File No. 861.00/3324
The Chargé in Russia (Poole) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 3, 5.11 a.m.]
625. To Paris also. News of coup d’état in Siberia which was received by Allied Embassies several days ago has now been officially communicated to Chaikovski by Maklakov at Paris and will probably be published to-morrow.
Chaikovski is disturbed by Siberian developments and apparent Allied support for Denikin in the south. He desired to send a protest to Omsk but failed to obtain support of the other members of the provisional government of the northern region, who are [Page 574] almost all bourgeois. Two of them are more or less frankly pleased with the turn of events in Siberia, only one supported his proposal for a protest, the remaining either vacillated or counseled delay.
Failing support of the government, he desired to send independent protest in his capacity as a member of the Directory, but the British and the French Ambassadors have dissuaded him for the present, creating the hope that the Allied Governments may effect some adjustment at Omsk acceptable to him. They have informed him that they have recommended to their governments the discountenancing of illegal and forceful measures.
Increased activity has been perceptible for some days in local commercial and banking circles in favor of the reaction. A leading Cadet has published in a local newspaper an attack upon the Constitutional Assembly as having been elected under circumstances which gave it no real sanction, and denying the authority of highest members of the Assembly or groups thereof to set up governments such as the Omsk Directory. There seems to be also some monarchist agitation among the Russian army officers. As a precautionary measure, Chaplin, who figured in the arrest of the Governor, September 5, has been sent out of Archangel. Concurrently with the foregoing there are evidences of increased unrest and radical agitation among the laboring classes.