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ArcheoBiblioBase: Archives in Russia: B-13

Last update of repository: 3 December 2020

Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv noveishei istorii (RGANI)


Holdings

Total: 68 fonds, 384 opisi, 1,026,034 units, 1952–1991 (some documents 1919–1951, 1991–2004)
sound recordings—2,921 units (1955–1991)

Electronic version of the annotated list of fonds available on the RGANI website: http://xn--80afqtm.xn--p1ai/spisok-fo....
        RGANI retains records created by the activities of the highest central organs of the CPSU and the CP of the RSFSR, including those created by their permanent and provisional commissions, bureaus, and apparatus of the CPSU CC and the CC CP RSFSR. A few personal fonds have been established for individual CPSU officials and leaders. There are also some sound recordings. Documentation principally covers the period from 1952 to August 1991, although there are some holdings from the years 1922–1951. Although over two-thirds of the holdings of RGANI have not been processed and definitively arranged and described, a brief survey follows listing fonds already established, using the often abbreviated names currently listed by RGANI. Register of opisi of fonds is available for researchers. Fonds marked with an asterisk (*) are completely or partially open to researchers.
        RGANI has recently started to acquire records of the CPSU Congresses (fond 1*; 1955–1966) and transcripts and other documents of CC Plenums (fond 2*; 1941–1966, 1990–1991). Of particular importance are the records of the CC Politburo (fond 3**, 1952–1991), including transcripts of meetings, protocols, and attached documents. All of these documents were received from AP RF, but many of accompanying and explanatory records remained there and have not been declassified. Among transfers from the Presidential Archive are transcripts of Politburo meetings from 1953 to 1964 (including the official protocols but without all of their appended materials), and some other documentation.
        Among the most voluminous fonds in RGANI are the records of CC CPSU Secretariat from 1952 to 1991 (fond 4**). The Secretariat organized the execution of resolutions of Party congresses, conferences, plenums, and Politburo (Presidium) decisions and resolutions, and which directed the activity of the Central Committee apparatus. Especially important among these records are the protocols (resolutions) of meetings of the CC CPSU Secretariat and related appended materials and the working transcripts (stenograms) of various meetings.
        The voluminous fond of the CPSU CC Apparatus (Apparat) (fond 5**, 1935–1951, 1952–1991; 425,000, divided into many separate opisi) consists of an amalgam of the records of different departments, sectors, and other structural subdivisions of the CC CPSU Apparatus, which executed the work of the Politburo, the Secretariat, and Commissions and Bureaus of the Central Committee, and which implemented control of the execution of Party decisions. This fond includes records of the Department of International Relations (Otdel mezhdunarodnykh sviazei) and its predecessors and subdivisions, the Department of Ideology and Propaganda, the Department of Organizational-Party Work (Otdel organizatsionno-partiinoi raboty), the Department of Administrative Organs, and departments for science, culture, industry, and planning, as well as agencies for trade and finance, among others. For the period prior to CC reorganization in 1966, records of different departments are found in separate opisi; subsequent records of many of the departments are intermingled. The arrangement of this fond remains intact as organized before it became a part of TsKhSD (RGANI), although separate fonds also now exist for specific groups of documentation created in the offices of some of the various structural subdivisions. As would be expected, its records contain considerable documentation sent to the CC from high and central state administrative offices, ministries, and other agencies, organizations, and private citizens, as well as from foreign CP offices.
        The records of the Committee of Party Control–KPK (Komitet partiinogo kontrolia) under the CPSU CC, earlier known as the Party Control Commission (Partiinaia kontrol'naia komissiia) (fond 6**, 1934–1990–pre-1953 parts of this fond are being transferred to RGASPI; 126,000 units) contains minutes of meetings of the Committee and other CPSU control organs, and of the secretariats of Party congresses (copies), together with some personnel files of CPSU members. There is a separate group of records for the later Central Control Commission of the CPSU for 1990 through 1991 (fond 88).
        The Center also accessioned the records of the Administration of Affairs of the CPSU CC (Upravlenie delami TsK KPSS) (fond 8, 1935–1990), which handled financial and budgetary matters. There are scattered records of permanent commissions and commissions for specific matters (fond 9**; 1967–1990).
        While most of the records of the International Department remain part of fond 5, there is a collection (ca. 900 files) of documents relating to international meetings and negotiations with Communist and other workers' parties, including intergovernmental negotiations (fond 10**; 1956–1988). In terms of other CP international relations, the extensive records of the Department for Operations with Foreign Cadres and Travel Abroad of Delegations and Individuals (Otdel po rabote s zagrankadrami i vyezdam za granitsu delegatsii i otdel'nykh lits) now form a separate fond (fond 69, 1930–1988).
        Records of the CC Commission for Questions of Ideology, Culture, and International Party Relations (Komissiia TsK KPSS po voprosam ideologii, kul'tury i mezhdunarodnykh partiinykh sviazei) also form a separate fond (fond 11*; 1958–1961). This fond also contains considerable documentation sent to the CC from government ministries and other high state agencies, as well as from foreign CP offices. From subsequent years there are only a few files from the CC Ideological Commission (Ideologicheskaia komissiia pri TsK KPSS) (fond 72*; 1962–1966).
        Some records are held from the Party Committee of the Party Organizational Apparatus of the CC CPSU (Partiinyi komitet partorganizatsii apparata TsK KPSS) (fond 74; 1938, 1941–1991). Statistical records of the Department for Organizational-Party Work (Otdel organizatsionno-partiinoi raboty–Orgotdel TsK KPSS) form a separate fond (fond 77*, 1936–1991). Records also remain of the Trade Unions Committee of the CC Trade Unions Apparatus (Profsoiuznyi komitet profsoiuznoi organizatsii apparata TsK KPSS) (fond 70; 1941–1991).
        Important statistical materials, including collections of indexes with general indicators of economic and social development of the USSR, and of union republics, oblasts, krais, and autonomous republics from 1970–1985, are found in the fond of the Center for Information Processing (Tsentr obrabotki informatsii) in the Economic Department of the CPSU CC (fond 86; 1986).
        The records of the Sector of Party-Membership Cards of the Organizational Department (Sektor edinogo partbileta Orgotdela), and the Sector for Registration of CPSU members (fond 90; 1973–1991) contain personal dossiers, with some 25,070,000 registration forms for Party cards (starting in 1973). The Center also holds documentation from the formerly separate archive of the Subdivision of Letters of the General Department of CPSU CC (fond 100; 1960–1991)–with some 2,500,000 letters and petitions from citizens.
        Scattered editorial files have been acquired of the newspaper Sovetskaia Rossiia (fond 96*; 1956–1988; 173 units). More extensive editorial records remain of the documentary publication journal Izvestiia TsK, which was issued during the period 1989–August 1991 (fond 95; 1988–1990; 750 units).
        A separate fond comprises the records of the Bureau of the CPSU Central Committee for the RSFSR (fond 13*; 1956–1966), which directed the operations of all Party and Soviet organs, social organizations, institutions, and enterprises in the implementation of political and economic tasks. Some of the original documentation, including protocols (journals) of the Bureau and related materials are held in RGASPI (B–12). From the 1990–1991 period, there are also significant records of the Central Committee of the CP RSFSR (fond 92) and a smaller group of records of the Central Control Commission of the CP RSFSR (fond 93).
        A few personal fonds have been established on the basis of accessions for a number of CPSU leaders, but a significant number of files have been acquired only for M.A. Suslov (fond 81; 1919–1982; 750 units) and L.F. Il'ichev (fond 97; 1939–1988; 100 units). These fonds have been started on the basis of transfers of personal papers from the AP RF and other sources.
        RGANI retains an exceedingly important collection of copies of recently declassified documents from the years 1922–1991 (fond 89*; ca. 3,000 units). This fond-collection was started on the basis of copies of documents that were specially declassified for proceedings of the Constitutional Court in the 1992 “CPSU Case (‘delo KPSS’),” including Politburo documents from the Presidential Archive (AP RF–C–1), files from the Ministry of State Security, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and other agencies, and many files from fonds in RGANI (TsKhSD) itself. However, not all of the documents presented to the Court in that case have as yet been deposited in this fond. This collection also includes copies of documents presented to Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia by President Boris Yeltsin.

N.B. Documents predating 1953 from a number of fonds have been transferred to RTsKhIDNI (former TsPA, now RGASPI–B–12), and others are in the process of transfer (including recently those from fond 6*). Considerable documentation of the Politburo (fond 3), including transcripts of meetings, along with many other important files from other fonds, still remain in the Presidential Archive (C–1).


ABB ArcheoBiblioBase Archeo Biblio Base Patricia Kennedy Grimsted