WHY SIBERIA?
CANADIAN FOREIGN POLICY AND SIBERIAN INTERVENTION, 1918-19
P. Whitney Lackenbauer, University of Waterloo
©April 1998 published on Canadian Military Heritage Project with author’s permission
Page Six continued from “Regardless, a Canadian officer in command of a ‘British’ force was a forward step for the Dominion.”
Historical appraisals of the Canadian Economic Commission to Siberia have been much less forgiving. From all perspectives, the enthusiasm and promise that was held for Canadian economic development in and trade with Siberia was ill-founded. No marked economic advantage was accrued from the commission or by military intervention. Furthermore, the underlying philosophy and structure of the commission has been cast in a disparaging light. Commissioner Dana Wilgress reflected:
Looking back, I am amazed at how little consultation took place with the Russians on the spot and whom we were supposed to be assisting. The general philosophy appeared to be that the Russians had made such a bad mess that it was necessary for foreigners to take over and try to restore order.(47)
He considered the Canadian Economic Commission to be an operation “even more grotesque in its way than the military intervention.”(48) One must be wary, however, of over-dramatizing the notion of Canadian imperialism. In many ways, the Canadian commission was more a response to the threat of American and Japanese economic activity in Siberia than an “imperialist” initiative.(49) Robert Murby’s synopsis of the commission was balanced and accurate:
The commission was born under the most auspicious political circumstances, blessed as it was
with the enthusiastic support of everyone from the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Borden, to the top
officials of the Department of Trade and Commerce, but its life was short and its
accomplishments meagre. Its principal defect was quite simply ignorance of the political,
military, and economic conditions as they existed in Siberia conditions which virtually
precluded any development of Canadian-Siberian trade at the time.(50)
Historians continue to debate the origins of Canada’s foreign policy decision to participate in the Siberian intervention. Canadian intervention was primarily the result of perceived military necessity, coupled with the promise of political and economic advances. From a wide reading of primary and secondary literature one can confidently conclude that Allied military intervention would not have occurred if the Russian Revolution had not coincided with a difficult period in World War One and the loss of the crucial Eastern Front. If, indeed, Britain entered Russia with a view to obtaining a second front, and then remained after the armistice with a view to suppressing Bolshevism, its later policy direction was not representative of Canada’s. The eldest dominion broke with its imperial mentor in Siberian policy soon after the original military impetus was gone. Ideological opposition to the Bolsheviks was not a predominant factor in Borden’s decision to participate in the Siberian campaign. Even if Borden was hostile to communism, he never regarded the Canadian Expeditionary Force as part of an Allied crusade to eradicate communism from the world.(51)
When changing international, domestic and governmental settings raised serious doubts as to the strategic applicability of Siberian military intervention, the economic benefits it could derive, its popular support in Canada, and thus its political appeal, Borden sagaciously abandoned the Siberian initiative against the will of senior British military officials. In effect, Borden was “giving expression to a new awareness of Canadian nationality. Canada would no longer have external policies decided for her by Britain; she would herself enter into the making of those policies and join in their implementation by her own free consent.”(52)
If Vimy Ridge aided in the Canadian ascent from colonial to nation status, the foreign policy decisions regarding the Siberian withdrawal testified to the dominion’s new found confidence and maturity. The League of Nations provided a new multilateral forum for Canada to test her new, more independent international identity in the years ahead.
ENDNOTES
47. Wilgress, 367.
48. Wilgress, 366.
49. Murby, 376.
50. Murby, 392.
51. MacLaren, 5, 222.
52. MacLaren, 8.
53. Swettenham, 14-15.
Continue reading CANADIAN FOREIGN POLICY AND SIBERIAN INTERVENTION, 1918-19 page 1, page 2, page 3, page 4, page 5, page 6, Appendix A, Appendix B, Bibliography