ABSTRACT
Twenty miles from St Petersburg the Finnish border was heavily patrolled by units of the victorious Finnish White Army; Allied troops were astride the Murmansk railway; Anton Denikin was the master of the Kuban and free to reinforce Krasnov; French influences were at work in Poland, and the leaders of the newly emergent state were known to be opposed to the Bolsheviks; the Baltic Provinces of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania – were fighting for their independence and prepared to accept any help which would enable them to resist the Soviets. The war had brought a change within the Bolsheviks themselves; though they still spoke of 'international goals' and 'world revolution', the conflict had made their real aims national. Because this was so, they had gained many supporters even amongst those who disagreed with the specific tenets of their beliefs. In the centre, as Ransome remarked, the revolution was an established fact.
