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Title: The Bullitt Mission to Russia
Author: Bullitt, William C. (William Christian), 1891-1967
Language: English
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THE BULLITT MISSION TO RUSSIA
Testimony before the Committee on Foreign Relations United States
Senate of WILLIAM C. BULLITT.
MCMXIX
CONTENTS
THE COMMITTEE MEETS
MR. BULLITT'S OFFICIAL STATUS
ORDERED TO RUSSIA
COUNCIL OF TEN DISCUSSES RUSSIA
THE TROOPS AT ARCHANGEL
SITUATION IN RUSSIA
FRANCE BLOCKS PRINKIPOS CONFERENCE
WHAT AMERICA WANTED
THE BRITISH TERMS
TEXT OF PROJECTED PEACE PROPOSAL BY THE ALLIED AND ASSOCIATED
GOVERNMENTS
MR. BULLITT'S REPORT ON RUSSIA
ECONOMIC SITUATION
SOCIAL CONDITIONS
POLITICAL SITUATION
PEACE PROPOSALS
CONCLUSIONS
APPENDIX TO REPORT
TRANSPORT
FOOD
MANAGEMENT
SOCIAL CONDITIONS
STATEMENTS OF LEADERS OF OPPOSITION PARTIES
ARMY
LENIN'S PRESTIGE
CONCESSIONS
BREAKFAST WITH LLOYD GEORGE
BULLITT REPORT SUPPRESSED
PROPOSED DECLARATION OF ASSOCIATED GOVERNMENTS' POLICY AND OFFER OF
ARMISTICE
NANSEN PLAN TO FEED RUSSIA
AUCHINCLOSS-MILLER PROPOSAL
BULLITT MEMORANDUM FOR AUCHINCLOSS
REPLY OF PRESIDENT AND THREE PREMIERS TO NANSEN
HOLCHAK'S ADVANCE CAUSES REJECTION OF PEACE PROPOSAL
LLOYD GEORGE DECEIVES PARLIAMENT
MR. BULLITT RESIGNS
REPORT OF LINCOLN STEFFENS
REPORTS OF CAPT. W.W. PETTIT
SOCIAL WORK IN PETROGRAD
THE COMMITTEE ADJOURNS
UNITED STATES SENATE, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS,
Washington, D.C., Friday, September 12, 1919.
The committee met, pursuant to the call of the chairman,
at 10 o'clock a.m., in room 310, Senate Office Building, Senator Henry
Cabot Lodge presiding.
Present: Senators Lodge (chairman), Brandegee, Fall, Knox, Harding,
and New.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Bullitt is to make a statement to the committee this
morning. I think I ought to say that Mr. Bullitt was summoned on the
23d of August, I believe, and he was in the woods at that time, out of
reach of telegraph or telephone or mail, and only received the summons
a few days ago. He came at once to Washington. That is the reason of
the delay in his hearing.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Bullitt, will you take the stand and give your full
name, please, to the stenographer?
Mr. BULLITT, William C. Bullitt.
The CHAIRMAN. You are a native and a resident of Philadelphia, are you
not?
Mr. BULLITT. I am, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. Prior to the war, what were you engaged in?
Mr. BULLITT. Before the war I was employed by the Philadelphia Public
Ledger. I had been a correspondent for them in various places, and I
had been a member of the editorial staff in Philadelphia for a time.
The CHAIRMAN. You went abroad for them as a correspondent?
Mr. BULLITT. I did, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. Before we went into the war?
Mr. BULLITT. Before we went into the war I toured Germany, Austria,
Hungary, Belgium, Poland, and other places, studying conditions there,
for the purposes of the Public Ledger.
The CHAIRMAN. After we entered the war, what did you do? You came
back?
Mr. BULLITT. Yes, sir; I came back. I was in the United States at that
time.
The CHAIRMAN. At that time?
Mr. BULLITT. And I was asked to enter the Department of State, to work
in the Division of Western European Affairs under Mr. Grew, in which
my special province was to follow the political situation of Germany
and Austria-Hungary, to prepare the confidential reports of the
department on Germany, Austria, and Hungary--the weekly reports--and
also such memoranda on conditions as the President and the Secretary
and others might call for.
The CHAIRMAN. And then you went to Paris as a member of the staff,
after the armistice?
Mr. BULLITT. Yes; I was an employee of the department at the time of
the armistice, and I was ordered to Paris as a member of the staff of
the commission.
Senator KNOX. When did you first go to Paris, Mr. Bullitt?
Mr. BULLITT. I sailed on the _George Washington_. I went over with the
original trip of the President.
Senator KNOX. And you were there continuously how long?
Mr. BULLITT. I remained in Paris until--I can give you the exact
date--I was ordered to go on a special mission to Berne about the
first week of February. I can give you the exact date, if it is of any
moment.
Senator KNOX. No; it is not.
Mr. BULLITT. I remained a week in Berne, then returned and remained in
Paris until I was ordered to go to Russia.
I left for Russia on the 22d of February. I was in Paris during the
entire period until the 22d of February. Senator KNOX. You said you
went over on the original trip of the President. Just to get these
dates right, when did you reach Paris?
Mr. BULLITT. I left New York on December 4 and, as I remember, we
reached Paris on December 13.
Senator KNOX. And you were there, then, until you went to Berne in
February?
Mr. BULLITT. In February,
Senator KNOX. What was your personal relation to the peace conference
and its work?
MR. BULLITT'S OFFICIAL STATUS
Mr. BULLITT. When I first arrived I was asked to take charge of a
confidential bulletin which was to be gotten out for the benefit of
the commissioners each morning. It was to be read by them. That lasted
a very short time, and as is usual with most things of the kind, we
discovered that the commissioners did not care to spend the time
reading it, and therefore it was decided to abolish this bulletin, and
that instead I should receive all the intelligence reports of military
intelligence, of the State Department, intelligence received through
all the special dispatches of the ambassadors, etc., in fact, all the
information that came in, and a section was created called the Current
Intelligence Section. I was called the Chief of the Division of
Current Intelligence Summaries.
Senator KNOX. Then, as I understand, your function was to acquaint
yourself with everything that was going on in connection with the
conference, and disseminate the news to the different branches of the
peace conference and the different bureaus?
Mr. BULLITT. I was to report only to the commissioners.
Senator KNOX. Well, but the essential thing is, was it your duty to
get information?
Mr. BULLITT. Yes; it was my duty to be in constant touch with everyone
who was in the American delegation, and present information to the
commissioners each morning. I had 20 minutes with each commissioner
each morning.
Senator KNOX. So that you were practically a clearing house of
information for the members of the American mission?
Mr. BULLITT. That is what I was supposed to be.
* * * * *
ORDERED TO RUSSIA
Senator KNOX. What was your mission to Russia, and when did you go?
Mr. BULLITT. I was ordered to go to Russia on the 18th of February. I
received the following order from Secretary Lansing [reading]:
AMERICAN COMMISSION TO NEGOTIATE PEACE,
18 February, 1919.
MR. WILLIAM C. BULLITT,
American Commission to Negotiate Peace.
SIR: You are hereby directed to proceed to Russia for the
purpose of studying conditions, political and economic,
therein, for the benefit of the American commissioners
plenipotentiary to negotiate peace, and all American
diplomatic and consular officials are hereby directed to
extend to you the proper courtesies and facilities to enable
you to fulfill the duties of your mission.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
ROBERT LANSING,
Secretary of State of the United States of America.
[SEAL.]
Senator KNOX. What is the date of that?
Mr. BULLITT. February 18, 1919. I also received at the same time from
Mr. Joseph C. Grew, the secretary of the American commission, the
following [reading]:
AMERICAN COMMISSION TO NEGOTIATE PEACE,
18 February, 1919.
To whom it may concern:
I hereby certify that Mr. William C. Bullitt has been
authorized by the American commissioners plenipotentiary to
negotiate peace to proceed to Russia, for the purpose of
studying conditions, political and economic, therein, for
the benefit of the commission, and I bespeak for him the
proper courtesies and facilities in enabling him to fulfill
the duties of his mission.
J.C. GREW,
Secretary of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace.
[SEAL.]
Senator KNOX. You say you started in February. What time in February?
Mr. BULLITT. I left on the 22d day of February.
Senator KNOX. Did you know at that time, or have you ascertained
since, whether a secret mission had or not been dispatched from Paris,
that is, by the President himself; a man by the name of Buckler, who
went to Russia a few days before you did?
Mr. BULLITT. Mr. W.H. Buckler, Mr. Henry White's half brother. He was
an attaché of the American embassy in London. He was ordered from
there to go, about the 1st of January, to Stockholm, to confer with
Litvinov, who had been the Ambassador of the Soviet Government to
London--the British had allowed him to stay there without actually
recognizing his official status, and had dealt with him.
Mr. Buckler there conferred with Litvinov, who made various
propositions and representations to him which Mr. Buckler at once
telegraphed back to Paris, and which were considered so important by
the President that the President read them in extenso to the council
of ten on the morning of January 21. I regret that I have no actual
copy of those proposals by Litvinov, or of Buckler's telegrams. At
that time there was a discussion taking place in regard to Russia
which had extended over a couple of weeks, a discussion of the utmost
interest, in the council of ten. I happen to have the minutes of the
council for January 16, when this Russian question was taken up, which
I shall be glad to read, if the Senators should be interested, and
also the minutes of the council of ten on January 21, at which meeting
the Prinkipos proposal was decided upon. The Buckler meeting with
Litvinov was what eventually swung the meeting in favor of Prinkipos,
the suggestion for which had been made by Mr. Lloyd George. No; that
is slightly incorrect. Mr. Lloyd George had suggested that
representatives of the various Russian governments and factions should
be brought to Paris.
COUNCIL OF TEN DISCUSSES RUSSIA
NOTES ON CONVERSATIONS HELD IN THE OFFICE OF M. PICHON AT THE QUAI
D'ORSAY, ON JANUARY 16, 1919--PRELIMINARY DISCUSSION REGARDING THE
SITUATION IN RUSSIA.
Mr. Lloyd George commenced his statement setting forth the information
in the possession of the British Government regarding the Russian
situation, by referring to the matter which had been exposed recently
in L'Humanite. He stated that he wished to point out that there had
been a serious misconception on the part of the French Government as
to the character of the proposal of the British Government. The
British proposal did not contemplate in any sense whatever, a
recognition of the Bolsheviki Government, nor a suggestion that
Bolshevik delegates be invited to attend the Conference. The British
proposal was to invite all of the different governments now at war
within what used to be the Russian Empire, to a truce of God, to stop
reprisals and outrages and to send men here to give, so to speak, an
account of themselves. The Great Powers would then try to find a way
to bring some order out of chaos. These men were not to be delegates
to the Peace Conference, and he agreed with the French Government
entirely that they should not be made members of the Conference.
Mr. Lloyd George then proceeded to set forth briefly the reasons which
had led the British Government to make this proposal. They were as
follows:
Firstly, the real facts are not known;
Secondly, it is impossible to get the facts, the only way is
to adjudicate the question; and
Thirdly, conditions in Russia are very bad; there is general
mis-government and starvation. It is not known who is
obtaining the upper hand, but the hope that the Bolshevik
Government would collapse had not been realized. In fact,
there is one report that the Bolsheviki are stronger than
ever, that their internal position is strong, and that their
hold on the people is stronger. Take, for instance, the case
of the Ukraine. Some adventurer raises a few men and
overthrows the Government. The Government is incapable of
overthrowing him. It is also reported that the peasants are
becoming Bolsheviki. It is hardly the business of the Great
Powers to intervene either in lending financial support to
one side or the other, or in sending munitions to either
side.
Mr. Lloyd George stated that there seemed to be three possible
policies:
1. Military intervention. It is true there the Bolsheviki
movement is as dangerous to civilization as German
militarism, but as to putting it down by the sword, is there
anyone who proposes it? It would mean holding a certain
number of vast provinces in Russia. The Germans with one
million men on their Eastern Front only held the fringe of
this territory. If he now proposed to send a thousand
British troops to Russia for that purpose, the armies would
mutiny. The same applies to U.S. troops in Siberia; also to
Canadians and French as well. The mere idea of crushing
Bolshevism by a military force is pure madness. Even
admitting that it is done, who is to occupy Russia? No one
can conceive or understand to bring about order by force.
2. A cordon. The second suggestion is to besiege Bolshevik
Russia. Mr. Lloyd George wondered if those present realized
what this would mean. From the information furnished him
Bolshevik Russia has no corn, but within this territory
there are 150,000,000 men, women, and children. There is now
starvation in Petrograd and Moscow. This is not a health
cordon, it is a death cordon. Moreover, as a matter of fact,
the people who would die are just the people that the Allies
desire to protect. It would not result in the starvation of
the Bolsheviki; it would simply mean the death of our
friends. The cordon policy is a policy which, as humane
people, those present could not consider.
Mr. Lloyd George asked who was there to overthrow the
Bolsheviki? He had been told there were three men, Denekin,
Kolchak and Knox. In considering the chances of these people
to overthrow the Bolsheviki, he pointed out that he had
received information that the Czecho-Slovaks now refused to
fight; that the Russian Army was not to be trusted, and that
while it was true that a Bolshevik Army had recently gone
over to Kolchak it was never certain that just the reverse
of this would not take place. If the Allies counted on any
of these men, he believed they were building on quick-sand.
He had heard a lot of talk about Denekin, but when he looked
on the map he found that Denekin was occupying a little
backyard near the Black Sea. Then he had been told that
Denekin had recognized Kolchak, but when he looked on the
map, there was a great solid block of territory between
Denekin and Kolchak. Moreover, from information received it
would appear that Kolchak had been collecting members of the
old régime around him, and would seem to be at heart a
monarchist. It appeared that the Czecho-Slovaks were finding
this out. The sympathies of the Czecho-Slovaks are very
democratic, and they are not at all prepared to fight for
the restoration of the old conditions in Russia.
Mr. Lloyd George stated that he was informed that at the
present time two-thirds of Bolshevik Russia was starving.
Institutions of Bolsheviki are institutions of old Czarist
régime. This is not what one would call creating a new
world.
3. The third alternative was contained in the British
proposal, which was to summon these people to Paris to
appear before those present, somewhat in the way that the
Roman Empire summoned chiefs of outlying tributary states to
render an account of their actions.
Mr. Lloyd George pointed out the fact that the argument might be used
that there were already here certain representatives of these
Governments; but take, for instance, the case of Sazonov, who claims
to represent the Government of Omsk. As a matter of fact, Sazonov can
not speak from personal observation. He is nothing but a partisan,
like all the rest. He has never been in contact, and is not now in
direct contact with the Government at Omsk.
It would be manifestly absurd for those who are responsible for
bringing about the Peace Conference, to come to any agreement and
leave Paris when one-half of Europe and one-half of Asia is still in
flames. Those present must settle this question or make fools of
themselves.
Mr. Lloyd George referred to the objection that had been raised to
permitting Bolshevik delegates to come to Paris. It had been claimed
that they would convert France and England to Bolshevism. If England
becomes Bolshevist, it will not be because a single Bolshevist
representative is permitted to enter England. On the other hand, if a
military enterprise were started against the Bolsheviki, that would
make England Bolshevist, and there would be a Soviet in London. For
his part, Mr. Lloyd George was not afraid of Bolshevism if the facts
are known in England and the United States. The same applied to
Germany. He was convinced that an educated democracy can be always
trusted to turn down Bolshevism.
Under all circumstances, Mr. Lloyd George saw no better way out than
to follow the third alternative. Let the Great Powers impose their
conditions and summon these people to Paris to give an account of
themselves to the Great Powers, not to the Peace Conference.
Mr. Pichon suggested that it might be well to ask M. Noulens, the
French Ambassador to Russia, who had just returned to France, to
appear before the meeting to-morrow morning, and give those present
his views on the Russian situation.
President Wilson stated that he did not see how it was possible to
controvert the statement of Mr. Lloyd George. He thought that there
was a force behind this discussion which was no doubt in his mind, but
which it might be desirable to bring out a little more definitely. He
did not believe that there would be sympathy anywhere with the brutal
aspect of Bolshevism, if it were not for the fact of the domination of
large vested interests in the political and economic world. While it
might be true that this evil was in process of discussion and slow
reform, it must be admitted, that the general body of men have grown
impatient at the failure to bring about the necessary reform. He
stated that there were many men who represented large vested interests
in the United States who saw the necessity for these reforms and
desired something which should be worked out at the Peace Conference,
namely, the establishment of some machinery to provide for the
opportunity of the individuals greater than the world has ever known.
Capital and labor in the United States are not friends. Still they are
not enemies in the sense that they are thinking of resorting to
physical force to settle their differences. But they are distrustful,
each of the other. Society can not go on that plane. On the one hand,
there is a minority possessing capital and brains; on the other, a
majority consisting of the great bodies of workers who are essential
to the minority, but do not trust the minority, and feel that the
minority will never render them their rights. A way must be found to
put trust and cooperation between these two.
President Wilson pointed out that the whole world was disturbed by
this question before the Bolskeviki came into power. Seeds need soil,
and the Bolsheviki seeds found the soil already prepared for them.
President Wilson stated that he would not be surprised to find that
the reason why British and United States troops would not be ready to
enter Russia to fight the Bolsheviki was explained by the fact that
the troops were not at all sure that if they put down Bolshevism they
would not bring about a re-establishment of the ancient order. For
example, in making a speech recently, to a well-dressed audience in
New York City who were not to be expected to show such feeling, Mr.
Wilson had referred casually to Russia, stating that the United States
would do its utmost to aid her suppressed people. The audience
exhibited the greatest enthusiasm, and this had remained in the
President's mind as an index to where the sympathies of the New World
are.
President Wilson believed that those present would be playing against
the principle of the free spirit of the world if they did not give
Russia a chance to find herself along the lines of utter freedom. He
concurred with Mr. Lloyd George's view and supported his
recommendations that the third line of procedure be adopted.
President Wilson stated that he had also, like Mr. Lloyd George,
received a memorandum from his experts which agreed substantially with
the information which Mr. Lloyd George had received. There was one
point which he thought particularly worthy of notice, and that was the
report that the strength of the Bolshevik leaders lay in the argument
that if they were not supported by the people of Russia, there would
be foreign intervention, and the Bolsheviki were the only thing that
stood between the Russians and foreign military control. It might well
be that if the Bolsheviki were assured that they were safe from
foreign aggression, they might lose support of their own movement.
President Wilson further stated that he understood that the danger of
destruction of all hope in the Baltic provinces was immediate, and
that it should be made very clear if the British proposal were
adopted, that the Bolsheviki would have to withdraw entirely from
Lithuania and Poland. If they would agree to this to refrain from
reprisals and outrages, he, for his part, would be prepared to receive
representatives from as many groups and centers of action, as chose to
come, and endeavor to assist them to reach a solution of their
problem.
He thought that the British proposal contained the only suggestions
that lead anywhere. It might lead nowhere. But this could at least be
found out.
M. Pichon referred again to the suggestion that Ambassador Noulens be
called before the meeting.
Mr. Balfour suggested that it might be well to call the Dutch Consul,
lately in Petrograd, if it was the desire of those present to hear the
anti-Bolshevik side.
Baron Sonnino suggested that M. Scavenius, Minister of Denmark,
recently in Russia, would be able to give interesting data on the
Russian situation.
Those present seemed to think that it might be desirable to hear what
these gentlemen might have to say.
Senator KNOX. Do you know anything about a letter that Buckler wrote
to the President in relation to his mission? Have you ever seen a copy
of his report in the form of a letter?
Mr. BULLITT. I have read a copy of his report, but I have not the
copy. The only reference I have to it that I find, in the short time I
have had to go over my papers since I came down from the woods, is in
a memorandum to Col. House in reference to the withdrawal of the
American troops from Archangel [reading]:
Buckler discussed the matter of the withdrawal of these troops with
Litvinov, who said that unquestionably the Bolsheviki would agree to
an armistice on the Archangel front at any time; and, furthermore,
would pledge themselves not to injure in any way those Russians in and
about Archangel who have been cooperating with the Allies. He,
furthermore, suggested that such Russians as did not care to trust
their lives to such a promise should be taken out with the troops.
Senator KNOX. Do you know anything about whether Litvinov communicated
directly with the President in reference to this Buckler mission?
Mr. BULLITT. Litvinov had written a letter to the President, which has
since been widely published, on December 24.
Senator KNOX. That is the letter I had in mind. I had seen some
references to that. Do you have a copy of that letter?
Mr. BULLITT. I do not know whether I have any copies of this
letter--that is, authentic. I think I have a newspaper copy some
place, but I have no actual copy of the letter.
Senator KNOX. Can you tell us anything more about the discussion in
reference to the withdrawal of troops from Russia that took place at
that time--anything more than is indicated by your letter, there?
Mr. BULLITT. There were very serious discussions, all the time.
Telegrams were being received frequently from the various commanders
at Archangel, the American and the British notably, in regard to
conditions, which they described as likely to be disastrous, and
discussions of real gravity were taking place all the time. The
subject was very much in the air. I have, I will say, very few
references to that particular condition. I have here this memorandum
which takes up some of these subjects. I do not know if the committee
would care to hear it.
The CHAIRMAN. Yes.
Senator KNOX. This is a memorandum that you sent to Col. House?
Mr. BULLITT. Yes; Col. House.
Senator KNOX. Please read it.
Mr. BULLITT [reading]:
JANUARY 30, 1919.
Memorandum for Col. House.
Subject: Withdrawal of American troops from Archangel.
DEAR COL. HOUSE: The 12,000 American, British, and French
troops at Archangel are no longer serving any useful
purpose. Only 3,000 Russians have rallied around this force.
It is the attacked, not the attacker, and serves merely to
create cynicism in regard to all our proposals and to
stimulate recruiting for the Red Army.
Furthermore, the 4,000 Americans, 6,000 British, 2,000
French, and 3,000 Russian troops in this region are in
considerable danger of destruction by the Bolsheviki. Gen.
Ironside has just appealed for reinforcements and the
British war office has directed the commanding general at
Murmansk to be prepared to dispatch a battalion of Infantry
to Archangel.
Instead of transferring troops from Murmansk to Archangel,
it seems to me that we should at once transfer to Murmansk
and bring home the troops which are now at Archangel. Aside
from the needless suffering which these men are enduring,
aside from the demands of the public in the United States
and England for the return of these men, it seems to me that
the withdrawal of these troops would be of great value as a
proof that we have made the Prinkipos proposal in full good
faith.
I have asked Gen. Churchill to obtain the most expert
opinion available on the practicability of moving the 12,000
American, British, and French troops and such Russians as
may wish to accompany them from Archangel to Murmansk. The
appended memorandum and map which he has prepared show that
unless the ice in the White Sea suddenly becomes thicker it
is at present possible with the aid of six ice breakers
which are now at Archangel to move these troops by water to
Kem on the Murmansk Railroad, whence they may be carried by
train to Murmansk.
Buckler discussed the matter of the withdrawal of these
troops with Litvinov, who said that unquestionably the
Bolsheviki would agree to an armistice on the Archangel
front at any time and, furthermore, would pledge themselves
not to injure in any way those Russians in and about
Archangel who have been cooperating with the Allies. He
furthermore suggested that such Russians as did not care to
trust their lives to such a promise should be taken out with
the troops.
The provisional government at Archangel has just notified us
that it will not accept the proposal for a conference at
Prinkipos. It seems dignified and honorable at this moment
to inform the Archangel government that since it can not
agree to the allied proposal, presented after the most
serious consideration, we shall decline to support it
further with arms, but will make provision for the safety of
all Russians who are unwilling to remain at Archangel.
I have discussed this Archangel business at some length with
Philip Kerr, Lloyd George's secretary, who says that L.G.
intends to bring the British troops out on the 1st of May,
which he believes to be the first practicable moment. The
first practicable moment, however, seems to be now.
The situation at Archangel is most serious for the soldiers
who are stationed there, but it is also serious for the
Governments which sent them out and seem to have abandoned
them. Unless they are saved by prompt action, we shall have
another Gallipoli. Very respectfully yours,
WILLIAM C. BULLITT.
I discussed these matters with each one of the commissioners each
morning. It was my duty to keep them au courant with anything that
struck me as important, which in the stress of the business of the
peace conference they were likely to overlook.
Senator KNOX. This was a memorandum made in the line of your duty?
Mr. BULLITT. This was a memorandum made as the result of the
conversations that I had had with all of the commissioners that
morning.
This particular memorandum, in fact, was ordered by Col. House, and in
connection with it he asked me to have made a map showing the
feasibility of getting the troops out of Russia, by the military
experts of the conference, which map I have here. If you would be
interested in it in any way, I will append the memorandum made for
Gen. Churchill with regard to withdrawing the troops.
Senator KNOX. I was going to ask you whether or not you had any
information as to the terms which the Allies were willing to accept
from Russia.
COUNCIL OF TEN FORMULATES A RUSSIAN POLICY
Mr. BULLITT. I had, of course, seen the discussions of the conference
with regard to the entire Russian matter. The conference had decided,
after long consideration, that it was impossible to subdue or wipe out
the Soviet Government by force. The discussion of that is of a certain
interest, I believe, in connection with this general matter. There
are, in regard to the question you have just asked, minutes of the
council of ten, on January 21, 1919.
Lloyd George had introduced the proposition that representatives of
the Soviet Government should be brought to Paris along with the
representatives of the other Russian governments [reading]:
[McD. Secret. I.C. 114. Secretaries' notes of a conversation
held in M. Pichon's room at the Quai d'Orsay on Tuesday,
January 21, 1919, at 15 hours.]
PRESENT
United States of America: President Wilson, Mr. R. Lansing,
Mr. A.H. Frazier, Col. U.S. Grant, Mr. L. Harrison.
British Empire: The Right Hon. D. Lloyd George, The Right
Hon. A.J. Balfour, Lieut. Col. Sir M.P.A. Hankey, K.C.B.,
Maj. A.M. Caccia, M.V.O., Mr. E. Phipps.
France: M. Clemenceau, M. Pichon, M. Dutasta, M. Berthelot,
Capt. A. Potier.
Italy: Signor Orlando, H.E. Baron Sonnino, Count Aldrovandi,
Maj. A. Jones.
Japan: Baron Makino, H.E.M. Matsui, M. Saburi.
Interpreter, Prof. P.J. Mantoux.
SITUATION IN RUSSIA
M. Clemenceau said they had met together to decide what
could be done in Russia under present circumstances.
President Wilson said that in order to have something
definite to discuss, he wished to take advantage of a
suggestion made by Mr. Lloyd George and to propose a
modification of the British proposal. He wished to suggest
that the various organized groups in Russia should be asked
to send representatives, not to Paris, but to some other
place, such as Salonika, convenient of approach, there to
meet such representatives as might be appointed by the
Allies, in order to see if they could draw up a program upon
which agreement could be reached.
Mr. Lloyd George pointed out that the advantage of this
would be that they could be brought straight there from
Russia through the Black Sea without passing through other
countries.
M. Sonnino said that some of the representatives of the
various Governments were already here in Paris, for example,
M. Sazonov. Why should these not be heard?
President Wilson expressed the view that the various parties
should not be heard separately. It would be very desirable
to get all these representatives in one place, and still
better, all in one room, in order to obtain a close
comparison of views.
Mr. Balfour said that a further objection to Mr. Sonnino's
plan was that if M. Sazonov was heard in Paris, it would be
difficult to refuse to hear the others in Paris also, and M.
Clemenceau objected strongly to having some of these
representatives in Paris.
M. Sonnino explained that all the Russian parties had some
representatives here, except the Soviets, whom they did not
wish to hear.
Mr. Lloyd George remarked that the Bolshevists were the very
people some of them wished to hear.
M. Sonnino continuing said that they had heard M. Litovnov's
statements that morning.
That was the statement that Litvinov had made to Buckler which the
President had read to the council of ten that morning.
[Continuing reading.]
The Allies were now fighting against the Bolshevists who
were their enemies, and therefore they were not obliged to
hear them with the others.
Mr. Balfour remarked that the essence of President Wilson's
proposal was that the parties must all be heard at one and
the same time.
Mr. Lloyd George expressed the view that the acceptance of
M. Sonnino's proposals would amount to their hearing a
string of people, all of whom held the same opinion, and all
of whom would strike the same note. But they would not hear
the people who at the present moment were actually
controlling European Russia. In deference to M. Clemenceau's
views, they had put forward this new proposal. He thought it
would be quite safe to bring the Bolshevist representatives
to Salonika, or perhaps to Lemnos.
It was absolutely necessary to endeavor to make peace. The
report read by President Wilson that morning went to show
that the Bolshevists were not convinced of the error of
their ways, but they apparently realised the folly of their
present methods. Therefore they were endeavouring to come to
terms.
President Wilson asked to be permitted to urge one aspect of
the case. As M. Sonnino had implied, they were all repelled
by Bolshevism, and for that reason they had placed armed men
in opposition to them. One of the things that was clear in
the Russian situation was that by opposing Bolshevism with
arms, they were in reality serving the cause of Bolshevism.
The Allies were making it possible for the Bolsheviks to
argue that Imperialistic and Capitalistic Governments were
endeavouring to exploit the country and to give the land
back to the landlords, and so bring about a re-action. If it
could be shown that this was not true, and that the Allies
were prepared to deal with the rulers of Russia, much of the
moral force of this argument would disappear. The allegation
that the Allies were against the people and wanted to
control their affairs provided the argument which enabled
them to raise armies. If, on the other hand, the Allies
could swallow their pride and the natural repulsion which
they felt for the Bolshevists and see the representatives of
all organized groups in one place, he thought it would bring
about a marked reaction against Bolshevism.
M. Clemenceau said that, in principle, he did not favour
conversation with the Bolshevists; not because they were
criminals, but because we would be raising them to our level
by saying that they were worthy of entering into
conversation with us. The Bolshevist danger was very great
at the present moment. Bolshevism was spreading. It had
invaded the Baltic Provinces and Poland, and that very
morning they received very bad news regarding its spread to
Budapesth and Vienna. Italy, also, was in danger. The danger
was probably greater there than in France. If Bolshevism,
after spreading in Germany, were to traverse Austria and
Hungary and so reach Italy, Europe would be faced with a
very great danger. Therefore, something must be done against
Bolshevism. When listening to the document presented by
President Wilson that morning, he had been struck by the
cleverness with which the Bolshevists were attempting to lay
a trap for the Allies. When the Bolshevists first came into
power, a breach was made with the Capitalist Government on
questions of principle, but now they offered funds and
concessions as a basis for treating with them. He need not
say how valueless their promises were, but if they were
listened to, the Bolshevists would go back to their people
and say: "We offered them great principles of justice and
the Allies would have nothing to do with us. Now we offer
money, and they are ready to make peace."
He admitted his remarks did not offer a solution. The great
misfortune was that the Allies were in need of a speedy
solution. After four years of war, and the losses and
sufferings they had incurred, their populations could stand
no more. Russia also was in need of immediate peace. But its
necessary evolution must take time. The signing of the world
Peace could not await Russia's final avatar. Had time been
available, he would suggest waiting, for eventually sound
men representing common-sense would come to the top. But
when would that be? He could make no forecast. Therefore
they must press for an early solution.
To sum up, had he been acting by himself, he would temporize
and erect barriers to prevent Bolshevism from spreading. But
he was not alone, and in the presence of his colleagues he
felt compelled to make some concession, as it was essential
that there should not be even the appearance of disagreement
amongst them. The concession came easier after having heard
President Wilson's suggestions. He thought that they should
make a very clear and convincing appeal to all reasonable
peoples, emphatically stating that they did not wish in any
way to interfere in the internal affairs of Russia, and
especially that they had no intention of restoring Czardom.
The object of the Allies being to hasten the creation of a
strong Government, they proposed to call together
representatives of all parties to a Conference. He would beg
President Wilson to draft a paper, fully explaining the
position of the Allies to the whole world, including the
Russians and the Germans.
Mr. Lloyd George agreed and gave notice that he wished to
withdraw his own motion in favour of President Wilson's.
Mr. Balfour said that he understood that all these people
were to be asked on an equality. On these terms he thought
the Bolshevists would refuse, and by their refusal, they
would put themselves in a very bad position.
M. Sonnino said that he did not agree that the Bolshevists
would not come. He thought they would be the first to come,
because they would be eager to put themselves on an equality
with the others. He would remind his colleagues that, before
the Peace of Brest-Litovsk was signed, the Bolshevists
promised all sorts of things, such as to refrain from
propaganda, but since that peace had been concluded they had
broken all their promises, their one idea being to spread
revolution in all other countries. His idea was to collect
together all the anti-Bolshevik parties and help them to
make a strong Government, provided they pledged themselves
not to serve the forces of re-action and especially not to
touch the land question, thereby depriving the Bolshevists
of their strongest argument. Should they take these pledges,
he would be prepared to help them.
Mr. Lloyd George enquired how this help would be given.
M. Sonnino replied that help would be given with soldiers to
a reasonable degree or by supplying arms, food, and money.
For instance, Poland asked for weapons and munitions; the
Ukraine asked for weapons. All the Allies wanted was to
establish a strong Government. The reason that no strong
Government at present existed was that no party could risk
taking the offensive against Bolshevism without the
assistance of the Allies. He would enquire how the parties
of order could possibly succeed without the help of the
Allies. President Wilson had said that they should put aside
all pride in the matter. He would point out that, for Italy
and probably for France also, as M. Clemenceau had stated,
it was in reality a question of self-defence. He thought
that even a partial recognition of the Bolshevists would
strengthen their position, and, speaking for himself, he
thought that Bolshevism was already a serious danger in his
country.
Mr. Lloyd George said he wished to put one or two practical
questions to M. Sonnino. The British Empire now had some
15,000 to 20,000 men in Russia. M. de Scavenius had
estimated that some 150,000 additional men would be
required, in order to keep the anti-Bolshevist Governments
from dissolution. And General Franchet d'Esperey also
insisted on the necessity of Allied assistance. Now Canada
had decided to withdraw her troops, because the Canadian
soldiers would not agree to stay and fight against the
Russians. Similar trouble had also occurred amongst the
other Allied troops. And he felt certain that, if the
British tried to send any more troops there, there would be
mutiny.
M. Sonnino suggested that volunteers might be called for.
Mr. Lloyd George, continuing, said that it would be
impossible to raise 150,000 men in that way. He asked,
however, what contributions America, Italy and France would
make towards the raising of this Army.
President Wilson and M. Clemenceau each said none.
M. Orlando agreed that Italy could make no further
contributions.
Mr. Lloyd George said that the Bolshevists had an army of
300,000 men who would, before long, be good soldiers, and to
fight them at least 400,000 Russian soldiers would be
required. Who would feed, equip and pay them? Would Italy,
or America, or France, do so? If they were unable to do
that, what would be the good of fighting Bolshevism? It
could not be crushed by speeches. He sincerely trusted that
they would accept President Wilson's proposal as it now
stood.
M. Orlando agreed that the question was a very difficult one
for the reasons that had been fully given. He agreed that
Bolshevism constituted a grave danger to all Europe. To
prevent a contagious epidemic from spreading, the
sanitarians set up a _cordon Sanitaire_. If similar measures
could be taken against Bolshevism, in order to prevent its
spreading, it might be overcome, since to isolate it meant
vanquishing it. Italy was now passing through a period of
depression, due to war weariness. But Bolshevists could
never triumph there, unless they found a favourable medium,
such as might be produced either by a profound patriotic
disappointment in their expectations as to the rewards of
the war, or by an economic crisis. Either might lead to
revolution, which was equivalent to Bolshevism. Therefore,
he would insist that all possible measures should be taken
to set up this cordon. Next, he suggested the consideration
of repressive measures. He thought two methods were
possible; either the use of physical force or the use of
moral force. He thought Mr. Lloyd George's objection to the
use of physical force unanswerable. The occupation of Russia
meant the employment of large numbers of troops for an
indefinite period of time. This meant an apparent
prolongation of the war. There remained the use of moral
force. He agreed with M. Clemenceau that no country could
continue in anarchy and that an end must eventually come;
but they could not wait; they could not proceed to make
peace and ignore Russia. Therefore, Mr. Lloyd George's
proposal, with the modifications introduced after careful
consideration by President Wilson and M. Clemenceau, gave a
possible solution. It did not involve entering into
negotiations with the Bolsheviks; the proposal was merely an
attempt to bring together all the parties in Russia with a
view to finding a way out of the present difficulty. He was
prepared, therefore, to support it.
President Wilson asked for the views of his Japanese
colleagues.
Baron Makino said that after carefully considering the
various points of view put forward, he had no objections to
make regarding the conclusions reached. He thought that was
the best solution under the circumstances. He wished,
however, to enquire what attitude would be taken by the
Representatives of the Allied powers if the Bolshevists
accepted the invitation to the meeting and there insisted
upon their principles. He thought they should under no
circumstances countenance Bolshevist ideas. The conditions
in Siberia East of the Baikal had greatly improved. The
objects which had necessitated the despatch of troops to
that region had been attained. Bolshevism was no longer
aggressive, though it might still persist in a latent form.
In conclusion, he wished to support the proposal before the
meeting.
President Wilson expressed the view that the emissaries of
the Allied Powers should not be authorised to adopt any
definite attitude towards Bolshevism. They should merely
report back to their Governments the conditions found.
Mr. Lloyd George asked that that question be further
considered. He thought the emissaries of the Allied Powers
should be able to establish an agreement if they were able
to find a solution. For instance, if they succeeded in
reaching an agreement on the subject of the organization of
a Constituent Assembly, they should be authorised to accept
such a compromise without the delay of a reference to the
Governments.
President Wilson suggested that the emissaries might be
furnished with a body of instructions.
Mr. Balfour expressed the view that abstention from hostile
action against their neighbours should be made a condition
of their sending representatives to this meeting.
President Wilson agreed.
M. Clemenceau suggested that the manifesto to the Russian
parties should be based solely on humanitarian grounds. They
should say to the Russians: "You are threatened by famine.
We are prompted by humanitarian feelings; we are making
peace; we do not want people to die. We are prepared to see
what can be done to remove the menace of starvation." He
thought the Russians would at once prick up their ears, and
be prepared to hear what the Allies had to say. They would
add that food cannot be sent unless peace and order were
re-established. It should, in fact, be made quite clear that
the representatives of all parties would merely be brought
together for purely humane reasons.
Mr. Lloyd George said that in this connection he wished to
invite attention to a doubt expressed by certain of the
delegates of the British Dominions, namely, whether there
would be enough food and credit to go round should an
attempt be made to feed all Allied countries, and enemy
countries, and Russia also. The export of so much food would
inevitably have the effect of raising food prices in Allied
countries and so create discontent and Bolshevism. As
regards grain, Russia had always been an exporting country,
and there was evidence to show that plenty of food at
present existed in the Ukraine.
President Wilson said that his information was that enough
food existed in Russia, but, either on account of its being
hoarded or on account of difficulties of transportation, it
could not be made available.
(It was agreed that President Wilson should draft a
proclamation, for consideration at the next meeting,
inviting all organized parties in Russia to attend a Meeting
to be held at some selected place such as Salonika or
Lemnos, in order to discuss with the representatives of the
Allied and Associated Great Powers the means of restoring
order and peace in Russia. Participation in the Meeting
should be conditional on a cessation of hostilities.)
2. _Peace Conference_.--M. Clemenceau considered it to be
most urgent that the delegates should be set to work. He
understood that President Wilson would be ready to put on
the table at the next full Conference, proposals relating to
the creation of a League of Nations. He was anxious to add a
second question, which could be studied immediately, namely,
reparation for damages. He thought the meeting should
consider how the work should be organized in order to give
effect to this suggestion.
Mr. Lloyd George said that he agreed that these questions
should be studied forthwith. He would suggest that, in the
first place, the League of Nations should be considered,
and, that after the framing of the principles, an
International Committee of Experts be set to work out its
constitution in detail. The same remark applied also to the
question of indemnities and reparation. He thought that a
Committee should also be appointed as soon as possible to
consider International Labour Legislation.
President Wilson observed that he had himself drawn up a
constitution of a League of Nations. He could not claim that
it was wholly his own creation. Its generation was as
follows:--He had received the Phillimore Report, which had
been amended by Colonel House and re-written by himself. He
had again revised it after having received General Smuts'
and Lord Robert Cecil's reports. It was therefore a compound
of these various suggestions. During the week he had seen M.
Bourgeois, with whom he found himself to be in substantial
accord on principles. A few days ago he had discussed his
draft with Lord Robert Cecil and General Smuts, and they
found themselves very near together.
Mr. Balfour suggested that President Wilson's draft should
be submitted to the Committee as a basis for discussion.
President Wilson further suggested that the question should
be referred as far as possible to the men who had been
studying it.
Mr. Lloyd George expressed his complete agreement. He
thought they themselves should, in the first place, agree on
the fundamental principles and then refer the matter to the
Committee. When that Committee met they could take President
Wilson's proposals as the basis of discussion.
(It was agreed that the question of appointing an
International Committee, consisting of two members from each
of the five Great Powers, to whom would be referred
President Wilson's draft, with certain basic principles to
guide them, should be considered at the next meeting.)
3. _Poland_.--M. Pichon called attention to the necessity
for replying to the demand addressed by M. Paderewski to
Colonel House, which had been read by President Wilson that
morning, and asked that Marshal Foch should be present.
(It was agreed that this question should be discussed at the
next Meeting.)
4. _Disarmament_.--Mr. Balfour called attention to the
urgency of the question of disarmament, and said that he
would shortly propose that a Committee should be appointed
to consider this question.
VILLA MAJESTIC, Paris January 21st, 1919.
This is the minute of January 21, and the Prinkipos memorandum was
written on January 22.
The instructions to the President were as follows:
It was agreed that President Wilson should draft a
proclamation for consideration at the next meeting, inviting
all organized parties in Russia to attend a meeting to be
held at some selected place such as Salonika or Lemnos, in
order to discuss with the representatives of the allied and
associated great powers the means of restoring order and
peace in Russia. Participation in the meeting should be
conditional on a cessation of hostilities.
The President then wrote the Prinkipos proposition.
Senator KNOX. Did you make a written report of your mission?
Mr. BULLITT. I did, sir.
Senator KNOX. Have you it here?
Mr. BULLITT. Yes, sir. I might read the report without the appendices.
Senator KNOX. The chairman wants you to read it.
The CHAIRMAN. I do not know whether it is very long. The report he
made would be of some interest. You were the only official
representative sent?
Mr. BULLITT. Yes, sir; except Capt. Pettit, my assistant. The
circumstances of my sending will perhaps require further elucidation.
I not only was acquainted with the minutes of the discussions of the
council of ten, but in addition I had discussed the subject with each
of the commissioners each morning and I had talked with many British
representatives. After the Prinkipos proposal was made, the replies
began to come in from various factions, that they would refuse to
accept it for various reasons. The Soviet Government replied in a
slightly evasive form. They said, "We are ready to accept the terms of
the proposals, and we are ready to talk about stopping fighting." They
did not say, "We are ready to stop fighting on such and such a date."
It was not made specific.
Senator KNOX. That was one of the conditions of the proposal?
FRANCE BLOCKS PRINKIPOS CONFERENCE
Mr. BULLITT. It was. That is why I say they replied in an evasive
manner. The French--and particularly the French foreign office, even
more than Mr. Clemenceau--and you can observe it from that minute were
opposed to the idea, and we found that the French foreign office had
communicated to the Ukrainian Government and various other antisoviet
governments that if they were to refuse the proposal, they would
support them and continue to support them, and not allow the Allies,
if they could prevent it, or the allied Governments, to make peace
with the Russian Soviet Government.
At all events, the time set for the Prinkipos proposal was February
15. At that time nobody had acted in a definite, uncompromising
matter. It therefore fell to the ground.
There was a further discussion as to what should be done. The peace
conference was still of the opinion that it was impossible to hope to
conquer the Soviet Government by force of arms, because in the latter
part of that report, which I did not read to the committee, there was
expressed very forcibly the opinion of Mr. Lloyd George, that the
populations at home would not stand it. Therefore they desired to
follow up further the line of making peace.
About that time I was working particularly closely on the Russian
affairs. I had had a number of discussions with everyone concerned in
it, and on the very day that Col. House and Mr. Lansing first asked me
to undertake this mission to Russia, I was dining at Mr. Lloyd
George's apartment to discuss Russian affairs with his secretaries, so
that I had a fair idea of the point of view of everyone in Paris.
I further, before I went, received urgent instructions from Secretary
Lansing if possible to obtain the release of Consul Treadwell, who had
been our consul in Petrograd and had been transferred to Tashkent, and
had been detained by the local Soviet Government and had been kept
there several months. He was one of our Government officers they had
seized. Mr. Lansing ordered me to do everything I could to obtain his
release.
I further, before I went, asked Col. House certain specific questions
in regard to what, exactly, the point of view of our Government was on
this subject, what we were ready to do, and I think it perhaps might
be important to detail a brief resume of this conversation. The idea
was this: Lloyd George had gone over to London on February 9, as I
remember, to try to adjust some labor troubles. He, however, still
insisted that the Prinkipos proposal must be renewed or some other
peace proposal must be made, and I arranged a meeting between him and
Col. House, which was to take place, I believe, on February 24, at
which time they were to prepare a renewal of the Prinkipos proposal,
and they were both prepared to insist that it be passed against any
opposition of the French.
I arranged this meeting through Mr. Philip Kerr, Mr. Lloyd George's
confidential assistant. However, on the 19th day of the month, Mr.
Clemenceau was shot, and the next day Mr. Lloyd George telephoned over
from London to say that as long as Clemenceau was wounded and was ill,
he was boss of the roost, and that anything he desired to veto would
be immediately wiped out and therefore it was no use for him and Col.
House, as long as Clemenceau was ill, to attempt to renew the
Prinkipos proposal, as Clemenceau would simply have to hold up a
finger and the whole thing would drop to the ground. Therefore, it was
decided that I should go at once to Russia to attempt to obtain from
the Soviet Government an exact statement of the terms on which they
were ready to stop fighting. I was ordered if possible to obtain that
statement and have it back in Paris before the President returned to
Paris from the United States. The plan was to make a proposal to the
Soviet Government which would certainly be accepted.
The CHAIRMAN. These orders came from the President?
Mr. BULLITT. These orders came to me from Col. House. I also discussed
the matter with Mr. Lansing, and Mr. Lansing and Col. House gave me
the instructions which I had.
Senator KNOX. You said a moment ago that you went to Col. House to get
a statement of the American position.
WHAT AMERICA WANTED
Mr. BULLITT. Yes; I asked Col. House these questions [reading]:
1. If the Bolsheviki are ready to stop the forward movement
of their troops on all fronts and to declare an armistice on
all fronts, would we be willing to do likewise?
2. Is the American Government prepared to insist that the
French, British, Italian, and Japanese Governments shall
accept such an armistice proposal?
3. If fighting is stopped on all fronts, is the Government
of the United States prepared to insist on the
reestablishment of economic relations with Russia, subject
only to the equitable distribution among all classes of the
population of supplies and food and essential commodities
which may be sent to Russia?
In other words, a sort of Hoover Belgian distribution plan
so that the Bolsheviki could not use the food we sent in
there for propaganda purposes and to starve their enemies
and to feed their friends.
The fourth question I asked him was as follows:
4. Is the United States Government, under these conditions,
prepared to press the Allies for a joint statement that all
Allied troops will be withdrawn from the soil of Russia as
soon as practicable, on condition that the Bolsheviki give
explicit assurances that there will be no retaliation
against persons who have cooperated with the allied forces?
Col. House replied that we were prepared to.
Further, I asked Col. House whether it was necessary to get
a flat and explicit assurance from the Soviet Government
that they would make full payment of all their debts before
we would make peace with them, and Col. House replied that
it was not; that no such statement was necessary, however,
that such a statement would be extremely desirable to have,
inasmuch as much of the French opposition to making peace
with the Soviet Government was on account of the money owed
by Russia to France.
I further had an intimation of the British disposition
toward Russia. As I said before, I had discussed the matter
with Mr. Philip Kerr, and Sir Maurice Hankey and Col. House
asked me to inform Mr. Kerr of my mission before I went. It
was to be an entire secret from all except the British. The
British and American delegations worked in very close touch
throughout the conference, and there were practically no
secrets that the American delegation had that were not also
the property of the British delegation.
THE BRITISH TERMS
I was asked to inform Mr. Kerr of this trip. I told him all about it,
and asked him if he could get Mr. Balfour and Mr. Lloyd George to give
me a general indication of their point of view on peace with Russia;
what they would be prepared to do in the matter.
Mr. Kerr and I then talked and prepared what we thought might be the
basis of peace with Russia.
I then received from Mr. Kerr, before I left, the following letter,
which is a personal letter, which I regret greatly to bring forward,
but which I feel is necessary in the interest of an understanding of
this matter. [Reading:]
[Private and confidential.]
BRITISH DELEGATION,
Paris, February 21, 1919.
MY DEAR BULLITT: I inclose a note of the sort of conditions
upon which I personally think it would be possible for the
allied Governments to resume once more normal relations with
Soviet Russia. You will understand, of course, that these
have no official significance and merely represent
suggestions of my own opinion.
Yours, sincerely,
P.H. KERR.
That was from Mr. Kerr, Lloyd George's confidential secretary. Mr.
Kerr had, however, told me that he had discussed the entire matter
with Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Balfour, and therefore I thought he had
a fair idea of what conditions the British were ready to accept. The
note inclosed reads as follows:
1. Hostilities to cease on all fronts.
2. All de facto governments to remain in full control of the
territories which they at present occupy.
3. Railways and ports necessary to transportation between
soviet Russia and the sea to be subject to the same
regulations as international railways and ports in the rest
of Europe.
4. Allied subjects to be given free right of entry and full
security to enable them to enter soviet Russia and go about
their business there provided they do not interfere in
politics.
5. Amnesty to all political prisoners on both sides: full
liberty to all Russians who have fought with the Allies.
6. Trade relations to be restored between soviet Russia and
the outside world under conditions which, while respecting
the sovereignty of soviet Russia insure that allied supplies
are made available on equal terms to all classes of the
Russian people.
7. All other questions connected with Russia's debt to the
Allies, etc., to be considered independently after peace has
been established.
8. All allied troops to be withdrawn from Russia as soon as
Russian armies above quota to be defined have been
demobilized and their surplus arms surrendered or destroyed.
You will see the American and British positions were very close
together.
Senator KNOX. With these statements from Col. House as to the American
position and from Mr. Kerr as to the British position, and with the
instructions which you had received, you proceeded to Russia, and, as
you said a moment ago, you made a written report?
Mr. BULLITT. I did, sir. Do you want it read, or shall I state the
substance and then put it in the record? I think I can state it more
briefly if I read the first eight pages of it and then put the rest of
it in the record.
The CHAIRMAN. Very well; do that.
Mr. BULLITT. This report I made to the President and to the American
commissioners, by order of the President transmitted to me on my
return by Mr. Lansing. I should like to say, before I read this
report, that of course I was in Russia an extremely short time, and
this is merely the best observation that I could make supplemented by
the observation of Capt. Pettit of the Military Intelligence, who was
sent in as my assistant, and with other impressions that I got from
Mr. Lincoln Steffens and other observers who were there.
Senator KNOX. How long were you in Russia?
Mr. BULLITT. For only one week. I was instructed to go in and bring
back as quickly as possible a definite statement of exactly the terms
the Soviet Government was ready to accept. The idea in the minds of
the British and the American delegation were that if the Allies made
another proposal it should be a proposal which we would know in
advance would be accepted, so that there would be no chance of another
Prinkipos proposal miscarrying.
I might perhaps read first, or show to you, the official text. This is
the official text of their proposition which they handed me in Moscow
on the 14th of March. Here is a curious thing--the Soviet foreign
office envelope.
TERMS WHICH RUSSIA OFFERED TO ACCEPT
As I said, I was sent to obtain an exact statement of the terms that
the Soviet Government was ready to accept, and I received on the 14th
the following statement from Tchitcherin and Litvinov.
Senator KNOX. Who were they?
Mr. BULLITT. Tchitcherin was Peoples' Commisar for Foreign Affairs of
the Soviet Republic and Litvinov was the former Soviet Ambassador to
London, the man with whom Buckler had had his conversation, and who
was now practically assistant secretary for foreign affairs.
I also had a conference with Lenin. The Soviet Government undertook to
accept this proposal provided it was made by the allied and associated
Governments not later than April 10, 1919. The proposal reads as
follows [reading]:
TEXT OF PROJECTED PEACE PROPOSAL BY THE ALLIED AND ASSOCIATED
GOVERNMENTS.
The allied and associated Governments to propose that hostilities
shall cease on all fronts in the territory of the former Russian
Empire and Finland on ----[1] and that no new hostilities shall begin
after this date, pending a conference to be held at ----[2] on ----[3]
[Footnote 1: The date of the armistice to be set at least a
week after the date when the allied and associated
Governments make this proposal.]
[Footnote 2: The Soviet Government greatly prefers that the
conference should be held in a neutral country and also that
either a radio or a direct telegraph wire to Moscow should
be put at its disposal.]
[Footnote 3: The conference to begin not later than a week
after the armistice takes effect and the Soviet Government
greatly prefers that the period between the date of the
armistice and the first meeting of the conference should be
only three days, if possible.]
The duration of the armistice to be for two weeks, unless extended by
mutual consent, and all parties to the armistice to undertake not to
employ the period of the armistice to transfer troops and war material
to the territory of the former Russian Empire.
The conference to discuss peace on the basis of the following
principles, which shall not be subject to revision by the conference.
1. All existing de facto governments which have been set up
on the territory of the former Russian Empire and Finland to
remain in full control of the territories which they occupy
at the moment when the armistice becomes effective, except
in so far as the conference may agree upon the transfer of
territories; until the peoples inhabiting the territories
controlled by these de facto governments shall themselves
determine to change their Governments. The Russian Soviet
Government, the other soviet governments and all other
governments which have been set up on the territory of the
former Russian Empire, the allied and associated
Governments, and the other Governments which are operating
against the soviet governments, including Finland, Poland,
Galicia, Roumania, Armenia, Azerbaidjan, and Afghanistan, to
agree not to attempt to upset by force the existing de facto
governments which have been set up on the territory of the
former Russian Empire and the other Governments signatory to
this agreement. [Footnote 4: The allied and associated
Governments to undertake to see to it that the de facto
governments of Germany do not attempt to upset by force the
de facto governments of Russia. The de facto governments
which have been set up on the territory of the former
Russian Empire to undertake not to attempt to upset by force
the de facto governments of Germany.]
2. The economic blockade to be raised and trade relations
between Soviet Russia and the allied and associated
countries to be reestablished under conditions which will
ensure that supplies from the allied and associated
countries are made available on equal terms to all classes
of the Russian people.
3. The soviet governments of Russia to have the right of
unhindered transit on all railways and the use of all ports
which belonged to the former Russian Empire and to Finland
and are necessary for the disembarkation and transportation
of passengers and goods between their territories and the
sea; detailed arrangements for the carrying out of this
provision to be agreed upon at the conference.
4. The citizens of the soviet republics of Russia to have
the right of free entry into the allied and associated
countries as well as into all countries which have been
formed on the territory of the former Russian Empire and
Finland; also the right of sojourn and of circulation and
full security, provided they do not interfere in the
domestic politics of those countries. [Footnote 5: It is
considered essential by the Soviet Government that the
allied and associated Governments should see to it that
Poland and all neutral countries extend the same rights as
the allied and associated countries.]
Nationals of the allied and associated countries and of the
other countries above named to have the right of free entry
into the soviet republics of Russia; also the right of
sojourn and of circulation and full security, provided they
do not interfere in the domestic politics of the soviet
republics.
The allied and associated Governments and other governments
which have been set up on the territory of the former
Russian Empire and Finland to have the right to send
official representatives enjoying full liberty and immunity
into the various Russian Soviet Republics. The soviet
governments of Russia to have the right to send official
representatives enjoying full liberty and immunity into all
the allied and associated countries and into the nonsoviet
countries which have been formed on the territory of the
former Russian Empire and Finland.
5. The soviet governments, the other Governments which have
been set up on the territory of the former Russian Empire
and Finland, to give a general amnesty to all political
opponents, offenders, and prisoners. The allied and
associated governments to give a general amnesty to all
Russian political opponents, offenders, and prisoners, and
to their own nationals who have been or may be prosecuted
for giving help to Soviet Russia. All Russians who have
fought in, or otherwise aided the armies opposed to the
soviet governments, and those opposed to the other
Governments which have been set up on the territory of the
former Russian Empire and Finland to be included in this
amnesty.
All prisoners of war of non-Russian powers detained in
Russia, likewise all nationals of those powers now in Russia
to be given full facilities for repatriation. The Russian
prisoners of war in whatever foreign country they may be,
likewise all Russian nationals, including the Russian
soldiers and officers abroad and those serving in all
foreign armies to be given full facilities for repatriation.
6. Immediately after the signing of this agreement all
troops of the allied and associated Governments and other
non-Russian Governments to be withdrawn from Russia and
military assistance to cease to be given to antisoviet
Governments which have been set up on the territory of the
former Russian Empire.
The soviet governments and the antisoviet governments which
have been set up on the territory of the former Russian
Empire and Finland to begin to reduce their armies
simultaneously, and at the same rate, to a peace footing
immediately after the signing of this agreement. The
conference to determine the most effective and just method
of inspecting and controlling this simultaneous
demobilization and also the withdrawal of the troops and the
cessation of military assistance to the antisoviet
governments.
7. The allied and associated Governments, taking cognizance
of the statement of the Soviet Government of Russia, in its
note of February 4, in regard to its foreign debts, propose
as an integral part of this agreement that the soviet
governments and the other governments which have been set up
on the territory of the former Russian Empire and Finland
shall recognize their responsibility for the financial
obligations of the former Russian Empire, to foreign States
parties to this agreement and to the nationals of such
States. Detailed arrangements for the payment of these debts
to be agreed upon at the conference, regard being had to the
present financial position of Russia. The Russian gold
seized by the Czecho-Slovaks in Kazan or taken from Germany
by the Allies to be regarded as partial payment of the
portion of the debt due from the soviet republics of Russia.
The Soviet Government of Russia undertakes to accept the
foregoing proposal provided it is made not later than April
10, 1919.
In regard to the second sentence in paragraph 5, in regard to "giving
help to Soviet Russia" I may say that I was told that that was not a
sine qua non but it was necessary in order to get the proposal through
the Russian executive committee, which it had to pass before it was
handed to me. I was also handed an additional sheet, which I refused
to take as a part of the formal document, containing the following:
The Soviet Government is most anxious to have a semiofficial
guaranty from the American and British Governments that they
will do their utmost to see to it that France lives up to
the conditions of the armistice.
The Soviet Government had a deep suspicion of the French Government.
In reference to this matter, and in explanation of that proposal, I
sent a number of telegrams from Helsingfors. I feel that in a way it
is important, for an explanation of the matter, that those telegrams
should be made public, but, on the other hand, they were sent in a
confidential code of the Department of State, and I do not feel at
liberty to read them unless ordered to specifically by the committee.
I should not wish to take the responsibility for breaking a code which
is in current use by the department.
Senator KNOX. I should think your scruples were well founded. I should
not read those telegrams.
Mr. BULLITT. I can simply inform you briefly of the nature of them.
Senator KNOX. You might give us the nature of them. To whom were they
sent?
Mr. BULLITT. On reaching Petrograd I sent Capt. Pettit out to
Helsingfors after I had had a discussion with Tchitcherin and with
Litvinov with a telegram, in which I said I had reached Petrograd and
had perfected arrangements to cross the boundary at will, and to
communicate with the mission via the consul at Helsingfors; that the
journey had been easy, and that the reports of frightful conditions in
Petrograd had been ridiculously exaggerated.
I described the discussions I had had with Tchitcherin and with
Litvinov, and said they had assured me that after going to Moscow and
after discussion with Lenin, I should be able to carry out a specific
statement of the position of the Soviet Government on all points.
On reaching Helsingfors I sent a telegram to the mission at Paris
"Most secret, for the President, Secretary Lansing, and Col. House
only," in which I said that in handing me the statement which I have
just read, Tchitcherin and Litvinov had explained that the Executive
Council of the Soviet Government had formally considered and adopted
it, and that the Soviet Government considered itself absolutely bound
to accept the proposals made therein, provided they were made on or
before April 10, and under no conditions would they change their
minds.
I also explained that I had found Lenin, Tchitcherin, and Litvinov
full of the sense of Russia's need for peace, and that I felt the
details of their statement might be modified without making it
unacceptable to them, and that in particular the clause under article
5 was not of vital importance. That, on the other hand, I felt that in
the main this statement represented the minimum terms that the Soviet
Government would accept.
I explained that it was understood with regard to article 2 that the
allied and associated countries should have a right to send inspectors
into Soviet Russia and see to it that the disposition of supplies, if
the blockade was lifted, was entirely equitable, and I explained also
that it was fully understood that the phrase under article 4 on
"official representatives" did not include diplomatic representatives,
that the Soviet Government simply desired to have some agents who
might more or less look out for their people here.
I explained further that in regard to footnote No. 2, the Soviet
Government hoped and preferred that the conference should be held in
Norway; that its preferences thereafter were, first, some point in
between Russia and Finland; second, a large ocean liner anchored off
Moon Island or the Aland Islands; and, fourth, Prinkipos.
I also explained that Tchitcherin and all the other members of the
government with whom I had talked had said in the most positive and
unequivocal manner that the Soviet Government was determined to pay
its foreign debts, and I was convinced that there would be no dispute
on that point.
Senator KNOX. Do you know how these telegrams were received in Paris,
whether favorably or unfavorably?
Mr. BULLITT. I can only say, in regard to that, there are three other
very brief ones. One was on a subject which I might give you the gist
of before I go on with it.
Senator KNOX. Go ahead, in your own way.
Mr. BULLITT. Col. House sent me a message of congratulation on receipt
of them, and by one of the curious quirks of the conference, a member
of the secretariat refused to send the message because of the way in
which it was signed, and Col. House was only able to give me a copy of
it when I reached Paris. I have a copy of it here.
Senator HARDING. Would not this story be more interesting if we knew
which member of the conference objected?
Mr. BULLITT. I believe the objection was on the technical point that
Col. House had signed "Ammission" instead of his name, but I really do
not know which member of the conference it was that made the
objection.
I then sent another telegram, which is rather long, too long to
attempt to paraphrase, and I will ask that I may not put it in,
because the entire substance of it is contained in briefer form in my
formal report. This telegram itself is in code.
Senator BRANDEGEE. Are there any translations of those of your
telegrams that are in code?
Mr. BULLITT. No; I have given you the substance of them as I have gone
along.
As I said to you before, Secretary Lansing had instructed me if
possible to obtain the release of Mr. Treadwell, our consul at
Tashkent, somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 miles from Moscow. In
Moscow I had spoken to Lenin and Tchitcherin and Litvinov in regard to
it, and finally they said they recognized that it was foolish to hold
him; that they had never really given much thought to the matter; that
he had been held by the local government at Tashkent, which was more
than 4,000 miles away; that raids were being made on the railroad
constantly, and they might have some difficulty in communicating.
However, they promised me that they would send a telegram at once
ordering his release, and that they would send him out either by
Persia or by Finland whichever way he preferred. I told them I was
sure he would prefer to go by way of Finland. Here is a copy of their
telegram ordering his release, which will not be of much use to you, I
fear, as it is in Russian. They carried out this promise to the
letter, releasing Treadwell at once, and Treadwell in due course of
time and in good health appeared on the frontier of Finland on the
27th of April. All that time was consumed in travel from Tashkent,
which is a long way under present conditions.
Senator NEW. I saw Mr. Treadwell here some time ago.
Mr. BULLITT. I then sent a telegram in regard to Mr. Pettit, the
officer of military intelligence, who was with me as my assistant,
saying I intended to send him back to Petrograd at once to keep in
touch with the situation so that we should have information
constantly. I will say in this connection that it was not an
extraordinary thing for the various Governments to have
representatives in Russia. The British Government had a man in there
at the same time that I was there. He was traveling as a Red Cross
representative, but in reality he was there for the Foreign Office, a
Maj. A.R. Parker, I believe. I am not certain of his name, but we can
verify it.
I also sent a telegram from Helsingfors, "strictly personal to Col.
House," requesting him to show my fifth and sixth telegrams to Mr.
Philip Kerr, Mr. Lloyd George's secretary, so that Mr. Lloyd George
might be at once informed in regard to the situation, inasmuch as he
had known I was going, and inasmuch as the British had been so
courteous as to offer to send me across on a cruiser. When I got to
London and found that the torpedo boat on which I had expected to go
was escorting the President, Mr. Lloyd George's office in London
called up the Admiralty and asked them to give me a boat in which to
go across. Incidentally I was informed by Col. House, on my arrival in
Paris, that copies of my telegrams had been sent at once to Mr. Lloyd
George and Mr. Balfour.
Senator KNOX. Mr. Bullitt, I do not think we need to go into quite so
much detail. You have told us now with what instructions you went,
what the British attitude was, what the American attitude was, and
what the Soviet Government proposed. Now, let us have your report.
Mr. BULLITT. All right, sir. This was my report--
Senator BRANDEGEE. What is the date of that, please?
Mr. BULLITT. This copy does not bear the date on it. On the other hand
I can tell you within a day or two. The date unfortunately was left
off of this particular copy. It was made on or about the 27th or 28th
day of March, in the week before April 1.
Senator BRANDEGEE. 1919?
Mr. BULLITT. 1919. I unquestionably could obtain from Secretary
Lansing or the President or some one else the actual original of the
report.
Senator BRANDEGEE. I do not care about the precise date, but I want to
get it approximately.
Mr. BULLITT. It was about the 1st day of April.
Senator KNOX. To whom was the report made?
Mr. BULLITT. The report was addressed to the President and the
American Commissioners Plenipotentiary to Negotiate Peace. I was
ordered to make it. I had sent all these telegrams from Helsingfors,
and I felt personally that no report was necessary, but the President
desired a written report, and I made the report as follows:
MR. BULLITT'S REPORT ON RUSSIA
ECONOMIC SITUATION
Russia to-day is in a condition of acute economic distress. The
blockade by land and sea is the cause of this distress and lack of the
essentials of transportation is its gravest symptom. Only one-fourth
of the locomotives which ran on Russian lines before the war are now
available for use. Furthermore, Soviet Russia is cut off entirely from
all supplies of coal and gasoline. In consequence, transportation by
all steam and electric vehicles is greatly hampered; and
transportation by automobile and by the fleet of gasoline-using Volga
steamers and canal boats is impossible. (Appendix, p. 55.)
As a result of these hindrances to transportation it is possible to
bring from the grain centers to Moscow only 25 carloads of food a day,
instead of the 100 carloads which are essential, and to Petrograd only
15 carloads, instead of the essential 50. In consequence, every man,
woman, and child in Moscow and Petrograd is suffering from slow
starvation. (Appendix, p. 56.)
Mortality is particularly high among new-born children whose mothers
can not suckle them, among newly-delivered mothers, and among the
aged. The entire population, in addition, is exceptionally susceptible
to disease; and a slight illness is apt to result fatally because of
the total lack of medicines. Typhoid, typhus, and smallpox are
epidemic in both Petrograd and Moscow.
Industry, except the production of munitions of war, is largely at a
standstill. Nearly all means of transport which are not employed in
carrying food are used to supply the army, and there is scarcely any
surplus transport to carry materials essential to normal industry.
Furthermore, the army has absorbed the best executive brains and
physical vigor of the nation. In addition, Soviet Russia is cut off
from most of its sources of iron and of cotton. Only the flax, hemp,
wood, and lumber industries have an adequate supply of raw material.
On the other hand, such essentials of economic life as are available
are being utilized to the utmost by the Soviet Government. Such trains
as there are, run on time. The distribution of food is well
controlled. Many industrial experts of the old régime are again
managing their plants and sabotage by such managers has ceased.
Loafing by the workmen during work hours has been overcome. (Appendix,
p. 57.)
SOCIAL CONDITIONS
The destructive phase of the revolution is over and all the energy of
the Government is turned to constructive work. The terror has ceased.
All power of judgment has been taken away from the extraordinary
commission for suppression of the counter-revolution, which now merely
accuses suspected counter-revolutionaries, who are tried by the
regular, established, legal tribunals. Executions are extremely rare.
Good order has been established. The streets are safe. Shooting has
ceased. There are few robberies. Prostitution has disappeared from
sight. Family life has been unchanged by the revolution, the canard in
regard to "nationalization of women" notwithstanding. (Appendix, p.
58.)
The theaters, opera, and ballet are performing as in peace. Thousands
of new schools have been opened in all parts of Russia and the Soviet
Government seems to have done more for the education of the Russian
people in a year and a half than czardom did in 50 years. (Appendix,
p. 59.)
POLITICAL SITUATION
The Soviet form of government is firmly established. Perhaps the most
striking fact in Russia today is the general support which is given
the government by the people in spite of their starvation. Indeed, the
people lay the blame for their distress wholly on the blockade and on
the governments which maintain it. The Soviet form of government seems
to have become to the Russian people the symbol of their revolution.
Unquestionably it is a form of government which lends itself to gross
abuse and tyranny but it meets the demand of the moment in Russia and
it has acquired so great a hold on the imagination of the common
people that the women are ready to starve and the young men to die for
it.
The position of the communist party (formerly Bolsheviki) is also very
strong. Blockade and intervention have caused the chief opposition
parties, the right social revolutionaries and the menshiviki, to give
temporary support to the communists. These opposition parties have
both made formal statements against the blockade, intervention, and
the support of antisoviet governments by the allied and associated
governments. Their leaders, Volsky and Martov, are most vigorous in
their demands for the immediate raising of the blockade and peace.
(Appendix, p. 60.)
Indeed, the only ponderable opposition to the communists to-day comes
from more radical parties--the left social revolutionaries and the
anarchists. These parties, in published statements, call the
communists, and particularly Lenin and Tchitcherin, "the paid
bourgeois gendarmes of the Entente." They attack the communists
because the communists have encouraged scientists, engineers, and
industrial experts of the bourgeois class to take important posts
under the Soviet Government at high pay. They rage against the
employment of bourgeois officers in the army and against the efforts
of the communists to obtain peace. They demand the immediate massacre
of all the bourgeoisie and an immediate declaration of war on all
nonrevolutionary governments. They argue that the Entente Governments
should be forced to intervene more deeply in Russia, asserting that
such action would surely provoke the proletariat of all European
countries to immediate revolution.
Within the communist party itself there is a distinct division of
opinion in regard to foreign policy, but this disagreement has not
developed personal hostility or open breach in the ranks of the party.
Trotski, the generals, and many theorists believe the red army should
go forward everywhere until more vigorous intervention by the Entente
is provoked, which they, too, count upon to bring revolution in France
and England. Their attitude is not a little colored by pride in the
spirited young army. (Appendix, p. 62.) Lenin, Tchitcherin, and the
bulk of the communist party, on the other hand, insist that the
essential problem at present is to save the proletariat of Russia, in
particular, and the proletariat of Europe, in general, from
starvation, and assert that it will benefit the revolution but little
to conquer all Europe if the Government of the United States replies
by starving all Europe. They advocate, therefore, the conciliation of
the United States even at the cost of compromising with many of the
principles they hold most dear. And Lenin's prestige in Russia at
present is so overwhelming that the Trotski group is forced
reluctantly to follow him. (Appendix, p. 63.)
Lenin, indeed, as a practical matter, stands well to the right in the
existing political life of Russia. He recognizes the undesirability,
from the Socialist viewpoint, of the compromises he feels compelled to
make; but he is ready to make the compromises. Among the more notable
concessions he has already made are: The abandonment of his plan to
nationalize the land and the adoption of the policy of dividing it
among the peasants, the establishment of savings banks paying 3 per
cent interest, the decision to pay all foreign debts, and the decision
to give concessions if that shall prove to be necessary to obtain
credit abroad. (Appendix, p. 64.)
In a word, Lenin feels compelled to retreat from his theoretical
position all along the line. He is ready to meet the western
Governments half way.
PEACE PROPOSALS
Lenin seized upon the opportunity presented by my trip of
investigation to make a definite statement of the position of the
Soviet Government. He was opposed by Trotski and the generals, but
without much difficulty got the support of the majority of the
executive council, and the statement of the position of the Soviet
Government which was handed to me was finally adopted unanimously.
My discussion of this proposal with the leaders of the Soviet
Government was so detailed that I feel sure of my ground in saying
that it does not represent the minimum terms of the Soviet Government,
and that I can point out in detail wherein it may be modified without
making it unacceptable to the Soviet Government. For example, the
clause under article 5--"and to their own nationals who have been or
may be prosecuted for giving help to Soviet Russia"--is certainly not
of vital importance. And the clause under article 4, in regard to
admission of citizens of the soviet republics of Russia into the
allied and associated countries, may certainly be changed in such a
way as to reserve all necessary rights to control such immigration to
the allied and associated countries, and to confine it to persons who
come on legitimate and necessary business, and to exclude definitely
all possibility of an influx of propagandists.
CONCLUSIONS
The following conclusions are respectfully submitted:
1. No government save a socialist government can be set up
in Russia to-day except by foreign bayonets, and any
governments so set up will fall the moment such support is
withdrawn. The Lenin wing of the communist party is to-day
as moderate as any socialist government which can control
Russia.
2. No real peace can be established in Europe or the world
until peace is made with the revolution. This proposal of
the Soviet Government presents an opportunity to make peace
with the revolution on a just and reasonable basis--perhaps
a unique opportunity.
3. If the blockade is lifted and supplies begin to be
delivered regularly to soviet Russia, a more powerful hold
over the Russian people will be established than that given
by the blockade itself--the hold given by fear that this
delivery of supplies may be stopped. Furthermore, the
parties which oppose the communists in principle but are
supporting them at present will be able to begin to fight
against them.
4. It is, therefore, respectfully recommended that a
proposal following the general lines of the suggestion of
the Soviet Government should be made at the earliest
possible moment, such changes being made, particularly in
article 4 and article 5, as will make the proposal
acceptable to conservative opinion in the allied and
associated countries.
Very respectfully submitted.
WILLIAM C. BULLITT.
* * * * *
APPENDIX TO REPORT
TRANSPORT
_Locomotives_.--Before the war Russia had 22,000 locomotives.
Destruction by war and ordinary wear and tear have reduced the number
of locomotives in good order to 5,500. Russia is entirely cut off from
supplies of spare parts and materials for repair, facilities for the
manufacture of which do not exist in Russia. And the Soviet Government
is able only with the greatest difficulty to keep in running order the
few locomotives at its disposal.
_Coal_.--Soviet Russia is entirely cut off from supplies of coal.
Kolchak holds the Perm mining district, although Soviet troops are now
on the edge of it. Denikin still holds the larger part of the Donetz
coal district and has destroyed the mines in the portion of the
district which he has evacuated. As a result of this, locomotives,
electrical power plants, etc., must be fed with wood, which is
enormously expensive and laborious and comparatively ineffectual.
_Gasoline_.--There is a total lack of gasoline, due to the British
occupation of Baku. The few automobiles in the cities which are kept
running for vital Government business are fed with substitute
mixtures, which causes them to break down with great frequency and to
miss continually. Almost the entire fleet on the great inland waterway
system of Russia was propelled by gasoline. As a result the Volga and
the canals, which are so vital a part of Russia's system of
transportation, are useless.
FOOD
Everyone is hungry in Moscow and Petrograd, including the people's
commissaries themselves. The daily ration of Lenin and the other
commissaries is the same as that of a soldier in the army or of a
workman at hard labor. In the hotel which is reserved for Government
officials the menu is the following: Breakfast--A quarter to half a
pound of black bread, which must last all day, and tea without sugar.
Dinner--A good soup, a small piece of fish, for which occasionally a
diminutive piece of meat is substituted, a vegetable, either a potato
or a bit of cabbage, more tea without sugar. Supper--What remains of
the morning ration of bread and more tea without sugar.
Occasionally sugar, butter, and chickens slip through from the Ukraine
and are sold secretly at atrocious prices--butter, for example, at 140
roubles a pound. Whenever the Government is able to get its hands on
any such "luxuries" it turns them over to the schools, where an
attempt is made to give every child a good dinner every day.
The food situation has been slightly improved by the rejoining of
Ukraine to Great Russia, for food is relatively plentiful in the
south; but no great improvement in the situation is possible because
of the lack of transport.
MANAGEMENT
Such supplies as are available in Soviet Russia are being utilized
with considerable skill. For example, in spite of the necessity of
firing with wood, the Moscow-Petrograd express keeps up to its
schedule, and on both occasions when I made the trip it took but 13
hours, compared to the 12 hours of prewar days.
The food control works well, so that there is no abundance alongside
of famine. Powerful and weak alike endure about the same degree of
starvation.
The Soviet Government has made great efforts to persuade industrial
managers and technical experts of the old régime to enter its service.
Many very prominent men have done so. And the Soviet Government pays
them as high as $45,000 a year for their services, although Lenin gets
but $1,800 a year. This very anomalous situation arises from the
principle that any believing communist must adhere to the scale of
wages established by the government, but if the government considers
it necessary to have the assistance of any anticommunist, it is
permitted to pay him as much as he demands.
All meetings of workmen during work hours have been prohibited, with
the result that the loafing which was so fatal during the Kerensky
régime has been overcome and discipline has been restored in the
factories as in the army.
SOCIAL CONDITIONS
_Terror_.--The red terror is over. During the period of its power the
extraordinary commission for the suppression of the counter
revolution, which was the instrument of the terror, executed about
1,500 persons in Petrograd, 500 in Moscow, and 3,000 in the remainder
of the country--5,000 in all Russia. These figures agree with those
which were brought back from Russia by Maj. Wardwell, and inasmuch as
I have checked them from Soviet, anti-Soviet, and neutral sources I
believe them to be approximately correct. It is worthy of note in this
connection that in the white terror in southern Finland alone,
according to official figures, Gen. Mannerheim executed without trial
12,000 working men and women.
_Order_.--One feels as safe in the streets of Petrograd and Moscow as
in the streets of Paris or New York. On the other hand, the streets of
these cities are dismal, because of the closing of retail shops whose
functions are now concentrated in a few large nationalized "department
stores." Petrograd, furthermore, has been deserted by half its
population; but Moscow teems with twice the number of inhabitants it
contained before the war. The only noticeable difference in the
theaters, opera, and ballet is that they are now run under the
direction of the department of education, which prefers classics and
sees to it that working men and women and children are given an
opportunity to attend the performances and that they are instructed
beforehand in the significance and beauties of the productions.
_Morals_.--Prostitutes have disappeared from sight, the economic
reasons for their career having ceased to exist. Family life has been
absolutely unchanged by the revolution. I have never heard more
genuinely mirthful laughter than when I told Lenin, Tchitcherin, and
Litvinov that much of the world believed that women had been
"nationalized." This lie is so wildly fantastic that they will not
even take the trouble to deny it. Respect for womanhood was never
greater than in Russia to-day. Indeed, the day I reached Petrograd was
a holiday in honor of wives and mothers.
_Education_.--The achievements of the department of education under
Lunacharsky have been very great. Not only have all the Russian
classics been reprinted in editions of three and five million copies
and sold at a low price to the people, but thousands of new schools
for men, women, and children have been opened in all parts of Russia.
Furthermore, workingmen's and soldiers' clubs have been organized in
many of the palaces of yesteryear, where the people are instructed by
means of moving pictures and lectures. In the art galleries one meets
classes of working men and women being instructed in the beauties of
the pictures. The children's schools have been entirely reorganized,
and an attempt is being made to give every child a good dinner at
school every day. Furthermore, very remarkable schools have been
opened for defective and over-nervous children. On the theory that
genius and insanity are closely allied, these children are taught from
the first to compose music, paint pictures, sculpt and write poetry,
and it is asserted that some very valuable results have been achieved,
not only in the way of productions but also in the way of restoring
the nervous systems of the children.
_Morale_.--The belief of the convinced communists in their cause is
almost religious. Never in any religious service have I seen higher
emotional unity than prevailed at the meeting of the Petrograd Soviet
in celebration of the foundation of the Third Socialist
Internationale. The remark of one young man to me when I questioned
him in regard to his starved appearance is characteristic. He replied
very simply: "I am ready to give another year of starvation to our
revolution."
STATEMENTS OF LEADERS OF OPPOSITION PARTIES
The following statement was made to me by Volsky, leader of the right
social revolutionaries, the largest opposition party:
"Intervention of any kind will prolong the régime of the Bolsheviki by
compelling us, like all honorable Russians, to drop opposition and
rally round the Soviet Government in defense of the revolution. With
regard to help to individual groups or governments fighting against
soviet Russia, we see no difference between such intervention and the
sending of troops. If the allies come to an agreement with the Soviet
Government, sooner or later the peasant masses will make their will
felt and they are alike against the bourgeoisie and the Bolsheviki.
"If by any chance Kolchak and Denikin were to win, they would have to
kill in tens of thousands where the Bolsheviki have had to kill in
hundreds and the result would be the complete ruin and collapse of
Russia into anarchy. Has not the Ukraine been enough to teach the
allies that occupation by non-Bolshevik troops merely turns into
Bolsheviki those of the population who were not Bolsheviki before? It
is clear to us that the Bolshiviki are really fighting against
bourgeois dictatorship, We are, therefore, prepared to help them in
every possible way.
"Grandmother Ekaterina Constantinovna Breshkovskaya has no sort of
authority, either from the assembly of members of the all Russian
constituent assembly or from the party of social revolutionaries. Her
utterances in America, if she is preaching intervention, represent her
personal opinions which are categorically repudiated by the party of
social revolutionaries, which has decisively expressed itself against
the permissibility of intervention, direct or indirect."
Volsky signed this latter statement: "V. Volsky, late president of the
assembly of members of the all Russian constituent assembly."
Martov, leader of the Menshiviki, stated: "The Menshiviki are against
every form of intervention, direct or indirect, because by providing
the incentive to militarization it is bound to emphasize the least
desirable qualities of the revolution. Further, the needs of the army
overwhelm all efforts at meeting the needs of social and economic
reconstruction. Agreement with the Soviet Government would lessen the
tension of defense and would unmuzzle the opposition, who, while the
Soviet Government is attacked, are prepared to help in its defense,
while reserving until peace their efforts to alter the Bolshevik
régime.
"The forces that would support intervention must be dominated by those
of extreme reaction because all but the reactionaries are prepared
temporarily to sink their differences with the Bolsheviki in order to
defend the revolution as a whole."
Martov finally expressed himself as convinced that, given peace, life
itself and the needs of the country will bring about the changes he
desires.
ARMY
The soviet army now numbers between 1,000,000 and 1,200,000 troops of
the line. Nearly all these soldiers are young men between the ages of
17 and 27. The morale of regiments varies greatly. The convinced
communists, who compose the bulk of the army, fight with crusading
enthusiasm. Other regiments, composed of patriots but noncommunists,
are less spirited; other regiments composed of men who have entered
the army for the slightly higher bread ration are distinctly
untrustworthy. Great numbers of officers of the old army are occupying
important executive posts in the administration of the new army, but
are under control of convinced communist supervisors. Nearly all the
lower grade officers of the army are workmen who have displayed
courage in the ranks and have been trained in special officer schools.
Discipline has been restored and on the whole the spirit of the army
appears to be very high, particularly since its recent successes. The
soldiers no longer have the beaten dog-like look which distinguished
them under the Czar but carry themselves like freemen and curiously
like Americans. They are popular with the people.
I witnessed a review of 15,000 troops in Petrograd. The men marched
well and their equipment of shoes, uniforms, rifles, and machine guns
and light artillery was excellent. On the other hand they have no big
guns, no aeroplanes, no gas shells, no liquid fire, nor indeed, any of
the more refined instruments of destruction.
The testimony was universal that recruiting for the army is easiest in
the districts which having once lived under the soviet were over run
by anti-soviet forces and then reoccupied by the Red Army.
Trotski is enormously proud of the army he has created, but it is
noteworthy that even he is ready to disband the army at once if peace
can be obtained in order that all the brains and energy it contains
may be turned to restoring the normal life of the country.
LENIN'S PRESTIGE
The hold which Lenin has gained on the imagination of the Russian
people makes his position almost that of a dictator. There is already
a Lenin legend. He is regarded as almost a prophet. His picture,
usually accompanied by that of Karl Marx, hangs everywhere. In Russia
one never hears Lenin and Trotski spoken of in the same breath as is
usual in the western world. Lenin is regarded as in a class by
himself. Trotski is but one of the lower order of mortals.
When I called on Lenin at the Kremlin I had to wait a few minutes
until a delegation of peasants left his room. They had heard in their
village that Comrade Lenin was hungry. And they had come hundreds of
miles carrying 800 poods of bread as the gift of the village to Lenin.
Just before them was another delegation of peasants to whom the report
had come that Comrade Lenin was working in an unheated room. They came
bearing a stove and enough firewood to heat it for three months. Lenin
is the only leader who receives such gifts. And he turns them into the
common fund.
Face to face Lenin is a very striking man--straightforward and direct,
but also genial and with a large humor and serenity.
CONCESSIONS
The Soviet Government recognizes very clearly the undesirability of
granting concessions to foreigners and is ready to do so only because
of necessity. The members of the Government realize that the lifting
of the blockade will be illusory unless the Soviet Government is able
to establish credits in foreign countries, particularly the United
States and England, so that goods may be bought in those countries.
For Russia to-day is in a position to export only a little gold, a
little platinum, a little hemp, flax, and wood. These exports will be
utterly inadequate to pay for the vast quantity of imports which
Russia needs. Russia must, therefore, obtain credit at any price. The
members of the Soviet Government realize fully that as a preliminary
step to the obtaining of credit the payment of foreign debts must be
resumed and, therefore, are ready to pay such debts. But even though
these debts are paid the members of the Soviet Government believe that
they will not be able to borrow money in foreign countries on any mere
promise to pay. They believe, therefore, that they will have to grant
concessions in Russia to foreigners in order to obtain immediate
credit. They desire to avoid this expedient if in any way it shall be
possible, but if absolutely necessary they are ready to adopt it in
order to begin the restoration of the normal life of the country.
Senator KNOX. To whom did you hand that report?
Mr. BULLITT. I handed copies of this personally to Secretary Lansing,
Col. House, Gen. Bliss and Mr. Henry White, and I handed a second
copy, for the President, to Mr. Lansing. Secretary Lansing wrote on
it, "Urgent and immediate"; put it in an envelope, and I took it up to
the President's house.
Senator KNOX. At the same time that you handed in this report, did you
hand them the proposal of the Soviet Government?
Mr. BULLITT. The proposal of the Soviet Government is appended to this
report.
Senator KNOX. It is a part of the report?
Mr. BULLITT. It is a part of the report which I have already read.
There comes first an appendix explaining the statements which I have
just read, and giving the evidence I have for them.
Senator KNOX. Was there any formal meeting of the peace conference, or
of representatives of the great powers, to act upon this suggestion
and upon your report?
Mr. BULLITT. It was acted upon in a very lengthy, long-drawn-out
manner.
Immediately on my return I was first asked to appear before the
American Commission. First, the night I got back I had a couple of
hours with Col. House, in which I went over the whole matter. Col.
House was entirely and quite decidedly in favor of making peace, if
possible, on the basis of this proposal.
The next morning I was called before the other Commissioners, and I
talked with Mr. Lansing, Gen. Bliss, and Mr. Henry White all the
morning and most of the afternoon. We had a long discussion, at the
end of which it was the sense of the commissioners' meeting that it
was highly desirable to attempt to bring about peace on that basis.
BREAKFAST WITH LLOYD GEORGE
The next morning I had breakfast with Mr. Lloyd George at his
apartment. Gen. Smuts and Sir Maurice Hankey and Mr. Philip Kerr were
also present, and we discussed the matter at considerable length, I
brought Mr. Lloyd George the official text of the proposal, the same
official one, in that same envelop, which I have just shown to you. He
had previously read it, it having been telegraphed from Helsingfors.
As he had previously read it, he merely glanced over it and said,
"That is the same one I have already read," and he handed it to Gen.
Smuts, who was across the table, and said, "General, this is of the
utmost importance and interest, and you ought to read it right away."
Gen. Smuts read it immediately, and said he thought it should not be
allowed to lapse; that it was of the utmost importance. Mr. Lloyd
George, however, said that he did not know what he could do with
British public opinion. He had a copy of the Daily Mail in his hand,
and he said, "As long as the British press is doing this kind of thing
how can you expect me to be sensible about Russia?" The Daily Mail was
roaring and screaming about the whole Russian situation. Then Mr.
Lloyd George said, "Of course all the reports we get from people we
send in there are in this same general direction, but we have got to
send in somebody who is known to the whole world as a complete
conservative, in order to have the whole world believe that the report
he brings out is not simply the utterance of a radical." He then said,
"I wonder if we could get Lansdowne to go?" Then he immediately
corrected himself and said, "No; it would probably kill him." Then he
said, "I wish I could send Bob Cecil, but we have got to keep him for
the league of nations." And he said to Smuts, "It would be splendid if
you could go, but, of course, you have got the other job," which was
going down to Hungary. Afterwards he said he thought the most
desirable man to send was the Marquis of Salisbury, Lord Robert
Cecil's brother; that he would be respectable enough and well known
enough so that when he came back and made the same report it would go
down with British public opinion. Mr. Lloyd George then urged me to
make public my report. He said it was absolutely necessary to have
publicity given to the actual conditions in Russia, which he
recognized were as presented.
I saw Mr. Balfour that afternoon with Sir Eric Drummond, who at that
time was acting as his secretary. He is now secretary of the league of
nations. We discussed the entire matter. Sir William Wiseman told me
afterward that Mr. Balfour was thoroughly in favor of the proposition.
Well, to cut the story short, first the President referred the matter
to Col. House. He left his decision on the matter with Col. House, as
was his usual course of procedure in most such matters. Mr. Lloyd
George also agreed in advance to leave the preparation of the proposal
to Col. House; that is, he said he would be disposed to go at least as
far as we would and would follow the lead of the President and Col.
House. Col. House thereupon asked me to prepare a reply to this
proposal, which I did.
Col. House in the meantime had seen Mr. Orlando, and Mr. Orlando had
expressed himself as entirely in favor of making peace on this basis,
at least so Col. House informed me at the time. The French, I believe,
had not yet been approached formally on the matter.
Senator KNOX. By the way, right here, you say Mr. Lloyd George advised
you to make your report public. Did you make it public?
Mr. BULLITT. No, sir. Mr. Lloyd George desired me to make it public
for the enlightenment that he thought it might give to public opinion.
Senator KNOX. But you did not do it?
BULLITT REPORT SUPPRESSED
Mr. BULLITT. I attempted to. I prepared a statement for the press
based on my report, giving the facts, which I submitted to the
commission to be given out. No member of the commission was ready to
take the responsibility for publicity in the matter and it was
referred to the President. The President received it and decided that
he did not want it given out. He thought he would rather keep it
secret, and in spite of the urgings of the other commissioners he
continued to adhere to that point of view, and my report has never
been made public until this moment.
Col. House asked me to prepare a declaration of policy, a statement
based on this proposal of the Soviet Government. It was to be an
ironclad declaration which we knew in advance would be accepted by the
Soviet Government if we made it, and he thought that the President and
Mr. Lloyd George would put it through.
Senator BRANDEGEE. Did you attend that meeting of the commission when
that report was considered by the American Commission?
Mr. BULLITT. I first handed each member of the commission my report. I
had appeared before them and discussed my mission for an entire day.
They sat in the morning and in the afternoon.
Senator BRANDEGEE. I wondered whether you were present when the
President thought it would be better not to give it out, not to make
it public.
Mr. BULLITT. No, sir; I was not. Then upon order of Col. House, to
whom the matter had been referred, I prepared this declaration of
policy. I prepared it in conjunction with Mr. Whitney Shepherdson, who
was Col. House's assistant secretary, and also versed in international
law. I do not know that this is of any importance, aside from the fact
that it is almost the only direct proposition to accept their proposal
which was prepared. Col. House took this and held it under advisement
and discussed it, I believe, with the President and other persons.
The CHAIRMAN. It had better be printed.
The document referred to is as follows:
A PROPOSED DECLARATION OF POLICY TO BE ISSUED IN THE NAME OF THE
ASSOCIATED GOVERNMENTS AND AN OFFER OF AN ARMISTICE
The representatives of the States assembled in conference at Paris
recently extended an invitation to the organized groups in Russia to
lay down their arms and to send delegates to Prince's Island. These
delegates were asked to "confer with the representatives of the
associated powers in the freest and frankest way, with a view to
ascertaining the wishes of all sections of the Russian people and
bringing about, if possible, some understanding and agreement by which
Russia may work out her own purposes and happy cooperative relations
may be established between her people and the other peoples of the
world." The truce of arms was not declared, and the meeting did not
take place.
The people of Russia are laboring to-day to establish the system of
government under which they shall live. Their task is one of
unparalleled difficulty, and should not be further complicated by the
existence of misapprehensions among the Russian people or throughout
the world. Therefore, the representatives of the associated powers,
now sitting in the conference of Paris, have determined to state
publicly what they had in mind to say through their delegates to
Prince's Island concerning the policies which govern their relations
with the Russian people.
They wish to make it plain that they do not intend to interfere in any
way with the solution of the political, social, or economic problems
of Russia. They believe that the peace of the world will largely
depend upon a right settlement of these matters; but they equally
recognize that any right settlement must proceed from the Russian
people themselves, unembarrassed by influence or direction from
without. On the other hand, the associated powers desired to have it
clearly understood that they can have no dealings with any Russian
Government which shall invade the territory of its neighbors or seek
to impose its will upon other peoples by force. The full authority and
military power of the associated governments will stand in the way of
any such attempt.
The task of creating a stable government demands all the great
strength of Russia, healed of the famine, misery, and disease which
attend and delay the reconstruction. The associated powers have
solemnly pledged their resources to relieve the stricken regions of
Europe. Their efforts, begun in Belgium and in northern France during
the course of the war, now extend to exhausted peoples from Finland to
the Dalmatian coast. Ports long idle are busy again. Trainloads of
food are moved into the interior and there are distributed with an
impartial hand. Industry is awakened, and life is resumed at the point
where it was broken off by war. These measures of relief will be
continued until peace is signed and until nations are once more able
to provide for their needs through the normal channels of commerce.
It is the earnest desire of the associated peoples similarly to
assuage the distress of millions of men and women in Russia and to
provide them with such physical conditions as will make life possible
and desirable. Relief can not be effectively rendered, however, except
by the employment of all available transportation facilities and the
active cooperation of those exercising authority within the country.
These requisites can not be assured while Russia is still at war.
The allied and associated governments, therefore, propose an agreement
between themselves and all governments now exercising political
authority within the territory of the former Russian Empire, including
Finland, together with Poland, Galicia, Roumania, Armenia,
Azerbaidjan, and Afghanistan, that hostilities against one another
shall cease on all fronts within these territories on April ---- at
noon; that fresh hostilities shall not be begun during the period of
this armistice, and that no troops or war material of any kind
whatever shall be transferred to or within these territories so long
as the armistice shall continue. The duration of the armistice shall
be for two weeks, unless extended by mutual consent. The allied and
associated Governments propose that such of these Governments as are
willing to accept the terms of this armistice shall send not more than
three representatives each, together with necessary technical experts,
to ---- where they shall meet on April ---- with representatives of
the allied and associated Governments in conference to discuss peace,
upon the basis of the following principles:
(1) All signatory Governments shall remain, as against each
other, in full control of the territories which they occupy
at the moment when the armistice becomes effective; subject
only to such rectifications as may be agreed upon by the
conference, or until the peoples inhabiting these
territories shall themselves voluntarily determine to change
their Government.
(2) The right of free entry, sojourn, circulation, and full
security shall be accorded by the several signatories to the
citizens of each other; provided, however, that such persons
comply with the laws of the country to which they seek
admittance, and provided also that they do not interfere or
attempt to interfere in any way with the domestic politics
of that country.
(3) The right to send official representatives enjoying full
liberty and immunity shall be accorded by the several
signatories to each other.
(4) A general amnesty shall be granted by the various
signatories to all political or military opponents,
offenders, and prisoners who are so regarded because of
their association or affiliation with another signatory,
provided that they have not otherwise violated the laws of
the land.
(5) Nationals of one signatory residing or detained in the
country of another shall be given all possible facilities
for repatriation.
(6) The allied and associated Governments shall immediately
withdraw their armed forces and further military support
from the territory of the former Russian Empire, including
Finland, and the various Governments within that territory
shall effect a simultaneous reduction of armed forces
according to a scheme of demobilization and control to be
agreed upon by the conference.
(7) Any economic blockade imposed by one signatory as
against another shall be lifted and trade relations shall be
established, subject to a program of equitable distribution
of supplies and utilization of transport facilities to be
agreed upon by the conference.
(8) Provision shall be made by the conference for a mutual
exchange of transit and port privileges among the several
signatories.
(9) The conference shall be competent to discuss and
determine any other matter which bears upon the problem of
establishing peace within the territory of the former
Russian Empire, including Finland, and the reestablishment
of international relations among the signatories.
NOTE.--If it is desirable to include a specific reference to
Russia's financial obligations, the following clause (8 bis)
would be acceptable to the Soviet Government at least: "The
governments which have been set up on the territory of the
former Russian Empire and Finland shall recognize their
responsibility for the financial obligations of the former
Russian Empire to foreign States parties to this agreement
and to the nationals of such States. Detailed arrangements
for discharging these obligations shall be agreed upon by
the conference, regard being had to the present financial
situation of Russia."
Senator BRANDEGEE. Was this brought to the attention of the President?
Mr. BULLITT. The first night after I got in Col. House went to the
telephone and called up the President right away and told him that I
was in, and that he thought this was a matter of the utmost
importance, and that it would seem to be an opportunity to make peace
in a section of the world where there was no peace; in fact, where
there were 23 wars. The President said he would see me the next
evening down at Col. House's office, as I remember it. The next
evening, however, the President had a headache and he did not come.
The following afternoon Col. House said to me that he had seen the
President and the President had said he had a one-track mind and was
occupied with Germany at present, and he could not think about Russia,
and that he had left the Russian matter all to him, Col. House.
Therefore I continued to deal with Col. House directly on it inasmuch
as he was the delegate of the President, and Lloyd George, in the
matter. I used to see Col. House every day, indeed two or three times
a day, on the subject, urging him to obtain action before April 10,
which, as you will recall, was the date when this proposal was to
expire.
NANSEN PLAN TO FEED RUSSIA
Meanwhile Mr. Hoover and Mr. Auchincloss had the idea of approaching
peace with Russia by a feeding proposition, and they had approached
Mr. Fridjof Nansen, the Arctic explorer, and got him to write and send
the following letter to the President. You doubtless have seen his
letter to the President.
PARIS, April 3, 1919.
MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: The present food situation in Russia,
where hundreds of thousands of people are dying monthly from
sheer starvation and disease, is one of the problems now
uppermost in all men's minds. As it appears that no solution
of this food and disease question has so far been reached in
any direction, I would like to make a suggestion from a
neutral point of view for the alleviation of this gigantic
misery on purely humanitarian grounds.
It would appear to me possible to organize a purely
humanitarian commission for the provisioning of Russia, the
foodstuffs and medical supplies to be paid for, perhaps, to
some considerable extent by Russia itself, the justice of
distribution to be guaranteed by such a commission, the
membership of the commission to be comprised of Norwegian,
Swedish, and possibly Dutch, Danish, and Swiss
nationalities. It does not appear that the existing
authorities in Russia would refuse the intervention of such
a commission of wholly nonpolitical order, devoted solely to
the humanitarian purpose of saving life. If thus organized
upon the lines of the Belgian Relief Commission, it would
raise no question of political recognition or negotiations
between the Allies with the existing authorities in Russia.
I recognize keenly the large political issues involved, and
I would be glad to know under what conditions you would
approve such an enterprise and whether such commission could
look for actual support in finance, shipping, and food and
medical supplies from the United States Government.
I am addressing a similar note to Messrs. Orlando,
Clemenceau, and Lloyd George. Believe me, my dear Mr.
President,
Yours, most respectfully,
FRIDJOF NANSEN.
His Excellency the PRESIDENT,
II Place des Etats-Unis, Paris.
Senator KNOX, I think that was published in nearly all the papers.
Mr. BULLITT. Yes. In it he proposed that a commission should be formed
at once for the feeding of Russia, because of the frightful conditions
of starvation and so on. Col. House decided that it would be an easier
way to peace if we could get there via the feeding plan, under the
guise of a purely humanitarian plan, if we could slide in that way
instead of by a direct, outright statement inviting these people to
sit down and make peace. Therefore he asked me to prepare a reply to
the Nansen letter, which I have here.
PARIS, FRANCE, April 4, 1919. Suggested reply to Dr.
Nansen by the President of the United States and the
premiers of France, Great Britain, and Italy:
DEAR MR. NANSEN: It is the earnest desire of the allied and
associated Governments, and of the peoples for whom they
speak, to assuage the distress of the millions of men,
women, and children who are suffering in Russia. The
associated powers have solemnly pledged their resources to
relieve the stricken regions of Europe. Their efforts, begun
in Belgium and in Northern France during the course of the
war, now extend to exhausted peoples from Finland to the
Dalmatian coast. Ports long idle are busy again. Trainloads
of food are moved into the interior and there are
distributed with an impartial hand. Industry is awakened,
and life is resumed at the point where it was broken off by
war. These measures of relief will be continued until
nations are once more able to provide for their needs
through the normal channels of commerce.
The associated peoples desire and deem it their duty
similarly to assist in relieving the people of Russia from
the misery, famine, and disease which oppress them. In view
of the responsibilities which have already been undertaken
by the associated Governments they welcome the suggestion
that the neutral States should take the initiative in the
matter of Russian relief and, therefore, are prepared to
state in accordance with your request, the conditions under
which they will approve and assist a neutral commission for
the provisioning of Russia.
The allied and associated Governments and all Governments
now exercising political authority within the territory of
the former Russian Empire, including Finland, together with
Poland, Galicia, Roumania, Armenia, Azerbaidjan, and
Afghanistan, shall agree that hostilities against one
another shall cease on all fronts within these territories
on April 20 at noon; that fresh hostilities shall not be
begun during the period of this armistice, and that no
troops or war material of any kind whatever shall be
transferred to or within these territories so long as the
armistice shall continue. The duration of the armistice
shall be for two weeks unless extended by mutual consent.
The allied and associated Governments propose that such of
these Governments as are willing to accept the terms of this
armistice, shall send not more than three representatives
each, together with necessary technical experts, to
Christiania, where they shall meet on April 25 with
representatives of the allied and associated Governments in
conference to discuss peace 'and the provisioning of Russia,
upon the basis of the following principles:
1. All signatory Governments shall remain, as
against each other, in full control of the
territories which they occupy at the moment when
the armistice becomes effective, subject to such
rectifications as may be agreed upon by the
conference, or until the peoples inhabiting these
territories shall themselves voluntarily determine
to change their government.
2. The right of free entry, sojourn, circulation,
and full security shall be accorded by the several
signatories to the citizens of each other;
provided, however, that such persons comply with
the laws of the country to which they seek
admittance, and provided also-that they do not
interfere or attempt to interfere in any way with
the domestic politics of that country.
3. The right to send official representatives
enjoying full liberty and immunity shall be
accorded by the several signatories to one
another.
4. A general amnesty shall be granted by the
various signatories to all political or military
opponents, offenders, and prisoners who are so
treated because of their association or
affiliation with another signatory, provided that
they have not otherwise violated the laws of the
land.
5. Nationals of one signatory residing or detained
in the country of another shall be given all
possible facilities for repatriation.
6. The allied and associated Governments will
immediately withdraw their armed forces and
further military support from the territory of the
former Russian Empire, including Finland and the
various Governments within that territory shall
effect a simultaneous reduction of armed forces
according to a scheme of demobilization and
control to be agreed upon by the conference.
7. Any economic blockade imposed by one signatory
as against another shall be lifted and trade
relations shall be established, subject to a
program of equitable distribution of supplies and
utilization of transport facilities to be agreed
upon by the conference in consultation with
representatives of those neutral States which are
prepared to assume the responsibility for the
provisioning of Russia.
8. Provision shall be made by the conference for a
mutual exchange of transit and port privileges among
the several signatories.
9. The Governments which have been set up on the
territory of the former Russian Empire and Finland
shall recognize their responsibility for the
financial obligations of the former Russian Empire
to foreign States parties to this agreement and to
the nationals of such States. Detailed
arrangements for discharging these obligations
shall be agreed upon by the conference, regard
being had to the present financial situation of
Russia.
10. The conference shall be competent to discuss and
determine any other matter which bears upon the
provisioning of Russia, the problem of establishing
peace within the territory of the former Russian
Empire, including Finland, and the reestablishment of
international relations among the signatories.
Mr. BULLITT. I also prepared at the orders of Col. House------
Senator KNOX. What attitude did you take toward the Nansen proposal?
Mr. BULLITT. At first I opposed it. I was in favor of the original
plan.
Senator KNOX. You were in favor of the original plan?
Mr. BULLITT. I was in favor of direct, straightforward action in the
matter. However, I found that there was no use in kicking against the
pricks, that I was unable to persuade the commission that my point of
view was the correct one. Therefore at the request of Col. House I
wrote out a reply to Dr. Nansen, in which I embodied a peace proposal
so that it would have meant a peace conference via Nansen, which was
what was desired.
Senator BRANDEGEE. Was that letter delivered to Nansen?
Mr. BULLITT. No. I gave this reply of mine to Col. House. Col. House
read it and said he would approve it, but that before he gave it to
the President and to Lloyd George as his solution of the way to deal
with this Russian matter, he wished it considered by his international
law experts, Mr. Auchincloss and Mr. Miller, and it was thereupon
turned over that afternoon to Mr. Auchincloss and Mr. Miller. Does the
Senator desire this document?
Senator KNOX. I do not regard it as material. It was not accepted?
Mr. BULLITT. It was not accepted. What happened in regard to this was
that Mr. Auchincloss and Mr. Miller, to correct its legal language,
produced a proposition which was entirely different, which left out
all possibility of the matter coming to a peace conference, and was
largely an offer to feed Russia provided Russia put all her railroads
in the hands of the allied and associated Governments. I have that as
well.
Senator BRANDEGEE. Do you object to having that put in the record,
Senator Knox?
Senator KNOX. No.
Senator BRANDEGEE. I would like to have that put in.
(The document referred to is here printed in full, as follows:)
(AUCHINCLOSS-MILLER PROPOSAL)
Draft of proposed letter to be signed by President Wilson
and the prime ministers of Great Britain, France, and Italy
in reply to Mr. Nansen's letter:
DEAR SIR: The situation of misery and suffering in Russia
which is described in your letter of April 3 is one which
appeals to the sympathies of all peoples of the world.
Regardless of political differences or shades of thought,
the knowledge that thousands and perhaps millions of men,
and above all of women and children lack the food and the
necessities which make life endurable is one which is
shocking to humanity.
The Governments and the peoples whom we represent, without
thought of political, military or financial advantage, would
be glad to cooperate in any proposal which would relieve the
existing situation in Russia. It seems to us that such a
commission as you propose, purely humanitarian in its
purpose, would offer a practical means of carrying out the
beneficent results which you have in view and could not
either in its conception or its operation be considered as
having in view any other aim than "the humanitarian purpose
of saving life."
It is true that there are great difficulties to be overcome,
political difficulties owing to the existing situation in
Russia, and difficulties of supply and transport. But if the
existing de facto governments of Russia are all willing as
the Governments and peoples whom we represent to see succor
and relief given to the stricken peoples of Russia, no
political difficulties will remain as obstacles thereto.
There will remain, however, the difficulties of supply and
transport which we have mentioned and also the problem of
distribution in Russia itself. The problem of supply we can
ourselves safely hope to solve in connection with the advice
and cooperation of such a commission as you propose. The
problem of transport of supplies to Russia we can hope to
meet with the assistance of your own and other neutral
Governments.
The difficulties of transport in Russia can in large degree
only be overcome in Russia itself. So far as possible, we
would endeavor to provide increased means of transportation;
but we would consider it essential in any such scheme of
relief that control of transportation in Russia, so far as
was necessary in the distribution of relief supplies, should
be placed wholly under such a commission as is described in
your letter and should to the necessary extent be freed from
any governmental or private control whatsoever.
The real human element in the situation, even supposing all
these difficulties to be surmounted, is the problem of
distribution, the problem of seeing that the food reaches
the starving, the medicines the sick, the clothing the
naked. Subject to the supervision of such a commission, this
is a problem which should be solely under the control of the
people of Russia themselves so far as it is humanly possible
to put it under their control. It is not a question of class
or of race or of politics but a question of human beings in
need, and these human beings in each locality should be
given, as under the regime of the Belgian relief commission,
the fullest opportunity to advise the commission upon the
methods and the personnel by which their community is to be
relieved. Under no other circumstances could it be believed
that the purpose of this relief was humanitarian and not
political, and still more important, under no other
conditions could it be certain that the hungry would be fed.
That such a course would involve cessation of hostilities by
Russian troops would of course mean a cessation of all
hostilities on the Russian fronts. Indeed, relief to Russia
which did not mean a return to a state of peace would be
futile, and would be impossible to consider.
Under such conditions as we have outlined, we believe that
your plan could be successfully carried into effect and we
should be prepared to give it our full support.
Senator KNOX. What I am anxious to get at is to find out what became
of your report.
Senator FALL. I should like to know whether Col. House approved Mr.
Auchincloss's and Mr. Miller's report, or the report of the witness.
Mr. BULLITT. I should like to have this clear, and if I can read just
this one page I shall be greatly obliged. On this proposition I wrote
the following memorandum to Mr. Auchincloss [reading]:
APRIL 4, 1919.
Memorandum for Mr. Auchincloss:
DEAR GORDON: I have studied carefully the draft of the reply
to Dr. Nansen which you have prepared. In spirit and
substance your letter differs so radically from the reply
which I consider essential that I find it difficult to make
any constructive criticism. And I shall refrain from
criticizing your rhetoric.
There are two proposals in your letter, however, which are
obviously unfair and will not, I am certain, be accepted by
the Soviet Government.
1. The life of Russia depends upon its railroads;
and your demand for control of transportation by
the commission can hardly be accepted by the
Soviet Government which knows that plots for the
destruction of railroad bridges were hatched in
the American consulate in Moscow. You are asking
the Soviet Government to put its head in the
lion's mouth. It will not accept. You must
moderate your phrases.
2. When you speak of the "cessation of hostilities
by Russian troops," you fail to speak of
hostilities by troops of the allied and associated
Governments, a number of whom, you may recall,
have invaded Russia. Furthermore, your phrase does
not cover Finns, Esthonians, Letts, Poles, etc. In
addition, you say absolutely nothing about the
withdrawal of the troops of the allied and
associated Governments from Russian territory.
And, most important, you fail to say that troops
and military supplies will cease to be sent into
the territory of the former Russian Empire. You
thereby go a long way toward proving Trotsky's
thesis: That any armistice will simply be used by
the Allies as a period in which to supply tanks,
aeroplanes, gas shells, liquid fire, etc., to the
various antisoviet governments. As it stands, your
armistice proposal is absolutely unfair, and I am
sure that it will not be accepted by the Soviet
Government.
Very respectfully, yours,
WILLIAM C. BULLITT.
Senator NEW. Otherwise you had no fault to find with it?
Mr. BULLITT. Yes. The morning after Col. House had told me he wished
to submit this proposition to his international law experts, I came as
usual to his office about 9.40, and Mr. Auchincloss was on his way to
the President with his proposal, the Auchincloss-Miller proposal, as
Col. House's proposal. But I got that stopped. I went in to Col.
House, and Col. House told Mr. Auchincloss not to take it up to the
President, and asked me if I could doctor up the reply of Mr.
Auchincloss and Mr. Miller to the Nansen letter so that it might
possibly be acceptable to the Soviet Government. I thereupon rewrote
the Auchincloss-Miller letter, but I was forced to stick very closely
to the text. I was told that I could cut things out if I wished to,
but to stick very closely to the text, which I did. I drew this
redraft of their letter, under protest at the whole business. My
redraft of their letter was finally the basis of the reply of the four
to Nansen. I have both these documents here, my reply--and the four
took that reply--and with the changes----
The CHAIRMAN. What four--the successors of the ten?
Mr. BULLITT. The successors of the 10, sir, took the reply------
The CHAIRMAN. Who were the four at that moment?
Mr. BULLITT. M. Orlando, Mr. Lloyd George, M. Clemenceau, and the
President. This extremely mild proposition, which really had almost no
chance of life, was, you will see, in no sense a reply to these
proposals of the Soviet Government. This is my attempt to doctor up
the Auchincloss-Miller proposition. In spite of every effort I could
make to obtain definite action on it, the reply was made to me that
this reply to the Nansen proposal would be a sufficient reply to that
proposal of the Soviet Government. [Reading:]
DEAR SIR: The misery and suffering in Russia described in
your letter of April 3 appeals to the sympathies of all
peoples. It is shocking to humanity that millions of men,
women, and children lack the food and the necessities, which
make life endurable.
The Governments and peoples whom we represent would be glad
to cooperate, without thought of political, military, or
financial advantage, in any proposal which would relieve
this situation in Russia. It seems to us that such a
commission as you propose would offer a practical means of
achieving the beneficent results you have in view, and could
not, either in its conception or its operation, be
considered as having any other aim than the "humanitarian
purpose of saving life."
There are great difficulties to be overcome, political difficulties,
owing to the existing situation in Russia, and difficulties of supply
and transport. But if the existing local governments of Russia are as
willing as the Governments and the peoples whom we represent to see
succor and relief given to the stricken peoples of Russia, no
political obstacle will remain. There will remain, however, the
difficulties of supply and transport, which we have mentioned, and
also the problem of distribution in Russia itself. The problem of
supply we can ourselves hope to solve, in connection with the advice
and cooperation of such a commission as you propose. The problem of
transport of supplies to Russia we can hope to meet with the
assistance of your own and other neutral Governments. The problem of
transport in Russia and of distribution can be solved only by the
people of Russia themselves, with the assistance, advice, and
supervision of your commission.
Subject to such supervision, the problem of distribution should be
solely under the control of the people of Russia themselves. The
people in each locality should be given, as under the regime of the
Belgian Relief Commission, the fullest opportunity to advise your
commission upon the methods and the personnel by which their community
is to be relieved. In no other circumstances could it be believed that
the purpose of this relief was humanitarian, and not political, under
no other conditions could it be certain that the hungry would be fed.
That such a course would involve cessation of all hostilities within
the territory of the former Russian Empire is obvious. And the
cessation of hostilities would, necessarily, involve a complete
suspension of the transfer of troops and military material of all
sorts to and within these territories. Indeed, relief to Russia which
did not mean a return to a state of peace would be futile, and would
be impossible to consider.
Under such conditions as we have outlined we believe that your plan
could be successfully carried into effect, and we should be prepared
to give it our full support.
REPLY OF PRESIDENT WILSON, PREMIERS CLEMENCEAU, LLOYD GEORGE, AND
ORLANDO, TO DR. NANSEN, APRIL 17, 1919
DEAR SIR: The misery and suffering in Russia described in
your letter of April 3 appeals to the sympathies of all
peoples. It is shocking to humanity that millions of men,
women, and children lack the food and the necessities which
make life endurable.
The Governments and peoples whom we represent would be glad
to cooperate, without thought of political, military, or
financial advantage, in any proposal which would relieve
this situation in Russia. It seems to us that such a
commission as you propose would offer a practical means of
achieving the beneficent results you have in view, and could
not, either in its conception or its operation, be
considered as having any other aim than the "humanitarian
purpose of saving life."
There are great difficulties to be overcome, political
difficulties, owing to the existing situation in Russia, and
difficulties of supply and transport. But if the existing
local governments of Russia are as willing as the
Governments and people whom we represent to see succor and
relief given to the stricken peoples of Russia, no political
obstacle will remain.
There will remain, however, the difficulties of supply,
finance, and transport which we have mentioned? and also the
problem of distribution in Russia itself. The problem of
supply we can ourselves hope to solve, in connection with
the advice and cooperation of such a commission as you
propose. The problem of finance would seem to us to fall
upon the Russian authorities. The problem of transport of
supplies to Russia we can hope to meet with the assistance
of your own and other neutral governments whose interests
should be as great as our own and whose losses have been far
less. The problems of transport in Russia and of
distribution can be solved only by the people of Russia
themselves, with the assistance, advice, and supervision of
your commission.
Subject to your supervision, the problem of distribution
should be solely under the control of the people of Russia
themselves. The people in each locality should be given, as
under the regime of the Belgian Relief Commission, the
fullest opportunity to advise your commission upon the
methods and the personnel by which their community is to be
relieved. In no other circumstances could it be believed
that the purpose of this relief was humanitarian, and not
political; under no other condition could it be certain that
the hungry would be fed.
That such a course would involve cessation of all
hostilities within definitive lines in the territory of
Russia is obvious. And the cessation of hostilities would,
necessarily, involve a complete suspension of the transfer
of troops and military material of all sorts to and within
Russian territory. Indeed, relief to Russia which did not
mean a return to a state of peace would be futile and would
be impossible to consider.
Under such conditions as we have outlined, we believe that
your plan could be successfully carried into effect, and we
should be prepared to give it our full support.
V.E. ORLANDO.
D. LLOYD GEORGE.
WOODROW WILSON.
G. CLEMENCEAU.
Senator KNOX. I want the reply of Auchincloss to Nansen to go into the
record.
The CHAIRMAN. Let all that correspondence be printed in the record.
Senator KNOX. Dr. Nansen's proposition, and then the reply,
(The letters referred to are inserted above.)
Mr. BULLITT. The Nansen letter was written in Mr. Hoover's office.
Nansen made the proposition. I wrote the original of a reply to Dr.
Nansen, which I believe would have led to peace. Col. House indicated
his approval of it, but wished to have it considered from the
international legal standpoint, which was then done by Mr. Auchincloss
and Mr. Miller, who proposed a reply that had no resemblance to my
proposal. I then objected to that as it was on its way to the
President. It was not sent to the President, and I was ordered to try
to doctor it up. I attempted to doctor it up and produced a doctored
version which was finally made the basis of the reply, with the change
of two or three words which made it even worse and even more
indefinite, so that the Soviet Government could not possibly conceive
it as a genuine peace proposition. It left the whole thing in the air.
Senator KNOX. We would like to have you see that these documents to
which you have just now referred are inserted in the record in the
sequence in which you have named them.
Mr. BULLITT. Yes, I shall be at the service of the committee in that
regard.
Senator HARDING. Lest I missed something while I was out of the room I
am exceedingly curious to know why the Soviet proposal was not given
favorable consideration.
Senator KNOX. Mr. Bullitt has stated that.
KOLCHAK'S ADVANCE CAUSES REJECTION OF PEACE PROPOSAL
Mr. BULLITT. The principal reason was entirely different. The fact was
that just at this moment, when this proposal was under consideration,
Kolchak made a 100-mile advance. There was a revolt of peasants in a
district of Russia which entirely cut off supplies from the Bolshevik
army operating against Kolchak. Kolchak made a 100-mile advance, and
immediately the entire press of Paris was roaring and screaming on the
subject, announcing that Kolchak would be in Moscow within two weeks;
and therefore everyone in Paris, including, I regret to say members of
the American commission, began to grow very lukewarm about peace in
Russia, because they thought Kolchak would arrive in Moscow and wipe
out the Soviet Government.
Senator KNOX. And the proposal which you brought back from Russia,
that is the Soviet proposal, was abandoned and dropped, after this
last document to which you have just referred.
Mr. BULLITT. Yes; it was. May I say this, that April 10 was the final
date when their proposition was open. I had attempted every day and
almost every night to obtain a reply to it. I finally requested the
commission to send the following telegram to Tchitcherin.
I proposed to send this telegram to the American consul at Helsingfors
[reading]:
APRIL 10, 1919.
AMERICAN CONSUL, Helsingfors:
Please send Kock or other reliable person immediately to
Petrograd to Schklovsky, minister of foreign affairs, with
following message for Tchitcherin:
"Action leading to food relief via neutrals likely within
week.--Bullitt."
AMMISSION.
The commission considered that matter, and this is the official minute
of their meeting [reading]:
AMERICAN MISSION TO NEGOTIATE PEACE,
[No. 211.] April 10, 1919.
To: The Commissioners, for action.
Subject: Telegram to Tchitcherin.
_Statement_.--Action by the council of four on the reply to
Mr. Nansen was prevented yesterday by French objection to a
minor clause in the President's letter. It is hoped that
agreement in this matter may be reached to-day or to-morrow,
but it is quite possible that agreement may not be reached
for several days.
To-day, April 10, the pledge of the Soviet Government to
accept a proposal of the sort outlined in its statement of
March 14 expires. No indication has been given the Soviet
Government that its statement was ever placed before the
conference of Paris or that any change of policy in regard
to Russia is contemplated. In view of the importance which
the Soviet Government placed upon its statement, I fear that
this silence and the passing of April 10 will be interpreted
as a definite rejection of the peace effort of the Soviet
Government and that the Soviet Government will at once issue
belligerent political statements and orders for attacks on
all fronts, including Bessarabia and Archangel. It is
certain that if the soviet troops should enter Bessarabia or
should overcome the allied forces at Archangel, the
difficulty of putting through the policy which is likely to
be adopted within the next few days would be greatly
increased. I feel that if the appended telegram should be
sent at once to Tchitcherin, no large offensive movements by
the soviet armies would be undertaken for another week, and
no provocative political statements would be issued.
I therefore respectfully suggest that the appended telegram
should be sent at once.
Respectfully submitted.
WILLIAM C. BULLITT.
APRIL 10, 1919.
At the meeting of the commissioners this morning the above memorandum
was read in which Mr. Bullitt requested that a telegram be sent to the
American consul at Helsingfors, instructing the latter to send a
message through reliable sources to Tchitcherin respecting Mr.
Lansing's contemplated scheme for relief in Russia. After some
discussion the commissioners redrafted the telegram in question to
read as follows:
"Please send Kock or other reliable person immediately to
Petrograd to Schklovsky, minister of foreign affairs, with
following message for Tchitcherin, sent on my personal
responsibility: 'Individuals of neutral States are
considering organization for feeding Russia. Will perhaps
decide something definite within a week.'--Bullitt."
CHRISTIAN A. HERTER,
Assistant to Mr. White.
I believe that telegram was dispatched. I do not know.
Senator KNOX. Mr. Bullitt, I want to ask you a question. You have told
us that you went to Russia with instructions from the Secretary of
State, Mr. Lansing, with a definition of the American policy by Mr.
House, with the approval of Lloyd George, who approved of your
mission, of the purposes for which you were being sent. Now, tell us
whether or not to your knowledge your report and the proposal of the
Soviet Government was ever formally taken up by the peace conference
and acted on?
Mr. BULLITT. It was never formally laid before the peace conference,
which I believe met only six times during the course of the entire
proceedings of what is called the peace conference.
LLOYD GEORGE DECEIVES PARLIAMENT
Senator KNOX. Did not Mr. Lloyd George in a speech to Parliament
assert that he had never received the proposal with which you returned
from Russia? Have you a copy of his speech?
Mr. BULLITT. About a week after I had handed to Mr. Lloyd George the
official proposal, with my own hands, in the presence of three other
persons, he made a speech before the British Parliament, and gave the
British people to understand that he knew nothing whatever about any
such proposition. It was a most egregious case of misleading the
public, perhaps the boldest that I have ever known in my life. On the
occasion of that statement of Mr. Lloyd George, I wrote the President.
I clipped his statement from a newspaper and sent it to the President,
and I asked the President to inform me whether the statement of Mr.
Lloyd George was true or untrue. He was unable to answer, inasmuch as
he would have had to reply on paper that Mr. Lloyd George had made an
untrue statement. So flagrant was this that various members of the
British mission called on me at the Crillon, a day or so later, and
apologized for the Prime Minister's action in the case.
Senator KNOX. Have you a copy of Lloyd George's remarks in the
Parliament?
Mr. BULLITT. I have a copy.
Senator KNOX. Suppose you read it?
Mr. BULLITT. It is as follows:
Mr. CLYNES. Before the right honorable gentleman comes to the next
subject, can he make any statement on the approaches or
representations alleged to have been made to his Government by persons
acting on behalf of such government as there is in Central Russia?
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE. We have had no approaches at all except what have
appeared in the papers.
Mr. CLYNES. I ask the question because it has been repeatedly alleged.
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE. We have had no approaches at all. Constantly there
are men coming and going to Russia of all nationalities, and they
always come back with their tales of Russia. But we have made no
approach of any sort.
I have only heard reports of others having proposals which they assume
have come from authentic quarters, but these have never been put
before the peace conference by any member, and therefore we have not
considered them.
I think I know what my right honorable friend refers to. There was
some suggestion that a young American had come back from Russia with a
communication. It is not for me to judge the value of this
communication, but if the President of the United States had attached
any value to it he would have brought it before the conference, and he
certainly did not.
It was explained to me by the members of the British delegation who
called on me, that the reason for this deception was that although
when Lloyd George got back to London he intended to make a statement
very favorable to peace with Russia, he found that Lord Northcliffe,
acting through Mr. Wickham Steed, the editor of The Times, and Mr.
Winston Churchill, British secretary for war, had rigged the
conservative majority of the House of Commons against him, and that
they were ready to slay him then and there if he attempted to speak
what was his own opinion at the moment on Russian policies.
MR. BULLITT RESIGNS
Senator KNOX. Mr. Bullitt, you resigned your relations with the State
Department and the public service, did you not?
Mr. BULLITT. I did, sir.
Senator KNOX. When?
Mr. BULLITT. I resigned on May 17.
Senator KNOX. For what reason?
Mr. BULLITT. Well, I can explain that perhaps more briefly than in any
other way by reading my letter of resignation to the President, which
is brief.
Senator KNOX. Very well, we would like to hear it.
The CHAIRMAN. Before that letter is read, you did not see the
President and had no knowledge of his attitude in regard to your
report?
Mr. BULLITT. None whatever, except as it was reported to me by Col.
House. Col. House, as I said before, reported to me that he thought in
the first place that the President favored the peace proposal; in the
second place, that the President could not turn his mind to it,
because he was too occupied with Germany, and finally--well, really, I
have no idea what was in the President's mind.
Senator KNOX. There never was another effort to secure an audience
with the President for you after those first two that you say Col.
House made?
Mr. BULLITT. No; not at all. Meetings with the President were always
arranged through Col. House.
In my letter of resignation to the President, which was dated May 17,
1919, I said:
MAY 17, 1919.
MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: I have submitted to-day to the
Secretary of State my resignation as an assistant in the
Department of State, attaché to the American commission to
negotiate peace. I was one of the millions who trusted
confidently and implicitly in your leadership and believed
that you would take nothing less than "a permanent peace"
based upon "unselfish and unbiased justice." But our
Government has consented now to deliver the suffering
peoples of the world to new oppressions, subjections, and
dismemberments--a new century of war. And I can convince
myself no longer that effective labor for "a new world
order" is possible as a servant of this Government.
Russia, "the acid test of good will," for me as for you, has
not even been understood. Unjust decisions of the conference
in regard to Shantung, the Tyrol, Thrace, Hungary, East
Prussia, Danzig, the Saar Valley, and the abandonment of the
principle of the freedom of the seas make new international
conflicts certain. It is my conviction that the present
league of nations will be powerless-to prevent these wars,
and that the United States will be involved in them by the
obligations undertaken in the covenant of the league and in
the special understanding with France. Therefore the duty of
the Government of the United States to its own people and to
mankind is to refuse to sign or ratify this unjust treaty,
to refuse to guarantee its settlements by entering the
league of nations, to refuse to entangle the United States
further by the understanding with France.
That you personally opposed most of the unjust settlements,
and that you accepted them only under great pressure, is
well known. Nevertheless, it is my conviction that if you
had made your fight in the open, instead of behind closed
doors, you would have carried with you the public opinion of
the world, which was yours; you would have been able to
resist the pressure and might have established the "new
international order based upon broad and universal
principles of right and justice" of which you used to speak.
I am sorry that you did not fight our fight to the finish
and that you had so little faith in the millions of men,
like myself, in every nation who had faith in you.
Very sincerely, yours,
WILLIAM C. BULLITT.
To the honorable WOODROW WILSON,
President of the United States.
Senator KNOX. Did you ever get a reply to that letter?
Mr. BULLITT. I did not, sir. The only intimation I had in regard to it
was that Mr. Close, secretary of the President, with whom I was
lunching, said to me that the President had read my letter and had
said that he would not reply. In connection with that I wrote Col.
House a letter at the same time as follows:
MAY 17, 1919.
MY DEAR COL. HOUSE: Since you kindly lent me the text of the
proposed treaty of peace, I have tried to convince myself
that some good might come of it and that I ought to remain
in the service of the Department of State to labor for its
establishment.
It is with sincere regret that I have come to the conviction
that no good ever will issue from a thing so evil and that
those who care about a permanent peace should oppose the
signature and ratification of it, and of the special
understanding with France.
I have therefore submitted my resignation to the Secretary
of State and have written the appended note to the
President. I hope you will bring it to his attention; not
because he will care what I may think, but because I have
expressed the thoughts which are in the minds of many young
and old men in the commission--thoughts which the President
will have to reckon with when the world begins to reap the
crop of wars the seeds of which have here been sown.
I feel sure that you will agree that I am right in acting on
my conviction and I hope that this action will in no way
affect the relationship between us which has always been so
delightful and stimulating to me.
With my sincerest personal regards, I am, Very respectfully,
yours,
WILLIAM C. BULLITT.
To the honorable EDWARD M. HOUSE,
Hotel Crillon, Paris.
Senator KNOX. Did you get a reply to that?
Mr. BULLITT. Col. House sent for me, and after that we had a
conversation. That was the only reply that I had. I had a conversation
with Col. House on the whole matter, and we thrashed it all out.
Senator KNOX. Was anything said during this conversation which you
feel willing or disposed to tell us, which will be important?
Mr. BULLITT. I made a record of the conversation. Inasmuch as the
conversations which I had with various members of the commission on
the occasion of my resignation touched on a number of important
issues, I kept a record of those conversations, that is, those I had
at the time when I resigned. They are the only conversations of which
I made records, and I made them simply because we did deal more or
less with the entire question of the peace treaty. On the other hand,
they are personal conversations, and I hesitate to repeat them, unless
the committee considers it particularly important.
Senator KNOX. I would not press you on the personal conversations
which you had with Col. House after you resigned. I leave the matter
to your own judgment. I wondered whether there might have been
something which transpired which you would care to tell us; but I
withdraw that suggestion. I should like to ask you this one question:
I suppose your letter of resignation to Mr. Lansing was merely formal?
Mr. BULLITT. My letter of resignation to Mr. Lansing was a formal
letter.
Senator KNOX. You certainly got a reply to that.
Mr. BULLITT. I did, sir. I wrote a formal letter and I got a formal
reply, and the Secretary sent for me the same afternoon and explained
that he only sent me a formal reply because it was necessary, because
of the form in which I had put my resignation, and particularly
because I had appended to my note my letter to the President. We then
discussed various other matters in connection with the treaty.
The CHAIRMAN. Are you through?
Senator KNOX. Yes.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Bullitt, you put into the record or read here, I
think, some extracts from the minutes of the Council of Ten?
Mr. BULLITT. Yes, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. Were you present at any of these meetings?
Mr. BULLITT. I was not, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. The Council of Ten was the first body that was dealing
with the treaty generally, the important body? It was not a special
commission?
Mr. BULLITT. No, sir. It was the main body of the conference.
The CHAIRMAN. Yes; it was the main body, and was the one that
subsequently became the Council of Five, and then the Council of Four,
and I think at one time a Council of Three?
Mr. BULLITT. Yes, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. Well, now, there were records of these meetings, were
there not?
Mr. BULLITT. Yes, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. Do you know what disposition was made of those records?
Mr. BULLITT. Mr. Chairman, there were a number of copies for each
delegation, and I presume that there must be a number of copies in
this country at the present time; perhaps not.
The CHAIRMAN. You say each delegate had a copy?
Mr. BULLITT. Each plenipotentiary had a copy, and the Secretary of the
American Commission had a copy, I believe, and the assistant
secretaries had copies; certainly one of the assistant secretaries,
Mr. Leland Harrison; and Mr. Grew had a copy.
The CHAIRMAN. Did Mr. Lansing have copies while he served on the
Council of Ten?
Mr. BULLITT. Yes, sir; well, I am quite sure that he did. I am sure
that I have seen copies on the desk of the Secretary.
The CHAIRMAN. Well, they were furnished regularly to every member of
the conference?
Mr. BULLITT. Yes.
The CHAIRMAN. We have found some difficulty in getting them; that is
the reason I asked.
Senator KNOX. I am informed--perhaps Mr. Bullitt can tell us--that
there is a complete set of minutes in the hands of some individual in
this country. Do you know anything about that--perhaps Auchincloss &
Miller?
Mr. BULLITT. I could not be certain in regard to the matter, but I
should certainly be under the impression that Mr. Auchincloss and Mr.
Miller have copies of the minutes; perhaps not. Perhaps Mr.
Auchincloss has left his with Col. House. He would have Col. House's
copies. Perhaps they are in this country, perhaps not. But Mr.
Auchincloss and Mr. Miller perhaps have those minutes in their files.
The CHAIRMAN. Undoubtedly there are a number, at least, of those
records in existence.
Mr. BULLITT. Certainly, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. That must be the case.
Mr. BULLITT. Certainly, sir. Also records of the meetings of the
American Commission.
Senator BRANDEGEE. Do you know whether or not they are in the State
Department--any of these minutes or records in our State Department?
Mr. BULLITT. I should presume that in the normal course of events they
would be certainly among Mr. Lansing's papers, which were very
carefully kept. He had an excellent secretariat.
The CHAIRMAN. Did any member of our delegation, any member of the
council of 10, express to you any opinions about the general character
of this treaty?
Mr. BULLITT. Well, Mr. Lansing, Col. House, Gen. Bliss, and Mr. White
had all expressed to me very vigorously their opinions on the subject.
The CHAIRMAN. Were they enthusiastically in favor of it?
Mr. BULLITT. I regret to say, not.
As I say, the only documents of the sort that I have are the memoranda
of the discussions that I had after I resigned, when we thrashed over
the whole ground.
The CHAIRMAN. Those memoranda of consultations that you had after you
resigned you prefer not to publish? I am not asking you to do so.
Mr. BULLITT. I think it would be out of the way.
The CHAIRMAN. I quite understand your position. I only wanted to
know--I thought it might be proper for you to say whether or not their
opinions which you heard them express were favorable to the series of
arrangements, I would call them, that were made for the consideration
of this treaty.
Mr. BULLITT. It is no secret that Mr. Lansing, Gen. Bliss, and Mr.
Henry White objected very vigorously to the numerous provisions of the
treaty.
The CHAIRMAN. It is known that they objected to Shantung. That, I
think, is public information. I do not know that it is public
information that they objected to anything else.
Mr. BULLITT. I do not think that Secretary Lansing is at all
enthusiastic about the league of nations as it stands at present. I
have a note of a conversation with him on the subject, which, if I
may, I will just read, without going into the rest of that
conversation, because it bears directly on the issue involved.
This was a conversation with the Secretary of State at 2.30 on May 19.
The Secretary sent for me. It was a long conversation, and Mr. Lansing
in the course of it said:
Mr. Lansing then said that he personally would have strengthened
greatly the judicial clauses of the league of nations covenant, making
arbitration compulsory. He also said that he was absolutely opposed to
the United States taking a mandate in either Armenia or
Constantinople; that he thought that Constantinople should be placed
under a local government, the chief members of which were appointed by
an international committee.
This is a matter, it seems to me, of some importance in regard to the
whole discussion, and therefore I feel at liberty to read it, as it is
not a personal matter.
The CHAIRMAN. This is a note of the conversation made at the time?
Mr. BULLITT. This is a note which I immediately dictated after the
conversation. [Reading:]
Mr. Lansing then said that he, too, considered many parts of
the treaty thoroughly bad, particularly those dealing with
Shantung and the league of nations. He said: "I consider
that the league of nations at present is entirely useless.
The great powers have simply gone ahead and arranged the
world to suit themselves. England and France in particular
have gotten out of the treaty everything that they wanted,
and the league of nations can do nothing to alter any of the
unjust clauses of the treaty except by unanimous consent of
the members of the league, and the great powers will never
give their consent to changes in the interests of weaker
peoples."
We then talked about the possibility of ratification by the Senate.
Mr. Lansing said: "I believe that if the Senate could only understand
what this treaty means, and if the American people could really
understand, it would unquestionably be defeated, but I wonder if they
will ever understand what it lets them in for." He expressed the
opinion that Mr. Knox would probably really understand the treaty--
[Laughter.] May I reread it?
He expressed the opinion that Mr. Knox would probably really
understand the treaty, and that Mr. Lodge would; but that Mr. Lodge's
position would become purely political, and therefore ineffective.
[Laughter.]
The CHAIRMAN. I do not mind.
Mr. BULLITT (reading):
He thought, however, that Mr. Knox might instruct America in the real
meaning of it.
[Laughter.]
The CHAIRMAN. He has made some very valuable efforts in the direction.
Mr. BULLITT. I beg to be excused from reading any
more of these conversations.
Senator BRANDEGEE. We get the drift.
[Laughter.]
I want to ask one or two questions.
The CHAIRMAN. Go ahead.
Senator BRANDEGEE. Did you read any of these minutes of the meetings
of the American commission?
Mr. BULLITT. Of the American commission itself?
Senator BRANDEGEE. Yes.
Mr. BULLITT. No, sir. I have on one or two occasions glanced at them
but I never have read them carefully.
Senator BRANDEGEE. They were accessible to you at the time, were they?
Mr. BULLITT. They were, sir.
Senator BRANDEGEE. You stated, if I recall your testimony correctly,
that when the proposition was made that the legislative bodies of the
contracting parties should have representation in the assembly, the
President objected to that?
Mr. BULLITT. The President--if I may explain again--approved in
principle, but said that he did not see how the thing could be worked
out, and he felt that the assembly of delegates, or whatever it is
called in the present draft, gave sufficient representation to the
peoples of the various countries.
Senator BRANDEGEE. Do you know what his objection was to the
legislative bodies of the contracting parties having representation on
the assembly?
Mr. BULLITT. The President believed, I think--in fact, it was so
stated to me by Col. House, who discussed the matter with me--that it
would make too unwieldy a central organ for the league.
Senator BRANDEGEE. Do you understand why it would be any more unwieldy
if Congress should appoint the delegates than if the President should?
Mr. BULLITT. It would necessitate a larger central body if
representation was to be given to the important political parties of
the various countries. It would have necessitated a body of, say, 10
representatives from the United States--5 from the Republican party
and 5 from the; Democratic Party, in the assembly of the league, which
would become a large body.
Senator BRANDEGEE. The idea was that the political parties of the
country should be represented?
Mr. BULLITT. Yes, the political viewpoints should be represented so
that you would get some connection between the central assembly of the
league and the true opinion of the countries.
Senator BRANDEGEE. When you went across to Paris on the _George
Washington_ with the President do you know whether he had with him at
that time any draft for a league of nations or any memorandum that he
showed to you of discussed with you?
Mr. BULLITT. The President outlined to several of us one evening, or
rather one afternoon, the conception he had at the time of the league
of nations. I did not see any formal draft that he had, but the
President made a statement before the council of 10, in one of these
minutes from which I have been reading, stating that he had first--and
in fact I think I know it from other sources--that he had first
received the Phillimore report, that then it had been rewritten by
Col. House and that he had rewritten Col. House's report, and after he
had discussed his rewriting with Robert Cecil and Gen. Smuts, he had
rewritten it again.
Senator BRANDEGEE. You stated substantially that the only part of the
league draft which was laid before the Peace Conference which the
President had his way about, was Article 10. Did you make some such
statement as that?
Mr. BULLITT. Yes, sir.
Senator BRANDEGEE. The President stated to us that that was
practically what he had submitted to the Niagara conference here when
the ABC powers from South America were discussing the Mexican
question. He had then considered it as an article for American use on
this continent.
Do you know what the attitude of Gen Smuts was as to article 10 as
proposed by the President?
Mr. BULLITT. I do not, sir. Again, full minutes of the discussions and
conclusions reached of all these meetings of the committee on the
league of nations were kept.
Senator BRANDEGEE. Did you read the various other plans that were
proposed or suggested over there for a league of nations?
Mr. BULLITT. I have read some of them, sir.
Senator BRANDEGEE. Did the others have anything similar to what is now
article 10 in the treaty pending in the Senate?
Mr. BULLITT. I really can not say. I am sorry, but I have forgotten. I
should not care to testify on that.
Senator BRANDEGEE. Do you know from what you heard while you were
there in your official capacity whether the other nations were anxious
to have article 10 in the covenant for the league?
Mr. BULLITT. The French were not only anxious for it, but I believe
were anxious greatly to strengthen it. They desired immediately a
league army to be established, and I believe also to be stationed in
Alsace-Lorraine and along the Rhine, in addition to article 10. I can
not say for certain about the others.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Bullitt, we had before us at one of our hearings a
representative of the Egyptian people. Do you know anything about
that, when it was done, or any discussions about it? I mean the
clauses that appear in regard to the British protectorate.
Mr. BULLITT. You mean our agreement to recognize the British
protectorate in Egypt?
The CHAIRMAN. It was recognized by this treaty in those clauses.
Mr. BULLITT. Yes; but we gave a sort of assent before the treaty
formally came out, did we not? I recall the morning it was done. It
was handled by Sir William Wiseman, who was the confidential
representative that Lloyd George and Balfour had constantly with Col.
House and the President. He was a sort of extra confidential foreign
office. It was all done, if I recall his statement correctly, in the
course of one morning. The President was informed that the Egyptian
nationalists were using his 14 points as meaning that the President
thought that Egypt should have the right to control her own destinies,
and therefore have independence, and that they were using this to
foment revolution; that since the President had provoked this trouble
by the 14 points, they thought that he should allay it by the
statement that we would recognize the British protectorate, and as I
remember Sir William Wiseman's statement to me that morning, he said
that he had only brought up the matter that morning and that he had
got our recognition of the British protectorate before luncheon.
The CHAIRMAN. The President made some public statement?
Mr. BULLITT. I am not certain in regard to the further developments of
it. I recall that incident, that it was arranged through Sir William
Wiseman, and that it took only a few minutes.
Senator KNOX. That was a good deal of time to devote to a little
country like Egypt.
Mr. BULLITT. I do not know. You should know, sir, you have been
Secretary of State.
Senator KNOX. We never chewed them up that fast.
Senator NEW. Mr. Bullitt, what, if anything, was said with reference
to the Irish question, with which you are familiar?
Mr. BULLITT. At the conference? I do not believe the Irish question
was ever brought up before the conference or discussed. There was
considerable said on the side, attempts to let down the Walsh mission
easily without antagonizing the Irish vote in this country.
[Laughter.] I think that is the only consideration that Ireland
received.
Senator NEW. There was a cheerful willingness to do that, was there
not?
Mr. BULLITT. I think so.
The CHAIRMAN. Is there anything further that anybody desires to ask
Mr. Bullitt? We are very much obliged to you indeed, Mr. Bullitt.
Mr. BULLITT. Mr. Chairman, if I may just say--I do not know whether it
is a matter of first interest to the Senators or not--but on this trip
with me to Russia there was Capt. Pettit, and at the same time the
journalist, Lincoln Steffens, and I have documents which they prepared
and which might be of interest to the committee.
The CHAIRMAN. If you will hand those to the stenographer, we will
print them with your testimony.
Senator KNOX. What are your plans, Mr. Bullitt? What are you going to
do in this country now?
Mr. BULLITT. I expect to return to Maine and fish for trout, where I
was when I was summoned by the committee.
Senator BRANDEGEE. Did Mr. Steffens go to Russia with you?
Mr. BULLITT. He did.
The CHAIRMAN. He held no official position?
Mr. BULLITT. No.
Senator BRANDEGEE. Who advised him to go?
Mr. BULLITT. I did.
Senator BRANDEGEE. Is he in the country now?
Mr. BULLITT. I do not believe so. I believe he is still in Europe.
REPORT OF LINCOLN STEFFENS
(By order of the committee the report of Lincoln Steffens referred to
is here printed in full in the record, as follows:)
REPORT OF LINCOLN STEFFENS
APRIL 2, 1919.
Politically, Russia has reached a state of equilibrium;
internally; for the present at least.
I think the revolution there is ended; that it has run its
course. There will be changes. There may be advances; there
will surely be reactions, but these will be regular, I
think; political and economic, but parliamentary, A new
center of gravity seems to have been found.
Certainly, the destructive phase of the revolution in Russia
is over. Constructive work has begun.
We saw this everywhere. And we saw order, and though we
inquired for them, we heard of no disorders. Prohibition is
universal and absolute. Robberies have been reduced in
Petrograd below normal of large cities. Warned against
danger before we went in, we felt safe. Prostitution has
disappeared with its clientele, who have been driven out by
the "no-work-no-food law," enforced by the general want and
the labor-card system. Loafing on the job by workers and
sabotage by upper-class directors, managers, experts and
clerks have been overcome. Russia has settled down to work.
The soviet form of government, which sprang up so
spontaneously all over Russia, is established.
This is not a paper thing; not an invention. Never planned,
it has not yet been written into the forms of law. It is not
even uniform. It is full of faults and difficulties; clumsy,
and in its final development it is not democratic. The
present Russian Government is the most autocratic government
I have ever seen. Lenin, head of the Soviet Government, is
farther removed from the people than the Tsar was, or than
any actual ruler in Europe is.
The people in a shop or an industry are a soviet. These
little informal Soviets elect a local soviet; which elects
delegates to the city or country (community) soviet; which
elects delegates to the government (State) soviet. The
government Soviets together elect delegates to the
All-Russian Soviet, which elects commissionaires (who
correspond to our Cabinet, or to a European minority). And
these commissionaires finally elect Lenin. He is thus five
or six removes from the people. To form an idea of his
stability, independence, and power, think of the process
that would have to be gone through with by the people to
remove him and elect a successor. A majority of all the
Soviets in all Russia would have to be changed in personnel
or opinion, recalled, or brought somehow to recognize and
represent the altered will of the people.
No student of government likes the soviet as it has
developed. Lenin himself doesn't. He calls it a
dictatorship, and he opposed it at first. When I was in
Russia in the days of Milyoukov and Kerensky, Lenin and the
Bolsheviks were demanding the general election of the
constituent assembly. But the Soviets existed then; they had
the power, and I saw foreign ambassadors blunder, and the
world saw Milyoukov and Kerensky fall, partly because they
would not, or could not, comprehend the nature of the
soviet; as Lenin did finally, when, against his theory, he
joined in and expressed the popular repudiation of the
constituent assembly and went over to work with the soviet,
the actual power in Russia. The constituent assembly,
elected by the people, represented the upper class and the
old system. The soviet was the lower class.
The soviet, at bottom, is a natural gathering of the working
people, of peasants, in their working and accustomed
groupings, instead of, as with us, by artificial
geographical sections.
Labor unions and soldiers' messes made up the Soviets in the
cities; poorer peasants and soldiers at the village inn were
the first Soviets in the country; and in the beginning, two
years ago, these lower class delegates used to explain to me
that the "rich peasants" and the "rich people" had their own
meetings and meeting places. The popular intention then was
not to exclude the upper classes from the government, but
only from the Soviets, which were not yet the same. But the
Soviets, once in existence, absorbed in their own class
tasks and their own problems, which the upper class had
either not understood or solved, ignored--no; they simply
forgot the council of empire and the Duma. And so they
discovered (or, to be more exact, their leaders discovered)
that they had actually all the power. All that Lenin and the
other Socialist leaders had to do to carry through their
class-struggle theory was to recognize this fact of power
and teach the Soviets to continue to ignore the assemblies
and the institutions of the upper classes, which, with their
"governments," ministries, and local assemblies, fell,
powerless from neglect.
The Soviet Government sprouted and grew out of the habits,
the psychology, and the condition of the Russian people. It
fitted them. They understand it. They find they can work it
and they like it. Every effort to put something else in its
place (including Lenin's) has failed. It will have to be
modified, I think, but not in essentials, and it can not be
utterly set aside. The Tsar himself, if he should come back,
would have to keep the Russian Soviet, and somehow rule over
and through it.
The Communist Party (dubbed "Bolshevik") is in power now in
the Soviet Government.
I think it will stay there a long time. What I have shown of
the machinery of change is one guaranty of communist
dominance. There are others. All opposition to the communist
government has practically ceased inside of Russia.
There are three organized opposition parties: Mencheviks,
Social Revolutionary Right, and Social Revolutionary Left.
The anarchists are not organized. The Social Revolutionary
Left is a small group of very anarchistic leaders, who have
hardly any following. The Mencheviks and the Social
Revolutionaries Right are said to be strong, but there is no
way of measuring their strength, for a very significant
reason.
These parties have stopped fighting. They are critical, but
they are not revolutionary. They also think the revolution
is over. They proposed, and they still propose eventually,
to challenge and oust the Communist Party by parliamentary
and political methods, not by force. But when intervention
came upon distracted Russia, and the people realized they
were fighting many enemies on many fronts, the two strong
opposing parties expressed their own and the public will to
stand by the party in power until the menace of foreign
invasion was beaten off. These parties announced this in
formal statements, uttered by their regular conventions; you
have confirmation of it in the memoranda written for you by
Martov and Volsky, and you will remember how one of them put
it to us personally:
"There is a fight to be made against the
Bolsheviks, but so long as you foreigners are
making it, we Russians won't. When you quit and
leave us alone, we will take up our burden again,
and we shall deal with the Bolsheviks. And we will
finish them. But we will do it with our people, by
political methods, in the Soviets, and not by
force, not by war or by revolution, and not with
any outside foreign help."
This is the nationalistic spirit, which we call patriotism,
and understand perfectly; it is much stronger in the new
than it was in the old, the Tsar's, Russia. But there is
another force back of this remarkable statement of a
remarkable state of mind.
All Russia has turned to the labor of reconstruction; sees
the idea in the plans proposed for the future; and is
interested--imaginatively.
Destruction was fun for a while and a satisfaction to a
suppressed, betrayed, to an almost destroyed people.
Violence was not in their character, however. The Russian
people, sober, are said to be a gentle people. One of their
poets speaks of them as "that gentle beast, the Russian
people," and I noticed and described in my reports of the
first revolution how patient, peaceable, and "safe" the mobs
of Petrograd were. The violence came later, with Bolshevism,
after the many attempts at counterrevolution, and with
vodka. The Bolshevik leaders regret and are ashamed of their
red terror. They do not excuse it. It was others, you
remember, who traced the worst of the Russian atrocities and
the terror itself to the adoption by the
counter-revolutionists of the method of assassination (of
Lenin and others), and most of all to the discovery by the
mobs of wine cellars and vodka stills. That the Russian
drunk and the Russian sober are two utterly different
animals, is well known to the Jews, to the Reactionaries,
and to the Russians themselves. And that is why this people
lately have not only obeyed; they have themselves ruthlessly
enforced the revolutionary prohibition decrees in every part
of Russia that we would inquire about and hear from.
The destructive spirit, sated, exhausted, or suppressed, has
done its work. The leaders say so--the leaders of all
parties.
There is a close relationship between the Russian people and
the new Russian leaders, in power and out. New men in
politics are commonly fresh, progressive, representative;
it's the later statesmen that damp the enthusiasm and sober
the idealism of legislators. In Russia all legislators, all,
are young or new. It is as if we should elect in the United
States a brand-new set of men to all offices, from the
lowest county to the highest Federal position, and as if the
election should occur in a great crisis, when all men are
full of hope and faith. The new leaders of the local Soviets
of Russia were, and they still are, of the people, really.
That is one reason why their autocratic dictatorship is
acceptable. They have felt, they shared the passion of the
mob to destroy, but they had something in mind to destroy.
The soviet leaders used the revolution to destroy the system
of organized Russian life.
While the mobs broke windows, smashed wine cellars, and
pillaged buildings to express their rage, their leaders
directed their efforts to the annihilation of the system
itself. They pulled down the Tsar and his officers; they
abolished the courts, which had been used to oppress them;
they closed shops, stopped business generally, and
especially all competitive and speculative business; and
they took over all the great industries, monopolies,
concessions, and natural resources. This was their purpose.
This is their religion. This is what the lower-class culture
has been slowly teaching the people of the world for 50
years: that it is not some particular evil, but the whole
system of running business and railroads, shops, banks, and
exchanges, for speculation and profit that must be changed.
This is what causes poverty and riches, they teach, misery,
corruption, vice, and war. The people, the workers, or their
State, must own and run these things "for service."
Not political democracy, as with us; economic democracy is
the idea; democracy in the shop, factory, business.
Bolshevism is a literal interpretation, the actual
application of this theory, policy, or program. And so, in
the destructive period of the Russian revolution, the
Bolshevik leaders led the people to destroy the old system,
root and branch, fruit and blossom, too. And apparently this
was done. The blocks we saw in Petrograd and Moscow of
retail shops nailed up were but one sign of it. When we
looked back of these dismal fronts and inquired more deeply
into the work of the revolution we were convinced that the
Russians have literally and completely done their job. And
it was this that shocked us. It is this that has startled
the world; not the atrocities of the revolution, but the
revolution itself.
The organization of life as we know it in America, in the
rest of Europe, in the rest of the world, is wrecked and
abolished in Russia.
The revolution didn't do it. The Tsar's Government had
rotted it. The war broke down the worn-out machinery of it;
the revolution has merely scrapped it finally.
The effect is hunger, cold, misery, anguish, disease--death
to millions. But worse than these--I mean this--was the
confusion of mind among the well and the strong. We do not
realize, any of us--even those of us who have
imagination--how fixed our minds and habits are by the ways
of living that we know. So with the Russians. They
understood how to work and live under their old system; it
was not a pretty one; it was dark, crooked, and dangerous,
but they had groped around in it all their lives from
childhood up. They could find their way in it. And now they
can remember how it was, and they sigh for the old ways. The
rich emigres knew whom to see to bribe for a verdict, a
safe-conduct, or a concession; and the poor, in their
hunger, think now how it would be to go down to the market
and haggle, and bargain, from one booth to another, making
their daily purchases, reckoning up their defeats and
victories over the traders. And they did get food then. And
now--it is all gone. They have destroyed all this, and
having destroyed it they were lost, strangers in their own
land.
This tragedy of transition was anticipated by the leaders of
the revolution, and the present needs were prepared for in
the plans laid for reconstruction.
Lenin has imagination. He is an idealist, but he is a
scholar, too, and a very grim realist. Lenin was a
statistician by profession. He had long been trying to
foresee the future of society under socialism, and he had
marked down definitely the resources, the machinery, and the
institutions existing under the old order, which could be
used in the new. There was the old Russian communal land
system, passing, but standing in spots with its peasants
accustomed to it. That was to be revived; it is his solution
of the problem of the great estates. They are not to be
broken up, but worked by the peasants in common. Then there
was the great Russian Cooperative (trading) Society, with
its 11,000,000 families before the war; now with 17,000,000
members. He kept that. There was a conflict; it was in
bourgeoise hands but it was an essential part of the
projected system of distribution, so Lenin compromised and
communist Russia has it. He had the railroads, telegraph,
telephone already; the workers seized the factories, the
local Soviets the mines; the All-Russian Soviet, the banks.
The new government set up shops--one in each
neighborhood--to dole out not for money, but on work
tickets, whatever food, fuel, and clothing this complete
government monopoly had to distribute. No bargaining, no
display, no advertising, and no speculation. Everything one
has earned by labor the right to buy at the cooperative and
soviet shops is at a fixed, low price, at the established
(too small.) profit--to the government or to the members of
the cooperative.
Money is to be abolished gradually. It does not count much
now. Private capital has been confiscated, most of the rich
have left Russia, but there are still many people there who
have hidden away money or valuables, and live on them
without working. They can buy food and even luxuries, but
only illegally from peasants and speculators at the risk of
punishment and very high prices. They can buy, also, at the
government stores, at the low prices, but they can get only
their share there, and only on their class or work tickets.
The class arrangement, though transitory and temporary--the
aim is to have but one class--is the key to the idea of the
whole new system.
There are three classes. The first can buy, for example,
1-1/2 pounds of bread a day; the second, three-quarters of a
pound; the third, only one-quarter of a pound; no matter how
much money they may have. The first class includes soldiers,
workers in war, and other essential industries, actors,
teachers, writers, experts, and Government workers of all
sorts. The second class is of all other sorts of workers.
The third is of people who do not work--the leisure class.
Their allowance is, under present circumstances, not enough
to live on, but they are allowed to buy surreptitiously from
speculators on the theory that the principal of their
capital will soon be exhausted, and, since interest, rent,
and profits--all forms of unearned money--are abolished,
they will soon be forced to go to work.
The shock of this, and the confusion due to the strange
details of it, were, and they still are, painful to many
minds, and not only to the rich. For a long time there was
widespread discontent with this new system. The peasants
rebelled, and the workers were suspicious. They blamed the
new system for the food shortage, the fuel shortage, the
lack of raw materials for the factories. But this also was
anticipated by that very remarkable mind and will--Lenin. He
used the State monopoly and control of the press, and the
old army of revolutionary propagandists to shift the blame
for the sufferings of Russia from the revolutionary
government to the war, the blockade, and the lack of
transportation. Also, he and his executive organization were
careful to see that, when the government did get hold of a
supply of anything, its arrival was heralded, and the next
day it appeared at the community shops, where everybody
(that worked) got his share at the low government price. The
two American prisoners we saw had noticed this, you
remember. "We don't get much to eat," they said, "but
neither do our guards or the other Russians. We all get the
same. And when they get more, we get our share."
The fairness of the new system, as it works so far, has won
over to it the working class and the poorer peasants. The
well-to-do still complain, and very bitterly sometimes.
Their hoardings are broken into by the government and by the
poverty committees, and they are severely punished for
speculative trading. But even these classes are moved
somewhat by the treatment of children. They are in a class
by themselves: class A,--I. They get all the few
delicacies--milk, eggs, fruit, game, that come to the
government monopoly--at school, where they all are fed,
regardless of class. "Even the rich children," they told us,
"they have as much as the poor children." And the children,
like the workers, now see the operas, too, the plays, the
ballets, the art galleries--all with instructors.
The Bolsheviks--all the Russian parties--regard the
communists' attitude toward children as the symbol of their
new civilization.
"It is to be for the good of humanity, not business," one of
them, an American, said, "and the kids represent the future.
Our generation is to have only the labor, the joy, and the
misery of the struggle. We will get none of the material
benefits of the new system, and we will probably never all
understand and like it. But the children--it is for them and
their children that we are fighting, so we are giving them
the best of it from the start, and teaching them to take it
all naturally. They are getting the idea. They are to be our
new propagandists."
The idea is that everybody is to work for the common good,
and so, as the children and the American prisoners note,
when they all produce more, they all get more. They are
starving now, but they are sharing their poverty. And they
really are sharing it. Lenin eats, like everybody else--only
one meal a day--soup, fish, bread, and tea. He has to save
out of that a bit for breakfast and another bit for supper.
The people, the peasants, send him more, but he puts it in
the common mess. So the heads of this government do not have
to imagine the privations of the people; they feel them. And
so the people and the government realize that, if ever
Russia becomes prosperous, all will share in the wealth,
exactly as they share in the poverty now. In a word, rich
Russia expects to become a rich Russian people.
This, then, is the idea which has begun to catch the
imagination of the Russian people. This it is that is making
men and women work with a new interest, and a new incentive,
not to earn high wages and short hours, but to produce an
abundance for all. This is what is making a people, sick of
war, send their ablest and strongest men into the new,
high-spirited, hard-drilled army to defend, not their
borders, but their new working system of common living.
And this is what is making Lenin and his sobered communist
government ask for peace. They think they have carried a
revolution through for once to the logical conclusion. All
other revolutions have stopped when they had revolved
through the political phase to political democracy. This one
has turned once more clear through the economic phase to
economic democracy, to self-government in the factory, shop,
and on the land, and has laid a foundation for universal
profit sharing, for the universal division of food, clothes,
and all goods, equally among all. And they think their
civilization is working on this foundation. They want time
to go on and build it higher and better. They want to spread
it all over the world, but only as it works, As they told us
when we reminded them that the world dreaded their
propaganda:
"We are through with the old propaganda of
argument. All we ask now is to be allowed to prove
by the examples of things well done here in
Russia, that the new system is good. We are so
sure we shall make good, that we are willing to
stop saying so, to stop reasoning, stop the
haranguing, and all that old stuff. And especially
are we sick of the propaganda by the sword. We
want to stop fighting. We know that each country
must evolve its own revolution out of its own
conditions and in its own imagination. To force it
by war is not scientific, not democratic, not
socialistic. And we are fighting now only in
self-defense. We will stop fighting, if you will
let us stop. We will call back our troops, if you
will withdraw yours. We will demobilize. We need
the picked organizers and the skilled workers now
in the army for our shops, factories, and farms.
We would love to recall them to all this needed
work, and use their troop trains to distribute our
goods and our harvests, if only you will call off
your soldiers and your moral, financial, and
material support from our enemies, and the enemies
of our ideals. Let every country in dispute on our
borders self-determine its own form of government
and its own allegiance.
"But you must not treat us as a conquered nation.
We are not conquered. We are prepared to join in a
revolutionary, civil war all over all of Europe
and the world, if this good thing has to be done
in this bad way of force. But we would prefer to
have our time and our energy to work to make sure
that our young, good thing is good. We have proved
that we can share misery, and sickness, and
poverty; it has helped us to have these things to
share, and we think we shall be able to share the
wealth of Russia as we gradually develop it. But
we are not sure of that; the world is not sure.
Let us Russians pay the price of the experiment;
do the hard, hard work of it; make the
sacrifice--then your people can follow us, slowly,
as they decide for themselves that what we have is
worth having."
That is the message you bring back, Mr. Bullitt. It is your
duty to deliver it. It is mine to enforce it by my
conception of the situation as it stands in Russia and
Europe to-day.
It seems to me that we are on the verge of war, a new war, a
terrible war--the long-predicted class war--all over Europe.
The peace commission, busy with the settlement of the old
war, may not see the new one, or may not measure aright the
imminent danger of it. Germany is going over, Hungary has
gone, Austria is coming into the economic revolutionary
stage. The propaganda for it is old and strong in all
countries: Italy, France, Spain, Belgium, Norway,
Sweden--you know. All men know this propaganda. But that is
in the rear. Look at the front.
Russia is the center of it. Germany, Austria, Hungary are
the wings of the potential war front of--Bolshevism.
And Russia, the center, has made a proposition to you for
peace, for a separate peace; made it officially; made it
after thought; made it proudly, not in fear, but in pitiful
sympathy with its suffering people and for the sake of a
vision of the future in which it verily believes. They are
practical men--those that made it. You met them. We talked
with them. We measured their power. They are all idealists,
but they are idealists sobered by the responsibility of
power. Sentiment has passed out of them into work--hard
work. They said they could give one year more of starvation
to the revolution, but they said it practically, and they
prefer to compromise and make peace. I believe that, if we
take their offer, there will be such an outcry of rage and
disappointment from the Left Socialists of Germany, Italy,
France, and the world, that Lenin and Trotsky will be
astonished. The Red Revolution--the class war--will be
broken, and evolution will have its chance once more in the
rest of Europe. And you and I know that the men we met in
Moscow see this thus, and that they believe the peace
conference will not, can not, see it, but will go on to make
war and so bring on the European revolution.
But your duty, our duty, is to point out this opportunity,
and to vouch for the strength and the will and the character
of Lenin and the commissaires of Russia to make and keep the
compact they have outlined to you. Well, this is the
briefest way in which I can express my full faith:
Kautsky has gone to Moscow. He has gone late; he has gone
after we were there. He will find, as we found, a careful,
thoughtful, deliberate group of men in power; in too much
power; unremovable and controlling a state of monopoly,
which is political, social, economic, financial; which
controls or directs all the activities, all the fears, all
the hopes, all the aspirations of a great people. Kautsky
will speak to revolutionary Russia for revolutionary
Germany, and for a revolutionary Europe. There will be an
appeal in that; there will be a strong appeal in that to the
revolutionary Russian commissaires. But, if I am any judge
of character, Lenin and his commissaires will stand by their
offer to us until Paris has answered, or until the time set
for the answer--April 10--shall have passed. Then, and not
until then, will Kautsky receive an answer to his appeal
for--whatever it is the Germans are asking.
It is not enough that you have delivered your message and
made it a part of the record of the peace conference. I
think it is your duty to ask the fixed attention of your
chiefs upon it for a moment, and to get from them the
courtesy of a clear, direct reply to Russia before April 10.
REPORTS OF CAPT. W.W. PETTIT
(The reports of Capt. Pettit are here printed in full, as follows:)
REPORTS OF CAPT, W.W. PETTIT
I left Petrograd on March 31. During the past three weeks I have
crossed the Finnish border six times and have been approximately
two weeks in Petrograd. I have met Tchitcherin, Litvinov, and
most of the important personages in the communist government of
Petrograd (including Bill Shatov, chief of police).
Briefly, my opinion of the Russian situation is as follows:
In Petrograd I presume the present communist government has
a majority of the working-men behind it, but probably less
than half of the total population are members of the
communist party. However, my conclusions are based on
conversations with not only communists, but also many
opponents of the communist government, members of the
aristocracy, business men, and foreigners, and I am
persuaded that a large majority of the population of
Petrograd if given a choice between the present government
and the two alternatives, revolution or foreign
intervention, would without hesitation take the present
government. Foreign intervention would unite the population
in opposition and would tend to greatly emphasize the
present nationalist spirit. Revolution would result in
chaos. (There is nowhere a group of Russians in whom the
people I have talked with have confidence. Kolchak, Denikin,
Yudenvitch, Trepov, the despicable hordes of Russian
emigrees who haunt the Grand Hotel, Stockholm; the Socithans
House, Helsingfors; the offices of the peace commission in
Paris, and squabble among themselves as to how the Russian
situation shall be solved; all equally fail to find many
supporters in Petrograd.) Those with whom I have talked
recognize that revolution, did it succeed in developing a
strong government, would result in a white terror comparable
with that of Finland. In Finland our consul has a record of
12,500 executions in some 50 districts, out of something
like 500 districts, by the White Guard. In Petrograd I have
been repeatedly assured that the total Red executions in
Petrograd and Moscow and other cities was at a maximum
3,200.
It may seem somewhat inconsistent for the Russian
bourgeoisie to oppose allied intervention and at the same
time fail to give whole-hearted support to the present
government. They justify this attitude on the grounds that
when the two great problems of food and peace are solved the
whole population can turn itself to assisting the present
régime in developing a stable efficient government. They
point to the numerous changes which have already been
introduced by the present communist government, to the
acknowledgment that mistakes have been made to the ease of
securing introduction of constructive ideas under the
present régime. All these facts have persuaded many of the
thinking people with whom I have talked to look to the
present government in possibly a somewhat modified form as
the salvation of Russia.
At present the situation is bad. Russia is straining every
nerve to raise an army to oppose the encircling White
Guards. That the army is efficient is demonstrated by the
present location of Soviet forces who have contended with
the Russian White Guard supported by enormous sums of money,
munitions, and even soldiers from the Allies. Naturally,
transportation is inefficient; it was horrible in the last
year of the Czar's regime. Absolute separation from the rest
of the world, combined with the chaotic conditions which
Russia has passed through since the 1917 revolution, plus
the sabotage, which until recently was quite general among
the intelligent classes, including engineers, has resulted
in a decrease in rolling stock. The transportation of the
enormous army which has been raised limits the number of
cars which can be used for food. The cutting off of Siberia,
Finland, the Baltic Provinces, and until recently the
Ukraine, made it necessary to establish new lines of food
transportation. Consequently there has been great suffering
in Petrograd. Of the population of a million, 200,000 are
reported by the board of health to be ill, 100,000 seriously
ill in hospitals or at home, and another 100,000 with
swollen limbs still able to go to the food kitchens.
However, the reports of people dying in the streets are not
true. Whatever food exists is fairly well distributed and
there are food kitchens where anyone can get a fairly good
dinner for 3.50 rubles.
For money one can still obtain many of the luxuries of life.
The children, some 50,000 of whom have been provided with
homes, are splendidly taken care of, and except for the
absence of milk have little to complain of. In the public
schools free lunches are given the children, and one sees in
the faces of the younger generation little of the suffering
which some of the older people have undergone and are
undergoing. Food conditions have improved recently, due to
the suspension of passenger traffic and the retaking of the
Ukraine, where food is plentiful. From 60 to 100 carloads of
food have arrived in Petrograd each day since February 18.
Perhaps it is futile to add that my solution of the Russian
problem is some sort of recognition of the present
government, with the establishment of economic relations and
the sending of every possible assistance to the people. I
have been treated in a wonderful manner by the communist
representatives, though they know that I am no socialist and
though I have admitted to the leaders that my civilian
clothing is a disguise. They have the warmest affection for
America, believe in President Wilson, and are certain that
we are coming to their assistance, and, together with our
engineers, our food, our school-teachers, and our supplies,
they are going to develop in Russia a government which will
emphasize the rights of the common people as no other
government has. I am so convinced of the necessity for us
taking a step immediately to end the suffering of this
wonderful people that I should be willing to stake all I
have in converting ninety out of every hundred American
business men whom I could take to Petrograd for two weeks.
It is needless for me to tell you that most of the stories
that have come from Russia regarding atrocities, horrors,
immorality, are manufactured in Viborg, Helsingfors, or
Stockholm. The horrible massacres planned for last November
were first learned of in Petrograd from the Helsingfors
papers. That anybody could even for a moment believe in the
nationalization of women seems impossible to anyone in
Petrograd. To-day Petrograd is an orderly city--probably the
only city of the world of its size without police. Bill
Shatov, chief of police, and I were at the opera the other
night to hear Chaliapine sing in Boris Gudonov. He excused
himself early because he said there had been a robbery the
previous night, in which a man had lost 5,000 rubles, that
this was the first robbery in several weeks, and that he had
an idea who had done it, and was going to get the men that
night. I feel personally that Petrograd is safer than Paris.
At night there are automobiles, sleighs, and people on the
streets at 12 o'clock to a much greater extent than was true
in Paris when I left five weeks ago.
Most wonderful of all, the great crowd of prostitutes has
disappeared. I have seen not a disreputable woman since I
went to Petrograd, and foreigners who have been there for
the last three months report the same. The policy of the
present government has resulted in eliminating throughout
Russia, I am told, this horrible outgrowth of modern
civilization.
Begging has decreased. I have asked to be taken to the
poorest parts of the city to see how the people in the slums
live, and both the communists and bourgeoisie have held up
their hands and said, "But you fail to understand there are
no such places." There is poverty, but it is scattered and
exists among those of the former poor or of the former rich
who have been unable to adapt themselves to the conditions
which require everyone to do something.
Terrorism has ended. For months there have been no
executions, I am told, and certainly people go to the
theater and church and out on the streets as much as they
would in any city of the world.
(Certain memoranda referred to in the hearing relating to the work of
Capt. Pettit in Russia are here printed in full as follows:)
MEMORANDUM
From: W.W. Pettit
To: Ammission, Paris.
(Attention of Mr. Bullitt.)
1. _Mr. Pettit's recent movements_.--On March 18 I left
Helsingfors for Petrograd and remained there until March 28
when I left for Helsingfors, at which place I received a
cable ordering me to report immediately to Paris. On the
29th I left again for Petrograd to secure some baggage I had
left. On the 21st I left Petrograd for Helsingfors. On April
1st I left Helsingfors for Stockholm and in Stockholm I find
a telegram asking me to wait until I receive further orders.
2. _Optimism of present government_.--On the night of the
30th and the afternoon of the 31st I had several hours with
Schklovsky, Tchitcherin's personal representative in
Petrograd. He was disappointed to think I was to return to
Paris, but felt certain that inasmuch as the orders
recalling me had been sent before Mr. Bullitt's arrival,
there was every possibility of my being returned to
Petrograd. He was most optimistic about the future and felt
that the Allies must soon take some definite stand regarding
Russia, and that the result of the Paris negotiations would
almost surely be favorable to the Soviet Government. He said
that the present war conditions and the limited
transportation facilities, with the shortage of food
resulting therefrom, had handicapped his government
enormously, and that everyone hopes that soon the action of
the allied powers will permit the establishment of normal
relations in Russia.
3. _Radios in re Bullitt_.--He has received at least three
radio communications from the American press in which Mr.
Bullitt's activities have been mentioned and this has tended
to encourage him. The last cablegram stated that Mr. Bullitt
was preparing a statement regarding conditions in Russia
which the press anticipated would go far toward dispelling
ignorance and misinformation regarding conditions in Moscow
and Petrograd.
4. _Hungarian situation_.--The Hungarian situation has also
gone far toward encouraging the present Government. Hungary
has proposed a mutual offensive and defensive alliance with
Russia. The fact that the Soviet Government has been
instituted in Hungary without bloodshed up to the present,
and with little opposition on the part of the people, has
also encouraged Schklovsky. He stated that the action of the
Allies in sending troops against Hungary was to be regretted
because of the bloodshed which would probably result.
However, he thought in the long run that the Allies would
find it a suicidal policy to try to suppress the Hungarian
revolution by force.
5. _The Ukraine situation_.--The soviet troops have taken
almost the entire Ukraine and this with the food supplies
which it will provide have strengthened the Soviet
Government. A friend who has recently returned from Peltava,
Ekaterinoslav, Kiev, and other southern cities, states that
food is abundant and cheap. The Soviet Government believes
that the French and Greek troops are withdrawing from Odessa
and going to Sebastopol. They anticipate taking Odessa
within the next few days.
6. _Esthonian situation_.--At least twice within the last
two weeks Esthonia has sent word to the Soviet Government
that it desired peace. The following four points have been
emphasized by the Esthonians: (i) That peace must come
immediately; (2) that the offer must come from the Soviet
Government; (3) that a fair offer will be accepted by the
Esthonians immediately without consultation with France or
England, who are supporting them; (4) that free access to
Esthonian harbors and free use of Esthonian railroads will
be assured the Soviet Government.
7. _The Lithuanian situation_.--It is fairly well understood
that the Lithuanian Government that is fighting the
Bolsheviks is not going to allow itself to be made a tool by
the French and British Governments to invade Russian
territory. The Lithuanian Government is desirous of securing
possession of Lithuanian territory, but beyond that it is
understood it will not go.
8. _The Finnish situation_.--The Soviet Government is in
close touch with the Finnish situation and has little fear
of an invasion of Russia from that direction. The Finnish
Army is without question a third Red; probably a half Red;
possibly two-thirds Red. There is even reported to be a
tendency on a part of certain of the White Guards to oppose
intervention in Russia. One of the Finnish regiments in
Esthonia has returned to Finland, and it is supposed that it
will assist the proposed revolution of the Finns in East
Karelia against the Soviet Government. The Soviet Government
has sent a committee to Helsingfors to arrange economic
relations with Finland, and it is said that this committee
carries threats of reprisals on the part of the Soviet
Government against the Finns in Petrograd unless the treaty
is negotiated. It is said in Petrograd that some of the
Finns have already left Petrograd in anticipation that the
Finnish Government will not be permitted to make any
arrangement with the Soviet Government because of the
attitude of certain of the allied representatives in
Helsingfors.
9. _Improvement in food conditions_.--The suspension of passenger
traffic from March 18 to April 10 has resulted in the Government
bringing to Petrograd 60 to 100 cars of food each day, and one
sees large quantities of food being transported about the city.
At Easter time it is hoped to be able to give 3 pounds of white
bread to the population of Petrograd. There also seems to be a
larger supply of food for private purchase in the city. Mr.
Shiskin has recently been able to buy 3 geese, a sucking pig, 2
splendid legs of veal, and roasts of beef at from 40 to 50 rubles
a pound, which, considering the value of the ruble, is much less
than it sounds. Shiskin has also been able recently to get eggs,
milk, honey, and butter, together with potatoes, carrots, and
cabbage. My bill for food for 11 days with Mr. Shiskin was about
1,300 rubles.
10. _Order in Petrograd_.--About three weeks ago there were
several strikes in factories in Petrograd and Lenin came to
talk to the strikers. Apparently the matter was settled
satisfactorily and the workers were given the same bread
rations that the soldiers receive. At the Putilov works some
400 men struck and part of them were dismissed. Both Shatov
and the director of factories said that there were no
executions, though the population the next morning reported
80 workers shot and that afternoon the rumor had increased
the number to 400. There is practically no robbery in the
city. Shatov left the opera the other night early because he
told me the previous night a man had lost 5,000 rubles and
it was such an exceptional thing to have a robbery that he
was going out personally to investigate the matter, having
some idea as to who was responsible.
11. _Currency plans_.--Zorin tells me that the Soviet
Government has or had printed a new issue of currency which
it is proposed to exchange for the old currency within the
next three months. The details of the plan have not been
completed but he thinks that an exchange of ruble for ruble
will be made up to 3,000; an additional 2,000 will be placed
on deposit in the government bank. That beyond 5,000 only a
small percentage will be allowed to any one, and that a
limit of possibly 15,000 will be placed beyond which no
rubles will be exchanged. Then the plan is, after a certain
period to declare the old ruble valueless. Zorin feels that
as a result of this plan the new ruble will have some value
and that the present situation in the country in which the
farmer has so much paper that he refuses to sell any longer
for money, will be relieved. This exchange would be followed
later on by the issue of still other currency the entire
purpose being the more equal distribution of wealth and the
gradual approach to elimination of currency.
12. _Concessions_.--It is asserted that the northern railway
concession has been signed and Amundsen tells me that all
negotiations were accomplished without the payment of a
single cent of tea money, probably the first instance of the
absence of graft in such negotiations in the history of
Russia. He says that Trepov, through his agent Borisov, at
Moscow, was the greatest opponent of the Norwegian
interests. Trepov was formerly minister of ways and
communications and is reported to have been refused a
similar concession under the Czar's government. Amundsen
claims that Trepov has made every effort to secure this
concession from the Soviet Government. I am attaching a
statement regarding a concession which is supposed to have
been granted to the lumber interests. There are rumors that
other concessions have been granted.
13. _Y.M.C.A._--Recently the Y.M.C.A. secretary arrived in
Petrograd, claiming to have come without authorization from
his superiors. He has been staying at the embassy but
recently went to Moscow at the invitation of Tchitcherin.
Schklovsky tells me that the American has plans for the
establishment of the Y.M.C.A. in Russia which he wanted to
put before the Moscow government. Schklovsky doubted that it
would be feasible to organize in Russia at present a branch
of the International association unless some rather
fundamental modifications were made in their policy.
14. _Treadwell_.--I have twice asked Schklovsky to secure
information regarding Treadwell, and he assures me that he
has taken the matter up with Moscow, but that apparently
they have had no news from Tashkent as yet. He promised to
let me know as soon as anything was heard.
15. _Attitude toward United States_.--The degree of
confidence which the Russians and the soviet officials show
toward our Government is to me a matter of surprise,
considering our activities during the past 18 months. There
seems to be no question in the minds of the officials in
Petrograd whom I have met that we are going to give them an
opportunity to develop a more stable form of government, and
they apparently look upon President Wilson as one who is
going to decide the question on its merits without being
influenced by the enormous pressure of the Russian emigrés
and the French Government. Doubtless part of this attitude
is due to the favorable impression created by Mr. Bullitt,
but much of it must be the result of information which they
have secured from the press. At the present moment the
United States has the opportunity of demonstrating to the
Russian people its friendship and cementing the bonds which
already exist. Russia believes in us, and a little
assistance to Russia in its present crisis will result in
putting the United States in a position in Russia which can
never be overthrown by Germany or any other power.
16. _Social work_.--I have recently sent a cable from
Helsingfors regarding health and sanitary conditions in
Petrograd, a copy of which I am attaching. I have spent the
past two weeks visiting schools and the children's home in
Petrograd. There are 30,000 children for whom homes have
been provided in the past nine months, and preparations are
being made to house 10,000 more. Homes of emigrés are being
taken over and groups of 40 children placed in them under
the care of able instructors; where the children are old
enough they go to school during the daytime. A beautiful
home life has been developed. The children are well fed and
well clothed, and there is a minimum of sickness among them.
At the present time, when so much disease exists in
Petrograd, and when there is so much starvation, the healthy
appearance of these thousands of children, together with the
well-fed condition of children who are not in institutions,
but are receiving free meals in schools, is a demonstration
of the social spirit behind much of the activities of the
present government. I shall send later a more detailed
statement of some of the interesting things I have learned
about this phase of the activities of the new regime.
17. _Conclusion_.--In this rather hastily dictated
memorandum which Mr. Francis is going to take tonight to
Paris I have tried to point out some of the things that have
interested me in Petrograd. Naturally I have emphasized the
brighter side, for the vast amount of absolutely false news
manufactured in Helsingfors and Stockholm and sent out
through the world seems to me to necessitate the emphasizing
of some of the more hopeful features of the present
government. Naturally the character of the Russian people
has not changed to any great extent in 18 months, and there
is doubtless corruption, and there is certainly inefficiency
and ignorance and a hopeless failure to grasp the new
principles motivating the government on the part of many of
the people. A people subjected to the treatment which
Russians have had during the last 200 years can not in one
generation be expected to change very greatly, but
personally I feel the present government has made a vast
improvement on the government of the Czar as I knew it in
1916-17. Without doubt the majority of the people in
Petrograd are opposed to allied intervention or revolution
and wish the present government to be given a fair chance to
work out the salvation of Russia. One of the most hopeful
symptoms of the present government is its willingness to
acknowledge mistakes when they are demonstrated and to adopt
new ideas which are worth while. Personally I am heart and
soul for some action on the part of the United States
Government which will show our sincere intention to permit
the Russian people to solve their own problems with what
assistance they may require from us. STOCKHOLM, April 4
1919.
SOCIAL WORK IN PETROGRAD
The wife of Zinoviev, Madame Lelina, is in charge of the social
institutions in the city of Petrograd. This does not include the
public schools, which are under another organization. Madame Lelina is
a short-haired woman, probably Jewish, of about 45. She has an
enormous amount of energy, and is commonly supposed to be doing at
least two things at the same time. The morning I met her she was
carrying on two interviews and trying to arrange to have me shown some
of the social work she is directing. There seemed to be little system
about her efforts. Her office was rather disorderly, and her method of
work seemed very wasteful of time and effort, and very much like the
usual Russian way of doing things. Bill Shatov, formerly organizer of
the I.W.W., who is commissar of police for Petrograd and also
commissar for one of the northern armies, introduced me to Madame
Lelina, and accompanied me the first day on our visits. We were guided
by a young woman by the name of Bachrath, who is a university graduate
and lawyer, and since the legal profession has fallen into disrepute,
has turned her efforts toward social work.
Under her guidance I spent three days visiting institutions. I saw a
boarding school for girls, a boarding home for younger children, an
institution for the feeble-minded, three of the new homes organized by
the Soviet Government, and two small hospitals for children.
The institutions which Madame Lelina is directing are in two groups:
First, those which she has taken over from the old Czar regime, and
second, those which have been founded in the last 18 months. The new
government has been so handicapped by the difficulties of securing
food and other supplies, by the sabotage of many of the intelligent
classes, and by the necessity of directing every energy toward
carrying on hostilities against the bourgeoisie and the Allies, that
there has been little opportunity to remodel the institutions
inherited from the previous régime, therefore neither the strength nor
the weakness of these institutions is to any great extent due to the
present régime. Two of the institutions I visited were of this type,
one happened to be very good and the other very bad, and in neither
case did I feel that Lelina's organization was responsible.
An aristocratic organization under the Czar maintained a boarding
school for girls. This has been taken over by the Soviet Government
with little change, and the 140 children in this institution are
enjoying all the opportunities which a directress trained in France
and Germany, with an exceptionally skillful corps of assistants, can
give them.
I inquired regarding the changes which the Soviet Government had made
in the organization of this school. Some of the girls who were there
have been kept, but vacant places have been filled by Madame Lelina's
committee, and the institution has been required to take boys into the
day school, a plan which is carried out in most of the soviet social
and educational work. Much more freedom has been introduced in the
management of the institution, and the girls at table talk and walk
about, much as though they were in their own homes. The Soviet
Government requires that certain girls be permitted membership in the
teachers' committee, and the two communists accompanying me pointed to
this as a great accomplishment. Privately, the teachers informed me
they regarded it as of little significance, and apparently they were
entirely out of sympathy with the innovations that the new government
has made. Now all the girls are required to work in the kitchen,
dining room, or m cleaning their own dormitories, and certain girls
are assigned to the kitchen to over-see the use of supplies by the
cooks. However, the whole institution, from the uniforms of the girls
to the required form in which even hand towels have to be hung,
indicates the iron will of the directress. In one class we visited the
girls sat at desks and listened to a traditional pedagogue pour out
quantities of information on Pushkin's Boris Gudonov. Occasionally the
girls were called upon to react, which they did with sentences
apparently only partially memorized. The spirit of the institution is
behind that of our better institutions in America, and the spirit of
the classroom is quite mediaeval.
The greatest objection which the teachers seem to have to soviet
activities is the question of sacred pictures and religious
observances. The chapel of the school has been closed, but in each
room from the corner still hangs the Ikon and at the heads of many of
the girls' beds there are still small pictures of the Virgin, much to
the disgust of the representatives of the Soviet Government, who in
many cases are Jewish, and in practically all cases have renounced any
religious connection. Recently the Soviet Party has announced the fact
that they as a party are not hostile to any religion, but intend to
remain neutral on the subject. The attitude of the commissars
apparently is that required religious observances should not be
permitted in public institutions, and doubtless some of the inspectors
have gone further than was necessary in prohibiting any symbol of the
religion which probably most of the children still nominally adhere
to.
The second institution I visited, which had been taken over from the
old government, was an orphan asylum with some 600 children mostly
under 10. It was frightfully crowded, in many places rather dirty,
with frequently bad odors from unclean toilets. In one little room
some 20 small boys were sleeping and eating, and I found one child of
2 who was not able to walk and was eating in the bed in which he
slept.
Ventilation was bad, linen not very clean, a general feeling of
repression present, slovenly employees, and, in general, an atmosphere
of inefficiency and failure to develop a home spirit which one still
finds in some of the worst institutions in America. The instructor who
showed me this home realized its horrors, and said that the Government
intended to move the children into more adequate quarters as soon as
conditions permitted. In summer the children are all taken to the
country. In this institution all the older children go out to public
schools and there have been no cases of smallpox or typhus in spite of
the epidemics the city has had this winter. Forty children were in the
hospital with minor complaints. About 10 per cent of the children are
usually ill.
The school for feeble-minded occupies a large apartment house and the
children are divided into groups of 10 under the direction of two
teachers, each group developing home life in one of the large
apartments. There is emphasis on handwork. Printing presses, a
bookbinding establishment, and woodworking tools are provided. Music
and art appreciation are given much time, and some of the work done is
very beautiful. This school is largely the result of the efforts of
the Soviet Government. Careful records are kept of the children and
simple test material has been devised to develop in the more backward
children elementary reactions regarding size, shape, form, and color.
The greatest difficulty is the impossibility of securing trained
workers either for the shops or for the special pedagogical problems
of the school. However, an energetic corps of young men and young
women are employed, and they are conscious of the size of their
problem and are already thinking of the difficulties of sending their
students back into industrial life. In many of the activities of the
Soviet Government, as well as in these institutions taken over from
the old regime, I was dismayed at the inefficiency and ignorance of
many of the subordinates. After talking to the leaders and getting
some understanding of their ideals, an American expects to see these
carried over into practice. One is liable to forget that the Russian
people have not greatly changed, and that the same easy-going,
inefficient attitude of decades of the previous regime still exists.
No one knows this obstacle better than the members of the present
regime. They realize that the character of the Russian people is their
greatest obstacle, and change in the Russian conception of Government
service is a slow process. Far from being discouraged, they point to
their accomplishments with pride.
During the last nine months Madame Lelina has taken 30,000 children
into Government homes and preparations are made to take 10,000 more
during the next three months. The three new institutions which I
visited are attractive suburban homes of wealthy emigrés. The
Government has taken these over and is putting groups of 40 children
in charge of specially selected and trained men and women. The older
children go out to school. For the younger children kindergarten
activities are provided and much time is spent out of doors. An
atmosphere of home life has been developed which is surprising
considering the short time the institutions have been organized and
the difficulties they have had to contend with. This plan, which I am
told is permanent, is a most encouraging feature of Madame Lelina's
work.
Requests to have children placed in the Government institutions are
turned over to a special corps of investigators. In each house there
is what is known as a poor committee which must also approve the
requests and the local soviet is required to pass upon the commitment
of the child to an institution. The large number of children taken
over by the city is due to the number of orphans and half orphans
caused by the war and to the impossibility of many poor families
providing their children with food during the recent famine. In cases
where several children of a family are taken they are placed in the
same home. Frequent opportunities for relatives to visit the homes are
provided. The amount of sickness has been surprisingly low considering
the great amount of disease in Petrograd during the last few months.
In one group of 300 children there have been no deaths within the past
nine months, and among all the children there have been very few cases
of contagious diseases.
The difficulties which Madame Lelina faces are numerous. First, Russia
has never had an adequate number of trained workers and many of those
who were trained have refused to cooperate with the present regime,
and, secondly, though the Soviet Government has adopted the policy of
turning over to the children's homes and the schools an adequate
supply of food, regardless of the suffering of the adult population,
still it has been impossible to get certain items of diet, as, for
instance, milk. It is true, however, that among these children one
sees few signs of undernourishment or famine, and in general
throughout the city the children seem much better nourished than the
adult population.
I had planned to visit other institutions but was unable to do so. I
was told of a large palace which has been taken over as a home for
mothers. Here all women who so desire are sent after childbirth with
their children for a period of two months.
The health department, which asserts that there are in addition to the
100,000 bedridden people in the city, another 100,000 who are ill
because of undernourishment though able to go to the food kitchens,
has been very successful in securing from the local soviets special
food supplies to be provided sick persons on doctors' orders. At each
food kitchen the board of health has a representative whose business
it is to give such special diet as may be possible to undernourished
individuals.
(Thereupon, at 12.50 o'clock p.m., the committee adjourned subject to
the call of the chairman.)
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