When the United States Invaded Russia: Woodrow Wilson's Siberian Disaster

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In a little-known episode at the height of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson dispatched thousands of American soldiers to Siberia. Carl J. Richard convincingly shows that Wilsons original intent was to enable Czechs and anti-Bolshevik Russians to rebuild the Eastern Front against the Central Powers. But Wilson continued the intervention for a year and a half after the armistice in order to overthrow the Bolsheviks and to prevent the Japanese from absorbing eastern Siberia. As Wilson and the Allies failed to formulate a successful Russian policy at the Paris Peace Conference, American doughboys suffered great hardships on the bleak plains of Siberia.

Richard argues that Wilsons Siberian intervention ironically strengthened the Bolshevik regime it was intended to topple. Its tragic legacy can be found in the seeds of World War IIwhich began with an alliance between Germany and the Soviet Union, the two nations most aggrieved by Allied treatment after World War Iand in the Cold War, a forty-five year period in which the world held its collective breath over the possibility of nuclear annihilation.

One of the earliest U.S. counterinsurgency campaigns outside the Western Hemisphere, the Siberian intervention was a harbinger of policies to come. Richard notes that it teaches invaluable lessons about the extreme difficulties inherent in interventions and about the absolute need to secure widespread support on the ground if such campaigns are to achieve success, knowledge that U.S. policymakers tragically ignored in Vietnam and have later struggled to implement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Reviews

Richard's concise account of the US intervention in Siberia fuses new and old scholarship, details historians' theories to explain US intervention, and settles upon the hypothesis that Woodrow Wilson dispatched US forces to Siberia to help the Czech Legion and Russian anti-Bolsheviks overthrow the Soviet government as prelude to recreating the Eastern front against the Central Powers. What follows is a careful detailing of Wilson's dispatch of the army in August 1918, about three months before the armistice. Richard maintains that Wilson kept US forces there to assist in toppling the Soviets and prevent Japanese hegemony in Eastern Siberia. His conclusions are noteworthy. The Siberian intervention was an example of mission creep: a US presence that continued through modifying the original goals from reestablishing the Eastern front to focusing on overthrowing the Bolsheviks and preventing Japanese control in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria. Intervention was a complete failure. It did not help reestablish an Eastern front, topple the Soviet government, or stop Japanese hegemony in Eastern Siberia or Manchuria. Lastly, it ruined the chances for accommodation with Soviet Russia as it consolidated control, a lesson that Richard posits the US did not learn in time for China and Vietnam. Recommended. All academic levels/libraries. * Choice Reviews *
As a means of understanding 20th-century Soviet-American and modern Russian-American relations, University of Louisiana history professor Richards (Why We're All Romans) explores the United States' invasion of Siberia in 1918, an event 'as familiar [to Russians] as the story of George Washington and the cherry tree' is to Americans, but which few in the U.S. know anything about. In 1918, after the Bolshevik revolution, President Woodrow Wilson ordered 8,500 'American forces to Siberia to help the Czechs and Russian anti-Bolsheviks overthrow the Soviet Government as the first step in re-creating the Eastern Front against the Central Powers.' During their brief tenure in the harsh Siberian climate, American soldiers mainly guarded railroads and supplies while engaging in occasional skirmishes against government partisans and weathering stormy relations with the more organized and territorially minded Japanese forces. Faced with growing resentment from other Allied powers and the tumultuous Russian political climate, American troops finally withdrew in April 1920, leaving behind lasting resentments that would cast a pall on the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, the cold war, and American interventionism through Vietnam and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For military historians and students of modern American foreign policy, Richard's specialized study is illuminating. Map, photos. * Publishers Weekly *
Richard (history, Univ. of Louisiana, Lafayette) argues that President Woodrow Wilsons invasion of Siberia in 1918 was a calculated political act intended to initially counter fears that a one-front war against Germany would falter while simultaneously curtailing efforts from the Japanese to solidify their foothold in Siberia. Richard continues his argument once American forces were established in Siberia in 1919. He theorizes that Wilsons fear of the power and influence of the Bolshevik regime led him to maintain the presence of American soldiers in Siberia in 1919, despite the presidents own statements that perhaps the best course of action would be to simply wait out Bolshevism, or, as British Prime Minister Lloyd George argued, that the Russian people should have the chance to determine their own future. Richard writes with an emphasis on detail, supported by numerous primary source quotations and thorough secondary evidence, as well as providing analysis of the existing literature on the subject. He builds his argument tirelessly, though he does occasionally break his academic tone to inject his work with emotional statements regarding what he perceives as the discrepancies between Wilsons words and actions. VERDICT Richards book is an intriguing and carefully argued entry into a small and often overlooked discussion of American political maneuvering at the end of World War I. It will prove informative for any students or program touching on early 20th-century American-Soviet political relationships. * Library Journal *
Richards book is a richly annotated and well-written reminder of the pitfalls of military interventions. * Journal of American History *
This book is well-written but is not focused on warfare or battles, but rather on American foreign policy. If that is a topic that interests you, or you are interested in the Russian Civil War, this is a book to be added to your library. Scholars will appreciate the many endnotes at the close of each chapter and a bibliography of primary and secondary sources. * Journal of America's Military Past *
Carl J. Richard accomplishes in this taut volume what no one else seems ever to have written: a lucid, compelling synthesis of these disparate interpretations. He also adds his own, quite persuasive, take on the available published evidence. . . .his use of memoirs . . . is both deep and innovative. * The Historian *
Professor Richard has given us a valuable case study not only of Wilsonian diplomacy, but also of the dangers of attempts at nation-making and the effects of mission creep on otherwise viable and laudable politico-diplomatic initiatives. He also gives us a unique look at a little known American adventure in Russia, one of two such interventions undertaken in 1918 as Russia was seized by revolution, made peace with Germany and left the Great War. * The Maple Leaf *
Richard discusses the deployment of thousands of American soldiers in Siberia during the First World War. Positing that the maneuver strengthened the Bolshevik revolution, the book analyses the long-term implications of one of the earliest US counter- insurgency campaigns outside of North America. * Survival *
In this stimulating new study, Carl Richard presents a systematic and incisive critical assessment of scholarly theories about the controversial U.S. military intervention in Siberia and then develops his own original interpretation of that misadventure. While U.S. involvement in the Russian Civil War has been forgotten by many Americans, Richard wisely and concisely notes some important lessons from the Siberian intervention about the difficulties of counterinsurgency campaigns and nation-building efforts that are relevant to contemporary U.S. foreign policy. -- David S. Foglesong, author of Americas Secret War against Bolshevism: U.S. Intervention in the Russian Civil War, 19171920

Author Bio

Carl J. Richard is professor of history at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He is the author of several noted books, including Greeks and Romans Bearing Gifts and Why We're All Romans.