NARKOMINDEL NOTE TO THE JAPANESE REPRESENTATIVE IN MOSCOW
ON PARTICIPATION BY JAPANESE IN THE WHITE ARMY



[25?] April 1918
Izvestia, 26 April 1918

    The People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, enclosing herewith published official documents on the activities of some Japanese consular agents and officials in Siberia, requests you to bring the following to the knowledge of the Tokio Government:

    Both the Japanese Embassy in Petrograd and the official representatives of Japan in Moscow, in particular M. Sentaro Ueda, the Consul, have repeatedly given assurances that the Japanese Government has no intention of interfering in the internal affairs of Russia.

    We have also repeatedly pointed out to the representatives of Japan that in spite of these declarations a considerable number of Japanese citizens and even officials are taking a direct part in the Civil War on the side of the counter-revolutionary elements against the Government of the Russian Federal Soviet Republic. On the last occasion we drew the attention of the representative to the presence of Japanese gunners in the gang of the notorious bandit Cossack Captain Semenov, and to their possession of Japanese arms. We also pointed to the intolerable interference of the Japanese Consul in Vladivostok in the activity of the revolutionary tribunal.

    The published facts incontestably establish the large-scale participation by Japanese Government agents in the counter-revolutionary struggle against the Russian Government.

    Such conduct on the part ofjapan compels us to ask for an immediate, clear, and completely unequivocal statement of the position of the Tokio Cabinet in relation to the Government of the Russian Federal Republic and to ask in particular whether the Japanese Government intends to continue to support the counter-revolutionary elements in Russia, or whether it is willing to begin immediately a public investigation into the activities of some of its agents, to recall those clearly implicated, and to issue definite instructions to the others.

    Failing this, the Government of the Russian Federal Republic will be compelled to apply to such agents the same measures as are applied towards Russian counter-revolutionary citizens.




Documents on Soviet Foreign Policy

[Subject] [Author] [Date]