Foreign relations and the attitude of foreign powers

Question 1

Areas of foreign relations I need to know?

Answer 1

Foreign intervention in the Civil War

Comintern

Russo-Polish War

Treaty of Rapallo

Zinoviev letter

Question 2

Motives behind foreign intervention in the Civil War?

Answer 2

(Initial aim) Keep Russia fighting in the war

Question 3

Who provided the largest intervention in the Civil War?

Answer 3

The US, which provided 11,000 at Vladivostok and 4,500 in North Russia

Question 4

When and why did the US pull its troops from Russia?

Answer 4

Pulled out of North Russia in June 1919 and pulled out of Vladivostok in 1920

President Wilson did not see the purpose in keeping them there

Question 5

Who had troops in North Russia?

Answer 5

British, French, Australian, Canadian and Italian forces, as well as 11,000 Estonians

Question 6

Who had troops in the Far East?

Answer 6

11,000 American troops at Vladivostok, as well as 2,000 Chinese troops, Japanese troops and a small British force

Question 7

Who had troops in Southern Russia?

Answer 7

French and British naval forces as well as Turkish troops active in the Caucusus

Question 8

Who had troops in Central Siberia?

Answer 8

Sections of the Trans-Siberian railway were controlled by the Czech Legion

Question 9

When did British intervention begin?

Answer 9

March 1918, when the first British troops were sent to Murmansk to start a naval blockade

Question 10

When did American intervention begin?

Answer 10

August 1918, when 9,000 American troops landed in Vladivostok

Question 11

Why was foreign intervention unsuccessful?

Answer 11

Divisions and muddled thinking within Allied governments - there was no coordination about which White general to support and the lack of normal diplomatic activity meant that they had little accurate information about what was happening in Russia

Question 12

Examples of American journalists reporting from inside Russia?

Answer 12

John Reed, Louise Bryant and Bessie Beatty

Question 13

Examples of British ‘spies’ in Russia during the Civil War?

Answer 13

Arthur Ransome (who had left-wing sympathies), Sidney Reilly (a strong anti-Bolshevik) and Robert Bruce Lockhart

Question 14

Explain the attempt to create peace during the Civil War?

Answer 14

In March 1919, US diplomat William C Bullitt was sent by the President to discuss peace with Lenin. They tried to negotiate a deal, but Britain and France objected to the deal, so the peace plan lapsed

Question 15

How do battle deaths in the Civil War show the limited scope of foreign intervention?

Answer 15

Britain - 345
US - 275
Russia - 500,000

Shows foreign troops were scarcely involved in the conflict

Question 16

Only example of major action by foreign troops during the Civil War?

Answer 16

The Japanese mounted serious offensive operations in Siberia, including a major attack of Khabarovsk

Question 17

When did Britain end hostilities with Russia?

Answer 17

November 1920, by negotiating a trade agreement (accepting de facto recognition of the Soviet state)

Question 18

What was the Comintern?

Answer 18

Third Communist International, a revival of an old Marxist organisation. It was an association of Communist parties from 50 states with the aim to spread proletarian revolution around the world.

Question 19

When was the first Founding Congress of the Comintern held?

Answer 19

Held in Moscow in March 1919 - more than 50 delegates from all over Europe, the US, Australia and Japan

Held at a time when the Bolshevik regime was existentially threatened by the Civil War (but there was still great optimism)

Question 20

What was the aim of the Comintern?

Answer 20

To promote Marxism and spread the ‘proletarian revolution’

Question 21

Who was the chairman of all the early Comintern Congresses?

Answer 21

Zinoviev, but the dominating influence was always Lenin

Question 22

What developments in Europe created optimism at the first Comintern Congress?

Answer 22

The establishment of soviet-style republics in Hungary and Bavaria (although the Spartacist uprising in March 1919 had been crushed)

Question 23

Which prominent Bolshevik activists believed in the inevitability of world revolution?

Answer 23

Lenin, Trotsky and Radek

Question 24

When did the Second Comintern Congress take place?

Answer 24

July-August 1920, at the height of the Russo-Polish War (when Russia was looking likely to win - optimism)

Question 25

What happened at the Second Comintern Congress?

Answer 25

It was dominated by debates over Lenin’s ‘21 conditions’ defining the relationships between communist parties as ‘bourgeois-democratic’ socialist parties. Some European delegations broke away from the Comintern as a result

Question 26

When did the Third Comintern Congress take place?

Answer 26

Summer of 1921, when the hope of the world revolution had been dampened by the fact that communist regimes and uprisings were being crushed in Europe

Question 27

What were the implications of the Third Comintern Congress?

Answer 27

The Comintern became totally Russian-dominated and many Bolshevik leaders were ready to focus on internal affairs rather than world revolution - revolutionary spirit had faltered

Question 28

What were the aims of each Comintern Congress?

Answer 28

1st - to set the basis of Soviet domination

2nd - to remove reformists and centrists

3rd - to mark the shift towards more Russian-centric policy

Question 29

When did the Russo-Polish war take place?

Answer 29

February 1919 - March 1921

Question 30

Why did the Russo-Polish war take place?

Answer 30

Poland contained land that had once belonged to the Russian Empire. The Polish leader, General Pilsudski dreamed of expansion into Belarus and Western Ukraine, while the Bolsheviks were keen to fight against separatism

Question 31

What preceded the Russo-Polish war?

Answer 31

In 1918-19, Poland fought a complicated war against Ukrainian nationalists, leading to skirmishes with the Red Army.

In April 1920, Pilsudski made an alliance with the Ukrainian military leader, Petliura, and both launched an eastern offensive towards Kiev (occupied it)

Question 32

How did Lenin respond to the occupation of Kiev?

Answer 32

Launched a powerful counter-attack, but Pilsudski mounted a desperate defense of Warsaw known as the ‘Miracle of the Vistula’

Question 33

How did the Russo-Polish war come to an end?

Answer 33

The war settled into a stalemate until peace terms were formalised in the Treaty of Riga in March 1921

In the treaty of Riga, Russia had to pay Poland 30 million gold roubles and established a mutual border in which Poland gained land

Question 34

Why was Russia diplomatically isolated by 1921?

Answer 34

It had been excluded from the League of Nations

Question 35

How did Russian foreign policy change in 1921?

Answer 35

Lenin’s regime had to come to terms with the fact that the world revolution was not imminent and the world had to accept that Bolshevism would not disappear - the two had to establish peaceful co-existence

Question 36

How did Russia begin to negotiate with Germany?

Answer 36

1921 - discussions between Chicherin and Germany

1922 - Chicherin was invited to a major economic conference in Genoa, which paved the way for the Treaty of Rapallo

Question 37

When and what was the Treaty of Rapallo?

Answer 37

April 1922, which agreed the reopening of formal diplomatic relations, established ‘mutual goodwill’ in commercial and economic relations and agreed to waive claims for compensation arising from WW1

Question 38

What was the secret additional agreement between Russia and Germany?

Answer 38

Authorised the Germany army to carry out military training inside the USSR

Question 39

What was the Zinoviev letter?

Answer 39

A forgery, concocted by British spy Sidney Reilly, of a letter from Zinoviev, designed to turn public opinion against the Labour Party

Question 40

Was the Zinoviev letter impactful?

Answer 40

Far more impact in Britain than Russia, and even in Britain the impact of the letter was small - however, the letter did sour diplomatic relations between Britain and the Soviet Union

Question 41

Effects of foreign spies in Russia

Answer 41

Reports varied greatly (some were optimistic, some were sympathetic to the Bolsheviks etc…)

This affected foreign intervention in the Civil War as foreign powers were acting upon flawed information

Question 42

Debate about impact of foreign intervention in the Civil War

Answer 42

Bolsheviks were convinced they had defeated a major capitalist imperialist assault

Some historians argued that the small interventions poisoned relations with the west in the long term

Others argue that relations would have remained the same regardless of