“We have published all the Politburo materials from our archives for the years 1919–32, as well as all the materials we have from the so-called Joseph Stalin fund – that is, every single document relating to Stalin’s life and work up until his death, including his correspondence with Roosevelt, Churchill and Molotov,” Andrei Artizov, head of the Federal Archival Agency, told journalists.
The website was set up by the Federal Archival Agency.
Not all the material on the site is accessible to the general public, however, as roughly one-third of its content will be closed to everyone except government archive employees and researchers cleared by the agency.
“The decision to release these files in particular was deliberate, as the Stalin period of Russia’s history – and the man himself – has become the focus of Russian and world historiography in recent times,” said Andrei Sorokin, director of the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History.
More than 10 years of work has gone into digitizing the documents and creating the website, and the number of materials is set to double over the coming years. World War II documents from the archives of the State Defense Committee, the Central Headquarters of the Partisan Movement and German archives captured by Soviet armed forces will be uploaded to the site over the next year.
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(First published in Russian in ITAR-TASS news agency.)