On the other hand the Allies had some grounds for 
     
     optimism on the Russian scene. The truce and peace treaty 
     
     had produced widespread unfavourable reaction in Russia; 
     
     the Cossacks on the Don had raised counter-revolutionary 
     
     standards, and the mass of the Siberian people, who were 
     
     generally content with their ordered existence under the old 
     
     regime, had little leaning towards the Bolshevik system. As 
     
     we have seen, Murmansk and Archangel were open to Allied 
     
     shipping, and in the Caucasus movements were afoot to bar 
     
     entry by the Central Powers to the Caspian. Finally, the pro- 
     
     Allied Czech Corps, widely dispersed, lay along the line of 
     
     the middle Volga and at Vladivostok, though the country 
     
     between was still in Bolshevik hands.The plain task of the 
     
     Allies was to reconstitute the Eastern Front and to withhold 
     
     Russian supplies from Germany. The Military 
     
     Representatives of the Supreme War Council accordingly 
     
     recommended as early as 23 December 1917 that all national 
     
     troops in Russia who were determined to continue the war 
     
     should be fully supported. 
     
    
   
   
    
     There were two approaches through which the Supreme 
     
     War Council might supply help to anti-Bolshevik forces in 
     
     Russia-the northern ports of Russia in Europe, and across the 
     
     eastern frontiers of Siberia. The latter seemed to offer the 
     
     better opportunity, especially as Japan; an Allied power and 
     
     the only one with troops available for intervention in force, 
     
     was close at hand, ready and willing to oppose incursions by 
     
     the Central Powers into Eastern Russia. There was the risk, 
     
     however, that a Japanese invasion might unite the mass of the 
     
    
   
   
    
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