File No. 861.00/2675
[Enclosure—Translation]
The Soviet Commissar for Foreign
Affairs (Chicherin) to the Soviet Representative
in Switzerland
Will you be so kind as to transmit to the representatives of the
United States and Japan in Switzerland, with the object of
communicating to their respective Governments, the following
answer in response to their call to the Russian people, a call
in which the intervention is explained by the chief concern
caused by the Czecho-Slovak situation:
The Governments of the United States and Japan addressed this
appeal to the Russian people at the time of landing military
forces on Russian territory. With the expression of sincere
friendship for the Russian people, the two Governments explain
their intervention on Russian soil by the desire to come to the
aid of the Czecho-Slovaks who are menaced “by the Germans and
Austrians.”
The Government of the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic
finds it necessary to make the following explanation in this
connection:
The explanation which the United States and Japan give is based
on pretexts which do not correspond to the truth of events.
Detachments of Czechoslovaks are neither menaced by Germans nor
Austrians. A struggle did take place on the territory occupied
by the Soviet Republic between the Red Army of the Soviets in
Russia, an army made up of workmen and peasants, on the one
hand, and detachments of Czecho-Slovaks, in combination with the
counter-revolutionists, the landed property holders, the bourgeoisie, and the exploiters of the
peasants besides.
Their’ power, destroyed by the October revolution,2 is everywhere restored where the
Czecho-Slovaks have the best of it. The workmen and the peasants
of the Soviet republic defend the conquests of the revolution in
this struggle, menaced by the counter-revolutionists who rely on
the Czecho-Slovak detachments.
The republic of the Soviet is persuaded that its enemies, having
blinded the proletarian elements, have done so also with regard
to those who wrongly believe that the Germans and Austrians
menace the Czecho-Slovaks. If the reasons for the attack against
the Soviet republic were really those which the Governments of
the United States and Japan gave in their appeal, then the
republic’s government of the Soviet begs the Governments of the
United States and Japan, upon the receipt of this declaration,
that they will exactly state their desires upon this matter.
