861.00/4990: Telegram
The Ambassador in Japan (Morris), temporarily at Omsk, to the Secretary of State
[Received August 7, 7:09 p.m.]
On August 3rd, I finished my informal conferences with Allied and Chinese Government representatives and will forward reports on the subjects discussed as soon as detailed figures are prepared. I now submit the following report on the personnel, the spirit and purposes, the efficiency and the present strength of the Kolchak government as far as I have been able to observe it after two weeks of intimate contact.
1st. The personnel. Admiral Kolchak is, in my judgment, an honest and courageous man of very limited experience in public affairs, of narrow views and small administrative ability. He is dictator in name but exercises little influence on the Council of Ministers. His intentions are good, but he seems to have had no appreciation until recently of the political and economic dangers which threaten the Government. He has no military knowledge or experience.
The Council of Ministers may be as representative as any Siberia could produce, but the civilian members are all young and inexperienced men. Sukine is probably the ablest; Michailoff, the Minister of Finance, the son of an exile, is the best informed on Siberian affairs but knows nothing about finance. I believe the civilian members [Page 404] of the Council are all earnest men, moderate in their political views and honest, but inefficient. Of the military members and the officers of the General Staff, nothing favorable can be said. As a body they have shown themselves intolerant, reactionary, and corrupt. They have dominated the Government for the last six months because, as suggested in your July 26, 4 p.m., every one considered the problem of the Government wholly military.
2d. The spirit and purposes of the Kolchak government are, I believe, moderately liberal and progressive. If one excepts the military officials of the old regime who compose a majority of the General Staff, the men around Kolchak could not be classed as reactionary in their aims. Some are monarchists, some republicans, and a few socialists. I am confident that Kolchak and his associates would, if retained in power, redeem their promise to call a constituent assembly. Their weakness does not lie in spirit or purposes, it lies in their utter lack of experience and efficiency.
3d. Efficiency. The ministers, handicapped by inexperience and an astonishing ignorance of conditions and needs, seem quite incapable of conducting a government. They are clever in devising plans which have little or no contact with actual facts but are unable to act in the simplest matters of detail. Nothing like civil administration exists. Their predicament is in part due to the unrepresentative character of the Government. They have lost all touch, if they ever had any, with those groups in the population, the Co-operatives, the Zemstvos, the existing party organizations,—which know the conditions and might suggest practicable measures. The result has been inaction in every department, and this has offered to the military leaders the opportunity they have sought. On the ground that the only object of the Government was the destruction of Bolshevism by force, they have seized the power in every locality and have wielded it with a ruthlessness which has antagonized the population and with a disregard of vital economic and financial problems which now endanger the success of the whole movement. In their zeal to raise a large army for the front, they have not considered any necessary measure to support that army in the rear. The result is now a total collapse—financial, economic and sanitary; the transportation system alone survives under the protection of Czech and Allied troops and the supervision of Allied engineers. But even this arrangement cannot long survive the present financial and economic chaos. To mistakes of military policy must be added an incredible amount of corruption among individual officials which Kolchak has not seriously attempted to correct or punish.
4th. The present strength of the Kolchak government. The Government has failed in administration; has failed in the organization [Page 405] of the army; has failed to retain the confidence of the moderate groups. Still it has elements of strength. In the first place, I can find no one who doubts the Admiral’s honesty of purpose or his patriotic motives. In spite of all the intrigue around him, he, personally, still commands a large measure of sympathy and respect. In the second place, however helpless this Government has proved, no alternative is offered around which those opposed to Bolshevikism might rally. The choice which confronts every moderate in Siberia is between Kolchak and Bolshevikism.
Finally, the Admiral has had during the last winter the active support of France and Great Britain. It is true that the French and British representatives are now thoroughly disgusted with the use he has made of this support and the lack of cooperation, the ingratitude and inefficiency displayed. But the help has been substantial and has created a certain amount of confidence and strength. Just now this confidence has been greatly increased by the hope that our Government will not only give Kolchak material assistance but will take a more direct interest in his policies.
At this moment it appears doubtful whether the Government can survive the present crisis. Kolchak and his colleagues have learned a great deal from the mistakes which they now recognize they have made during the last eight months. The military leaders have lost much of their influence because of their obvious failure in army organization and in civil administration. I find myself hoping that Kolchak will hold out long enough to permit the Allied Governments to give him the support and assistance which he will need and thus enable him to build on broader and sounder foundations. In my telegrams I will submit my observations on the crisis and hazard an opinion as to its outcome et cetera.