ABSTRACT
WITH a view to arranging terms for this evacuation, a Conference between delegates of the Japanese Government and the Far Eastern Republic met at the Yamato Hotel in Dairen on August 26, 1921, Mr. Matsushima, who had been in charge of civil affairs at Vladivostok, being the chief Japanese delegate, and Mr. Petroff representing Chita. Besides these there were Mr. Shimada, Consul-General in Harbin, and General Takayanagi, on the Japanese side, and (late in arrival owing to secret agents going through his baggage) Mr. Turin, the Chita representative in Peking. The Conference was a hopeless business from the beginning. The authority and recognition of the Far Eastern Republic were ambiguous. Chita, moreover, claimed no jurisdiction over the vast basin of the Lena in the north, while its authority in the Priamur and Kamchatka was hypothetical. From the beginning the question of the evacuation of Saghalien was insoluble. Constantly it was dropped, and minor questions were taken up, so that both sides should be able to report progress and the approach to a general agreement. The Japanese wanted a treaty before withdrawal, and the Russians wanted withdrawal before a treaty. The Japanese objected even to making withdrawal one of the conditions of the treaty; they had gone in for an altruistic purpose, and they would withdraw with equal goodwill; they would not make withdrawal a matter of price to be paid. The Russians pointed out that meanwhile Vladivostok and every place misruled by the Russian parasites
of the Japanese military occupation were being ruined, and would continue to deteriorate up to the day of the withdrawal. They pointed out also that the abominable Merkuloff rule existing in Vladivostok at that moment owed its inception and continu-ance to Japan’s violation of the agreement of April 29, 1920, which she had herself imposed. The Japanese, both civil and military, agreed at length on an unconditional promise to withdraw from the Far Eastern Republic’s territory, but did not agree that Saghalien was included in this territory. They wanted Chita to guarantee the Japanese fishing stations in Kamchatka against the Communist or Partisan raids, insisting on the authority there which they denied in respect of Saghalien. The situation was not improved by the murder in November of Zeitlin, a Chita commissary in Vladivostok, who had been a member of the Antonoff Government expelled by the Kappelite coup. Krassin’s vigorous protest to the Powers against the shipping of six hundred of Denikin’s raiders to Vladivostok also made it difficult for Japan to maintain her attitude of disinterestedness, while it did not serve to shake the firmness of the Chita delegates.
