Novosibirsk. Science. 1983. 332 p.
In the extensive historiography of the civil war and imperialist intervention in Soviet Russia, a significant place is occupied by works on the American-Japanese expansion in the Soviet Far East1 . However, a generalizing study of the policy of the main participants in this intervention (not only the United States and Japan, but also England, France, China and other countries) in relation to Siberia (and not only the Far East) in all the most important areas (economic, political and ideological) has not been conducted until recently. The monograph of the Vice-rector for Scientific work of the Khabarovsk Pedagogical Institute, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor M. I. Svetachev, largely fills this gap.
Based on a wide body of sources (archives, Soviet and foreign publications, the press, etc.), the author significantly enriched the range of information about the anti-Soviet and expansionist activities of the United States and Japan. At the same time, relying on Lenin's statements about the active participation of Britain and France in all significant anti - Soviet actions in various parts of Russia, the author showed in more detail than his predecessors the counter-revolutionary and aggressive actions of these powers. Broad support for the White Guard organizations, vigorous intervention in their disputes, orchestrating the speech of the Belochs, attempts to lead all anti-Bolshevik forces, organizing an economic blockade, developing plans for the use of the Japanese army, diplomatic influence on the US government in order to further intensify its military operations, efforts to create a "solid" bourgeois-landowner power under its auspices-by Following these steps, the ruling circles of London and Paris, as shown in the monograph, intended to wage a struggle against the proletarian state wherever possible.
At the same time, M. I. Svetachev emphasizes that unlike Britain and France, which emphasized armed methods of struggle and the immediate use of Japanese troops, the US government simultaneously developed and implemented tactics for using the forces of the Russian counterrevolution, financially supported by the Entente, and relying on the well-to-do strata of the Siberian peasantry and the party that reflected its interests the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the application of outwardly more "liberal" methods of liquidating the conquests of the Great October Revolution.
Describing the role of Japan, the author writes that, having put forward slogans of struggle against the spread of Bolshevism to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, it did not agree with the Anglo-French projects of using Japanese troops in Western Siberia and European Russia. The ruling circles of Japan counted on territorial seizures and the acquisition of economic and other advantages in Eastern Siberia and followed the methods tested in China, which included supporting anti-Soviet military leaders (Cossack atamans), countering the creation of a central government in the region, spreading their agents everywhere and economic penetration in combination with direct occupation and a regime of terror against the workers of Siberia and the Far East.
The monograph presents numerous facts that show that the ruling military-feudal clique of China was a zealous accomplice of the Entente and US imperialists in their counter-revolutionary actions. The Peking government, for example, proclaimed an economic blockade of Soviet Russia, used its own troops to fight against it, placed the territory and railways of Manchuria at the disposal of interventionists and White Guards, spread a flood of lies about the Russian revolution, etc.
Although the author focuses mainly on the counter-revolutionary actions of imperialism in Siberia, he characterizes them as an integral part of the intervention against the Soviet Republic as a whole, convincingly showing that during the struggle in Siberia, fate was repeatedly at stake
1 See, for example: Shurygin A. P. The Communist Party-organizer of the defeat of Foreign military intervention and Internal Counterrevolution in the Soviet Far East (1918-1922), Moscow, 1957; Grigortsevich S. American and Japanese intervention in the Soviet Far East and its Defeat, Moscow, 1957; Popova E. I. US Policy in the Far East (1918-1922). M 1968; Krushanov A. I Grazhdanskaya voina v Sibiri i na Dalnem Vostoke [Civil War in Siberia and the Far East]. 1918-1920. Book 1. Vladivostok. 1972; and others.
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the first workers 'and peasants' state in the world, that the intervention in this region and its failure had a major impact on the political situation in East Asia and the Pacific.
The advantage of the book is that it exposes the versions created by the propaganda of capitalist countries and bourgeois historiography regarding the causes and goals of intervention. As you know, the official propaganda of the Western powers, as well as the majority of bourgeois historians, put forward among the many motives of the intervention the desire of the Entente countries and the United States to "protect democracy" in Russia, "help" the Russian people in organizing "self-government" , etc.? The answer to this question, M. I. Svetachev rightly points out, is very relevant not only because modern imperialism demagogically uses the slogan of defending "democracy" and "human rights" in its counter-revolutionary policy, but also because Siberia, which at the end of 1917, according to Lenin, was one of the least Bolshevik regions 2, refused to accept the "democracy" that Kolchak and his foreign patrons carried with them. Here, too, history has refuted the slander about the" undemocratic nature "of October, the myth of "Soviet totalitarianism", and so on .3 The vast majority of the population of the region, convinced by experience that the slogans of" narodopravstvo "and" freedom of trade " put forward by the interventionists and White Guards lead to the bloody dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and landlords, to poverty and economic ruin, refused to support this policy and turned to the side of the Soviet government, which predetermined the outcome of the civil war and intervention in this area. the region.
The author comprehensively reveals the actions of the interventionists in implementing the program of "planting democracy". The result of their efforts was the Kolchak dictatorship, which they tried to put into parliamentary forms. All this is widely covered in the book, but it should also be said that the "supreme ruler" himself sometimes, especially on the threshold of his political bankruptcy, was not averse to donning the toga of a "democrat". The desire to stifle the protest of the peasantry and gain the support of its propertied section led Kolchak in the late summer of 1919, in an appeal to the soldiers and peasants, to promise to "give all the land to the working people" and to begin drafting agrarian laws that were basically Cadet, but with some elements of Socialist-Revolutionary slogans .4 It was not by chance that at the same time Kolchak attempted a kind of galvanization of the estate peasant organization-the All-Russian Peasant Union .5
Much more fully than other authors, M. I. Svetachev examines the economic expansion of foreign monopolies in Siberia and the Far East, which was carried out under the banner of "helping" the Russian people to restore transport, reorganize finances, supply goods, and so on. The actual material of the book convinces that the policy of "helping" advertised by bourgeois propaganda did not even lead to the creation of a new state. to a minimal improvement in the economic situation in the eastern regions of Russia, because in order to destroy the Soviet Republic, the interventionists directed all their forces and resources to organizing an armed struggle against it. In addition, using the dependence of the White Guards on them, the interventionists seized markets and sources of raw materials, predatory plundered the national wealth of Russia. The material damage caused by the intervention of Siberia, notes M. I. Svetachev, amounted to about 4 billion rubles (p. 292). However, this does not include losses incurred by the national economy of the Trans-Baikal Territory and the Far East, which were estimated at more than 600 million rubles. [6 ]
The author raises a question about the methods of introducing foreign monopolies into the economy of the eastern regions, which sought to capture key positions in it. But, like a number of other issues raised in the monograph, it needs further special study.
A large part of the research is devoted to the coverage of Lenin's world politics in the following areas:
2 See Lenin V. I. PSS. Vol. 40, p. 16.
3 For more information, see: Reichberg G. E., Shurygin A. P. Bourgeois historiography of October and the Civil War in Siberia. Novosibirsk. 1981.
4 See Zhurov Yu. V. The Siberian peasantry during the Civil War (1918-1920). Author's abstract. doct. diss. Tomsk. 1975, pp. 43-46.
5 See Non-Proletarian Parties of Russia in 1917 and during the Civil War, Moscow, 1980, pp. 192-193.
6 See Flerov V. S. The Far East in the period of restoration of the national economy. Vol. 1. Tomsk. 1973, p. 105.
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In the Far East. The struggle for peace and good-neighborly relations with the United States, Japan, China, and other states, waged by the Soviet Government, was of no small importance for the development in the capitalist countries of the movement for ending intervention and normalizing relations with the RSFSR. The book also reveals the role of the "red buffer" - the Far Eastern Republic-in the struggle to overcome the intervention and civil war on the eastern outskirts of the country. However, the author admits inaccuracy, claiming that the creation of the buffer began in the Baikal region (p. 215). At first, the construction of buffer statehood was carried out in parallel in two districts of the territory that was later united as part of the Far Eastern Federal District - western (Baikal Region) and eastern (Primorye). The author's statement that communists played a leading role in the Verkhneudinsk zemstvo government of the Baikal region is also inaccurate. As is well known, it was a coalition government of Communists, Social Revolutionaries, and Mensheviks under the chairmanship of Menshevik I. V. Lenin. Pentecostalism.
These, as well as some other errors, are of a particular nature and do not change the overall high assessment of the monograph. When covering the key issues of the topic, the author has a creative approach. He made important clarifications in the solution of such problems as the organization of intervention, its driving forces and participants, subjected the concepts of bourgeois historiography to a thorough analysis, and revealed their anti-scientific nature. M. I. Svetachev's book is a significant step towards creating a series of generalizing studies on the history of imperialist intervention in different regions of Soviet Russia.
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