British declaration to the peoples of Russia

The British chronology of the war records under 6 August 1918 that the British government issued a declaration to the peoples of Russia, assuring them that it had no intention of interfering in Russian politics. Other sources link the publication of the appeal to a slightly later date. On 8 August the British chargé d’affaires in Washington passed its text to the State Department, and the American monthly Current History wrote that British representatives in Vladivostok, Murmansk and Archangel had published the “Declaration of the British Government to the Peoples of Russia” on 8 August. The British government explained that it had considered it its duty to issue such a statement since General Poole’s troops had occupied Archangel, and Japan and the United States had already announced their own declarations of help for the Czechoslovaks in Siberia.

The appeal began with the words: “Peoples of Russia! Your allies have not forgotten you. We remember all the services which your heroic armies rendered us in the early years of the war. We are coming as friends to help you save yourselves from dismemberment and destruction at the hands of Germany.” The British government “solemnly assured” them that although its troops were entering Russia to support it in the fight against Germany, “we shall not retain one foot of your territory”. It deplored the civil war that divided Russians and made Germany’s conquests easier, but assured them that it did not intend to impose any system of government on Russia: “The destinies of Russia are in the hands of the Russian people. It is for them, and them alone, to decide their forms of government and to find a solution for their social problems.” It also promised economic help, supplies and a revival of trade and agriculture, and finally assured them that the Allies’ only desire was to see Russia strong and free, “and then to retire” and watch the Russian people work out their own destinies.

The appeal was originally meant to be a joint voice of the Allies. On 25 July the Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, sent Washington a draft proclamation prepared by a committee of Russia experts and asked for the Americans’ opinion. After a telephone conversation with President Woodrow Wilson, the Acting Secretary of State, Frank Polk, replied to the British diplomat on 29 July that the United States considered it inadvisable, above all because it “promises the Russians too much”. The British therefore issued the appeal in their own name. From the final text the sentence saying that all of Russia’s main allies were represented in the forces coming to help disappeared, and an assurance appeared that Britain did not intend to impose any system of government on Russia.

The declaration developed what the British government had already promised in July, and it was addressed to the Russians rather than to the government in Moscow. The British still presented the intervention as part of the war with Germany, not as an expedition against the Bolsheviks. Lenin’s government, however, saw it as an invasion, and the Allied troops in the north and in Siberia were soon fighting above all against the Red Army.