[1] Lenin's New Economic Policy downplayed socialism and emphasized business dealings with capitalist countries in an effort to restart the sluggish Russian economy.
[2] David Lloyd George first raised the proposal to drop the blockade on Russia, following the October Revolution at a meeting of the Allied Supreme Council, held on 14 January 1920, four days after the Treaty of Versailles had been ratified.
Meanwhile, the Bolsheviks, upon hearing of the Supreme Council's intention of lifting of the blockade and developing trade with the Co-operatives, responded by taking Centrosoyuz over.
Initially the Bolsheviks had been hesitant to enter diplomacy with Western countries out of an ideological belief that they would soon be overturned in a world revolution against capitalism.
Krasin and his fellow delegates were nominally co-opted on to the board of Centrosoyuz, maintaining the fiction that negotiations were being carried out with the Co-operatives Union.