File No. 861.00/630
The Minister in Sweden ( Morris) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 9, 11.50 p.m.]
959. Because of the possibility of telegraphic communication between our Embassy in Russia and the Department being interrupted due to latest developments in Petrograd, I am sending the following which appear in the press this morning as dispatches from the Russian official telegram bureau. According to these telegrams Bolsheviks have made successful coup d’état; have taken the State Bank, telegraphs, telegram bureau and have arrested certain members of Kerensky’s government. It appears that an extraordinary meeting of Soviet was held yesterday afternoon, President Trotsky declaring Provisional Government no longer exists. The Council of the Republic declared dissolved. Lenin was greeted with long applause and spoke of the three problems facing Russian democracy: (1) immediate cessation of hostilities; (2) turning over land to the peasants; (3) settling the country’s economic crisis. Resolution on vote of confidence for Kerensky was defeated 123 to 102; declaration by Maximalist [sic] Party was read disapproving of the coup d’état and withdrawing from Soviet. Kerensky finally proclaimed to the temporary Parliament1 that the Government would fight even unto death to prevent the Bolshevik traitors who want to let [sic] the troops who will take Wilhelm and his friend into Russia from getting the supreme power they are aiming at. He read telegrams from the front demanding energetic measures against the excesses in St. Petersburg.
- Presumably at the session of Nov. 6.↩