Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-10-14
Americas Russian Policy.


United States in modern times have
been more. consistently maintained
than the program of non-recognition
Of Soviet Russia. Four Presidents and
all their respective Secretaries Of State
have successfully and uncomprom!S-
ingly adhered to it. The willingness OF
other governments to establish official
intercourse with the Communist autoc-
racy has signally failed to defect the
United States from its determination
not to sanction the things that boil
sheviSm stands for. American public
opinion overwhelmingly sustains that
attitude.
The State Department has just pub
lished the first Of three volumes Of diplo-
matte documents covering American rela-
tons with Russia in 1917 and 1918. The
United States had been the first country
to recognize the revolutionary pro-
visional government in Russia. This
was prior to It's entrance into the war,
In his famous address to Congress on
April 2, 1917, recommending the dec
Wilson referred to free Russia as "a fit
partner for a league of honor" On
April IA the President suggested to the
KerenSky government the sending of an
American commission Ito consult with
the Russian government as to the best
means OF cooperation and to convey
message Of good will from the United
States" The Root special mission fol-
lowed in due course, and the State De-
partment volume contains the previously
unpublished report Of its accomplish
lnents.
TIE Root mission went out in May
and returned in August The educa-
tional and other activities intended to
keep up Russia's enthusiasm for the war
and the allied cause, with which Amer
lea was now identified, were inaugu-
rated at the end of October, 1917. BY
this time events in Russia were moving
irresistibly toward the November reVo-
luton in which the bolsheviks threw
the Kerensky provisional government
out of power. From that point on
ward, American policy underwent q
change. American sympathies with the
broad masses of the Russian people and
their aspirations for freedom remained
unalloyed But the treachery OF Brest-
Litoysk, when Lenin, Trotsky and their
co-conspirators sold out the allied cause
to Germany, naturally cooled the ardor
of the people of the United States,
even though as late as May 8, 1913,
Secretary Lansing asserted that the
friendly purpose of the United States
toward Russia will remain I'M
altered SO long as Russia does not will
ingly accept the autocratic domination
OF the central powers" On the same
day came Ambassador Francis telegram
from Petrograd, urging allied interven-
ton as the only means of preventing
German domination of Russia. Thence
forward American diplomatic and con-
sular officers all over the world were
ordered to desist from any sort of re-
lations with Soviet representatives.
This valuable contribution to the his
torical record of Americas great adj
venture in Old World affairs denotes,
with documentary evidence in support,
that the United States policy OF refus-
ing to deal with Communist Russia
sprang from early and penetrating
realization of what SovietiSm meant.
Charles Evans Hughes. early in his
career as Secretary of State, reaffirmed
that the doctrine of non-recognition,
among other grounds, rested on the
Soviet governments progressive i'm
poverishment" of the Russian people.
That process continues, to this day,
George Bernard Shaw's impudent and
superficial assurances to the contrary
notwithstanding. Because the Soviet
would extend it's destructive system to
other countries, including the United
States, is one of the reasons why the
American people want and will have
none of 1t.