Did Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War Have Any Positive Results for the West?

Obviously, it was not enough to save the Whites. And it probably made subsequent Soviet relations with the West even worse than they would otherwise have been. However, Churchill argued that the intervention did have at least one positive result: by tying down the Bolshevik forces for two years in fighting the Whites, it forestalled a Soviet attack on the Eastern European nations until the latter had the strength to defend themselves:

"A breathing space of inestimable importance was afforded to the whole line of newly liberated countries which stood along the western borders of Russia...Finland, Esthonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and above all Poland, were enabled during 1919 to establish the structure of civilized States and to organize the strength of patriotic armies. By the end of 1920, the 'Sanitary Cordon' which protected Europe from the Bolshevik infection was formed by living national organisms vigorous in themselves, hostile to the disease and immune through experience against its ravages." Churchill, *The Aftermath*, quoted in Ilya Somin, *Stillborn Crusade: The Tragic Failure of Western Intervention in the Russian Civil War 1918-1920* (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers 1996), p. 203.
https://books.google.com/books?id=X7ZHIVhazHUC&pg=PA203

(Of course, if that was the positive accomplishment of intervention, it was reversed--except for Finland--by the results of World War II, but one can argue that this reversal was the result of later mistakes by Western leaders with respect to both Germany and the USSR, and should not be blamed on the statesmen of 1919.)

Somin notes that very few historians have taken Churchill's argument seriously, and that one who has--John M. Thompson in *Russia, Bolshevism, and the Versailles Peace* (Princeton UP 1966)--has rejected it on the grounds that (1) the Bolsheviks would be unlikely to invade the border states because they had enough problems at home to keep them busy, and (2) if they did, the "Allies would have then intervened actively to stop them, and the line demarcating Bolshevism from Europe would have probably remained at about the place where it was finally delimited in 1921." https://books.google.com/books?id=ukfWCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA397

Somin replies that: (1) internal problems did not prevent the Bolsheviks from making strenuous efforts to gain control of the Russian Empire's borderlands during the Civil War (or in the case of Georgia, post-Civil War) period--the attempt to sovietize Poland in 1920 (at a time when Wrangel had not been finally defeated) being a notable example. (2) "As to Thompson's belief that the Allies would necessarily have intervened in earnest to stop Bolshevik expansion, this is not the impression one gets from their relatively tepid response to the invasion of Poland in 1920. [Of course, as Somin fails to mention, one reason for the "relatively tepid response" is that the Poles had, justifiably or not, attacked first.--DT] In the absence of strong armies deployed by the border states themselves or by the Whites, only a truly massive Allied intervention would have been sufficient to throw the Bolsheviks back. And it is difficult to believe that public opinion in the West would have tolerated a major war on that scale merely for the sake of saving Lithuania, or even Poland. [I am not so sure, at least if it were a case of clear-cut unprovoked aggression against Poland.--DT] In any case, intervention in Russia clearly allowed these countries to be saved at much lower cost to the West than would otherwise have been the case." Somin, p. 204.

FWIW, William H. Chamberlain also endorses Churchill's argument:

"Had there been no intervention, had Allied aid to the Whites stopped after the end of the [First World] War, the Russian civil war would almost certainly have ended much more quickly in a decisive victory of the Soviets. There a triumphant revolutionary Russia would have faced a Europe that was fairly quivering with social unrest and upheaval.

"It is quite impossible, of course, to say with certainty what might have happened in such a case. But there were several episodes in the civil war when Bolshevik progress to the West was directly hampered by the temporary military successes of the Whites. When Kolchak made his thrust toward the Volga in the spring of 1919 he unconsciously sealed the doom of the Soviet Republics which had been set up in the Baltic States. When Denikin's Cossack cavalry pierced the Red lines in May and June, 1919, they put an end to revolutionary dreams of moving westward into Bessarabia, with a view to linking up with Soviet Hungary. The issue of the battle before Warsaw in August, 1920, might have been different if the large forces which were concentrated against Wrangel had been available on the Polish front. So, while intervention did not overthrow the Soviet Government, it did, in all probability, push the frontier of Bolshevism considerably farther to the East..."
https://books.google.com/books?id=DPj_AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA171

Any thoughts about this argument?
 
I generally agree with the argument for the intervention. I believe alot of the blame lies on Poland, for essentially being jerks and using French weapons -given to fight the Bolsheviks- to fight the ZUNR, who were certainly not communists. Which in the end, helped them arrive at the situation before the battle of Warsaw. I doubt they'd have ended up fighting infront of the gates of Warsaw had they swallowed their pride and revanche and agreed to fight the Bolsheviks with the Ukrainians instead of a war of aggression against the ZUNR.
 
Any thoughts about this argument?

A very interesting one. A pity the very fluid nature of the fighting in the Civil War makes it difficult to say just how much trouble the intervention caused for the Reds.

[Of course, as Somin fails to mention, one reason for the "relatively tepid response" is that the Poles had, justifiably or not, attacked first.--DT]

The Poles were the first to launch an offensive in 1920, but fighting between them and the Red Army went all the way back to 1918 when Bolshevik forces attacked the Polish self-defense force in Wilno/Vilnius. Of course, western opinion was a more important factor in determining Allied actions than the truth about these nuances.

"It is quite impossible, of course, to say with certainty what might have happened in such a case. But there were several episodes in the civil war when Bolshevik progress to the West was directly hampered by the temporary military successes of the Whites. When Kolchak made his thrust toward the Volga in the spring of 1919 he unconsciously sealed the doom of the Soviet Republics which had been set up in the Baltic States. When Denikin's Cossack cavalry pierced the Red lines in May and June, 1919, they put an end to revolutionary dreams of moving westward into Bessarabia, with a view to linking up with Soviet Hungary. The issue of the battle before Warsaw in August, 1920, might have been different if the large forces which were concentrated against Wrangel had been available on the Polish front. So, while intervention did not overthrow the Soviet Government, it did, in all probability, push the frontier of Bolshevism considerably farther to the East..."
https://books.google.com/books?id=DPj_AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA171

The idea of the Bolsheviks invading Romania together with Hungary is interesting. If something else occupied Poland's attention preventing it from expanding east (IIRC Germany seriously considered an attack on Poland in response to the Polish uprising near Poznan, maybe this attack actually goes through), communism would have spread far in a very short time.
 
I generally agree with the argument for the intervention. I believe alot of the blame lies on Poland, for essentially being jerks and using French weapons -given to fight the Bolsheviks- to fight the ZUNR, who were certainly not communists. Which in the end, helped them arrive at the situation before the battle of Warsaw. I doubt they'd have ended up fighting infront of the gates of Warsaw had they swallowed their pride and revanche and agreed to fight the Bolsheviks with the Ukrainians instead of a war of aggression against the ZUNR.

Perhaps if West Ukraine had accepted the Allied armstice proposal in January 1919, which Poland was inclined to agree to, instead of insisting on maximalist demands, a stronger Ukrainian state could have been established.
 
Perhaps if West Ukraine had accepted the Allied armstice proposal in January 1919, which Poland was inclined to agree to, instead of insisting on maximalist demands, a stronger Ukrainian state could have been established.
Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Poland want L'viv?
 
The proposed line ran just to the east of the city, like the "B" variant of the Curzon Line which may have been inspired by this proposal for all I know.
Yeah, it would have been treason to accept the surrender of the capital to the Polish, who once they took it OTL launched a great big pogrom. Better to have fought and lost with honor than to surrender, and be left with something that cannot even be called a victory. Those in L'viv had more honor than Petliura who made the same deal with the Poles, and look where it got him and the UNR.
 
Yeah, it would have been treason to accept the surrender of the capital to the Polish, who once they took it OTL launched a great big pogrom. Better to have fought and lost with honor than to surrender, and be left with something that cannot even be called a victory. Those in L'viv had more honor than Petliura who made the same deal with the Poles, and look where it got him and the UNR.

The city had five Poles for every Ukrainian, was a very important cultural center for Poland, was located in an ethnically mixed area close to the regions which were undisputably Polish. It was not a wise choice for the capital of a Ukrainian state.
 
The city had five Poles for every Ukrainian, was a very important cultural center for Poland, was located in an ethnically mixed area close to the regions which were indisputably Polish. It was not a wise choice for the capital of a Ukrainian state.
Depending on how you delineate the city borders and count the Ashkenazi Jews you could arrive at that conclusion. However, for miles outward in each direction the suburbs and countryside was without question almost homogeneously Ukrainian without fail. It was founded by the Prince of Halych-Volyn', a Ukrainian hundreds of years before. It was a poor choice for Poles to live there.
 
Depending on how you delineate the city borders and count the Ashkenazi Jews you could arrive at that conclusion. However, for miles outward in each direction the suburbs and countryside was without question almost homogeneously Ukrainian without fail. It was founded by the Prince of Halych-Volyn', a Ukrainian hundreds of years before. It was a poor choice for Poles to live there.

IIRC the censuses and election results from the period of Austrian and Polish rule imply a different picture. Poles in the city outnumbered Ukrainians and Jews put together, and if we count Jews together with Poles instead of Ukrainians, then the "Poles" outnumbered Ukrainians by about 10:1. In the areas between the city and the modern Polish-Ukrainian border there was a Ukrainian majority, but it was on the level of about 60% or so, not "homogenous". This suggests that Ukraine's ethnic claim was not that strong at all.

As to "historical rights", the city had been part of Halych-Volhynia for 100 years, and part of Poland for over 400.
 
Depending on how you delineate the city borders and count the Ashkenazi Jews you could arrive at that conclusion. However, for miles outward in each direction the suburbs and countryside was without question almost homogeneously Ukrainian without fail. It was founded by the Prince of Halych-Volyn', a Ukrainian hundreds of years before. It was a poor choice for Poles to live there.

As far "historical rights" go it lasted under much longer under Polish rule and two you can't call it historically Ukrainian as such an identity didn't exist for a few centuries.

As for Allied aid, as for positive results, I would say no, the aid seemed disjointed for a disorganized lost cause.
 
When Kolchak made his thrust toward the Volga in the spring of 1919

Weren't Western wishes a big factor in pushing Kolchak to adopt such an aggressive plan?

I have to say, it would be interesting to see what happened over the next 20 years if the SU held much of Poland, Hungary, the Baltics and Bessarabia.

fasquardon
 
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