Starting in 1918, at the same time as World War I in which over 53,000 Americans perished, the United States and several other Allied nations were fighting in Siberia to rescue the Czechoslovak Legion and recover heavy weapons given to Russia, which were now in Bolshevik hands. But in April 1920, Woodrow Wilson had ordered most of the 5,000 American troops, who had been fighting under the Polar Bear Expedition, home, though some stayed until 1922.
In 1919, the United States had gone through the Red Scare. Marked by labour unrest and anarchist bombings, it was characterized by exaggerated rhetoric,
illegal search and seizures, unwarranted arrests and detentions, and the deportation of several hundred suspected radicals and anarchists.
In August 1920, the Soviets almost crushed the Poles at the Battle of Warsaw, but thanks to a combination of Polish spies breaking Soviet encryption codes and Stalin disobeying orders, the Poles were able to repel the Soviets.
Now, had the Soviets won at Warsaw and conquered all of Poland, intervention by the European powers (Germany, Britain, etc) was guaranteed and a second European war would've started, but what about intervention by nations outside of Europe, especially the US? The US only intervened in World War I because the Germans were stupid enough to encourage a Mexican invasion of the United States. Immediately after US victory in World War I and due to the 1918 mid-term election, isolationist elements of the US government, represented by the Republicans, and society reasserted themselves, blocking the passage of the Treaty of Versailles and US membership in the League of Nations. So, I have a couple of questions
- Would Wilson have wanted to get involved in Europe again so soon after World War I?
- Would the American public have wanted the same thing?
- How does this impact society on the US home front?
- Would the US (or any other nation) had attempted to reopen the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War?