further, he declared that their mission was also to help expedite the withdrawal of the Czech forces fighting there. In north Russia, the president ordered the troops to guard the war stores located at the ports of Archangel andMurmansk.23 To wage war in a country the size of Russia with the one combat division (12,000 troops) Wilson committed was futile. There is also a great deal of evidence that supports the idea that Wilson did not think the way to stop Bolshevism was through.military force. The available documents indicate that Wilson believed the best way to prevent the spread of Bolshevism was through economic aid. In a July 1919 memo'to the president, State Department Counselor Frank L. Polk called for immediate grain shipments to Nerth Russia. The reason for this, he suggested was that "from a political point of view it is obviously unwise to let North Russia revert to Bolshevism through starvation. " Wilson approved this measure.24 As late as December 1919 this notion still had its advocates among high ranking administration officials. In a letter to the president Lansing wrote: ...it is felt that the relief of the popular distress would be one of the surest wayasof fostering domestic peace and rational government. The evidence is highly suggestive that Wilson and his advisors did not view military force as a way to eliminate 28 Bolshevism. This idea, coupled with the notion that troop deployment in Russia maintained a defensive rather than an offensive posture, casts a strong measure of doubt upon the contention that the president dispatched troops for the purpose of displacing Bolshevism. Nevertheless, there is still evidence that Wilson was anti-Bolshevik and he did desire the establishment of a representative government in Russia. Farnsworth and Kennan emphasize this idea. They argue that Wilson hoped for either the moderation or elimination of Bolshevism and he favored those democratic elements in Russia who sought to establish a representative government. Kennan asserts that Wilson's desire that a liberal- democratic movement emerge in Russia was due to his inability to understand the reality that the Russian people were not liberal-democratic in nature. While it is difficult to judge whether the president initiated the intervention to serve as a catalyst for moderate elements in Russia to rise up, there is cogent evidence that he hoped for the creation of a movement toward the establishment of a representative government. Prior to the intervention Wilson intimated that he may have been willing to support a representative government in Russia. In a letter to Lansing in April 1918, the president remarked: 29 ...I would very much value a memorandum containing all that we know about the several nuclei of self governing authority that seem to be springing up in Siberia. It would afford me a great deal of satisfaction to get behind the most nearly representative of tggm if it can indeed draw leadership and control itself. In July, when the president released the Aide-Memoire to the Allied diplomats, he may have hinted openly about his desire to back a representative government: Military action is admissible in.Russia as the Government of the united States sees the circumstances, only to help the Czecho-Slovaks...and to steady any efforts at self-government or self defense in which the Russian thems ves may be willing to accept assistance... [emphasis added]. Beyond these statements, "self government” in Russia remained a private hope. Wilson ordered American forces to maintain neutrality in the Russian Civil War.28 while Farnsworth and Kennan (as well as most of the authors in this essay) provide compelling arguments that Wilson was indeed in favor of a liberal-democratic regime in Russia, the evidence does not indicate that intervention was intended to bring one into existence. Filene contends that although intervention arose from diplomatic pressure, the underlying purpose was ideological. Specifically, he points out that it was an intervention to save the democratic Russian elements from the Bolsheviks who were viewed erroneously as German agents. Filene suggests that the intervention was an ideological crusade to save Russia from the agents of German reaction, disguised as radical Bolshevisks. But, did the Administration view the 3O Bolsheviks as German agents? There is quite a bit of conflicting evidence on this point. In a May 1918 telegram to Ambassador in Russia David Francis, Lansing provided the most comprehensive statement on the State Department's view of the Russian situation since the Bolshevik takeover in Nevember of the previous year. The United States now sees Russia overrun by German and Austrian troops. Where Russians in peaceable centers will not conform at once to the decrees of German commanders, Soviet reports show they are brutally set aside or shot and the military machine of Germany rolls on over the prostrate body of the Russian people. ...the Central Powers...are removing from the Ukraine food supplies which the rest of Russia requires... The Department does not understand how such conditions can continue without arousing the Russian people to the dangers whiEB threaten the liberties won by their revolution. In this communique, Lansing quoted Soviet sources regarding the atrocities committed by the Germans and Austrians. If the administration regarded the Bolsheviks as German agents, then quoting from.Soviet reports in this matter is outwardly contradictory. Why would the Soviets expose their alleged allies and why would the State Department find enough credibility in these reports to quote them? To be sure, the United States was at war with Germany and the Secretary may have utilized Soviet reports as a basis to disseminate anti-German propaganda however, it is difficult to discern if, in this instance, Lansing intended this. Other evidence seems to indicate that the president 31 may have agreed with Lansing's observations about the actual dangers the Germans and.Austrians posed to Russia. In his July 6 memorandum the president mentioned specifically that the primary reason for intervention in Siberia was to aid Czech forces endangered by German and Austrian war prisoners. Significantly, none of the president's remarks concerning the reasons for intervention mentioned anything about "German serving Bolsheviks.” Moreover, the president did not appear to initiate the intervention as a thrust against the Bolsheviks, whoever their actual or alleged alliance was with. Filene draws his conclusions on this particular issue from newspapers and journals, not official documents. consequently, it is difficult to assess whether the president shared the views of those individuals who argued that the Bolsheviks were agents of Germany or whether he used this concept as a justification for intervention. Clearly, arguments that suggest the intervention was designed to eradicate Bolshevism are unsupported by the evidence. There are some indications that the president hoped that liberal-democratic elements might establish a representative government in Russia, but it is not clear whether the president sent troops in order to aid these elements. Consequently, it is doubtful that ideology had a substantial effect on Wilson's decision on intervention. If 32 Wilson's military policy toward Russia was not based on the single concept of eliminating Bolshevism then was there any other reason? The evidence clearly indicates there were two decisions to deploy troops in Russia. Furthermore these decisions came several days apart. were these two interventions based on the same policy? Mayer and Williams claim that whatever the outward rationale the Uhited States proclaimed for its military intervention in Russia, the underlying purpose was the eradication of Bolshevism. As a result, they do not make any distinction between the Arctic and Siberian intervention. In May 1918 Wilson and Lansing both seemed to see the military objectives for the north Russian and the Siberian interventions as wholly separate. After an interview with Reading, Lansing informed Wilson that: ...the proposed intervention in Russia had become . divided into two problems, the Siberian and the Murmansk, and that they seem to me to require separate treatment: that the question of intervention in Siberia depended upon the certainty of military benefit [for the war against Germany]...and that intervention by way of Muransk was different since it was a quesgbon of ability to land a sufficient military force. Feur days later Wilson replied, "[t]he two parts of this question (as you properly discern them) must not and cannot be confused and discussed together.“31 This exchange between Wilson and Lansing suggests that both men searched for the possible military benefit that could be derived by troop intervention in Siberia and north Russia. In this 33 troop intervention in Siberia and north Russia. In this vein, they saw north Russian and Siberian intervention as having different potential benefit in the war against Germany. It does not appear from their remarks that the president and his secretary of state saw the separate interventions as having the potential to serve the same purpose. The explanations offered by Kennan and Ullman on this issue are compelling and serve to bring this idea into bold relief. These authors contend that military'intervention in Murmansk and Archangel had a strategic purpose in relation to the war against Germany. Intervention in north Russia was designed to guard the war stores piled at the port of Archangel as well as to defend the north Russian ports against possible German encroachment. Siberian intervention, on the other hand, came as the result of Wilson's desire to aid the Czech forces who, the president assumed, were endangered by Austrian and German war prisoners. The available documents lend a great deal of support to these authors' conclusions on this issue. Goldhurst agreed that the two interventions served distinct purposes. Yet, his conclusions for the purposes of the interventions differ from those of Kennan and Ullman. Goldhurst argues that intervention into north Russia was a military thrust against the Bolsheviks, while the Siberian intervention was meant to check Japanese military ambitions 34 in the Russian Far East. The former contention is unsupported by the evidence, but there are indications that the protection of the open door became a salient reason for continued intervention in Siberia after the Armistice ended hostilities in Europe. The evidence that the interventions served separate purposes best supports the arguments of Kennan and Ullman. On a broad level , these authors provide a strong argument that Wilson reacted to the circumstances of the war as well as to the events that occurred in north Russia and Siberia when he decided upon intervention. There did not appear to be a unified overarching objective which is evident in the method the troops were dispatched or in the orders provided to them. Between the time the troops actually arrived in Russia in the middle of August, 1918, and the Armistice in November of that year, the rationale for intervention vanished. No longer were the troops needed to guard the war stores in Archangel or the north Russian ports against German encroachment. The Armistice also rendered Siberian intervention unncessary because the alleged ”danger" posed by Austrian and German war prisoners should have subsided when the central powers surrendered. Yet, American forces remained in Russia after the Armistice. What was the purpose for their continued deployment and did the peace 35 talks in Paris have any effect on American intervention? According to Uhterberger and Goldhurst the troops remained in Siberia to guard against Japanese encroachment upon the railroads which threatened to close the major arteries of trade to the Russian Far East. While the available documents strongly support this argument, the evidence that indicates the president actually linked trOOp intervention with the open door first appears in January, 1919.32 Furthermore, there are strong indications that the preservation of the open door was separate from.the Russian question itself. Neither of these two authors address this point. After the Armistice, intervention in Siberia appeared to assume a dual purpose. On the one hand, Wilson declared that troops guarding the Trans-Siberian did so as a measure to ensure that the railways continued to operate so that pending economic aid from the Uhited States could reach the Siberianpeople.33 0n the other hand, the evidence also demonstrates that Wilson's concern for the Chinese Eastern Railway was wholly separate from his concerns for Russia. In February 1919 the president admitted that ...irrespective of what our policy mayibe toward Russia and irrespective of further [future] Russian developments, it is essential that we maintain the policy of the Open door with reference to theaiiberian and particularly the Chinese Eastern Railways [emphasis added]. By failing to cite this distinction between the "open door" 36 and the Russian question, Uhterberger and Goldhurst tend to distort the notion the president's open door policy was primarily aimed at the Chinese Eastern Railway in.Manchuria instead of Siberia. In other words, they implicitly suggest that American business had a vested interest in Siberia. Historically, though, the thrust of Uhited States commerce in the Far East was directed toward China. Because the Chinese Eastern Railway was a significant railway connecting the major ports of Nerth China to the southern Chinese ' provinces and the Trans-Siberian railway, Wilson desired to concentrate American military efforts at keeping the Chinese Eastern open and free from Japanese domination. Nevertheless, these authors provide a strong argument that the pursuit of the open door was a cogent motivating factor in the president's decision to continue troop deployment in the Russian Far East after the Armistice. Uhterberger also contends that the Paris Peace Conference had little or no impact upon continued troop deployment in Siberia because of Wilson's unyielding pursuit of the open door. The evidence supports Unterberger's conclusion here, but her analysis of why the troops remained after the Armistice indicates another dimension to the motivating factors behind Wilson's Russian policy. It appears that Wilson had a definite goal in mind for intervention in Russia by 1919. Unlike his decision to dispatch troops in 1918, which seemed more of a reaction to 37 the existing situation in Europe, the evidence indicates that the president moved to defend a traditional aspect of America's far eastern policy that dated back to before the turn.of the nineteenth century. In late December 1918 the maintenance of the open door became a salient concern to the administration once it was apparent that Japan threatened to close it. In a cable to the American Ambassador in Japan, Roland Morris, Lansing protested that: ...the Japanese are using their monopoly of the Chinese Eastern not only for troop movements but for transporting merchandigg for Japanese merchants to the exclusion of others... .This communique highlights the threat to the open door, first articulated openly by the Administration, roughly one month after the Armistice. In Russia and the west Uhder Lenin and Stalin (Little, Brown and Company, 1961) Kennan argued that although Wilson wished to end the intervention, the demands of the Paris peace conference, domestic politics as well as the president's illness prevented him from doing so as soon as he wished. Specifically, Kennan contends that the primary reason troops remained in Siberia was that Wilson acquiesced to a request by the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, who was convinced that the Siberian forces led by Admiral Alexander Kolchak would emerge victorious in the Russian Civil war. According to Kennan, Lloyd George pleaded that a withdrawal of American troops would have been 38 a devastating blow to the morale of Kolchak's forces.36 Three factors, however, weaken Kennan's conclusion on this point. First, he cites no evidence to back this assertion which diminishes its strength. Second, and more importantly, he dismisses the open door argument despite a great deal of evidence. The open door argument aside it seems that Wilson maintained a great deal of autonomy over his intervention policy from.the beginning. Even under the pressures of the war in Europe in 1918, Wilson remained firm in his opposition to deploying American troops to Russia. Why then would he grant a request of this nature to Lloyd George in 1919? Kennan's only explanation is that the president was tired and frustrated by the events in Paris. While there is little doubt that the physical and mental demands of 1919 placed a toll on Wilson's health, this still does not appear strong enough to explain why the president would allow a foreign leader to influence a policy he himself sought to control exclusively from the very beginning.37 In a broad sense Kennan maintains the concept that the president's Russian policy remained reactive even after the Armistice. The evidence, however, lends greater support to the notion that at least by early 1919, Wilson moved to continue a long-standing tradition in America's far eastern policy when he retained troops in 39 Goldhurst is the only author in this essay who provides any in-depth analysis of the retention of American troops in north Russia. He asserts that the troops remained in that region to wage war against the Bolsheviks. While he clearly demonstrates that American troops engaged Bolshevik forces in combat there is no evidence that Wilson intended to provoke a war against the Soviets. Several factors weaken Goldhurst's conclusion on this issue. First, American forces in.Russia all fought under the command of those senior officers whose country supplied the largest contigent of troops. In the case of north Russia, American troops were under British command. Consequently, all on the spot decisions emanated from British senior officers who, as Goldhurst points out, ordered a defensive perimeter established around Archangel. It is not clear whether the administration was fully aware of what the British officers were doing and what the implications were. In the autumn of 1918, Lansing commented that the united States "does not consider its efforts to safeguard supplies or to help the Czechs in Siberia have created a state of war with the Bolsheviks" [emphasis added] .33 Goldhurst draws his conclusions from comments by senior “administration officials, along with those by David Francis that suggest that Wilson dispatched too few troops to wage war effectively against the Bolsheviks.39 Not only are there no indications that the president ever intended to 40 the Bolsheviks.39 Not only are there no indications that the president ever intended to fight a war with the Bolsheviks, but also the State Department did not believe that American ”efforts” in north Russia and Siberia could have been construed a hostile act against the Soviets.40 In brief, although some senior officials viewed the American intervention in north Russia as a flawed attempt to crush Bolshevism, this does nothing to shed light on Wilson's motivation to dispatch troops to north Russia, or continue the intervention in that region. As a result, Goldhurst‘s conclusions here are dubious. The idea that Wilson pursued the open door policy in Siberia after the Armistice becomes more evident by the way in which he ordered the evacuation of American troops from Russia. Like the decisions to intervene, the decisions to withdraw troops came in intervals, although the intervening time between the decisions to withdraw was much greater. The order to evacuate north Russia came in February 1919 in a public announcement. The decision to withdraw from Siberia, on the other hand, came ten months later in a secret order to General William Graves, the American commander of the Siberian Expeditionary force.41 There was very little explanation issued for either decision. Why then, were the troops withdrawn when they were? 41 Uhterberger explains that public and legislative restlessness were key factors in the president's decision to order troops home from north Russia in February 1919. The evidence is highly suggestive of this idea. In early January 1919, Acting Secretary of State Polk, cabled the American delegation at Paris that "public sentiment is extremely restive on the subject of Russia."42 On February 18, the president ordered American forces in north Russia to evacuate when weather conditions permitted. This decision was announced to members of the Senate and to the public. Kennan on the other hand provides very little analysis on this point. He contends that the president wanted to withdraw troops from Archangel all along and only waited for the proper time to do so. This contention is unsupported by the evidence. Instead, it seems that the president reacted to domestic pressure when he decided to order troops out of north Russia. Goldhurst maintains that the reason Wilson ordered troops to withdraw from Archangel was that he knew the united States had lost the war with the Bolsheviks. 'The evidence does not support the contention that the united States was ever at war with the Bolsheviks or the assumption that Wilson was aware that Lenin's troops had defeated American military forces. Most of the fighting that Goldhurst describes came after Wilson ordered the troops home. When the president issued his order to evacuate in 42 February 1919, Archangel was frozen and did not thaw until May. Most of the fighting in this so-called war took place during the intervening time period. While American military forces did engage the Bolsheviks in north Russia, there is no evidence that the united States purposely waged war against Lenin or that Bolshevik military successes prompted the president to end the north Russian intervention. The evidence indicates that the administration wished to avoid engaging Bolshevik troops militarily. Paradoxically, Goldhurst maintained that it was the administration's fear of American troops coming into contact with the Bolsheviks in Siberia that prompted the evacuation from the Russian Far East. Why would the United States have purposely waged war against Soviet forces in north Russia, but avoided facing them in Siberia? Goldhurst does not address this apparent contradiction. The evidence does support his conclusion about the administration's reasoning behind troop withdrawal from.Siberia. Kennan and Uhterberger agree that troop withdrawal from Siberia came as the result of the administration's desire to keep American forces from coming into hostile contact with the Bolsheviks. These three authors suggest that the political and military'situation in Siberia became untenable for the American forces. Kolchak's forces collapsed due, in large measure, to the retreat of the Czechs who served as a linch- 43 pin.for the Siberian army. Further, the Japanese Army continued to frustrate American efforts at keeping the railroads operating free of Japanese domination. Because of this chaos, the Bolshevik Army advanced rapidly into Siberia and threatened to engage the American troops located there. The evidence supports these authors' arguments that this chaos coupled with the advance of the Bolsheviks prompted the decision to end the intervention in Siberia. The end of American military involvement in Russia obviously did not end the controversy over its causes and purposes. The historical debate over this issue stems not only from.the vagueness of Wilson's Russian policy but also from the dearth of information he left behind concerning his policy objectives toward Russia during those years. The evidence indicates that the decision to intervene was most likely due to military pressure from senior Allied military officials who sought to convince the president of the necessity to dispatch American forces to Russia. Kennan, Ullman, and Farnsworth cite steady diplomatic pressure placed on Wilson that caused him to reverse his adamant opposition to intervention. However, the timing of the decision along with Wilson's outright rejection of the Allied intervention proposals in Russia weaken these authors' arguments. A logical rebuttal to this point would be that appeals from the Allied military leaders only' reflected the positions of the governments they were responsible to. To substantiate this point, however, would require extensive inquiry beyond the scope of this essay, and, more importantly, would not shed light on the direct influences that caused Wilson to reverse his position. The major point here is that the decision to intervene reflected a reaction on Wilson's part and that reaction appeared to be due in large measure to pressure from the Allied military leaders. Two other arguments concerning Wilson's motivation to dispatch troops are that the president wished to crush Bolshevism throughout Russia or that be dispatched troops to Siberia to maintain the open door. The weaker of these two arguments is that intervention was based on the elimination of Bolshevism. While there are indications that the president found Bolshevism an anathema, it does not appear that he moved to destroy it militarily. The contention that the president intended to dispatch troops to Siberia in 1918 to check Japanese imperialism, as Unterberger, Levin.and Goldhurst maintain, did not appear to be a cogent reason for the initiation of intervention in that region. The evidence does suggest that protecting the open door became an overwhelming factor in Wilson's decision to continue troop deployment in the Russian Far East in 1919. The strongest explanation for Siberian intervention in 1918, however, comes from Kennan, who contends that the president ordered 45 intervention primarily as a means of rescuing Czech forces who were embroiled in the fighting in western Siberia. The arguments by Filene and Mayer that public opinion or domestic policies influenced Wilson's Russian policy in 1918 also lack support. On the contrary, the evidence supports Kennan's and Uhterberger's conclusion that the president's decisions on Russia were free of domestic influence, particularly in 1918. Yet, in 1919, there are strong indications that public pressure influenced the president's decision to withdraw troops from north Russia. While Unterberger discusses this possibility, Kennan ignores it. It appears that other than Allied military pressure, influences outside the administration had very little influence on Wilson's Russian policy. The president's policy seems largely conceived of his own initiative. Yet, what affected Wilson's perceptions of Russia and what effect did his perceptions have on his policy? The evidence supports Kennan‘s argument that Wilson developed his policy upon a great deal of confused and conflicting information which emanated from Russia. Mayer on the other hand, contends that there was an anti-Bolshevik "consensus" evident in many of the intelligence reports that were dispatched from Eastern Europe and Russia which influenced Wilson's views. While many of these reports indeed possess anti-Bolshevik tones, this tendency does not appear to 46 constitute a "consensus" nor did the anti-Bolshevik undercurrent in some of these.reports seem to influence Wilson's decision to dispatch troops to Russia or even to continue the intervention. There are strong indications that the President and his administration held an aversion for Bolshevism. Yet, did this factor indicate there was an ideological motivation behind the decision to intervene? Kennan and Farnsworth argue, that although the intervention was due in large measure to diplomatic pressure and the plight of the Czechs in Siberia, Wilson may have been willing to support a liberal-democratic movement if one strong enough emerged. While the evidence supports this notion it falls far short of proving that Wilson intended the intervention as an active measure to eliminate Bolshevism as Williams and Goldhurst argue. The termination of the war in Europe eliminated many of the justifications the administration cited initially for intervention. Still, the troops remained. Goldhurst and Uhterberger seem to provide the most compelling explanation for continued deployment of American troops in the Russian Far East. These authors assert that Wilson maintained forces in that region to check the threat to the railroads and free commerce posed by the Japanese. The evidence also indicates, however, that the Russian question and the 47 continuance of the open door appeared to be separate issues to Wilson and Lansing. After the Armistice, the administration's primary concern became keeping Chinese Eastern railroad in Manchuria safe from Japanese encroachment. Kennan's contention that the Siberian intervention continued because Wilson, who was worn by political battles at home and in Paris, agreed to a request for the continued deployment of American troops from Lloyd George lacks strength. Kennan does not provide evidence to support this argument. Moreover, the available documents give greater support to Uhterberger and Goldhurst's contention that troops remained in Siberia to pursue the open door. On a wider plane, it appears that the continued deployment of troops in Russia was part of a pre-conceived policy as Goldhurst and Uhterberger argue, rather than a reaction to events as Kennan implies. If there were specific policy objectives that perpetuated the intervention, what prompted its termination? was it a failure to attain specific objectives or did Wilson order the troops to withdraw because circumstances dictated the necessity? It appears that withdrawal from Siberia was quite likely for both reasons. Kennan, Goldhurst and Uhterberger each argue that the political and.military breakdown of Holchak's regime, continued Japanese interference against the railways in the 48 advance of the Bolshevik Army led to the decision to end the intervention. On a broad level, it seems that conditions in the Russian Far East precluded maintaining the open door. At the same time, it appears that these same chaotic and dangerous conditions which existed in Siberia made it impossible for troop deployment to continue without endangering the safety of American forces. It also seems that the impending threat to the expeditionary force stirred a reaction among administration officials. This reaction resulted in the withdrawal of American troops. There appears then, to be a duality in the reasons troops were ordered out of Siberia. In a much greater sense, this duality in the reasons behind the Siberian withdrawal is reflective of the entire intervention policy from beginning to end. It appears that a reaction to the events in Europe by Wilson was, in large measure, responsible for the decision to intervene. .Although Kennan, Ullman and Farnsworth suggest that diplomatic pressure (not military) was the primary cause of Wilson's reversal of his stubborn position against intervention in 1918, they still argue correctly that Wilson's policy was reactive. It is not evident from the available documents that in 1918 Wilson implemented an interventionist policy with preconceived, far-reaching objectives . YetMMnd—ef-W 49 Yet, when the end of fighting in Europe eliminated the ostensible need for intervention in Russia, intervention continued nevertheless. The arguments by Goldhurst and Uhterberger that Wilson continued troop deployment in Siberia to maintain the open door appear quite valid. As a result, it does not seem that the continued intervention was due to a reaction to circumstances by the president as Kennan argues: rather it appears as Uhterberger and Goldhurst contend, that Wilson had some sort of objective in mind for continued troop intervention in Siberia. Those authors, then, who argue that the president reacted to the exigencies of war in 1918 provide a cogent explanation for the initiation of intervention. On the other hand, those scholars who contend that the continued intervention in Siberia after the war was the result of a pre-conceived economic objective provide for the best explanation for continued troop deployment in Russia in 1919. 50 ii Notes 1Foreign Relations of the united States Russia 1918 vol. 1 (Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C., 1932), pp. 241- 245. 2F.R.U.S. Russia 1918 Vol. 2, July 17, 1918, p. 288. 3Mayer defines the right or the ”forces of order" as those men who favored exacting heavy war reparations from Germany as well as the destruction of Bolshevism. The liberals or the "forces of movement" in Mayer's definition favored tempering the radical tendencies of Bolshevism without resorting to force, as well as settling for peace with Germany on a less punitive basis. Mayer, A. The Poltics and Diplomacy of Peacemaking Containment and Counterrevolutionary Versailles (New Yerk: Alfred Knopf, 1968). pp. 14 and 15. 49303 1918 Russia vol. 2, February 8, 1918, p. 42. For other 2examples also see FRUS The Lansing_ggpers 1914- 1920 vol. 2(GPO, Washington D. C. 1940), March 24, 1918, p. 357 and.May 20, 1918, p. 361. 51bid., May 20, 1918, p. 361. 5rnus Russia 1918 vol. 2, July 17, 1918, p. 289. 71bid., June 3, 1918,.pp. 484-5. Braus Russia 1918 vol. 2, July 1, 1918, p. 241. 91bid., p. 245. 100p. cit., p. 288. 11lbid., p. 289. 12Ulam,.A. Expansion and Coexistence (Praeger Publishers, New Yerk, 1968). p. 84. 13See note 6. 14FRUS Lansing Papers vol. 2, Nevember 2, 1917, p. 450. 15lbid., January 20, 1918, p. 351. 51 16FRUS Russia 1918 vol. 2, May 31, 1918, p. 182. 17lbid., July 6, 1918, p. 263. 18FRUS Russia 1919, February 9, 1919, p. 251. 19See note 4. 20Op. cit., February 24, 1919, p. 617. 21See note 15. 22Mayer, A. Politics and Diplomacy of Peace Making: Containment and Counterrevolution at versailles (Alfred Knopf, New York, 1967). See note 8, p. 371. 23See note 6. 240p. cit., July 11, 1919, p. 637. 25lbid., December 3, 1919, p. 439. 26FRUS Lansing Papers vol. 2, April 18, 1918, p. 360. 27See note 6. 28whether the president intended it or not, American forces were doomed to become involved in Russian internal affairs. It is literally impossible to occupy portions of another country, especially one engulfed in Civil war and not become involved. Censequently, the moment at which Wilson decided to dispatch troops to Russia, he also decided to interfere in Russian domestic affairs. 29FRUS Russia 1918 vol. 1, May 8, 1918, p. 525. 30FRUS LansingpPapers vol. 2, May 16, 1918, p. 360. 31lbid., p. 361. 32The first time Wilson appeared to link the open door to the intervention was in a Feb. 9, 1919 message to Acting Secretary of State Polk (FRUS Russia 1919, Feb. 9, 1919, p. 251). In this communique, the president suggested that the congress be informed of the administration's aims in Siberia in order to obtain funds for the Trans-Siberian Railway project. Prior to this, it seems that any actual reference to the ”open door" appears in Nevember 1917, when the Lansing-Ishii Agreements were completed (FRUS Lansing Papers vol. 2, NOV. 2, 1917, p. 450). 52 33FRUS Russia 1919, Jan. 31, 1919, p. 246. 34See note 18. 35FRUS Russia 1918 vol. 2, Dec. 16, 1918, p. 463. 36The Russian.”White" Army was composed of almost all these forces, including some moderate socialists, that opposed the Bolsheviks or "Reds.” The White government was located in Omsk, Siberia and was led by a former admiral of the Tsar's Navy, Alexander Kolchak. 37See note 6. 38FRUS Russia 1918 vol. 2, September 27, 1918, p. 548. 38FRUS Russia 1919, Feb. 24, 1919, p. 617. 39Goldhurst, Richard. The Midnight War (New'York: MoGraw-Hill, 1978), p. 113. 490p. cit., p. 548. 41Ibid., January 7, 1919, p. 461. 42FRUS Lansing Papers vol. 2, December 23, 1919, p. 393. 53 BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Sources Documents United States Department of State. ggpers Relatipg to the Foreign Relations of the Uhited States 1918 Russia. 3 vols. Washington, D. C., 1931. Uhited States Department of State. ggpers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1919, Russia. Washington, D.C., 1937. Uhited States Department of State. g_pers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the united States, The Lansipg ‘ggpers 1914-1920 vol. 2, washington, D. C., 1939. Uhited States Department of State. Papers Relating to_ the Foreign Relations of the Uhited States, Russia 1920, vol. 3. washington, D. C., 1936. Secondary Sources Farnsworth, B. William C. Bullitt and the Soviety union. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana university Press, 1967. Filene, P. Americans and the Soviet Experiment. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1967. Goldhurst, R. The Midnight War. New Yerk: MCGrawsHill co. ' 1978. Kennan, G. Soviet-American Relations 1917-1920. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press (vol. 1, 1956: vol. II, Kennan, G. Russia and the West under Lenin and Stalin. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1961. Levin, N.G. Whodrow Wilson and werld Politics. New Yerk: Oxford university Press, 1968. 54 Mayer, A. Politics and Diplomacy of Peacemakingi Containment and Counterevolugion at Versailles 1919. New Yerk: Alfred Kropf, 1967. Ulam, A. Expansion £99 Coexistence. New Yerk: Praeger Publishers, 1968. Ullman, R. Agglo-Soviet Relations 1917-1921, vol. 1. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton university Press, 1961. Uhterberger, B. America's Siberian Expedition. Durham, N.C.: Duke university Press, 1956. Williams, w.A. America Confronts a Revolutionaryiworld 1776-1976. New Yerk: William Morrow Co., 1976.