Office of the Historian

File No. 861.00/2161

The Consul at Moscow ( Poole) to the Secretary of State

[Telegram]
Moscow, June 7, 1918.
[Received June 28, 8 p.m.]

612. Official Soviet gazette for June 7 prints statement made to Kühlmann by Russian representative, Berlin, May 28 in which the following instances of continued German military activity [are cited:

(1)]
Concentration of forces on the Don front, apparently for advance on Novorossiisk, fighting at Bataisk, German submarines blockading Novorossiisk’s harbor.
(2)
Continued advance toward Voronezh government in region of Valuiki.
(3)
Raids by German troops into Russian territory on north-western front.
(4)
Threats of advance in Vitebsk government.
(5)
Near Lake Chud all male inhabitants of a village carried off.
(6)
Operations of German submarines in Arctic Ocean and White Sea causing coastal inhabitants to die of hunger as their only means of livelihood is by fishing and coastal trading. Result is strong feeling against Germans and marked increase of sympathy for English in whom inhabitants see only salvation from hunger. Owing this situation and cruel manner of executing German blockade, Russian Government is unable to withstand claims of English respecting Murman coast or to counteract increasing indignation against Germany.

Same paper prints following:

People’s Commissariat Foreign Affairs has received information that according to statement of German Government, Russian commercial navigation will enjoy absolute freedom in event of departure of English and their allies from Murmansk coast and adjoining waters.

[Page 554]

Also prints protest by Joffe to Kühlmann May 28 against insistence by Ukrainian peace delegation on demarcation line running near Kursk and Voronezh and will [omission] eastward on the Don front. Kühlmann asked to point out to Ukrainian government impossibility of its demands.

Gazette for June 4 prints decree abolishing diplomatic rank. On principle of equality of large and small states all Russian diplomatic agents abroad will be called simply “Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federative Soviet Republic” and diplomatic agents of foreign countries accredited to Russia will likewise be considered as of one rank.

Chaprashnikov, Bulgarian representative near Soviet government, arrived Moscow June 2.

Poole