When US imperialism invaded Soviet Russia

Following the victory of the Bolsheviks in October 1917, the imperialists of the world did their utmost to strangle the new workers’ state. As well as arming, financing, and supplying the counter-revolutionary White armies, they directly committed troops to intervene in the developing civil war. In this article, John Peterson uncovers the little-known history of the US imperialists’ involvement, and how the Bolsheviks responded on an internationalist class-basis to win the war.

 The article was orginally published as part of issue 47 of In Defence of Marxism magazine, the quarterly theoretical journal of the Revolutionary Communist International. Subscribe and get your copy here!

In the summer of 1918, the Russian Revolution was at a crossroads. Tsar Nicholas II and the Provisional Government had been overthrown, one after another, and the new Soviet power had appealed to the world’s war-weary masses for a “just and democratic peace […] without annexations and without indemnities”^[1]. But the First World War still raged, and the counter-revolution was gaining momentum.

On 3 March of that year, German imperialism had imposed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on the Soviet Republic, leading to a loss of 34 percent of its population, 54 percent of its industrial land, 26 percent of its railways, and 89 percent of its coalfields. Under the pretence of keeping Russian munition stores out of German hands, British troops landed at Murmansk on the very next day.

Russia’s former ‘allies’ were out for blood, keenly aware of the threat the revolution posed to bourgeois property relations. Winston Churchill was adamant that Bolshevism had to be “strangled in its cradle”. Wave upon wave of imperialist ‘expeditions’ followed, with 21 military contingents from 16 countries joining the counter-revolutionary efforts of the proto-fascist White Armies.

Surrounded and outgunned, the communist cause seemed hopeless. But the Russian masses had something none of the imperialist armies had: the indomitable spirit of revolution and genuine liberation.

To be sure, there were countless acts of military brilliance and civilian sacrifice by the Soviet people. However, the Bolsheviks’ primary weapon was political. They systematically addressed the invaders’ troops on a class basis, appealing for proletarian unity against their common exploiters. Time and again, the morale of the imperialists’ rank-and-file soldiers was so undermined that they eventually had to be withdrawn.

Imperialist hypocrisy

Though it is again in vogue, it was President Woodrow Wilson who first popularised the isolationist slogan ‘America First’ during his 1916 presidential campaign, when he promised to keep the US out of the war. But with the ‘Allies’ and ‘Central Powers’ slugging it out to determine who would rule Europe, the colonies and the high seas, US imperialism saw a golden opportunity to put its increasingly weighty thumb on the scale of world relations. 

Given the devastation in Europe, the American economy had boomed as it flooded the other side of the Atlantic with agricultural commodities and manufactured goods. With swathes of the Continent in ruins, the US would eventually emerge from the conflagration as the world’s greatest creditor and an economic, technological, diplomatic, military and cultural powerhouse. 

In April 1917 the Americans declared war on Germany. By entering the war at such a late stage, they hoped to ‘mop up’ after years of slaughter. There was also the small matter of nearly $10 billion in loans that had been made to the Allies during the war, which would have been jeopardised in the event of a German victory. It was also no coincidence that they entered the fray just weeks after the February Revolution, which brought down the tsar and threatened to take Russia out of the war on the Eastern Front. 

“Intervention as a consciously anti-Bolshevik operation was decided upon by American leaders within five weeks of the day Lenin and Trotsky took power.” / Image: Public domain

The Americans’ stated aim was to defeat the kaiser, while ensuring stability and cutting across the threat of a Europe-wide revolution. But by October of that year, events in Russia had taken a far more dangerous turn as far as the interests of imperialism and the capitalist system were concerned: the Bolsheviks were in power.

Shortly after taking the reins, Lenin had issued his famous decrees on Peace, Land, and Nationalities, and Trotsky had published the Allies’ secret plans to carve up the world amongst themselves. All of this put pressure on Wilson, who was cynically posing as a ‘peace-loving’ president. 

On 8 January 1918, Wilson issued his ‘Fourteen Points’, outlining US imperialism’s vision for a ‘new world order’. Along with liberal rhetoric about peace and democracy, point 6 addressed Russia specifically:

“The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.”^[2]

However, what kind of treatment was to be accorded to which Russians wasn’t specified – though Wilson’s multiple military interventions against Mexico during its ongoing revolution offered some clues. At the same time these lofty words were issued, contingency plans to snuff out the Soviet Republic were already in motion. As the US Ambassador to France put it: 

“Three or four Japanese or American divisions would suffice to ruin the authority of the Bolsheviks.”^[3]

According to historian William A Williams: 

“Intervention as a consciously anti-Bolshevik operation was decided upon by American leaders within five weeks of the day Lenin and Trotsky took power.”^[4]

As is so often the case with imperialist invaders – whether through naivety or cynicism – the Americans believed they would be welcomed as liberators and that the local population would rise in revolt against the Bolsheviks. As Ambassador Francis wrote to Washington: 

“Information from all sources demonstrates dissatisfaction with Soviet [government and] indicates that [an] Allied intervention would be welcomed by [the] Russian people.”^[5]

On 17 July 1918, Wilson agreed to a “limited military intervention”. By 3 August, the US government publicly stated that it was in full accord with the other imperialist powers with their Russian intervention policy.

But the imperialists woefully underestimated the depths of the revolution – and the heroism and determination of the Soviet masses.

Finding a pretext

The US government set in motion operational plans for a series of military expeditions to the Soviet Republic. Publicly, they claimed that this was to keep strategic ports and arms depots out of the hands of the Germans. But their real aim was to keep these from the Bolsheviks.

US imperialism had other motives as well. Japanese imperialism was on the rise, and the West’s ‘Open Door’ to the East was under threat. The first contingent of Japanese troops had already landed at Vladivostok on 5 April 1918. But how to justify American military intervention in Eastern Siberia, which was thousands of miles from the German Imperial Army? The answer came in the form of the Czech Legion.

During the First World War, 70,000 Czech and Slovak soldiers had volunteered to fight with the tsarist army against the Central Powers in exchange for independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. But with the tsar gone and the Bolsheviks in power, they were stranded in Russia – a seasoned and sizable foreign army in the midst of the revolution. They began moving slowly eastward on the Trans-Siberian Railway, hoping to evacuate the country via Vladivostok, to then travel by sea to rejoin the Allies’ side in Western Europe.

However, in May 1918, after a series of minor clashes, the Czech Legion went into open revolt against the Bolshevik regime, occupying several important cities along the key transportation artery. This put them objectively in the camp of counter-revolution, and the White Armies seized on the chaos to set up a series of anti-Bolshevik governments across Siberia.

The standoff between the Soviet power and the Czech Legion was the excuse the Americans had been looking for to intervene in support of Russia’s “reputable and sound elements of order”^[6].

Doughboys and polar bears

The US invasion of Soviet soil began on 15 August 1918, with 3,000 troops disembarking at Vladivostok. All told, nearly 9,000 American troops, nicknamed ‘doughboys’, would serve on that front, having been transferred mainly from the occupation of the Philippines. 

Then on 4 September, roughly 5,000 troops from the American Expeditionary Force, North Russia – better known as the ‘polar bears’ – landed at Arkhangelsk, a key port on the White Sea with a direct line to Petrograd.

The first order of business was the creation of an International Police Force composed of troops from 12 nations under the command of a Russian-born American officer, Major Samuel Ignatiev Johnson. The next task was to ensure the Trans-Siberian Railway remained operational so that the Czechs could reconsolidate their forces.

Of course, officially speaking, none of this had anything to do with intervening in the civil war already raging between the Reds and the Whites. Nor did it have anything to do with counterbalancing the Japanese – who had responded to the landing of US troops by beefing up their own contingent to 72,000 – a clear message about their claim on the Far East. 

The Allied imperialists of Great Britain, France, Canada and Australia had also dispatched tens of thousands of troops to Siberia. For their part, the Reds were roughly 15,000 strong on this front, including some German-Austrian POWs who had defected to join the communist cause.

The White Armies represented the forces of reaction in Russia. Financed and supported by the imperialists, they fought for the interests of the big landowners, Orthodox Church and the capitalists, and were willing to restore the pre-Bolshevik status quo by any means necessary. 

The proto-fascist warlord Alexander Kolchak organised the armies of counter-revolution in the Far East, along with Anton Denikin in Southern Russia, and Nikolai Yudenich in the Northwest. Under the Allies’ protective aegis, Kolchak declared himself ‘Supreme Ruler of Russia’ and head of the Russian State, in opposition to the rule of the Bolsheviks. His was a horrifying regime of pogroms, torture, executions and forced labour.

On the other hand, the Red Army represented the forces of revolution – the working class and mass of poor peasants. To defend the new Soviet Republic and nationalised property upon which it rested, Leon Trotsky successfully built a ‘new model army’, virtually from scratch. 

Though he was forced to rely on former Tsarist officers – who had technical skills and experience that could not be reproduced overnight – he ensured loyalty to the revolutionary cause by appointing political commissars to oversee every unit. 

In a short span, the Red Army grew into a tightly disciplined, politically inspired force of millions that achieved miracles on the battlefield, eventually turning the tide against reaction and imperialist intervention. 

Aiding the Whites

Needless to say, the Americans were entering a delicate situation. Officially, the US was neither at war, nor allied, with either side in the conflict. But the presence of thousands of boots on the ground in the midst of a civil war risked both political and military escalation. US Secretary of War, Newton Baker, told William Graves, the US general in charge of the Siberian adventure: “Watch your step; you’ll be walking on eggs, loaded with dynamite.”^[7]

The Americans’ ‘defensive’ operations were ostensibly focused on enabling the Czech Legion’s exit from the country. In practice, of course, their presence aided and abetted the White reign of terror in the region. The Inter-Allied Railway Agreement of February 1919, which imposed military control on the Siberian railways, merely formalised the reality on the ground – that the Allies were maintaining supply lines for Kolchak’s troops. White control over the railways allowed them to attack or starve anyone not on board with Kolchak’s dictatorship.

The White Armies represented the forces of reaction in Russia. Financed and supported by the imperialists, they fought for the interests of the big landowners, Orthodox Church and the capitalists. On the other hand, the Red Army represented the forces of revolution / Image: Public domain

Some 250 American soldiers were sent to defend the Souchan mines, located 75 miles northeast of Vladivostok. These shafts provided much of the coal used to operate the railways in Eastern Russia – an essential resource for the counter-revolution. One of the Allies’ first acts had been to reinstate the mine’s former manager, who had been run out of the area by the workers. Another 2,000 Americans were stationed 1,700 miles west of Vladivostok to guard another vital node of the railway. Thousands more took up positions at other strategic locations on the rail lines.

All of this led inevitably to a series of clashes with Red Army troops, the growing ranks of pro-Bolshevik partisans, and even White Cossacks opposed to the presence of foreign interlopers.

Red partisan attacks on rail freight, tracks and bridges increased throughout March and April. By May, Graves decided that to maintain order, American troops would be given official licence to pursue the guerrillas who were harassing Kolchak. A summer of skirmishes, attacks, and combat patrols into the surrounding countryside followed, often alongside White Russian and Japanese troops.

In June, the Battle of Romanovka saw the Reds launch a surprise attack on an American army camp, resulting in 24 Americans dead and 25 wounded. Five days later, the US Ambassador to Japan travelled to Kolchak’s capital at Omsk. While not officially recognising him as the official leader of Russia, he took a “sympathetic interest in Kolchak’s organisation and activities”^[8].

However, the ambassador estimated an additional 40,000 US troops would be needed to ensure Kolchak’s victory and stymie Japanese encroachment on the region. But this was impossible.

Many American soldiers were more sympathetic to the Reds than to the Whites and were horrified by Kolchak’s cruelty. On 1 October 1919, US soldiers had been arrested and flogged by Kolchak’s Cossacks – seemingly no one was exempt from their brutality.

Similar scenes of fighting and eventual demoralisation took place around Arkhangelsk, where the ‘polar bears’ were stationed and placed under the control of the British. Let’s not forget that most of these operations took place after the First World War officially ended on 11 November 1918. Yet the occupation of parts of Soviet Russia continued – so much for Wilson’s ‘non-intervention’.

Internationalist appeals

The Reds did not just respond militarily, but politically, appealing to the invading troops on the basis of proletarian internationalism. Only days after the first US troops landed at Vladivostok, Pravda published a ‘Letter to American Workers’, written by Lenin himself. Appeals were also directed to the workers of Europe.

Lenin was a supreme theoretician and strategist. But he was an equally skilled tactician and, of course, a fervent internationalist. He always saw the Russian Revolution as merely one component in the world revolution, and he was under no illusions that it could survive in isolation. As Lenin explained:

“We are counting on the inevitability of the international revolution. But that does not mean that we count upon its coming at some definite, nearby date. […] We know that revolutions cannot come neither at a word of command nor according to prearranged plans.

“We know that circumstances alone have pushed us, the proletariat of Russia, forward, that we have reached this new stage in the social life of the world not because of our superiority but because of the peculiarly reactionary character of Russia. But until the outbreak of the international revolution, revolutions in individual countries may still meet with a number of serious setbacks and overthrows.”^[9]

Given its economic and military might and the weight of its working class, Lenin understood that the US was a vital key for that worldwide process – and this remains the case today. In fact, the ideas outlined in his letter are more relevant today than ever.

Only days after the first US troops landed at Vladivostok, Pravda published a ‘Letter to American Workers’, written by Lenin himself. Appeals were also directed to the workers of Europe. Lenin’s letter was smuggled into the USA and published / Image: Public domain
In it, Lenin adopted an honest, frank, and open tone, laying bare the revolution’s many problems and shortcomings, while pointing to its infinite potential and the cynical hypocrisy of those who sought to drown it in blood: 

“Let the corrupt bourgeois press shout to the whole world about every mistake our revolution makes. We are not daunted by our mistakes. People have not become saints because the revolution has begun. The toiling classes who for centuries have been oppressed, downtrodden and forcibly held in the vice of poverty, brutality and ignorance cannot avoid mistakes when making a revolution. [...]

"Every mistake committed in the course of such work, in the course of this most conscientious and earnest work of tens of millions of simple workers and peasants in reorganising their whole life, every such mistake is worth thousands and millions of ‘lawless’ successes achieved by the exploiting minority – successes in swindling and duping the working people. For only through such mistakes will the workers and peasants learn to build the new life, learn to do without capitalists; only in this way will they hack a path for themselves – through thousands of obstacles – to victorious socialism.”^[10]

Lenin also displayed his rich knowledge of the “revolutionary tradition in the life of the American people”, with references to the American Revolution, the US Civil War, and Eugene V Debs. By highlighting the class divisions in American society, he sought to drive a wedge between the American workers and their exploiters. He counterposed the “American plutocrats” to the “revolutionary proletariat of America”, and called on them to perform the important task of ending the intervention. The real enemy, after all, is at home. As he explained: 

“[The US imperialists] have made the greatest profits. They have made all, even the weakest countries, their debtors. They have amassed gigantic fortunes during the war. And every dollar is stained with the blood that was shed by millions of murdered and crippled men, shed in the high, honourable, and holy war of freedom.”^[11]

In simple but profound terms, Lenin explained the class roots of the First World War and the foreign intervention against the Soviets, making it abundantly clear that both the Germans and the Allies were criminally responsible for the horrific slaughter. Far from pliable tools or agents of the kaiser, the Bolsheviks were German imperialism’s mortal enemies, as evidenced by the terms of Brest-Litovsk.

Lenin condemned all the imperialists with the most vivid language possible: 

“The dead body of bourgeois society cannot simply be put into a coffin and buried. It rots in our midst, poisons the air we breathe, pollutes our lives, clings to the new, the fresh, the living with a thousand threads and tendrils of old customs, of death and decay.”^[12]

Declining morale

Outnumbered and unwelcome, many of the American workers and farmers in uniform had growing doubts about their role in Russia and chafed under the command of the British in Arkhangelsk. An American officer summed up the flagging mood among the troops:

“They stated that they were drafted to fight Germany, not the Bolsheviks. That they had been sent here to guard supplies and not carry on aggressive warfare; that after the signing of the Armistice with Germany their job was finished and if the government wanted them to stay on and fight Bolshevism it should say so and announce some definite policy regarding Russia.”^[13]

Another informed America’s top general, ‘Black Jack’ Pershing, that: 

“The morale of our troops has been low since the signing of the armistice with Germany. The men and some of the officers seem unable to understand why they should be kept in Russia after fighting has stopped with Germany.”^[14]

Due to their familiarity with cold weather, most of the ‘polar bears’ stationed in North Russia came from the Upper Midwest. Once the Armistice was official, newspapers in Chicago, Detroit and Wisconsin increased the pressure to bring the troops home. Some even reprinted soldiers’ letters describing the harsh conditions they faced in full, in defiance of government censorship. A cartoon published in the Chicago Tribune depicted two American soldiers in Arkhangelsk asking each other: “Say, when did we declare war on Russia?”

The American troops were subjected to a constant stream of proletarian internationalist appeals from the Soviets – who added that the occupiers faced certain destruction if they remained on Russian soil. The presence of the imperialists was also used to rally the Russian peasantry to the side of the revolution. 

One leaflet depicted Uncle Sam and British capitalists holding the leashes of White leaders. The American Red Cross noted: “The presence of the Allied Expedition in North Russia constitutes one of the strongest pillars of the Bolshevik government.”^[15]

Political pressure grew to end the expedition, with Republican congressmen and senators spearheading the charge. The vote on the bill was dead-even along party lines, with the Democratic vice president breaking the tie in favour of prolonging the adventure.

After this failed vote, morale among the soldiers plummeted even further. On 30 March 1919, a tipping point was reached when a sergeant in North Russia ordered four enlisted men to load their sleds and move to the front. They refused, and a general meeting of the men was called. According to a certain Lieutenant May, the soldiers complained that:

“They had never been supplied with an answer as to why they were there, but the Reds were trying to push them into the White Sea and that they were fighting for their lives.”^[16]

Mutinous mood

While there are conflicting accounts about what happened next, the Washington Post published an article on 11 April with the headline: “US Troops Mutiny on Archangel Front”. The article reported that after four soldiers had refused to go to the front, 250 more soldiers had been insubordinate, and predicted that a “general mutiny” was possible if the troops were not withdrawn immediately. These reports eventually made it back to the ‘polar bears’ in Russia, driving spirits down even further.

The Reds did not just respond militarily, but politically, appealing to the invading troops on the basis of proletarian internationalism. He always saw the Russian Revolution as merely one component in the world revolution, and he was under no illusions that it could survive in isolation / Image: Public domain

At least some of the American soldiers had concluded that the British, who had overall command of the operation, dreamed of outright conquest. As one wrote in his diary: 

“There were no supplies. Actually, the British wanted to occupy and conquer the state of North Russia in order to obtain the pine from the forests.”^[17]

Fears that US troops might not obey orders from British officers grew. As one American commander wrote: 

“Grave doubts were expressed by many of our officers that orders for aggressive operations would be obeyed.”^[18]

The mood of the Russian peasants in the occupied regions was clearly swinging in favour of the Reds. The October Revolution had given land to the peasants, but wherever the Whites took control, they ruthlessly restored the former landowners, backed by a regime of terror. It was easy to decide which side had their best interests at heart.

Meanwhile, Trotsky’s titanic effort to build a Red Army was achieving wondrous results. Even US military intelligence had to concede this: 

“Within the last two months, the whole Bolshevik forces have been reorganised, and a serious attempt is being made to create a large, well-disciplined army on a European model.”^[19]

As the Bolsheviks gained momentum, worries that the occupiers would be overrun intensified. Allied positions were regularly hit with long-range artillery, and the intelligence services reported that “[the] enemy is systematically accumulating troops on all fronts with the view of a general offensive before the thaw.”^[20]

One American commander, General Stewart, urgently wrote to the secretary of war: 

“The enemy are becoming more numerous on all fronts and are more active. The allied command is small, and we have no reserves.”^[21]

The final battle in North Russia occurred near the village of Bolshie Ozerki on 2 April 1919. By then, the US troops had run out of numbers, weapons, supplies and morale. That June, as soon as navigation reopened on the White Sea, American troops began their withdrawal, with British soldiers sent in to replace them. Soon after, the Bolsheviks overran those positions and retook Murmansk and Arkhangelsk.

On 1 April 1920, the last US troops pulled out of Siberia. A combined 424 Americans had died in combat or due to disease or frostbite in North Russia and Siberia.

Internationalism in action

The Bolsheviks’ fight against US imperialism did not stop at Russia’s borders. Lenin’s letter was smuggled into the USA and published in a slightly abridged form in December 1918, in both the New York magazine, The Class Struggle, and the Boston weekly, The Revolutionary Age. Instrumental in getting the letter published in the US was none other than John Reed, the author of Ten Days That Shook the World. 

From there, the letter made its way into the bourgeois press in the US, France, Britain and Germany. In the US, in particular, it became a focal point for the revolutionary left, serving as a de facto foundational document for the embryonic communist movement and helping to raise opposition to Wilson’s armed intervention against the revolution.

Here we see the fruits of Lenin’s proletarian internationalism in action. Facing the threat of destruction from all sides he appealed to the workers of the world on a class basis, without the slightest hint of national chauvinism, and used his appeals to help build revolutionary parties within the imperialists’ own borders. 

The fate of US imperialism’s ill-fated adventure in the young Soviet Republic offers many lessons for communists today.

The hypocrisy of US imperialism has only grown since 1918. Today, while the US and its NATO allies fund wars and atrocities in both Ukraine and the Middle East – all in the name of ‘democracy’ and the ‘self-determination of nations’ – it is more important than ever that communists expose the lies and real interests of the imperialists, in the same bold and principled manner as Lenin.

In the context of rising tensions between Western imperialism, Russia and China, with all the instability and ‘proxy wars’ this entails, the need for a clear, class-based and internationalist stance is absolutely imperative. Rather than siding with one or another of the contending powers, communists must appeal to workers everywhere to fight their own imperialists and join forces for the victory of the world socialist revolution.

Over 100 years since the US invaded Russia, the potential for world revolution has never been greater and we have every right to share Lenin’s inexhaustible confidence in the world working class:

“Let the ‘socialist’ snivelers croak, let the bourgeoisie rage and fume, but only people who shut their eyes so as not to see, and stuff their ears so as not to hear, can fail to notice that all over the world the birth pangs of the old, capitalist society, which is pregnant with socialism, have begun.”^[22]

[1] V I Lenin, ‘Decree on Peace’, Lenin Collected Works, Vol. 26, Progress Publishers, 1964, pg 249

[2] A S Link et al. (eds.), The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Vol. 45, Princeton University Press, 1984, pg 536, emphasis added

[3] J V Fuller (ed.), ‘The Ambassador in France (Sharp) to the Secretary of State’, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Vol. 2, United States Government Printing Office, 1932, pg 33

[4] W A Williams, ‘American Intervention in Russia, 1917-1920,’ Studies on the Left, No. 3, 1963, pg 35

[5] J V Fuller (ed.), ‘The Ambassador in Russia (Francis) to the Secretary of State’, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Vol. 1, United States Government Printing Office, 1931, pg 538

[6] W A Williams, ‘American Intervention in Russia, 1917-1920,’ Studies on the Left, No. 3, 1963, pg 25

[7] W S Graves, America’s Siberian Adventure, Peter Smith Publishers, 1941, pg 7-8

[8] J V Fuller (ed.), ‘The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Japan (Morris)’, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Vol. 2, United States Government Printing Office, 1932, pg 388

[9] V I Lenin, A Letter to American Workingmen, The Socialist Publication Society, 1918, pg 15

[10] ibid. pg 11-12

[11] ibid. pg 4

[12] ibid. pg 11

[13] Historical Files of the American Expeditionary Force, North Russia, 1918-1919, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, M 924, Roll 1, 23-11.1.

[14] ibid.

[15] ibid.

[16] D Habib, Playing Into the Hands of Isolationists: Woodrow Wilson's Russian Policy, 1918-1920, San Jose State University, 1995, pg 31

[17] H Otoupalik (ed.), Quartered in Hell: The Story of the American North Russia Expeditionary Force 1918-1919. Doughboy Historical Society, 1982, Pg 179

[18] Historical Files of the American Expeditionary Force, North Russia, 1918-1919, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, M 924, Roll 1, 23-11.1.

[19] ibid.

[20] ibid.

[21] ibid.

[22] V I Lenin, ‘Prophetic Words’, Lenin Collected Works, Vol. 27, Progress Publishers, 1965, pg 499