British assurance to Russia

The British chronology of the war records under 26 July 1918 that the British government declared to “M. Petrov” that it had no intention of violating the territorial integrity of Russia. It does not explain, however, who the addressee was, and the document itself bearing that date has not been found. The content of the assurance, on the other hand, is well known. On 5 August the Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, read it out in the House of Commons: “The object of His Majesty’s Government is to secure the political and economic restoration of Russia, without internal interference of any kind, and to bring about the expulsion of enemy forces from Russian soil. His Majesty’s Government declare categorically that they have no intention whatever of infringing in any degree the territorial integrity of Russia.” According to the member who questioned him, the statement had appeared in the press on 31 July.

On the same day in the House of Commons Balfour confirmed that the government had given such a categorical assurance to the Provisional Government of Siberia. There were then two rival governments in Siberia, at Omsk and at Vladivostok, and in Omsk Siberia’s state independence had just been proclaimed. On 31 July the American consul in Vladivostok reported that the Siberian government there had announced the receipt of telegrams from the British and American governments.

A herald of intervention

The assurance came on the eve of open Allied intervention in Russia. Since the spring the British had been arguing that the Eastern Front must be rebuilt, or else the Germans would transfer more and more divisions to the west and draw food and raw materials from Russia. Allied troops were already at Murmansk, and the Czechoslovaks were fighting the Bolsheviks along the Trans-Siberian Railway. Russians of various camps feared, however, that foreign troops would come for land, especially the Japanese in Siberia. In June Britain, France and Italy made their support for a Japanese intervention conditional on Japan promising to respect Russia’s territorial integrity and not to take sides in its internal affairs. On 17 July President Woodrow Wilson agreed to limited American participation in an expedition to Vladivostok and proposed that all participants solemnly assure the Russians that they had no intention of infringing their sovereignty, interfering in their internal affairs or diminishing their territory. A similar clause was contained in the agreement with the Murmansk soviet signed at the beginning of July, in which the Allies renounced any intention of seizing the Murmansk region.

Questions in Parliament

Some members viewed British policy towards Russia with suspicion. When Balfour read out the statement, the Liberal Joseph King asked whether it would not be better to back it with the explicit agreement of the Allies. The minister replied that the government had not made the declaration on behalf of the Allies, but had no doubt that it was in accordance with the views of all the associated states. The Labour member Philip Snowden asked whether the government thought that the best way to the political restoration of Russia was to intensify the civil war. Balfour denied it: “We do not propose to interfere with the internal arrangements of Russia. Russia must manage her own affairs.”

The words were soon put to the test. On 2 August the Allies landed at Archangel, where an anti-Bolshevik government was immediately set up, and in August Japanese and American troops began to arrive in Vladivostok. According to the British chronology, on 6 August the British government issued a declaration to the peoples of Russia assuring them that it had no intention of interfering in Russian politics. Lenin’s government, however, treated the intervention as a hostile invasion.