If the Russian armies now under the command of the people’s commissaires commence and seriously conduct hostilities against the forces of Germany and her allies, I will recommend to my Government the formal recognition of the de facto government of the people’s commissaires.59
Because of their lack of interest in the subject, the Allies possessed very inadequate information on the internal conditions in Bolshevik Russia. They were not particularly well served by their diplomatic missions there. George Buchanan, the British Ambassador, was a competent but conventional foreign service officer, while Francis, a St. Louis banker, was, in the words of a British diplomat, “a charming old gentleman” but presumably no more than that. Neither seems to have been aware of the historic importance of the events in the midst of which they found themselves. The French envoy, Joseph Noulens, an ex-Minister of War and a socialist, was intellectually better prepared for his job, but his dislike of Russians and his brusque, authoritarian manner reduced his effectiveness. To make matters worse, in March 1918, the Allied missions lost direct contact with the Bolshevik leaders because they would not follow them to Moscow: from Petrograd they moved first to Vologda, and from there, in July, to Archangel.* This obliged them to rely on secondhand reports provided by their agents in Moscow.
The latter were young men who threw themselves body and soul into the Russian drama. Bruce Lockhart, a onetime British Consul in Moscow, served as a link between London and the Sovnarkom; Raymond Robins, head of the U.S. Red Cross mission to Russia, did the same for Washington; and Captain Jacques Sadoul, for Paris. The Bolsheviks did not take these intermediaries terribly seriously, but they realized their utility: they cultivated and flattered them, and treated them as confidants. In this manner they managed to persuade Lockhart, Robins, and Sadoul that if their countries offered Russia military and economic aid, the Bolsheviks would break with the Germans and perhaps even return to the war. Unaware that they were being used, the three agents adopted these views as their own and championed them vigorously with their governments.
Sadoul, a socialist, whose mother had taken part in the Paris Commune, felt the strongest ideological attraction for the Bolsheviks: in August 1918 he would defect to them, for which he would be condemned to death in absentia as a deserter and traitor.†
Robins was a devious individual who in his communications with Lenin and Trotsky expressed enthusiasm for their cause but on returning to the United States pretended to oppose Bolshevism. An affluent social worker and labor organizer with socialist leanings, the self-styled colonel, on the eve of his departure from Russia, sent Lenin a farewell note in which he wrote:
Your prophetic insight and genius of leadership have enabled the Soviet Power to become consolidated throughout Russia and I am confident that this new creative organ of the democratic life of mankind will inspire and advance the cause of liberty throughout the world.*
He further promised, on his return, to “continue efforts” in interpreting “the new democracy” to the American people. However, testifying soon afterward before a Senate committee on conditions in Soviet Russia, Robins urged economic assistance to Moscow on the disingenuous grounds that it was a way of “disorganizing Bolshevik power.”†
Lockhart was ideologically the least committed of the three, but he, too, allowed himself to be turned into an instrument of Bolshevik policy.‡
Sadoul and Robins had met occasionally with Lenin, Trotsky, and the other Communist leaders after the Bolshevik coup. These contacts multiplied in the second half of February 1918, during the interval between the Bolshevik acceptance of the German ultimatum (February 17) and the ratification of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty (March 14). During these two weeks, the Bolsheviks, afraid that the Germans wanted to remove them from power, put out urgent appeals to the Allies for help. The Allies responded positively. The French were especially forthcoming. They abandoned now the anti-Bolshevik Volunteer Army being formed in the Don Region, which Noulens had supported financially because of its anti-German stand: on his recommendation the French Government had previously contributed 50 million rubles to General Alekseev to help organize a new Russian army. At the beginning of January 1918, General Henri Niessel, the new head of the French military mission in Russia, advised cutting off Alekseev on the grounds that he headed a “counterrevolutionary” force. The advice was adopted: assistance to Alekseev was terminated and Niessel received authority to open negotiations with the Bolsheviks.§ Lockhart similarly opposed support for the Volunteer Army, which he, too, depicted in dispatches to the Foreign Office as counterrevolutionary. In his judgment, the Bolsheviks were the most reliable anti-German force in Russia.60
During the hectic days that followed the resumption of German offensive operations, the Bolshevik high command decided to seek Allied help. On February 21, Trotsky communicated, through Sadoul, with Niessel to inquire whether France would be willing to help Soviet Russia stop the German offensive. Niessel contacted the French Ambassador, and received an affirmative response. That day Noulens cabled Trotsky from Vologda: “In your resistance to Germany you may count on the military and financial cooperation of France.”61 Niessel advised Trotsky on the measures Soviet Russia should take to impede the Germans and promised military advisers.
The French response was discussed by the Central Committee late in the evening of February 22. By this time Trotsky was in possession of a memorandum from Niessel outlining the measures which France was prepared to take to help the Russians.62 The document, said to be lost, contained concrete proposals of French monetary and military aid. Trotsky urged acceptance and moved a resolution to this effect. Lenin, who could not attend, voted in absentia with a laconic note: “Please add my vote in favor of taking ’tatoes and weapons from the bandits of Anglo-French imperialism.”63 The motion barely passed, with six votes for and five against, because of the opposition of Bukharin and the other advocates of “revolutionary war.” After he was defeated, Bukharin offered to resign from the Central Committee and the editorship of Pravda, but did neither.
As soon as the Central Committee had ended its deliberations—it was during the night of February 22–23—the issue was Put before the Sovnarkom. Here Trotsky’s motion carried as well, over the objections of the Left SRs.
The following day, Trotsky informed Sadoul of his government’s readiness to accept French help. He invited Niessel to Smolnyi to consult with Podvoiskii, General Bonch-Bruevich, and other Bolshevik military experts on anti-German operations. Niessel was of the opinion that Soviet Russia had to form a fresh military force with the assistance of former tsarist officers, secured by appeals to patriotism.64