The stars and stripes in Moscow

WILLIAM C. WHITE

In a time of trade decline the proposal to establish relations and commerce with Russia gathers followers

NOTE: For the past fifteen years the administration at Washington, whether Democratic or Republican, has refused recognition to Soviet Russia, presumably for valid reasons. Rumors that recognition is now to he granted are probably based on information known at Washington, but thus far not made public.

There are some interesting items in the file of official documents in the State Department which is marked "Soviet Russia.

In March, 1918, when the Brest-Litovsk treaty was signed, President Wilson sent a cable to the Congress of Soviets in Moscow. "May 1 not express the sincere sympathy which the people of the United States feel for the Russian people at this moment. ... I beg to assure the people of Russia that the United States will avail itself of every opportunity to secure for Russia, once more, complete sovereignty and independence in her own affairs. The whole heart of the people of the United States is with the people of Russia."

There is another document, the Colby note of 1919, reading in part. "It is not possible for the Government of the United States to recognize the present rulers of Russia ... a regime based on the negation of every principle of honor and good faith."

The most recent official document, except for the notice that Russia had joined the Kellogg pact, is the statement of Mr. Hughes, then Secretary of State, dated December, 1923. "The Government can enter into no negotiations until these efforts (continued propaganda to overthrow the institutions of this country) are abandoned."

The Roosevelt administration may add some more documents to tin; file, and different in tone.

—THE EDITORS

THE UNRECOGNIZED COLOSSUS.—For fifteen years the United States has had no diplomatic relations with the Soviet government although, as a New York court decision demurely puts it. "it is a matter of common knowledge that such a government exists." It is rumoured, however, that the Roosevelt administration will "cut the Russians in" on the New Deal and enter into political relations with a government whose survival, for a decade and a half, testifies to its stability if not to its attractiveness.

Thus, an American embassy will perhaps soon settle down in Moscow while the Red Flag will fly in Washington, over the Soviet diplomats. The problems of unpaid debts, expropriated property and Communist propaganda, may be discussed at meetings between American and Soviet diplomats, where something can perhaps be done about them, rather than at meetings of the Foreign Policy Association. at conventions of the D.A.R., and at the close of lectures on "My Three Weeks in Ruddy Russia."

Before relations between Soviet Russia and the United States become normal a vast amount of negotiating and dickering will have to occur. This is not the first time that relations between the two nations have been on a curious basis. As American diplomats, with their secretaries, experts, stenographers, clerks and accountants, enter the Soviet Union, they might, perhaps, think back to other diplomatic missions to Russia. . . .

AMERICANS BEGGING OF RUSSIA.—The first American diplomatic mission to Russia set out in 1781. It had two members, Francis Dana, a middle-aged New Englander, and his secretary and interpreter. The secretary was John Quincy Adams, fourteen years old. An adult interpreter had lost his nerve at the thought of Russian winters, and Dana had to take the fourteen-year-old boy, with his French grammar and dictionary, the only American in Paris who knew a foreign language and who could, at the same time, be trusted.

This American diplomatic delegation, ambassador and secretary, both of them revolutionaries in the eyes of Europe, climbed out of the mail coach in Riga in July, 1781, and immediately called for a new pair of horses. Their mission demanded speed. "No horses on Saturdays or Sundays," said the innkeeper. "You'll have to wait until Monday." Their Russian experiences had begun. Dana had credentials to Catherine the Great but he travelled incognito, uncertain that she would receive him. His journey had one purpose, to secure the recognition of America by Russia! Such recognition would prove valuable in our Revolutionary War then being waged against Great Britain.

The "ambassador" and his secretary settled down in St. Petersburg to wait—just as an unofficial Soviet "ambassador," Mr. Skvirsky, has been waiting these long years in Washington. Young Adams bought himself a Russian grammar and started to learn something about the aspects of the Russian verb. Dana tried to show to the Tsarina's ministers, with the fourteen-year-old boy translating in rather blunt French, the advantages of recognition. "Let Catherine send an ambassador to the United States, acknowledging their sovereignty. This would be the highest day of all her glory. This would give peace to mankind."

(Only a little less florid have been some of the arguments set forth by the pro-Soviet groups in speaking of American recognition of Soviet Russia today.)

For two years Dana and young Adams waited, but Catherine was too busy with other things. She would not receive him. The opportunity of being "Godmother of the new American State" did not interest her; she evidently thought maternity of any sort a bother. A commercial treaty with America? Certainly, it could be arranged, her minister told Dana, if he would pay each of her favorites a substantial pourboire. Dana sent news of this fact home and the Fathers of our Country were shocked by the immorality implied, but not shocked into paying out the money. So Dana departed, with one final slap, "The United States, fired with the prospect of their future glory, would blush to think that history might represent them as humble supplicants for any nation's favor."

(Two years ago, Stalin, discussing American recognition of Russia with Walter Duranty, of the New York Times, said, "America knows where we stand from Litvinov's declarations. We have done what we could, but we won't hang on America's neck.")

Twenty-six years were to pass after Dana's departure before Russia recognized the United States. In 1809 the same Adams, then middle-aged, went to Russia with a party of eight, certain, this time, of being received. He arrived at St. Petersburg and "engaged an apartment of five indifferent chambers but said to be the best in the city." He commented on the strangeness of double windows, of Dutch stoves, and of some of the people whom he met. . . . "There is a Princess Galitzin, for instance, venerable by the length and thickness of her beard, resembling a Grecian philosopher. Such beards," he said, "are common among Slavonian women."

The then ruling Tsar, Alexander I. greeted him warmly, in spite of rumors rife in Europe that the United States was an atheistic nation because God was not once mentioned in its Constitution. The Tsar assured Adams that he thought the political system of the United States was wise and just and that "they might rely on it that he would do nothing to withdraw them from it!"

(The Soviet government will give the American diplomats of 1933 the same assurance of non-meddling in American affairs. It can offer, however, no bearded women.)

RUSSIANS HOPING OF AMERICA.—So often has the advisability of recognizing Soviet Russia been debated in America that the granting of recognition seems like a complicated process. But it could be done most simply. The White House would need only to telephone to the Soviet Information Bureau in Washington where sits Mr. Boris Skvirsky, "unofficial Soviet ambassador." and ask him to query his government about the acceptability of the man nominated by the President as ambassador. Mr. Skvirsky has been waiting a long time for that telephone call. Then, when the Senate approves of the same appointment, recognition is complete and embassies are exchanged.

Recognition could be completed as simply as that, and Mr. Roosevelt, realizing the value of the dramatic element, might do it in that way. But it is doubtful. There are problems of money lent to the Kerensky government, a total of S273.000.000. excluding interest; of the property of American citizens confiscated during the revolution, to the value of about S100.000.000: and of the relations between the Soviet government and Comintern, the Home Office of the World Revolution. Before relations between the United States and Soviet Russia are complete and normal, these matters must be discussed.

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The real problem today seems not to be whether it is wise or unwise to recognize Russia, but how best that recognition can be accorded, considering the various problems that must be discussed before relations are on a normal basis. Opinion differs whether it is better to discuss these disputed things first and to exchange ambassadors only after some understanding has been reached or to exchange ambassadors and then negotiate. The Russians, obviously, prefer the latter. A third choice remains—to send a Trade Commissioner to Russia pending negotiations and exchange of embassies.

The time when the United States could dogmatically lay down conditions for recognition probably passed ten years ago. The best settlement of disputed points that can be reached today is a compromise and that fact has probably been realized at Washington. The Soviet Union has lasted for fifteen years without benefit of American embassy. If the representatives of the two nations keep a sense of the realities, there is no reason why grounds for compromise cannot be found. It w-as once suggested that, before extending recognition, the Senate should appoint a committee to "investigate" the Soviet Union. It has been recently suggested again in Congress. The Russians were once willing, but are evidently not willing today.

RECOGNITION BY COMPROMISE.— In making compromises to their liking, the Americans have one very good bait the ability to extend credits. Under the "Jones" bill, the government may extend such credits "to further foreign trade." The Russians once thought of recognition in terms of political results and of prestige. Today these are less important in Russian eyes than the credits on New York which they hope will accompany recognition.

Even though it might not admit it, the Soviet government will agree to almost anything in exchange for credits . . . but two realities face them. They can agree to pay a part or all of the money lent to their predecessors by America indirectly, by means of a higher interest rate on credits to be received, as Lenin first proposed in 1919. But they will not admit that their principle of refusing to acknowledge the debts of their predecessors is wrong. Neither will they promise a curb on the Communist parties of the world. Dictators though the rulers of Russia are, they will have to give some thought to opinion at home and they cannot "go back on the Revolution," or become "counter-revolutionary." If recognition of Russia depends on securing such statements from the Soviet government, there will be no recognition.

And there will probably be no recognition if embassies are to be exchanged only after all these matters have been settled. The French, who have an embassy in Moscow, have been negotiating on the question of Tsarist debts for more than five years; they are still negotiating. But, during that time, they have not been deprived of the opportunity for direct dealing which comes with recognition and for exchange of views on subjects of common interest. There are many points of common interest between the Soviet Union and the United States—in the Far East, in matters of trade, and in the preservation of world peace. Recognition of Russia, immediate and with detailed negotiations thereafter, will do away with the odd system of having to use the French ambassador. whenever the State Department wishes to communicate with Mr. Litvinov.

England, France, Germany, Japan, and twenty other nations have diplomatic missions in Russia. There are none, however, from most of the Balkan States, from Spain or Portugal, or from South America. In the field of political relations, the experience of the nations which have so recognized Russia has been varied. Sometimes relations between one of them and Russia have been strained. At the moment relations between France and Russia are increasingly friendly, while Russian relations with Great Britain and Germany have grown more tense.

But relations have seldom been strained to the breaking point and most of the recognizing nations have enjoyed five to ten years of unbroken diplomatic intercourse. Mexico did break with Soviet Russia and has never renewed relations. Great Britain has broken once, following a raid by the British Home Office on the Soviet commercial agency in London in 1927.

In commercial relations, the experience of the nations which have recognized Russia—and those which have not—has been uniform. The Soviet Union has met its debts on the dates due. At the present time Soviet Russia, according to American financial experts, owes something less than four hundred million dollars abroad, payable between December, 1933, and December, 1934. Three-fourths of this amount are owed to Germany. Less than fifty million dollars are owed to Great Britain, and less than twenty-five million to America. Soviet commercial policy at the moment is directed toward sharp curtailment of orders placed abroad, while meeting these obligations. All nations have learned that the Soviet government, controlling as it does all of Russia's foreign trade, can place or transfer its orders abroad from one country to another as its owTn political exigencies dictate. When German foreign policy, for instance, has displeased the Soviet government, orders that would normally have been placed in Germany have been promptly transferred to other nations. As a single example, the British herring industry suffered, after the diplomatic break in 1927, while the same industry in Scandinavian countries profited.

NOTES ON A HOT DEBATE.—The whole problem of recognition has, in fact, become something of a fetish. Moral significance has been attached to a simple political act. And recognition has been made to seem like some irrevocable commitment: in reality, it has no more guarantee of permanence than a Soviet marriage. The arguments for and against it have been stated a thousand times—all except the argument of common sense, which says that embassies, after all, are only groups of citizens sent to another nation, whose government is stable. There they carry on the affairs of their fellow citizens, if there is work to be done.

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In the case of Soviet Russia there is much work to do. Fifteen years without political relations have piled up a huge jam of unfinished business. There are inheritances to be transferred and heirs to be found; complicated questions of citizenship; problems of Americans now resident in Russia, some of whom have surrendered their passports, and problems of Russian children, fathered by peripatetic Americans. There are problems concerning Russians living illegally in this country, of extradition, and of patent rights and copyrights in which neither Americans nor Russians now have any protection. There are problems of marriage and of divorce. (Will recognition of Russia mean recognition of the Soviet marriage code and make of Moscow a Red Reno?) There are problems of Russian goods sold in this country, of Soviet orders to American manufacturers. All of these problems will remain without solution so long as there is no recognition and in all of these problems many American citizens are vitally concerned. These, in addition to the problems of government debts, Communist propaganda, and expropriated property, await the arrival of an American embassy to Russia.

The question of recognition has been too much considered from the angle of profit and loss. Pro-Soviet groups have pointed out the various advantages and gains to be derived from recognition, tying many of them to the dollar mark. The potential dangers have been emphasized by various American patriotic societies, by some groups in the Catholic Church, and by the American Federation of Labor. The professional "non-recognizers" have, on the whole, been stronger and better organized, but there has been a curious paradox evident in their ranks. One would expect to find our own largest capitalistic organizations among the groups protesting against the resumption of political relations with a state that opposes private property, individual enterprise, and other advantages of capitalism. Yet the Ford Motor Company, the Chase Bank, the Westinghouse Electric Company, and the Standard Oil Company are not among the "non-recognizers." They have had business dealings with the Soviet Union; they are among the group that think they would find business better if there were recognition.

Both pro- and anti-Soviet recognition groups have probably overplayed their arguments. The recognition of Russia, contrary to patriotic predictions, will hardly spread Communism through America. Not even a thousand Soviet agitators, speaking badly broken English, could help the hopeless American Communist party, whose sole achievement during these troubled days has been to split into four different groups, each claiming infallibility.

Nor will recognition mean American approval of all that the Soviet government does. If recognition had any such meaning, then it would be difficult to justify the maintenance of an American embassy in either Japan or Germany at the moment. Nor are the facts that Russia is largely governed by a secret police organization; nor that it carries on an anti-God campaign, particularly relevant to recognition. Any attempt to apply the facts of the recent British spy trial in Moscow to the question of American recognition had better wait until all the facts are known. If the British boycott of Russian trade is continued, there may be orders for American manufacturers—and. likewise, Russian goods, barred from England, seeking a market in America.

The arguments of the "pro-recognizers" have likewise been overstated. Recognition will not bring great, immediate or unconditioned profits to the American manufacturer. "Bolshevik business" and "Beer" are not the two keys to the solution of the depression. Because 160,000,000 Russians need shoes and clothes there is no reason to think that our shoe factories and textile mills will work overtime to supply them, unless the Americans finance these orders on the basis of long-term credits. Too much has been said about the needs of the Russians, which are great, and too little about their capacity to pay, which varies with the world prices for raw materials which are now low. The latter is a better index to future sales than the former.

Nor will our recognition of Russia mean a solution of the Manchurian problem, as has been predicted, since both America and the Soviet Union are vitally concerned there. The Japanese are not going to retreat from the mainland just because an American embassy arrives in Moscow. But the Japanese will have no further opportunity for trying to play one nation against another, taking advantage of the fact that the two have no political relations.

And, finally, recognition will put the relations of two nations who have much in common on a basis of realities. It will end the pernicious doctrine that we enter into political relations only with those States of whose economic and moral systems and codes we approve. It will bring together two nations who are eager to see that the world keeps the peace—America, for idealistic reasons, and Russia, for whom a war at present would mean the crumbling of whatever economic construction she has been able to complete.