Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1918, Russia, Volume II
File No. 861.00/2475
The Russian Ambassador (Bakhmeteff) to the Secretary of State
[The following translation of a cable was sent by the Ambassador to the Department of State on August 9, 1918:]
The Siberian Temporary Government to the Russian Ambassador at Washington
Sir: We have received your telegram of July 27 and we express to you our sincere gratitude. The Siberian temporary government was elected on January 26, 1918, by the Siberian Regional Duma at Tomsk. Western Siberia, [Page 336] as has been reported by our emissary, is liberated from the Bolsheviks and from the prisoners of war thanks to the mutual efforts of regiments organized by the temporary Siberian government and of the Czecho-Slovaks. The seat of the Siberian government, which announced its authority in Vladivostok on the 29th of June, is temporarily here; some of the members are at Omsk. Until the government moves to Siberia, the plenitude of its supreme and central authority is vested in our ministers Vologodski, Krutovski, Shatilov, Mikhailov, and Patushinski, who were elected by the Siberian Regional Duma. The general political relations with the countries of the extreme orient and of the west are directed by us.
We have received telegram of the Commissariat of the Siberian temporary government at Omsk which has been transmitted through the Minister at Peking, Kudachev. Its text is as follows:
The Czecho-Slovak regiments and the military units of the Siberian government have destroyed the authority of the Bolsheviks at Mariinsk, Novo Nikolaevsk, Tomsk, Narym, Tobolsk, Barnaul, Semipalatinsk, Karkaralinsk, Atbassar, Troitsk, and other points. Achinsk and Krasnoyarsk are occupied by forces of the temporary Siberian government. We encounter marks of vivid sympathy on behalf of the population without difference of classes and of group interests. The organization of the army intended to form, together with the Allies, a united anti-German front progresses splendidly. Our relations with the Czecho-Slovaks are fraternal.
I congratulate the Siberian temporary government and you, Mr. Minister, on behalf of the troops which have been entrusted to me. We, who have been placed under the banners of the Siberian government, vow that we will loyally serve this Siberian people’s government. Grishin-Almazov.
The recognition of the Siberian government by the municipalities and by the Zemstvos has been enforced here by declarations of groups of the population and other organizations. Our problems, which were announced by the declaration of July 8 addressed to the friendly powers, are as follows: Creation of a well-disciplined Russian army; establishment of an anti-German front in common with the Allies; as an inseparable part of Russia, Siberia is considered an autonomous province of the federative republic, in virtue whereof the temporary government of autonomous Siberia solemnly declares that it believes it to be its first and imperative duty to safeguard the interests of entire Russia on the territory of Siberia; it also recognizes all the international treaties and conventions of Russia with the friendly powers, in force up to October 25 [/November 7], 1917. The temporary Siberian government has as its aim the reestablishment of state order in Siberia in order to commence thereby the reconstitution of a pan-Russian central authority recognized by all. It is, therefore, preparing the convocation of the temporary Regional Duma as well as of the national representative assembly of Siberia, on the basis of universal suffrage; simultaneously it considers its duty to reestablish the local organs and the municipalities; to establish the guarantees of personal freedom and of the rights of private property; liquidation of laws published during the domination of the Bolsheviks. Believing necessary to realize the principles of coalition in the construction of the authority and bearing in mind at the same time the absence of bourgeois classes in the government and in the Siberian Regional Duma, the government decided to complete its membership by representatives of the bourgeois elements of the population, on the basis of equality.