Siberia To-Day

by Frederick Ferdinand Moore

TYPICAL RUSSIAN CHURCH IN CITIES OF SIBERIA

Yet while Semenoff’s train was lying in the yards of Vladivostok, and our own headquarters were watching for him, headquarters got a story that Semenoff was still in Chita, and certain staff officers were rather peevish that they should be misled as to the whereabouts of Semenoff. They were told that Semenoff happened to be in their front yard, and to look a little closer for him there. They did, and found him.

It was about this time that news reached us in Chita that the Bolshevist leaders had been invited to meet at Prinkipo with the delegates of the Peace Conference. Our dispatch was translated into Russian by our Committee on Public Information in Siberia, and telegraphed to all the Siberian newspapers.

The effect was similar to letting loose about my ears a hornet’s nest. A Japanese staff-officer came to my room in haste to ask what it meant. He seemed afraid that the United States intended to recognize the Bolshevist government. And he was extremely puzzled, which of course reflected the attitude of General Oba, which was that after the Allies had come into Siberia to restore order the United States appeared about to take sides with those creating the disorder.

In any event, the United States appeared willing to treat with Bolshevism, a fact which would strengthen Bolshevism. All I could say was that the Prinkipo invitation was obviously based upon conditions of which we in Siberia knew nothing, and that it was likely that the text of the message as we received it, had been garbled in transit.

The humorous aspect of the invitation was that “all parties” were invited to be in Prinkipo, in the Sea of Marmora by the first of February, or some fifteen days after the invitation was issued. Considering the fact that it had taken me thirteen days to travel from Vladivostok to Chita, a distance of two thousand versts, fifteen days for all delegates from Russia and Siberia to get to Prinkipo revealed the fact that those who set the date were ignorant of the conditions of travel in Siberia—or bluffing diplomatically.

So the Japanese were perturbed by the Prinkipo invitation—that is, as perturbed as a Japanese permits himself to be.

The effect on the Cossack officers of Siberia, was to fill them with suspicion toward the United States, to make them feel that we were not playing fair with them, and to give them the impression that they had been betrayed into the hands of the Bolshevists. In other words, that the Bolshevists were right, and that all anti-Bolshevist forces were wrong.

The information we got was to the effect that President Wilson recognized a state of revolution in Russia and desired no counter-revolutionary action.