Page:Georgy Vasilyevich Chicherin - Two Years of Foreign Policy (1920).pdf/35

 Esthonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Soviet Govern-Governments [sic] proclaimed at the Moscow Congress opened on March 2. On March 21 the Hungarian Soviet Republic was formed, then the Bavarian and the Slovak. Roumania, which separated Hungary from us, assumed a more hostile attitude towards us. In Bessarabia, which was occupied by Roumania, a barbarous white terror reigned, accompanied by a rigid policy of Roumanization and by merciless robbery. On May 1 two Soviet Governments—the Russian and Ukrainian—demanded from Roumania an immediate withdrawal of Roumanian troops, officials and agents from the whole of Bessarabia; also, the bringing of the law-breakers to the people's court; the return of the military property of Russia and Ukraine seized by Roumania; and the return to the inhabitants of Bessarabia of the property confiscated from them. Denikin's offensive, which began shortly after this, aided in strengthening politically the Roumanian Government and the counter-revolutionary role which it played with regard to Hungary.

The question of exchange of the French Military Mission for our soldiers in France remained unsolved. Half of the French Military Mission was released at the time of the departure of our Red Cross Commission for France, at which time several thousand of our soldiers were returned to us. But the Red Cross Commission was isolated in France, and, shortly afterwards, when we refused to return immediately the remaining members of the French Mission, our Commission was deported from France to Russia. The negotiations with England with regard to the exchange of war prisoners and civil prisoners lasted all summer. Comrades Raskolnikoff and Ninuk were returned in exchange for eighteen British war and civil prisoners. But a general exchange has not yet been realized, as England has