August 1, 1996

Contacts: Craig D'Ooge, Library of Congress (202) 707-9189, (202) 707-9199 (fax)
Michele Horaney, Stanford University (415) 723-3564, (415) 725-8611 (fax)

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The Hoover Institution And The Russian State Archives Deposit Microfilms of Soviet Communist Party Archives at the Libarary of Congress

More than 2,500 reels of microfilm of selected archives of the Soviet Communist Party and the Soviet State have been deposited at the Library of Congress by the Hoover Institution and the Russian State Archives Service of the Government of the Russian Federation (Rosarkhiv). The microfilms will be available to researchers in the Microform Reading Room (LJ 107) by September. The hours are Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.; Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. (closed Sunday). The microfilms are the product of a joint project begun in 1992 by the Hoover Institution and Rosarkhiv. The microfilms also are available for research at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, the Novosibirsk Regional State Archives, the State Archives of the Russian Federation (GARF), the Russian Center for the Preservation and Study of Documents of Most Recent History (RTsKhIDNI), and the Center for Preservation of Contemporary Documentation (TsKhSD).

According to James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress, "The gift of the microfilm collection is a major event. The collection will be a boon to researchers at the Library of Congress because the documents filmed fill in major gaps in our knowledge of the Soviet period. The files are especially strong in the formative period of the Soviet regime--the 1920s and 1930s."

In selecting materials for microfilming, the Hoover Institution-Rosarkhiv project sought to microfilm entire record groups of the highest policy-making organs of the Soviet regime. All the material microfilmed in the project has been declassified in accordance with the laws of the Russian Federation.

The microfilming of these record groups is in varying stages of completion. Among the record groups represented in the collection deposited at the Library of Congress are records of the Party Congresses and Conferences, 1912-1990; the Central Committee of the Communist Party, 1903-1965; the Committee for Party Control, 1934-1956; and the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD), 1917-1930. The collection also includes the finding aids (opisi) to most archives of the Soviet period that are opened for research at the three Russian repositories noted above.

The Hoover Institution is preparing a detailed guide to all microfilms produced by the project. The guide is expected to be published in 1997. Meanwhile, a preliminary catalog of the microfilms may be obtained from Chadwyck-Healey Inc., 1101 King Street, Alexandria, VA 22314, telephone (703) 683-4890, the project's commercial distributor.

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PR 96-97
8/1/96
ISSN 0731-3527