File No. 861.00/773
The Ambassador in France ( Sharp) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 7, 2.20 a.m.]
2857. Mr. Maklakov, the Russian Ambassador, told me to-day orally that he had just heard from his government for the first time [Page 288] ill about a week. The telegram was signed by Trotsky and directed him to notify all the Russian consuls in France that an armistice would be declared between Germany and Russia and Russian Government directed him also that unless he was in sympathy with such a program he should consider himself as removed from his position and should turn over the mission with all the archives, records, etc., to one of his secretaries. The message concluded by asking for an immediate telegraphic reply.
The Ambassador said to me [if] the situation at Petrograd were not so grave and his action not liable possibly to prejudice the action of the Allies he would merely reply by asking who Trotsky was. He told me that this man was a Jew by birth and that his real name was Bernstein [Bronstein], Under the circumstances, however, he said that he would make no reply whatever to the telegram. He declared that regardless of future events in Russia he would never permit himself to retain his position under a government controlled by Trotsky. He regarded Lenin as fanatical rather than corrupt.
During our talk he advanced the rather interesting view that if the proceedings attending the discussion of the terms of armistice were to be made public each day, the German Government might thereby be compelled to take such a position as would reveal her true purposes in such a manner as to cause widespread revulsion among the Russian people. He expressed the opinion that under the circumstances such a plan of publicity as announced by Lenin and his associates, thus putting Germany on record, might have an unexpected effect from that which its promoters sought.
The Ambassador commended the President’s message1 very highly and said that he thought its dissemination among the Russian people would be of great value in refuting the German propaganda that had been industriously carried on among his people to the effect that the Allies were bent on carrying out an imperialist policy favoring annexation of territory.
- Address to Congress, Dec. 4; Foreign Relations, 1917, p. ix.↩