861.00/4905: Telegram
The Ambassador in Japan (Morris), temporarily at Omsk, to the Acting Secretary of State26
[Received July 25, 12 noon.]
Supplementing my July 17, 7 p.m.27 The Siberian Railway from Irkutsk to Tomsk is dominated by the Czech forces. I have been unable to ascertain their exact number, but 50,000 is a fair estimate. They are living in trains of box cars at various points along the railway. The first division is at Irkutsk, the third at Krasnoyarsk, the second at Tomsk. Since their retirement from the front, they have been guarding efficiently their part of the railway and are fairly well equipped, but they are apparently determined not to spend another winter in Siberia. In spite of war weariness, homesickness, and disgust with both the Bolshevik and Kolchack parties, they are well disciplined and, except for a recent outbreak, self-controlled. They are now waiting the arrival of a commission from Prague which has promised to arrange their return home. If this commission should disappoint them, it is likely that the men will take matters into their own hands and possibly negotiate with the Bolsheviks for a safe-conduct through European Russia. In any event, I am convinced that they cannot be relied upon for assistance after next November. Without the Czechs or other military guard, the railway cannot be operated beyond Irkutsk.
I had expected to find on approaching Omsk a considerable sentiment in favor of Kolchack, or at least an anti-Bolshevik sentiment. I must report, however, that the Kolchack government has failed to command the confidence of anybody in Siberia except a small discredited group of reactionaries, Monarchists, and former military officials. It is the judgement of all with whom I have conferred,—representative Czechs, British and French military officers, our own railway-service men, Allied Consuls, and even thoughtful and moderate Russians such as the Orthodox Bishop at Krasnoyarsk and Kolchack’s appointed governor of the Province of Tomsk,—that the withdrawal of the Czechs would be a signal for a formidable anti-Kolchak if not pro-Bolshevik uprising in every town on the railway from Irkutsk to Omsk. Putting aside for further information the situation as I find it here, and the influences surrounding Kolchak, and considering only the conditions I have found on my journey [Page 396] from Vladivostok to Omsk, I submit the following as the chief causes Kolchak’s failure to win any substantial popular support:
- 1st;
- distrust of Cossack leaders who have represented him in eastern Siberia.
- 2d;
- inability of the Russian military and civil officials, trained under the old regime, to realize the change in popular feeling since the war and the revolution. All careful observers of Russian affairs testify that there has been no improvement in the point of view, the conduct, or the methods of former officials, temporarily returned to power by the Kolchack movement.
- 3d;
- absence of constructive measures to meet the serious financial and economic conditions. On the contrary I hear everywhere well-authenticated instances of speculation and corruption.
- 4th;
- resentment, particularly among the peasants, against the system of conscription which has taken mere boys from the towns and villages, placed them under inefficient and criminal officers, and led them, untrained, unequipped and ill-fed, to mutilation and death at the front.
- 5th;
- suppression of all attempts at local self-government in larger towns and cities.
I will postpone, until I have studied and reported upon conditions here, any comments or suggestions for the consideration of the Department concerning the general situation created by the increasing pressure of Japan in eastern Siberia; the almost certain retirement of the Czechs in the near future; and the threatened collapse of the Kolchack government in western Siberia.