861.00/5234: Telegram
The Commission to Negotiate Peace to the Acting Secretary of State
[Received September 19, 7:32 a.m.]
4266. Upon the withdrawal of the Ekaterinodar section of the South Russian Field Mission the following telegram dated Taganrog, August 23, 1919, addressed to the President was handed personally to Captain William R. Berry, Chief of Ekaterinodar section, by General Denikin.
“To His Excellency, the President of the United States of America: I regret to learn that you are withdrawing your South Russian Mission. This fact might be understood as meaning that the cause for which we are fighting does not meet with sympathy in the United States. You have seen the program of Admiral Kolchak; you also know the aims of the Armed Forces of South Russia; in them there is no hint of return to reaction. We need freedom; we are against any sort of tyranny. Let the people decide their own future. The Bolsheviks will not allow them to do this. They have destroyed everything—religion, family and the idea of possession and they have trampled upon every right except force. Their experiments approach madness. Having seduced this generation they are endeavoring to destroy the ideas of humanity in our children who in some places have been nationalized and then abandoned to their fate. The uneducated, hungry, impoverished and deceived people are in the clutches of a band of madmen. Taking advantage of the ignorance and passiveness of the people they drive them by the bayonets of Chinese and Lettish hirelings to fight against these people, who, understanding the matter, are enrolled under the banner [Page 772] of the salvation of Russia and of the whole world from a dangerous infection. The crimes of the Bolshevists against the people of all nations far exceed the crimes of Germany which brought America into the war. With us it is not a civil war or a class war; we are struggling against an artifically produced disease which will without doubt spread far beyond the borders of Russia and across the ocean if action be not taken. If the League of Nations is worthy of its high destiny it should make a stand against Bolshevism which is striving to destroy all moral and material worth and culture in [all] the world.
A formal declaration that the United States are against Bolshevism would confirm to our miserable, ignorant, and deceived people that we are fighting for a just cause and that there is no nation in all the world which believes in the false Utopia of the Bolsheviks. We believe in the justice of our cause, but moral and material assistance is also of great importance to us. South Russia for a long time was cut off from the world and its inhabitants suffer from lack of clothing. Last winter typhus raged and this winter it may spread with [still] greater force. We need mostly linen, boots and overcoats and in this matter the United States might assist us greatly by sending us clothing for the military and civil population from her great military stores. Your assistance would play a great part and would hasten the restoration of a general peace. Signed, General Denikin.”
Ekaterinodar section was withdrawn in accordance with your [our] 3211, July 18th, American Mission’s 3590, August 9, 1 p.m. and your 2808, August 12, 7 p.m.22
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