“To Strangle Bolshevism in Its Cradle”
The Entente’s Blockade of Soviet Russia
Max Trecker, Friedrich Asschenfeldt
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
From March 1918 to January 1920, the Entente blockaded Bolshevik Russia, in order to fight the revolution and to cut off the Central Powers’ access to Russia’s resources. The powers of the Entente shied away from a full-scale invasion. The dwindling prospects for a “White” victory in the civil war, fear of German dominance, and Russia’s market potential forced the Entente to lift the blockade in late 1919. The Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement of 1921 laid the groundwork for Soviet Russia’s reintegration into the world economy. The blockade had an after-effect in the Soviet Union’s efforts to achieve autarky and its fortress mentality. The mechanisms of the 1919 blockade became a part of international law as a means for punishing aggressors in peacetime. They are the beginning of modern economic sanctions.
(Osteuropa, 10-12/2021, pp. 47–58)