Robert Service - Spies and Commissars

The military position was tricky enough, but Sovnarkom also faced an ever worsening economic situation. Until the Brest-Litovsk treaty it had been possible for old contracts to be fulfilled and new ones drawn up with foreign businesses. Sovnarkom had valuable goods for sale or rent. Lenin had consistently said that foreign capital was essential for industrial reconstruction; he wanted to offer ‘concessions’ in the Russian economy — and Sovnarkom resolved to draw up a plan on non-capitalist principles. 47(Why capitalists should want to invest without any chance of making a profit was not given consideration.) The idea of inviting businesses abroad to invest in Russia had been debated in Soviet governing circles since the beginning of the year. 48It was not widely popular among Bolshevik leaders but Lenin would not let go of it, believing that capitalist powers were inherently greedy. He hoped to inveigle the Americans into doing business in Russia and deflect the military threat from Japan. Lenin suggested that President Wilson might put pressure on Tokyo if Sovnarkom used Siberian concessions as an enticement to American big business. 49The Allies, even if they were willing to prop up Sovnarkom, saw the Russian trade as a growing risk for governments as well as businesses. Platinum was held in large stocks in Russia, and the British government had been negotiating their purchase; but in May 1918 a prosecution was brought in London against a British firm that had sought to buy up Russian platinum through the businessman William Camber Higgs of Petrograd. An Allied economic blockade of the territory under Soviet rule commenced. 50

Lenin turned instead to Germany and made an appeal to its industrialists and financiers. The Germans did not make this easy for him. Their ambassador, Count von Mirbach, was exigent and imperious. He was also a stickler for diplomatic propriety. He insisted on presenting his credentials in the time-honoured fashion of diplomacy. This he did to Sverdlov as Chairman of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee of the Congress of Soviets. His one concession to the Bolsheviks was to wear only a day suit and not a top hat and tails. 51

Mirbach treated Chicherin at the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs as an underling. Whenever he wanted to speak to him, he barged into his rooms without ceremony and flung his hat, overcoat and cane on the table. He shot his mouth off in Radek’s office for everybody to hear. 52He intended that the Bolsheviks should feel that Moscow had become part of Germany’s domains. It had taken until 26 April for Mirbach to set up his official residence at 5 Denezhny Pereulok (Money Lane). The German consulate was on the other side of the street at Number 18. The position could not have been more awkward since the French military mission worked and lived on the same street. 53The chauffeurs of the two nations competed to get their limousines ahead of each other. On one occasion they screeched to a halt just three inches apart. 54The efficiency and zest of the Germans impressed onlookers in comparison with the pomaded diplomats of several other embassies. 55Setting the tone, Mirbach paid visits to leading monarchists, including a sister-in-law of Nicholas II. 56He insisted that Sovnarkom should restore money and companies seized from German owners in the war or after the October Revolution. 57Sovnarkom complied, committing itself to punish anyone who tried to obstruct the policy. Russia’s subordination appeared complete. 58

The Soviet leadership did not pretend to like the situation, as Pravda made clear: ‘The German ambassador has arrived in the revolutionary capital not as a representative of the toiling classes of a friendly people but as the plenipotentiary of a military gang which with boundless insolence kills, rapes and pillages every country.’ 59But rhetoric was one thing, practical resistance entirely another.

Trying to make the best of a bad job, Sovnarkom appointed missions to central Europe on 4 April 1918. Lev Kamenev was the choice for Austria, Adolf Ioffe for Germany and Yan Berzin and Ivan Zalkind for Berne. 60On his way back from the United Kingdom Kamenev had been apprehended on one of the land Islands by the White Finns and the announcement of his Viennese appointment seems to have been a ploy to get the Central Powers to exert their influence to release him. (In fact he was not freed until 17 June 1918 by means of a deal to swap him for half-a-dozen White Finnish officers.) 61It anyway was Ioffe who had the key posting. Berlin was the capital of the power which had forced the ‘obscene peace’ on Russia; but, like Trotsky, Ioffe was willing to suppress his feelings about Brest-Litovsk. He could perhaps salve his conscience by doing what he could to promote the cause of revolutionary internationalism in Berlin. Leonid Krasin and Vladimir Menzhinski went with him. Krasin had been a manager for Siemens-Schuckert in Germany and Russia before the Great War; he had also been involved in the Bolshevik robbery unit after the failure of the 1905–6 revolution. He was hardly a veteran of big business but he was the best qualified among the Bolsheviks. Menzhinski was a trusted Chekist who was assigned to undercover work.

No one could tell what would come out of this hazardous international situation. For nearly two months after the treaty of Brest-Litovsk had been signed, anything seemed possible — or at least this was the assumption underlying the activity of the politicians and the diplomats. The treaty had solved everything and nothing. Any slight shift in the fortunes of the Allies or the Germans could have immense consequences. The war was not over and any trembling of ‘Soviet power’ could result in the collapse of Bolshevism. The government in Moscow was far from secure and the economy was in free fall.

Even the German leadership was perplexed. The flotsam of many nations was swept around in the Russian tumult. Hundreds of thousands of prisoners had fallen into the hands of the Russians since 1914, and Lenin and Trotsky regarded them as excellent material for revolutionary indoctrination. Many POWs needed no new stimulus to turn against their old governments. The belligerent mood was especially remarkable among Czech and Hungarian captives who wished to return home and overthrow the Habsburg authorities. 62Many had newly developed communist sympathies — this was true of Czechs, Hungarians, Bulgarians as well as Austrians and Germans. The Bolsheviks organized an All-Russia Congress of POW Internationalists in Moscow on 9 April 1918. 63By freeing the military prisoners of Imperial Russia they intended to foster insurrections in Europe. It was the Central Powers which had reason to fear what was afoot. Within days of the Brest-Litovsk treaty, according to Sadoul, German and Austrian volunteers were being sent into Ukraine from Moscow to take up the struggle against the military occupation. 64Prisoner-of-war associations were being formed all over the country — and predictably the Central Powers showed little eagerness to welcome them back across their frontiers.

Robert Vaucher left an account of the Germans freed from detention camps by Sovnarkom:

In the streets of Petrograd the German ex-POWs walk around freely, dressed in new attire several days previously, belted in their blue, green or white pre-war uniforms, fully ornamented with frogging, with braids and with insignia. They parade the length of Nevski Prospect in their flamboyant lion-tamer uniforms with the air of victors and look down on their Austrian allies who are still dressed in their old uniforms which are patched, faded and threadbare. 65

Not everyone was eager to go back to Germany, for fear of being mobilized to the trenches of the western front. Nor was the German high command enthusiastic about using them as soldiers until all traces of Bolshevik influence had been removed. The Austrian commanders were still more worried about the contaminating effects of communism. 66Lenin’s peace needed careful handling. The outcome of the Great War was being decided in northern France, but the dismantled eastern front retained its capacity to affect the situation in the western trenches.