ABSTRACT
The new Bolshevik regime faced an unforeseen situation at the beginning of 1921 when, having maintained its power in Russia by winning the country’s civil war, it found itself isolated on what had seemed the crucial international level. Despite the Russian revolutionary spark, Socialists elsewhere had not grasped the opportunity offered by the war, so the revolution had not spread as expected. Thus the situation facing the Bolsheviks, and the stakes of whatever they might now do, had changed dramatically since 1917.
