Remember that secret Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement everyone goes bananas over? Well, here’s another secret agreement. In December 1917, Britain and France divided parts of Russia into their spheres of influence.
Britain got the Cossack territories and the Caucasus, including Armenia, Georgia and Kurdistan. France got Bessarabia, Ukraine and Crimea.
And look where their forces subsequently operated during the Russian Civil War: the French intervened in southern Russia, including Odessa and Crimea, while the British became heavily involved in the Caucasus and supported anti-Bolshevik forces elsewhere. The agreement was originally made in the context of the war against the Central Powers, but after Germany surrendered, Allied intervention continued and became increasingly tied to the Russian Civil War itself.
And was Lenin bravely defending Russia from these foreign powers? Nope. At Brest-Litovsk, his government surrendered Russian control over vast territories and accepted German domination across much of the former empire. Some anti-imperialist hero.
But you thought the Civil War was a war of good versus evil, where the role of evil varies depending on your preferred ideology.