With this in mind, I respectfully request that the questions brought
forward will be given favourable consideration and that I be informed of
the position which the Government of the United States will feel
inclined to take in this matter so vital to the whole future of my
country.
[Enclosure]
Aide-Mémoire
The signing of the Armistice by German representatives has brought
the armed struggle to an end and a period of general settlement has
been initiated. With all the uncertainty, under conditions
prevailing, as to the forms of the forthcoming peace proceedings, a
new order of things and relations between people is to result which
will determine the future of nations for many years.
The interests of Russia in this prospective settlement are of a
character most important and vital:
It is in the East, where the greatest changes in territorial
and national adjustment are to take place, most of which
either affect Russia directly or materially influence her
future development.
Russia’s role in the world struggle has made her a heavy
partner to the great international arrangements of war
finance and economics, the regularization and adjustment of
which is imminent.
The vast territories invaded, with their millions of
inhabitants, have been subject to untold suffering,
spoliation and reprisals.
The Central Powers are holding nearly two million Russian
prisoners of war.
[Page 268]
During the Bolsheviki period an ingenious net work of
economic obligations had been imposed upon Russia by Germany
for the purpose of peaceful conquest.
The sacrifices, which Russia contributed to the war, appear to
justify that no discrimination should be applied toward a people
unhappy enough to be the first victim of the social disease now
threatening the world. It would be incommensurate with the momentous
import of issues, which are to determine the fate of the country for
the next generations, to be guided by considerations due to
incidental and temporary disability. In order to be stable and
complete the settlement has to account with the just interests and
participation of Russia. Arrangements, which might be regarded in
the future as unfair to the Russian people, would carry the prospect
of trouble and disquietude.
Certain general principles might be formulated, which in a spirit of
fairness and justice would determine the treatment which Russia is
to receive in the peace proceedings:
- 1.
- No questions, directly affecting Russia, to be settled
definitely without her cognizance and consent.
- 2.
- Russia to participate on terms equal and similar with
regard to reparation and restitution due to spoliation and
reprisals.
- 3.
- Russian prisoners of war to receive treatment
equal.
- 4.
- No financial or economic arrangements, for readjusting the
past or providing for the future, to be entered upon, which
would not include Russia in full and equal
participation.
- 5.
- In all covenants, establishing the basis of future
relations, Russia to receive full participation.
In order to render justice to the Russian people and to safeguard
their interests in the future peace proceedings, Russia has to
receive proper representation. The mere supposition to the contrary
is inconceivable. With Russia’s voice unheard a wrong would
persist—a source of permanent ill-feeling. In order to meet the
imperative necessity of providing for a representation of Russia,
difficulties of a formal character, arising from the disabled state
of the country, should be overcome.
November 20, 1918.