Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/468



Mr. President:

In your message of January 8th to the Congress of the United States of North America, in the sixth point, you spoke of your profound sympathy for Russia, which was then conducting, single-handed, negotiations with the mighty German Imperialism. Your program, you declared, demands the evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest co-operation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her political development and national policy, and assure her a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. And you added that "the treatment accorded to Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good-will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy."

The desperate struggle which we were waging at Brest-Litovsk against German Imperialism apparently only intensified your sympathy for Soviet Russia, for you sent greetings to the Congress of the Soviets, which under the threat of a German offensive ratified the Brest peace of violence—greetings and assurances that Soviet Russia might count upon American help.

Six months have passed since then, and the Russian people have had sufficient time to get actual tests of your Government's and your Allies' good will, of their comprehension of the needs of the Russian people, of their intelligent unselfish sympathy. This attitude of your Government and of your Allies was shown first of all in the conspiracy which was organized on Russian territory with the financial assistance of your French Allies and with the diplomatic co-operation of your Government as well—the conspiracy of the Czecho-Slovaks to whom your Government is furnishing every kind of assistance.

For some time attempts had been made to create a pretext for a war between Russia and the United States by spreading false stories to the effect that German war prisoners had seized the Siberian railway, but your own officers, and after them Colonel Robins, the head of your Red Cross Mission, had been convinced that these allegations were abso-