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File No. 862.20261/53

The Ambassador in Russia ( Francis) to the Secretary of State

[Telegram]

2354. Following prepared by Sisson and myself from documents we have seen whose authenticity I do not doubt and the originals of which we are endeavoring to procure.

The following documentary evidence, tending to prove Lenin and Trotsky and other Bolsheviki leaders in German pay and that disruption of Russia is but one move in plan of Germany to sow disorganization in Entente countries, reached me from widely different sources. I am expecting further evidence from the same sources but send incomplete data now available hoping that Washington may at once add its resources to the search for correlated evidence to prove or disprove accusation. All documents, except letter signed Yoffe [Joffe], are said to be from the files of “Kontrerazvedka,” Government secret service organized under Kerensky. If so, unavoidable [Page 372] question arises why K. did not use evidence against Bolsheviki last July. German agents within his Government may have prevented. The letter signed by Y. is from Brest Litovsk dossier at the Smolny Institute directly from a person known to have access thereto. Photograph of letter has been shown to me. Neither originals nor photographs of other documents are in our possession but are in Petrograd and have been seen by an American although without opportunity for painstaking scrutiny. Scheidemann communication document No. 11 is a letter, others on telegraph forms. Purported originals may be in our possession shortly but they themselves would not be necessarily proof of authenticity, such proof is more likely to be found in corroborative evidence in the possession of Department of Justice or Allied secret services. The British known to be working on part of the material. Many clues lead to Stockholm and Copenhagen, impossible to follow them from here. I suggest intensive effort to complete case but advise against immediate publication unless necessary to counteract Bolshevik propaganda in the Entente countries. Its publication would be regarded here as calumnies of foreign capitalists and would have little effect beyond inciting to reprisals.

The contents of translated documents follow:

Note: This is outline of basic financial structure begun February 1914, five months before war was launched and still in operation; [Page 373] notice reappearance in subsequent Lenin messages, towns Lulea and Vardö, likewise reference to American banks. Olof Aschberg, one of the heads of the Nya Banken, came to Petrograd month ago and boasted that N. B. was the Bolsheviki bank. He was overheard by one of our own group. He secured from Smolny permit export several hundred thousand gallons oil. Opening at Hotel Europe headquarters, where both Mirbach and Kaiserling of the German Commission have been entertained, he negotiated with the State Bank February 1 last, contract for buying cash rubles and establishing foreign credit for Russian Government and is opening others with the John MacGregor Grant Co., exporting concern, which it finances in Sweden and which is financed in America by the Guarantee Trust Co. We have no information reflecting on last mentioned company. Fürstenberg is now at Smolny under the name of Ganetski, is one of inner group and is likely soon to be placed in charge State Bank. Aschberg now in Stockholm but returning. The material in this and other comments is independent of the documents and accurate on fact statements.

Note: Observe that this is dated six weeks before the rest of the world knew it was to be warred upon and even then making exact plans for a campaign of incited strikes and incendiary fires in the industrial plants and the yet uncreated munition plants in the United States.

Addition as part of document:

Z. and L. got in touch with Imperial Bank of Germany through the bankers (D?) Rubenstein, Max Warburg and Parvus.

Note: L. is the present People’s Commissioner of Education. Z. is not a Bolshevik, but a right Social Revolutionist and in the discard, whereabouts unknown. Parvus and Warburg both figure in the Lenin and Trotsky documents. P. is at Copenhagen. W. chiefly works from Stockholm.

Note: Here is the exact German formula for the incitement to war “from the rear”: strikes, efforts towards revolution, the use of humanitarian appeals to weaken arm of its forces.

Note that this document already figures in the [omission] several governments having been intercepted in the correspondence of Prince [Page 375] von Bülow. It has new and direct pertinency to the Lenin-Trotsky data which follow herewith.

Note: Kronstadt, the navy base, was the nerve center from which L.’s activities radiated during the summer, both before and after he fled from Petrograd. He was not always there but it was Bolshevik domain. Sailors were, and still are, his first dependence. Hansen & Co. are named in document 1.

Note: Ambassador is probably Von Lucius, a complimentary reference.

Note: Fürstenberg is named in document 1 and is Ganetski in St. Petersburg.

Note: This is the first reference to Trotsky. It connects him with banker Warburg and with Fürstenberg. Luleå is a Swedish town near Haparanda.

Note: Antonov is the chief military leader of the Bolsheviki. He was in command of forces that took St. Petersburg. He is now in field against Kaledin and Alexeev. At the date of this letter Trotsky was already at the head of Petrograd Soviet and the Bolshevik revolution was only a month away.

Note: This letter from Scheidemann, the German socialist leader, links him with Fürstenberg-Ganetski, with the Nya Banken and with subsidizing the Russian revolution. Trotsky published a newspaper during the summer. Another newspaper spoke for Lenin. Vorwärts would seem to refer to the socialist organ at Berlin. Scheidemann’s rôles both as German peace propagandist and as strike queller in Germany are illumined by this letter.

[Page 377]

Note: Mir is the Russian word for peace. Lenin was in hiding in July. Report placed him, among other places, in Stockholm. Notice that the agitation is to be against England and France; it took the form from the opening days of the Bolshevik revolution of attacks on them as imperialist nations. Parvus is Copenhagen banker already referred to.

Note: The date is January 12 [13], new style, the eve of the Russian New Year. The Rumanian Minister was arrested that night in Petrograd and only released the next day on the united demand of all Embassies and Legations in Petrograd. Since then he has been sent out of Russia. The letter shows that Trotsky took Hoffmann’s personal demand as an order and most important of all, however, it strips the mask from the Lenin and Trotsky public protestations that they have sought to prevent the peace negotiations with Germany from turning to the military advantage of Germany against the United States, England and France. Their aim here disclosed is, instead, to aid Germany in stimulating feeling against England, France and the United States in enabling Germany to prepare for an offensive on the western front. Success of German negotiations with Switzerland is emphasized. A German bank is named as paymaster for Bolshevik agitators among the Rumanian soldiers. Is “Wolf Venigel, the field director, the Wolf von Igel of American notoriety? Similarity in name is striking. Finally General Hoffmann and the German staff are satisfied with Trotsky’s watch over the American and English diplomats.

There are fifteen national Commissaires. Yoffe who signs the letter is a member of the Russian peace commission. Since this letter was written Zalkind has gone to Switzerland on a special mission.