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Foreign Relations of the United States : 1918 The November Revolution
The Minister in Sweden (Morris) to the Secretary of State

File No. 861.00/700

The Minister in Sweden (Morris) to the Secretary of State

[Telegram]

STOCKHOLM, November 21, 1917, 10 p.m.

[Received November 22, 7.30 a.m.]

1038. The private secretary of Kerensky, Dr. David Sauskis, by some means contrived to leave the frontier at Tornea unknown to the Bolsheviks who had a strict guard at this place and he has just arrived at Stockholm. I confidentially learned of his whereabouts and have just had a long conversation with him in which he states that he left Petrograd Friday and saw Kerensky a few days prior to his departure. He states that the reason for Kerensky's defeat by the Bolsheviks was due to the railway union. This union presented an ultimatum both to Kerensky and Bolsheviks demanding that they cease hostilities and stating that if their demand was not complied with all railway transportation would cease at once. Their ultimatum being ignored all trains were stopped. This left Kerensky without ammunition and also delayed reenforcements which were en route to aid him. Bolsheviks on the contrary had vast amount of supplies and ammunition in Petrograd and therefore defeated Kerensky forces. Sauskis states that he is convinced that the whole Bolshevik movement has been engineered from Germany. He says many evidences of this have been found and cites where two boxes in the possession of two private soldiers in Helsingfors were opened and were found to contain three million and ten million Finnish marks, respectively. He also points out the fact that Bolsheviks have appointed a Polish lawyer named Koslovski as administrator of Polish affairs who is notorious German agent who was arrested by Kerensky for dealing with the enemy. He states also that a private soldier is now Governor General of Finland. Sauskis states that Bolshevik government cannot possibly exist for more than two to four weeks and that in his opinion the next government will be all socialist. He urges that the United States be not impatient and says that the only hope is for America not to take sides in the present struggle but to await the formation of some more stable government.

MORRIS

127 Wall Street, New Haven, CT 06511.