The American President wrote:
May I now take advantage of the meeting of the Congress of the Soviets to express the sincere sympathy which the people of the United States feel for the Russian people at this moment when the German power has been thrust in to interrupt and turn back the whole struggle for freedom and substitute the wishes of Germany for the purpose of the people of Russia?
Although the government of the United States is, unhappily, not now in a position to render the direct and effective aid it would wish to render, I beg and assure the people of Russia through the congress that it will avail itself of every opportunity to secure for Russia once more complete sovereignty and independence in her own affairs, and full restoration to her great role in the life of Europe and the modern world.
The whole heart of the people of the United States is with the people of Russia in the attempt to free themselves forever from autocratic government and become the masters of their own life.
[Signed,] Woodrow Wilson
Washington, march 11, 1918
The British Government reacted in like spirit.
This was not what the Bolsheviks had expected: they had overestimated their ability to play one “imperialist” camp against the other. Hoping that perhaps Wilson’s cable was only the first installment, with more to come, Lenin kept on badgering Robins for a follow-up message. When it became obvious that no more would be forthcoming, Lenin drafted an insulting reply to the American “people” (rather than their President) in which he promised that the revolution in their country would not be long in coming:
The congress expresses its gratitude to the American people, above all to the laboring and exploited classes of the United States, for the sympathy expressed to the Russian people by President Wilson through the Congress of the Soviets in the days of severe trials.
The Russian Socialistic Federative Republic of Soviets takes advantage of President Wilson’s communication to express to all peoples perishing and suffering from the horrors of imperialistic war its warm sympathy and firm belief that the happy time is not far distant when the laboring masses of all countries will throw off the yoke of capitalism and will establish a socialistic state of society, which alone is capable of securing just and lasting peace, as well as the culture and well-being of all laboring people.
Amid peals of laughter, the Congress of Soviets unanimously approved the resolution (with two minor changes), which Zinoviev described as a “resounding slap” in the face of American capitalism.
Source:
Pipes, Richard. "Brest-Litovsk." The Russian Revolution. New York: Knopf, 1990. 602-03. Print.
Original Source(s) Listed:
Cumming and Pettit, Russian-American Relations, 87-88, 91-92.
Ibid. 89; Russian original in Lenin, PSS, XXXVI, 91.
Noulens, Mon Ambassade, II, 34-35.
Further Reading:
Rude. This probably prompted the beginning of the "Red Scare", I suspect.