Allies soon turned against them. I thought the Allied support of anti-Bolshevist movements a mistake, especially when it was given to out-and-out adventurers like Semyenoff and others. The Allies were not strong enough for a real anti-Bolshevist campaign, and sporadic fighting was meaningless. Not until the autumn of 1918 was the idea entertained of sending six divisions of the Salonica army against the Bolshevists, but neither Clemenceau nor Lloyd George supported it lest the Salonica troops prove insubordinate.
In regard to the Allies our position was difficult. We were autonomous, yet a part of the French army; on France and the Entente we depended for financial support. True, it had been agreed that the funds we received should be only a loan which our State would repay; but, in practice, we were not at that time independent. Nevertheless I went my own way and we set off for France.
Nor were the Allies agreed upon what our army should do. Paris wanted it to be brought to France, London would rather have seen us stay in Russia or in Siberia, possibly for reasons connected with the Bolshevist agitation in India. The details of our relations with the Allies in Russia I must leave to Dr. Beneš who will presently describe them. The fact that we had an army and that, in Russia, it was the only political and military organization of any size, gave us importance; and, in the negotiations for our recognition, respect for our army was a weighty factor.
In considering the question of intervention or non-intervention in Russia, a distinction must be made between meddling in Russian affairs under the Bolshevist Government and war against the Bolshevists themselves. Clearly, according to international usage, the Allies ought not to have interfered in Russian internal affairs; but the Bolshevists ought not to have interfered in Allied internal affairs. The Bolshevist doctrine of a proletarian International was naturally a serious matter; but, in any case, to fight the Bolshevists was, at that moment, to fight official Russia. If war was necessary against Russia—Bolshevist Russia, for there was no other—war, and the reasons for it, should have been formally declared. This was not done. I admit quite frankly that I did not approve of the way the Allies rode roughshod over political formality in their dealings with the Bolshevists—all the less because I was a much more radical opponent of Bolshevism, as far as principles went, than many gentlemen in Paris and London. I had thought much on the subject of a war against the Bolshevists and Russia, and
