Almost one hundred years after World War I and the Russian Revolution, U.S. diplomat DeWitt Clinton Poole's (1885-1952) perspective on his experiences negotiating with Bolshevik authorities and monitoring anti-Bolshevik movements throughout the Soviet Union is now fully accessible. Through Poole's perspective, a key figure in U.S.-Soviet relations, this book sheds new light on the Russian Revolution and World War I.

Russia From The American Embassy April, 1916-November,1918 [1921]

Between 1917 and 1920--from the Bolshevik Revolution to the definitive statement of American opposition to Bolshevik Russia--Soviets and Americans searched for ways to effect meaningful interactions between their two nations in the absence of formal diplomatic relations. During these years, wide-ranging discussions occurred on a variety of serious issues, from military collaboration and economic relations to the comprehensive settlement of political and military disputes. At the same time, extensive debates took place in both countries about the nature of the relations between them. As McFadden shows in this pathbreaking book, based on research in Soviet archives as well as previously unused private collections and government archives in the United States and Great Britain, a surprising number of concrete agreements were reached between the two countries. These included continued operation of the American Red Cross in Russia, the transfer of war materials from the Russian army to the Americans, the sale of strategic supplies of platinum from the Bolsheviks to the United States, and the exemption of a number of American corporations from Soviet government nationalization decrees. Numerous important diplomats and politicians were involved in these negotiations. McFadden offers a timely reevaluation in a post-Cold War era.

Anti-Bolshevism, the Allied war effort, German domination, American hegemony—these issues and many more occupied the daily activities of American diplomats in revolutionary Russia. Left with little instruction from Washington and often exposed to danger, the American diplomats took it upon themselves to deal with the chaotic situation. In this unique study, Allison looks at the careers of specific diplomats and at their personal and political agendas, showing how their prejudices often biased their judgment and influenced their actions.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Bancroft Prize, and the Parkman Prize From acclaimed diplomat and historian George Kennan, a landmark history of the crucial months in 1917–1918 that forged the pattern of Soviet-American relations When the Bolsheviks seized power in November 1917, American diplomats in St. Petersburg and Moscow were thrown into a bewildering situation. Should the new regime be recognized? What was its true nature? And was there any way to keep Russia fighting against Germany in the Great War? In vivid detail, George Kennan’s classic history tells the gripping story of the Americans’ furious, and ultimately failed, efforts to strike a deal to keep the Soviets in the war—and how these events set the pattern of future relations between the two emerging superpowers. In a new foreword, Kennan biographer Frank Costigliola puts the book in the context of its Cold War publication and Kennan’s life.

When Litvinov arrived in Washington in 1933 after the sixteen years of diplomatic silence between his country and the U.S., he carried with him his commission as official representative to the U.S., dated 1918 and signed by Lenin and Chicherin, as evidence of the long-standing desire of the Soviet Union for recognition. This is an absorbing narrative of the events which led up to this dramatic arrival, heralded with such high hopes and good will, and of the collapse into discord and disillusionment which followed. A full-length account of these negotiations, it presents a new picture of the pressures for and against diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union. Originally published in 1953. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.