Comments Elsewhere

“That assault resulted in the repression the Bolsheviks then unleashed on the left opposition and anarchists in Russia, using the invasion as the basis for claiming they were under attack from White Russians and Imperialists and that all opposition to the Bolsheviks would be considered counter revolutionary.”

This is an important point, but this way of putting it lets the Bolsheviks off the hook too easily. The imperial adventures in Russia didn’t cause the Bolshevik Terror; Bolsheviks caused it. The imperialist support for the Whites only provided them with an excuse for baring their fangs as they’d been hoping to do for quite some time.

Of course, the imperial war in Russia was still unjust, on other, independent grounds, besides the evil excuse-making function that it served for Lenin, Trotsky, et al.