Failure of Foreign Interventions

The October revolution saw the collapse of the Provisional Government and within weeks and armistice had been agreed between germany and the Bolshevik Government. The French and British were cautious over the matter. Lloyd George was willing to support any group within russia that was Anti-German.

When the treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed, all hope of convincing the Bolshevik government was ended, and so any help that Britain gave to Anti-german russians now went to Anti-Bolsheviks, (soon to be the white in Russia). The bolsheviks were convinced that the Allies were trying to destroy them, and the Allies saw the bolsheviks as betraying the Allied cause, and the supplies that it provided needed to be stopped from falling into german hands. The British, French and American troops then occupied ports of the Arctic side of Russia, starting two years of occupation over the entirety of Russia.

When the war ended, their occupation lead to a direct offensive against the Bolsheviks. Winston Churchil and Marshall Foch were the most keen, afraid of the newly created Cominterm (to spread international revolution) and the spread of revolution around Europe.
- Sparticist revolt in Berlin
- Communist republic in Bavaria for a year
- Hungarian Marxist government for 5 months.

The interventions were also because the financial position, as Russia and the Bolsheviks wrote off a large number of debts, and nationalised foreign investments, angering the French who had a large number of investments within Tsarist Russia. This also lead to
- British land forces entertering the southern part of russia.
- British warships and French at Baltic waters
- French land base, odessa
- Japanese at Vladivostok (a chance to take land)
- French British American and Italian joined them.

However, as proven by the white failure, the attackers were not united by one single aim, Japan wanted land, and the other nationalist forces such as Lithuania, Poland and Finland all fought for independence seperately, partly the reason behind failure. There was no real proper dedicated attempt to remove the bolsheviks, the truth being that after four years of fighting germany, no great power could stomach true intervention and the loss of more good men. Not only that but trade unionists that would provide supplies sympathised with the 'Workers state'. The Foreign white armies and russian white armies did not act together, and it was easier to remove their threat for the Bolsheviks. They eventually withdrawn, and used as a propoganda success for the Bolsheviks, and they regained esteem from this.

SUMMARY
Why intervene
- Russia withdraw from war
- Fear of 'international revolution'
- Bolsheviks writing off Debt

France, Britain, USA, Japan, Finland Lithuania etc.
Interventions failed due to Lack of coordination,
Not bound by a single aim
No stomach for fighting after WW1
No real genuine attempt to bring Bolsheviks down