15. General Graves began to openly oppose American intervention
General William Graves, the officer in command of the American intervention in Siberia, was well-informed of the depredations of Semenov and others of the resistance to the Bolsheviks. The massacres of whole villages and the murder of ethnic groups for the crime of being members of that ethnic group were presented at the time to the world as being instigated by the Red Army and Bolshevik partisans. Graves knew better, and wrote, “…the anti-Bolsheviks killed one hundred people in eastern Siberia to every one killed by the Bolsheviks”. The word of the Bolsheviks perpetrating massacres in Siberia, particularly against Jews, led some to pressure the US government to more actively support the White opposition in Russia, despite the many massacres they perpetrated as well.
It became apparent to Graves that the anti-Bolshevik forces were conducting wholesale massacres in Siberia and blaming them on the Reds in the hope of attracting additional international support to overthrow the Bolshevik regime. Graves noted that the Japanese were the instigators of much of the barbarism, hoping to take advantage of a prolonged conflict between Reds and Whites in order to claim and colonize as much of Siberia as possible. When Americans officials in Washington urged the shipment of weapons to the Japanese aligned Semenov and others of his ilk, Graves placed himself in the middle of the transaction, asking that the weapons be sent to his command instead. Graves was well aware that the American public and government were misinformed regarding the situation in Siberia and the intentions of the Japanese.