File No. 861.00/2005

The Russian Ambassador (Bakhmeteff) to the Secretary of State

My Dear Mr. Secretary: I take pleasure in forwarding to you a copy of the extract of the resolution recently adopted by the central committee of the Constitutional Democratic (Cadet) Party concerning Allied intervention in Russia which has been transmitted to me by cable from Paris with the request that this message be respectfully submitted to the President.

I understand that the Cadet Party considers it imperative that their loyal feelings be emphasized because of the recent rumors concerning the presumed pro-German views of the Russian intellectual and well-to-do classes.

I avail myself [etc.]

B. Bakhmeteff
[Enclosure]

Extract of the Resolution Adopted by the Central Committee of the Cadet Party Concerning Allied Intervention in Russia

We never recognized the conditions of the Brest Litovsk peace and consider that the disastrous situation in which they have placed Russia can only be ameliorated with the aid of the Allies.

The movement of the Germans on Russian soil, their perpetual seizure of new regions, still continues and there seems to be no limit to such occupation. Under such conditions we cannot restrain from appealing to our Allies to whom we have frequently given proof of the loyalty of our feelings.

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We proclaim our conviction that the appearance of a new powerful factor on the scene of struggle undoubtedly will have a decisive bearing on the issues of the war and on the conditions of peace.

We can assure in the most conclusive manner that the information picturing that the Russian democracy does not approve of Allied aid is false. If such information has reached the President of the United States it must originate from Bolshevik sources. The Bolsheviki in no way are representative of the Russian democracy. Their regime, a fictitious rule of democracy, is really oligarchy, demagogy and despotism, which at the present moment relies only on physical force and daily becomes more and more odious to the popular masses.

Nevertheless, we consider it our duty to emphasize that the attitude of the Russian public opinion towards the Allied action is conditioned by the forms of its realization. Its success depends on the whole-hearted support of national feeling in Russia. It is furthermore imperative for the Russian public opinion to receive assurances that the compensations due to Japan and to the other powers who will take part in the expedition be coordinated with the inviolability of rights and interests of Russia and that the actions of all the Allies on Russian territory be performed under international control.