Since Russia lay on its periphery, half in Asia, and was overwhelmingly agrarian, Europe never considered her internal developments relevant to its own concerns. The turmoil of 1917 was generally interpreted to mark Russia’s belated entry into the modern age rather than a threat to the established order.
This indifference was enhanced by the fact that the Russian Revolution, having occurred in the midst of the greatest, most destructive war in history, struck contemporaries as an episode in that war rather than as an event in its own right. Such excitement as the Russian Revolution generated in the West had to do almost exclusively with its potential effect on military operations. The Allies and the Central Powers both welcomed the February Revolution, although for different reasons: the former hoped that the removal of an unpopular tsar would make it possible to reinvigorate Russia’s war effort, while the latter hoped it would take Russia out of the war. The October coup was, of course, jubilantly welcomed in Germany. Among the Allies it had a mixed reception, but it certainly caused no alarm. Lenin and his party were unknown quantities whose Utopian plans and declarations no one took seriously. The tendency, especially after Brest-Litovsk, was to view Bolshevism as a creation of Germany which would vanish from the scene with the termination of hostilities. All European cabinets without exception vastly underestimated both the viability of the Bolshevik regime and the threat it posed to the European order.
For these reasons, neither in the closing year of World War I nor following the Armistice, were attempts made to rid Russia of the Bolsheviks. Until November 1918 the great powers were too busy fighting each other to worry about developments in remote Russia. Here and there, voices were raised that Bolshevism represented a mortal threat to Western civilization: these were especially loud in the German army, which had the most direct experience with Bolshevik propaganda and agitation. But even the Germans in the end subordinated concern with the possible long-term threat to considerations of immediate interest. Lenin was absolutely convinced that after making peace the belligerents would join forces and launch an international crusade against his regime. His fears proved groundless. Only the British intervened actively on the side of the anti-Bolshevik forces, and they did so in a halfhearted manner, largely at the initiative of one man, Winston Churchill. The effort was never seriously pursued, because the forces of accommodation in the West were stronger than those calling for intervention, and by the early 1920s the European powers made their peace with Communist Russia.
But even if the West was not much interested in Bolshevism, the Bolsheviks had a vital interest in the West. The Russian Revolution would not remain confined to the country of origin: from the instant the Bolsheviks seized power, it acquired an international dimension. Its geopolitical position alone ensured that Russia could not isolate herself from the World War. Much of Russia was under German occupation. Soon the British, French, Japanese, and Americans landed token contingents on Russian soil in a vain attempt to reactivate the Eastern Front. More important still was the conviction of the Bolsheviks that their revolution should not and could not be confined to Russia, that unless it spread to the industrial countries of the West it was doomed. On the very first day of their rule in Petrograd, the Bolsheviks issued their Peace Decree, which exhorted workers abroad to rise and help the Soviet Government “bring to a successful resolution … the task of liberating the laboring and exploited masses from all slavery and all exploitation.”2
Although couched in the novel language of class conflict, this was a declaration of war on all the existing governments, an intervention in the internal affairs of sovereign countries that would be often repeated then and later. Lenin did not deny that such was his intent: “We have thrown down a challenge to the imperialist plunderers of all countries.”3 Every Bolshevik attempt to promote civil war abroad—with appeals, subsidies, subversion, and military assistance—internationalized the Russian Revolution.
Such incitement of their citizens to rebellion and civil war by a foreign government gave the “imperialist plunderers” every right to retaliate in kind. The Bolshevik Government could not promote revolution outside its borders in disregard of international law and appeal to the same international law to keep foreign powers from intervening in its own internal affairs. In fact, however, for reasons stated, the great powers did not avail themselves of this right: no Western government, either during World War I or after it, appealed to the people of Russia to overthrow its Communist regime. Such limited intervention as occurred in the first year of Bolshevism was motivated exclusively by the desire to have Russia serve their particular military interests.
On March 23, 1918, the Germans launched their long-awaited offensive on the Western Front. Since the armistice with Russia, Ludendorff had transferred half a million men from the East to the West: he was prepared to sacrifice twice that many lives to gain victory. The Germans employed a variety of tactical innovations, such as attacking without preparatory artillery barrages and throwing into critical engagements specially trained “shock troops.” They concentrated the brunt of the attack on the British sector, which came under immense pressure. Pessimists in the Allied command, among them General John J. Pershing, feared that the front would not withstand the force of the assault.
The German offensive worried the Bolsheviks as well. Although in official statements they pronounced plague on both “imperialist blocs” and demanded an immediate suspension of hostilities, in fact they wanted the war to go on. As long as the great powers were busy fighting one another, the Bolsheviks could consolidate their gains and build up the armed force they needed to meet the anticipated imperialist crusade, as well as to crush domestic opposition.
Even after they had signed a peace treaty with the Central Powers, the Bolsheviks wanted to maintain good relations with the Allies because they had no certainty that the “war party” would not ultimately prevail in Berlin, causing the Germans to march into Russia and remove them from power. The German occupation in March of the Ukraine and the Crimea increased such apprehensions.
We have noted previously Trotsky’s requests to the Allies for economic aid. In mid-March 1918, the Bolsheviks made urgent appeals for assistance in forming a Red Army and possibly intervening in Russia to stop a potential German invasion. Lenin entrusted the task of dealing with the Allies to Trotsky, the newly appointed Commissar of War, while he concentrated on Soviet-German relations. All of Trotsky’s initiatives, of course, were sanctioned by the Bolshevik Central Committee.
The Bolsheviks decided early in March to proceed in earnest with the formation of an armed force. But like all Russian socialists, they saw the professional army as a breeding ground of counterrevolution. To create a standing army staffed with officers of the ancien régime meant courting self-destruction. Their preferred solution was a “nation in arms,” or a people’s militia.
Even after taking power, the Bolsheviks continued to dismantle what was left of the old army, depriving the officers of the little authority they still retained. Initially, they ordered that officers be elected, and then abolished military ranks, vesting the power to make command appointments in soldiers’ soviets.4 Under the incitement of Bolshevik agitators, soldiers and sailors lynched many officers: in the Black Sea Fleet such lynchings turned into wholesale massacres.
At the same time, Lenin and his lieutenants turned their attention to creating their own armed force. As his first Commissar of War, Lenin chose N. V. Krylenko, a thirty-two-year-old Bolshevik lawyer, who had served in the Imperial Army as a lieutenant in the reserves. In November, Krylenko went to Army Headquarters at Mogilev to replace the Commander in Chief, General N. N. Dukhonin, who had refused to negotiate with the Germans and was barbarously murdered by his troops. He appointed as the new Commander in Chief General M. D. Bonch-Bruevich, a brother of Lenin’s secretary.