On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 11:51 AM, Daniel J. Matyola <[email protected]> wrote: > "This is laughably inaccurate." > > Thanks for respecting the opinions of others.
I have little time for rehashing of Soviet Propaganda, which the position you described earlier primarily is. > > I was an international relations major in college, with a minor in > Soviet Studies. I researched and studied the intervention and its > aftermath in some detail, including sources in Russian I obtained from > archive in Germany and Russia. While I've never studied the period in an official class, I've done very extensive reading on the subject myself as it impacts a part of history rather important to my own family history (being of White Finnish descent). >There were numerous examples where the > "hard-liners" used the intervention, and the fact that it was > orchestrated by Britain with participation of American troops, as > evidence that the West was plotting to overthrow the Soviet government > and impose their own regime upon Russia. Considering that the Soviet government was one party in the Civil War and a creature of the Bolsheviks and various allied groups and that their opponents, including both the Whites and the Cossacks, were actively trying to overthrow it before the Allied Intervention your point is pretty much irrelevant. Of course they were trying to overthrow the Soviet Government. Everybody except the Bolsheviks and their allies of the moment were trying to do exactly that. The Soviet Government had precious little legitimacy until late in the Civil War. And yes, the Hardliners used the Intervention as evidence that the West was plotting to overthrow the Soviet Government and impose their own regime upon Russia. The former was accurate, the latter was propaganda. > > I am no fan of communism; my great-grandparents suffered under the > Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia after WW II. The Soviets were > brutal butchers. That being said, the British intervention in Russia > was an ill-conceived exercise in cultural arrogance that was doomed > from the start and and helped solidify Bolshevik control of Russia. > Many who initially saw the Civil War as a battle between two views of > Russia's future were convinced by the intervention that it was really > a struggle to keep foreign powers from dominating their future. The > intervention thus was counter-productive and drove many moderates to > the side of the Reds. > > Dan > That's an interesting take on it, considering it was only British and French support which kept the White cause alive as long as it ended up lasting. Without the British and French support the Bolsheviks would have ended up defeating the Whites much earlier. The idea that significant numbers of Russians were convinced by the intervention that it was really a struggle to keep foreign powers from dominating their future remains mostly Soviet propaganda. Note the Intervention was over by the time that the Bolsheviks started picking up serious support from moderates, it's much more likely that the withdrawal of the Intervention forces drove those moderates into the Bolsheviks camp as it became clear that the West wasn't going to make a serious effort to defeat the Bolsheviks than the Intervention doing the opposite, the timeline of the war itself shows that, with the war being fought from 1917 through 1922/23 and the Intervention lasting from 1918 to 1920 aside from the Japanese in Siberia. I do agree however that the intervention was an ill-conceived exercise that was doomed from the start. Cultural Arrogance? Not so much as a well founded belief that Communism was dangerous and worries that war supplies provided to Russia would fall into German hands and prolong the war. Stupid? Most certainly ouside of supporting the Whites in Finland (which had little effect on the Russian side of things anyways) -Adam -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
