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

The International Newletter of Communist Studies Online XIII (2007), no 20 19
Smaller collections by other publishers cover many more topics, from documents of the Red
and White armies during the Civil War in the Russian State Military Archive (RGVA;
http://www.bsb-muenchen.de/mikro/litten.htm#RGVA) to papers of the apparatus of the
Central Committee of the CPSU in the 1950s and 60s in RGANI (http://www.bsbmuenchen.de/mikro/litten.htm#RGANI).
In recent years, while microfilming in Russia has somewhat subsided, it has expanded in
Poland (with selected holdings of the KARTA Center in Warsaw; 456) and especially in
Ukraine. One quite interesting collection concerns the „Holodomor“ (430), the devastating
famine in the early 1930s, and presents contemporary records by the Central Committee of
the Ukrainian CP.
Yet, the internal view of these countries is not the only perspective offered by the BSB’s
holdings. Practically all commercially filmed records of the US State Department on Eastern
European countries, held in original form at the US National Archives, are also available in
Munich, often up to 1963, in the case of the USSR even up to 1969 (http://www.bsbmuenchen.de/mikro/litten.htm#RG%2059).
Moreover, the same kind of records are available
for Germany and France, and to a lesser degree for Italy, Austria and Switzerland. For
Communist studies those records are interesting, too: they illustrate relations between, e.g.,
Germany and Czechoslovakia after the Second World War; and they contain information on
Communism in, e.g., France itself.
One especially noteworthy „American“ source for Communism and related ideologies in
Eastern Europe (and beyond) in the first half of the 20th century is the Boris I. Nicolaevsky
Collection from the Hoover Institution, which has been filmed in 796 reels and is also
available in Munich (269). Again, an excellent guide eases use of this collection enormously,
for example covering the Trotsky-Sedov correspondence.
Many smaller collections from US archives and libraries provide documentation for
interesting studies, from the „Diplomatic Papers of David Francis Rowland, 1916-1918“ (262),
the US ambassador to Russia at the time, to the „National Security Files“ of the Kennedy,
Johnson and Nixon administrations on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (212, 215, 391)
and, for most of the 1960s, concerning the whole world. Recent reports by American thinktanks
and governmental organizations as well as graduation theses from military colleges can
be found in the blandly titled „Special Studies Series: Foreign Nations“ (291), in part up to
2002, again for the whole world.
While much less numerous than the American filmings, some British government document
collections are no less important. Especially the filmings of the Foreign Office records on
Russia and the Soviet Union until 1948 (18) and again for 1960 (364; with more to come)
provide a complement to both the American reporting and the Soviet internal view.
As should be obvious even from this brief account, the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek has much
to offer to researchers of the history of Communism in Europe in the 20th century, thanks
also to the financial support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research
Council). While a visit to Munich is always worthwhile, all film reels, microfiches and guides
listed in the „Verzeichnis“ are also available via inter-library loan within Germany.
Dr. Freddy Litten, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. freddy.litten@bsb-muenchen.de
http://litten.de