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Selected Secret Documents from Soviet Foreign Policy Documents Archives - 1919 to 1941Concentrated on 1st and 2nd WW Correspondence and Meetings related to Turkey, Balkans and Iran, with some additions from Afghanistan and India.
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Note of the peopleʹs commissar for foreign affairs of the RSFSR to the ambassador of Turkey to the RSFSR Ali Fuad.
May 13, 1921 no. 11/930
Mr. Ambassador,
The Russian government is informed by its military authorities in the Caucasus that the Turkish troops, evacuating Alexandropol, caused great material damage to the combined armies of the Russian republic and the Transcaucasian republics, including blowing up the powder depots belonging to these armies, which is an extremely important loss, the amount of which is still not yet calculated.
The Russian government strongly protests against hostile actions by the military authorities of a friendly country. These actions cause him all the more surprise because they are taking place at the very moment when the Russian government is providing the friendly government of the great national assembly with all the assistance it is able to provide.
The Russian government reserves the right to revisit this issue when it receives more detailed information from its military departments.
Please accept, Mr. Ambassador, the sincere assurance of my deepest respect.
Chicherin
Note of the peopleʹs commissar for foreign affairs of the RSFSR to the ambassador of Turkey to the RSFSR Ali Fuad.
May 18, 1921 no. 11/1013
Mr. Ambassador,
With great regret, I am compelled to once again draw the attention of the government of the grand national assembly to the actions of the Turkish authorities, which cause a deplorable surprise in our people and which cannot be considered nothing more than a sign of a hostile spirit against the Russian federal republic. From the numerous information received by our military authorities, it is clear that acts of violence are being committed in the Kars territory against the inhabitants of Russian origin, who remained there in small numbers.
The Turkish authorities are forcibly expelling these Russians from their villages in order to settle instead of them Muslims specially brought from Asia minor. In the village of Novoye Mikhailovka, 2000 Muslims were settled in this way, and the Russian population was placed in stables and barns. Newcomers have sown the fields. The same was done in the villages of Grenadierskoe, Novopokrovskoe and others.
On behalf of the Russian government, I protest in the most energetic manner against such actions by the Turkish authorities and consider it my duty to draw your attention to the feelings that they evoke in the working masses of Russia in the face of such violence against the Russian population of the Kars region.
I also draw your attention to the predicament these actions put us in because of the excitement they cause in our people. Understand that under such conditions it will be impossible for us to go further along the path mentioned in your note no. 424 of 15 May 1 .
I am deeply convinced, Mr. Ambassador, that you will soon provide accurate data on the cessation of these sad actions and on the change in the behavior of the local Turkish authorities in relation to the Russian population in this area.
Please accept, Mr. Ambassador, the sincere assurance of my highest consideration. Chicherin
Print. By architect.
1 the note of the Turkish embassy dated May 15, 1921 indicated the difficulties allegedly experienced by the Turkish consul in Tuapse when sending military materials to Turkey, in the repatriation of former Turkish prisoners of war, etc. The note contained a request to give appropriate instructions to the local authorities, as well as to accelerate the dispatch to Turkey of arms, military equipment and funds in order, as the note emphasized, ʺto bring closer the friendly relations so happily created between the two governments.ʺ
Note of the peopleʹs commissar for foreign affairs of the RSFSR to the ambassador of Turkey to the RSFSR Ali Fuad.
May 24, 1921 no. 11/1092
Mr. Ambassador,
Only from your no. 460 dated May 24, I learned that some difficulties had arisen in issuing to major Saffet‐bey the amount that was to be transferred to him through the foreign trade commissariat. The exchange of letters on this matter, of course, was carried out with this latter, and not with us. In any case, neither from your side, nor from anyone else, I have not received messages that there is such a difficulty.
With regard to the concluding remarks contained in your aforementioned dispatch, I received a certain assurance from citizen Ordzhonikidze that the 4 million in gold that the delegates of the grand national assembly of Turkey Yusuf Kemal‐bey and Rizahyp‐bey took with them were indeed transported them across the Turkish border.
I also allow myself to express the hope that the Turkish ships that left the black seaports, thanks to the efforts of citizen Samsonov, have already arrived at their destination.
Please accept, Mr. Ambassador, my sincere assurances of my highest consideration.
Chicherin
Note of the peopleʹs commissar for foreign affairs of the RSFSR to the ambassador of Turkey to the RSFSR Ali Fuad.
May 29, 1921
Mr. Ambassador,
In response to your personal and urgent letter no. 472 dated May 25, 1 , to which instructions are attached, I allow myself to inform you that our government considers the issue raised in this letter to be extremely important. Unfortunately, I cannot immediately give you an answer on the question that is the main subject of this post. You are well aware of the extremely difficult financial situation our republic is in. Consumption of gold on a colossal scale for us remains an expense, even if it takes on the character of a loan. We are well aware of the enormous political significance of the issue of the loan, which your government should have concluded, and we cherish the hope that soon we will be able to put forward concrete proposals on this issue. Unfortunately, at the moment I am not able to inform you of them.
Once again, I express my great surprise at the statement that Turkey did not receive any assistance from our side. According to the information we have and which we will soon be able to confirm with documentary evidence, the assistance provided to your government before the conclusion of the Moscow treaty was much more significant than it was then established. As for the assistance provided later, more than half of it is already outside the Soviet territory, and the necessary measures are being taken in order to successfully complete this operation.
Some new proposals, formulated in the attached instructions, will be considered by our government with the same desire to do everything in our power in this direction.
Please accept, Mr. Ambassador, your sincere assurances of my highest consideration.
Chicherin
In connection with this note, Ali Fuadʹs note of June 6, 192 has been received! G. No. 511, which said:
ʺMr. Commissioner,
I learned with pleasure that with the exception of cannons, artillery supplies and draft horses, the rest of the military materials and military supplies of the first part of the material aid promised by the government of Soviet Russia to the government of the grand national assembly of Turkey, that is, guns, machine guns and their equipment, were sent from Tuapse to Anatolia.
I have the honor to thank, on behalf of my government, the sincere conduct of the government of the RSFSR, which, despite the great difficulties of transport in Russia, paid serious attention to the urgent needs of our armies in military equipment and military supplies and did everything possible to send them to Turkey as soon as possible. Way.
Please accept, Mr. Commissioner, the assurance of my sincere respect. ʺ
1 the instruction of the Turkish government, mentioned in the letter of May 25, 1921, obliged the Turkish ambassador to put before the government of the RSFSR the issue of providing Turkey with financial assistance in the amount of 50 million rubles. Gold ʺunder the guise of a loan or in any other form,ʺ as well as the construction of a powder factory and a smokeless powder factory in Turkey.
Note of the peopleʹs commissar for foreign affairs of the RSFSR to the ambassador of Turkey to the RSFSR Ali Fuad
June 6, 1921 no. 11/1297
Mr. Ambassador,
In response to your no. 498 of June 3, to which the instructions are attached, I must first of all note that article xv of the Moscow treaty, to which you refer, remained unfulfilled not at all through the fault of the Russian government or the governments of the Transcaucasian Soviet republics, but because of the only the reason is that the Turkish delegation, which left Tiflis for a short time in order to enter into direct contact with its government, has not returned to Tiflis since then, which made it impossible to conclude treaties stipulated between Turkey and the Transcaucasian republics.
As a result, the latter have not yet assumed the obligations that are based on the Moscow treaty and will follow for them from the treaties that they will sign with the government of the great national assembly. However, they are not abandoning the implementation of article xii, which concerns the right of residents of the Kars territory to leave this territory if they so wish. For me, there is no doubt that the messages made to us regarding the alleged refusal of some border authorities to admit Molokans to the territory of the Soviet republics are the result of a misunderstanding, since in the course of our exchange of views with the Transcaucasian governments regarding the Russian population of the Kars territory, these governments never did not question their willingness to admit Molokans to their territory. However, it should be added, that according to the same article, residents who wish to leave this territory, by virtue of the agreement, have the right to take with them all their property, which, unfortunately, was denied to the Molokans by the Turkish authorities; moreover, the Molokans were subjected to robbery and all kinds of oppression; they were deprived of their land plots, kicked out of their homes and, half‐dead from hunger, were herded into sheds and stalls. It is this unheard‐of treatment to which the Russian population of this territory was subjected that caused such unrest in the Soviet republics that we consider it necessary to categorically insist that a strict investigation of the actions of those responsible for all this be carried out.
The forced mobilization of the Russian population of the Kars territory is equally contrary to article xii and is an act of arbitrariness against which we protest in the most resolute manner.
Your messages regarding the so‐called revolutionaries in the Kars territory seem to me to be an idle fiction, stemming from those elements who want to shake the friendship so happily established between our two countries and so necessary for both countries. I would venture to suggest that the presence of certain elements among your authorities that are hostile to the close alliance between your government and a revolutionary republic like ours may be the reason for the appearance of false information, deliberately aimed at sowing a sense of suspicion among your leaders. Relation to the union republic.
The Armenian Soviet government, the seat of which is Erivan, along with other governments, pursues the same foreign policy course as the Russian government, and does not at all harbor any subversive intentions towards the Turkish authorities in the territories that are now recognized as yours. These reports about the notorious revolutionaries do not explain at all, however, the measures taken against the Molokans, a religious sect that has nothing to do with Bolshevik revolutionary ideas. As in Muslim countries, no one would think of accusing the reactionary ulama of pro‐communist actions, and it is more than strange to explain the alleged intrigues of these latter persecutions directed against a Christian sect remote from worldly affairs. The assumption that the Molokans can be evicted to the center of Asia minor,
I allow myself to hope that you will make the most energetic submissions to the government of the grand national assembly in order to eliminate the possibility of such actions, which could only lead to the need for repressive measures, since the broad masses of our compatriots would not agree that such actions remain unanswered ...
Please accept, Mr. Ambassador, my sincere assurances of my highest consideration. [Chicherin]