Wholly aside from its internal economic experiment, which was proving a lamentable failure, the Moscow Government realized that Russia was doomed to a worse fate than that of the conquered nations unless these schemes were checkmated. Theories of international relations had to be thrown overboard. Self-determination could not be used as a cloak by the enemies of Russia for undermining the Russian Empire while they refused to entertain self-determination as a principle to be applied within their own empires.
Germany, powerless, had to submit to the dictates of the victors. Russia did not. Warding off this danger, of course, meant the abandonment of the ideals preached in 1917 and 1918. It meant the return of militarism, of centralization of power in Moscow, and probably of the old Czarist Imperialism. There was no choice, however. The leaders of the Soviets soon became autocrats, militarists, imperialists. As in their internal affairs, they continued to preach cautiously the original doctrine, but in practice they fought fire with fire. And they began to see that the new Russia, internally and internationally, could not exist with policies radically different from those of the old Russia unless the other nations changed at the same time.
The first move was to get rid of the counter-revolutionary insurrections. Successively Yudenitch, Denikin, Kolchak, and Wrangel were utterly defeated. The next move was to bring back under the central authority of Moscow the outlying provinces whose independence was being used as a means of stealing Russia’s natural wealth and organizing counter-revolutionary movements. The Soviet form of government was successfully established in Ukrainia, the Caucasus states, including Armenia, the central Asiatic emirates, and throughout Siberia. This took several years, but, with the exception of Poland, Bessarabia, and the Baltic states, it was accomplished before the end of 1922 and entailed the evacuation of Siberia by the Japanese and of the Caucasus by the British. The ill fated Archangel expedition was allowed to freeze itself out.
Along with this astoundingly successful policy of reunifying Russia, vigorous diplomatic campaigns were carried on, the first to bring within the orbit of Russian influence the Asiatic neighbors, alliance with whom was necessary to prevent a recurrence of the effort to destroy the empire; and the second to reëstablish peace with European neighbors and secure recognition from the larger powers, trade with whom was necessary for the revival of Russian prosperity. The two campaigns were carried on simultaneously, and the Asiatic objectives were skilfully used to bring about the European ones.
