Russian Civil War

Gibson Bell Smith’s article on the events prior to and throughout the American military’s intervention offers a great insight into President Wilson’s motives for sending troops to Siberia. Smith offers up dates and figures, as well as quotes and names. The detailed article will prove to be very useful for proving my thesis since it is able to provide an in depth view of the entire Civil War.

President Woodrow Wilson’s decision to dispatch eight thousand men to Russia in order to protect the “billion dollars worth of American guns and equipment,” to “facilitate the safe exit of the forty-thousand-man Czech Legion” and to “promote democracy and self-determination” has clearly been shown within the text. All three of these points support my thesis and will obviously be helpful in both writing my essay and presenting my seminar.

The Bolshevik’s brand of communism and Wilson’s distorted sense of democracy both seem to have played into the controversy over the American intervention. American hegemony has never proven to be advantageous to the occupied nation, and certainly in this case to America, the occupying force. The very idea of one nation controlling another nation by force or by diplomacy seems to be an unspeakable crime. And in regards to the Russian Civil War, I believe Smith has proven indirectly that whether or not the Americans succeeded in their plans to dominate the world, at least in this case, it was quite fortunate that the Bolsheviks did thrive, and did come to form a government.