861.00/5789: Telegram
The Minister in Denmark (Hapgood) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 1, 12:41 a.m.]
279. President Wilson personal from Hapgood.
“On eve of sailing for home, I think it my duty to sum up Russian situation as seen from here. Practically everybody who arrives from any front tells the same story now. Yesterday an army officer after giving his opinion added: ‘But they have gone so crazy over Bolshevism in the United States that there is small hope of their seeing the situation’. Such remarks, putting on our Government the responsibility for continued warfare, are made constantly, though less often than remarks putting it on England. France is less discussed because although warlike regarding Russia she is not taken to be able to swing the situation. It is always the remote civilians [Page 127] who are fiercest. Within a few days I have seen several officers recently back from Baltic provinces and one after six months with Denikin and very favorably inclined to him. All agree that only four courses are possible: one is to give Germany a free hand. Of course that is politically beyond serious discussion. Another is to go with a really big Entente army prepared to stay two years. Personally, I think that is politically equally impossible. The third is to treat Russian situation honestly as a civil war, favoring no faction and blockading none. This is overwhelmingly the prevailing opinion. A fourth held by some, even among the military, is that the collapse of Judenitch and Kolchak is so complete and the prospects of Denikin so poor that there is no civil war left with foreign aid withdrawn and that we should actually recognize the Moscow Government. I make no comment on that view as requiring more patient philosophy than can be expected of Americans or most Governments but I do feel that not to go as far as number three is to take a very solemn and dangerous responsibility. Lloyd George’s success or failure may depend on our attitude. I need not repeat my familiar views that Bolshevism must inevitably be increased, strengthened and spread by war and must inevitably disappear in peace and prosperity.[”]