The newly formed Red Army, 1918
Ukraine – what you’re not told
Foreign intervention in the Soviet Union
Once the capitalist and imperialist countries (which had been trying to destroy each others power for four years in the ‘First World War’ of 1914-19) realised that the October Revolution in Russia of the Bolsheviks, led by VI Lenin, was a revolution of a ‘new type’ they did all in their power to destroy the first workers’ state.
In this they used outright military intervention – when 14 nations united on the side of the reactionary forces of feudalism and Tsarism, the so-called ‘Whites’ – but also conspiracy, espionage, sabotage and any other tactics to undermine the revolution. Assassination was part of their game, using local dupes to carry out the act, which included the failed attempt upon the life of Comrade Lenin himself.
Once defeated in the Civil War the imperialists used economic warfare to frustrate the nascent Soviet Union from building a society that was organised for and by the workers and peasants, those who produced all the wealth of the country. Later traitors, and those disaffected within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik), were also recruited in activities that sought to weaken the country in the face of threat of fascism from Germany and Japan.
The documents below seek to tell a small part of that history.
The ‘Hands off Russia’ Movement, direct action against military involvement, Laura Forster and Patricia Wheeler,. nd., n.p., 3 pages.
The Epic of the Black Sea, mutiny against fighting the Russian people following the October Revolution, Andre Marty, Modern Books, London, n.d., 37 pages.
Memoirs of a British Agent, being an account of the author’s early life in many lands and of his official mission to Moscow in 1918, R. H. Bruce Lockhart, Putman, London, 1931, 355 pages.
Armed Intervention Russia 1918-1922, WP and Zelda Coates, Gollanz, London, 1935, 400 pages.
The Great Conspiracy against Russia, Michael Sayers and Albert E Khan, Collets Holdings, London, 1946, 486 pages.
The State Department and the Cold War, DN Pritt, International Publishers, New York, 1948, 96 pages.
Conspiracy against peace, Ralph Parker, Literaturnaya Gazeta Publishers, Moscow, 1949, 248 pages. (There’s a printing error on pages 145-161. They are all there – but not in the correct order.)
The truth about American diplomats, Annabelle Bucar, Literatunaya Gazeta Publishers, Moscow, 1949, 176 pages.
Why have you come to Mourmansk?, leaflet, addressed to ‘English’ soldiers sent to fight against the Russian revolutionaries, signed by N (VI) Lenin and G Tchitcherine (Chicherin), no date but probably mid to late 1918, 1 page.
Armed Intervention in Russia: 1918-1922, W. P. Coates & Zelda K. Coates, Victor Gollancz, London, 1935, 400 pages.
They are betraying the peace, Jean Cathalo, former chief of the Information Department of the French Embassy in Moscow, Literaturnaya Gazeta, Moscow, 1951, 232 pages.
The Western Interventions in the Soviet Union, 1918-1920, D. F. Fleming, reprinted as a pamphlet from New World Review, Fall 1967, 16 pages.
Special issue of Wisconsin Magazine of History, with 3 articles about American military intervention in Archangel, 1918-1919, and the American military landing in Vladivostok and its operation of part of the Trans-Siberian Railway. Well illustrated. Volume 62, No. 3, Spring 1979, 92 pages.
The secret war against Soviet Russia, David Golinkov, Novosti, Moscow, 1981, 105 pages.