701.6111/296: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Commission to Negotiate Peace
1270. For the Secretary of State: Department has received following communication dated March 18, 1919:
[Here follows text of letter from Mr. L. Martens, printed supra.]
You will recall that Nuorteva, Secretary of the Bureau, announced himself as official representative of the Red Guard early last year and has since claimed to represent the Bolsheviki. The memorandum referred to which covers eleven pages of fool’s cap describing the success of the Bolshevik régime, concludes with the following passage:
[Here follows text of memorandum of March 18 from Mr. Martens from the paragraph beginning, “Fully realizing that economic prosperity”, to the close of the memorandum, ante, pages 140 to 141. The phrase, “as Mr. Litvinoff stated in the above quoted note”, is omitted.]
[Page 142]I assume you have official text of Soviet Constitution15 and would refer to Division 1, Chapter 2, Section 3 and Division 2, Chapter 5, Sections 9 and 10 as apparently summarizing the purpose of the Soviet Government.
It is interesting to note that Division 3, Chapter 6, Section 25 provides that the representatives to the city Soviets are elected on the basis of one deputy for 25,000 electors while the representatives of the Provincial Soviets, where the population is agricultural, are elected on one deputy for every 125,000 inhabitants. If you have no official text of the Constitution let me know if you wish me to transmit by cable. I am sending copies of all enclosures mentioned above by next mail.
The fact that these credentials and proposals have been presented to the Department is being widely circulated in the press. The credentials themselves also seem to present more clearly than heretofore the question of the attitude which this government should assume towards a régime whose Constitution, as officially communicated, stipulates that among its fundamental tasks are the securing of the victory of Socialism in all countries, the abolition of private property, the repudiation of foreign obligations, and the complete elimination of whole classes from all share in Government.
In this connection you will note the ingeniousness of the proposal of the Bolshevik representative to deposit $200,000,000 in gold in the United States and Allied countries, when the government he represents has repudiated the enormous foreign debts of Russia, including $187,000,000 advanced by the United States to the Provisional Government.
Please instruct me what action you desire to take in regard to the communication quoted above.
- A translation is printed in Foreign Relations, 1918, Russia, vol. i, pp. 587–597.↩