The Bullitt Mission to Russia: Testimony Before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, of William C. Bullitt

This is not a book in the conventional sense. It is the transcript of William C. Bullitt's sworn testimony before the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 1919, and it constitutes one of the earliest American firsthand accounts of post-revolutionary Russia. Bullitt, who would become the first US ambassador to the Soviet Union, had just returned from a diplomatic mission tasked with assessing whether the Bolshevik regime could be worked with or needed to be opposed. The document captures a moment of extraordinary uncertainty: the Russian Revolution had destabilized the global order, and American policymakers were desperately seeking intelligence about the factions, the economics, and the viability of the new Soviet state. Bullitt speaks as both journalist and diplomat, offering observations that would shape US-Soviet policy for decades. For historians and anyone fascinated by primary sources, this testimony offers an unfiltered window into how American officials grappled with a revolution they barely understood, in a room where the future of Cold War tensions was quietly being forged.