760d.61/623: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Steinhardt) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 5—9:54 a.m.]
1020. The Soviet press this morning publishes the text of a telegram2h from the Secretary General of the League of Nations, to the [Page 802] Soviet Government embodying a letter from the League delegate of the Finnish Government charging Russia with aggression and requesting the League to take appropriate action and announcing the convocation of the Council of the League for December 9 and of the League Assembly for December 11th, together with the reply of the Soviet Government thereto. The reply of the Soviet Government2i signed and sent by Molotov to Avenol states that the Soviet Government considers the convocation of the Council and Assembly of the League on the initiative of Mr. Holsti “to be unfounded” since the Soviet Union “is not in a state of war with Finland and does not threaten the Finnish people with war.” The reply continues that the Soviet Union is in peaceful relations with the democratic Finnish Republic and has signed with its government a treaty of mutual assistance and friendship regulating “all questions which were of unsuccessful negotiations with the delegates of the former Government of Finland which has relinquished its plenipotentiary powers”. After stating that in its declaration of December 1 the democratic Finnish Republic had requested the assistance of the Soviet armed forces in liquidating the dangerous hot bed of war which had been created in Finland by the former Finnish Government the reply states that the appeal of Mr. Holsti cannot serve as a basis for the convocation of the League Council and Assembly since “the persons in the name of whom Mr. Holsti appeals to the League are not the real representatives of the people”. In conclusion the Soviet reply states that should the Council and Assembly of the League be convoked despite the abovementioned considerations for the examination of the appeal of Mr. Holsti “the Soviet Government would not consider it possible to take part in these meetings. Such a decision is moreover reenforced by the fact that the communication of the Secretary General of the League concerning the convocation of the Council and Assembly accompanied by the text of an insulting and slanderous letter from Mr. Holsti, is clearly incompatible with a proper respect for the Soviet Union”.
In the light of the foregoing it is not improbable that the convocation of the League Council and Assembly to consider the Soviet attack on Finland would result in the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from the League.