Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1918, Russia, Volume I

File No. 763.72/6430½

Report of the Special Diplomatic Mission to Russia to the Secretary of State

Sir: The Special Diplomatic Mission to Russia, commissioned May 14, 1917, beg leave to report:

The mission left Washington May 18, sailed from Seattle May 20 on the U.S.S. Buffalo, Commander A. W. Hinds commanding, and arrived at Vladivostok, Siberia, May 21/June 3.

We were received at Vladivostok by several officers of the Russian Government charged to escort and care for us during our visit to Russia, by the American Consul, Mr. Caldwell, and by Lieut. E. F. Riggs, military attaché in Russia, representing the American Ambassador, Mr. Francis. Here Maj. Stanley Washburn joined the mission as assistant secretary.

A special train was in waiting with very commodious and well-fitted cars adequate for the comfortable accommodation of the entire party. Upon landing we were met by the local committee of the city of Vladivostok, and by a committee representing the soldiers stationed at that point. These committees made somewhat formal addresses to the mission, which appeared to combine a desire to be polite to the visitors and a desire to be informed as to the object of the mission. We responded briefly to the apparent satisfaction of the committees.

We subsequently ascertained that a considerable number of Russian refugees of the extreme socialist type returning from America a few days before had endeavored to induce the soldiers and citizens in Vladivostok to prevent the mission from proceeding to Petrograd but had been defeated in the Citizens’ and Soldiers’ Committees.

It appeared that the Provisional Government, established in Petrograd upon the downfall of the autocracy in the revolution of March 1917, had not succeeded in fact to the centralized power of the old bureaucratic government, but that extraordinary decentralization had followed the revolution. The city of Vladivostok was under the control not of officers authorized by the Government of Russia but of a committee selected by the people of the city. The large force of soldiers stationed at that point were under the control not of their own military officers, nor of the War Department at Petrograd, but of a committee selected by the rank and file, and this committee, composed in the main of common soldiers, gave orders to both soldiers and officers. This condition existed all over Russia. Public civil affairs and military affairs as well were being directed by tens of thousands of separate committees, having no established relations with each other and practically acknowledging little or no right of control on the part of the Petrograd government. The utility of the central government in operating the machinery of general administration appeared to be recognized, but each separate committee exercised the right to do as it chose, while if a committee failed to act where action was necessary, or took the most wrong-headed and most absurd course conceivable, the central Government had for the time being no power to require action or to prevent action. Indeed, the general interpretation of the new-found freedom among the Russian people appeared to be that each individual was entitled to do whatever he himself wished to do, free from any control to which he personally did not consent. Notwithstanding this extraordinary condition of government good order prevailed in Russia, rights of person and of property were generally respected, and crime whether of violence or otherwise, either in the cities or the country, was not more frequent than would have been natural in so great a population under any government.

We left Vladivostok in the afternoon of May 21/June 3, and arrived at Harbin, Manchuria, in the afternoon of the following day. There we were welcomed by General Horvat, the governor of the Chinese Eastern Railroad and commander of the Russian forces upon the railroad concession from the Chinese Government to that railroad company. We met there the Commission of American Railway Experts, of which Mr. Stevens was the chairman, and held a conference with them as to the results of their observations up to that time and as to future cooperation in attaining the objects which we agreed upon as being desirable. At that point also we were welcomed to the territory of China by a deputation from the Chinese Government, composed of gentlemen from the Peking Foreign Office and the local Tao-Tai, who under the direction of their government, escorted us on the train through Mongolia and Manchuria to the Siberian border at Manchuria Station. Mr. Wang, the head of this deputation, was the bearer of a letter to Mr. Root from Mr. Wu Ting-fang, the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs and Acting Prime Minister, containing a very polite invitation to visit Peking. This letter, with Mr. Root’s reply, is annexed hereto for the files of the State Department.¹ Any subsequent further reply was prevented by the revolution which occurred in Peking before we left Petrograd.

We were joined at Ekaterinburg by Mr. Basil Miles as secretary. We reached Petrograd Wednesday, May 31/June 13, and were met at the station by many members and officers of the Provisional Government, and by Ambassador Francis and his Embassy staff, and were escorted to the Winter Palace where the mission was quartered during its stay in Petrograd, and where every possible care was taken for our comfort and convenience. Mr. Crane joined the mission on our arrival at Petrograd.

On Thursday, June 1/14, the members of the mission were formally presented by Ambassador Francis to Mr. A. Tereshchenko, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, at the Foreign Office. On Friday evening, June 2/15, the mission was formally received by the Council of Ministers, Prince Lvov, the President of the Council, presiding. The mission was introduced with an appropriate speech by Ambassador Francis, the message from the United States was delivered in an address by Mr. Root, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Tereshchenko, replied for the Provisional Government. Copies of this address and of Mr. Tereshchenko’s reply are annexed to this report.¹

As it was apparent that time had not sufficed under the new régime for the establishment of means of communication with the Russian people, through the press or otherwise, by which the great body of the people, either at their homes or in the army, might be correctly informed of governmental proceedings in Petrograd, we caused to be translated into Russian and distributed a million copies of this address and reply. The distribution was made through the instrumentality of a small organization which had been created for such purposes by British and French officials in Petrograd with the assistance of representatives of the American Embassy, the cost having been defrayed by the British and French.

We also arranged for the distribution of great numbers of copies of the President’s message upon “the aims of the war” and of the President’s Flag Day speech, which had just been received by the American Embassy. The distribution of these documents up to the time of our leaving Petrograd had reached the number of about 500,000 each. In order to entitle the United States to these services and similar services in the future, we took the responsibility of a contribution to the expenses of the organization equal to contributions already made by Great Britain and France.

After our reception by the Council of Ministers the members of the mission entered upon a series of conferences with the separate departments of the Russian Government, for the purpose of ascertaining the most pressing needs of Russia for the conduct of the war and explaining the facilities of the United States for supplying such needs, and thus arriving at the best ways in which the two countries could cooperate as allies.

A report by Major General Scott upon military needs will be made to the War Department, and a copy is annexed hereto.¹ This report is the result of extended conferences between General Scott and his military assistants and the Russian General Staff, and the information upon which the report is based was reinforced by actual inspection of conditions upon the Russian front from Tarnopol to Rumania made by General Scott, Colonel Judson, Lieutenant Colonel Michie, Lieutenant Colonel Mott and Major Parker, military attaché of the Petrograd Embassy. In this tour of inspection the General and his assistants had the opportunity of actually observing the Russian advance of June 18/July 1 in front of Tarnopol.

A report upon naval needs by Admiral Glennon will be made to the Navy Department and a copy is annexed hereto.¹ The information received by Admiral Glennon from the naval authorities in Petrograd was supplemented by a visit upon his part and by Lieutenant Bernhard, his aide, to the Black Sea Fleet at Sebastopol, to the Baltic Fleet at Helsingfors and Revel, and to the port of Archangel on the White Sea.

The Department of Finance undertook to give a comprehensive statement of all the financial needs of Russia in a long series of interviews with Mr. Bertron and Mr. McCormick, and in many documents and statements furnished to them, and a report upon this subject by Mr. Bertron and Mr. McCormick is annexed hereto.¹

While these conferences were proceeding the members of the mission sought to obtain a correct understanding of actual conditions in Russia by a great number of interviews with people of all occupations and political and business relations. In this manner they secured statements of fact and expressions of opinion from as many different points of view as possible. For this purpose separate members of the mission made appointments and had conversations with members of all political parties: members of the Duma; members of the original revolutionary government established by the Duma; members of the old bureaucratic government; members of the Council of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Deputies; Cossacks; common soldiers and sailors; members of Soldiers’ and Citizens’ Committees; military and naval officers; peasants; merchants; bankers; manufacturers; priests and members of the Orthodox Greek Church and of the Old Believers’ Church; Roman Catholics and Protestants; laborers in the factories and their employers; moderate socialists; extreme internationalists and anarchists; Zemstvo workers and members of War Aid Committees; and diplomatic and military officers of Allied countries, including Mr. Arthur Henderson of the British Cabinet and Mr. Albert Thomas of the French Cabinet. Special inquiry and consideration were given to the morale of the army, its causes and the means by which it might be favorably influenced. The results of these interviews were presented and compared in daily meetings of the mission.

It soon became apparent that the fundamental material need of Russia for the prosecution of the war was the need of improved transportation. All possible supplies to Russia during the war are now seriously limited both by the scarcity of bottoms for delivery of material by sea at Russian ports and by defective transportation on land within Russia.

In January–February 1917, before the revolution, a commission of experts from the Allied countries, of which Lord Milner was the chairman, met in Petrograd in conference with the experts of the Russian Government, and thoroughly discussed the whole subject of material supplies. The various departments of the Russian Government presented requests for supplies amounting to about fourteen million tons. Owing to the deficiency in ocean tonnage then existing these claims were reduced to about four million tons, the articles to be included being carefully arranged in an order of precedence based upon the necessities of military and naval operations. The decrease of tonnage caused chiefly by the destruction of ships by submarine warfare has been so great since that time that the Allies have been able to furnish less than one half the four million tons agreed upon in February. The destruction of merchant ships still continues and it will be a considerable period before new construction can be relied upon for any substantial increase of carrying vessels. Any supply of materials by America to Russia during the present war will accordingly be restricted not so much by the limitations of money or credits with which to pay for these supplies, not so much even by the productive capacity of American manufactories, but by the very narrow limits of tonnage available for the carriage of supplies of all kinds to meet the pressing wants of all the Allied countries in Europe, including Russia. When account is taken of the requirements especially for the transportation of food to England and France, of coal to France and Italy, and of steel in various forms for use in the manufacture of munitions and in railroad building to practically all the countries engaged in the war, it is evident that the supplies to be actually furnished by the United States to Russia can not possibly be more than a small part of the total amount called for.

The difficulty in land transportation affords an equally great obstacle to the furnishing of supplies from abroad to Russia, and is in one way even more serious than the lack of shipping, for it interferes and threatens to interfere still more seriously with the utilization of Russia’s internal resources. The chief avenues of normal communication between Russia and the western world, the Black Sea, across the western frontier, and through the Baltic ports, are cut off by the war. Russia has remaining the port of Vladivostok on the Pacific and the port of Archangel on the Arctic Ocean. Another road running to a port on the Gulf of Kola, and known as the Murman line, has recently been constructed but is not yet completed or in full operation. The Archangel line succeeds in transporting a moderate amount of material landed at that port, but the port of Archangel is closed by ice during six to seven months of the year and after about ten weeks from this time will no longer be available until next summer. The railroad from Vladivostok to Petrograd and Moscow is between five and six thousand miles in length, and this road, commonly known as the “Trans-Siberian,” has been so far unable to handle the materials unloaded at Vladivostok that over 700,000 tons of freight are now piled up in that city awaiting transportation. This freight includes great quantities of war munitions, railroad iron, motor cars, agricultural implements, barbed wire and other articles much needed in Russia, but which can not be utilized because they can not be transported to the places where they are needed. This accumulation in Vladivostok was not decreasing at the time of our arrival, for the regular train service over the Trans-Siberian was no more than sufficient to carry away freight equivalent to the continuing deliveries at the port.

The railroad system of Russia labors under two primary difficulties. The first is defective organization. The organization and the methods of operation were the growth of ordinary easy conditions of peace under which time was of little consequence. There was little or no competition among private owners to spur them on to labor-saving and time-saving improvements, and upon the state-owned roads, which constitute the greater part of the whole system, there was under the old regime a very low degree of governmental efficiency in railroad management. The old methods have continued notwithstanding the war and the question whether radical reforms necessary to produce a substantial increase of efficiency can be made effectual under the existing political conditions in Russia furnishes a problem yet to be solved.

Another great difficulty under which the railroads labor is that during the three years of war the rolling stock has been to a great extent worn out; about 40 per cent of the locomotives in the country are idle awaiting repairs, and this number is probably being increased at a rate not fully counterbalanced by the progress of repairs.

The effect of these conditions upon the internal movement of products in the country is very serious, not only upon the Trans-Siberian, but throughout Russia. In some parts of the country there is a surplus of food, in other parts there is a scarcity; and the difficulty of supplying food to the larger cities and to the army at the front during the approaching winter may well give rise to serious apprehension. There are said to be several million tons of coal already mined awaiting transportation in the Donets Basin while munition factories and other factories in other parts of the country, and in some cases quite near the coal fields, are running at half-time or closing entirely on account of want of fuel.

In an interview between Mr. Root and General Scott, Mr. Tereshchenko, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, General Brusilov, the Commander in Chief of the Armies, and General Lukomski, Chief of the General Staff, at the General Staff Headquarters at Mogilev, June 13/26, the most urgent appeals were made by both of the Russian generals for all possible assistance in this matter of transportation. This subject, of course, has been fully studied by the Commission of Railway Experts, of which Mr. Stevens is the head, and they have made numerous recommendations to the Department of Ways of Communication which, we understand from the members of the Stevens Commission, have been generally assented to by the department. In the interview at General Staff Headquarters already mentioned we arranged with General Brusilov and General Lukomski for a meeting between them and the Railway Commission and the Minister of Ways of Communication, in order that the military needs for improved transportation might be urged directly by the generals upon the railroad officials and experts. That tentative arrangement was communicated by us to the Stevens Commission and by Mr. Tereshchenko to the Department of Ways of Communication.

We also sought in ways not open to the Commission of Railway Experts to aid in securing action upon their recommendations. Mr. Russell and Mr. Duncan, who had established relations of confidence and esteem with the workingmen and the moderate socialists in the Council of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Deputies, and generally with the members of that Council, explained to them very fully the importance of speeding up work in the railroad repair shops, and the necessity for that purpose that the workmen should consent to work in two or three shifts. They secured the adherence of the Council to this proposition and their influence upon the workmen in favor of the increase of effectiveness in the way proposed. These services on the part of Mr. Russell and Mr. Duncan extended also beyond the scope of railroad repairs and were made applicable to the speeding up of work in the munition factories generally and in the production of other war necessaries.

Through the Minister of Foreign Affairs we urged that effective action along the lines of the Railroad Commission’s recommendations should not be left as merely a departmental matter in the Department of Ways of Communication, but should be made a matter of governmental policy with the whole weight and momentum of the Provisional Government brought to bear in making the proposed reforms effective. We were able to bring to the aid of this suggestion to the Provisional Government a consensus of opinion on the part of all the Allied countries represented in Russia through a meeting which was held in Petrograd June 22/July 5. This meeting was called at the British Embassy by the British Ambassador, Sir George Buchanan, for the purpose of considering the effect upon the Russian war situation of the inability of the Allies to transport to Archangel the amount of material provided for by the Milner commission before mentioned. There were present the British Ambassador, the Honorable Arthur Henderson of the British Cabinet, then on special mission to Russia, the French Charge, the Italian Ambassador, the Japanese Ambassador, the Rumanian Minister, the Portuguese Minister, the Belgian Minister, the American Ambassador Mr. Francis, Mr. Root and Mr. Bertron, and various technical experts of the different countries. The conclusions of this meeting were embodied in a paper framed by a committee, of which Mr. Bertron was a member, and this paper as an aide-mémoire was handed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in an interview had with him by Mr. Henderson and Mr. Root on the following day. This interview resulted in a proposal by the Minister of Foreign Affairs that a standing commission be organized to be composed of himself and the ambassadors and ministers of the different powers furnishing munitions to Russia, together with such technical experts as were desired, to hold regular meetings at stated intervals for the purpose of discussing and considering the questions relating to the supply of munitions, etc. On the following day this proposition was agreed to by all the representatives of the Allied powers in a meeting adjourned from the meeting of July 5. The aide-mémoire which was left with Mr. Tereshchenko is annexed hereto.¹

The grave conditions already described and others which will be mentioned presently impressed upon the mission the conviction that questions as to the particular supplies which America might furnish to Russia for use in the war were only a part, and not the most important part, of the broader and more serious question: whether Russia could continue to carry on the war—whether the Russian Army could be kept in the field.

This is not a question of separate peace. We are satisfied that the Provisional Government of Russia intends to continue the war and has no intention to make a separate peace. The question is whether that Government will have the power to continue the war. This depends upon the continued existence of the Government itself and upon its ability to keep in the field, or put into the field, an adequate army which will fight in response to its directions, and to feed, supply and transport such an army. The ability to do these things depends upon the continued working of the industrial system of the country and the support of the people.

Under the old régime Russia had reached a very critical condition. The war had lasted much longer than was anticipated. The provision made for it was, to a great extent, exhausted; the country was on the verge of bankruptcy, and any and all attempts by individual members of the Government to improve conditions were frustrated by divided councils and the more or less covert opposition of officials in sympathy with Germany, or, in some cases there is reason to believe, in the pay of Germany. This condition and the failure of the bureaucracy to govern effectively, in great part, explains the extraordinary ease with which the dethronement of the Tsar and the expulsion of his government were effected. The revolution was made in Petrograd by a comparatively small number of active opponents of the autocracy who had secured cooperation of the soldiers forming the garrison at that point. The rest of the country took little or no part in the active steps but with great unanimity adhered to the revolution when the Tsar had abdicated. The change found the people of the country divided, roughly speaking, into two classes. There was a small class who had long been actively attacking the old government; most of its members came within the general description of socialists, including, however, widely different types of socialists. Some of them believed that the pathway to real liberty lay through the immediate destruction of all capitalism; that is to say, their idea was that the revolution should destroy the whole industrial system of Russia and put an end to the possession of private property both in land and in chattels. Some of them were internationalists and believed in the universal organization of the proletariat of the world as a substitute for the existing national system. Their idea was that the revolution should not build up Russia as a nation, but should devote its strength to destroying all other national organizations in order that all peoples might be fused in a single organization in which there should be no nations and no private capital. Some of them, however, believed that the revolution should, in the first instance, establish the democracy of Russia upon a sound national basis. All of them were active and agresssive, and they felt that their efforts and their sacrifices had made the revolution, and therefore they were entitled to direct the revolutionary government. None of them had had any experience in the actual testing of their theories in real life. The other class included the great mass of the people of Russia, most of whom were the landowning peasantry. With the exception of a few able and courageous men, trained for the past dozen years in the discussions of the Duma, they were wholly unaccustomed to any part in the government of the country. They had been accustomed to receive orders and to obey them; not to form, or express, or act upon their own political opinions. They had no institutions through which to carry on the government of the country; they had no real knowledge of the workings of such institutions, and no habits of thought adapted to devise such institutions. Where all laws had rested upon the authority of the Tsar, the repudiation of that authority seemed to leave the laws without sanction or moral obligation. Authority was gone; leadership of opinion was unknown; and a condition of vast bewilderment, confusion and ineffective discussion resulted.

Into this condition was thrust a great German propaganda. Thousands of German agents swarmed across the border immediately after the revolution. They made common cause with the internationalists and extreme socialists who sought to destroy industrial and national Russia. They stirred to activity all the pro-German sympathizers in the country; they spent money like water in the secret purchase of adherents; they bought and established newspapers; they distributed literature in enormous quantities; they sent out an army of speakers to harangue the crowds in the cities and towns; they traversed the country and sought to make the simple-minded peasants believe that they had only to stop fighting and take possession of all the land in Russia to live in affluence forever after; they incited the workingmen to make demands far in excess of the entire profits and capital of the enterprises in which they were engaged, with a view to seizing upon the mines and factories for themselves. The German troops in the trenches, under German orders, offered friendship to the Russian soldiers; fraternized with them; taught them to think that the war was not theirs but the Tsar’s, and that the Tsar being gone, there was no occasion for further fighting; they directed the new sense of freedom among the soldiers of the Russian Army to the repudiation of the authority of officers and the abandonment of all discipline; they appealed powerfully to the love of peace which is natural to a democracy, and to the weariness of war which the Russians felt in common with all the other peoples of Europe. Among the results of the thus created conditions was great decrease in industrial efficiency. At the time when the mission reached Russia the output of the mines and manufacturing establishments of the country, including munition works, had fallen to about one half the normal output, while the cost of production had increased in about the same ratio. The peasants, absorbed by a new interest in public affairs, had planted much less than the normal area and were holding back the crops already harvested instead of bringing them out to be sold for rubles of greatly reduced purchasing power. The transportation system became still more ineffective because of the decline of discipline among the railroad employees, and because the stations and the trains were crowded with masses of soldiers passing to and fro, not under orders but in accordance with their own will, compelling the trains to move as they wished. The desertions from the army ran into millions; discipline practically disappeared; and a general unwillingness to fight any more prevailed among the troops.

We annex hereto a copy of a speech made by the Assistant Secretary of War of Russia, Colonel Yakubovich, on the 26th [25th] of May, 1917, which gives a striking and authentic account of military conditions at that time.¹

It is manifest that these conditions could not continue permanently. They had to change in one direction, leading into complete demoralization and the inevitable possession and control of the country by Germany, or in the opposite direction, leading to restored discipline and subordination to central authority under competent governmental control. Much progress has been made recently towards establishing such control by the process which will now be described.

Immediately before the revolution of March 1917 the Russian Duma was in session. The Tsar ordered its dissolution and the Duma refused to obey the order. This refusal precipitated the revolution, and the Government which succeeded to the Government of the Tsar consisted of ten men selected by the Duma to be the heads of the great executive departments of government. After this act the Duma ceased to meet and it never thereafter took any official step. At the same time there came into existence in Petrograd a voluntary body of about 2,500 members called the Council of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Deputies, selected or purporting to be selected in one way or another by various soldiers’ and workingmen’s organizations or groups. This body contained the most active revolutionists and many of the extreme socialists, as well as many moderate socialists. It had at the outset the practical adherence of the great body of the Petrograd garrison, and although it was without any official status or responsibility, it had a greater power to exercise force at that particular time and place than the Provisional Government established by the Duma. The Provisional Government had taken possession of the machinery of administration but had no power to enforce its decrees. It had at its command no army, no police force and no effective control of public opinion. The Council of Deputies, on the other hand, had control of a military force, effective at the seat of government, but it had no machinery or competency to carry on government. About the time this Special Mission left America an agreement was effected between these two bodies under which the number of ministers in the Provisional Government was increased to fourteen, several of the leading ministers resigned and the vacancies were filled by the appointment of five socialists selected by the Council of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Deputies. Among the socialist Ministers were Messrs. Kerensky, now Minister of War; Tseretelli, now Minister of Posts and Telegraphs; and Skobelev, Minister of Labor. Among the old Ministers who remained and who may, in a general way, be described as conservatives, were Prince Lvov, who had been and continued as President of the Council; Mr. Tereshchenko, who had been Minister of Finance and became Minister of Foreign Relations; and Mr. Nekrasov, who is now Minister of Justice.¹ About the time of the mission’s arrival in Russia the voluntary Petrograd Council of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Deputies was practically superseded by an All-Russian Council of Workmen’s, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, which was in a rough way elected from all parts of the country. This body gradually assumed more positive functions in relation to government; it developed a sense of responsibility to assist rather than to interfere in carrying on the Government; it was more conservative than the Petrograd Council of Deputies had been; it discussed questions of governmental policy more soberly and intelligently; its declarations of policy had more authority; and the Provisional Government sought and acquired its confidence and support. In a series of votes majorities were secured of about four to one in favor of the Government. The minority upon all these votes was composed of the extreme and destructive socialists. Shortly before we left Petrograd the All-Russian Council of Deputies adjourned, leaving an Executive Committee of 250 to act in its place.

The policy of the Provisional Government was to pursue a course which by its moderation and patience would satisfy the moderate socialists in the Council of Deputies and gradually separate them from the extreme and irreconcilable socialists, commonly described as “Maximalists” or “Bolsheviks.” This policy has apparently been successful. With the support of the majority of the Council of Deputies the Temporary Government acquired control of the great majority of the Petrograd garrison, and the Maximalists were left alone without the power to control or overthrow the Government in Petrograd by the use of force. Thus established the Provisional Government has now become possessed of power to enforce its decrees. It has made strenuous efforts on the one hand to restore normal industrial activity by the reasonable settlement of labor disputes, and on the other to restore the fighting spirit of the army by counteracting the German propaganda. Mr. Kerensky, the Minister of War, has proved to be a most powerful advocate in his appeals to the soldiers, and he has succeeded in making a very great improvement in discipline and in the fighting spirit of the troops. The substitution of General Brusilov as Commander in Chief of the Armies in place of General Alexeev was probably not due so much to a comparison of military merits, which are very high in both cases, as to the fact that General Brusilov is very popular indeed with the army and has great influence with the soldiers as a brilliant and successful military leader. It is probably not far wrong to say that the real objective of the advance which was begun by General Brusilov on June 18/July 1 in front of Tarnopol was really the Russian rather than the Austrian Army, and that the purpose was rather to restore the fighting power of the Russian Army as a whole than to destroy the fighting power of the Austrian Army. That purpose has been to a very great extent accomplished, although there are certain organizations which are practically under German control and which can not be relied upon.

It is the unanimous opinion of the mission that the Russian people have the qualities of character which will make it possible to restore discipline, and coherent and intelligently directed action, both in military and in civil life, notwithstanding the temporary distressing conditions already described, which are not the result of weakness or fault in the Russian people but are the natural and inevitable results of the conditions under which the people were held before the revolution, the misgovernment of the bureaucracy, and the astounding suddenness with which the country was deprived of its accustomed government. The Russians have natural self-control and kindly consideration and respect for the rights of others; they are naturally law-abiding and they have extraordinary capacity for united action. That capacity has been shown in their local self-government, in the Zemstvo Unions, in the success of the Narodny or People’s Banks, and in many cooperative organizations for manufactures and for the sale of products. When they have once learned to apply their qualities in the field of national government, we have little doubt that they will be able to establish and maintain successfully free self-government on a great scale. Such a development, however, cannot be accomplished in a day; time is essential; but they are moving now with a rapidity which is quite extraordinary.

The members of the mission considered that not merely sympathy for the Russian people but the plain policy of the United States required that they should give such aid as was in their power to this process of reintegration of government in Russia.

The members of the mission agreed in a course of action which should tend towards the accomplishment of three objects:

(1) To encourage hope and faith in the success of the effort of the Russian people to create and maintain adequate free self-government;

(2) To inspire confidence in the Provisional Government and an appreciation of the fact that the progress towards order lay through the maintenance of that Government; and

(3) To promote a realization of the fact that the effective continuance of the war was the only course by which the opportunity for Russia to work out the conditions of her own freedom could be preserved from destruction by German domination.

The members of the mission undertook to follow this course by great numbers of public speeches and a multitude of private interviews. A certain division of labor was naturally developed. Mr. Mott and Mr. Crane addressed themselves especially to the Russian Church, both the Orthodox Church, the Old Believers’ Church, and other religious bodies, with most gratifying results; and upon this a special report is appended.¹ Mr. Russell addressed himself to the moderate socialists, Mr. Duncan to the laborers, who were eager to learn about the methods of successful labor organizations in the United States; special reports by them are also annexed hereto.¹ Mr. Bertron and Mr. McCormick addressed themselves to the bankers and business men; General Scott to the soldiers; Admiral Glennon to the sailors; Mr. Root to the persons concerned in Government and quasi-governmental and public organizations. The most important public speeches were reported, translated and published in various forms. A great many of the less important speeches were not preserved. The most important of the speeches made by Mr. Root, Mr. Mott, Mr. Russell and Mr. Duncan, so far as they were preserved, are annexed to this report.¹

The mission feels that its efforts have not been without effect; that it succeeded to some degree in bringing to bear upon conditions in Russia the moral force of the hundred million people in the United States who are known to have achieved and maintained their own liberty, and in giving strength and confidence to the elements of Russian life which were struggling towards order and the effective prosecution of the war; and that they have contributed something towards the unquestionable progress which has been made in Russia towards effective government.

We wish to express our most grateful appreciation of the aid cooperation and friendship of the Ambassador to Russia, Mr. Francis, and his entire Embassy staff. The jealousy which so often exists in a mild form between regular and special missions to the same country was entirely absent in this case. Nothing could be more generous and kindly than the attitude and action of the Ambassador and his staff towards the Special Mission. The policy of the mission already described was the policy of Mr. Francis, the methods which it pursued were the methods of Mr. Francis; and the two missions worked together with entire harmony, mutual helpfulness and frankness of intercommunication to accomplish a single end.

The mission will not here repeat the recommendations which it has made from time to time by cable from Petrograd in regard to specific material aid to Russia. It is the understanding of the Russian Government that actual negotiations regarding credits and the specific form and direction of such material aid as the United States may be able to give to Russia shall proceed at Washington. We accordingly refrain from further specific recommendations until advised as to the particular requests which may have been made through the Russian mission now in Washington headed by Professor Bakhmeteff.

Upon the policy of giving substantial aid to Russia in a large way, both in supplies and in credits, and in the moral support which these would involve, our conclusions are:

(1) That with such aid there is a strong probability of keeping Russia in the war and the Russian Army in the field until a general peace can be made upon terms satisfactory to the United States and its Allies;

(2) That there is little prospect that Russia can be kept in the war and the Russian Army in the field without such aid;

(3) That the benefit of keeping Russia in the war, and its army in the field will be so enormous that the risk involved in rendering the aid required should not be seriously considered.

There are two quite distinct possibilities to be hoped for. One is, that the Russian Army may be restored to its former effectiveness as an active, striking force and may be able to take its full part in the general strategic cooperation of the Allies, driving at the eastern front of the Central powers, while the other Allies drive at the other fronts. The other is, that the Russian Army may be enabled merely to maintain its defensive, keeping the Central powers out of Russia and requiring them to maintain continuously a large force upon their eastern front. If only the second of these possibilities is accomplished, the advantage to the United States and its Allies would be so great as to justify the expenditure by the United States of the largest sums which it can possibly devote to that purpose.

Soon after our arrival in Petrograd the mission received an urgent request to visit Rumania. Being without instructions upon that subject, General Scott, by request of the mission, took advantage of his visit to that part of the Russo-Rumanian front which is in Rumanian territory, to make to the Government of Rumania a respectful acknowledgment of the invitation, and at the same time to observe the military conditions in that country. The letter General Scott presented to the King and Queen of Rumania on behalf of the mission is annexed hereto, and his observations on the conditions which he observed are embodied in a separate report, a copy of which is also annexed.¹

The mission wishes to make acknowledgment to the Navy Department for the services rendered by Commander Hinds of the U. S. S. Buffalo in transporting the mission to Vladivostok and back to Seattle; to the staff with which the mission was supplied by the State Department for their faithful and devoted services; to the American Consuls, Mr. Caldwell at Vladivostok, Mr. Moser at Harbin, Mr. Winship at Petrograd, Mr. Summers at Moscow, and Mr. Willoughby Smith of Tiflis, who kindly joined us at Petrograd, for their effective and active assistance in these cities.

And the mission especially desires that the Government of the United States may appreciate the warmth of hospitality and the solicitude of attention and care with which the Provisional Government of Russia and its civil, military, and naval officers treated the mission during the entire period of its visit from its landing at Vladivostok on the 3d of June until its sailing from that port on the 21st of July.

The farewell correspondence between the mission and the Foreign Office is appended.¹

Respectfully submitted.

August 1917

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• Elihu Root
• H. L. Scott
• S. A. Bertron
• James Duncan
• Charles Edward Russell
• John E. Mott
• Cyrus H. McCormick
• O. H. Glennon

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1. Ante, pp. 118 and 122.
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1. In the ministry as published in Izvestia Aug. 7 Nekrasov became Minister of Finance, see also post, p. 178; for his post in the coalition ministry see ante, p. 79.
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