861.00/5870: Telegram
The Chargé in Denmark (Schoenfeld) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 11, 4:45 a.m.]
301. I have received from Maxim Litvinoff now here who styles himself “member of the Collegium of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs” a note under yesterday’s date enclosing copy of the resolution on peace with the Allies passed by the Seventh All-Russian Congress of Soviets which he states has been sent out by him to all the Allied and Associated Governments and which he adds “should be regarded as a formal offer of peace on the part of the Russian Government.”
Litvinoff further states, that it is with a view of obtaining greater security for the offer reaching its destination that he transmits it to the Legation for transmission to you.
Text [follows]:3a
“The Russian Socialist Federative Republic of Soviets wishes to live in peace with all nations and to direct its efforts towards the constructive work of improving production, transport and the administration of the country on the basis of the Soviet régime. This work has been hampered and obstructed up to the present by the pressure of German imperialism, then by the intervention of the Entente and the enemy [famine]-causing blockade.
[“]The Workers’ and Peasants’ Government has many times offered peace to the Entente Powers, namely, on August the 5th 1918 by a note of the People’s Commissary for Foreign Affairs to the American Consul-General, Mr. Poole,4 on October 24th by a note to President Wilson,5 on November the 3rd to all the governments of the Entente through representatives of neutral countries,6 on November the 7th in the name of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets,7 on December 23rd by a note of Citizen Litvinoff to the representatives of the Entente in Sweden,8 then by radiograms of January 12th9 and 17th,10 1919, by a note to the Governments of the Entente of February the [Page 132] 4th,11 by the draft scheme worked out on March the 12th in conjunction with the delegate of President Wilson, Mr. Bullitt,12 and finally by the statement made on May the 7th to Mr. Nansen.13 Fully approving of the steps taken in this direction by the Central Executive Committee, by the Council of People’s Commissaries and by the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, the Seventh Congress of Soviets confirms one after the other [once more] its unalterable desire for peace and proposes once more to all the powers of the Entente, to Great Britain, to France, to the United States of America, to Italy, to Japan jointly and to each of these separately to enter immediately into peace negotiations and instructs the Central Executive Committee, the Council of the People’s Commissaries and the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs to continue [systematically] this policy of peace in taking all the necessary measures for its success. Signed M. Kalinin, Chairman of the Congress, V. Avanessov, Secretary.
“I certify this to be a true translation of the resolution passed by the Seventh All-Russian Congress of Soviets. Signed M. Litvinoff.”
- Bracketed corrections from a despatch from the Chargé in Denmark, dated Dec. 10.↩
- Foreign Relations, 1918, Russia, vol. i, pp. 659–660.↩
- Transmitted in telegrams nos. 1290 and 1297 from the Minister in Norway, Oct. 29 and Nov. 2, 1918, Foreign Relations, 1918, Supp. 1, vol. i, pp. 448–455.↩
- See telegram of Nov. 5, 1918, from the Minister in Norway, ibid., p. 471.↩
- See footnote 1, ante, p. 1.↩
- Transmitted in telegram no. 3394 from the Minister in Sweden, Dec. 24, 1918, ante, p. 1.↩
- Forwarded in undated telegram from the Danish Chargé in Russia, ante, p. 8.↩
- Not found In the Department files.↩
- Ante, p. 39.↩
- Ante, p. 78.↩
- Forwarded by the American Relief Administration at Copenhagen on May 14, ante, p. 111.↩