861.00/5818
The Russian Embassy to the Department of State
1. The supply of munitions to the national forces in Russia is an indispensible element to any program of assistance. This is conditioned by the fact that the Bolsheviki rule has developed into a purely military organization where a handful of politicians are ruling the country through and by means of a military machine.
This machine cannot be destroyed within any reasonable period of time except by force.
2. These conditions will govern in so far as time is considered of essence in the case. Left alone Russia would certainly befree herself but this process would undoubtedly be extremely lengthy and in its development reveal social decomposition and decay, contaminating adjacent bodies or leading to a seizure of a destitute Russia by reviving imperialistic forces.
The process of contamination may not be passive altogether. The military machine of the Russian Bolshevik, if befreed from internal entanglements, would sweep westward imposing Soviet rule on a prostrated Europe.
3. One can appreciate that certain American opinion resents the shipment of munitions which appears as supporting the continuation of civil war. This however is but an appearance. The facts as they really stand are that pacification in Russia is possible only with the downfall of the Bolsheviks and sending munitions does not increase the number of victims but reduces them.
4. Paramount however is this: whether the whole of the Russian situation is to be considered from a sentimental point of view, i.e., as assistance to a people in distress or the problem of restitution of Russia will be dealt with in the light of general international and primarily American interests, economic and political.
As soon as the Russian problem is viewed as an indispensible element of consolidation of victory, outside of which the aims of the war cannot be attained and all the sacrifice of manpower and material may be rendered futile, Russia appears to be a problem to be judged not only by sentiment or abstract political standards but as an issue imperatively demanding a rational foreseen solution of a certain practical conjuncture.
5. The struggle going on in Russia is the most important and far-reaching element of the greater contest embracing the whole of the world. It is a part of the fight between national democracy and international class rule, which meanwhile is revealing itself in social disruption and economic anarchy and which later will unavoidably lead to the restitution of autocracy and economic imperialism.
[Page 450]This contest is uncompromising in its very nature. There is and can be no place for neutrality. The Russian situation can be properly met only if viewed from the standpoint of this struggle.