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a misunderstanding, however, which did not reflect upon the honour of either party concerned.1

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The publication of the document and covering letter on the 24th October naturally gave rise to a diplomatic correspondence.2 On the 25th October M. Rakovski addressed a reply of his own to the British note of the 24th; 3 on the 28th he presented a further reply, dated the 26th October, which had been addressed to him, for transmission, by M. Litvinov, the Assistant Kommissar for Foreign Affairs in Moscow; 4 and a message, also dated the 26th, was sent by M. Zinoviev to the British Trade Union Congress. In all these three statements the alleged 'Zinoviev letter' was dismissed as a forgery, but in other respects, both of content and of tone, they differed. M. Rakovski, whose note was ably drawn in conventional diplomatic form, recalled that, in 1923, the two Governments had agreed that they would endeavour to settle by direct conversations any incidents which might arise, resorting to the dispatch of notes only in the case of this friendly procedure failing to bring about a favourable result'. He deprecated the British note of the 24th as an unexpected violation' of this procedure at a particularly inopportune moment, and drew attention to details in the text of the alleged Zinoviev letter' which, in his view, proved it to be ' a clumsy forgery'. M. Litvinov demanded an adequate apology and the punishment of both the private and official persons involved in the forgery' and proposed that the question of the authenticity or falsity of the Zinoviev letter' should be submitted to an impartial arbitration court. M. Zinoviev suggested that the General Council of British Trade Unions should send a special mission to the U.S.S.R. to investigate the same question on the spot."

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In view of the tone of M. Litvinov's note, Mr. MacDonald refused to receive it; and, after a semi-official correspondence on the point

1 The mystery of the date of publication was increased by the report that a prominent London newspaper had come into possession of a copy of the 'Zinoviev letter' and was on the point of publishing it when it was anticipated by Mr. Gregory's note of the 24th October.

2 For a convenient dossier of this correspondence, in which the Russian documents are translated into French from the official texts in the Moscow Izvestia, see L'Europe Nouvelle, 20th December, 1924.

3 Text reprinted in the Appendix from The Times, 27th October, 1924. Text reprinted in the Appendix from loc. cit.

5 Text in The Times, 27th October, 1924.

6 On the 28th October the same line was taken, in a speech delivered in Moscow to the Central Executive Committee of Soviets, by M. Rykov, the Chairman of the Council of People's Kommissars. (The Times, 29th October, 1924.)

This suggestion was acted upon.

between Mr. Gregory and M. Rakovski, this decision was confirmed, on behalf of the new Government; in a final letter from Mr. Gregory on the 21st November.1 On the same date, two other notes were addressed to M. Rakovski by the new Foreign Secretary, Mr. Austen Chamberlain. The first of these ran as follows:

His Majesty's Government have had under review the treaties negotiated by their predecessors with the Government of the U.S.S.R. and signed on August 8 last.

2. I have the honour to inform you that after due deliberation His Majesty's Government find themselves unable to recommend the treaties in question to the consideration of Parliament or to submit them to the King for His Majesty's ratification.

In his second note, which was a reply to M. Rakovski's of the 25th October, Mr. Chamberlain declared that it was unnecessary to go into the details of textual criticism in regard to the Zinoviev letter',

for the information in the possession of His Majesty's Government leaves no doubt whatsoever in their mind of the authenticity of M. Zinoviev's letter, and His Majesty's Government are therefore not prepared to discuss the matter.

He concluded with a general denunciation of the propaganda of the Third International, of which he declared the letter to be a fair specimen.

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On the 28th November, replies to both Mr. Chamberlain's notes were handed in by M. Rakovski.2 In the first, he accepted with regret the British Government's decision to drop the treaties. In the second, he declared that the Soviet Government must insist on its offer of arbitration as the sole means to an unbiased settlement' of the question of the authenticity or falsity of the 'Zinoviev letter'. As regarded the 'general accusations against the Soviet Government in connexion with the activities of the Communist International', he made the following statement:

I am instructed by my Government to reiterate the declarations repeatedly made as to the complete political and administrative independence of the Communist International from the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. My Government has never undertaken and cannot undertake to refuse the right of asylum to the Communist International, or to any other working-class organization, still less can it undertake to exercise pressure upon them.

Thus, at the close of the year 1924, the relations between the 1 Text in The Times, 22nd November, 1924.

Texts ibid., 29th November, 1924.

Third International and the Soviet Government still remained ambiguous and at the same time conditioned the relations between the Soviet Government and other Powers; and, unless and until this crux were removed, it was difficult to see how Anglo-Russian relations, at any rate, were likely to change for the better.

(v) The Recognition of the U.S.S.R. by France.

At the beginning of the year 1924, France was still as implacable an opponent of the Bolshevik régime as the United States, with which country she had an understanding in regard to the attitude to be maintained towards the Soviet Government, and this hostility was reciprocated on the Russian side. In the first days of January, M. Čičerin, in a lengthy declaration on Russo-French relations, accused French diplomacy of encouraging tendencies hostile to the U.S.S.R. in the border states.1 It was true that there had been a Commercial Representative of the Soviet Government in Paris since 1921; but his transactions with French firms had no legal basis, since the two Governments had not concluded even a provisional commercial agreement. Moreover, the nationalization of private property in Soviet territory was not recognized by the French Courts, one of which had on the 12th December, 1923, ordered certain goods bought from the Soviet Government by a French firm and imported into France by the Optorg' (the Soviet Government's wholesale trade organization) to be restored to an Armenian firm which claimed them as its property.2 Both M. Čičerin, in the above-mentioned declaration, and M. Krassin protested strongly against this judgement,3 and the Soviet Commercial Representative in Paris, M. Skobelev, was ordered to transfer his office to London. There was, of course, a party in France desirous of establishing normal relations, and its leader, M. de Monzie, on the eve of the Anglo-Russian negotiations, asked M. Poincaré in the Senate whether the French Government would take part in the proceedings. M. Poincaré replied on the 9th April that he had not changed his opinion; that it was not the French Government's business to interfere in conversations to which it had not been invited; and that he would continue to demand the recognition of debts.5 There matters

1 Le Temps, 4th January, 1924.

2 The Times, 25th January, 1924.

3 Le Temps, 22nd January, 1924.

The Times, 25th January; Le Temps, 26th January, 1924. 5 The Times, 10th April, 1924.

rested until M. Herriot succeeded M. Poincaré after the General Election of the 11th May.

M. Herriot announced, upon taking office, that he intended to establish normal relations with the Soviet Government forthwith. In view of the understanding with the United States, his first step (taken on the 16th June) was to notify this change of policy to the French Ambassador in Washington for the information of the State Department.1 On the 20th June he consulted leading members of organizations representing French private interests in Russia with regard to procedure, and at a second conference on the 30th it was decided to postpone de jure recognition until after the forthcoming London Conference on the Reparation Problem.3 Meanwhile, he telegraphed on the 15th July to M. Čičerin reiterating his intention to restore normal relations, announcing that on his instructions nationals of the U.S.S.R. were to be admitted into France as freely as possible, and requesting that visas for Russia should no longer be systematically refused to French nationals. M. Čičerin replied on the 18th in equally friendly terms.4

During the London Conference M. Herriot appointed a committee of French officials and experts in London, with M. Seydoux as Chairman, to get into touch with British bondholders and owners of confiscated property, and a memorandum of certain observations made by this committee was handed to M. Rakovski before he left for Moscow to consult his principals regarding the Anglo-Russian negotiations. By the end of July the Quai d'Orsay was in communication with unofficial representatives of the Soviet Government in Paris.6

In September M. Herriot appointed a committee of five, under the chairmanship of M. de Monzie, to work out the procedure for the resumption of relations with Russia. The main point at issue was whether de jure recognition should be given unconditionally and the French reservations regarding the consequences implied by recognition and by the resumption of diplomatic and consular relations conveyed in a separate document; or whether recognition and reservations should be bound up together. At the instance of the

1 The Times, 20th June; Le Temps, 24th June, 1924.

The Times, 20th and 23rd June; Le Temps, 22nd June, 1924.

3 The Times, 2nd and 3rd July, 1924.

Ibid. and Le Temps, 21st July, 1924.

5 The Times, 28th and 29th July; Le Temps, 30th July, 1924.
The Times, 31st July, 1924.

Ibid., 13th September; Le Temps, 20th September, 1924.

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unofficial Soviet representatives in Paris, the de Monzie Committee appears at first to have favoured the former course,1 and even to have drafted texts on this basis; 2 but at the last moment it was decided that a single document should be sent,3 and a telegram in this form, dated the 28th October, was eventually signed by M. Herriot and dispatched to Moscow. It was stated in the text that the recognition would in no wise infringe any undertaking entered into by France or treaty signed by her '. This referred to France's existing commitments to Poland and Rumania,5 whose representatives had been previously consulted. The Government of the U.S.S.R. was recognized de jure only as the Government of the territories of the old Russian Empire where its authority is accepted by the inhabitants, and in those territories as the successor of the former Russian Governments'. The last phrase implied that the Soviet Government inherited its predecessors' obligations, and the telegram went on expressly to reserve the rights which French citizens held in respect of obligations entered into by Russia or her nationals under the former régimes. Finally the resumption of diplomatic relations was declared to be merely the preface to a general agreement. The implications of this point were emphasized on the same day by M. de Monzie, who told a Press representative that an end had been put to 'impossibilities', but difficulties ' would now begin. These difficulties could not be removed by the prompt and cordial response of the Soviet Government, which was received at 1.45 a.m. on the 30th October, or by the exchange of telegraphic felicitations between M. Čičerin and M. Herriot.9

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MM. Herriot and Rakovski met in Paris on the 3rd November, and agreed that the negotiations foreshadowed in M. Herriot's telegram of recognition should be started, if possible, on the 10th January, 1925; 10 and on the 18th November, M. Herriot stated in the Chamber that the agenda of the conference would be as follows:

(1) Revision of the treaties concluded with the former Russian Government.

(2) Diplomatic and consular clauses-privileges and immunities. 1 The Times, 11th and 17th October, 1924.

2 Ibid., 18th October, 1924.

3 Ibid., 22nd October, 1924. An English translation is given in The Times, 30th October. For the French text see Le Temps, 30th October, and L'Europe Nouvelle, 1st November, 1924. 5 See Survey, 1920-3, pp. 271-3.

6 This was mentioned by M. Herriot in the Chamber on the 18th November. 7 The Times, 30th October, 1924.

8 An English translation of the text is given in The Times, loc. cit. The Corriere della Sera, 1st November, 1924.

10 Le Temps, 6th November, 1924. 11 The Times, 20th November, 1924.

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