Secretariat [1.3]. Complaints by the population about shortages of cooking salt [Russian: 17 February 1981, St 250-10] 8 pp. ======================= [page one of eight] St 250/10, 17 February 1981 Top Secret RESOLUTIONof the Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee Complaints by working people about disruption in supplies of household salt Instruct the Committee of Party … Continue reading 17 February 1981* (St 250/10) Salt shortages
Category: 01. CPSU, Ideology & Politics
КПСС, идеология и политика
16 November 1988* (1979-K) Memorial
KGB report (KRYUCHKOV) to Central Committee [3.4; 4]. "Provocative statements" made at the Moscow conference organised by the Memorial Society. [Russian: 16 Nov 88, 1979-K] 5 pp. ============================ [page one of five] 16 November 1988, No 1979-K To the CPSU Central Committee Concerning the provocative statements made by certain participants of the All-Union Voluntary Historical … Continue reading 16 November 1988* (1979-K) Memorial
11 March 1975* (547-A) Matzo
KGB memorandum from Andropov, copy for Chernenko. Confiscation of matzo in parcels sent from abroad. [Russian: 11 March 1975, 547-A] ============================ For Comrade K.U. Chernenko only [1] [Stamp] The agreement of the CPSU Central Committee has been obtained,reports Comrade Galkin, V.E., 1 Sector of CPSU Central Committee General Department [dated & signed] 12 March 1975 … Continue reading 11 March 1975* (547-A) Matzo
How the Soviet Archives were opened and shut
Michael Ledeen, FREEDOM BETRAYED, 1996 Chapter Three (pp. 69-70) [T]he West should have insisted on a proper accounting, if not for the millions of collaborators, certainly for the ruling elites. […] we should have understood the vital importance of making public the historical record of Communist tyranny. […] For a few brief months after the … Continue reading How the Soviet Archives were opened and shut
“Let History Judge” (Medvedev) 1967-1969
<< September 1967 to February 1969 >> see 14 November 1967 (no number) Hoover Institution annotation: [1] Memorandum to the CPSU Central Committee from V. Stepakov, Chief of the Propaganda Department, S. Trapeznikov, Chief of the Department of Research and Educational Institutions, and V. Shauro, Chief of the Department of Culture, re the manuscript "Under … Continue reading “Let History Judge” (Medvedev) 1967-1969
Secret Chernobyl (1986-2019)
In Judgment in Moscow, Vladimir BUKOVSKY writes in passing with irony and scepticism of the Western reaction, in April 1986, to the explosion at the Chernobyl reactor and the behaviour of the Soviet leadership led by the "new Chichikov", Mikhail Gorbachev. Again and again, he notes disbelievingly, Western commentators urged that the new head of … Continue reading Secret Chernobyl (1986-2019)
The Past on Trial (1992) CPSU
-- Russia one year later -- Richard PIPES «The Washington Post» (16 August 1992) In the morning hours of 7 July 1992 an unusual spectacle unfolded in the center of Moscow, off Staraya Ploshchad, where until recently the all-powerful Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) had had its headquarters: In … Continue reading The Past on Trial (1992) CPSU
The Status of these Archives
(July 2018; revised November 2019) In 1992, Vladimir Bukovsky was given access to the archives of the CPSU Central Committee in Moscow for a period of five months. The new Russian government of Boris Yeltsin asked him to speak as a witness on its behalf at the forthcoming "trial of the Communist Party" (the CPSU … Continue reading The Status of these Archives
Punitive Psychiatry (1977)
Bloch and Reddaway, Russia’s political hospitals (1977), Foreword The peculiar features of the Soviet political system, the Communist ideology, the uncertainties and difficulties of the science of psychiatry, the labyrinths of the human conscience – all these have weirdly woven themselves together to create a monstrous phenomenon, the use of medicine against man. Paradoxical though … Continue reading Punitive Psychiatry (1977)
The Bukovsky Archives 