“The Decision to Intervene”: the Russian Revolution and It’s Consequences for the Russian-American Relations

Abstract

The article examines the abrupt change in President Wilson’s policy towards Russia as a result of the revolutionary crisis and civil war of spring 1917 — autumn 1918. US participation in the foreign intervention that followed the Bolshevik seizure of power and the loss of initial hopes for cooperation after the February Revolution is located in the events of the Great War. Shown in the article are the circumstances that motivated the President to put aside serious doubts and join the Allied intervention in Northern and Eastern Russia. Wilson admitted later that this power play was a mistake that increased the resistance of the Russian people and alienated American society, and that within the White House itself preparations were underway for the withdrawal of the US troops from Russia in 1919—1920.