More than half a century has passed since the last interventionists were expelled from the Siberian land. They came there, the Soviet Government said in a statement of April 5, 1918, to stifle the Russian revolution, restore the exploitative system in the country, " cut off Russia from the Pacific Ocean, seize the rich expanses of Siberia, and enslave the Siberian workers and peasants."1 Interventionists and White Guards established the bloody Kolchak dictatorship in Siberia. However, the workers and peasants defeated all internal and external enemies and defended the gains of the proletarian revolution.

The intervention of the imperialist Powers was an undeclared war against Soviet Russia. The official propaganda of these powers explained the armed intervention in the internal affairs of Russia by any motives, but not by counter-revolutionary motives. The declarations of the Entente and US governments, published in August 1918, stated that the Allied forces landed in Vladivostok in order to prevent the Germans from seizing military warehouses in the city and crops in Western Siberia, to help the Czechoslovak corps break the resistance of German prisoners of war in Siberia who had taken possession of weapons, and to make their way to Vladivostok in order to France, as well as to restore the Eastern Front against Germany 2 . "We organized and subsidized not the anti - Bolshevik campaign, but the anti-German front," said the then British Prime Minister, D. Lloyd George. A similar sentiment was expressed by his cabinet colleague W. Churchill, who claimed that the Allies supported "all the national troops in Russia who decided to continue the war against Germany." 3 Since then, the version of the anti-German orientation of the Entente countries ' intervention in Siberia has become one of the favorite arguments used by bourgeois historiography to justify the policy of the imperialist powers in the "Russian question".

This concept became particularly widespread in the late 1960s. In the works of D. Donnelly, R. Ullman, J. Thompson, J. Brinkley, J. Swettenham, J. Bradley, P. Renouvain, M. Peltier, M. Grae and others dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the end of the First World War.

1 "Documents of foreign Policy of the USSR", Vol. I. M. 1957, p. 225.

2 "Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States" (далее - FR), 1918, Russia. Vol. II. Washington. 1932, pp. 324 - 325, 328 - 329, 333 - 334; "Japanese Documents on the Siberian Intervention, 1917 - 1922". "The Hitotsubashi Journal of Law and Politics", Vol. I, N 1. Tokyo. 1960, p. 44; "Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919 - 1939". I Ser., vol. III. L. 1949, p. 711.

3 D. Lloyd George. The Truth about Peace Treaties, vol. I. M. 1957, p. 375; W. Churchill. Mirovoi krizis [World Crisis], Moscow, 1932, p. 50.

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Zh. Bourdieu talks a lot about the" betrayal "of Russia, which left the allied coalition, and its transformation into an" accomplice " of Germany as a result of the signing of the Brest Peace. These authors tried to convince his readers that the intervention of the Entente and the United States to Soviet Russia had only one mission - fight "against the German-Austrians" that the allied troops were in Siberia "with the aim to reach the European Russia and form a new front against Germany,"4 . Similar ideas are contained in articles by American historians published in the collection "American Intervention in the Russian Civil War" 5 .

The attention of bourgeois authors to the version of the Eastern Front continues unabated to this day. In recent years, new works have appeared in the West, in which it occupies a prominent place. These are books by J. R. R. Tolkien. Silverlight, W. Rothwell, P. Kenez, the collection "Civil Wars in the XX century" and others 6 . Such a steady interest in it is not accidental. In modern conditions, when imperialism, trying to slow down the world revolutionary process, uses both direct violence and intense ideological influence on the masses, the version of the Eastern Front, along with other concepts of bourgeois historiography concerning the policy of the powers in the "Russian question" in 1917-1922, actively serves this purpose. Hence the political relevance of its consideration and the need for its reasoned criticism.

In the Soviet historiography of the intervention in Siberia, the concept of recreating the Eastern Front was not discussed in detail7 . Of the related issues, the attention is often drawn to the attempts of the allies to push the Soviet Russia with Germany and strangle with the hands of the last socialist revolution, counter-revolutionary background of the Czechoslovak corps, false allegations of weapons of the Bolsheviks, the German prisoners of war in Siberia and some other8 . The purpose of this article is to examine whether it was possible and necessary for the Entente to recreate the Eastern Front under the conditions of 1918, to show the predominance of anti-Sovietism over anti-German sentiments among the Allied leaders, to reveal the true origins of the version about the Eastern Front, and to highlight the propaganda role that was intended for it during the preparation

4 D. Donnelly. Struggle for the World. The Cold War from Its Origins in 1917. L. 1965; R. Ullman. Anglo-Soviet Relations, 1917 - 1921. Vol. I-II. Princeton. 1961, 1968; J. Thompson. Russia, Bolshevism and the Versailles Peace. Princeton. 1967; G. Brincley. The Volunteer Army and Allied Intervention in South Russia, 1917 - 1921. Notre Dame. 1966; J. Swettenham. Allied Intervention in Russia and the Part Played by Canada. L. 1967; J. Bradley. Allied Intervention in Russia. L. 1968; P. Renouvin. L'Armistice de Rethondes 11 novembre 1918. P. 1968; M. Peltier. Les allies et la revolution russe. "La revue des deux Mondes", 1968, N 2; M. Grey et J. Bourdier. Les armees blanches. P. 1968.

5 "American Intervention in the Russian Civil War". Lexington. 1969.

6 J. Silverlight. The Victors' Dilemma. Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1917 - 1920. N. Y. 1970; V. Rothwell. British War Aims and Peace Diplomacy. Oxford. 1971; P. Kenez. Civil War in South Russia, 1918. The First Year of the Volunteer Arma. Los-Angeles - L. 1971; A. Balawyder. Canadian-Soviet Relations between the World Wars. Toronto - Buffalo. 1972; "Civil Wars in the Twentieth Century". Lexington. 1971; "Makers of American Diplomacy. From Benjamin Franklin to Henry Kissinger". N. Y. 1974; D. Woodward. The British Government and Japanese Intervention in Russia during World War I. "The Journal of Modern History". Vol. 46, N4, 1974.

7 See V. P. Naumov. Chronicle of the heroic struggle. Soviet Historiography of the Civil War and Imperialist Intervention in the USSR, Moscow, 1972.

8 Yu. I. Igritsky. Civil War and intervention in the USSR in the latest works of Western historians. "History of the USSR", 1969, N 2; O. Solovyov. Modern bourgeois historiography of the West on the anti-Soviet intervention of the Entente in 1917-1920 "History and Historians". Historiographical yearbook. 1971. Moscow, 1973; "Critique of bourgeois historiography of Soviet society", Moscow, 1972; " From the history of the Civil War and intervention. 1917-1922". Collection of articles, Moscow, 1974.

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It is well known that the role of the Eastern Front in the First World War was exceptionally great: during 1914-1916. Russia, according to Lloyd George, "bore the brunt of millions of the best soldiers and thousands of guns of the Central Powers." 9 During the war, the Russian army suffered huge losses, the burden of severe disasters fell on the shoulders of the working people of Russia, and the economy fell into decline. The situation was aggravated by the fact that the Allies did not fulfill their obligations to supply the Russian army with weapons and ammunition. As a result, Russia, as the Sixth Congress of the RSDLP (b) noted, was falling "into the abyss of final economic collapse and ruin."10
The Great October Socialist Revolution marked the victory of the new social system in Russia, annulled the predatory treaties concluded by the ruling classes behind the back of the people, freed them from the tsarist government's enslaving obligations to the Entente imperialists, pulled the country out of an unjust war, and established the basic principles of Soviet foreign policy. Lenin's Peace Decree invited all belligerent peoples and their Governments to immediately begin negotiations for a general democratic peace and declared aggressive war the greatest crime against humanity. However, the governments of the Entente countries and the United States refused to accept this offer and even began to accuse Russia of "treason" to the allied duty. The Soviet government immediately exposed this lie . "It was the Anglo-French and American bourgeoisie," Lenin noted in his Letter to the American Workers, " that did not accept our proposal, it was they who refused even to talk to us about universal peace! It was the latter that acted treacherously in relation to the interests of all peoples, and it was the latter that prolonged the imperialist slaughter! It was she, capitalizing on the fact that once again to involve Russia in the imperialist war, withdrew from the peace talks and the unleashed as predatory capitalists of Germany, which was imposed on Russia annexationist and violent Brest peace!"12 .

By rejecting the proposal to conclude a universal and just peace, the Entente imperialists and the United States expressed their intention to continue the war to a victorious end. Of course, they would benefit if Russia continued to fight on their side. But did they believe in such a possibility? How, with the help of what forces, did they expect to revive the anti-German front on the territory of Russia in those conditions?

There is ample evidence that the Western Allies had already concluded before October 1917 that it was impossible for Russia to continue actively participating in the war. The US Secretary of State R. Lansing noted on August 6, 1917, that the United States "must be prepared for the fact that the time will come when Russia will cease to be a military factor in the current war." Lloyd George, in his own words, "from the middle of October 1917, it became quite obvious that the Russian army could no longer be counted on to participate in the battles." Colonel E. House, an adviser to the American president, recognized that "Russia's morale has burned out, the industrial organization of the country, so necessary for the continuation of the war, is shaken," and stressed that the masses of Russia in those conditions most needed peace and land. Chief of the General Staff of England W. Robertson at a cabinet meeting on September 17 stated: "It is absolutely clear that the Russian soldier no longer wants to fight." British military attache to Russia

9 D. Lloyd George. Military Memoirs, vol. V. M. 1938, p. 86.

10 "The CPSU in resolutions and decisions of congresses, conferences and plenums of the Central Committee". Ed. 8-E. T. 1, p. 489.

11 "Documents of the Foreign Policy of the USSR", Vol. I, p. 16 - 17, 21 - 25, 28 - 32, 33.

12 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 37, p. 53.

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General A. Knox reported to London that regardless of any efforts of the Provisional Government, the latter's troops insist on a truce. "It is quite clear," Knox wrote, "that whatever the political developments in Russia, the main body of the Russian army refuses to continue the war." 13
Consequently, many Entente leaders clearly understood that the masses of the Russian people did not want to fight for imperialist interests that were alien to them, that the Russian army had largely lost its combat capability and refused to fight, that the October Revolution had been accelerated by the incredible hardships of the war, and that Lenin's Peace Decree embodied the desire of the working people of Russia to It is not difficult to understand that any intention to restore the Eastern Front in such conditions would mean the failure of the Decree on Peace, inciting war between the Republic of Soviets and German imperialism, whose position would be stronger, since the new Russian government did not have time to create a revolutionary army. It is no accident that the Entente and US diplomacy stubbornly tried to disrupt the Soviet-German peace negotiations and prevent the cessation of hostilities on the Eastern Front by any means, in which it was assisted by the Russian bourgeoisie. 14
Realizing that declarations about the re-establishment of the Eastern Front did not sound entirely convincing in a situation where the workers and peasants of Russia were demanding peace, and the old army did not want to fight, Western politicians tried to create the impression that there were forces in Russia that could continue the war with Germany and would be able to hold on if only they will be assisted by their allies. By these forces were meant anti-Soviet formations created on the Don, the Urals, Siberia and the Far East by Generals Kaledin, Kornilov and Alekseev, atamans Dutov and Semyonov, and others. However, the latter made no secret of the fact that among them "the re-creation of the Eastern Front arouses the least illusions", and that they intend their formations primarily to fight against the Soviet power15. In addition, the number of these detachments at the end of 1917-beginning of 1918 was completely insufficient to use them for anti-German purposes. General A. Knox reported to London that Alekseyev and Kaledin had only two companies of soldiers at their disposal in December 1917, and even those would not fight except under forced compulsion from abroad. The British ambassador in Petrograd, J. Buchanan, also considered the forces of Kaledin and Alekseev too small for any serious military enterprise .16 Even less hope could inspire the Cossacks

13 Cit. by: V. Williams. American intervention in Russia in 1917-1920 "History of the USSR", 1964, N 4, p. 172; D. Lloyd George. Military Memoirs, vol. V, p. 104; "The Archive of Colonel House", vol. III. M. 1939, p. 273; L. Fischer. Russia's Road from Peace to War. N. Y. 1969, p. 11.

14 For more information, see A. O. Chubaryan. Brestskiy mir, Moscow, 1963; V. S. Vasyukov. Prehistory of intervention, Moscow, 1968; "History of Foreign Policy of the USSR 1917-1945", vol. 1, Moscow, 1976.

15 " The struggle for power of the Soviets on the Don. 1917-1920". Collection of documents. Rostov-on-Don. 1957, p. 236; A. Lukomsky. Memoirs, Vol. I. Berlin, 1922, p. 274; A. Denikin. Essays on the Russian Troubles, vol. III. Berlin, 1924, p. 4. 76; Ataman Semenov. About me. Memories, thoughts, conclusions. Dairen. 1938, p. 57.

16 See R. Ullman. Op. cit. Vol. I, p. 47. "These generals (Alekseyev and Kornilov-M. S.)," noted the British diplomatic representative in Moscow, R. Lockhart, " were not directly interested in our successes on the Western Front. They were not opposed to creating a new front against the Germans in the east. But before that, they had to deal with the Bolsheviks. For this purpose, they were too weak without support from abroad, because in their own country they found support only in the officers, who were already very weakened in themselves " (R. Lockhart. Storm over Russia. Riga. 1933, p. 234). The British General de Candolle reported in January-February 1918 from Rostov-on-Don that the recruitment measures were being taken.-

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detachments of Dutov and Semenov. The British Foreign Secretary, A. Balfour, admitted that there were no forces in Russia "that were ready to continue the struggle", and his permanent assistant, C. Harding, was of the opinion that "the elements with which we intend to deal are unsatisfactory, and their situation is almost hopeless"17 .

Thus, the Allies were not mistaken about the opportunities that the "loyal elements" in Russia had at that time. But if these forces were not enough to continue the war with Germany, then, according to the same calculations, they should have been quite enough to eliminate the Soviet government, whose chances for a long existence were considered extremely low in the West. As Lenin noted, in October 1917, the imperialists "considered our republic a curiosity that was not worth paying attention to." 18 They believed that the overthrow of the Provisional Government was an accident, and that Kerensky and his loyal troops would easily restore "order." When the Kerensky-Krasnov plot failed, Western leaders began to pin their hopes on the possibility of confining the revolution to Petrograd (in the worst case, Central Russia), and then strangling it and returning Russia to the Entente camp. "The questions of continuing the war with Germany and getting rid of Soviet power," admitted cadet leader L. A. Krol, "were closely related to each other, because the former was unthinkable without the latter." 19
The projects of the Western allies to restore the Eastern Front on the territory of Russia by transferring the inexhaustible Japanese army there had a similar meaning. This idea was expressed, in particular, in the memorandum of the Chief of the French General Staff F. Foch, presented to the inter-Allied conference in Paris on November 29, 1917. It recommended that Japanese soldiers support "all elements of resistance" that were available in Russia .20 In the period from November 1917 to August 1918, that is, throughout the entire period of preparation for the intervention, the British and French governments repeatedly proposed that Japan send troops to Siberia, hoping with their help to occupy the Trans-Siberian Railway zone and thereby establish a direct link with the South Russian counter-revolution. However, the Japanese imperialists, who had long cherished the dream of seizing the Russian Far East, expressed their firm intention to use the favorable situation to their advantage. Therefore, they responded to all the proposals in the sense that Japan does not intend to carry out any operations outside of Primorye, the Amur Region and Transbaikalia, and that without recognition of this condition by the Western powers, there can be no question of any Japanese expedition to Siberia .21
In most cases, the Voltsev detachments of Alekseyev and Kornilov failed, that desertion in them is a common occurrence, that in the specified area you can only count on passive resistance, that the Cossack movement is heading for complete collapse. In the midst of the chaos that prevails in Russia, he wrote, one cannot expect an idea to take shape: Bolshevism is the only political movement, and it has penetrated everywhere (R. Ullman. Op. cit., p. 94). De Candolle's opinion was confirmed by General Alexeyev, who reported to the French military mission in Kiev on February 9, 1918: "The ideas of Bolshevism found adherents among the broad mass of Cossacks. They do not want to fight even for the defense of their own territory, for the sake of saving their own property" ("Struggle for the power of the Soviets on the Don", pp. 236-237).

17 D. Lloyd George. Military Memoirs, vol. V, pp. 84, 90; R. Ullman. Op. cit., p. 94.

18 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 37, p. 147.

19 L. A. Krol. For three years. Memories, impressions, and meetings. Vladivostok. 1921, p. 25.

20 J. Morley. The Japanese Thrust into Siberia, 1918. N. Y. 1957, pp. 79 - 80.

21 FR, 1918, Russia. Vol. II, pp. 42 - 43, 144 - 145; "Japanese Documents on the Siberian Intervention", p. 42; J. Morley. Op. cit., pp. 55, 136 - 140, 227; R. Ullman. Op. cit., p. 129.

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During the negotiations, Japanese Foreign Minister Iwo Motono tried to convince the allies that the task of "fighting against Germany" could be successfully solved if Japanese troops operated in the Far East, and the troops of other powers - in European Russia, that is, where these powers have their "interests". Instead of the US-Japanese occupation of the Trans-Siberian Railway proposed by Foch, Motono advocated dividing it into sections so that Japan would get the eastern part-from Lake Baikal to the Pacific Ocean, and other powers - the remaining part and the Turkestan Railway. Each of the allied countries, he said, could support "loyal Russian elements" in its zone 22 .

The ruling circles of Japan, having adopted the anti-German phraseology of the allies, suggested that the Western powers "wage war with Germany" in those areas of Russia in which each of them sought to create a sphere of influence. At the same time, they made it clear that Japan would not take any real military action against Germany. In an interview with the correspondent of the American magazine "The Outlook", Japanese Prime Minister M. Terauchi said on March 22, 1918, that, having begun an intervention, Japan would not move its troops west of Irkutsk, that it had no desire to meet with regular German troops ," which it treats with great respect." Despite the possibility of different interpretations of the objectives of the intervention, Terauchi stressed, it will be undertaken by Japan almost exclusively "to prevent the spread of anarchy and German intrigues to the Far East", as a measure of "national self-defense", and therefore will be of little importance for easing the situation of the Allies on the Western Front. On June 15, The Japan Advertiser published an interview with the new Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan, S. S. Abramovich. Goto, in which it was noted that the Japanese expedition to Siberia will not affect the military situation of Germany in the near future (that is, it will not serve the purpose of recreating the Eastern Front. - M. S.) 23 .

However, even if Japan agreed to provide his army for the war with Germany in Europe and the United States expressed its readiness to provide the necessary equipment, the decision of the task of restoring the Eastern front met on the difficult transportation problems - lack of ships and rolling stock, upset the TRANS-Siberian railway, etc., with the result that Japanese troops, according to specialists, began to arrive in European Russia after the end of the war24 .

However, during the negotiations with Japan, Britain and France did not talk about the transfer of such a large army. Most often, they were expressed in the sense that Japan should send "a sufficient number of troops", sometimes they also gave specific figures-from two to four divisions. They were mentioned by the participants of the conference of Allied envoys in Iasi (January 1918), the leadership of the British War Office (June 1918), and the French military mission to Russia (September 1918) .25 From this it can be concluded that the number of Japanese troops intended to be sent to Siberia was not determined by considerations of the war with Germany, which retained from 71 (in March 1918) to 42 (in October 1918) divisions in Russia, but by the need for the Soviet Union.-

22 J. Morley. Op. cit., p. 56.

23 Historical and Diplomatic Archive of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Microfilm Fund.

24 "Colonel House's Archive". APHIDS, p. 273; V. Williams. Op. ed., p. 191; FR, 1918, Russia. Vol. II, pp. 263, 393 - 394.

25 FR, 1918, Russia. Vol. II, pp. 33 - 34; J. Swettenham. Op. cit, pp. 112, 132.

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in the struggle against the Soviet troops, which, by the way, was noted in official documents 26 .

The most ardent supporters of intervention, in order to justify the invasion of Siberia, cited the impossibility of achieving victory over Germany by the forces of the Western Front alone, and even predicted defeat to the Entente, since Germany, according to them, by transferring its troops from Russia, would be able to achieve an overwhelming advantage in the West. They were also afraid that Germany, taking advantage of the Brest Peace, would allegedly have unlimited sources of raw materials and even human resources in Russia. The British General Staff, for example, assured that by the spring of 1919, the Germans would be able to recruit 2 million people from the occupied regions of Russia, while 1 million would be sent to the Western Front as soldiers, and the rest would be used as labor in Germany itself .27 Such prophecies were in high circulation then, in the spring of 1918.

Meanwhile, in the highly competent and influential circles of the Entente, there was a different opinion on all these issues, which for certain reasons was not widely publicized. So, the commander-in-chief of the British army, D. Haig, back in October 1917, at the request of Lloyd George, made calculations in case "if Russia is not able to maintain active participation in the war during another campaign." Haig came to the conclusion that Russia's withdrawal from the war would not cause a serious increase in the power of the German army in the West and would not put the Entente in danger of defeat. General Foch in December 1917 expressed confidence that during the 1918 campaign the Allies would be able not only to contain a large German offensive, but also "to carry out a coordinated offensive of a decisive character."28
It is impossible not to pay attention to the views of Lloyd George, which he held on this subject at the beginning of 1918. "No transfer of troops from the Russian Front," he believed, " could give the Germans in 1918 even a temporary superiority on the Western Front, which would exceed 5%. This small superiority, even if it had been achieved, would have disappeared in the spring when the Americans were due to arrive, and from the very beginning it would have been blocked by the undoubted superiority of the Allies in guns, ammunition, machine guns, tanks, airplanes and, above all, in means of communication."29 Lloyd George attached great importance to the serious shortage of fuel and food from the enemy, which could lead Germany to an imminent catastrophe and negate the advantages of the peace it had concluded with Russia, since the Germans had to keep a significant force in this country to get food resources. The British Prime Minister also noted that the German reinforcements arriving from the East did not compensate for losses in the West, the quality of these reinforcements was low, since the best soldiers had long been transferred from the Russian front. Another remark of Lloyd George's is not without interest: "The French General Staff systematically exaggerated the size of the German reinforcements and at the same time downplayed the data on all of them.-

26 FR, 1918, Russia. Vol. II, pp. 20 - 21, 33 - 34, 301.

27 R. Ullman. Op. cit., p. 169.

28 D. Lloyd George. Military Memoirs, Vol. V, pp. 102, 113. Other allied military figures also did not express concern for the outcome of the campaign on the Western Front. At a meeting of military representatives of the Entente in Versailles on January 21, 1918, a resolution was adopted, which, in particular, stated: "In 1918, the enemy will not be able to gain such an advantage in the main theaters of military operations that would enable him to finally break the resistance of any of the allied powers." Recognizing that it was unlikely for the Allies to achieve a complete victory in 1918, the conference considered it necessary to prepare for the transition "to a vigorous offensive" (ibid., p. 133).

29 Ibid., p. 124.

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the growing tide of Allied troops from America and other countries. This can only be explained by the desire to create the impression that they are there, in France, fighting an unequal battle with the overwhelming forces of the enemy."30
Lloyd George's idea that it would not be easy for Germany to benefit from a separate peace with Russia was fully shared by Balfour. He predicted that it would be difficult for the Germans to obtain grain in Russia due to the Russians ' determination to use their products for their own needs. "Although Russia is not in a position to continue the war," Balfour noted, " it is not easy to win it. Without the active cooperation of the Russians themselves, German troops (even if Germany had extra troops) cannot penetrate hundreds of kilometers into the depths of this vast country. A simple truce between Russia and Germany for many more months will not help to meet German needs at the expense of supplies from Russia." At a cabinet meeting on January 17, 1918, Balfour again addressed the issue: "It is quite clear that the Bolsheviks create greater difficulties for the Germans than, for example, the Social Revolutionaries. From the point of view that a separate peace can be postponed and the Germans will not be given the opportunity to receive supplies from Russia, the Bolsheviks are more likely to hold such events than any other party in Russia."31
Consequently, there was a strong belief in the leading Allied circles that the Germans would not be able to achieve victory in the West by moving their troops out of Russia. Moreover, they believed that they would have to concentrate significant forces in the East in order to get Russian food and raw materials, and that Soviet Russia, while resisting German aggression, would objectively help the Entente: as a result, Germany would actually have to continue the war on two fronts. Among the Allied leaders, there were many opponents of recreating the Eastern Front as such. Colonel House, for example, considered this idea unrealistic, not allowing the idea "that a Japanese or any other expedition will help create a new combat front in the East against Germany." Chief of the US General Staff P. March expressed the opinion that the intervention in Siberia, regarded as a military operation against Germany, is "neither practical nor feasible", it is a "serious military mistake" 32 . On July 6, 1918, at a meeting in the White House, a decision was made on the participation of the United States in the intervention in Siberia, and at the same time it was stated that the restoration of the Eastern Front in Siberia was "physically impossible".-

30 Ibid., Vol. VI, Moscow, 1937, pp. 31-32.

31 Ibid., vol. V, pp. 91, 96-97. The same conclusion was reached by the British "Committee on Manpower". Considering in December 1917 the balance of forces on the Western Front, which could have developed by the spring of 1918, the committee noted that the conclusion of a separate peace between Russia and Germany would not lead to the transfer of all German divisions from East to West, that the Germans would have to keep many divisions in Russia in order to be able to organize" and raw materials" (ibid., p. 328).

32 "Colonel House's Archive", vol. III, p. 273; V. Williams. Op. ed., p. 191. In the comments to the publication of House's papers, Professor Ch. Seymour remarks: "If Russia was unwilling and unable to fight, it was useless to try to force it to do so with the help of an expeditionary force. Such an attempt would also be very expensive, given that at this time the Allies needed all their forces for the upcoming victory in the West... Plans to concentrate effective forces in Siberia that can restore military balance in Europe would need something like a miracle to succeed." And then: "All the American military leaders, from the first to the last, protested against the over-program Siberian expedition... It was virtually impossible to send a large American army across the Pacific and further into Siberia, along the only communication line that began in Vladivostok. There were no transport vessels to transport the supplies required for such a force. In the spring of 1918, all suitable American troops and every American ship were needed to reinforce France" (ibid., p. 293).

page 27

ski is impossible " 33 . Such statements expressed the desire of the US ruling circles to focus their efforts on waging war on the Western Front, in order to be able to play an active role in post-war European affairs and prevent the Japanese influence from asserting itself in Siberia, which would have been inevitable if a large army had been sent there.

But perhaps the most striking illustration of the true nature of the "anti-German" activities of the Entente in Russia is its attitude to the struggle of the Soviet people against the German invaders after the signing of the peace in Brest. As expected, Germany's policy towards Soviet Russia in March - November 1918 was blatantly predatory. The documents and studies published in recent years by Soviet and foreign historians contain numerous proofs of the intentions of German imperialism to divide our country into a number of puppet states, to turn it into a source of raw materials and a market for its monopolies .34 To achieve this goal, Germany retained huge forces in the East, which suppressed the revolutionary movement, were used for oppression and colonial plunder. The workers of Ukraine, Belarus, and the occupied regions of the RSFSR rose up to fight against them, and under the leadership of the Bolsheviks they created a revolutionary front of struggle against foreign invaders. As a result, Germany actually continued to fight on two fronts.

In such circumstances, it was advisable for the Western powers, who were interested in the speedy defeat of Germany, to provide assistance to Soviet Russia, especially since many Allied representatives in Moscow (R. Robins, J. Sadul, etc.) recommended that their leaders act in this way. The Soviet Government officially declared that it recognized the possibility of acquiring food, military equipment, and military instructors from the Entente Powers to create the Red Army, but on condition that it "maintain its complete independence from all non-socialist governments."35 However, the Western powers did not agree to this, since the anti-Sovietism of their rulers turned out to be stronger than anti-German sentiments in those conditions. Washington has explicitly stated that it does not intend to cooperate-

33 FR, 1918, Russia. Vol. II, p. 262. US Secretary of War N. Baker wrote after the meeting to General T. Bliss, the US representative to the Supreme Military Council of the Entente, that he saw no military sense in an armed intervention in Siberia if it was undertaken in the interests of restoring the Eastern Front, since every soldier and every ship diverted from the Western Front would reduce the total allied power there. According to Baker, the question of intervention was decided not on the basis of its "military value", but on the basis of "other considerations" (E. Palmer. Newton D. Baker. America at War. Vol. II. N. Y. 1931, pp. 318 - 319). Later, in the preface to the book "The American Adventure in Siberia" by V. Graves, Baker noted that the US military leadership considered it necessary to solve the question of winning the war on the Western Front, since "any diversion of forces to other theaters of military operations will only delay the achievement of final success." According to Baker, US President W. Wilson recognized the correct point of view of the War Department, stating at the same time that "for some reasons" he considers it necessary for the United States to participate in the intervention in Siberia. Graves. American adventure in Siberia. 1918-1920. Moscow, 1932, p. XLII).

34 "Documents of foreign policy of the USSR", Vol. I; " Soviet-German relations. From the Brest-Litovsk talks to the signing of the Treaty of Rapallo". Collection of Documents, vol. 1. 1917-1918, Moscow, 1968; A. A. Akhtamzyan. From Brest to Kiel, Moscow, 1963; D. V. Oznobishin. From Brest to Yuryev, Moscow, 1966; G. P. Nikolnikov. Outstanding Victory of Leninist Strategy and Tactics (The Brest Peace: from Conclusion to Rupture), Moscow, 1968; G. Rosenfeld. Sowjetrussland und Deutschland, 1917 - 1922. B. 1960; F. Fischer. Griff nach der Weltmacht. Die Kriegspolitik des kaiserlichen Deutschland, 1914 - 1918. Dusseldorf. 1961; W. Baumgart. Deutsche Ostpolitik. Von Brest-Litowsk bis zum Ende des Ersten Weltkrieges. Wien- Munchen. 1966; O. Fedyshyn. Germany's Drive to the East and the Ukrainian Revolution, 1917 - 1918. New Brunswick. 1971.

35 "Documents of the Foreign Policy of the USSR". Vol. I, pp. 208-209, 261; see also V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 35, pp. 581; vol. 36, pp. 322-326.

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to cooperate with the Soviet Government in the struggle against Germany. The ruling circles of Japan also expressed their unwillingness to have contacts with the Bolsheviks, and even more so to help them. 36 Britain and France did not openly reject the Soviet appeal and even promised assistance on condition that Soviet Russia would immediately enter the war with Germany and fight it by all possible means, as well as "invite" Japanese troops to Siberia. 37 But it was a provocative plan to involve Russia in a war without the slightest intention of helping it .38 Exposing the policy of the Anglo-French bourgeoisie, V. I. Lenin wrote that it " sets a trap for us: go to war now, my friends, and we will benefit greatly from it. The Germans will rob you, "earn money" in the East, give up cheaper in the West, and by the way, the Soviet government will fly... Go to war, dear "allied" Bolsheviks, we will help you! " 39 .

Refusing to support Soviet Russia in its fight against aggression, the Western powers have shown the world that their policy in this matter was determined not so much by a desire faster to smash Germany as a desire to destroy the power of the Soviets. Class considerations were higher than strategic ones. Many modern bourgeois historians admit that Bolshevism was more terrible for the Allies in those conditions than Germany .40 The predominance of anti-Sovietism over anti-German sentiment was also evident in other respects. Among those" loyal elements " in Russia who were sympathetic to the Western powers, there were many supporters of the German orientation, in addition, many pro-Nato Russian counter-revolutionaries believed that in the current situation Germany could quickly overthrow the power of the Bolsheviks ,and tried to enlist the support of German bayonets. 41 Information about this did not cause the manager-

36 Archive of Foreign Policy of Russia, F. Chancellery of the Foreign Ministry Adviser of the Omsk Government in the Far East, 44 (vol. 1), l. 1; F. Mission in Beijing, 1555, l. 127; FR, The Lansing Papers. Vol II, p. 343; FR, 1918, Russia. Vol. II, p. 383.

37 FR, 1918, Russia. Vol. II, p. 111; R. Ullman. Op. cit., p. 161.

38 The true intentions of England regarding assistance to Soviet Russia can be judged from Balfour's statements. "I have telegraphed to our agent," he informed Hause, " to suggest to the Bolshevik government that it should offer its cooperation to the Rumanians and Japanese for this purpose (resistance to German aggression - M. S.). I fear, however, that there is little chance of acceptance of this proposal and, moreover, I do not know how the Japanese and Romanian Governments will react to this call. I have done this in such a way that we can justify ourselves to public opinion if we ever have to make a statement on this whole issue "("Colonel House's Archive", vol. III, p. 279). In a telegram to the State Department, Balfour admitted: "British military advisers unanimously consider it impossible to send any truly effective assistance to Russia "(quoted in the article). by: R. Ullman. Op. cit., p. 161).

39 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 35, pp. 352-353.

40 V. Williams. Edict op., p. 39; W. Williams. American Intervention: Strictly Anti- Bolshevik. "American Intervention in the Russian Civil War". Lexington. 1969, pp. 83 - 97; A. Mayer. Politics and Diplomacy of Peacemaking. Containment and Counter-revolution at Versailles, 1918 - 1919. N. Y. 1967, pp. 294 - 300; R. Jackson. At War with the Bolsheviks. The Allied Intervention into Russia, 1917 - 1920. L. 1972, p. 26.

41 General M. Hoffmann, a member of the German delegation at the Brest - Litovsk talks, noted in his memoirs: "The command of the Eastern Front was daily approached with pleas for help from all circles of the Russian population" (General Hoffmann. The War of Missed Opportunities, Moscow, 1925, pp. 194, 196). Representatives of counter-revolutionary organizations in Moscow came into contact with the German Ambassador V. Mirbach in order to overthrow the Soviet government (see "Documents of the German Ambassador in Moscow Mirbach". Voprosy Istorii, 1971, No. 9). The Allied representatives in Russia, reporting this to their governments, stressed that many of those who opposed the Bolsheviks were ready to support German intervention in order to restore the former social order (see FR, 1918, Russia. Vol. I, pp. 240, 411, 528 - 529, 545 - 546). Pro-German sentiments were present even among the counter-revolutionaries in Siberia. The prime Minister of the" Provisional Siberian Government " P. Vologodsky admitted that some of his ministers "are very friendly to Germany "(J. Thompson. Op. cit., p. 27).

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The Entente leaders received neither indignation nor accusations of treachery, since these people belonged to the same social camp as them.

It is known that at the time when the Allies were spreading rumors about the German danger in the East, their agents Alekseyev and Denikin were negotiating with the German protege Krasnov about joint actions against the Soviet troops. Moreover, through Krasnov, the Germans supplied the Volunteer Army with weapons, knowing that they would be used against the Red Army. Intelligence was exchanged between the headquarters of the Volunteer Army and Krasnov's "government", and the Germans and their other henchman, Hetman Skoropadsky, encouraged the recruitment of Denikin's "a" 42 army . The English newspaper "The Manchester Guardian" wrote in this connection on February 11, 1918: "A cynical observer might say that since the Bolshevik revolution, the allies and their hostile governments have worked in parallel, and that the allies have proved to be the best friends of the Central Powers... Allied diplomacy seems to be based on the belief that it would be a great gain for the Allies if the Bolshevik government were overthrown, regardless of who takes its place."43
But it is even more remarkable that the Allies themselves, in launching the intervention, rendered a huge service to Germany, since they thereby distracted the peoples of Russia from the struggle against the German occupiers .44 This policy was also reflected in the terms of the Compiegne Armistice Agreement concluded on November 11, 1918, between two warring imperialist groups. Article XII of the agreement stipulated that " all German troops currently stationed in the territories that were part of Russia before the war should:... withdraw to the German border... at the moment when the allies find it timely, given the internal situation in these territories." In accordance with article XXV, Germany was not to interfere with the free access of Allied military and merchant ships to the Baltic Sea .45 Consequently, the agreement allowed the Allies to use the German army for anti-Soviet purposes, and the Baltic to expand intervention in Soviet Russia. According to an agreement reached between the German command in the Ukraine and the Allies, German troops were to "maintain order there" until the arrival of Allied troops .46
It is interesting to trace the line of passage of the "revived" Eastern Front planned by the interventionists in their plans. During the transfer process-

42 "Documents of the Foreign Policy of the USSR", vol. 1, p. 417, 425 - 427, 552 - 555; "The struggle for the power of the Soviets on the Don", pp. 376-377; " The collapse of the German occupation in Ukraine (according to the documents of the occupiers)". Moscow, 1936, p. 184; E. Gorodetsky. The Eastern Front in 1918. Voprosy Istorii, 1947, No. 9, p. 82.

43 Cit. by: M. Levidov. On the History of Allied Intervention in Russia Vol. 1, 1925, p. 46.

44 The NKID RSFSR's Appeal to the workers of the Concord countries of April 18, 1919, stated: "Your rulers have explained to you that all this (the landing of troops in Vladivostok, the organization of White Guard uprisings - M. S.) is required in order to transfer to the East the struggle against Germany, which threatened the existence of France in the West with a mighty the pressure of their troops. And yet, nowhere in Russia did the troops of your rulers appear as enemies of Germany, for the sake of fighting against which they were allegedly sent there. On the contrary, they acted as her real allies... The attack of the Allied forces prevented the Russian Revolution from defending itself against the invasion of the German troops, and the attack of the latter diverted its forces from defending its borders against the invasion of the Allied troops. Where the armies of both enemies of the revolution came into contact with each other, they were still there... they acted in a complete alliance, so that it was impossible to distinguish where the allies of Germany end and where the allies of the countries of Consent begin" ("Documents of the Foreign Policy of the USSR", Vol. II. Moscow 1958, p. 136).

45 D. Lloyd George. Military Memoirs, vol. VI, p. 233.

46 "The collapse of the German occupation in Ukraine", pp. 191-192.

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In the course of several conversations on this issue, it was indicated that the allied troops sent to Siberia should reach the Volga, after which the main part of them would be deployed along the Vologda - Samara line, and the rest would be sent to Arkhangelsk and Astrakhan. As a result, the Allies would be able to control the main waterway of European Russia and the railway leading to Turkestan .47 However, these points were very far from the advanced German positions, therefore, their choice was not determined by considerations of war with Germany. Although officially such intentions were justified by the need to prevent Germany from seizing Siberian wheat, Turkestan cotton, and the mountain wealth of the Urals, their real meaning was to deprive the Soviet Republic of its last sources of food and industrial products, since other granaries and industrial areas were at that time in the hands of either the German occupiers or the White Guards. Lenin unmistakably divined the essence of these plans, pointing out that "the plan of the imperialist predators is to cut off the grain areas from Russia."48
Throughout the preparations for the intervention in Siberia, it was conceived primarily as a counter-revolutionary action. At the inter-Allied conference in Paris at the end of November 1917, General Foch, who advocated the occupation of the Trans-Siberian Railway, motivated such a step by the fact that control over it "will allow supplying anti-Bolshevik groups in Southern Russia." At the same time, US Secretary of State Lansing stated that "any anti-Bolshevik movement in Russia should be supported, even if there is little chance of its success", and that "the only core for creating a stable government capable of crushing the Bolsheviks is the Kaledin group". Anti-Soviet motives also determined the course of the Anglo-French negotiations at the end of December 1917. Opening them, British Minister of War A. Milner stated that the aim of the Allies was to discuss the situation in Russia and the possibility of providing assistance to various provisional governments intending to fight against the Bolsheviks. Reporting on the results of the talks in Washington, the US Ambassador to France, U. Sharpe noted that the Allies ' support for the movement in southern Russia was driven more by "questions of Russia's internal situation than by a desire to continue the war against Germany." 49 In the following weeks and months, this rate did not change. The Japanese ruling circles and the military, when developing plans for intervention, proceeded from the fact that the Bolsheviks should be considered as enemies, that the goal of intervention was to overthrow the Soviet government. The French government stated in a series of official documents that the intervention was intended to " protect Siberia from the Bolshevik contagion." When discussing the number of troops needed for an intervention in Siberia, it was suggested that it should be decided depending on the resistance that the Bolsheviks "would show." 50
The question arises, what goals did the ruling circles of the Entente countries pursue when they made statements about the need to restore the Eastern Front in Siberia? The meaning of this step was that it was impossible to openly oppose the Soviet country, since under the influence of the Great October Socialist Revolution, a wave of revolutionary movement was rising in the West. Resolute strem-

47 J. Swettenham. Op. cit., pp. 110 - 112; R. Ullman. Op. cit., p. 211.

48 V. I. Lenin. PSS. T. 37, p. 11.

49 Ch. Hosoya. Origin of the Siberian Intervention. "The Annals of the Hitotsubashi Academy", Vol. IX, N 1. Tokyo, 1958, p. 93; FR, The Lancing Papers. Vol. II, pp. 343, 345; FR, 1918, Russia. Vol. I, pp. 597 - 598; L. Fischer. Op. cit., p. 14.

50 FR, 1918, Russia. Vol. II, pp. 20 - 21, 33 - 34, 66 - 67; J. Morley. Op. cit., pp. 52, 64.

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The determination of the Russian workers and peasants to conclude peace and get out of the hated war made a strong impression on the working people of capitalist countries, whose revolutionary sentiments, according to Lloyd George, were aggravated by a sincere aversion to any new war .51 An intervention with clearly counter-revolutionary aims would run counter to the Wilsonian propaganda doctrine of "the right of every nation to control its own destiny and affairs" and could lead to serious internal upheavals.

The openly anti-Soviet nature of the Allied invasion of Soviet Russia was also dangerous for the Entente ruling circles, because the Bolsheviks could be defended by millions of people, who, according to House, saw in them the first leaders in history who made sincere efforts to satisfy their desire for peace and their need for land .52 Nor could the growth of patriotic feelings that might have been caused by the invasion of foreigners be underestimated. In this case, the imperialists believed, " patriotism... I would have come to the aid of Bolshevism. " 53 With all this in mind, the French right-wing socialist A. Thomas advised: "Intervention should be carried out in such a way that no one can suspect the allies of counter-revolutionary and anti-democratic intentions." 54
The version about the reconstruction of the Eastern Front was also needed in order to quickly indoctrinate the soldiers of the Czechoslovak corps, whom the Entente imperialists hoped to use for anti-Soviet purposes. To do this, it was necessary to convince the legionnaires that they would act in Russia as an anti-German force, and not as the core of the counter-revolution. But how was it possible to convince the working people of Western countries, the population of Russia, and the Czechoslovak legionnaires that the intervention was not a counter-revolutionary action? How could military actions against the Soviet troops be passed off as a renewed war with Germany? To help make ends meet were stories made up and used by bourgeois propaganda about the Bolsheviks as "German agents", about the broad German invasion of Siberia, which was allegedly carried out with the help of armed German prisoners of war and threatened Allied interests in East Asia. Consequently, the task of the organizers of the intervention was to compromise the Bolsheviks by presenting them to the whole world as collaborators of Germany.

Foreign propaganda began to inflate the version about "German agents" immediately after the victory of the October armed Uprising. Rumors circulated in the Western press that the insurgents ' actions were allegedly directed by disguised officers of the German General Staff. The London Morning Post, for example, as early as October 27, 1917, published an article entitled "The Revolution is made in Germany, " in which it tried to prove the" German origin " of the October Revolution .55 The French reactionary newspaper Le Matin also presented Lenin and the Bolsheviks as agents of German imperialism. Not far from it was the newspaper "L'hurnanite", which at that time expressed the opinion of the right-wing socialists. It published several interviews with the secretary of the Second International, Karl Huysmans, who claimed that the Soviet Government was allegedly acting in concert with the Central Powers, that it was actually conniving with Germany in transferring its troops to the West. On January 4, an appeal by radicals and radical was published in L'Humanite-

51 D. Lloyd George. The Truth about Peace Treaties, vol. 1, pp. 66, 227.

52 "Colonel House's Archive", vol. III, p. 273.

53 D. Lloyd George. The Truth about Peace Treaties, vol. I, p. 278.

54 Cit. by: J. Duclos. October 17 and France, Moscow, 1967, p. 159.

55 V. S. Vasyukov. Op. ed., p. 216.

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socialists to the Russian Republicans, which stated: "The highest duty of the Russian Republicans is to prevent the nation from offering its hands to the handcuffs prepared by the German government." 56 At the beginning of 1918, the notorious documents of E. Sisson appeared (initially in the French press), which contained fictions that the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, were allegedly in the paid service of the kaiser, and implied that the struggle against them would be identical with the war against Germany."

Leading figures of the Entente countries and the United States in official statements began to refer to the Bolsheviks as "German agents". Instructions sent to officials recommended covering up anti-Soviet policies with arguments about the need to support in Russia those elements that remained "loyal to the duty of the union" 58 . In this situation, many representatives of the Entente in Russia, trying to meet the demand that had arisen, began to supply their governments with "facts" to prove that the Soviet government was an "obedient tool" of Germany .59 "The entire innumerable army of corrupt scribblers in the capitalist magazine world, "the NKID RSFSR said in its Appeal to the working people of the Countries of Concord of April 19, 1919," was set in motion to blacken, pour slops over, and shower the most absurd slanderous accusations on the people's revolution in Russia, which threatened every day to attract the masses of the whole world more and more by the power of its example. world"60 . The initiators and masterminds of the anti-Soviet campaign themselves did not believe their own fictions61, but they tirelessly claimed the "authenticity of the documents", because in this way they could justify interference in Russia's affairs .62
56 Cit. by: J. Duclos. Op. ed., pp. 124, 145.

57 As early as the events of July 1917, the Russian and Allied reaction produced fakes about "German spies" in order to justify defeat at the front and collapse in the rear. Lenin at the same time exposed this lie, its origin and purpose (see V. I. Lenin. PSS. vol. 32, p. 4). 410 - 418, 422, 424 - 427; vol. 34, pp. 6-9, 21-32).

58 V. Williams. Op. ed., pp. 174, 175; V. A. Ryzhikov. As evidenced by the documents of the Main State Archives of England. Voprosy Istorii, 1968, No. 12, p. 4. 73; "Japanese Documents on the Siberian Intervention", pp. 36, 37, 46; J. Morley. Op. cit., pp. 64, 214 - 215.

59 See, for example, FR, 1918. Russia. Vol. I, pp. 371 - 378, 538, 539; Vol. II, p. 318.In 1918-1920, collections of "documents" were published in the United States and England, containing "irrefutable evidence" of the existence of a secret conspiracy between the Bolshevik leaders and the German General Staff ("The German - Bolshevik Conspiracy". War Information Series, N 20, Oct., 1918. Issued by Committee on Public Information; "Le bolchevisme en Russie". Livre blanc anglais, avril 1919; "Bolshevist Movement in Russia". Washington. 1920; " The October Revolution before the court of American Senators. Official report of the "Overmanav Commission of the Senate", Moscow-L. 1927). The myth of "German agents" and the" connections " of the Soviet government with the German General Staff became widespread in the following decades. The bourgeois falsifiers of history do not mind that their stories have been refuted by Soviet and foreign Marxist historians (see, for example, A. Reisberg. Lenin im Jahre 1917. c. 1967) and do not enjoy the confidence of many bourgeois authors (see F. Fischer. Op. cit., p. 472). On the eve of the jubilee years of 1957 and 1967, fables about "German gold" were used again and again (see Y. Igritsky. October Jubilee and bourgeois historiography. "History of the USSR", 1968, N 3).

60 "Documents of the Foreign Policy of the USSR", vol. II, p. 137.

61 President Wilson of the United States, for example, admitted on December 6, 1917, that the vast mass of information that came to him characterized the Bolsheviks as radical revolutionaries, and not as German agents. The supplier of "documents" Sisson in a telegram to J. P. Morgan. Creel, the head of the U.S. Public Information Committee, essentially expressed the same opinion. "They are rabid internationalists," he wrote, " who not only at first, but even until recently, sought to gain the support of the Germans for their own revolutionary purposes. Germany believed that it would be able to lead the storm, but this was not the intention of the storm" (cit. by: V. Williams. Op. ed., p. 193).

62 Ibid., pp. 176, 177-178; C. E. Fike. The Influence of the Creel Committee and

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In close connection with the stories about "German agents" was the fiction about the presence in Siberia of armed German prisoners of war, who allegedly were engaged in the implementation of Germany's aggressive plans in East Asia. Thus, as early as early December 1917, London proposed to launch an intervention under the pretext of protecting warehouses with allied military materials in Vladivostok, claiming that the Bolsheviks, on orders from Berlin, were using them to " arm "prisoners and" sell " them to Germany. The absurdity of such statements was noted even by the White Guard and allied representatives, who considered that the contents of these warehouses could hardly be used by the Bolsheviks in this way due to the complete breakdown of Siberian transport. American Admiral O. Knight, while in Vladivostok, reported to Washington on March 18, 1918, that there was absolutely no danger of the warehouses falling into German hands, that he saw no signs confirming the existence of ties between the Germans and the Bolsheviks. "It is safe to say," he wrote, "that there is no real need for armed intervention in Siberia, unless this intervention is aimed at restoring order" (i.e., at overthrowing the power of the Soviets - M. S.) .63
Even more fantastic was the "information" spread by Japanese propaganda that the Germans allegedly deliver their submarines from the Baltic to Vladivostok, transported in disassembled form along the Trans-Siberian Railway, in order to use them for combat operations in the Sea of Japan. Military and technical experts of the allied powers immediately rejected these fables, but those who were interested in fully inflating rumors about the growing German threat in Siberia continued to spread them .64
the American Red Cross on Russian-American Relations, 1917 - 1919. "The Journal of Modern History", Vol. XXXI, 1970, No. 2. Sisson's "Documents" were published in many American newspapers on September 15, 1918, with Wilson's approval. The pro-intervention press presented them as genuine. However, some newspapers have criticized Dokumenty with devastating force. The Evening Post, for example, pointed out inconsistencies in the dates that lead the reader to conclude that either the German General Staff was endowed with extraordinary foresight, since it constantly spoke in the" documents "about events that had not yet occurred at the time of their writing, or these "documents" were dated in the Russian style, even those addressed to German representatives in Switzerland and Sweden. Such contradictions, The Evening Post noted, suggest that the "documents" were fabricated in Russia. The US government press expressed outrage at such doubts. Creel accused The Evening Post of promoting " America's enemies." To convince public opinion in the United States of the authenticity of the "documents", Creel sent them for examination to the National Committee of Historical Research. However, the commission of experts was specially selected, including, for example, S. Harper, an ardent apologist of government policy in the "Russian question". It is not surprising, therefore, that in just one week the commission has "established" that most of the documents are "genuine", that there are no such documents that would look fake. Many objectively minded representatives of the American public rejected the commission's hasty conclusions, and The Nation newspaper directly called them fraud. However, while recognizing most of Sisson's "documents" as authentic, the commission refused to confirm the correctness of Sisson and Creel's conclusions that the Bolsheviks were "German agents." U.S. government officials pointed out to the experts that this part of their report "does not contribute to the emotional uplift so necessary to mobilize all our resources," and they did not dare to openly refute the conclusions of Sisson and Creel. The experts later admitted that they had been pressured by the authorities to confirm their findings, and that their silence had made a significant contribution to inciting anti-Soviet psychosis in America (see Ch. Lash. The American Liberals and the Russian Revolution. N. Y. -L. 1962, pp. 113 - 115; ejusd. The New Radicalism in America, 1889 - 1963. N. Y. 1965, pp. 178 - 179).

63 Archive of Foreign Policy of Russia, f. Embassy in Washington, D. 516, l. 7; Ch. Hosoya. Op. cit, p. 95; B. Unterberger. America's Siberian Expedition, 1918 - 1920. Durham. 1956, p. 38.

54 R. Ullman. Op. cit., p. 38.

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The most persistent rumors were about the arming of German prisoners of war in Siberia, which was allegedly carried out by the Soviet authorities on instructions from Berlin. Throughout January and the first half of April 1918, many denials of such rumors were received from Allied representatives in Siberia and the Far East. The US military Attache in Beijing, Major Wu. Drysdale, who traveled through a large part of Siberia in March 1918, noted: "Not a single armed prisoner was seen, and it is unlikely that any of them were armed." He pointed out that the Soviets did not release prisoners of war from the camps in which they were held, and that rumors about the Germans organizing a front in Siberia were only a form of propaganda. Drysdale saw armed prisoners only in one place, in the Chita region, but these men, as the Austrian prisoner explained to him, "fought as workers for the workers' cause, against the bourgeoisie, "and" helped their brothers, the working people of Russia, against Semyonov and the bourgeoisie. " 65 In March 1918, at the suggestion of the Soviet government, an employee of the British Embassy, Captain W. Hicks, and a representative of the American Red Cross Commission, Captain W. Webster, went to Siberia to check on the spot the authenticity of rumors about the armament of prisoners. After visiting major cities, meeting with many foreign representatives, the Soviet authorities, and talking to prisoners of war, they not only refuted these rumors, but also revealed the sources of their dissemination .66
However, the ruling circles of the Entente countries and the United States turned a deaf ear to this truthful information, because it confused all their cards. On the other hand, they" trusted " stories about armed prisoners, because, as the American historian R. Maddox correctly notes, they could be used to portray the intervention in Siberia as a speech against Germany. 67 ""We must," Lansing wrote to Wilson on March 24, 1918, " consider the problem on the assumption that the reports (about the capture of Siberian cities by prisoners) are correct... The occupation of important points in Siberia by the German armed forces and the helpless position of the Russians, unable to resist the Germans, completely change the whole situation. " 68 The British War Office, which regularly included rumors about the arming of prisoners in its weekly intelligence reports, noted: "While many of them (prisoners. - M. S.) may be joining the Bolsheviks, the truth is that this mass recruitment may be part of the enemy's plans, and we must not lose sight of it"69 .

With particular zeal, the "anti-German" nature of the Allied actions was emphasized by their propaganda after the landing of foreign troops in Vladivostok in August 1918. During the battles on the Ussuri front-

65 V. Williams. Op. ed., p. 186; V. Graves. Op. ed., p. 21.

66 In their report, Webster and Hicks noted that the consular corps in Irkutsk, which had received a particularly large number of reports about the arming of prisoners, was completely anti-Soviet, and that the consuls did not want to have any contact with the Soviets, preferring to receive information from people hostile to the Bolshevik government and eager to overthrow it ("Russian-American Relations. March 1917- March 1920". Documents and Papers. N. Y. 1920, pp. 177 - 184).

67 R. Maddox Woodrow Wilson, the Russian Embassy and Siberian Intervention. "Pacific Historical Review", Vol. 36, 1967, N 4, p. 442.

68 FR, The Lansing Papers. Vol. II, p. 357.

69 R. Ullman. Op. cit., p. 157. The Japanese were particularly active in spreading stories about prisoners of war. The Khotsi newspaper, for example, quoted "a competent person who had just returned from Siberia" as saying that Germany had allegedly spent considerable sums to establish its influence there, and that the secret societies and circles created by the Germans were the main vehicles of such influence. A special correspondent for Osaka-Mainichi reported from Transbaikalia that the Red troops fighting against Semyonov were led by a German general, and that the Bolshevik headquarters were almost entirely composed of German officers (Golos Primorye, 23.VI and 7. VII. 1918).

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those and near Khabarovsk, allied representatives reported that German troops were allegedly fighting together with the Red detachments, and that the latter had even penetrated 10 to 20 miles deep into Chinese territory. In Japan, splint paintings were released depicting the Japanese military actions in Siberia against the "Germans" (for example, the capture of Khabarovsk, where only three or four Red Army soldiers are visible in a huge crowd of" Germans "who surrendered on the Amur River, or the battle on the Ussuri River, during which "Germans" who crossed the river on a pontoon bridge, dying under Japanese fire)70 . The desire of the bourgeois governments and the press to spread distorted information about the situation in Soviet Russia, about Soviet-German relations, and their unlimited possibilities to do so contributed to the fact that a significant part of the population of the allied countries believed that Germany was really establishing its rule over Russia and not only intensifying its expansion in East Asia, but even threatening (through Chukotka and Alaska) North America. "The deception of the masses of the people," Lenin emphasized, "has been developed artistically in relation to the" affairs "of foreign policy, and our revolution has suffered three times over from this deception." 71 The average man was overwhelmed by a flood of "information" that convinced him of the need to send allied troops to Russia to expel the German invaders and their "servants" - the Bolsheviks. He was assured that the intervention had the sole purpose of "saving" the Russian people from the German yoke, and that it could in no way be compared to the intervention of European royalists in the French Revolution of the late eighteenth century .72 "Just now," Lenin noted, "the Anglo-French and American bourgeois press is spreading millions and millions of copies of lies and slander about Russia, hypocritically justifying its predatory campaign against it by trying to 'protect' Russia from the Germans! " 73 Anti-German slogans, according to the American historian Williams, were for the interventionists "the basis of an ingenious strategy to discuss actions against the Bolsheviks in Aesopian language." 74 They were widely used by the leadership of the Czechoslovak corps, who sought to convince the soldiers that their counter-revolutionary actions were creating a new anti-German front in Siberia .75 Speaker

70 FR, 1918, Russia. Vol. II, pp. 327, 329; "Bulletin of Manchuria", 20. X. 1918.

71 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 32, p. 335.

72 See, for example, the speeches of members of the English Parliament and the US Congress on this issue: "The Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons "(Official Report). Vol. 104. L. 1918, cols. 517 - 518, 549 - 550; vol. 107. L. 1918, cols. 236 - 237, 242, 307 - 308, 751 - 754, 767 - 771; "Congressional Record" (United States. Congress). Vol. 56. Washington. 1918, pp. 7557, 7997 - 8001, 8064 - 8067, 8580, 11 177.

73 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 37, p. 50.

74 V. Williams. Op. ed., p. 173.

75 June 21, 1918 the representative of the French military mission, Major A. Guinet, officially informed the office of the Czechoslovak National Council in Russia of the desire of the Allies to form a new anti-German front along the Volga, so that Czechoslovak troops would become the vanguard of the Allied forces, which would immediately be sent there. Guineux then published this report in a Czechoslovak newspaper, with the addition that the front being restored would be directed "exclusively against the Germans" and that France would fight in its first ranks. Dragomiretsky. Czechoslovaks in Russia. 1914-1920 Paris - Prague. 1928, pp. 59-60). On August 1, in an address to the soldiers of the corps, T. Masaryk stated that "under the influence of circumstances" they remain in Russia to fight together with the allies. "Our enemies," he wrote, "are the Austrians, Hungarians, and Germans, and among the Russians are those individuals, factions, or parties who, contrary to the interests of Russia, go together with our enemies against our friends and us" (cit. by: A. Kh. Klevansky. Czechoslovak Internationalists and the "sold corps" (Moscow, 1965, pp. 227-228). The allied leaders strongly supported this game. Thus, Lloyd George in a telegram to E. Benes dated September 11, 1918. wrote: "We send you our heartfelt congratulations on the brilliant success achieved by the Czechoslovak troops over the German and Austrian armies in Siberia "(cit. by: T. Masaryk. The world Revolution. Memoirs. T. P. Prague. 1927, p. 79),

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With the support of the Balochs, the Russian counter-revolution hastened to declare its non-recognition of the Brest Peace and its "desire" to continue the war against Germany. The various counter-revolutionary governments that appeared in Siberia during the summer of 1918 invariably confirmed their "loyalty" to the Allied duty and their intention to "fight" the Germans. In fact, neither the interventionists nor the White Guards went any further than anti-German declarations. Having temporarily overthrown the Soviet government in Siberia, creating the so-called Eastern Front on the Volga, they also directed subsequent attacks not against the Germans, but against the socialist revolution. Until the end of the first world war the imperialists of the Entente, according to Lenin, "pointed out their duty, that they go to Russia because Russia gave himself to capture Germany, that Russia is actually a German agent that there, in Russia, the people standing at the head of the government, in their view, German agents"76 .

All this was said and done at a time when the workers of the western and southwestern regions of Russia occupied by the Germans were waging a patriotic war against the invaders. Workers 'and peasants' uprisings and a broad partisan movement forced the German command to keep hundreds of thousands of its soldiers in the East, that is, to wage a war on two fronts .77 This ultimately played a huge role not only in thwarting his plans in the East, but also in complete defeat in the West. It is also necessary to take into account the revolutionizing influence of the Great October Revolution on the German occupation forces, which were turning from a bulwark of German imperialism into a source of deadly danger for the Kaiser's regime. This process, in turn, further accelerated the defeat of Germany on all fronts .78
The Eastern Front in 1918 practically did not cease to exist - the Soviet people, defending the gains of the proletarian revolution, fought against German aggression. As for those who invaded Russia in the East, ranting about the "treason" of the Soviet government "allied duty", their desire to "revive" the anti-German front, without which supposedly impossible was the victory over Germany, they performed together with German imperialism in the name common to all of the world bourgeoisie of the counter-revolutionary purposes. The idea of "recreating" the Eastern Front served primarily as a cover for the counter-revolutionary and imperialist nature of the policy of the Western Powers in the "Russian question". At the same time, it was a vicious propaganda diversion designed to discredit the ideas of the Great October Revolution and the leaders of Soviet Russia, and to weaken their impact on Western countries.

76 V. I. Leni n. PSS. Vol. 37, p. 165. .

77 For more information, see "From the History of the Civil War in the USSR". Collection of documents and materials, vol. 1, Moscow, 1961, pp. 599-730; E. Gorodetsky. Op. ed., pp. 58-82; A. L. Narochnitsky. Soviet Russia and the Western powers during the Armistice of Compiegne. "New and recent History", 1969, N 2, pp. 33-38.

78 This fact has been pointed out by many opponents of intervention in Western countries. Thus, the French socialist MP Marguin, speaking in the Chamber on August 28, 1919, said: "Germany was not defeated. The revolution brought her to her knees. And who brought the revolution to Germany? Who, then, undermined Prussian militarism and its military machine? The Bolsheviks! All honest people in France, who care about peace, should therefore not oppose the great Russian socialists, but welcome them, because it was they who gave us our freedom. Traitors? Sold to Germany? This is the calumny with which our bourgeoisie, stupefied by fright, repaid them. First of all, it should be said that Clemenceau always concealed from us the fact of Lenin's appeal to the Allies to resist German imperialism. But the Allies, with their Nulans, Pichon, and Tigre, rejected the call. So who is the traitor? Humanity was betrayed by those who, fearing the victory of socialism throughout Europe, chose to continue the war instead of agreeing with the Bolsheviks" (cit. by: J. Duclos. Op. ed., p. 289).

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