Map of the Russian Civil War during the Allied Intervention. The Allied intervention was a multi-national military expedition foreign intervention russian civil war during the Russian Civil War in 1918.

After the Bolshevik government withdrew from World War I, the Allied Powers openly backed the anti-communist White forces in Russia. In 1917, Russia was in a state of political strife, and public support for World War I and Tsar Nicholas II was dwindling. The country was on the brink of revolution. The Allied Powers had been shipping supplies to Russia since the beginning of the war in 1914 through the ports of Arkhangelsk, Murmansk, and Vladivostok.

In 1917, the United States entered the war on the Allied side. The war became unpopular with the Russian populace. Political and social unrest increased, with the Marxist anti-war Bolshevik Party under Vladimir Lenin gaining widespread support. Kornilov attempted to set up a military dictatorship by staging a coup in late August 1917. He had the support of the British military attaché, Brigadier-General Alfred Knox, and Kerensky accused Knox of producing pro-Kornilov propaganda. German troops invaded the Russian Empire and threatened to capture Moscow and impose its own regime in early 1918. Lenin wanted to cut a deal with Germany but was unable to get approval from his council until late February.