“The People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs puts the struggle for revolution above the research interests of current and future archival specialists...” (People’s Commissar of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs G.V. Chicherin and Soviet archives)

Abstract

The article carries out research on the individual stories reflecting the interdepartmental contradictions between the NKID (represented by its head G.V. Chicherin) and the Central Archives (headed by M.N. Pokrovsky) on the issue of using the archival documents of the imperial diplomatic institutions. Based on the previously unpublished Central Archives materials of the years 1926–1927 stored in the special depository of the Russian Civil Aviation, Chicherin’s general position on the use of the documentary heritage of the Imperial Foreign Ministry is revealed; the paper also describes the essence of the contradictions concerning the procedure for the collecting, systematizing and using the documents. There is a detailed study of Chicherin’s attempts to build business relations with the representatives of the Soviet archival department and of Pokrovsky’s opposition to that.

The arguments of both sides in defense of their own position are discussed separately. Particular attention is paid to the “revolutionary” ideological component of Chicherin’s argumentation, to the assumption that the archives are a tool for Soviet Russia to realize its own global historic mission. A conclusion is drawn about the nature of the established cultural practices of the new bureaucracy.

The study of the emerging access mechanisms of various government departments to the process of extracting historical facts broadens our understanding of the Soviet experience of the political-ideological “conveyor” and leads the authors to the conclusion that the resource approach to archival, documentary heritage is a typical element of the political culture of the Soviet period, and it has effectively migrated to the modern era.