361.00/19
The Chargé in the Soviet Union ( Henderson ) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 8.]
Sir: With reference to my despatch No. 442 of July 23, 1937,42 concerning the anti-foreigner campaign in the Soviet Union and to previous despatches on the same subject, I have the honor to state that the campaign as reflected in the press, in the activities of the Commissariat for Internal Affairs, and in the unfriendly treatment of foreigners, including members of foreign missions, continues with little relaxation. This campaign may be considered as one phase of the broader campaign of terror which has been sweeping the country for months.
The anti-foreigner campaign is manifesting itself for the most part in warnings issued through the press to the population to beware of foreigners, in private warnings issued to individual Soviet citizens who have been accustomed to having contacts with foreigners to the effect that the continuation of such contacts is likely to bring them under suspicion, in the arrest or exile of Soviet citizens who have been known to have personal relations with foreigners, in the arrest or exile of many Soviet citizens who were compelled in the performance of their official duties to have relations with foreigners, in the [Page 392] arrest and exile of foreigners, in the refusal of visas or residence permits to foreigners, in making living conditions of certain foreigners almost intolerable by creating for them difficulties with respect to housing, servants, supplies, transportation, and so forth, and in the employment of numerous other devices to segregate foreigners from the Soviet population and to decrease their number in the country.
Attached hereto is a memorandum prepared by Mr. Thayer of this Mission43 relating to certain aspects of the press campaign which is being waged at the present time against foreign spies. This memorandum touches but briefly upon the articles which have been appearing by the hundred in newspapers, magazines, and pamphlets warning the Soviet citizen against the foreigner. These warnings are also propagated by posters, by speakers in labor unions and in factories, by the teachers in the schools, by radio broadcasts, and so forth.
Although the American Embassy is probably permitted to have more contacts with Soviet citizens than any other diplomatic mission, with the exception of the Spanish Embassy and perhaps the Lithuanian Legation, nevertheless during the last few months one by one most of the few Soviet citizens who from time to time have been willing to see members of the Embassy staff have either pointedly avoided continuing their relationships or have reluctantly stated that because of certain developments they must sever all relations with foreigners. Several of them have frankly stated that they have been questioned by the police with regard to their motives for having anything to do with foreigners. The Soviet employees of this Mission state in confidence that their position is gradually becoming worse. Their former friends avoid seeing them for fear that they themselves may be charged with engaging indirectly in espionage. Although only two of them have been arrested during the last year, a number of them to the knowledge of the Mission are summoned to the police from time to time for questioning. The husbands of two Soviet employees of the Mission have been arrested as well as relatives of others. In each case it is emphasized by the Soviet authorities that the arrests have nothing to do with the American Embassy.
It has already been reported to the Department that practically all of the Soviet physicians, dentists, lawyers, clergymen, and so forth, who have been accustomed to serve foreigners in Moscow, including members of this Mission, have disappeared during the course of the anti-foreigner campaign. Soviet language teachers, hairdressers, and athletic instructors who have had contacts with foreigners have also been arrested.
The official organizations with which this Embassy has the most contact are (1) the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs; (2) [Page 393] Intourist;44 and (3) Voks (The All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreigners). Among the numerous officials of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs who have dropped out of sight might be mentioned Mr. Krestinski, former Assistant Commissar who on behalf of the Soviet Government signed the commercial agreement! of 1936 with the United States;* Mr. Neymann, former First Secretary of the Soviet Embassy in Washington and until recently chief of the division in the Commissariat which handles American affairs; and Mr. Golkovich, who recently returned from San Francisco, where he has been acting as Soviet Consul General, in order to take a desk in the Press Section of the Commissariat. With respect to Intourist, it might be stated that one of the Vice Presidents has been removed from the Party and has disappeared, and the President is reported, although still retaining his position, to have been ejected from the Party. According to reports received by the Embassy from reliable sources dozens of Intourist guides and scores of Intourist officials have been arrested during the last few months. With respect to Voks, it may be stated that that organization has been gutted as the result of arrests during the last few months to such an extent that it is hardly able to function.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Fortunately thus far during the purge, no American citizens have been arrested. In so far as can be ascertained this fact places this Embassy in an almost unique position in that practically every other diplomatic mission in Moscow is at present engaged in endeavoring to ascertain why citizens of the country which it represents have been arrested and to learn what the fate of these citizens has been. According to information received from the German Embassy the number of German citizens now in prison, most of whom have not as yet been tried, amounts to more than three hundred. The Iranian Embassy states that hundreds of Iranian citizens are under arrest. According to the Chinese Embassy, a number of Chinese citizens have also been arrested. The Austrian Legation reports that over forty Austrian citizens are in Soviet prisons awaiting trial. The arrest of the foremost Italian technician in the Soviet Union, Patrone, who has been chief of the Italian shipbuilding concession in Leningrad (Ansaldo) has already been reported to the Department. The British Embassy, under instructions from its Government, is vigorously protesting the arrest for espionage of a British subject employed as a technician in the Red Dawn Telephone Factory. According to the information of [Page 394] the Embassy hundreds of other foreigners have been arrested during the course of the campaign, including Poles, Japanese, Czechs, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Hollanders, Belgians, Swedes, Greeks, Afghans, and Rumanians. A number of the arrested persons appear to have been workers in the local offices of the Communist International and of other international revolutionary organizations.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The result of the anti-foreigner campaign, in so far as the members of this Mission are concerned, has already been brought to the attention of the Department. It seems, therefore, hardly necessary to point out that the Embassy’s contacts with the “main stream of Soviet life” are limited. Members of the Embassy are nevertheless still able to see from time to time those Soviet officials whose duties make it necessary for them to receive foreigners, to have conversations with a few Soviet citizens who apparently are still permitted by the agents of the political police to frequent the society of foreigners, to talk with the Soviet employees of the Mission and their own household servants, and to chat occasionally with those few persons who still are not alarmed to find a foreigner sitting by them at the theater, in a tramcar, on a park bench, and so forth. One of the veteran members of the diplomatic corps remarked some time ago that at one time the isolation of foreigners in Turkey was so complete that foreign diplomats communicated even with Turkish officials charged with the conduct of Turkish foreign affairs only through the medium of dragomen, and suggested that if the present campaign continues in the direction which it has followed during the last six months a condition is likely to develop not unlike that which once existed in the Mohammedan Near East.
Respectfully yours,