Robert Service - Spies and Commissars

‘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 delegation 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. 8Hoover 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. 9The 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

President Wilson would have none of this, however, and determined instead to send an emissary to Moscow to explore whether the Soviet leadership was willing to end the Civil War. William C. Bullitt came into the reckoning. Impressed by his State Department reports on Europe, Wilson had included him in the American delegation to Paris and made him head of the Division of Current Intelligence Summaries. 11The President thought him just the person, despite his lack of diplomatic experience, to go and talk directly to Lenin. Wilson and Bullitt agreed that peace could come to Russia if the contending ‘Russian factions’ were put in a room together and asked to settle their disputes. Lansing gave his assent to the dispatch of Bullitt even though he lacked any optimism about the outcome. 12The Council of Ten convened on 21 January to discuss Wilson’s proposal. Lloyd George gave his support, arguing that the Bolsheviks would lose influence if the Russian people felt that they had received a fair hearing in Paris. Clemenceau objected. Averse in principle to negotiating with Bolsheviks, he warned that Bolshevism was already spreading westwards. But when Wilson and Lloyd George combined against him he was forced to give way. 13

Wilson’s spirits were rising. W. H. Buckler, an attaché at the US embassy in London, discussed American peace proposals with Litvinov in Stockholm. Even though Litvinov had to leave for Russia — together with Vatslav Vorovski and Arthur Ransome — when Sweden broke relations with Sovnarkom in January 1919, he had responded enthusiastically to Buckler, and the President was excited by the report he received. 14Litvinov now wrote to Wilson indicating that American companies could do good business in Russia. He urged Americans to hear the arguments of all the belligerents in the Civil War. He promised that Soviet communists, in the event of a peace being agreed, would desist from subversive propaganda in the West. He warned that a White military victory would open the door to the Romanov dynasty’s restoration. He expressed confidence in ‘the good will of the American Government’. 15Litvinov’s letter impressed Wilson and Lloyd George, and the proposal for a conference of Russia’s warring sides was prioritized. The Prime Minister had wanted to summon the Russians to Paris whereas the President preferred to assemble them on the largest of the so-called Princes Islands — Büyük Ada or Prinkipo — in the Sea of Marmara off the coast of Constantinople; Lloyd George gave way to him. 16

The impetus for a Russian conference appeared unstoppable until Winston Churchill, the recently appointed Secretary of State for War, arrived in the French capital on 14 February. This happened to be the date when Wilson, who was constitutionally obliged to limit the duration of his foreign stays, was scheduled to leave for the US. Harold Nicolson, a member of the British delegation, recorded: