861.00/5052: Telegram
The Ambassador in Japan (Morris), temporarily at Omsk, to the Secretary of State
[Received August 17, 7:50 a.m.]
Your July 24 [26], 6 [4] p.m.46 I do not know the extent of the popular support given to Kolchak west of Irkutsk two or three months ago. I can only report that the policy adopted from the military service [moment?] Kolchak became Supreme Ruler was the substitution of military for civil administration throughout Siberia. Conditions at Krasnoyarsk, for instance, under Rosanoff were worse if possible than at Chita and Vladivostok under Seminoff and Rinoff; the same conditions prevailed at Tomsk and even here at Omsk. The following is a translation of a resolution pointing out the effect of this policy, unanimously adopted on July 7th in a self-government [sic] of the Zemstvo of Irkutsk province and confidentially transmitted to me:
“As the measures taken by the Government at Omsk which have for their object the revival of government privileges existing under the old regime tend simply to further the economic deterioration and political ruin of the country, the people are loudly expressing their dissatisfaction, disappointment and enmity towards stricter measures as the curtailment of the rights of local organs of administration, the systematic and organized fight with every form of social development, the suppression of all citizen rights, the employing of force in fighting the press and freedom of speech, the interference of military authorities with civilian life, the self-assumed authority of many individual [Page 414] agents of government and the refusal [sic] in the name of free trade to the ever increasing speculation.”
This point of view was supported by the Japanese and tolerated by the British and French representatives and opposed only by General Graves in eastern Siberia who clearly saw from the beginning what the result of such point of view would be, and waged against it whenever possible. He was rewarded by the bitter hatred and antagonism of all the reactionary elements and also, I regret to say, with the severe criticism of some Americans who do not understand the interest.
The present reverses are not due to over-extension; but to the fact that the soldiers of the Siberian Army are demoralized by the conditions which I have pointed out in my previous telegrams and therefore will not fight. Generals Janin and Knox have returned and report conditions like those on the eastern front two years ago. General Graves, at my request, has gone to Ishim to see for himself the conditions there and to find out whether there is any chance of reorganizing the army.
As I have explained in previous telegrams, Admiral Kolchak and his colleagues now realize their mistake. I was greatly surprised to learn from Sukine today that some of the immediate reforms which were discussed in our conferences have been adopted: a committee consisting of the Minister of Justice to Oran [sic], the Minister of the Interior and General Dietrichs has been organized with power to hear and summarily to dispose of any complaints of abuse of military power extraterritorial [sic] courts. Better still the economic conference which has been sitting here and has asked for some part in framing the policies of the Government has been created as a consulting beyond that [body?] to whom the ministers will report proposed measures for discussion and suggestion; and finally the provincial Zemstvos are to be revived and recognized. I fear these reforms may be too late but they give promise of a united [omission].