File No. 861.00/907
The British Embassy to the Department of State
Memorandum
The British Foreign Office are informed by the British Consul at Vladivostok that at a meeting which recently took place at Khabarovsk the powers of the commissioner of the Provisional Government for eastern Siberia were handed over by that official to the representatives of the Zemstvos. In view of the absence of any central control and the condition of chaos now existing in the country this meeting decided to establish a standing “committee of six members, one from each Cossack district and one from each province, this committee to administer local affairs pending the meeting of the Constituent Assembly. A conflict of opinion thus arose with the Defense Committee of the Council of Soldiers and Workmen for the district, who claim the sole administrative power, and support the Lenin government: they caused the arrest of the commissioner, but he was shortly afterwards released. The Consul reports that in his opinion the action of the commissioner in delegating his powers was a wise one, and that there is a good chance of the step taken proving successful: there is however also a chance of a struggle with the Bolsheviki element who oppose the action taken.
The local situation is reported as bad, and likely to grow worse for a time owing to the lack of supplies, the shortage of funds, and the scarcity of work. The Consul strongly recommended the recognition of the Zemstvos Committee by the consuls of the Allied powers, as the moral support which the committee would receive would be most important.
In view of these developments, and of the general situation in the Vladivostok district, the British Government have sent instructions [Page 19] to the Consul to recognise the Zemstvos Committee unofficially as a temporary administrative institution. The British Embassy have been instructed, in bringing the above to the attention of the State Department, to add that in the view of the British Government it is urgently desirable that similar unofficial recognition should be accorded by the consuls of the other powers at war with Germany. The Embassy would therefore be grateful if they could be informed at an early date whether the United States Government feel able to issue similar instructions to their consular representative at Vladivostok.
[Received January 5.]