Paris Peace Conference 861.00/136: Telegram
The Chargé in Denmark (Osborne) to the Commission to Negotiate Peace
[Received in Paris January 19, 4:45 p.m.]
116. From Buckler for Secretary Lansing, to be decoded by or under the supervision of Grew or Harrison:
As [I leave] today for Paris via Basle, and as my journey across Germany may be delayed, the following summary is submitted pending full report:
I saw Litvinoff on January 14th, 15th and 16th, explaining I was merely a private telephone without authority to make proposals of any kind. He agreed that our talk should be confidential.
The Soviet Government, he declared, is anxious for permanent peace and fully indorses his telegram to the President of December 24.20 They detest the military preparations and costly campaigns now forced upon Russia after four years of exhausting war and wish to ascertain whether the Allies and the United States desire peace. If they do, it can easily be negotiated, for the Soviet Government is prepared to compromise on all points, including the Russian foreign debt, protection to existing foreign enterprises and the granting of new concessions in Russia. Details as to possible compromises cannot now be given because Litvinoff has no idea of what claims the Allies will present nor of what resources Russia will have wherewith to satisfy those claims. As stated, these data are available, the particulars can be worked out by experts and on all points. The conciliatory attitude of the Soviet Government is unquestionable.
He showed me an open wireless telegram just received from Tchitcherine affirming the willingness of the government to conciliate on the question of the foreign debt. Litvinoff and his associates fully [Page 16] realize that for a long time Russia will need expert assistance and advice especially in technical and financial matters and that she cannot get on without foreign machinery and manufactured imports. If peace were once made, Russian Bolshevist propaganda in foreign countries would cease at once. The war declared on Russia by the Allies called forth that revolutionary propaganda as a measure of retaliation just as it has produced violence and terror in other (apparent omission). These [activities?] will all cease as soon as the war stops. Against Germany propaganda has been freely used but militarist Germany was till recently Russia’s most dangerous enemy and was really at war with her notwithstanding the nominal peace of Brest Litovsk. During the eight months in which Litvinoff was Russian representative he conducted [no?] political propaganda except defense of his government against attack and everything issued by him was printed in England. This the Foreign Office which seized all his papers can confirm. Russians realize that in certain western countries conditions are not favorable for a revolution of the Russian type. No amount of propaganda can produce such conditions. If Russia could make peace with the Allies these results would immediately follow:
- 1st.
- An amnesty would be extended to Russians who have been hostile to the Soviet Government and bitterness against them would soon disappear. Such persons being few in number would be allowed to leave Russia if they chose.
- 2nd.
- The intrinsic weakness of the forces opposed to the Soviet Government, South Russia, Siberia, and Archangel, would at once be revealed. These represent only a minority in each district and have owed their local successes solely to Allied support.
- 3rd.
- The present hostility toward Russia of Finland and other countries needing Russian products would speedily vanish. Russians have no imperialistic designs on Finland, Poland or Ukraine and wish only to give them full rights of self-determination, but so long as foreign powers support the capitalist classes there Russia feels justified in supporting the working classes in these countries.
Litvinoff does not deny the many Soviet blunders but says that the system has worked well considering the enormous difficulties faced during the past year and that its efficiency is constantly improving. The peasant cooperatives now working with the Soviet are managing well the distribution of food. If this new system were now overthrown by force, more anarchy and starvation must ensue. Insofar as the League of Nations can prevent war without encouraging reaction, it can count on the support of the Soviet Government.
So much for Litvinoff. The following information was given to me by Arthur Ransome, Daily News correspondent, who left Moscow last August but has kept constant contact with Bolshevists [Page 17] in Stockholm and knows their views intimately. He believes they would compromise as to the Ural and other frontiers, a point on which I pressed L. but got no definite answer beyond a claim that all Siberia must be Russian. Ransome also believes that continued intervention by the Entente can in time smash the Soviet power. When however this has been accomplished intervention on a still larger scale must continue in an indefinite period in order to cure the inevitable anarchy. The Soviet Government is the only one showing capacity to hold the Russian people and no successor to it could exist without military support. This fact and the discontent certain to be caused in Entente countries by such prolonged military effort are fully appreciated by a large class of Bolshevists, who oppose Tchitcherin’s and Litvinoff’s plans for compromise and hope for more active Allied intervention. The continuance of such intervention plays into the hands of these extremists whereas a policy of agreement with the Soviet Government will counteract their influence, will strengthen the moderates and by reviving trade and industry will procure prosperity, the best of all antidotes to Bolshevism.
If you care to bring Ransome to Paris he could inform you almost as well as Litvinoff respecting the Soviet Government attitude on any question.
Since L. has for a month been deprived of mail and of wireless cipher, no effective negotiation can begin until the Allies arrange with Sweden and Finland so that he may communicate confidentially with his government; and since he fears expulsion at any moment from Sweden this can be arranged without delay if negotiation is contemplated. As Litvinoff is the only possible channel for such negotiation, as the Legation at Stockholm may not appear to you a suitable intermediary and as the journey from here to Paris takes three and a half days, I await your instructions here in case you should wish me to return to Stockholm. If you wish me to come to Paris please instruct me as promptly as possible.