861.01/53: Telegram
The Chargé in Russia (Poole) to the Acting Secretary of State
[Received May 30, 4:22 a.m.]
1235. 126 to Paris. Pursuant to instructions of his Government, received today the French Chargé d’Affaires has communicated to General Miller94 the message which has been addressed by Clemenceau to Kolchak in the name of the Allied and Associated Powers. He brought to me Miller’s comments which, made without consultation with his colleagues or even reflection on his own part, are interesting nevertheless as the first impressions of an intelligent and able Russian who was considered Liberal under the old regime and is now representative of the Right, being almost certainly Monarchist in his personal views. Miller expressed ready acceptance of the conditions stipulated except those relating to the dependent nationalities. He said that neither Kolchak nor any other can be recognized as competent at this time to alienate the patrimony of Russia in the way required by points 5 and 6. There is no question about Poland. Its independence exists legally and in fact; that of Finland in fact only. In giving legal recognition to the latter, Russia will have to obtain assurances for the military security of Petrograd. The permanent and complete separation from Russia of small units such as Esthonia is economically impossible and the conditions imposed need not therefore give Russians inquietude, but the provision respecting Lithuania seems quite impossible. Lithuanian claims to national individuality are most attenuated. Its separation would cut vitally into the very body of Russia. Combined with the other provisional alienations, it would reduce Russia to the territorial inadequacy in which Peter the Great found her. If Kolchak should have the foolish temerity to attempt to give up in this way Russia’s gains of the past 200 years, the protest of Russian public opinion would sweep him out of power.
With regard to point 1, Miller drew attention to a practical difficulty in the way of the 1917 Constitutional Assembly functioning [Page 371] under the circumstances indicated as provisional mandatory of the people. Two-fifths of its members are Bolsheviki and would no doubt embark at once upon the same obstreperous filibustering which broke up the Assembly at its first meeting. He also referred to the subsequent record of its president, Chernoff.
- Gen. Eugeni Ludvig Karlovich Miller, Military Governor of Archangel.↩