dence had taken place; and on the 1st July, 1923, the Soviet Government had declared a boycott of Swiss goods. Conradi and his accomplice Polunin were tried and acquitted, and further reprisals were then started on the Russian side-Soviet representatives abroad being instructed to refuse visas for the U.S.S.R. to Swiss citizens, while Swiss citizens already resident in Soviet territory were to be expelled.1 On the 12th August the Swiss Federal Council retorted by excluding nationals of the Union from Swiss territory.2 It is therefore not surprising that, while Swiss commercial circles considered the possibility of resuming commercial relations,3 rumours that normal diplomatic relations were to be established were officially denied. On the 19th June, 1924, M. Motta stated in the Swiss National Council that indirect negotiations had been on foot at the time of M. Vorovski's assassination, but that they had been terminated by the boycott and would not be resumed so long as the boycott lasted. He mentioned, however, that the Federal Council had already declared its willingness that a Soviet Observer' should attend the League of Nations Assembly at Geneva.5 Austria, which had signed a trade agreement with the U.S.S.R. on the 7th December, 1921, accorded de jure recognition in a note of the 25th February, 1924, in which the Austrian chargé d'affaires in Moscow announced the decision of his Government to establish normal diplomatic and consular relations, and its intention to propose, later on, certain consequential alterations in the existing treaty. In Czechoslovakia, the question of a commercial treaty was ventilated in October 1924 by the Soviet representative at Prague, and in December M. Beneš declared, in a statement to the Congress of the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party, that the moment for giving the U.S.S.R. de jure recognition had arrived.' This declaration led to a passage of arms between M. Beneš and M. Kramař in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Chamber. On this occasion M. Beneš apparently stated his belief that the Soviet Government did, in fact, assist the propaganda of the Third International, but insisted that the establishment of normal diplomatic relations would 1 The Times, 4th January, 1924. 2 The Corriere della Sera, 13th August, 1924. 3 Le Temps, 15th April; The Times, 20th June, 1924. Le Temps, 20th November, 1924. 5 The Times, 20th June, 1924. Text in Russian Information and Review, 8th March, 1924. ? Le Temps, 16th December, 1924. be opportune, and would not hinder the Czechoslovak Government from combating Communist propaganda in its territory.1 A remarkable achievement-considering the violent contrast between the political complexion of the two régimes—was the signature in Berlin on the 18th September, 1924, of a trade agreement (accompanied by the establishment of normal diplomatic relations) between the Hungarian and Soviet Governments. The Hungarian motives were, first, the example of the Great Powers, and secondly the ambition to build up national industries, for which the territories of the U.S.S.R. offered a possible market. Nevertheless, the Government's action raised a storm in Parliament when it met on the 7th October. Meanwhile, the firstfruits of the agreement were the exchange of thirty-four Hungarian Communists against thirtyfour Hungarian prisoners of war still remaining in Russia.3 Greece started negotiations in January 1924 for the resumption of both commercial and diplomatic relations with the Soviet Government, and gave the U.S.S.R. de jure recognition on the 8th March. Relations between the Vatican and the Soviet Government had been completely broken off when, on the 26th March, 1923, Archbishop Cieplak and Mgr. Butkevič, the leading Roman Catholic Prelates in Russia, were tried for alleged acts of hostility to the Soviet Government, and were condemned, the former to ten years' solitary confinement and the latter to death, the sentences being duly carried out.' 4 On the 30th March, the Soviet Government received simultaneous appeals for the reprieve of Mgr. Butkevič from the representatives of the British Government in Moscow and of the soi-disant Irish Republic in France. The British Government's appeal resulted only in an acrimonious exchange of notes, and Great Britain's eventual diplomatic victory, which was marked by the withdrawal of two offending communications from the Kommissariat for Foreign Affairs of the R.S.F.S.R., can have brought little consolation to the Catholic Church. Meanwhile, Archbishop Cieplak and other Roman Catholic ecclesiastics remained in prison, and when Great Britain was on the point of according de jure recognition to the Soviet Government the Vatican was 1 Ibid., 20th December, 1924. 2 See Le Temps, 22nd September; and Count Bethlen's statement to the Budapest Correspondent of The Times, published on the 8th October, 1924. 3 Le Temps, 11th October, 1924. Quoted from Lord Curzon's memorandum of the 2nd May, 1923. (Cmd. 1869 of 1923.) See Section (iv) above. 5 Op. cit., Nos. 1 and 2. 6 reported to have asked that the release of these ecclesiastics should be made one of the conditions.1 This did not prove possible, since unconditional recognition was the policy of the British Government; but towards the end of March, on the eve of the Anglo-Russian negotiations in London, Archbishop Cieplak's sentence was suddenly commuted from ten years' imprisonment to permanent banishment from the territories of the Union.2 A few days later, the prisoner (who had not been informed of his reprieve) was placed on board a train under guard and turned out free, but destitute, at the Latvian frontier. A charitable passenger paid his railway ticket to Riga, where he had some difficulty in establishing his identity,3 but from the moment of his recognition his journey, which he continued through Warsaw to Rome, became a triumphal progress. In Rome, he was granted an audience by the Pope on the 9th May. His release, however, had not resulted in the de jure recognition of the U.S.S.R. by the Vatican by the end of the year 1924. Nevertheless, by that date, the Soviet Government had been recognized de jure by fifteen out of the twenty-five European states of the time (including all the actual or potential European Great Powers) as compared with six at the beginning of the year. M. Čičerin's diplomacy, however, was less successful overseas. In the United States, at this time, the recognition of the U.S.S.R. was strongly opposed by public opinion; and in this matter the Secretary of State, Mr. Charles Evans Hughes, and Senator Lodge found themselves in complete agreement. There was, however, one influential supporter of recognition on the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate. Senator Borah advocated it vigorously in an article published in the New York Times on the 28th December, 1923, and again in a debate in the Senate on the 7th January, 1924. In the same debate, Senator Lodge, in a carefully documented indictment, exposed the relations of the Third International with the Russian Communist Party and with the Government of the U.S.S.R. Thereafter, the Foreign Relations Committee appointed a sub-committee, including Senator Borah, to hear evidence from the State Department on the subject, and the nature of this evidence 1 The Times, 5th February, 1924. 3 Ibid., 13th April, 1924. 2 Ibid., 24th March, 1924. 4 The Corriere della Sera, 10th May, 1924. 5 Not counting Turkey as a European state. The ten European States which had not yet recognized the Soviet Government de jure by the 31st December, 1924, were Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Holland, Jugoslavia, Portugal, Rumania, Spain, and Switzerland. 7 See The Times, 9th January, 1924. -of which certain points have been cited above 1-caused Senator Borah's proposal to fall to the ground for the time being. He returned to the attack, however, in a speech delivered on the 11th November, after he had succeeded Senator Lodge as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee; 2 and although he still found himself impotent in face of the implacable opposition of the Secretary of State, who in this matter had the support of President Coolidge, the resignation of Mr. Hughes on the 4th March, 1925, prepared the way for a possible change in Russo-American relations. In Canada, the head of the Soviet Trade Delegation, M. Yanikov, inquired officially of the Prime Minister, Mr. Mackenzie King, whether the de jure recognition of the U.S.S.R. by His Britannic Majesty included recognition by Canada, and Mr. King replied that in the best interests of both countries, Canada' was 'prepared to recognize' the U.S.S.R.3 It was, however, apparently found, on the customs examination of the baggage brought by the Mission from Moscow (for which it had claimed, and been refused, diplomatic immunity), that nearly half of it consisted of Communist propaganda literature.5 M. Yanikov was reported to have explained to Mr. King on the 8th August that official Russia had no knowledge of the inclusion of questionable literature in the consignment, and that the pamphlets were used as packing because they happened to be samples of a cheap form of printing now in an experimental stage in Russia '.6 On this occasion, Mr. King made it clear that Canadian recognition of the U.S.S.R. extended only to trade relations. The dangerous possibilities of Communist propaganda in Canada had been illustrated, towards the close of 1923, by evidence in a civil action brought by members of the Ukrainian national society Prosvita" against a revolutionary group who had captured control of the organization two years previously and had converted it into an agency for spreading among the Canadian Ukrainians the doctrines of the Third International.8 1 See Section (ii) (b), p. 192, above. The evidence was afterwards published officially. 2 See The Times, 13th November, 1924. 3 Ibid., 28th March, 1924. 4 See Section (ii) (ƒ) above for the similar controversy between the U.S.S. R. and Germany. 5 See The Times, 19th April, 1924. Dispatch, dated the 8th August, 1924, to The Times from Ottawa. These Ukrainians, who had emigrated to Canada from Eastern Galicia before the War of 1914, when Galicia was an Austrian Crown Land, were one of the largest communities of non-British origin in Canada at this time. The Prosvita Society had originally promoted cultural objects of a perfectly legitimate character. 8 See The Times, 1st January, 1924. (vii) The Russo-Rumanian Negotiations and the The history of the Bessarabian Question, from the Russian Revolution of 1917 down to the close of the year 1923, has been dealt with in the preceding volume.1 At the beginning of 1924 the treaty concerning Bessarabia which had been signed in Paris on the 28th October, 1920, by Rumania and the four Principal Allied Powers had been ratified by Rumania herself and by Great Britain (on the 14th April, 1922)2 but not by the other three parties, while no agreement on the question had been arrived at between Rumania and the U.S.S.R. 3 Notwithstanding this grave unsettled issue between the two lastmentioned countries, which had hitherto prevented the resumption even of informal diplomatic relations, Russo-Rumanian negotiations were opened on the 5th December, 1923, at Tiraspol for the repatriation of refugees, and were continued at Odessa for the conclusion of a commercial treaty; and early in January the Rumanian Government proposed that a conference to regulate the general relations between the two countries should be held at Salzburg in Austria.* Meanwhile, the commercial negotiations were suspended owing to the refusal of the Rumanian Government to allow the Russian commercial delegation to proceed to Kišinev, in Bessarabia, in order to meet the Rumanian delegation in that city; 5 and the Soviet Government rejected Salzburg as the meeting-place for the general conference which the Rumanian Government had proposed. Early in February, however, the two Governments agreed to hold the proposed conference at Vienna." From the outset there appears to have been a misunderstanding between the parties as to what the scope of the Vienna Conference was to be. The Rumanians were only prepared to resume the commercial negotiations and to discuss other outstanding questions on condition that the Russians admitted-at least tacitly, by not raising the issue that the Bessarabian Question had already been 1 Survey, 1920-3, pp. 273-8. 2 On the 29th April, 1924, Mr. Ponsonby declared in the House of Commons that the treaty, having so far been ratified only by Great Britain and Rumania, was not yet in force and that the British Government was not bound by its terms. 3 Le Temps, 1st January, 1924. The Corriere della Sera, 5th January, 1924. 5 Ibid., 11th January, 1924. Ibid., 13th January; Le Temps, 19th January, 1924. 7 The Times, 8th February, 1924. |