Source A is of particular use to a historian because of its impartiality and unique insight into the turbulent circumstances of the time. The source of US State Department intelligence for Russia during the Civil War was the American Consul in Arkhangelsk, Northern Russia, at which there operated several American diplomats, among whom was Felix Cole, a young emissary who was appointed ‘chargè d’Affaires’ in the absence of the American ambassador. The purpose of the letter he wrote to the the US State Department in June 1918 was to inform his unaware superiors of the situation in Russia and subsequently advise them as to the best course of action.
Cole adamantly reiterates throughout his letter the futility of foreign intervention, highlighting the increasing ‘growth in scope’ of the seemingly peripheral, foreign conflict and thereby its ‘demands for ships, money, men and materials’ (the word ‘demand’ has connotations of something that is being forced, that there is little support for). He deliberately seems to be appealing to the war-weariness that seemed to underlie all precarious foreign diplomatic negotiations post-1918. His claim is not exaggerated; many conflicts, including World War I, had initially seemed to be minor and short-lived but gradually…show more content… This was especially true after 1917 when the memory of Kerensky’s failures were still fresh in the Russian conscience; even despite blunderings at Brest-Litovsk, the people were undoubtedly willing to support the Bolsheviks over the Allies, especially when the Allied agenda was to re-establish Russia at the Eastern front and to support White forces. Thus Cole rightly says ‘all the fight has gone out of Russia;’ newspapers filling up with lists of the dead was not a reality that any Russian was willing to face
