Page:René Marchand - Why I Side with the Social Revolution (1920).pdf/66

 that, he personally had no fear whatever, as he had found service, under an assumed name, in a „Soviet institution“!

Our Consul-General who until then had kept silent, commenced to speak, and adressing himself more particularly to M. de Vertamond, said; „At present there is one question to which I should like to call attentionto:attention to: [sic] great interest in compromising bolshevism to the eyes of western socialism. There must certainly exist some kind of compromise between the Bolsheviks and the Germans. The latter have probably promised the Bolsheviks to refrain from all offensive action on the Russian side and thus give them the possibility of throwing ail the forces of the Red Army, of which they might dispose, against the Czecho-Slovaks. A telegram emanating from the Commissariat of war, or some other document of this kind would be most valuable, for the political motives which I have just mentioned, and it seems to me that it should not be at ail impossible for us to place our hands on a document of this kind, which we could advantageously make use of“.

Espionnage of the most contemptuous kind, plots and outrages cunningly devised in the dark, inducements held out to agents anxious to make a career in order „to find“ imaginary documents, to such methods had the persons who had the honour of representing France before the Russian people arrived!

These were the machinations to which they resorted, acting in security, under the protection of neutral flags, whilst accusing the Bolshevik Government, in the face of the whole world, of giving evidence of „signal bad faith“ towards