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... White armies. It must be noted that American intervention was not selfless either, if the Japanese made territorial gain they could have become more powerful, something the Americans didnt want of a nation to which they had always been rivals, so the Americans were serving their own interests in Russia just as the Japanese were. Their policy was to let Russia settle its quarrel amongst themselves, which actually contradicts what Woodrow Wilson said about how Europe and the world could not be at peace if Russia was not [ 2 ] legitimizing international intervention. A significant landing of allied troops was a Novorossik a short time after the end of World War 1 by a small British-French naval detachment. The French troops held Odessa and Crimea, and after a short while they came under attack from Ukrainian bandits who had found common cause with the Reds.
After some intense fighting the French abandoned the territory and a full withdrawal of all French and French-controlled forces, to add insult to injury, French sailors who were stationed at Sebastopol were exposed to anti-war propaganda and mutinied. The French withdrew and this was the last of their intervention. The British part of this detachment took over Baku -were allied materials were stored- and assumed naval control of the Caspian Sea. However, this deployment was not to support the Whites, it was to stop Germany from receiving foreign aid until she agreed to the peace terms put forward by the allies at the end of the First World War. As shown above, allied support was extremely limited in terms of how they supported the Whites, of the four allied nations that sent troops to Russia, only two actually supported the Whites (Britain and France), one was for their own interests (American) and one actually opposed the Whites (Japan). The significance of the inadequate support from the allies in the White defeat must be looked at relative to the many other reasons for the defeat of the Whites and the strength of the Reds because, if international support was inadequate, then there is a suggestion that adequate support may have affected the outcome of the Russian civil war, so other reasons for White defeat must be looked at.
As mentioned earlier, there would have been no civil war if there was no support for the Whites, which was vital to their cause. However, as also mentioned earlier allied support for the Whites was well under the level they could have offered and so it is possible to consider that if the allies had fully committed to supporting the Whites in offering all the support they could have then the Whites may have won, while it is impossible to know this it does offer the suggestion that while the support for the Whites was critical in their survival, the inadequacy of allied support for the Whites was important in their defeat. International support was also used by the Reds in the form of propaganda. With troops from capitalist and imperialist countries on their soil the Reds could say they were defending Russia from an imperialist invasion, as expressed by Lenin to the toiling workers of France, England, America and Japan; Workers, like a vicious dog loosed from its chain, the whole capitalist press of your countries howls for the intervention of your governments in Russian affairs, they have already started military operations.
Anglo-French bandits are already shooting Russian workers They are cutting off the Russian people from their bread and force them to put their necks once more into the noose of the Paris and London stock exchanges In the interests of the capital you are to be the executioners of the Russian workers revolution ([ 4 ] Lenin) this could be another significant impact of the inadequate international support for the Whites, the very presence of foreign troops on Russian soil allowed the Reds to use it against the Whites but the limited number of allied forces meant they did not do much in the form of helping the Whites win, in that way, they did more harm than good. Another significant reason for the defeat of the Whites that cannot be attributed to the lack of international support was the fact that the Reds fought as one whereas the Whites fought as separate armies with separate agendas, and were so very fragmented and separated by large areas of land. Most of the time the White armies could not communicate with each other to coordinate strategies and liaison between White armies consisted of brave officers who would attempt to cross enemy territory to communicate with another White army. Their armies were also made up of diverse components who only served their own interests such as the Cossacks who only obeyed the Whites when it suited them. The Reds controlled central Russia but the Whites controlled territory around Russia circumference, an overwhelming advantage to the Reds as expressed by historian Sergei Melgunov [ 5 ] it seems to me that the movement from the periphery toward the centre is always doomed to disaster it is the centre that determines the success or failure of a revolution The centre controls all the technical advantages, first and foremost in the form of an established apparatus, which the periphery had to create virtually from scratch. With control of the central Russia the Reds could shift their forces from one front to another to defend endangered positions, and they had the great advantage of short communications lines.
The Reds also got massive benefits from their geographical location; they controlled territory with a population of 70 million whereas the Whites only had territory of 7 - 8 million each, a massive numerical advantage in the Reds favour. By 1919 the Red army had 3 million men but the White armies never exceeded 250, 000. A further advantage of the Reds was that they received vast stores of materials from the old regime that had been left behind in territory which they controlled, whereas the Whites had to rely on support from foreign nations and weapons captured from enemies. And finally, the Reds benefited from having a superior railway network which was designed in a radial pattern and had its hub in Moscow in Red territory, but the rail network in the rest of Russia was poorly developed meaning the Whites did not gain any advantage from it, a massive advantage for the Reds which possibly impacted on the Red victory. All of these reasons were very important in the defeat of the Whites and most had nothing to do with allied support or lack thereof so the allied nations cannot be blamed entirely for the defeat of the Whites in the Russian civil war although they did have an important role to play. In conclusion, every nation that intervened in the Russian civil war had their own motives which mostly did not include reasons for the good of the Russian people, and even when they appeared to, it was for their own selfish reasons, whether it be for territorial gain or to prevent an expansionist regime from returning to power and threatening the interests of other nations.
The reasons for limited support could have had something to do with the fact that Europe and to a lesser extent America had been at war in Europe for 4 years and all nations involved were considerably weakened from it. If there had been no war in Europe then the allied nations may have committed much more to the Whites cause in the Russian civil war. However, the First World War can also be considered a catalyst for the Communist revolution, so without it there may not have even been a civil war so such points are difficult to make. Allied support may also have been limited because of the sentiment of many of the leaders of the allied nations at the time, for example, Woodrow Wilson thought the Russians should be left to sort things out on their own, a policy which was followed, with American troops in Russia not fighting for any side in the civil war and only for their own interests. It can be seen that the allied nations commitment to any side in the Russian civil war was lukewarm at best, the only nation anywhere near committed was Great Britain who still only gave a tiny amount of support compared with the amount which could have been given, all other nations either gave a half-hearted attempt to help the Whites but then withdraw when things start to go bad, or sent troops to Russia not intending to help anyone but themselves, like the Japanese and Americans. But the question of whether this lack of allied support was important of the defeat of the Whites is most difficult to answer, certainly, the allied nations support for the Whites, while crucial to their cause, was nowhere near what could have been given, and that support from the allied nations which equalled what they had the ability to give could have had a significant impact on the war, but the Whites had their own problems which had nothing to do with the allied nations and may still have led to their defeat no matter what support was given to them.
One reason, for example, was that they were extremely fragmented, each army fighting for their own cause. But the Reds had their advantages as well, like the fact that they were fighting from the centre of Russia, allowing their forces to be concentrated while White forces had to be spread thin to cover the vast areas of the circumference of Russia. They also had the superior rail network, and the vast stores of arms that had been left behind by the old regime, that came with that territory, great advantages to the Reds that may not have been overcome even with increased support for the Whites from the allied nations. And finally, that the Reds were able to use allied support for their own reasons, Using allied intervention in Russia as propaganda allowed them to come across as the defenders of a nation come under attack from invading powers, if the allies had sent sufficient support this may have been ok, but with the limited support that was sent, the Reds were able to use this as powerful propaganda, without the allied nations making that much of a difference, so, they never sent enough support to help the Whites win, but the fact that they intervened at all meant it could be used against them. So, if all of this is taken into account then the judgement international support for the Whites in the Russian civil war was woefully inadequate is valid, apart from the fact that without the monetary and material support for the Whites from the allies was crucial to their cause, all other intervention appeared to do more harm than good, with the limited support just being used against the Whites in Red propaganda.
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