It was
he who proposed to "strangle the Bolshevik infant in its cradle". The
Peace Conferees, meeting in Versailles, heeded Lloyd George's warning of
March, 1919, and turned their attention to the urgent task of
strangling socialism. Revolutionary beginnings in central Europe were
stamped out. Funds were raised and arms were supplied to the
anti-Bolshevik forces in European Russia and Siberia. At the height of
the counter-Bolshevik crusade there were sixteen armies in Soviet Russia
with the common aim of destroying Bolshevism and restoring the country
to its previous status as one of the pillars of western civilization.
This military phase of the counter-revolution lasted for four years. It
failed. By 1922 the Soviet leaders were able to turn their energies to
the task of rebuilding a devastated country while they planned and
organized a socialist society.
Counter revolutionary forces failed to overthrow the Bolsheviks during
the civil war of 1918-1921. They failed again when the Nazi armies
swarmed into the Soviet Union in June, 1941. The years from 1941 to 1945
cost the Russians perhaps twenty million dead, six million dwelling
units and immense damage to their economy and their social organization.
When the war ended, responsible observers in the West predicted that if
the Soviet power survived, decades must elapse before the country was
back on its feet.
War destruction had played havoc with much of Europe.
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