7 December 1917. George Buchanan

Non-fiction

Project 1917 is a series of events that took place a hundred years ago as described by those involved. It is composed only of diaries, letters, memoirs, newspapers and other documents

George Buchanan

4, Dvortsovaya embankment, Petrograd, Russian Republic (British Embassy)

I sent Captain Smith (the Embassy translator) yesterday to Trotsky to see if it was possible to come to some understanding with him with regard to the British subjects who want to leave Russia. Trotsky replied that in the note which he had addressed to me he had not intended to convey a threat and that I must make allowance for his ignorance of diplomatic language.

He had only wished to make it clear that the same treatment must be meted out to Russians in England as to Englishmen in Russia. It was only four days later, after receiving no reply to his note and after reading in the Press that I had decided to forward his note to my Government (the statement that had appeared in the Press to the above effect was false), that he had issued the order in question.

He had also thought it well to warn me that he knew as a fact that I was in touch with some of Kaledin's agents, though he would not mention their names. He could not, he said, act on my suggestion by taking the first step ; but he would engage to allow British subjects to leave at once as soon as I published a statement in the Petrograd Press to the effect that His Majesty's Government were prepared to reconsider the cases of all interned Russians and to allow those who were not proved guilty of any illegal acts to return to Russia.

The above question was finally settled by His Majesty's Government consenting to repatriate the interned Russians, provided that freedom of movement was restored to British subjects in Russia.

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