File No. 861.00/1896
The Minister in Sweden (Morris) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 29, 10.11 a.m.]
2180. There appeared in the Swedish press an article reported having come from Washington, to the effect that the American Government [Page 176] would feel out the Bolshevik government in Russia as regards their desire for intervention to prevent further German aggression, and if the Bolshevik government approved of this, it was the American Government’s intention to recognize the Bolshevik government and to work with them. Also that it would be the American Government’s intention to send troops for Allied intervention.
Referring to the above article, several people very close to the Russian conditions have called my attention to the fact that in their opinion such a course would be unwise since they claim it would alienate the sympathies of the remaining 90 per cent of the Russian people who are opposed to the Bolsheviks; the number of Bolsheviks compared to the total Russian population is, I am informed, very small, probably less than 10 per cent. I am informed that the stable people and the better element of people, all parties who have financial and landed interests, are all violently opposed to the Bolshevik government. I am informed that there is grave danger of the Germans pressing further and further in their occupation of Russia and if Allied help is not given them, these people will, of necessity, have to welcome Germany’s advance. They feel that anything is better than the anarchistic conditions of to-day.
In conjunction with the above, I should like to call your attention to my telegram 2174, May 27, 6 p.m., giving the views on this subject of Herman Bernstein who has just returned from Russia and is well known to you.1
… a Russian formerly in the employment of our naval attaché Crosley in Petrograd, and who wishes to go to London to explain the matter to the British Government, informed me while passing through Stockholm that his views were the same as those expressed above and he has formulated a plan for the Allied movement at Archangel and Murman. It is especially with these plans in view that he is proceeding to London to lay same before the British Government.
I also call your attention to the papers which you now have in Washington, referred to in my telegram 1877, April 11, 5 p.m.,2 showing the connection between the Bolsheviks and the German Government.
I have spoken to the British Minister in Stockholm regarding the above and he states that his views and the information he has on the Russian situation are in entire accord with this telegram and that he has cabled his Government in a similar manner.
[Page 177]As I am entirely unfamiliar with the ideas and plans regarding our Government’s views on the Russian situation, I would not give advice or make comments on this matter and am sending this cablegram to you as a matter of information received by me from extremely well-informed sources and from people who are conversant with the Russian situation.
- Not printed.↩
- Not printed; see telegram from the Ambassador in Russia, Feb. 9–13, vol. i, p. 371.↩