Tokio, April 15, 1918. M. Masaryk, President of the Czechoslovak National Council, who after a long journey in Russia has just arrived here, made the following statement to me:
If the Allies recognize the Bolshevik Government, Lenin, who is an honourable man, will be glad to seek in the Quadruple Entente a factor of resistance and help against German aggressiveness. With the help of France and the United States he would re-establish the army and construct the railways.
An international company should aim at purchasing wheat and petroleum, and transporting them northwards for sale to the Russian peasants in exchange for footwear, clothing, and agricultural implements. The German invasion is certainly limited only to the Ukraine, Finland, and the border provinces of the Baltic, which are already regarded as lost provinces. If these disputes and struggles are settled, the Germans will have a free field for exploiting Russia.
Nothing can be expected from the social revolutionaries, who are the opponents of the Bolsheviks. As regards the monarchist movement, it is obvious from the failures of the Cossack generals that they would not gain any adherents.
M. Masaryk added that if he were granted a free hand in carrying on recruiting activities among the Czechoslovaks, of whom he has 50,000, this would be worth while because he would thus gain the confidence of the Maximalists. He would be unwilling to interfere in the internal policy of Russia, and emphatically declined to subordinate the troops to the orders of generals.
I informed him that according to the newspapers his troops had been disarmed, and the officers had received orders not to leave Russia. In his opinion the first point is of no consequence, because France needs men and not arms. It is necessary to save these men from being given to Austria, and from having to keep on fighting against the Allies. The prohibition to leave Russia applies only to the Russian officers and not to the foreign cadres.
My informant stated that he is able to despatch these troops to France, although he is aware of the difficulties involved by the preparation. It would be necessary to establish seventy trains passing through Russia and Siberia; this problem can be solved only with the assistance of Russia. Further, it would be necessary to have from twenty-five to thirty vessels; this would be the affair of the Allies. He himself is willing to organize the enlistment of a further detachment numbering 50,000 men.
(Signed) Regnault.
This telegram, and still more the memorandum on events in Russia which Masaryk prepared in Tokio for President Wilson and handed to Mr. Morris, the American representative there, aroused some resentment in Paris, and in certain military circles made matters difficult for us. The Allies in Western Europe were not familiar with the situation in Russia. Western Europe had been anxiously following the attempts of Kornilov,
