Paris Peace Conference 184.02202/11
Memorandum by Mr. William C. Bullitt for the President and the
Commissioners Plenipotentiary to Negotiate Peace
Economic Situation
Russia today is in a condition of acute economic distress. The blockade
by land and sea is the cause of this distress and lack of the essentials
of transportation is its gravest symptom. Only one fourth of the
locomotives which ran on Russian lines before the war are now available
for use. Furthermore, Soviet Russia is cut off entirely from all
supplies of coal and gasoline. In consequence, transportation by all
steam and electric vehicles is greatly hampered; and transportation by
automobile and by the fleet of gasoline-using Volga steamers and canal
boats is impossible. (Appendix Page 1075)
As a result of these hindrances to transportation it is possible to bring
from the grain centres to Moscow only 25 carloads of food a day, instead
of the 100 carloads which are essential, and to Petrograd only 15
carloads, instead of the essential 50. In consequence, every man, woman
and child in Moscow and Petrograd is suffering from slow starvation.
(App. P. 11)
Mortality is particularly high among new-born children, whose mothers
cannot suckle them, among newly-delivered mothers, and among the aged.
The entire population, in addition, is exceptionally susceptible to
disease; and a slight illness is apt to result fatally because of the
total lack of medicines. Typhoid, typhus and smallpox are epidemic in
both Petrograd and Moscow.
Industry, except the production of munitions of war, is largely at a
standstill. Nearly all means of transport which are not employed [Page 86] in carrying food are used to
supply the army, and there is scarcely any surplus transport to carry
materials essential to normal industry. Furthermore, the army has
absorbed the best executive brains and physical vigor of the nation. In
addition, Soviet Russia is cut off from most of its sources of iron and
of cotton. Only the flax, hemp, wood and lumber industries have an
adequate supply of raw material.
On the other hand, such essentials of economic life as are available are
being utilized to the utmost by the Soviet Government. Such trains as
there are, run on time. The distribution of food is well-controlled.
Many industrial experts of the old regime are again managing their
plants and sabotage by such managers has ceased. Loafing by the workmen
during work-hours has been overcome. (App. P. 12)
Social Conditions
The destructive phase of the revolution is over and all the energy of the
Government is turned to constructive work. The terror has ceased. All
power of judgment has been taken away from the Extraordinary Commission
for Suppression of the Counter-Revolution, which now merely accuses
suspected counter-revolutionaries who are tried by the regular,
established, legal tribunals. Executions are extremely rare. Good order
has been established. The streets are safe. Shooting has ceased. There
are few robberies. Prostitution has disappeared from sight. Family life
has been unchanged by the revolution—the canard in regard to
“nationalization of women” notwithstanding. (App. P. 13)
The theatres, opera and ballet are performing as in peace. Thousands of
new schools have been opened in all parts of Russia and the Soviet
Government seems to have done more for the education of the Russian
people in a year and a half than Czardom did in fifty years. (App. P.
14)
Political Situation
The Soviet form of Government is firmly established. Perhaps the most
striking fact in Russia today is the general support which is given the
Government by the people in spite of their starvation. Indeed, the
people lay the blame for their distress wholly on the blockade and on
the Governments which maintain it. The Soviet form of government seems
to have become to the Russian people the symbol of their revolution.
Unquestionably it is a form of Government which lends itself to gross
abuse and tyranny but it meets the demand of the moment in Russia and it
has acquired so great a hold on the imagination of the common people
that the women are ready to starve and the young men to die for it.
(App. P. 15)
[Page 87]
The position of the Communist Party, (formerly Bolsheviki) is also very
strong. Blockade and intervention have caused the chief opposition
parties, the Bight Social Revolutionaries and the Menshiviki, to give
temporary support to the Communists. These opposition parties have both
made formal statements against the blockade, intervention and the
support of Anti-Soviet Governments by the Allied and Associated
Governments. Their leaders, Volsky and Martov, are most vigorous in
their demands for the immediate raising of the blockade and peace. (App.
P. 16)
Indeed, the only ponderable opposition to the Communists today comes from
more radical parties—the Left Social
Revolutionaries and the Anarchists. These parties, in published
statements, call the Communists, and particularly Lenin and Tchitcherin, “the paid bourgeois gendarmes of the
Entente”! They attack the Communists because the Communists have
encouraged scientists, engineers and industrial experts of the bourgeois
class to take important posts under the Soviet Government at high pay.
They rage against the employment of bourgeois officers in the army and
against the efforts of the Communists to obtain peace. They demand the
immediate massacre of all the bourgeoisie and an immediate declaration
of war on all non-revolutionary governments. They argue that the Entente
Governments should be forced to intervene more deeply in Russia,
asserting that such action would surely provoke the proletariat of all
European countries to immediate revolution.
Within the Communist Party itself, there is a distinct division of
opinion in regard to foreign policy; but this disagreement has not
developed personal hostility or open breach in the ranks of the Party.
Trotsky, the Generals and
many theorists believe the Red Army should go forward everywhere until
more vigorous intervention by the Entente is provoked, which they, too,
count upon to bring revolution in France and England. Their attitude is
not a little colored by pride in the spirited young army. (App. P. 18)
Lenin, Tchitcherin and the bulk of the Communist
Party, on the other hand, insist that the essential problem at present
is to save the proletariat of Russia, in particular, and the proletariat
of Europe, in general, from starvation, and assert that it will benefit
the revolution but little to conquer all Europe if the Government of the
United States replies by starving all Europe. They advocate, therefore,
the conciliation of the United States even at the cost of compromising
with many of the principles they hold most dear. And Lenin’s prestige in Russia at present
is so overwhelming that the Trotsky group is forced reluctantly to follow him. (App.
P. 19)
Lenin, indeed, as a practical
matter, stands well to the right in the existing political life of
Russia. He recognizes the undesirability, [Page 88] from the Socialist viewpoint, of the compromises he
feels compelled to make; but he is ready to make the compromises. Among
the more notable concessions he has already made are: the abandonment of
his plan to nationalize the land and the adoption of the policy of
dividing it among the peasants, the establishment of savings banks
paying three percent interest, the decision to pay all foreign debts,
and the decision to give concessions if that shall prove to be necessary
to obtain credit abroad. (App. P. 20)
In a word, Lenin feels compelled
to retreat from his theoretical position all along the line. He is ready
to meet the western Governments half-way.
Peace Proposal
Lenin seized upon the opportunity
presented by my trip of investigation to make a definite statement of
the position of the Soviet Government. He was opposed by Trotsky and the Generals, but without
much difficulty got the support of the majority of the Executive Council
and the statement of the position of the Soviet Government which was
handed to me was finally adopted unanimously. (App. P.)76
My discussion of this proposal with the leaders of the Soviet Government
was so detailed that I feel sure of my ground in saying that it does not
represent the minimum terms of the Soviet Government and that I can
point out in detail wherein it may be modified without making it
unacceptable to the Soviet Government. For example, the clause under
Article 5—“and to their own nationals who have been or may be prosecuted
for giving help to Soviet Russia”—is certainly not of vital importance.
And the clause under Article 4, in regard to admission of citizens of
the Soviet Republics of Russia into the Allied and Associated countries,
may certainly be changed in such a way as to reserve all necessary
rights to control such immigration to the Allied and Associated
Countries, and to confine it to persons who come on legitimate and
necessary business, and to exclude definitely all possibility of an
influx of propagandists.
Conclusions
The following conclusions are respectfully submitted:
- 1.
- No Government save a Socialist Government can be set up in
Russia today except by foreign bayonets and any government so
set up will fall the moment such support is withdrawn. The
Lenin wing of the
Communist Party is today as moderate as any Socialist Government
which can control Russia.
- 2.
- No real peace can be established in Europe or the world until
peace is made with the revolution. This proposal of the Soviet
Government presents an opportunity to make peace with the
revolution on a just and reasonable basis—perhaps a unique
opportunity.
- 3.
- If the blockade is lifted and supplies begin to be delivered
regularly to Soviet Russia, a more powerful hold over the
Russian people will be established than that given by the
blockade itself—the hold given by fear that this delivery of
supplies may be stopped. Furthermore, the parties which oppose
the Communists in principle but are supporting them at present
will be able to begin to fight against them.
- 4.
- It is, therefore, respectfully recommended that a proposal
following the general lines of the suggestion of the Soviet
Government should be made at the earliest possible moment, such
changes being made, particularly in Article 4 and Article 5, as
will make the proposal acceptable to conservative opinion in the
Allied and Associated Countries.
Very respectfully submitted,
[Enclosure]
Appendix to Memorandum by Mr. William C. Bullitt
Transport
Locomotives.—Before the war Russia had 22,000
locomotives. Destruction by war and ordinary wear and tear have
reduced the number of locomotives in good order to 5,500. Russia is
entirely cut off from supplies of spare parts and materials for
repair, facilities for the manufacture of which do not exist in
Russia. And the Soviet Government is able only with the greatest
difficulty to keep in running order the few locomotives at its
disposal.
Coal.—Soviet Russia is entirely cut off from
supplies of coal. Kolchak
holds the Perm mining district, although Soviet troops are now on
the edge of it. Denikin still
holds the larger part of the Donetz coal district and has destroyed
the mines in the portion of the district which he has evacuated. As
a result of this, locomotives, electrical power plants, etc., must
be fed with wood, which is enormously expensive and laborious and
comparatively ineffectual.
Gasoline.—There is a total lack of gasoline
due to the British occupation of Baku. The few automobiles in the
cities which are kept running for vital Government business are fed
with a substitute mixture which causes them to break down with great
frequency and to miss continually. Almost the entire fleet on the
great inland waterway system of Russia was propelled by gasoline. As
a result [Page 90] the Volga and the
canals which are so vital a part of Russia’s system of
transportation are useless.
Food
Everyone is hungry in Moscow and Petrograd, including the People’s
Commissaries themselves. The daily ration of Lenin and the other Commissaries
is the same as that of a soldier in the army or of a workman at hard
labor. In the hotel which is reserved for Government officials the
menu is the following: Breakfast: a quarter to half a pound of black
bread, which must last all day, and tea, without sugar. Dinner: a
good soup, a small piece of fish, for which occasionally a
diminutive piece of meat is substituted, a vegetable, either a
potato or a bit of cabbage, more tea without sugar. Supper: what
remains of the morning ration of bread and more tea without
sugar.
Occasionally sugar, butter and chickens slip through from the Ukraine
and are sold secretly at atrocious prices—butter, for example, at
140 roubles a pound. Whenever the Government is able to get its
hands on any such “luxuries” it turns them over to the schools,
where an attempt is made to give every child a good dinner every
day.
The food situation has been slightly improved by the rejoining of
Ukraine to Great Russia, for food is relatively plentiful in the
South; but no great improvement in the situation is possible because
of the lack of transport.
Management
Such supplies as are available in Soviet Russia are being utilized
with considerable skill. For example, in spite of the necessity of
firing with wood, the Moscow–Petrograd express keeps up to its
schedule and on both occasions when I made the trip it took but
thirteen hours, compared to the twelve hours of pre-war days.
The food control works well so that there is no abundance alongside
of famine. Powerful and weak alike endure about the same degree of
starvation.
The Soviet Government has made great efforts to persuade industrial
managers and technical experts of the old regime to enter its
service. Many very prominent men have done so. And the Soviet
Government pays them as high as $45,000 a year for their services,
although Lenin gets but
$1,800 a year. This very anomalous situation arises from the
principle that any believing Communist must adhere to the scale of
wages established by the Government, but if the Government considers
it necessary to have the [Page 91]
assistance of any anti-Communist, it is permitted to pay him as much
as he demands.
All meetings of workmen during work hours have been prohibited with
the result that the loafing which was so fatal during the Kerensky regime has been overcome
and discipline has been restored in the factories as in the
army.
Social Conditions
Terror.—The Red Terror is over. During the
period of its power the Extraordinary Commission for Suppression of
the Counter-Revolution, which was the instrument of the Terror,
executed about 1,500 persons in Petrograd, 500 in Moscow and 3,000
in the remainder of the country—5,000 in all Russia. These figures
agree with those which were brought back from Russia by Major
Wardwell
77 and inasmuch as I have checked them from Soviet,
anti-Soviet and neutral sources, I believe them to be approximately
correct. It is worthy of note in this connection that in the White
Terror in Southern Finland alone, according to official figures,
General Mannerheim
executed without trial 12,000 working men and women.
Order.—One feels as safe in the streets of
Petrograd and Moscow as in the streets of Paris or New York. On the
other hand the streets of these cities are dismal because of the
closing of retail shops whose functions are now concentrated in a
few large nationalized “department stores”. Petrograd, furthermore,
has been deserted by half its population; but Moscow teems with
twice the number of inhabitants it contained before the war. The
only noticeable difference in the theatres, opera and ballet is that
they are now run under the direction of the Department of Education
which prefers classics and sees to it that working men and women and
children are given an opportunity to attend the performances and
that they are instructed beforehand in the significance and beauties
of the productions.
Morals.—Prostitutes have disappeared from
sight, the economic reasons for their career having ceased to exist.
Family life has been absolutely unchanged by the revolution. I have
never heard more genuinely mirthful laughter than when I told
Lenin, Tchitcherin and Litvinov that much of the world
believed that women had been “nationalized”. This lie is so wildly
fantastic that they will not even take the trouble to deny it.
Respect for womanhood was never greater than in Russia today.
Indeed, the day I reached Petrograd was a holiday in honor of wives
and mothers!
[Page 92]
Education.—The achievements of the Department
of Education under Lunacharsky have been very great. Not only have
all the Russian classics been reprinted in editions of three and
five million copies and sold at a low price to the people, but
thousands of new schools for men, women and children have been
opened in all parts of Russia. Furthermore, working men’s and
soldiers’ clubs have been organized in many of the palaces of
yesteryear where the people are instructed by means of moving
pictures and lectures. In the art galleries one meets classes of
working men and women being instructed in the beauties of the
pictures. The children’s schools have been entirely reorganized and
an attempt is being made to give every child a good dinner at school
every day. Furthermore, very remarkable schools have been opened for
defective and over-nervous children. On the theory that genius and
insanity are closely allied, these children are taught from the
first to compose music, paint pictures, sculp and write poetry and
it is asserted that some very valuable results have been achieved,
not only in the way of productions but also in the way of restoring
the nervous systems of the children.
Morale
The belief of the convinced Communists in their cause is almost
religious. Never in any religious service have I seen higher
emotional unity than prevailed at the meeting of the Petrograd
Soviet in celebration of the foundation of the Third Socialist
Internationale. The remark of one young man to me when I questioned
him in regard to his starved appearance is characteristic. He
replied very simply: “I am ready to give another year of starvation
to our revolution.”
Statements by Leaders of
Opposition Parties
The following statement was made to me by Volsky, leader of the Right
Social Revolutionaries, the largest opposition party:
“Intervention of any kind will prolong the regime of the
Bolsheviki by compelling us, like all honourable Russians,
to drop opposition and rally round the Soviet Government in
defence of the revolution. With regard to help to individual
groups or Governments fighting against Soviet Russia, we see
no difference between such intervention and the sending of
troops. If the Allies come to an agreement with the Soviet
Government, sooner or later the peasant masses will make
their will felt and they are alike against the bourgeoisie
and the Bolsheviki.
“If by any chance Kolchak and Denikin were to win, they would have to kill
in tens of thousands where the Bolsheviki have had to kill
in hundreds and the result would be the complete ruin and
collapse of Russia into anarchy. Has not the Ukraine been
enough to teach the Allies that occupation by non-Bolshevik
troops merely [Page 93] turns
into Bolsheviki those of the population who were not
Bolsheviki before! It is clear to us that the Bolsheviki are
really fighting against bourgeois dictatorship. We are,
therefore, prepared to help them in every possible way.
“Grandmother Ekaterina Constantinovna Breshkovskaya has no
sort of authority, either from the Assembly of Members of
the All-Russian Constituent Assembly or from the party of
Social Revolutionaries. Her utterances in America, if she is
preaching intervention, represent her personal opinions
which are categorically repudiated by the party of Social
Revolutionaries, which has decisively expressed itself
against the permissibility of intervention, direct or
indirect.”
Volsky signed this latter statement: “V. Volsky, Late President of
the Assembly of members of the All-Russian Constituent
Assembly.”
Martov, leader of the Menshiviki, stated:
“The Menshiviki are against every form of intervention,
direct or indirect, because by providing the incentive to
militarization it is bound to emphasize the least desirable
qualities of the revolution. Further the needs of the army
overwhelm all efforts at meeting the needs of social and
economic reconstruction. Agreement with the Soviet
Government would lessen the tension of defence and would
unmuzzle the opposition, who while the Soviet Government is
attacked are prepared to help in its defence, while
reserving until peace their efforts to alter the Bolshevik
regime.
“The forces that would support intervention must be dominated
by those of extreme reaction because all but the
reactionaries are prepared temporarily to sink their
differences with the Bolsheviki in order to defend the
revolution as a whole.”
Martov finally expressed himself as convinced that, given peace, life
itself and the needs of the country will bring about the changes he
desires.
Army
The Soviet Army now numbers between 1,000,000 and 1,200,000 troops of
the line. Nearly all these soldiers are young men between the ages
of seventeen and twenty-seven. The morale of regiments varies
greatly. The convinced Communists, who compose the bulk of the army,
fight with crusading enthusiasm. Other regiments, composed of
patriots but non-Communists, are less spirited, other regiments
composed of men who have entered the army for the slightly higher
bread ration are distinctly untrustworthy. Great numbers of officers
of the old army are occupying important executive posts in the
administration of the new army, but are under control of convinced
Communist supervisors. Nearly all the lower grade officers of the
army are workmen who have displayed courage in the ranks and have
been trained in special officer schools. Discipline [Page 94] has been restored and on the whole
the spirit of the army appears to be very high particularly since
its recent successes. The soldiers no longer have the beaten
dog-like look which distinguished them under the Czar but carry
themselves like freemen and curiously like Americans. They are
popular with the people.
I witnessed a review of 15,000 troops in Petrograd. The men marched
well and their equipment of shoes, uniforms, rifles and machine guns
and light artillery was excellent. On the other hand they have no
big guns, no aeroplanes, no gas shells, no liquid fire nor indeed,
any of the more refined instruments of destruction.
The testimony was universal that recruiting for the army is easiest
in the districts which having once lived under the Soviet were
overrun by anti-Soviet forces and then reoccupied by the Red
Army.
Trotsky is enormously proud
of the army he has created, but it is noteworthy that even he is
ready to disband the army at once if peace can be obtained in order
that all the brains and energy it contains may be turned to
restoring the normal life of the country.
Lenin’s Prestige
The hold which Lenin has
gained on the imagination of the Russian people makes his position
almost that of a dictator. There is already a Lenin legend. He is regarded as
almost a prophet. His picture, usually accompanied by that of
Karl Marx, hangs everywhere. In Russia one
never hears Lenin and
Trotsky spoken of in the
same breath as is usual in the Western world. Lenin is regarded as in a class by
himself. Trotsky is but one
of the lower order of mortals.
When I called on Lenin at the
Kremlin I had to wait a few minutes until a delegation of peasants
left his room. They had heard in their village that Comrade
Lenin was hungry. And
they had come hundreds of miles carrying 800 puds of bread as the
gift of the village to Lenin. Just before them was another delegation of
peasants to whom the report had come that Comrade Lenin was working in an unheated
room. They came bearing a stove and enough firewood to heat it for
three months. Lenin is the
only leader who receives such gifts. And he turns them into the
common fund.
Face to face Lenin is a very
striking man—straightforward and direct, but also genial and with a
large humor and serenity.
Concessions
The Soviet Government recognizes very clearly the undesirability of
granting concessions to foreigners and is ready to do so only
because of necessity: The members of the Government realize that the
lifting of the blockade will be illusory unless the Soviet
Government [Page 95] is able to
establish credits in foreign countries, particularly the United
States and England, so that goods may be bought in those countries.
For Russia today is in a position to export only a little gold, a
little platinum, a little hemp, flax and wood. These exports will be
utterly inadequate to pay for the vast quantity of imports which
Russia needs. Russia must, therefore, obtain credit at any price.
The members of the Soviet Government realize fully that as a
preliminary step to the obtaining of credit the payment of foreign
debts must be resumed and, therefore, are ready to pay such debts.
But even though these debts are paid the members of the Soviet
Government believe that they will not be able to borrow money in
foreign countries on any mere promise to pay. They believe,
therefore, that they will have to grant concessions in Russia to
foreigners in order to obtain immediate credit. They desire to avoid
this expedient if in any way it shall be possible, but if absolutely
necessary they are ready to adopt it in order to begin the
restoration of the normal life of the country.
