Vol. XIII (2007), no 20 - The International Newsletter of Communist ...

The International Newletter of Communist Studies Online XIII (2007), no 20 18
Freddy Litten, Munich:
Microfilms for Communist Studies at the Bayrische Staatsbibliothek.
The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (BSB; Bavarian State Library) in Munich posesses one of the
largest collections of books and periodicals on and from Eastern Europe (including Russia /
the Soviet Union) in Europe, if not the world. It is also taking a leading role in Germany in
providing electronic databases and resources for the research community, e.g. through the
internet portal „ViFaOst“ (http://www.vifaost.de).
However, it is often overlooked that the BSB also holds an enormous amount of microfilmed
archival documents and publications of importance for historical studies of all kinds, among
them many that are useful for Communist studies. Since it is impossible to detail all those
collections here, I will only touch on some of the highlights and refer to the „Directory of
microforms for historical research in the BSB“ („Verzeichnis der Mikroformen zur Geschichte
in der BSB“, http://www.bsb-muenchen.de/mikro/litten.htm); for a complete overview. The
numbers in italics given below also refer to the entry numbers in that directory.
The largest single microform collection from Eastern Europe is entitled „Archives of the
Soviet Communist Party and Soviet State“, in short „Soviet Archives“ (69). This is the result of
a microfilming project by the Hoover Institution in Stanford/California, the then British
publisher Chadwyck-Healey, and three of the major archives in Moscow: the Russian State
Archive of Contemporary History (RGANI), the Russian State Archive for Socio-Political History
(RGASPI) and the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF) – to give only their current
names. Since there are more than 10,000 reels of microfilm in this collection alone, I can
again only point out a few interesting sub-collections.
From RGANI there is the quite small, but important and well-indexed filming of fond 89,
called „The Communist Party on Trial“. (Information on guides, indexes, etc. can be found in
the „Verzeichnis“.) This fond contains documents assembled for the trial of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union under Boris Yeltsin.
From RGASPI there are several fondy containing documentation of the congresses and
conferences of the Communist Party, as well as the large fond 17 which contains large
quantities of information on the CPSU throughout much of its existence and which is also
well-served by an electronic guide.
GARF holdings take up the larger part of the „Soviet Archives“, and the „NKVD fond“ r-393
is responsible for much of it. However, they do not cover the infamous intelligence and
repression service, but those of the „People’s Commisariat for Internal Affairs“ of the 1920s.
Yet, there is also much on the GULag and internal repression under Stalin to be found in the
GARF fondy. An invaluable guide to these microfilmed holdings is vol. 7 of the „Istoriya
Stalinskogo Gulaga“ (published in Moscow in 2005) 2 which everyone contemplating use of
these materials simply has to consult.
2 Ju. N. Afanas'ev e.a. (ed.): Istorija stalinskogo Gulaga. Konec 1920-ch - pervaja polovina 1950-ch
godov. Sobranie dokumentov v semi tomach. VII, Moskva 2005.