One of the greatest errors of the Entente has been to treat Russia on many occasions, not as a fallen friend, but as a conquered enemy. Nothing has been more deplorable than to have considered as Russia the men of the old regime, who have been treated for a long time as the representatives of an existing State when the State no longer existed.
Let us suppose that the Bolshevik government transforms itself and gives guarantees to the civilized nations not to make revolutionary agitations in foreign countries, to maintain the pledges she assumes, and to respect the liberty of citizens; the United States of America, Great Britain and Italy would recognize her at once. But France has an entirely different point of view. She will not give any recognition unless the creditors of the old regime are guaranteed.
In June, 1920, the government of Moscow sent some gold to Sweden to purchase indispensable goods. Millerand, President of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Foreign Affairs, declared to the Minister of Sweden at Paris that if his Government consented to receive Russian gold _ferait acte de receleur_. He then telegraphed to the Minister of Finance at Stockholm regretting that the Government and public opinion in Sweden were tending to consider the _revendications juridiques_ of the French creditors of the ancient Russian regime to be such that they did not stop the consignment of Swedish goods against Russian gold. He added at the end that the syndicates of creditors could utilize the news in telegram No. 355, in which the Swedish Government gave notice of the trade and put a sequestration on Russian gold sent to Sweden.
This telegram, better than any speech, shows the diversity of conception.
The Bolshevik government may be so immoral that we cannot recognize it until it gives serious guarantees. But if the government of Moscow sends a little of the gold that remains, or has remained, to buy goods, what right have we to sequestrate the gold in the interests of the creditors of the old regime?
The new regime, born after the revolution, can also not recognize the debts of the old regime and annul them. It is not for that that we have no relations with it.
We have pushed Germany by absurd demands to ruin her circulation. It is already at about 100 milliard of marks; if to-morrow it goes to 150 or to 200, it will be necessary to annul it, nearly the same as is done for bills of exchange. And for this should we not treat with Germany?