File No. 861.00/2850
The Consul at Moscow (Poole), en route to Archangel, to the Secretary of State1
[Received October 2, 1.45 a.m.]
14. My No. 8, dated at Petrograd September 17, has apparently not yet reached Christiania.2 It dealt with some of the results of the German-Bolshevik alliance established by the supplementary treaties of September 6. Early in August, when German policy was still undetermined, the Bolshevik government seemed in process of dissolution. Some of the more important commissaires are even reported to have fled from Moscow. A little later as it became known that Germany had decided to support the Bolsheviks and would give effect to this decision in definite treaty engagements, the [Page 643] Bolshevik government gained in assurance. After the middle of August, it unmistakably disclosed the policy of hostility to the Allies which it had begun more or less covertly with the removal of the Ambassador from Vologda; it increased the violence of the terror against its own people; it had military successes on the Czech front, notably the taking of Kazan, Simbirsk, and Uralsk. These developments must all be regarded as beyond question direct results of the German alliance. The world should know that the Bolshevik government has been preserved beyond its natural end by German support and that Germany is morally if not directly responsible for its present misdeeds. If confirmation beyond that contained in the supplementary treaties is needed of the thoroughness of the pro-Bolshevik policy which Germany has adopted, I had it yesterday from the Duke of Leuchtenberg who is in Christiania after an unsuccessful mission to Berlin to obtain German recognition for the anti-Bolshevik government of Krasnov in the Don, and help for the monarchist movement in southern Russia. After being kept in expectancy until the supplementary treaties with the Bolsheviks were agreed to Ludendorff gave Leuchtenberg a categorical refusal on the ground that the Germans had promised the Bolsheviks to help none of the factions opposing them.
As a result the position of the Krasnov government, which has accepted German help rather unwillingly and it is understood only through the intermediary of the Ukraine, and which might in the end become one of the elements which the terms of our intervention would permit us to support, becomes critical as the Volunteer Army of Alexeev is exposed to annihilation. Both have drawn support from the Ukraine, and it is possible that in pursuance of its present policy and in view of its military distress Germany will withdraw the troops which sustain the Skoropadski government. This government would then by reason of the premature and severe reaction carried out recently in the Ukraine with German help, almost certainly give way to a strong radical or revolutionary revulsion.