Causation
When the guns fell silent across the scarred fields of France and Belgium in the fall of 1918, the war only ended for one side. Wracked by mutiny and revolution, Germany stopped fighting. On the verge of ethnic disintegration, Austria-Hungary also stood down. But for the Allies and their Associate, the United States, the conflict was not over. From the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea and across Eurasia to the Pacific, soldiers continued to fight and die. Russia became the battlefield where the world's first socialist state fought for its existence against most of the world's major powers.
The involvement of the United States in the Russian Civil War is not widely remembered. The slaughter on the Western Front dwarfs other arenas of World War I, as it saw Europe tear itself apart. Deployed both to the European Arctic and to Siberia, the expeditionary forces sent to Russia are overlooked in most texts. But these interventions, which drew the United States into the struggle between the Bolshevik Reds and their White adversaries, are vital for understanding the development of world history. While it was not until after the Second World War that the hostility between the United States and the Soviet Union took center stage, the roots of this enmity lie in the fateful decisions that sent American soldiers to Russia.
In looking for the reasons behind these decisions, historians must keep in mind the complex nature of causation. Human choices are not always easily understood and interpreted. Indeed, full comprehension of past decisions is never obtainable. Actions that at first glance appear to be motivated by a single factor often, upon closer examination, are found to spring from the interplay of various influences. Historians' subjects can be even less useful in providing evidence than the most uncooperative of witnesses. The only links to the historian's subjects are what was deliberately chosen to survive or accidentally preserved. It is from these clues that the relationships between disparate and often competing factors are to be studied and pieced together.
Not all of these motivations to action are created equal. Some can be considered sufficient to bring about the resulting effect. These influences, in and of themselves, are enough to cause an action. This does not imply that other influences were not present; they simply were not needed. If cause was required for an effect to occur, but it alone was insufficient, then it is considered necessary. Necessary causes are by far the most numerous, as most decisions are the product of multiple causes, each of which influences the outcome, but could not have brought it about singularly.
One type of necessary cause that has great importance in this analysis of the American interventions in Russia is known as a trigger. Triggers, as their name implies, are the final step needed to convert latent causes into action. These ingredients, such as past experience, prejudices, and advice, often require an outside force for a decision to be made. Another analogy that may better explain a trigger's function is that of a chemical catalyst. These compounds bring together the necessary reagents in such a way that the obstacles to their reaction are reduced or removed entirely. Triggers can be external or internal influences, such as an unexpected battlefield victory or a new perspective on a problem gained after long deliberation. These factors take the preexisting components of a situation and bring something new out of them.
In looking for and identifying these different types of causes, historians must guard against dividing the myriad influences upon historical agents into neat, easily classifiable categories. Causes, like human beings, depend upon one another to produce effects. They cannot be mechanically sorted and isolated from their surroundings. Context, that most powerful tool of historical understanding, is vital to interpreting past decisions. And unlike chemical catalysts, triggers cannot be isolated from the reaction and examined separately. There are no lab experiments in history.
To find them, and illustrate a trigger's relationship to other causes, it is necessary to look for the point(s) of change in periods of relative equilibrium.[1] If new influences appeared at the point of change, then these may likely be the triggers of change. A similar process can be followed with decision-making. If all other influences are present, but no decision has been reached, then the introduction of the final one before the choice is quite likely its trigger.
The Prime Suspect and His Motives
In studying the American expeditions to Russia, where should the search for the decisions begin? Both at home and abroad, Wilson occupied center stage. While Congress alone has the authority to declare war, these operations fell within the prosecution of the war against Germany. Therefore, it was not necessary for new congressional approval to be given or even sought before the activities of the United States Armed Forces were expanded into the Russian Arctic and Far East. Following the chain of command to the top, the responsibility for both interventions is found to lie with President Woodrow Wilson. While it is true that his cabinet and military staff wielded power and offered counsel, the president held the final authority and ultimate responsibility for his administration's actions. Men like Secretary of State Robert Lansing and Secretary of War Newton D. Baker did influence Wilson's decisions but, in the end, he alone could authorize the dispatch of American soldiers to Russia.
This simple observation is reinforced by the increasingly prominent role Wilson played in international affairs following the American entry into the Great War. Part of this importance was due to the United States' position amongst the great powers after almost three years of grueling war. Both sides were growing exhausted and looked more and more to the United States for loans and war materials. Britain and France each owed millions of dollars to American banks, and later, to the federal government. The United States held financial leverage against both of these nations.
Additionally, the United States became a party to the war as an Associate of the Allies, its untapped manpower reserves promised finally to turn the tide against the German juggernaut. Both Britain and France were running low on manpower and could ill afford the predicted heavy causalities any war-winning offensive would entail. Thus, even a small Allied expedition to Russia would have at least required tacit American approval.
Apart from the material dependence of the Allies upon the United States, Woodrow Wilson also came to enjoy a sort of moral authority greater than any of the Allied leaders. His hopeful vision of international peace and cooperation stood in stark contrast to the imperialistic aims of the other leaders, such as Clemenceau and Lloyd George, who hoped to seize Germany's colonies and overseas interests. As war weariness and social unrest began seriously to threaten the stability of the European nations, Wilson's support was of great, if incalculable, importance in retaining popular backing for the war. This too gave the president leverage against his counterparts in Paris and London.[2]
The last reason to focus upon Woodrow Wilson's decisions is his record of armed intervention in other locations. From the beginning of his presidency, he was involved in the use of force all across Central America and the Caribbean. He ordered soldiers and marines into Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and twice into Mexico. The involvement of the United States in the Mexican Revolution, especially the occupation of the port of Veracruz and the failed punitive raid against Pancho Villa, shared some similarities with the twin expeditions to Russia. By utilizing both the links between these interventions and the factors that triggered Wilson's fateful choices, new light can be shed upon these pivotal events and their place in the storied relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Since the American expeditions to Russia were among the first major interactions between the United States and Bolsheviks, considerable attention has been devoted to discerning Woodrow Wilson's motivations. The uneasy and oft-hostile attitudes between the two states have been traced, as previously stated, to this dispatch of American soldiers to Russia.[3] If this act was the first step toward the Cold War, was Woodrow Wilson the first Cold Warrior?
Some have argued that while he was not as dedicatedly opposed to the Bolsheviks as men such as Robert Lansing, Wilson did in fact seek to “roll back” the Bolsheviks' control of Russia.[4] From the use of military force in the Russian Arctic and Far East to clandestine support for Cossack generals such as Kaledin and Semenov, It is argued that Wilson pursued an actively hostile policy against Lenin and his fellow revolutionaries.
While he did possess significant leverage over the Allies, Wilson was not immune to their diplomatic pressure. Facing a stalemate on the Western Front, the British and French feared that a collapse of the Russian military would leave them alone to face the full force of Germany's formidable army. Both governments urged Wilson to help bolster the Russians through American reinforcements, or, if worse came to worse, recreate an Eastern Front with Allied troops that would force Germany to retain some of its divisions in Russia. Combined with the Japanese, who in seeking to protect and expand their mainland interests eyed Siberia enviously, the Allies exerted considerable effort to draw the United States into Russia.[5] Bowing to these demands in the interest of Allied cooperation and solidarity, Wilson sent American soldiers as “the precursors of collective security” that he hoped to establish as part of the League of Nations.[6]
Wilson's military involvement has also been attributed to his vision of a worldwide liberal capitalist order, based upon democratic institutions and economic competition, rather than autocracy and imperialism. The apparent conversion of Russia to democracy after the Tsar's abdication had raised his hopes of accomplishing this goal. However, the Bolshevik seizure of power threatened the establishment of Russian democracy. Just as he co-opted many of the socialists of western Europe and the United States into support of a war that could help create this system, Wilson hoped that the same could be achieved with the Bolsheviks. When this failed, due to their rejection of the last democratic fig leaves of the Soviet Congress, he came to view them as a threat to the entire liberal capitalist order.[7] As the specter of anarchy and starvation cast shadows over Europe in the wake of the Great War, Wilson sought to neutralize Bolshevism’s appeal through food aid and renewed attempts to absorb them into a Russian democratic government.
While not without significant merit, each of these proposed explanations of Wilson's actions during 1917 and 1918 falls short. Projecting the Cold War backwards to 1917 fails to account for the massive differences in the balance of power throughout the world and gives an incorrect impression of the views of the historical agents involved. The variety of anti-Communism so influential in the creation of the Cold War had yet to take shape. Few among the elites of the Western European and North American democracies understood the Bolsheviks' motivating ideology. More common was the view that this was a form of anarchy that threatened to destroy civilized society. The expansionist, dictatorial Communism, that so concerned American strategists in the late 1940s, was still decades away. Being anti-Bolshevik, as many American officials were, did not translate into opposition to socialism. The use of terror and non-democratic methods employed during the Bolsheviks' rise to power and efforts to consolidate control alienated many democratic socialists who were much in favor of increased government control of the economy.
Another aspect of the decisions this explanation fails to account for is the hesitation to use force and the limited nature of the expeditions. If Wilson truly intended to “roll back” Bolshevik rule in Russia, he did not commit to it readily or employ sufficient armed force, whether directly or through the Whites, to force the Bolsheviks from power. Instead, he sent the expeditions into Russia with limited numbers and equipment, to fulfill missions that did not include fighting the Reds. He also did not enthusiastically support any of the Bolsheviks' opponents in the ensuing civil war.
In a similar fashion to backdating the Cold War, focusing on Allied pressure for intervention as the primary motivation for Wilson's decision misinterprets the relationship between the president and the Allied governments. Holding the upper hand, Wilson did not have to bow to Allied demands to maintain unity within the coalition. Britain and France needed the United States far more than they cared to admit. The intensity of their demands for a renewed Eastern Front illustrated not only their fear of German reinforcements, but also their understanding that they needed the United States to implement any such plan.
Additionally, some of Wilson's stated policies towards Russia ran counter to Allied pressure. While standing on a platform that called for the restoration of Russian territorial and political sovereignty, he could hardly acquiesce to Allied action that would likely end in Japanese expansion in Siberia and a possible wholesale dismantling of the Russian Empire by its traditional imperialist rival, Great Britain.
Lastly, the pressure from London and Paris for a renewed Eastern Front continued for months without any indication that Wilson was prepared to back such moves. The long-standing nature of this factor argues against its importance as a trigger for intervention, though it very probably acted as a necessary precondition for it.
The argument that Wilson's policies toward Russia sprang from his vision of a liberal capitalist world order stands upon a somewhat stronger basis. Wilson's attempt to carve out a middle ground between autocratic imperialism and revolutionary socialism by seeking to steer socialists into democratic forms of government helps explain his hesitation to employ force in dealing with “the Russian problem.” But it does not adequately explain his eventual turn to force as a solution. Fear that Bolshevism would spread throughout Europe and the world did not become widespread until after the end of the war. The onset of the “Red Years,” including the short-lived Hungarian Bolshevik government, brought this worry to the Western elites' attention. But, in late 1917 and throughout 1918, Bolshevism remained a Russian issue. The armed intervention by the United States before the end of the war against Germany does not appear to have its origins in a fear of worldwide revolution.
This last explanation describes Wilson's motivations more accurately than the rest because it highlights his belief in democracy. With the collapse of the ancien régime in Russia, Wilson celebrated the apparent success of democracy and praised the Russian people for having thrown off the vestigial organs that had suppressed their democratic spirit.[8] As the Bolsheviks gained power, eventually wiping away the appearance of representative institutions, Wilson did not look to a counter-revolution to defeat these new radicals. Instead, he stated that “every moral influence” should be provided “to the support of democratic institutions.”[9] Wilson wanted neither the autocracy of the Tsars nor the class tyranny of the Bolsheviks.
This “moral influence” could only be maintained through non-interference in the settlement of Russian political affairs. While the Bolsheviks would certainly have laughed at the notion that they were not engaged deciding Russia's political future, Wilson attached a unique meaning to this idea. To the president settling one's political affairs, whether in Mexico or Russia, meant the election of a representative body to govern a state. The restoration of a monarch or the creation of a military dictatorship did not count in his eyes, nor did the imposition of a puppet regime by a foreign power. Wilson felt that the creation of new democratic order in Russia had to be the business of Russians alone.
Through his conviction that democracy would take root, Wilson was able to hope that the Bolsheviks could be brought around to orderly, representative government. His desire to see democratic institutions and principles succeed in Russia molded his response to the development of the Revolution. That is not to discount other factors. Democracy, so to speak, was the lens through which Wilson viewed any solution to Russia's problems. Other influences built upon this foundation. For example, the pressure exerted by the Allied governments in favor of a reopening of the Eastern Front played a significant role in shaping the American expeditions, specifically in expanding their involvement far beyond Wilson's original intent.