Americans in Siberia in the Russian Civil War - Did they aid the Bolsheviks?

[yankeedoodle]

Americans in Siberia
Excerpted from:  The Russian Civil War ended 100 years ago: Here's how Western powers played a significant part in the outcome
What were foreign interventionists doing in Russia during a conflict which helped to define the 20th century?
https://www.rt.com/russia/565149-end-of-russian-civil-war/

The intervention was much more active in the eastern part of Russia, through which the country's main transport artery, the Trans-Siberian Railway, passed.

The Americans landed an expeditionary force dubbed 'Siberia' consisting of about 8,000 troops in Vladivostok in August of 1918. They immediately declared that they were completely neutral and gave assurances that they would not interfere in Russia's internal affairs or provide support to either the Whites or Reds. While the British in the north were still engaging in political intrigues, the Americans claimed to be simply guarding the railway.

Perhaps the American mission would have been less upsetting for the locals had it not been headed by General William Graves, for whom the word 'monarchist' was a terrible curse word. Having no understanding of the local situation at all, he thought the Bolsheviks were something akin to America's Founding Fathers and that they were fighting for freedom against tyranny, while he considered all Whites to be monarchists.

As a result, Graves sympathized with the Bolsheviks and put spokes in the wheels of the Whites. His relations with the latter's officers, who could see the American general's actual deeds, were very strained. For example, in the fall of 1919, he blocked a shipment of weapons bought by Whites on the grounds that they allegedly wanted to attack him.

The manager of affairs in the Kolchak government, Georgy Gens, observed:

"In the Far East, the American expeditionary forces behaved in such a way that anti-Bolshevik circles became convinced that the United States did not want to see the triumph, but rather the defeat of the anti-Bolshevik government. They expressed sympathy for the partisans, as if encouraging them to take further action."

In his opinion, "It was clear that the United States did not realize what the Bolsheviks were, and that the American general, Graves, was acting according to certain instructions." [emphasis added]

Another White leader, Ataman Grigory Semenov, recalled:

"Almost all the weapons and uniforms coming from America were transferred from Irkutsk to the Red partisans, and General Graves, an ardent opponent of the Omsk government, knew about this. The conduct of the Americans in Siberia was so hideous from a moral point of view and just in terms of basic decency that the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Omsk government, Sukin, being a great Americanophile, could barely hush up the scandal that had begun to erupt."