Great Britain and France stood together in deciding to exclude Russia from active participation in the Lausanne Conference with the approval of the new government in Italy. The Fascisti had always been anti-Bolshevist, and Mussolini reversed the policy of his predecessors. Tchitcherin was told that Russia would be allowed to sign the convention concerning the Straits, to be embodied in the new treaty with Turkey, but could have no part in drafting the convention or in discussing other provisions of the treaty. Since Russia was more interested in the Lausanne decisions than any other great power, the policy of refusing her active participation in making the treaty, especially the clauses relating to the Straits, angered the Russians. They became a powerful factor in encouraging Ismet Pasha. The conference broke up. The Entente Powers were incensed, and did not invite Russia to send a delegation when the conference met again in April, 1923. Notwithstanding this the Soviet minister at Rome was ordered to Lausanne, where he was assassinated in a restaurant. This tragedy led to a renewed declaration that whatever agreement was reached at Lausanne would be considered null and void by Russia.
At the same time public opinion all over the world was aroused because of the execution of two high dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church in Russia, and the persecution of Orthodox clergy, following demonstrations against religion in Petrograd and Moscow that were reminiscent of what had happened in Paris during the French Revolution. Moscow became embroiled also with Great Britain over fishing rights on the Mourman coast and alleged infractions of the agreement to refrain from nationalist propaganda in Asia. The British Foreign Office sent an ultimatum, threatening to break off trade relations. Tchitcherin answered, requesting a new conference to discuss moot questions.
In the last year of the World War the Bolshevist movement failed to carry with it Finland, the Baltic provinces, Poland, and Bessarabia. The Ukraine was a battle-field for nearly two years. In this the largest, wealthiest, and most populous of the republics that proclaimed their separation from the empire following the 1917 revolution, the Bolshevists, from the beginning of their rule, managed to keep a close connection with Moscow. The fiction of separate national existence was maintained, and Ukrainia had her own delegations at peace conferences and in whatever dealings Russia had with the outside world. But, as in the Caucasus, the term “Federated Soviet Republics” did not mean real independence. Moscow came more and more to dominate as Petrograd had done in Czarist days. This held true also in Siberia as the Bolshevists gradually won back for Russia the vast regions from Samara to Vladivostok.
Throughout 1919 Soviet Russia was at war with Finns, Esthonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians. The Finns were in a fortunate geographical position, and had behind them a separate national existence which made comparatively easy the formation of their state. The principal difficulty with the Soviets, once the Bolshevist insurrection had failed in the interior of Finland, was the fixing of the frontier. Conditions in the other three Baltic provinces were complicated because there were no historic frontiers, and Lithuanians and Poles were both claiming the district of Vilna, the majority of whose inhabitants were neither Lithuanians nor Poles but White Russians. Also, the Entente Powers tried to use Esthonia and Latvia as bases for fomenting and launching counter-revolutionary movements. Russia would probably have succeeded in Bolshevizing Esthonia and Latvia, and in winning the support of Lithuania, had it not been for the hostility of these Baltic races to Bolshevist economic doctrines and for the failure of the Bolshevist armies to subdue Poland. Moscow concluded treaties with her four former Baltic provinces, recognizing their independence, and concentrated her attention upon Poland.
The one great military disaster of Soviet Russia has been the sudden change from victory to defeat in the drive against Warsaw in the summer of 1920. Polish delegates had already appeared at Minsk to conclude peace upon favorable terms when the fortune of arms changed. The Russian armies were routed, and Moscow changed rôles with Warsaw. The would-be dictators of peace had to accept harsh terms. The Treaty of Riga, signed on October 12, 1920, is discussed elsewhere. It gave Poland a boundary far east of the line proposed at the Paris Conference, which the friends and allies of Poland had so drawn as to include all the territory that might be regarded, on the most liberal calculations, as having “an indisputably Polish ethnic majority.” Poland exacted of Russia fifty-five thousand square miles, inhabited by seven million people, of whom only 4 per cent were Poles. In addition to this loss of territory, the Russians were required to reimburse the Poles with gold for requisitions made during the war and to return to Poland historic treasures, archives, pictures, and manuscripts that had been in Russian state museums since 1772.
There was historic justice in these restitutions, and the Bolshevists did not resist the demands. But the terms of the Treaty of Riga incensed the Russian intellectuals, who hate Poles worse than Bolshevists. The defeat before Warsaw, far from causing the Moscow Soviet to collapse, resulted in rallying round Lenin, especially for the army, elements whose support he had not before been able to command. The territorial greed of Poland, afterward demonstrated to the disadvantage of the Ukrainians by the incorporation of Eastern Galicia, increased the hatred of the Russians and contributed in large measure to the new nationalism which has become so unexpected a development in the Soviet régime.
Czechoslovakia, created by the Peace Conference without consulting Russia, has managed to keep on good terms with her big Slav cousin. The Czechoslovak Legion did great harm to the Bolshevists in Siberia, but, as it had been launched before the birth of Czechoslovakia, the Prague Government was not held responsible for it. During the Russian drive on Poland in 1920 Czechoslovakia, like Germany, declared her neutrality. The premier, Dr. Benes, like Premier Nitti of Italy, believed that the Bolshevists could not help being recognized as the party indisputably in the saddle. Czechoslovak policy, therefore, dictated the wisdom and prudence of de facto relations with Russia; and after the Genoa Conference Prague and Moscow exchanged trade missions, with diplomatic immunity and the right to issue passports.
After the collapse of Germany, Rumania had renounced the Treaty of Bucharest and received delegates in her Parliament, elected by a Bessarabian assembly, which had declared the union of this Russian province with the Rumanian Kingdom. In March, 1920, the union was recognized by the Entente Powers without consultation with Russia. This was one of the most important decisions taken by the former allies of Russia. For it was the first one by which they arrogated to themselves the right to dispose of a Russian province summarily. Moscow, of course, declared the decision null and void, and the status of Bessarabia has yet to be definitely settled.
In this brief survey I have tried to show how the question of Russian national unity has not been subordinated to the Bolshevist régime but has rather dominated it. The economic theories of Bolshevism died of their own inherent impracticability. In view of the policies adopted by the Entente Powers, the idealistic world policy of the Bolshevists had to give way to aggressive nationalism. Russia is becoming again a capitalistic country. She has strong reasons for insisting upon a revision of the peace settlements, and she is slowly building up her army and her international affiliations with the intention of demanding a new deal, in which her interests as a great power will be considered as equal to those of the other great powers, not as a matter of right or logic, but because her force will once more match the force of other great powers.