Sadoul and Robins had met occasionally with Lenin, Trotsky, and the other Communist leaders after the Bolshevik coup. These contacts multiplied in the second half of February 1918, during the interval between the Bolshevik acceptance of the German ultimatum (February 17) and the ratification of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty (March 14). During these two weeks, the Bolsheviks, afraid that the Germans wanted to remove them from power, put out urgent appeals to the Allies for help. The Allies responded positively. The French were especially forthcoming. They abandoned now the anti-Bolshevik Volunteer Army being formed in the Don Region, which Noulens had supported financially because of its anti-German stand: on his recommendation the French Government had previously contributed 50 million rubles to General Alekseev to help organize a new Russian army. At the beginning of January 1918, General Henri Niessel, the new head of the French military mission in Russia, advised cutting off Alekseev on the grounds that he headed a “counterrevolutionary” force. The advice was adopted: assistance to Alekseev was terminated and Niessel received authority to open negotiations with the Bolsheviks.§ Lockhart similarly opposed support for the Volunteer Army, which he, too, depicted in dispatches to the Foreign Office as counterrevolutionary. In his judgment, the Bolsheviks were the most reliable anti-German force in Russia.60
During the hectic days that followed the resumption of German offensive operations, the Bolshevik high command decided to seek Allied help. On February 21, Trotsky communicated, through Sadoul, with Niessel to inquire whether France would be willing to help Soviet Russia stop the German offensive. Niessel contacted the French Ambassador, and received an affirmative response. That day Noulens cabled Trotsky from Vologda: “In your resistance to Germany you may count on the military and financial cooperation of France.”61 Niessel advised Trotsky on the measures Soviet Russia should take to impede the Germans and promised military advisers.
The French response was discussed by the Central Committee late in the evening of February 22. By this time Trotsky was in possession of a memorandum from Niessel outlining the measures which France was prepared to take to help the Russians.62 The document, said to be lost, contained concrete proposals of French monetary and military aid. Trotsky urged acceptance and moved a resolution to this effect. Lenin, who could not attend, voted in absentia with a laconic note: “Please add my vote in favor of taking ’tatoes and weapons from the bandits of Anglo-French imperialism.”63 The motion barely passed, with six votes for and five against, because of the opposition of Bukharin and the other advocates of “revolutionary war.” After he was defeated, Bukharin offered to resign from the Central Committee and the editorship of
As soon as the Central Committee had ended its deliberations—it was during the night of February 22–23—the issue was Put before the Sovnarkom. Here Trotsky’s motion carried as well, over the objections of the Left SRs.
The following day, Trotsky informed Sadoul of his government’s readiness to accept French help. He invited Niessel to Smolnyi to consult with Podvoiskii, General Bonch-Bruevich, and other Bolshevik military experts on anti-German operations. Niessel was of the opinion that Soviet Russia had to form a fresh military force with the assistance of former tsarist officers, secured by appeals to patriotism.64
The Bolsheviks now positioned themselves to switch sides in the event the Germans tried to topple them. They knew that the Allies paid little attention to their policies at home and abroad and would give them generous help in return for a reactivation of the Eastern Front. There can be little doubt that if the Germans had followed through on the recommendations of Ludendorff and Hindenburg, the Bolsheviks, in order to stay in power, would have made common cause with the Allies and allowed them the use of Russian territory for military operations against the Central Powers.
It is indicative of how far along Russo-Allied cooperation had progressed that late in February Lenin dispatched Kamenev to Paris as Soviet “diplomatic representative.” Kamenev traveled by way of London, arriving already after his government had ratified the Brest Treaty. He had a chilly reception. France refused him entry, following which he headed back home. En route to Russia he was intercepted by the Germans, who detained him for four months.65
