File No. 861.00/3132
The Consul General at Irkutsk (Harris) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 2, 4.30 a.m.]
General political situation Siberia to-day: Department’s policy not to recognize any government at present exceedingly wise. Such recognition, for example, of temporary Siberian government at Omsk would but encourage a half-dozen other governments to strive also for recognition and such policy would but dismember Russia, and but further add to complications and conflicts which now unfortunately exist. Unquestionably if Omsk government were recognized, it would but strengthen its position and encourage it in eventually insisting that Siberia become permanently separated from Russia, a spirit which would be unwise to foster at this time.
Just at present general outlook seems dubious. Dissension and strife exist everywhere among the political and military leaders and the disposition to intrigue and mutual distrust of one another keeps them from organizing under one leadership, and working out a definite course of action. Were the Czechs eliminated as a factor in Siberia, the Bolsheviks would be in Archangel soon after. There has been no spontaneous enthusiastic uprising on the part of the people, especially the intelligent classes, to put their country in order and keep it from Bolshevism. Heads of the government have learned nothing from the [omission] but I have the conviction that if the Czechs had not forced an outlet to the east when they did, the Siberians would have turned upon them before long. Not even the presence of the Japanese, whom they fear and hate, is sufficient to serve as a factor to spur them to unity.
[Page 421]The so-called all-Russian government recently formed at Ufa and now joined with Omsk government is also something which would be unwise to recognize. That convention was dominated by the Social Revolutionary Party of Samara and the difference between it and the Bolsheviks is in name only. The Ufa convention stated that all private initiative was to be protected, but [at] the same time the government must control all manufacturing at home and all foreign trade home [sic]. The land question was left undecided and many of the most radical Bolshevik elements [measures] left in force. In an attempt to blind foreign countries as regards internal policies, pleasing phrases were adopted in regard to foreign policy, such as revising the Brest Litovsk treaty and a continuation of the war on Germany. Nothing said about Russia’s foreign debt and how same was to be paid.
In spite of present conditions, I am certain that Russia will slowly and gradually free itself from evil influences. The chief difficulty will be in definitely stamping out the effects of Bolshevism which has so thoroughly disorganized the body politic, and put the laboring classes in a frame of mind where they do not wish to work.
While the Czechs are keenly disappointed at not seeing American soldiers in western Siberia, yet the force of the President’s diplomacy is beginning to dawn upon them, and they are becoming aware of the fact that his [insistence] upon a free Bohemia and that all Russian territory will be evacuated by the common enemy is of greater value than what might be accomplished by any number of American troops in western Siberia. Such is the case with Czech civil authorities especially, and even the Russians [are] beginning to see in this light.
Acknowledge by cable.