Records of the Department of State relating to internal affairs of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1910-1929

Ghi Chú

This microfilm publication reproduces "the decimal file of the Department of State, 1910-1929, that relate to internal affairs of Russian and the Soviet Union. The records consist both of bound volumes and loose documents. Correspondence with U.S. diplomatic and consular officials in Imperial Russia between 1910 and 1917 is limited. After the November Revolution in 1917 and the discontinuance of formal relations with Russia by the United States, most of the dispatches came from diplomatic and consular officials in the Baltic States, the Scandinavian countries, Poland, Germany, and China. The dispatches are often accompanied by enclosures such as pamphlets and newspapers. Also included in the records are notes between the Department of State and foreign diplomatic representatives in the United States, memoranda prepared by officials of the Department, and correspondence with officials of other Government departments and with private firms and individuals. The lists of documents or 'purport sheets' reproduced on rolls 1-6 give brief abstracts of the documents reproduced in the microcopy and serve as a finding aid to the documents themselves. The arrangement of the entries on the lists corresponds to the arrangement of the documents in the file.".

"Since 1910 the central files of the Department of State have been grouped and arranged by a decimal system of subject classification. The decimal file initially consisted of nine primary classes numbered 0 through 8, each covering a broad subject area. Under Class 8, Internal Affairs of states, the documents are arranged according to the country concerned. Each country has been assigned a 2-digit number and the number for Russia is 61; thus the documents reproduced in this microcopy bear the file number 861 and relate to internal affairs of Russia. A decimal point is used after the first three digits, followed by a number that represents a specific subtopic. The number, in turn, may be followed by a slant mark (/). The numbers that follow the slant mark are assigned to individual documents as they are accumulated on a specific subject. For example, a decimal file number taken from a document reproduced in the microcopy is 861.51/34. The two-digit number 51 signifies that the subtopic is Financial Conditions, and the number following the slant mark indicates that this is the 34th paper received on this subtopic.".

"The documents under one subject classification are generally in chronological order, coinciding with the document number assigned (which follows the slant mark). There are instances, however, when a document file number was not assigned until a date considerably later than the one on which the document was received.".

"Cross-reference sheets that refer to related records under other subject classifications in the decimal file have been reproduced as they occur and appropriate cross-reference notations appear in the Lists of Documents. Other cross-reference notations are to documents in the 'numerical file,' a system used for the central files of the Department of State for the period 1906-1910. The numerical system of assigning consecutive numbers to subject case files was replaced by the decimal system of subject classification in 1910.".

"Before the records were filmed a search was made by the National Archives and the Department of State for missing documents. The checkmarks that appear by most entries in the left-hand column of the Lists of Documents indicate that the papers are in the file. The absence of checkmarks denotes that the documents were not found; it is believed that they were not among the records when they were received from the Department.".

"Some of the documents that have been checked in the Lists of Documents on rolls 1-6 do not appear in numerical sequence on subsequent rolls. When the Department of State bound parts of the decimal file the security-classified documents were excluded. Those that were later declassified are reproduced as a separate group and appear on roll 37. The file also contains communications received from and classified by foreign governments and Federal agencies other than the Department of State. The documents that have not been declassified are not available as part of this microcopy. The National Archives and Records Service does not have authority to make reproductions of such documents available to searchers"--Introd.

Microfilm of original records in The National Archives, Washington, District of Columbia.

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