James M. Carter

Spring 2000

Empire, War and Revolution

Lloyd C. Gardner, Jr., Safe for Democracy: The Anglo-American Response to Revolution, 1913-1923. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984. Xii + 383 pp. Notes and index.

The first two decades of the twentieth century represent one of the most tumultuous periods in modern history. Within this remarkably short time social and political upheaval had swept Mexico, Asia, Russia, and all of Europe. Old World political arrangements such as the balance-of-power and spheres-of-influence systems collapsed under the strain and resulted in nothing less than a new world order. Among those who not only envisioned this new order but also embraced it, American president Woodrow Wilson figures prominently. Indeed, according to Lloyd Gardner, Wilson became its chief architect: “When Woodrow Wilson arrived at the Capitol on the evening of April 2, 1917, it was not to ask Congress to intervene in a European war. His quest was for a new world.” (vii)

Wilson was a kind of visionary, “a crusading idealist,” to quote his chief biographer, who enjoyed the perspective offered by America’s distance from Europe, both real and historical.[1] Scolding Europe’s leaders for not recognizing the forces aligned against them, Wilson said, “The conservatives do not realize what forces are loose in the world at the present time. Liberalism is the only thing that can save civilization from chaos—from a flood of ultra-radicalism that will swamp the world.” (1) The chaos to which Wilson referred was the challenge of radicalism or revolutionary change. These forces had posed very real problems for traditional liberalism in Mexico in 1910; China in 1911, and Russia in 1917. If the United States and western European nations did not successfully oppose the tide of revolution, the old imperial system would be cast aside and replaced by a very different arrangement that might not favor the traditional powers.

For Wilson, the only means of stemming this tide was liberalism. Liberalism, in this context, was a combination of free trade principles and the demise of balance of power or spheres of influence politics. Nations creating spheres of influence was both inefficient and not workable in the long run. Bitter rivalries would result in perpetual conflict rendering capitalism increasingly unstable and chaotic. Such a situation would open doors through which the forces of revolution would achieve great success. Not suprisingly, the leaders of Europe did not see the future in quite the same way as did Wilson. Gardner juxtaposes the views of Wilson with those of England’s David Lloyd George. In contrasting the two, the author portrays, in an insightful way, the politics of old being supplanted with the politics of new.

David Lloyd George held essentially the opposite view of the world of Wilson’s liberalism. The former led an empire on the decline. England was also locked in bitter imperial rivalry in far-flung places. During the late nineteenth century a “New Imperialism” emerged in which European nations began to carve up much of the world to increase their trade and find new sources of raw materials. In a thirty year period, Great Britain added over 4.5 million square miles, France 3.5 million square miles, and Germany a little over 1 million square miles to the national territory. To be sure, the result was vastly increased money in the coffers. But another result, forecast by Lenin and others, was the collision of competing empires. Once the imperial powers gobbled up vast tracts of land, they then implemented protectionists measures designed to “‘stifle or cramp…trade with differential duties’” making it necessary “‘for us to protect ourselves’” according to a British Conservative leader. (12-13) The bitter and costly Boer War from 1899-1902 is but one example.

Gardner’s study is centered on this basic opposition. His argument is structured around the events in Mexico, China, and Russia. What he has done is create an epic tale of the response of the new world system of liberalism and the Old World system of spheres-of-influence to the three revolutions. In any case, the United States and Great Britain differed markedly in their respective responses.

Wilson’s intervention was on behalf of a higher cause and his language was often steeped in moralisms that seemed inappropriate to his counterparts. As Arthur Link has said, “superior ethical standards and moral purposes” drove him.[2] On revolution, the president wanted to create a situation in which it was unnecessary rather than suppress it. “Men’s individual rights have no doubt been invaded, and the invasion of those rights has been attended by many deplorable circumstances which ought sometime, in the proper way, be accounted for. Back of it all is the struggle of a people to come into its own.” (62) Wilson, at times, sounded truly revolutionary, as he fancied himself.

So deep was his self-righteousness that he made of Mexico a laboratory for liberalism. He believed that Mexico was just such a people coming of age and that what they needed was an American revolution. That required no outside interference. Wilson would use the U.S. Navy and other diplomatic tools to keep Europe out. He also refused to countenance the likes of Huerta’s (or anyone else’s) seizure of power violently or through subversion of the will of the people. Consequently, Wilson resorted to dealing first with Carranza, then with Villa and others to play Mexican forces against each other.

Gardner attributes Wilson’s policies in Mexico to his vision of a liberal world. As historian John M. Hart has meticulously documented, however, an extended laundry list of influential Americans had significant interests in Mexico and pushed for intervention. As Hart writes, “In many ways Wilson administration policies toward the Mexican Revolution continued the defense initiated by President Taft and the state government of Texas of American property and commercial interests inside Mexico and along the border.”[3] Under the recently fallen Diaz regime, Americans had invested $2 billion in Mexico and Americans came to own 43 percent of all property values in Mexico.[4] Wilson indeed fought off pressure to intervene and simply annex Mexico. He did so not for high-minded ideals, but because he favored the creation of a stable Mexico from within (with substantial American aid, if needed) rather than through military intervention.

Wilson’s policies betrayed an ugly paternalism and an illiberal streak. As he wrote prior to becoming president, “since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed against him must be battered down. Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process.” (41) If Mexico refused to have an American revolution, Wilson would use his heavy hand to control events.

Similarly in China, following the collapse of the six-member bank consortium scheme to control/carve up China, Wilson postured with a seemingly hands-off policy that proved brilliant: the Chinese came to see the U.S. and Wilson as a potential wedge against China’s more “adventurous neighbors.” (76) Japan was perhaps the most serious threat to U.S. aims in Asia following the issuance of the famous Twenty One Demands. These were designed to force concessions out of China, to realize the spoils of war in Manchuria and to push westerners out of Asia. The United States scrambled for an answer. Hopes of using other European nations to thwart Japanese moves were dashed as World War I involved much of the continent. The United States eventually reinstituted the banking consortium, but on a much broader basis, to get back into the China market through investment loans. Additionally, the Americans cut a deal with Japan conceding southern China (Twenty One Demands) but forcing recognition of the Open Door in northern China.[5]

To the shock of everyone in the western world, the tsarist government of Russia collapsed early in 1917 and gave way to a liberal provisional government. Despite the initial surprise, Wilson embraced this latest development as an extension of liberalism. The very fact that Russia, of all nations, embarked on the liberal program was most encouraging. Wilson’s eagerness turned to concern and then to alarm as the Provisional government under Alexander Kerensky seemed stalled and unwilling to use force to quell more radical socialist elements. Western leaders were convinced of German connivance in the Russia socialist challenge. Wilson and others agreed to give aid to various elements to stymie this move (aid to Alexei Kaledin’s movement for one). Once the Bolsheviks had seized power through the Petrograd soviet in the fall of 1917, Wilson’s optimism quickly faded. The liberals hope for Russia was lost. The radicals now controlled events and were sure to reject the liberal agenda and, perhaps worse, sign a separate peace deal with the Germans. Gardner’s telling of the events that led up to the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk is rich and insightful and supposes that an opportunity was lost that could have prevented the Treaty and kept Russia in the war. (172-175)

Obviously, such was not the case. Wilson (and the Allies) saw hopes for Russian liberalism dashed by the Bolsheviks. The American president now drew parallels between events in Russia and events in Mexico. He decided to adopt a wait-and-see approach. As of August 2, 1918, the waiting was over and the first of the Allied troops landed at Vladivostok in the hope of inspiring a mass anti-Bolshevik uprising. At this point, Lloyd George emerges as liberalism’s most able, if unwelcome, critic. Questioning nonrecognition and intervention, he recalled,

We had formally recognized the Czar’s Government, although at the time we knew it to be absolutely rotten. Our reason had been that it was the de facto Government. We recognized the Don Government, the Archangel Government and the Omsk Government, although none of them were good, but we refused to recognize the Bolshevists. To say that we ourselves should pick the representatives of a great people was contrary to every principle for which we had fought. (235)

Ultimately, Lloyd George turned out to be not a liberal, but, in Gardner’s estimation, “the most enlightened Conservative of his day, on either side of the Atlantic.” (262) The Briton drew on a kind of pragmatic economic nationalism. Millions would be spent undermining the Bolsheviks; perhaps millions more finding a suitable replacement. Instead, he recommended, in the face of enthusiastic opposition from many corners, opening trade and commercial ties with the new government. Of course, this would involve formal diplomatic recognition as well.

The liberals (Gardner includes Churchill) had become hemmed by their wish to reform the world in order to reform their own societies; or the other way around, the order matters little. Liberalism had led Wilson and Churchill and many others on both sides of the Atlantic down the “path of confrontation with Russia because it was also the way (supposedly) to force Labour to renounce class politics at home.” To countenance radical labor politics from Russia was to encourage the same at home and face the threat of rising socialism. (262) But, as Lloyd George made clear, to adamantly oppose revolutionary politics cast in relief the fallacies inherent in liberalism. The liberals were, in fact, counter-revolutionaries.

In the end, Wilson’s fate was a tragic one. In Mexico, China, and in Russia, the policy of liberalism resulted in a lack of policy. Wilson failed to create an environment that would bring about the kind of American reform he envisioned. Instead, he ended by using the power and force of the state in an effort to bring about ideal circumstances in China, Russia, Mexico and other places; the very force of which he had been so critical. As Walter LaFeber has written, “determined to help other peoples become democratic and orderly, Wilson himself became the greatest military interventionist in U.S. history.”[6]

To the disappointment of the old Progressives and to the delight of opponents such as Henry Cabot Lodge, Wilson ultimately defended his League of Nations as an effort to thwart Bolshevism. He had come full circle. Though Gardner spends surprisingly little ink on this, he does make the point that Wilson, because of the way in which he defended the League, seemed to many to be among the forces of the balance-of-power politics of old. (258-260) The liberal agenda was doomed to failure in part because its adherents, Wilson chief among them, favored the dictator over the democrat. Liberals sought reform on a level that would render revolution unnecessary. But, as Lenin had noticed, that reform was severely limited and Wilson’s rhetoric about self-determination and liberation for former colonies all too vague.

Gardner’s study is the fascinating epic tale of the demise of a global political system that had ruled much of the world during the nineteenth century. Wilson moved to replace that old system with a liberal framework in which the great powers could coexist and carry on commerce and trade expansion on a more equal basis. Wilson wanted no more wars, no more national aggrandizement through subjugation of people’s rights, and no more spheres-of-influence political arrangements. The American president expressed all these tenets explicitly. When faced with revolutionary China, Mexico, and Russia, however, he ultimately became the leading defender of the status quo, using secret arrangements, using force of arms, and undermining the democratic process of electoral politics. Gardner reveals all this with remarkable insight and sophistication. All students of twentieth century U.S. history would benefit by reading this book.