1 The major portion of what Lenin said and wrote concerning intervention is collected in the useful volume, Lenin ob intervencii, edited by Mine, I. I. and Gukovskij, A. I. (Moscow, 1931)Google Scholar.

2 Lenin, V. I. , Sochinenija, (2nd ed., 30 vols.; Moscow, 1926-32)Google Scholar, XXV, 99. (Hereafter cited as Lenin, Sochinenija; the 2nd ed. is used, unless otherwise stated.)

3 All the foregoing, ibid., XXII, 248-49 and 317-19; see also ibid., XXVI, 12, on why capitalism was forced to attack Soviet Russia.

4 This view was reiterated by Lenin in major foreign policy speeches on May 14, 1918, to the Soviet Central Executive Committee and the Moscow Soviet, on Oct. 22, 1918, to the Central Executive Committee, on March 13, 1919, in Petrograd, and on May 5, 1920, to the Central Executive Committee. Ibid., XXIII, 3-6 and 228-31; XXIV, 61-62; XXV, 257-58.

5 Report to the Ninth Congress of Soviets, Dec. 23, 1921, ibid., XXVII, 115-16.

6 Speech to Fourth Conference of Moscow Trade Unions and Factory Committees, June 27-July 2, 1918. Lenin, V. I., Collected Works (New York, 1927), XXIII, 93-95Google Scholar. See also, Lenin, Sochinenija, XXIV, 458-59.

7 See the excerpts collected in Lenin ob intervencii, 42 and thereafter.

8 Lenin, Collected Works, XXIII, 19.

9 See n. 3.

10 Lenin, Collected Works, XXIII, 16-17.

11 Lenin, Sochinenija, XXIII, 16; XXV, 236 and 485-86. Lenin assigned Soviet foreign and propaganda policy the further defensive task of unmasking the crude imperialistic designs of the great powers, thereby gaining support and sympathy among the masses of all countries, ibid., XXIV, 61. Soviet policy obviously had an offensive function also— to do everything possible to extend the revolution abroad. Lenin's views on this lie beyond the limits of this study.

12 Ibid., XXII, 262.

13 Ibid., XXII, 272-74.

14 Lenin ob intervencii, 201, n. 3.

15 Ibid.

16 Lenin, Collected Works, XXIII, 16-17 and 83.

17 In this speech and throughout his works, Lenin indicated that the primary motive for intervention was world imperialism's fear of the effect the Bolshevik example would have on the crisis-ridden capitalist system. He often asserted that the imperialists’ desire to divide and exploit Russia was only a secondary cause. Occasionally during 1918, he even accepted as one factor the argument advanced by the Allies that they were intervening to re-establish the Eastern Front. See, for example, his appeal to the workers in August, 1918, ibid., XXIII, 220.

18 Ibid., XXIII, 243-45. For similar analyses, see ibid., XXIII, 256-60 and 278-79.

19 “Na nas idet ‘das Weltkapital'.” Related to Louis Fischer by Chicherin and cited in Louis Fischer, The Soviets in World Affairs (2nd printing, 2 vols.; Princeton, 1951), I, 150.

20 Lenin, Sochinenija, XXII, 509 and XXIII, 317.

21 Ibid., XXII, 506. Lenin's italics.

22 Ibid., XXIII, 17 and 18; XXIV, 116-18; XXV, 498-99.

23 Ibid., XIX, 245-46. Lenin's italics.

24 Lenin, Sochinenija (4th ed.), XXIII, 67.

25 For a discussion of the unique circumstances in Russia's internal situation, see Lenin, Sochinenija, (2nd ed.), XXII, 431-32; XXIII, 13; XXV, 205. On the war as a factor, see ibid., XX, 487 and XXV, 205.

26 There are numerous examples of this thesis in Lenin's works. For the clearest expressions of it, see ibid., XXI, 209; XXII, 318-22; XXIII, 146; and XXIV, 591.

27 Ibid., XXV, 171 and XX, 211.

28 Ibid., XX, 488 and 504.

29 Ibid., XXI, 209. Italics by the author.

30 See his “Report on War and Peace” to the Seventh Party Congress, March 7, 1918, ibid., XXII, 318-22.

31 Ibid., XXIII, 16.

32 For examples, ibid., XXII, 202 and 431-32; XXIII, 33, 146, 261 and 354; XXIV 30. It is, of course, easier to fight when you believe you are not alone and when you expect relief and assistance momentarily.

33 Ibid., XXIV, 61, 256, 268, 495, 547; XXV, 13-14, 98, 131, 500; XXVI, 288-89. In reality, war-weariness, apathy, and vague liberal sympathy with Bolshevism were more important factors in weakening Allied intervention than genuine social unrest or revolutionary stirrings among Western soldiers and workers.

Lenin also ascribed the failure of intervention to inherent rivalries and conflicts within world imperialism and to antagonisms between the “big powers” and the small states formed on Russia's borders after the revolution, ibid., XXIV, 547-48, 559-62, 592-93; XXV, 13-15, 50-54, 57-58, 131, 257-58, 415-16, 474, 485; XXVI, 288-89. On one or two ceremonial occasions he referred briefly to the heroism of Soviet workers and soldiers and to the inspired leadership of the Party (ibid., XXV, 475 and 96-97); but, unlike Stalin and chauvinist Soviet historians of the 1930's and 1940's, he never deluded himself that Soviet strength was a vital factor in the defeat of intervention.

34 However, the failure of the European proletariat to seize and retain power meant that Lenin's second, equally important condition for the maintenance of Bolshevik power in Russia, economic assistance from the highly developed productive capacity of the West, remained unfulfilled. The problem of how to complete the transition to socialism in Russia if the continued delay of the world revolution prevented the provision of this economic assistance was one which Lenin wrestled with but failed to resolve prior to his death. Lenin's views on that issue lie, however, beyond the limits of this article.

35 Ibid., XXV, 483-84. Lenin hinted at this line of reasoning Dec. 2 and 5, 1919, ibid., XXIV, 561 and 593. He made full analyses similar to the one quoted on March 1 and Oct. 15, 1920, and Dec. 23, 1921, ibid., XXV, 48-50 and 414-15; XXVII, 113-15.

36 Lenin's analysis of intervention may also have served to answer those Russian workers, exhausted by the battles of the civil war and intervention, who perhaps asked: “Vladimir Ilych, when are our European comrades bringing us the aid you promised?“