893.01 Outer Mongolia/86: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 1—12:05 p.m.]
95. The Soviet press this morning reports that fighting is in progress between “Japano-Manchurian detachments and forces of the Mongolian People’s Republic” and alleges that the fighting is taking place at a point 45 kilometers inside Mongolian territory.
The Soviet press also publishes a long statement on frontier incidents which concludes “Stomoniakoff reminded the Ambassador (Ohta) of the reiterated statements made by the Soviet Government in Tokyo and in Moscow to the effect that the Soviet Government is interested, from the point of view of the interests of peace as well as the security of its own borders, in the maintenance of peace on the Mongolo-Manchurian border. Stomoniakoff noted that on February 21 he had informed Ohta of the obligation undertaken by the Soviet Union to render assistance to the Mongolian People’s Republic in the event of a third party attacking it.
This obligation has been actually in existence since 1921 when the Soviet and Mongolian Governments defending themselves against a common attack on their territories agreed to render each other mutual assistance. This oral obligation took the form of a protocol on mutual assistance signed in Ulanbator on March 13th of this year”.
I asked Krestinsky, acting Commissar for Foreign Affairs, if this treaty of mutual assistance would be published. He replied “probably not”. I then asked him if the agreement was similar to the agreements [Page 95] between the Soviet Union and France,29 and the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia,30 or if it involved virtual incorporation of Outer Mongolia as a constituent state of the Soviet Union.
He replied that the agreement was similar to those between the Soviet Union, France and Czechoslovakia, and added that there was no thought at present of incorporating Outer Mongolia in the Soviet Union.
Krestinsky stated that the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs considers the latest incidents an effort of the younger military group in Japan to force the hand of the Government and provoke war with the Soviet Union. He expressed the opinion that serious consequences were not to be feared.
I have been informed by a member of the Soviet hierarchy, however, that the generals of the Red Army are extremely apprehensive that the present clashes may grow into major war. From another fairly reliable source I learned that 2,000 engineers from Moscow have been mobilized during the past week for service in the Far East and that certain of these men have been ordered to Outer Mongolia.