Access
Publication Rights
Preferred Citation
Acquisition Information
Accruals
Location of Original Materials
Related Materials
Scope and Content of the Microfilm Collection
Scope and Content of the RGASPI Records
Arrangement
Glossary
Title: Archives of the Soviet communist party and Soviet state microfilm collection:
Russian State Archives of Social and Political History (Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv
sotsialno-politicheskoi istorii - RGASPI)
Date (inclusive): 1903-1991
Collection Number: XX880
Contributing Institution:
Hoover Institution Archives
Language of Material:
Russian
Physical Description:
2772 microfilm reels
(340.8 linear feet)
Abstract: Relates to political conditions in the Soviet Union from
1917 to 1991. Filmed from finding aids and holdings dating from 1903 to 1991 of the
Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyĭ arkhiv sot͡sial'no-politicheskoi istorii.
Physical Location: Hoover Institution Archives
Contributor:
Kommunisticheskai͡a partii͡a Sovetskogo
Soi͡uza.
Access
Collection open for research.
The Hoover Institution Archives only allows access to
copies
of audiovisual items. To listen to sound recordings or to view videos or films during your
visit, please contact the Archives at least two working days before your arrival. We will
then advise you of the accessibility of the material you wish to see or hear. Please note
that not all audiovisual material is immediately accessible.
Publication Rights
For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Archives.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], original located in RGASPI, [Fond number, Opis number, Delo
number], Archives of the Soviet communist party and Soviet state microfilm collection, [Reel
number], Hoover Institution Archives.
Acquisition Information
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Archives.
Accruals
Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. To
determine if this has occurred, find the collection in Stanford University's online catalog
at
http://searchworks.stanford.edu/
. Materials have been added to the collection if
the number of boxes listed in the online catalog is larger than the number of boxes listed
in this finding aid.
Location of Original Materials
The original documents are located in three Russian archives:
- -Russian State Archives of Social and Political History (Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi
arkhiv sotsialno-politicheskoi istorii - RGASPI);
- -State Archives of the Russian Federation (Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi
Federatsii - GARF);
- and
- -Russian State Archive of Contemporary History (Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv
noveishei istorii - RGANI).
Related Materials
Portions or the entirety of the microfilm collection may be found at the following
institutions in addition to the Hoover Institution: The Library of Congress, Grinnell
College, Harvard University, John Hopkins University, University of North Carolina Chapel
Hill, Ohio University, University of Washington, University of Melbourne Australia, Glasgow
University United Kingdom, Bavarian State University, Germany, and Hokkaido University,
Japan.
The microfilms containing only the Russian language
opisi or
finding aids may be found at the following institutions: University of Illinois, Indiana
University, Columbia University, and New York University.
Scope and Content of the Microfilm Collection
This collection concerns political conditions in the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1991. The
documents come from three Russian archives. Material was selected for microfilming based on
two criteria: (1) records of the highest policy-making units of the Communist Party were the
priority; and (2) record series were filmed in their entirety, rather than selecting only
particular files or documents (except for some of the Gulag material in GARF)
Fond R-9414).
To locate material in the collection, it helps to know that archival documents in the
former Soviet Union, and later in the Russian Federation, are arranged in record groups
according to the institution that issued or received them. These major groups, which
sometimes include thousands of documents, are called in Russian
fond (plural
fondy). Within each
fond the documents are generally divided into smaller groups called
opisi (singular
opis).
opisi are generally organized according to the internal structure
of the corresponding institution, but sometimes
opisi consist
of documents relating to one subject. The Russian word
opis has
two meanings: (1) a series of documents; and (2) a finding aid. Each
opis "series of documents" is provided with a descriptive
opis "finding aid." Each
opis "series of documents"
is further organized into files called dela (singular delo) that contain the documents.
Out of a total of 11,818 microfilm reels, 11,349 reels contain documents and 469 contain
finding aids to the
fondy available at the Hoover Institution,
as well as to some
fondy available only in Russia. Each reel of
microfilm contains approximately 850 pages, or frames.
The microfilm reel numbers consist of two parts separated by a period, for example 3.427.
The first numerical segment is a 1, 2, or 3, identifying the Russian archive source; 1 is
RGANI, 2 is RGASPI, and 3 is GARF. The second segment, which is sequentially numbered
starting with 1, represents a specific microfilm reel number for that Russian archive.
Scope and Content of the RGASPI Records
Materials described in this document are from the Russian State Archives of Social and
Political History (Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsialno-politicheskoi istorii -
RGASPI). The collection includes materials from congresses and conferences of the
RSDRP-VKP(b)-KPSS and records of the TsK KPSS Central Committee for the years 1917-1990.
There are thirty-nine
fonds that were microfilmed for the
Hoover Institution at the Russian State Archives of Social and Political History.
Thirty-eight
fonds consist of one (occasionally two)
opis and contain mainly documents relating to the congresses (2nd
through 19th; 23rd through 28th) and conferences (5th through 16th) of the Communist Party
of the Soviet Union (KPSS) [RSDRP, 1903-1917; RKP(b), 1918-1925; VKP(b), 1925-1952; KPSS,
1952-1990]. There are 2,069 files (on 261 reels) in these 38
fonds. All files were filmed for the Hoover Institution.
Fond 17, The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union records, 1903-1965, 1971, contains documents related to the activities of the
Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Russian Social-Democratic
Labor Party in 1989 and 1903-1917, Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1918-1925, and
All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1925-1952). The listing below has been prepared
for 2,457 microfilm reels of
Fond 17. The Central Committee was
the leading body of the KPSS, its political, theoretical, ideological, and organizational
center. It was elected at the party congresses or sometimes at its conferences. While in
power, the Central Committee was the main organ supervising the KPSS, the government, and
the political and economic life of the Soviet Union. The main organs of the Central
Committee were plenums, Bureau of the Central Committee, Political Bureau, Organizational
Bureau, and Secretariat. Decisions mandatory for party and governmental institutions were
adopted at the meetings of these organs. The Central Committee of the KPSS also had an
apparatus in which one part acted in parallel to the leading governmental structures and the
other was dealing with interior KPSS problems.
Arrangement
The collection is organized by the name of the Russian archive that holds the original
materials. There are three finding aids for the collection, one for each one of the Russian
Archives:
- -Russian State Archive of Contemporary History (Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv
noveishei istorii - RGANI);
- -Russian State Archives of Social and Political History (Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi
arkhiv sotsialno-politicheskoi istorii - RGASPI);
- and
- -State Archives of the Russian Federation (Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi
Federatsii - GARF).
Within Russian institutional archive, the materials are organized into two groups: (1)
fondy (record groups consisting of documents); and (2)
finding aids that describe each
fondy.
Fondy are usually subdivided into
opisi (series of
documents); the number of
opisi in each
fondy varies.
Glossary
- This glossary defines acronyms and names for all three organizations of the
microfilming project: the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History (Rossiiskii
gosudarstvennyi arkhiv noveishei istorii - RGANI), the Russian State Archives of Social
and Political History (Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsialno-politicheskoi istorii
- RGASPI), and the State Archives of the Russian Federation (Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv
Rossiiskoi Federatsii - GARF).
- ASSR
- Avtonomnaia Sovetskaia sotsialisticheskaia respublika
- BUND
- The General Jewish Workers' Union in Lithuania, Poland, and Russia
- Gospolitizdat
- Gosudarstvennoe izdatelstvo politichesko literatury
- GUITK
- Glavnoe upravlenie ispravitel'no-trudovykh kolonii
- Gulag
- Glavnoe upravlenie ispravitel'no-trudovykh lagerei
- GUMZ
- Glavnoe upravlenie mest zakliucheniia
- IKKI
- Ispolnitelnyi komitet Kommunisticheskogo Internatsionala
- IMEL
- Institut Marksa-Engelsa-Lenina
- Komsomol
- Kommunisticheskii soiuz molodezhi
- KPSS
- Kommunisticheskaia partiia Sovetskogo Soiuza
- Krymizdat
- Krymskoe izdatelstvo
- Lenizdat
- Leningradskoe izdatelstvo
- Malyi Sovnarkom
- Malyi sovet narodnykh komissarov
- MOPR
- Mezhdunarodnaia organizatsiia pomoshchi bortsam revoliutsii
- MVD
- Ministerstvo vnutrennikh del
- NKGB
- Narodnyi Commissariat gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti
- NKID
- Narodnyi kommisariat inostrannykh del
- NKPS
- Narodnyi kommisariat putei soobshcheniia
- NKVD
- Narodnyi kommisariat vnutrennikh del
- OGIZ
- Obiedinennoe gosudarstvennoe izdatelstvo
- OGPU
- Obiedinennoe gosudarstvennoe politicheskoe upravlenie
- Okruzhkom
- Okruzhnoi komitet [partii]
- Politizdat
- Izdatel'stvo politicheskoi literatury
- Profintern
- Krasnyi internatsional profsoiuzov
- PUR RVS
- Politicheskoe upravlenie revoliutsionno- voennogo soveta
- RKI
- Raboche-krestianskaia inspektsiia
- RKP(b)
- Rossiiskaia kommunisticheskaia partiia (Bolshevikov)
- ROSTA
- Rossiiskoe telegrafnoe agenstvo
- RSDRP
- Rossiiskaia Sotsial-Demokraticheskaia Rabochaiia Partiia
- RSFSR
- Rossiiskaia Sovetskaia Federativnaia Sotsialisticheskaia Respublika
- RVSR
- Revoliutsionno-voennyi sovet respubliki
- SNK or Sovnarkom
- Sovet narodnykh kommisarov
- SSR
- Sovetskaia sotsialisticheskaia respublica
- STO
- Sovet truda i oborony
- Tsentrosoiuz
- Tsentralnyi soiuz kooperativnykh obshchestv
- TsIK
- Tsentral'nyi ispolnitel'nyi komitet
- TsK
- Tsentralnyi Komitet
- TsKK
- Tsentralnaia kontrolnaia komissiia
- TSU
- Tsentralnoe statisticheskoe upravlenie
- VChK
- Vserossiiskaia chrezvychainaia komissiia
- VKP(b)
- Vsesoiuznaia kommunisticheskaia partiia (Bolshevikov)
- VLKSM
- Vsesoiuznyi Leninskii Kommunisticheskii Soiuz molodezhi
- VSNKh
- Vysshii Sovet Narodnogo Khoziaistva
- VTsIK
- Vserossiiskii tsentral'nyi ispolnitel'nyi komitet
- VUChK
- Vseukrainskaia chrezvychainaia komissiia
- USSR
- Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Soviet Union--History.
Soviet Union--Politics and government.
Communism--Soviet Union.