America's Invasion Of The Soviet Union

Imagine an America ruled by an enfeebled President controlled and manipulated by his advisors and by his wife. During the President's illness, he is persuaded to sign papers authorizing intervention by the United States and its allies to stabilize the situation in a foreign country where a Communist revolution threatens American interests. American troops, including draftees, are sent in. Strict military censorship prevents publication of information about the war. During the President's incapacity, the Attorney General orders the arrest of hundreds of union leaders and anti-war activists. Protest rallies by thousands of people are broken up by gangs of soldiers and police.

Unfortunately, this is not the plot for another trashy mini-series. The United States actually did invade and occupy Russia during the end of World War I.

An understanding of America's invasion and occupation of the Soviet Union in 1918-1919 is important for two reasons. First, the war was the prototype for America's later interventionist wars, from Korea to Viet Nam to El Salvador and Angola. Second, the fact that U.S. troops invaded and occupied their country in the twentieth century has much to do with Soviet fears of U.S. militarism and aggression.

U.S. policy during the period between the Czar's demise and the end of World War I was directed by three conflicting desires: to aid the evacuation of Czech Nationalist forces which were to be extracted from the Urals via Vladivostok 4500 miles away; to restrain Japanese territorial designs on Siberia and China; and to combat Communism.

Allied troops in Russia had at first allied themselves with the workers' delegations in Russia after the revolution broke out. As late as March 20, 1918, The New York Times reported that "Allies cooperated with Russian Reds" in a headline. The article reported how British and French officers were helping to defend Russia's White Sea coast with the cooperation of the Council of Workman's and Soldier's Delegates.

By April 8, however, the Times reported that Lenin was threatening war against Japan because of the landing of Japanese troops there.

On April 13, a New York Times headline read: "NO WORD OF OUR MARINES" and beneath it, "News of Landing at Vladivostok Lacks Official Confirmation."

The copy read: "Secretaries Lansing and Daniels both stated positively late this afternoon that no word of the reported landing of American Marines had been officially received. The marines were

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reported in press dispatches lo have landed on April 5.

"The Navy Department has heard from Admiral Knight, commanding the Asiatic Fleet, in dispatches dated later than April 5, and these contained no suggestion of the landing of American Marines or Sailors at Vladivostok. It was added that Admiral Knight could not land American Marines there except to protect life and property. It was not denied that instructions had been sent to the fleet commander on the subject, but their nature was not disclosed."

By June 8, U.S. and British troops in Northern Russia were under fire from Communist forces. On August 16, 1918, the first officially acknowledged American troops landed in Vladivostok: the 53 officers and 1537 men of the 27th Infantry. On September 1, the 31st Infantry landed with 46 officers and 1375 men.

Secret agreements between Japan and the United States limited the size of each country's forces to 10,000 in Asian Russia, but by October 18, General Graves, the Commander of the U.S. forces, had estimated that the Japanese had built up to at least 60,000 troops.

The official policy given to Graves authorized only helping the Czechs in moving westward and aiding Russian "self government and self defense."

"Whether from Vladivostok or from Murmansk and Archangel, the only legitimate object for which American or Allied troops can be employed," the State Department's policy said, "is to guard military stores and to render such aid as may be acceptable to the Russians in the organization of their own self defense."

This policy left considerable room for interpretation, and it received different application in different areas. General Graves, the American commander in the East, detested the barbarities of the Allied agent Semeonoff and the Omsk dictatorship of General Kolchak, "Supreme Ruler of all the Russias."

In his book, "America's Siberian Adventure", published in 1941, Major General Graves stated that, contrary to the reports of countless brutal murders by the Communists, almost all the atrocities were committed by the forces with which the U.S. had allied itself: "Semenoff and Kalmikoff soldiers, under the protection of Japanese troops, were roaming the countryside like wild animals, killing and robbing the people, and these murders could have been stopped any day the Japanese wished. If questions were asked about these brutal murders, the reply was that the people murdered were Bolsheviks and this explanation, apparently, satisfied the world.

"There were horrible murders committed, but they were not committed by the Bolsheviks as the world believes. I am well on the side of safety when I say that anti-Bolsheviks killed one hundred people in Western Siberia, to every one killed by the Bolsheviks," wrote Graves. Although Americans began fighting in Russia in the summer of 1918, military censorship kept the news from being generally known until October. On October 1. 1918, The New York Times published a tiny article entitled "Americans fighting now in Siberia." The news item said that American troops had cooperated in the occupation of Blagovestchensk, said to be the capital of the Amur province.

On October 24 a front page article announced that American troops were being sent to Chelyabinsk, 5,000 miles away from Vladivostok inside European Russia.

Meanwhile, a furious and-Red campaign was building up inside the United States. Even the relatively liberal New York Times joined in. A November 18 article headlined "Chicago Socialists Cheer Bolsheviki" carried the subtitle, "German Language Used in Talks Bordering on Enemy Propaganda."

On October 17, the Times reported U.S. troops in "fierce battles . . . waist deep in swamps" along the Northern front.

On November 26, hundreds of soldiers, sailors and marines fought for three hours against police in an attempt to break up a New York City meeting called to discuss Wilson's 14 points, the military censorship, and the Russian Revolution.

On October 17, 1918, Clemenceau ordered French intervention in the Ukraine. The Armistice with Germany was signed on November 11. British intervention followed on November 14, 1918. Allied naval squadrons landed at Sevastopol on November 25, 1918.

Many Socialist candidates in the United States were jailed. For instance, Victor L. Berger, the Socialist Congressman-elect from Milwaukee, was tried for "organized conspiracy to oppose the Conscription Act and instill anti-war spirit into soldiers." At the same time, America's undeclared war with Russia was coming under increasing criticism from Congress.

Senator Johnson (R-California) rose in the Senate on December 12 to demand definite information about the war. He said that U.S. soldiers were fighting without a declaration of war. "I do not know our policy and I know no other man who knows our policy. I do know that we are killing Russians, and that they, when they can, are killing ours, and that this we are doing upon Russian soil."

"The extraordinary amount of misinformation given to the American people concerning Russia," he continued, "almost justifies the belief that there has been a consistent and regular propaganda of misrepresentation."

It seemed that the Communist revolution might spread through war-ridden Europe. Socialist Kurt Eisner's revolt in Bavaria and the seizure of power by a workers council in Kiel on the same day, November 10, 1918, typified world events which suddenly seemed to threaten another world war, this time against Communism. Communist governments continued to try to seize power in Germany and Austria through 1919 and 1920.

It was feared that the Communists in the United States would rise and attempt to overthrow the government on the anniversary of the Russian Revolution in October, 1919.

On October 9, 1919, an attempt by several thousand radicals to march in protest against the blockade and invasion of the Soviet Union was broken up by police and vigilantes. The New York Times reported that, "In breaking up the parade in Washington Square Park, just as the first line

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of marchers had started, the police used their clubs freely: Many paraders were soundly beaten." The Times reported that between three and five thousand anti-war protestors had gathered without a permit to assemble. Although many of the marchers were hurt, none of them would permit an ambulance to be summoned. Three people were arrested and charged with the catchall: "criminal anarchy."

While President Wilson was bedridden with illness, Attorney General Palmer ordered, on his own authority, a series of anti-subversive raids that became known as the Palmer Raids. The nation's most radical union, the Industrial Workers of the World, was crushed and its leaders jailed or deported. Persons who criticized the state of emergency were arrested on charges of "criminal anarchy." Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and more than 200 other radicals were seized and forcibly deported to Russia aboard the U.S.S. Buford. Emma Goldman, who had just been released from a year in prison for advocating birth control, created a scandal when she declared to the press that she was "glad to go."

On October 19, as the raids and vigilante action were climaxing, the U.S. officially reported 553 casualties on the northern front. On the battle front in Russia, things were not so good. General Graves believed that the Communist collectives and self-governing institutions were far more democratic than the government of our "ally" Admiral Kolchak.

Graves wrote: "No one in Siberia, excepting those belonging to the Kolchak supporters, enjoyed any of the boons of modem civilization, such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of legal action, which are well recognized heritages of all civilized people. The Zemstovos, the dumas (popular assemblies), and the cooperatives were such well known legal, reliable, and law abiding organizations, that it would have been difficult for Kolchak to have justified to the world, the oppressive measures he used against these people, if they had been referred to by their proper names. This could be, and was, easily avoided by putting all those who were not Kolchak supporters good, bad and indifferent, into one class and calling that class Bolsheviks . . . ."

By August of 1919, Graves reported that the remnants of Kolchak's army were little more than "fleeing mobs." He declined to aid them, and in general seems to have been rather more hostile to Kolchak and the Japanese than to the Soviets.

U.S. forces were withdrawn from Northern Russia in June, 1919. British troops withdrew from Southern Russia in August. U.S. troops were evacuated from Vladivostok in April of 1920 in a Dunkirk-like evacuation.

The British ended aid to the Russian counter-revolutionary forces in the spring of 1920. By the time that the resistance in Southern Russia was ended in November of 1921, the French, too, had become so soured by their experience in Russia that they seized the entire Russian fleet at Sevastopol in payment for their services during the evacuation of the last of the white generals, Wrangel, from Southern Russia. The attempt to aid the counter-revolutionary forces had failed.

There are numerous lessons which can and should be drawn from America's invasion of Russia. That there was a campaign of disinformation at the time of the war is well established. But why is the war so little known now? Although there were huge demonstrations against the war, and massive violence against anti-war demonstrators was common, the events of this time are virtually unknown.

The secret American policy of disinformation about the war and the nature of communism undermined President Wilson's plans for peaceful cooperation with the Communists. An era of demonstrations and vigilante reprisals shook America's confidence in its democratic institutions. And the policy manifestly failed, since the most reactionary, xenophobic part of Russia's revolutionary government was pushed to the forefront by the failure of the military intervention, leading to the tenor of Stalinism.

It is no wonder that the Soviet Union considers the United States to be a threat to its existence. Imagine if the Soviet Union had invaded and occupied the United States in 1919. People here would be far more prejudiced and suspicious of the Soviet Union than they now are.

General Graves, at least, drew some clear conclusions which, had they been understood, might have reshaped America's interventionist imperialism. Graves wrote: "What was the justification, in international law, for this intervention? There is no question as to the protection of life or property of American citizens involved, nor was there any prospect of future damage to American life or property, nor can the United States plead the act of intervention was a war measure, as it definitely refused to look on it as such.

I doubt if history will record, in the past century, a more flagrant case of flouting the well-known and approved practice of states in their international relations, and instead of the accepted principles of international law, the principle of might makes right.

I think it can not be refuted that there were no beneficial results flowing from intervention in Russia, so far as all foreigners are concerned, and it undoubtedly resulted in placing the mass of Russians even more solidly behind the Soviets.

There seems to be no difference of opinion, that intervention was a fundamental error .... I was in command of the United States troops sent to Siberia, and, I must admit, I do not know what the United States was trying to accomplish by military intervention."

The lessons of this time should not be lost on us today. Russian fear and paranoia of the United States is to some extent justified by their very real experience of having been invaded and occupied by Americans. It is for this reason American propaganda, such as ABC's "Amerika" must be seen as especially vile, since it is an exact reversal of the truth, which is the all but unknown American invasion of Russia.