Russian International Relations in War and Revolution, 1914–22 by David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye et al. (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Russian International Relations in War and Revolution, 1914–22 by David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye et al. David Rainbow (bio) David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, Oleg Budnitskii, Michael Hughes, and David MacLaren McDonald (Eds.), Russian International Relations in War and Revolution, 1914–22. Book 2: Revolution and Civil War (Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2021). 416 pp. ISBN: 978-089357-437-6. This is an outstanding collection of essays about international relations during the Russian Revolution and Civil War. It is book 2 of volume 8 (out of ten volumes so far in print) in the series Russia's Great War and Revolution. Book 1 of volume 8 considers international relations during the first three years of World War I, whereas book 2, under review here, considers the time period from the outbreak of war through the end of the Russian Civil War, and, in a few cases, well into the 1920s. The topics covered include diplomacy, the League of Nations, aristocratic culture, refugee crises, major treaties, the creation of the Communist International, and more. As nearly every chapter shows, the collapse in Russia and its consequences are difficult to make sense of without taking stock of myriad connections across time and space, the years of global war, diplomatic negotiations, and the interests of actors and institutions within and beyond the borders of the disintegrating Russian Empire. The book includes an introduction and two chronological sections: "Revolution (1917)," and "Civil War (1918–1922)." The introduction written by the series editors (Anthony Heywood, David MacLaren McDonald, and John W. Steinberg) explains the origins and aims of the series as a whole, which began in 2006. It provides a helpful framing for the present volume, as well as an introduction to readers who might not already know the truly vast thematic and geographical scope of the Russia's Great War and Revolution project. As the editors note, the volumes are not a "comprehensive narrative history" of Russia during the period. Rather, they introduce problems and topics animating much current scholarship, including many that have previously received less attention (e.g., borderlands, religion). This approach has made the series valuable to scholars, teachers, and students alike, particularly when coupled with the supplemental resources available through the project's website. Several contributions to the book explore the "diplomatic dance" (P. 5) between Russia and its allies that followed the collapse of the tsarist empire, then still at war with the Central Powers. Russia's allies of course sought to keep the Provisional Government in the war, [End Page 273] but were reluctant to push too hard having realized the depth of Russians' war-weariness evident in the revolutionary unrest from February on. For its part, Russia still depended greatly on foreign supplies of munitions and much else besides. Soon after the February Revolution, Michael Hughes suggests, "foreign policy had become perhaps the most controversial and divisive political issue facing Russia" (P. 8). There were conflicts within the Provisional Government, and between the government and the Soviet. Allies were also afraid to push the Bolsheviks too hard once they were in power. They did not want to provoke the new revolutionary government, as one Russian diplomat reported, "to take irreparable actions, such as pulling out of the war" (P. 170). Bolsheviks were united in their opposition to the war, but once in power faced the complicated task of negotiating the peace without much leverage. Everyone danced to one extent or another. A significant complication of Bolshevik policies was that diplomats who refused to follow directives from Trotsky, the new commissar of foreign affairs after October 1917, were effectively left representing a state that no longer recognized them, or one that no longer existed, depending on one's point of view. The activities of "Russia abroad" and its ambassadors are the subjects of several chapters in the book. Within days of the Bolshevik takeover, Trotsky fired a majority of the diplomatic corps and proceeded to implement a policy of publishing previously secret documents related to foreign governments (Pp. 32–33). Most Provisional Government or tsarist diplomats remained in their posts and continued their advocacy on behalf of "the Russian state." Once the Russian Civil War broke...