Researcher's Introduction to the Russian State Archive of the Economy

William J. Chase

This volume is the first of several projected guides to the most important archive of economic affairs of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: the Russian State Archive of the Economy (RGAE, Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv ekonomiki ). Formerly known as the Central State Archive of the National Economy of the USSR (TsGANKh, Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv narodnogo khoziaistva SSSR ), RGAE is the main archival repository in Russia for materials on Russian and Soviet economic history, policy, and affairs since 1917. It houses 1,945 document collections (fondy) containing 3.2 million files (dela) , with some documents dating from the pre-revolutionary period. Because the former USSR had a centrally planned, command economy, the documents in RGAE provide materials on a wide range of political, social, and administrative matters as well as strictly economic issues.

Compiled by RGAE's dedicated staff and published by a joint Russian-American team, the present guide is the first systematic and publicly available guide to this archive's rich and important holdings. The first published guide (Kratkii spravochnik fondov Tsentral'nogo gosudarstvennogo arkhiva narodnogo khoziaistva SSSR) appeared in 1973 in a press run of a mere 450 copies and was restricted to in-house use only. That guide provided information on 876 fondy, 176 of which were personal collections (lichnye fondy) and the remaining 700 being fondy for state economic institutions. In 1987, the archive published a more detailed description of the personal collections: Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv narodnogo khoziaistva. Fondy lichnogo proiskhozhdeniia. Putevoditel'. The 1987 guide listed 182 lichnye fondy ; only 500 copies were published.

The most lamentable aspect of both the 1973 and 1987 guides was their incompleteness. Constraints of censorship and secrecy ensured that many fondy and lichnye fondy were not listed. Despite the recent declassification of many materials, some fondy remain closed. In 1990, almost one-quarter (478 fondy ) of RGAE's collection was either fully or partially classified. As of fall 1993, when the compilation of this guide was completed, 445 of these fondy have been declassified. The present guide, which lists all non-restricted institutional fondy , contains information on 1,574 document collections (representing 3,861 Soviet economic institutions), more than twice the number listed in the 1973 guide and approximately 81 percent of RGAE's complete collection. The present guide does not include the archive's 309 lichnye fondy . The archive plans to publish a separate guide to that collection as well as a separate and more complete guide to the recently declassified fondy .

In compiling the present guide, the RGAE staff sought to provide a complete and accurate guide to its extensive holdings. In the past, there was no single reference system for the archive. In addition to the published guides, there was a central card catalog as well as card catalogs in various departments. But each of these

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differed in either form or contents, and none provided a complete guide to the archive's collection. The publication of this guide means that, for the first time, researchers can easily identify a rich array of documents heretofore unknown to anyone but some of the archive's staff.

Brief History of the RGAE

Founded in 1961 by a decree of the USSR Council of Ministers on the initiative of the chief archival administration, the former TsGANKh SSSR built its original collection of documents by taking some of the holdings of the former Central State Archive of the October Revolution (TsGAOR). ¹ Thereafter TsGANKh became the main repository for the documents and materials of most national (all-union, vsesoiuznyi ) economic institutions, organizations, and institutes. As such, its holdings are of all-union significance regardless of whether a given fond is for a national ministry, a branch or an intra-branch administrative agency. Although it was the main archival repository for economic affairs of the Soviet period, its relatively recent origin and the pecularities of Soviet archival construction and administration mean that some documents and materials on economic affairs are located in other national archives.

With the collapse of the USSR and that government's powerful central archive administration (Glavnoe arkhivnoe upravlenie pri Sovete Ministrov SSSR) in 1991 - 92, RGAE experienced a number of changes. In 1992, it was renamed the Russian State Archive of the Economy (RGAE). The archive's staff liberalized access to its collection so that researchers, including foreigners, may now work with all declassified documents. It was in order to determine precisely what documents were in the archive and to enhance the staff's and researchers' access to them that the archive decided to compile this guide.

Although access to documents in RGAE is much greater than it was before 1991, readers should be aware that a process of re-secretizing documents began in 1993, based on a decree published in September 1993. That law defines the types of materials to be re-secretized and those to remain open. Within the strictures of the new law, the archive itself determines which documents will remain open; some archives already have in-house committees to re-secretize documents. These realities determine the bounds within which RGAE or any archive can operate and what materials may be available to researchers. ²

¹ TsGAOR (Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv oktiabrskoi revoliutsii SSSR) is today part of the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF, Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii). GARF was formed in 1992, and is an amalgamation of the former TsGAOR and the former Central State Archive of the Russian Federation (Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv RSFSR). A very small proportion of RGAE's collection came from the former Central State Historical Archive of the City of Moscow (TsG/AgM - Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv g. Moskvy).
² The new law governing the re-secretization of archival and other documents, entitled "O gosudarstvennoi taine", was published in Rossiiskaia gazeta, 21 September 1993. Interested readers should also consult "Osnovy zakonodatel'stva Rossiiskoi Federatsii ob Arkhivnom fonde Rossiiskoi Federatsii i arkhivakh", published in Rossiiskaia gazeta, 14 August 1993. According to this law, all documents that are older than 30 years may be de-secretized. There are a few exceptions, such as papers of a personal nature, which have a 75-year protection clause. Under existing law, it is strictly prohibited to indicate the location, let alone the contents, of classified materials. Hence fondy and materials that are still classified as secret are not included in this guide. Except for restrictions imposed by governmental decree or legislation, the archive's policy is to allow all researchers open and equal access to its collections. The Russian Center for the Preservation and Study of Documents of Contemporary History (Rossiiskii tsentr khraneniia i izucheniia dokumentou noveishei istorii; RTsKhlDNI), formerly known as the Central Party Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, is among the archives presently reviewing and re-secretizing documents.

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General Survey of RGAE's Collection

Even a cursory perusal of the present guide conveys the fact that RGAE's holdings are immense, both in scope and volume. Given its mandate to preserve documents relating to economic affairs, the bulk of its documents relate to economic policy and policy implementation, economic performance, and an array of socio-economic issues of the Soviet period. Researchers interested in economic policy formulation or the debates about and discussions of economic policy within the Communist Party are advised to examine the holdings of those archives that house the party's internal documents. ³ Of course, in a centrally planned economy like that in the former USSR, where those who formulated and implemented policy belonged to the same political party, the lines between policy formulation, administration and implementation were often blurred. Hence researchers interested in the evolution of Soviet economic policy would profit immensely from examining RGAE's relevant holdings. But on all issues relating to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's (CPSU) political discussions of policy or its political activities within an economic institution or organization, researchers should still consult the appropriate party archive. ⁴

Having cautioned readers about some of the gaps in the archive's collection, let us turn to a discussion of RGAE's rich holdings, virtually all of which relate to the Soviet period. In general, the fondy in RGAE consist primarily of documents of all-union (vsesoiuznyi) governmental institutions, agencies and institutes, and their subordinant administrative organizations. Although RGAE's has some materials from 1917 and, in a few exceptional cases, even from earlier periods, ⁵ the bulk of its holdings relate to the years after the creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922. Prior to that date, the political and administrative organs of the RSFSR often implemented policy on a national basis, either because of inter-republic agreements or because of economic relations between regions or simply as an exercise in political power. Therefore many of the documents of the pre-1922 period in RGAE are of national significance.

³ In particular, researchers should consult J. Arch Getty and V. P. Kozlov, eds., Rossiiskii Tsentr Khraneniia i Izucheniia Dokumentov Noveishei Istorii. Kratkii putevoditel (Moscow, 1993). That volume, like the present one, is one of the guides of the Russian Archive Series. Researchers should also consult the Center for the Storage of Contemporary Documentation ( Tsentr khraneniia sovremennoi dokumentatsii, TsKhSD), formerly the current or working archive (tekushchii arkhiv) of the General Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU as well as the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF; see note 1). Documents relevant to policy formulation can also be found in the archives of the former KGB and the "Presidential Archive". The latter contains, among other holdings, documents transferred by officials of the CC General Department to the personal archive of the President of the USSR at the time of the abortive coup in August 1991. In 1992, the latter archive became the archive of the President of Russia. Both the former KGB's archive and the "Presidential Archive" are, for all practical purposes, still closed to researchers. For details and references, see Patricia K. Grimstead, Archives in Russia: 1993. A Brief Directory (Washington, DC, 1993).
⁴ Some dela in RGAE do contain records of a party cell or fraktsiia, but this is not the norm.
⁵ For an example of documents from the pre-revolutionary period, see fond 117, the State Oceanographic Institute of the USSR State Committee of Hydrometry, which has materials from the nineteenth century.

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The holdings of RGAE actually represent three distinct periods, each of which corresponds to distinct economic policies of the Soviet state. The first was "War Communism" during the civil war (1918 - 1921). The materials on this period are quantitatively the smallest, but shed valuable light on both the country's economic crisis and policies and on the early formation of Soviet economic administration. The most valuable of the materials are those of the Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh, Vysshii sovet narodnogo khoziaistvf ⁶ ) which acted as a national economic ministry from its creation in late 1917 until its abolition in 1932. VSNKh administered the economy through an ever-changing number of chief administrations or main boards (glavnye upravleniia , often referred to as glavki ) and trusts, each of which adminstered a distinct sector of the economy (during the NEP, these organs often exercised their administrative responsibilities within a given territory). The fondy of VSNKh and its glavki reside in RGAE. Other important fondy relevant to this period include those of the People's Commissariats of Finance, of Agriculture, and of Means of Communications as well as that for the State Commission for the Electrification of Russia (GOELRO) ⁷ . These materials provide considerable insight into the distinctive features of War Communism, the regime's administrative practices, and economic realities and policies of the period. There are some documenets from the pre-revolutionary period, chiefly materials that were commandeered by VSNKh or a commissariat for political, adminstrative or other organizational purposes.

The second period is that of the New Economic Policy (NEP), which lasted from 1921 until 1928/29, and was characterized by a mixed economy in which state ownership and economic regulation coexisted with a market economy and private ownership. Especially important for the study of the evolution of state economic policy as well as the dimensions and limits of its regulation of the economy are the fondy of VSNKh, its glavki , trusts and syndicates. ⁸ Given the importance of a stable currency (and hyper-inflation until 1924) to the success of NEP, the holdings of the People's Commissariat of Finance and of commercial banks provide a valuable record of currency and banking policies. Important too are the fond for the RSFSR People's Commissariat of Agriculture ⁹ and the fondy that relate to the cooperative movement.

By far the largest number of fondy relate to the years after 1928/29, that is, the period when the country consolidated its economy into a centrally planned and

⁶ VNSKh's central collection is in fond 3429. However, there are many distinct fondy for chief administrations and trusts (glavnye upravleniia and tresty respectively; see note 8) that were subordinated to VSNKh and responsible for administering sectors of the economy during the civil war and the subsequent period, the New Economic Policy.
⁷ Prior to 1922, these commissariats applied to the RSFSR. After the promulgation of the 1924 constitution, they eventually became commissariats (and later ministries) of the USSR. The People's Commissariat of Agriculture remained an RSFSR commissariat until 1929, when a USSR People's Commissariat of Agriculture was finally created. In reality, although these commissariats were for a while de jure RSFSR commissariats, they were de facto national commissariats.
⁸ In general, glavki, trusts (tresty), and unified associations (ob'edineniia) adminstered the productive, supply and adminstrative operations of an enterprise or group of enterprises or organizations, while syndicates (sindikaty) were responsible for the sale of a state-owned enterprise's or production branch's products. During the NEP, these administrative units usually were organized on a territorial basis. Several times during the period, VSNKh abolished one type of administrative organ (e.g. glavki) and replaced it with another (e.g. trusts) in an effort to rationalize and increase the efficiency of economic administration.
⁹ The USSR Peoples' Commissariat of Agriculture was created only in late 1929. See note 7.

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administered system. This third historical period lasted until the collapse of the USSR in 1991. Given the Soviet effort to subordinate virtually all economic activities to state control, RGAE's vast holdings on this period make it unique in the world. In no other country did central state economic planning and adminstration last so long; in no other archive will researchers find so much information on so many aspects of Soviet economic development and affairs. Documents relating to all aspects of the official economy can be found among RGAE's holdings. Materials on every branch of industry (e.g. aviation, construction, machine-building, heavy and light metallurgy, plastics, precious metals) are found in RGAE. Equally rich are the archive's holdings on agricultural affairs, in particular the collectivization of agriculture, the administration of collective (kolkhoz) and state (sovkhoz) farms, and the details of the performance of particular agricultural activities. ¹⁰

Precisely because it was the national repository, RGAE's collection includes materials from all of the commissariats, ministries, and state committees that administered sectors of the economy as well as their branches, departments, standing committees, and inter-branch organizations. Economic planning involved the supervision and coordination of a bewildering array of complex activities and policies, such as finance, pricing, supply, accounting, production, and the compilation of statistical information. RGAE is home to fondy that provide insight into all of these activities. Of particular interest are those of Gosplan (the State Planning Commission) ¹¹ and its various subordinate organizations (e.g. glavki, ob'edineniia ) and research institutes. From this wealth of materials, researchers can trace the establishment and evolution of the planned economy as well as the government's efforts to compensate for inadequate performance and planning, and to adapt to changes in the world economy.

Not surprisingly, the largest collection of materials in RGAE document the development of the USSR as an industrial and military power. Materials on these important historical phenomena are located in the numerous fondy of inter-branch state organs (such as VSNKh until 1932, and the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry ¹² from 1932 into the late 1930s), which coordinated a wide array of industrial activities, and in the fondy of specific commissariats or ministries (e.g. the Commissariats of Transportation, of Heavy Machine-building, of Supply, and of Light Industry; the Minstries of Light and Heavy Metallurgy, of the Coal Industry, of Heavy Machine Construction, of the Defense Industry, of the Cotton Industry, etc.). These rich materials convey clearly the evolution, successes, and problems of Soviet industrial development and administration.

Given the Soviet state's desire to plan and regulate as much of the nation's economic activity as possible, various state agencies collected considerable amounts of statistical materials on many aspects of economic performance as well as on citizens' lives and behavior. The most significant of them was the Central Statistical Administration. ¹³ Its materials shed light on Soviet citizens' personal

¹⁰ The central fond of the USSR People's Commissariat/Ministry of Agriculture is fond 7486. The range of RGAE's holdings on agricultural affairs also include fondy 318, 7799, 7802, 7803, 8033, 8119, 8120. These hardly exhaust the possibilities and are offered only as examples of the range of holdings.
¹¹ The central fond for Gosplan is fond 4372. Readers will note that the institutional name for that fond is the USSR Ministry of Economics and Forecasting. For a discussion of the institutional name for each fond, see below.
¹² Narodnyi komissariat tiazheloi promyshlennosti SSSR (NKTP), fond 7297.
¹³ Tsentral'noe statisticheskoe upravlenie (TsSU). From 1930 to 1941, it was called Tsentral'noe upravlenie narodno-khoziaistvennogo ucheta (TsUNKhU). In the latter year, it reverted to its previous name. From 1930 to 1948, TsSU and TsUNkU were subordinate to Gosplan. The central fond for TsSU is fond 1562.

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activities as well as more general behaviors of the population and economy. Its holdings include various censuses, materials from budget investigations (including those of individuals and households, and time-budget studies), materials from various studies of labor (including those of worktime and labor productivity), and a wealth of materials on demographic behavior, migration, and deviance (including crime, alcohol consumption, suicide). Some results of this research have been published, but many of the materials were for internal or official use only.

While the majority of RGAE's holdings relate to the construction, development and administration of the Soviet economy during peacetime, it is worth noting that the archive possesses a rich collection of materials from the era of the Second World War (1939 - 1945) and the immediate post-war years. These fondy will enable researchers to examine a host of issues from this crucial but inadequately understood period. For example, many fondy have documents that address the pressing problems of labor supply and recruitment during and after the war, ¹⁴ and that contain materials on the reconstruction of the industrial, agricultural and civilian economies. ¹⁵ Researchers will also find materials on the USSR's economic activities in post-war Germany. ¹⁶

Using This Guide

This guide is designed to provide essential information about the fondy in the RGAE's collection. It should be noted, however, that although the guide lists the number of opisi (inventories) and dela (files) in each fond , it does not provide detailed descriptions of holdings beyond the economic branch and its associated institutions. ¹⁷ The archive plans to publish a massive guide with detailed information about the opisi in each fond . Given the scale of work that this involves, the present guide is intended to serve as a valuable, if general, listing of RGAE's rich holdings.

Each entry in the guide contains a series of fields with information designed to make the researcher's work easier. One such field (kategoriia) indicates to which of three categories a fond belongs. "First-category" institutions are those that operated across the entire economy (e.g. Gosplan, the Commissariat/Ministry of Finance, TsSU, and State Committees), or that administered industry as a whole (e.g. VSNKh) or united branches of industry (e.g. Peoples' Commissariat of Heavy Industry, NKTP). Also included in the first category are inter-branch organizations (e.g. industrial cooperative organizations such as Promkooperatsia that functioned in numerous industrial branches), or institutions that functioned at an all-union level (e.g. the Institute of Economics of Gosplan, the Exhibition of Economic Achievements). Of the 1,574 fondy listed in this guide, 27 belong to the first category.

¹⁴ For examples, see the following fondy: 8789. 8804, 8866, 8882, 8939, 8994, 8997, 9009, 9059, 9066, 9370, 9471, 9510, 9531.
¹⁵ For examples, see the following fondy: 8667, 8677, 8695, 8708, 8710, 8714, 8730, 8731, 8733, 8754 - 8761, 8763, 8774, 8824 - 8827, 8839 - 8840, 9012, 9080, 9081, 9125 - 9127, 9235.
¹⁶ For example, see fondy 8540 and 8811.
¹⁷ Russian archives are divided into fondy (fond in the singular), which contain the materials relevant to an individual institution, administrative body, or institute. A fond is in turn divided into opisi, (opis' in the singular), each of which is comprised of dela (delo in the singular; sometimes called edinitsy khraneniia).

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"Second-category" institutions consist of the central organs of the USSR that administered the various branches and sub-branches of the economy. Examples include the fondy for the People's Commissariats and Ministries as well as those agencies that adminstered the various construction and transportation industries. Also included among "second-category" institutions are the fondy of scientific-research institutes that were attached to a commissariat, ministry or state committee as well as the scholarly institutions dedicated to economic research and development (e.g. the Ail-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences im. Lenina ). Of the 1,574 fondy listed in this guide, 288 belong to the second category. ¹⁸

"Third-category" institutions consist of all-union economic organs of administration and scientific-research institutes that were not leading organs as well as intra-branch administrative organs (e.g. trusts, unified associations, chief administrations). Of the 1,574 fondy listed in this guide, 1,259 belong to the third category.

As the fifth index in this volume (Skhema klassifikatsii fondov v Spra-vochnike fondov RGAE) makes clear, the fondy presented in this guide are organized according to the sixteen major branches of the economy. ¹⁹ The sixteen branches are (listed in their order of appearance in the guide):

1. Planning, statistics and migration

2. Finance, credit, savings, insurance, and price formulation

3. Environmental protection

4. Foreign economic relations

5. Science and technology, inventions and rationalization, standardization and measurements

6. Industry

7. Agriculture

8. Timber

9. Transport

10. Communications

11. Construction and architecture

12. Commerce

13. Material-technical supply and sales

14. Maritime

15. Geology, geodesy, cartography and hydrometry

16. Cooperatives

Twelve of the sixteen branches are subdivided to assist researchers in locating materials. (Lists of the sectors within each branch can also be found in the fifth index.) The "Industry" branch (Section 6) is a special case: the RGAE staff has divided it into ten sub-branches that represent the major industrial sectors (e.g. electrical, fuel, metal and metallurgy, etc.). But since each sub-branch encompasses a variety of industrial activities, the guide includes further sub-divisions to

¹⁸ In 1995, the Archive will publish a second volume of this guide with detailed decriptions to the inventory (opis') level of all 315 fondy of the first and second category.
¹⁹ The RGAE staff created these sixteen branches by adapting the branches of the national economy compiled in the All-Union Classification of Branches of the National Economy of the USSR (Obshchesoiuznyi klassifikator otraslei narodnogo khoziaistva SSSR, OKONKh). This classification system, which is rooted in the principles of Marxist political economy, was published in 1987, and respresented a streamlining and rationalization of the system (which dates from the 1920s) of administrative and archival divisions of the economy into branches.

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indicate key aspects of production within the sub-branch. For example, the section on the fuel industry (6.2) is organized according to the major types of fuel and fuel-related activities: oil (6.2.1), coal and shale (6.2.2), natural gas and liquid fuels (6.2.3), peat (6.2.4), and fuel maintenance (6.2.5). This organizational system will greatly facilitate location of materials related to the history and development of specific branches of Soviet industry.

Although this guide will enable researchers to locate materials releated to specific Soviet economic institutions more easily, it must be emphasized that the complexity of the entire history of Soviet economic planning and organization considerably restricts the daunting task of archival classification across institutional boundaries. Although this volume can simplify the search for materials, nothing can be done to change the often-labyrinthian character of Soviet state institutions themselves. The chosen method of classification by branch of economic activity should by no means suggest that any Soviet economic institution was restricted exclusively to that domain. Several examples will illustrate the risks inherent in relying solely on the branches and sub-branches listed in the fifth index to locate materials on a given topic.

The central administrations of VSNKh and NKTP, which are "first category" institutions, are assigned to the branch called Industry (general issues) since those organs were responsible for the general administration and direction of key aspects of industrial development. But the fondy of the administrative organs (glavki, ob'edineniia, tresty) within VSNKh or NKTP that directly administered specific aspects of industrial development (and which are "second" or "third category" institutions) belong in the branches and sub-branches appropriate to their actual economic activity (e.g. machine-building and machine-processing, industrial construction materials, fuel). For example, although VSNKh itself is classified as belonging to the Industry (general issues) branch (fond 3429, listing 66, in section 6.0), its Construction Committee (fond 5751) can be found in the Construction sub-branch within the section labelled Construction and Architecture (listing 1232, section 11.1). The same logic applies to administrative agencies and institutes subordinate to Gosplan, a "first category" institution assigned to the Planning, statistics and migration branch; the institutes and agencies subordinate to Gosplan are assigned to branches that reflect their essential activity. The key here is that agencies and institutes subordinate to all-union, inter-branch directing agencies ("first category" agencies) are, in general, assigned to the branch most appropriate for that agency's or institute's primary activity rather than the essential activity of the all-union body to which it is subordinate.

While that logic applies to "first-category" agencies that administered the economy on an inter-branch level, it does not extend to those leading organs (be they commissariats, ministries or state committees in the "first" or "second" categories) that administered discrete branches of the economy. A few examples will clarify the logic by which such administrative agencies are assigned to branches. Let us first consider a straightforward example, the Construction and Architecture branch. Agencies charged with overseeing or performing construction work belonged to that branch, regardless of whether that construction be rural, urban or industrial. Construction referred to any edifice, be it a factory, apartment complex, dam or silo. Therefore the USSR Ministry of Industrial Construction (fond 31), the USSR Ministry of Rural and Agricultural Construction (fond 8216), and the USSR Ministry for the Construction of Heavy Industrial Enterprises (fond 63) are in the Construction and Architecture branch. So too are the administrative agencies subordinate to them. In these three cases, each Ministry is assigned to an appropriate sub-division within that sub-branch.

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Consider another example. While the USSR Ministry of Transport and Heavy Machine-building obviously belongs in the Machine-building and machine-processing sub-branch under Industry (section 6) and not to the Transport (section 9) sub-branch, it may be less apparent that the State Committee on Aviation Technology of the USSR Council of Ministers (fond 29), or the Institutions for the Direction of Airplane Construction (fond 8328) should also belong in that sub-branch. Because both were engaged in building aeronautical machinery, they are assigned to the Aviation Industry sub-division of that sub-branch (section 9.4).

To reiterate, the primary economic activity of an agency or institute determined "branch assignment" as well as assignment to sub-branches and subdivisions. ²⁰ In most cases, careful use of the indexes to the guide will enable researchers to locate the materials they desire. Researchers who are initially confused by the logic of branch assignment can be consoled by the fact that the archivists at RGAE were in a quandry as to how best to organize the fondy . Their confusion attests not only to the incredible complexity of managing the Soviet economy, but also to the problems confronted in making sense of its archival debris.

A few brief words about the location of materials in the RGAE's collection are in order. The materials in a given fond consist of documents of an administrative organ or agency, or of an institute that was directly responsible for a specific sphere of activity. For example, to examine documents on the light metal industry during the mid-1930s, one must look not only at the fond of the NKTP, but especially, at the fond of the Chief Administration for Light Metals within NKTP that was responsible for that industry. Likewise, researchers interested in issues of postwar labor supply should consult the fondy of those organs within each industry that were responsible for worker recruitment. Finally, to examine Soviet foreign trade, one should not assume that the files of the Ministry of Foreign Trade are comprehensive; rather one must also examine those administrative organs under the Ministry that were charged with trade in specific products or in specific regions. As a general rule, researchers should remember that the archive's materials are organized under the administrative body directly responsible for a given activity (with the notable exception of the "first category" institutions discussed above). These consisted not only of commissariats, ministries, state committees and other leading agencies, but also glavki, ob'edineniia, tresty, and commissions that administered distinct branches of the economy.

Each of the 1,574 records within this guide contains the following information (listed in the order of appearance in the records): record number; name of the institution that generated the materials in the fond ; the year in which the institution was created (sozd., i.e. sozdano) ; the year in which the institution ceased being a Soviet institution (lik. i.e. likvidirovano) ; fond number; category number (kat.; 1, 2 or 3); the number of opisi (op.) and dela (d.) in the fond; lichnyi sostav (l) ; the range of years for which there are open records (dat.) ; a list of the institution's previous names (Predydushchie nazvaniia i podchinennost') and to what higher body it was subordinated (if appropriate); the last name of the institution before the collapse of the USSR and the year in which the last name was assigned; and a notation (NSA k fondu, nauchno-spravochnyi apparat k fondu) on the existence of any scholarly research apparatus, special card catalogues, inventories, and the

²⁰ Readers should note that there are a few fondy for which no branch is given. In these exceptional cases, the materials consist of documents drawn from an array of agencies and thereby defy easy categorization. For example, see fond 46.

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like. While some of these entries are self-evident or have been discussed above, others require clarification.

1. The record number is simply the number assigned by the archive to each fond listed in the guide; it is not the same as the fond number. The record number reflects the archive's internal classification system within the sixteen branches of Soviet state economic activity; fond number usually corresponds to a particular institution, organization or agency.

2. The name of the institution that generated the materials in the fond is usually the most recent name, although in some cases it is the most widely recognized name. For example, as of 1987, the former Central Statistical Administration (Tsentral'noe statisticheskoe upravlenie pri Sovete Ministrov SSSR, fond 1562) was renamed the USSR State Committee for Statistics (Gosudarstvennyi komltet SSSR po statistike) . But because even after 1987 it was widely referred to as the Central Statistical Administration, that name is used at the head of the record. The same holds true for Gosplan which in 1991 was renamed the USSR Ministry of Economics and Prognostications. Should this cause any confusion for researchers, they should consult the alphabetic index of names at the end of this volume.

3. The fond number is simply the number assigned to a collection of materials from a specific administrative institution, organization or institute. Readers will no doubt wonder why the present guide contains information on 1,574 fondy , while the fond numbers run from 2 to 9603. The reason is that the fondy are not numbered sequentially. When the archive was founded on the basis of materials from TsGAOR, it retained the numbers of the fondy that TsGAOR had assigned to a collection. It is a cardinal principle of Soviet archives that no number may be assigned twice; when a fond is shifted, it retains that number, which may not be reassigned to another collection. New holdings are assigned inactive numbers.

4. The field "lichnyi sostav (l)" indicates the number of personnel files in a given fond . These personnel files (dela po lichnomu sostavu) are not the same as personal collections (lichnye fondy). They contain a variety of work-related materials, such as work history, commendations, etc.

5. Each record indicates the years (dat.) for which the fond has files. In most cases, those years correspond to the years of an institution's existence. In some cases, the fond contains documents or materials that antedate the establishment of the agency. Ordinarily that means that the agency received control over documents as a successor to an institution(s) that previously had responsibility for the appropriate activity. Such control plays an important role in the procedures for declassifying documents, since modern ministries and agencies normally must grant permission for opening for research files under its jurisdiction.

In some cases, the materials in a fond do not cover all of years of the agency's lifespan. Such entries indicate that materials after a certain date are restricted or do not exist within the archive.

6. Since institutional names and the higher administrative bodies to which institutions were subordinated often changed, each record also lists the names by which that body was previously known (Predydushchie nazvaniia i podchinennost') and the years during which that name was used, as well as to what higher agency it was subordinated and for what years. ²¹ This listing of all of the various

²¹ This listing of all of the various names by which a body was known is of immense value not only to a researcher working on a specific topic, but also to all scholars of Soviet political and adminstrative affairs since it presents in one place, in an organized and reliable fashion detailed information which previously would have taken weeks or months to compile. To facilitate further a researcher's work, the guide contains an index that lists the location of all of the names of administrative organs, institutions and institutes for which the archive has materials.

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names by which a body was known is of immense value not only to a researcher working on a specific topic, but also to all scholars of Soviet political and administrative affairs: it presents in one place, in an organized and reliable fashion, detailed information which previously would have taken weeks or months to compile. Compilation of this information was an enormous task that reflects the seriousness and high professionalism of the RGAE staff, who were not content to rely on published sources, but energeticaly demanded additional information from the state organizations themselves. The index entitled Alfavitnyi ukazatel' nazvanii uchrezhdenii - Alphabetized Index of Institutional Names - is an invaluable list of 3,86i institutions in the former Soviet Union, 1917 - 1991. The index will direct readers to appropriate Record Numbers and fondy for specific information on the location of materials relevant to that organization.

A few technical issues deserve note. The guide employs several symbols to indicate notable aspects of a record. If the exact date of an institution's founding or change in status is unknown or uncertain, the archive's staff has provided provisional information in brackets (for example, see fond 268). An asterisk (*) denotes agencies that were higher organizations and, for some period of time, warranted their own fond, but were subsequently subordinated to a higher body. Thereafter the materials of the former agency were deposited in the fond of the latter body. For example, prior to 1967, the materials of the Chief Administration for the Mechanization of Construction Work were located in that agency's fond (132); from 1967, however, when that agency became part of the central apparatus of the USSR Ministry of Transport Construction, its materials were deposited in that Ministry's fond . In this record, there is an asterisk followed by the note: "from 1967, see fond 9538". ²² Double asterisks (**) indicate that the year in which an institution, organization or institute was abolished is not known; the year that appears is the last known year.

Finally, if an all-union Soviet institution with a fond in RGAE was still operating when the USSR collapsed in 1991, and it came under the jurisdiction of the new Russian Federation, then the final date for its lifespan (found after lik. ) is given as 1991 (or in some cases 1992, if the liquidation commission had not completed its work).

To facilitate use of the guide, there are three indexes: an index of fond numbers with the fond name and record number; an alphabetic index to the names of all institutions, organizations or institutes with fond name and record number(s); and an alphabetic index of the abbreviated forms (and acronyms) used to identify institutions with fond name and record number(s).

How to Use RGAE

RGAE is located at 17 Bolshaia Pirogovskaia Street (ulitsa) in the same complex of buildings as the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). The telephone number is 245 - 26 - 64. The nearest metro stop is Frunzenskaia station. Persons who wish to inquire about holdings can send a letter to: Direktor, Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv ekonomiki , 17 Bolshaia Pirogovskaia ul., Moskva 119817, Rossiia . Researchers who want to work in RGAE must obtain a pass (propusk) at the office (Biuro proposkov) situated to the right of the control point inside the main entrance. To apply for a pass, researchers must show their passport

²² For another example of the use of the asterisk, see fond 118.

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and visa, present a letter of introduction from their institution, and complete a short application form (which requests one's name, address, affiliation, and research topic). Once a pass has been issued, one may proceed to RGAE's reading room (located directly in front of the entrance and behind the control point). RGAE and GARF share a common reading room. Personal computers are allowed, but require special permission from the archive.

Once in the reading room, researchers should register with the staff at the main desk in the reading room. This person will answer any questions and will assist in orienting the user to the key finding aids in the reading room. Because this guide provides only fond -level information, researchers must first consult the opis' ²³ to that fond, which will list the specific materials in the fond . To request files, one must submit a request (trebovanie) which gives the fond, opis' and delo numbers. If a file has been microfilmed, the reader is expected to use the film copy; in special cases, however, it is possible to consult the original.

It is possible to have materials photocopied or microfilmed. Requests must include the numbers of the fondy, opisi, dela and listy.

Given the political problems and economic crisis that have engulfed Russia in the past few years, this guide stands as a tribute to the dedicated professionals who work at RGAE. It is a very difficult time indeed for archives and their staffs in Russia. Faced with an acute financial crisis, the Russian government has drastically cut the funds allocated to archives, libraries, universities and other centers of intellectual work. As a result, archives like RGAE now receive but a fraction of their former operating budgets. Archivists' wages have steadily declined as a result of hyperinflation and budgetary reductions. That the staff at RGAE has overcome these adversities and produced the first complete and systematic guide to the archive's collection testifies to their dedication and professionalism. The editors wish to express their deep appreciation to and admiration for those staff members who worked on this guide: A. V. Gaponova, N. G. Gasilina, R. L. Liberfarb, L. A. Ramonova, and N. P. Shmulevich. We also wish to express our appreciation to N. P. Iakovlev for his invaluable assistance. It is our hope that researchers will find this guide to be useful, and will appreciate the dedication, professionalism and hard work that made it possible.

²³ As noted earlier, each fond is comprised of one opis' or multiple opisi, which correspond to a subdivision of a fond. Concretely, the opis' is a register or inventory (either in book form or as a card catalog) listing the contents of a fond, which number from one to thousands of entries. The opis' or opisi to a fond provide(s) summary descriptions of the dela (files). Each delo (file) contains the individual documents, which are paginated as listy (list in the singular).

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