The American Red Cross
in Revolutionary Russia

STEPHEN D. CORRSIN

MERICAN policy towards and contacts with Russia in
1917-18 present a fascinating story, bound up with the
World War, the two Russian revolutions of March and
November 1917 and the subsequent Russian Civil War, and the
Allied interventions in Russia. The American Red Cross played a
major role in American contacts with Russia in these years,
through its Mission there. The Bakhmeteff Archive of Russian
and East European History and Culture has two collections
which shed considerable light on this Mission. These are the papers
of two New York lawyers, Thomas D. Thacher (i 881-1950)
and Allen Wardwell (1873-1953), both of whom served in re¬
sponsible positions in the Mission. Wardwell's diaries, and the
correspondence and photograph collections of both men, are par¬
ticularly valuable.

The Mission, twenty-six members strong, was headed at first
by Frank Billings, a professor at the University of Chicago. Its
members were of two sorts: doctors and scientists, such as Billings
and Henry C. Sherman, a professor at Columbia; and non-special¬
ists, such as Thacher and Wardwell. The Mission was by no
means a purely Red Cross effort. Its members were given military
rank and American army uniforms; the second-in-command. Wall
Street financier William Boyce Thompson, bankrolled the opera¬
tion. The Mission was one of many—some said too many—Ameri¬
can groups which went to Russia in 1917. The various groups and
individuals went for a wide range of reasons: curiosity; sympathy
for what appeared to be at first a democratic revolution (this was
the first, March revolution); humanitarian goals; and the desire to

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