UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles What Kind of Past Should the Future Have? The Development of the Soviet Archival System, 1917-1931 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Kelly Ann Kolar 2012 © Copyright by Kelly Ann Kolar 2012 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION What Kind of Past Should the Future Have? The Development of the Soviet Archival System, 1917-1931 by Kelly Ann Kolar Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Los Angeles, 2012 Professor J. Arch Getty, Chair This study investigates how the Bolsheviks built a usable past through the preservation, creation, and use of archival material. Soon after coming to power in the Russian Revolution of October 1917, the Bolsheviks created the most centralized and far reaching archival administration in the world. As the Bolsheviks turned increasingly to history as a source of legitimacy after the civil war, they used the evidence represented in archival documents to construct a narrative that would demonstrate this legitimacy. The Bolsheviks created this narrative using the documentary legacy they inherited from the Tsarist and Provisional Governments, and by founding new archival collections to be used to place the revolution into the preferred historical narrative. The party employed archivists in every aspect of this effort, and archival traditions of collecting, arranging, ii and describing were supplemented by new practices, such as creating exhibits, popular publications, and lectures, which emphasized an active public role for archivists. The limitations of resources during the early Soviet period had wide implications for the development of the archival system and the Bolshevik historical narrative. The lack of an educated workforce led Bolsheviks to rely heavily on pre-revolutionary professionals to create and enact reforms, staff their archival institutions, and participate in the public aspects of archival work (publishing and exhibiting documents). Archivists suffered from a lack of financial resources, which impeded their ability to properly carry out archival work. As a result, archival institutions repeatedly produced historical narratives that disappointed Bolshevik leaders and the party rescinded the early concessions to resource scarcity in developing the archival system (i.e., employing specialists, relative autonomy for institutions in the provinces) and enforced greater centralization, classification, and control over archival materials. By 1931 the Bolsheviks placed more fear than hope in the development of a multi-voiced historical record and narrative. The result was a significantly decreased focus on, or access to, archival materials for historical scholarship, and the consolidation of stricter, more centralized management which came to characterize Soviet archival administration. iii This dissertation of Kelly Ann Kolar is approved. Stephen Frank John V. Richardson J. Arch Getty, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2012 iv Table of Contents Acknowledgements............................................................................................................ vi Vita................................................................................................................................... viii Introduction .........................................................................................................................1 Chapter One ..................................................................................................................... 31 Chapter Two .....................................................................................................................78 Chapter Three .................................................................................................................126 Chapter Four ...................................................................................................................168 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................212 Appendix..........................................................................................................................223 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................227 v Acknowledgments Several people and institutions provided important support in the process of completing this dissertation. I would like to thank the UCLA History Department, UCLA Center for European and Eurasian Studies, UCLA Graduate Division, and the Fulbright-Hays program for the financial support that was so necessary to completing this project. I would also like to thank the staffs of the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF) the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI), the Russian State Library, and the Library of the Historical-Archival Institute of the Russian State University for the Humanities for their aid in facilitating my research. J. Arch Getty, my advisor and chair provided invaluable guidance on this project from step one. I am grateful for his advice and support, which were vital not only to the completion of this project, but also to my entire graduate experience. I thank Stephen Frank for his support, advice, and the countless discussions we had over coffee. I thank David Sabean for his guidance and encouragement in both the classroom and as member of my committee. John V. Richardson from the UCLA Information Studies Department provided me with necessary theoretical perspective for the archival theory aspect of this project. His mentorship of my academic and professional development, which began before I even imagined embarking on this research project, cannot be thanked enough. Many colleagues have supported me in my pursuit of this project, through discussions, draft editing, and friendship, for which I am very grateful, including Sean Guillory, Maya Haber, Jared McBride, Daniel Newman, and Sevan Yousefian. I also thank my fellow UCLA MLIS alumna, Shana Levin, who was sounding board for many of my archival theory related ideas and tireless editor of drafts of many of the different vi versions of this project. I thank professor Mary Niles Maack of the UCLA Information Studies Department for providing me with several opportunities to present forms of this project to her graduate seminars. My cousin and friend, Elizabeth Hovsepian Kiler, also provided valuable advice on writing and editing. I thank my parents Scott and Jeanette Kolar, who have always supported my educational pursuits with much love and tirelessly believed that my success was inevitable. My sisters and friends, Loni Blevins and Jamie Kolar, provided me with much love, support, encouragement, and entertaining distraction when needed, for which I am very grateful. And finally, I thank Benjamin Sawyer who participated in countless valuable conversations about this project and read, edited, and discussed innumerable drafts. His patience, support, and encouragement were integral to my success. vii VITA 2000 Bachelor of Arts, History and Russian Studies University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles, California 2004 Master of Library and Information Science University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles, California 2004-2007 Curator The Wende Museum Culver City, California 2007-2010 Teaching Assistant Department of History University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles, California 2008 Master of Arts, History University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles, California 2008-2011 Adjunct Assistant Professor, Library Science West Los Angeles College Culver City, California 2010-2011 Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Research Fellowship viii Publications Kolar, Kelly Ann. “Russian Archives and Libraries: Their Development Since the Introduction of Technology.” In Technology and Libraries in the Twenty First Century: An International Perspective Edited by R.N. Sharma, 269-279. Berlin: De Gruyter Saur, 2012. ---.“Osobennosti Zakrytykh Fondov, Akademicheskie Biblioteki SSHA” [Special Collections in American Academic Libraries] Bibliotechnoe Delo (8 [20] 2004. Presentations Kolar, Kelly Ann. (August 2012) “Archival Professionalization in the Soviet Union, 1918-1931.” Paper presented at the International Conference on the History of Records and Archives, University of Texas at Austin. ix Introduction Man is a history-making creature who can neither repeat his past nor leave it behind. -- W. H. Auden Veteran Bolshevik V. D. Bonch-Bruevich described a midnight walk home from party headquarters with Vladimir Lenin in the days following the October Revolution during which they discussed the role of archives in the new regime. Lenin, Bonch- Bruevich recalled, stressed the need to collect museum and archival materials, to show the world that the dictatorship of the proletariat was firmly established and that “truly cultural work [was] occurring where power [had] transferred to the working class.”1 Archives form the basis of a nation’s historical record; what is kept and what is destroyed determines what, or even who, will be remembered, and what will be forgotten. This truth was not lost on the Bolsheviks who immediately established control over the documentary records of their predecessors. Within days of the 1917 October Revolution, the victorious Bolsheviks took direct action to secure Tsarist archival collections and begin publication of these materials. On June 1, 1918 Lenin signed the “Decree