Authors

Sofya Anisimova¹;  ¹ University College Dublin, Ireland

Discussion

More than 14 countries had their troops present in Russia during the Civil War in 1918-1922. Some had troops present as part of the Allied agreements with the Russian Imperial Government, some sent their expeditionary forces, and some had their troops present as a part of the occupation forces behind the advancing front[1]lines of the First World War. However, in the Soviet historiography all of them were grouped together under a lable of ‘foreign military intervention’ in the Russian Ci[1]vil War. Drawing on newspapers and printed publications on the Civil War from 1918 to 2024, this paper traces the genealogy of this concept and its use in Russian[1]language historiography. It argues that the presentation of ‘intervention’ as a united front of Russia’s enemies was a conscious choice of the Bolshevik leaders who sought to mobilise the population in the Civil War. By lumping together all enemies, in[1]ternal and external, the Bolsheviks successfully reframed the conflict not as a civil war (widely perceived as a negative phenomenon), but as a war of liberation from foreign invaders and the Whites, traitors who joined the foreign invaders. The party used various language instruments to achieve that, including calling all enemies the ‘Whites’ and portraying all foreigners and anti-Bolshevik forces as the ‘servants of the capital’ and ‘imperialists’. This made this frame truly universal and allowed for its use regardless of the front of the Civil War and regardless of the country of origin of the foreign troops, including during the Soviet-Polish War of 1920. It has also ensured the concept’s longevity - throughout the twentieth century and even in Russia today ’intervention’ is invoked when there is a political need to underline the hostility of the international environment to Moscow and its policy. The paper concludes by offering some suggestions on language, surrounding foreign presence in Russia during the Civil War, which will help move beyond politically charged interpretations and offer a more nuanced view of this period in Russian history