Was there any war Russia has ignited that was NOT explained by its "support" of a newly-created bogus puppet state (e.g. "People's Republic")?

Question

History

This excerpt of a Russian newspaper says:

[…] On December 4 {1939}, comrade Molotov has telegraphed to Avenol. In his answer, he stated that there are no reasons for raising "Finnish question", since the USSR is not in war with Finland. Instead, it helps the People's government of FDR (Finnish Democratic Republic) to get rid of Ryti, Tanner, and Co.
If, nevertheless, the LN meeting will be scheduled, the USSR will not attend.

In 1919-1920, the Russia has committed an armed invasion to Emirate of Bukhara, partially occupied its territory to create "Bukharan People's Soviet Republic";
In 1920-1921, the Russia has ignited civil war in Iran to create so-called "Persian Socialist Soviet Republic";
The cases of puppet North Korea and North Vietnam are also self-evident.

Even the war against Afghanistan (1979-1989):

The policy of government has been oriented to build a socialist republic in Afghanistan.
In Russian: Политика правительства была ориентирована на построение в Афганистане социалистической республики.

In the recent history, the Russian propaganda has also self-excused Russian wars against Moldova (1992), Georgia (1991-1992, 2008), and Ukraine (2013-2014) with supporting marionette "Transnistria", "South Ossetia", "Abkhazia", "Donets'k People's Republic", and "Luhans'k People's Republic", respectively.

Pattern

In all cases, I see a pretty strong pattern which assumes

• the creation of a bogus state in a certain region of the target state (Victim);
• whose leaders are:
  • represented by Victim's natives;
  • fully or partially trained on Russia and then injected back to Victim;
  • and whose actions are fully controlled by Russia;
• and whose aim is to be annexed by Russia:
  • either by maintaining or omitting a brief period of independence from the Victim state
  • with or without setting the final goal of the annexation of the entire Victim state.

Question

I was trying to find any war ignited by the Russia's recent history (under any regime) that has not been backed up with an idea of "supporting" some kind of "People's Republic", but failed to find one.

So, the question is: Has there been any war that the Russia has ignited since WWII ever in its history, that has NOT been self-excused as a support of a newly-created bogus puppet state like "People Republics" we observe throughout the recent history?

Answer 1

So, the question is: Has there been any war that the Russia has ignited since WWII ever in its history, that has NOT been self-excused as a support of a newly-created marionette "Republic"?

Well, any point of Russian history is acceptable, right? We have a lot of interesting candidates. Let's see some of them:

The Russo-Swedish War of 1590–1595 between the Tsardom of Russia and Sweden seems to fit what you want. If I can believe wikipedia, this war was instigated by the Russian Regent Boris Godunov hoping to recover the Duchy of Estonia, which was taken from Russia in the previous Livonian War - so there was not an excuse of supporting a "marionette Republic" (or Kingdom). According to the wiki:

As soon as the Truce of Plussa expired early in 1590, a large Russian army led by Godunov and his sickly brother-in-law, Fyodor I of Russia, marched from Moscow towards Novgorod. On 18 January they crossed the Narva River and laid siege to the Swedish castle of Narva (...).

Maybe someone could say this war was not ignited by Russia, since there was previous wars against Sweden, including the one where Russia lost the Duchy of Estonia.

Then there was the Russo-Persian War of 1722–1723:

The formal pretext was the grave damage inflicted to the many Russian merchants who inhabited the Safavid Iranian city of Shamakhi. In 1721, rebellious Lezgins, from within the declining Safavid Empire, had sacked and looted the city, killing many of its inhabitants including several Russian merchants.

However, according to wiki, "the ultimate cause of the war was Russia's desire to expand to the southeast and the temporary weakness of Iran", i.e., the war was ignited by Russia, and the formal "excuse" was the damage suffered by Russian merchants in Persia, not the support of, let's say, a "People's Emirate".

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About recent wars: most Russian wars after WWII seems to, formally, be either in support of new communist or post-soviet states, about crushing some kind of rebellion (so formally ignited by the rebellion itself; for example, Caucasus Insurgency, Hungary Revolution or the invasion of Czechoslovakia), or involved mainly other countries which were the ones who formally ignited the war (as North Vietnam, Egypt in the War of Attrition, or the wars between Ethiopia and Eritrea). Wars after 1917 seems to follow the same pattern, including wars which formed the Soviet Union and its constituents.

Some possible exceptions to this includes:

• The Sino-Soviet Conflict in 1929, fought for the administration of the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER), which was a joint management between the non-communist Republic of China and USSR. The first country to attack was the USSR. However, since the war started after China arrested the General Manager and other Soviet citizens of the CER, a move in response to maneuvers by the Soviet to retain most control of the company by, for example, hiring more Soviet workers and officers, it's pretty hard to state who "ignited" it.
• Soviet invasion of the Baltic States: there was no existing "People's Republic" in Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania (unlike Finland, although the communist puppet state in Finland was created soon after the start of Winter War). The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which forced them to sign "mutual assistance treaties" and give freedom to Soviet forces in their territory. Then the Orzel Incident happened, when a Polish submarine escaped from Estonian capital, Tallinn, to UK, so the Soviets questioned Estonia's neutrality and forced them to allow the establishment of military bases by the communist countries. In the end, the three countries were accused of "conspiracy against the Soviet Union", and this was the pretext for the invasion - no existing "People's Republic", and the whole situation is such that it's hard to argue that this war was not "ignited" by USSR. However, soon after the invasion, of course new communist governments formed in the three countries, so this situation may not count.
• Zhenbao Island Incident between USSR and Maoist China in 1969, one of a series of border incidents between the two countries after the Sino-Soviet Split, but it was PRC who started to attack in this one.
• Border conflicts between Imperial Japan and Soviet Union in the 30s, where both sides claims that the other one was blame of border violations. There was no newly-created People's Republic there, although communist Mongolia participated of the battles. However, the excuse here is border defense, and it's hard to argue who "ignited" this conflict.

Answer 2

This is an interesting question.

If I remember my history correctly, Peter "The Great" was openly expansionist and did not cloak himself in a mantle of a liberator. But he was also doing a lot of domestic reforms.

Come to think of it, the same can be said about Napoleon. It may be interesting to generalize this question to examine how often monarchs who were domestic reformers also proved to be openly expansionist internationally.

Answer 3

I think the question can be interpreted in two ways: 1) whether Russia has always pretended to have a just cause for war, and 2) whether the cause has always been supporting people's Republics.

Are there any unjust wars?
In general the wars throughout history have been nearly always presented as just.^1 However, what is considered just reason for a war has changed throughout history. A few hundred years ago laying claims to a throne was considered a good cause, as well as punishing for misdeeds or insults to a god-anointed representatives - e.g., Peter the Great motivated opening of the Great Northern War by an insufficiently polite reception that he received a few years previously during his travel through the Baltic areas.

Protection of one's religious denomination has been a reason throughout centuries (and arguably remains such today in some places) - here we could mention the Crusades, the European Wars of Religion, as well as Russian interference in the Balkans to protect Orthodox Slavs. (Btw, Cardinal Richilieu was much criticized when he allied France with protestant Swedes against Catholic Hapsburgs.)

Nowadays the wars are mainly justified by liberating from tyrants, bringing democracy, helping independence struggle, fighting mafia/terrorists - examples are abundant (and many of them have nothing to do with Russia). Creating a puppet government and then militarily supporting it is also a time-honored tradition.

Has Russia always motivated its involvement in wars by helping People's Republics?
Some counter-examples have already been given above. One need not dig deeply to find more - Winter war, to my knowledge, was not to help any specific republic, as well as the reunification with western Ukraine.

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^1 Dale Carnegie has famously explained that no person thinks of themselves as a bad person, and nearly always finds a justification for their action. He gives several examples in How to win friends and influence people, including such unsavory characters as Al Capone. Nuremberg trials provide many other examples.

Answer 4

Likely not.

As soon as any foreign territory is occupied, the occupier needs some local government to keep any order there. And even more if the regime must oppose the continuing resistance. Nobody is as useful for the occupier as locals that turn to the side of the enemy. Not only these locals know the language, culture and things the like, they can also make confusing declarations to the rest of the world. So unless complete physical extermination is planned (that I have only seen in science fiction done by aliens), any locals willing to serve the enemy will always be welcome and would form the "new government" that of course will just be following orders of the occupier. This is a short work to arrange even if there are no pre-existing organizations ready to co-operate with the enemy, but as a rule there is also always something to start from.

Due that, "we just support the People's republic" has been a standard motto for:

• Baltic States right before WWII. Under Soviet surveillance, the new governments arranged rigged elections for new "people's assemblies", and a month later, the new assemblies met, with their sole item of business being resolutions to join the Soviet Union.
• Hungary in 1956. "Hungarian patriots" under Kádár.
• Czechoslovakia in 1968. The Eastern Bloc press printed an unsigned request, allegedly by Czechoslovak party and state leaders, for "immediate assistance, including assistance with armed forces".
• Afghanistan in 1979. The Amin government repeatedly requested the introduction of troops.
• Ukraine and Ukraine break away regions now.

I would say, mostly the standard approach.

To be objective, have never seen Russia claiming that invasion into Nazi Germany during WWII has been in response to some People's Republic, and likely same for Japan at this time. It was war, it was clear. Maybe it has been the last time so.

Answer 5

Paradoxically, in Bertrand Russell's view, Russian hegemony was good for peace.

The hegemony of Russia in Asia would not, to my mind, be in any way regrettable. Russia would probably not be strong enough to tyrannize as much as the English, the Americans, or the Japanese would do. Moreover, the Russians are sufficiently Asiatic in outlook and character to be able to enter into relations of equality and mutual understanding with Asiatics, in a way which seems quite impossible for the English-speaking nations. And an Asiatic block, if it could be formed, would be strong for defence and weak for attack, which would make for peace. Therefore, on the whole, such a result, if it came about, would probably be desirable In the interests of mankind as a whole.

Russell, Bertrand. The Problem of China. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1922

Russell's opinions are highly tentative, subject to revision based on new evidence. It is doubtful whether Russians today still share that level of sympathy with the rest of Asia. The underlying desire in a Russian heart to gang up against China is very strong. In 2015, I would trust a Japanese before a Russian.

Answer 6

Since WWII the USSR has participated only in one war, in Afghanistan (if not to count the border clashes with China).

In post-Soviet history, besides what u mentioned, Russia participated in two major wars in Chechnya and also in defending the Tajikistan-Afghanistan border. I do not know whether it counts as defending a "people's republic" but Russia definitely was defending Tajikistan.