American Intervention in Russia

During the past sixty years, particularly in the recent era of the intensified Cold War, the tangled question of American participation in the Allied military intervention in Russia following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 has attracted much attention from scholars, both Soviet and Western. After some initial restraint on their part, Soviet historians have arrived at the more or less unanimous conclusion that the United States not only enthusiastically joined the other Allied powers in the intervention but also actually assumed leadership over a conscious and deliberate attempt to destroy the infant Soviet state at its inception.1 On the other side, Western scholars have proposed a wide variety of putative explanations for American intervention, ranging from considerations of contemporary power politics through an entire catalogue of sophisticated political and psychological analyses to outright accusations of malevolent ideological intent on the part of American decision makers.2 In spite of the considerable attention devoted to the problem, however, a comprehensive picture of American intervention in Russia still has not entirely emerged. It would seem that this situation derives first of all from the fact that American involvement in Russia unfolded in two distinct stages that have received unequal treatment from historians. The first of these stages—the period of the formulation of American interventionist policy—began shortly after the Bolshevik seizure of power in November 1917 and continued until the issuance on 17 July 1918 of President Woodrow Wilson's aide-memoire, which effectively initiated American activity in Russia. This preliminary period of American engagement, which culminated in the “decision to intervene” in Russia, has been studied and restudied by historians.3

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  Open Access•Benjamin D Rhodes•The Review of Politics•1984

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• The civil war and Allied intervention in the Russian North (1918–1920)

  Vladislav I Goldin•Acta Borealia•1993

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