Allied Intervention and the Russian Civil War, 1917–1922

MICHAEL KETTLE. Russia and the Allies, 1917–1920: Vol. II: The Road to Intervention, March–November 1918. London and New York: Routledge, 1988. Pp. 401.

RICHARD LUCKETT. The White Generals: An Account of the White Movement and the Russian Civil War. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987. Pp. xvi, 413.

TERENCE EMMONS, trans, and ed. Time of Troubles: The Diary of Iurii Vladimirovich Got'e. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988. Pp. xvii, 513.

DONALD J. RALEIGH, ed. A Russian Civil War Diary: Alexis Babine in Saratov, 1917–1922. Durham, N.C. and London: Duke University Press, 1988. Pp. xxiv, 240.     

The United States and the Question of the Greco-Turkish War, 1919–1922

Abstract

In the post World War II era, the strain in the trilateral relation between the United States, Greece and Turkey is one of the most disquieting and vexatious elements to emerge from American foreign policy. The so-called southeastern flank of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is currently beset with tensions that threaten to impede its contributory role in NATO's overall defense strategy for southeastern Europe (if they have not already done so). In this political drama, the principal antagonists, Greece and Turkey, have a number of outstanding differences which on occasion have brought them to the precipice of war. As a result, the United States has intervened as the protagonist and consequently has become the recipient of the enmity of these two NATO allies for not recognizing their ‘special’ claims or interests. As in the characteristic classical Greek drama, the chorus of NATO partners offer a common chant: they are united in proclaiming that the current state of affairs seems to portend failure to the concerted effort to defend Western Europe.     

The Russian Quality of Life, 1914–1917

Contrary to the views of some historians, prices during the First World War rose faster than wage increases, leading to declining living standards and fueling popular unrest, thus contributing to the 1917 revolutions.     

Dismantling the Soviet Security System. Soviet–Finnish Negotiations on Ending Their Friendship Agreement, 1989–91.

The Soviet Union had tied Finland to its security system through the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance (FCMA) signed between the two in 1948. As the Soviet Union began to disintegrate at the end of the 1980s, Finland exited the Soviet sphere of influence – the region controlled through a system of bilateral and multilateral agreements. This article analyses the Soviet–Finnish negotiations to discard the FCMA treaty as a case study of the changing Soviet European neighbourhood policy. It gives important insights into the disintegration of the Soviet foreign policy mechanism during the Gorbachev era as it elaborates on both the intra-bureaucracy conflicts between the Kremlin and the Soviet foreign ministry, MID, and later between the Soviet central government and the Russian republic. As Finland was part of the Soviet security system, analysing Finland's exit from it sheds light onto the crucial change that took place in the Soviet foreign policy doctrine during the perestroika years. The Gorbachev leadership's decision not to defend its sphere of influence with force paved way for the upheavals of 1989 which led to the Cold War's end.     

The Development of Geographic Science in Siberia and the Soviet Far East Over the Last 50 Years (1917–67)

A review of geographic research on Siberia before the Bolshevik Revolution and during the 50 years of the Soviet period. Current research, centered at the Institute of Geography in Irkutsk, focuses on problems of tayga development, thematic mapping, physical-geographic field-station observations and medical geography.