HOW TO USE THE CATALOGUE

This catalogue provides separate lists of the opisi (finding aids) and dela (files of documents) so far published on microfilm for each archive in the following order: TsKhSD, RTsKhIDNI and GARF (two sites). They total 2,450 microfilm reels - 450 reels of finding aids and 2,000 reels of documents. These figures will increase in future editions of the catalogue as more documents are declassified and more microfilming is completed.

For each archive, the titles of the collections for which the finding aids are so far available are listed in fond number order. The reference numbers of the microfilm reels on which the finding aids appear are given in the right-hand column. These are the numbers which should be used when ordering a selection of reels rather than the complete finding aids collection.

As any student of Soviet institutions will be well aware, they frequently changed their names. Because of the demands of space the present catalogue usually gives only one or two of the names of an organisation (e.g. NKVD/MVD). The transliteration of the English titles follows the Library of Congress system. The English titles for well-known organisations such as the NKVD - translated in various Western books as People's Commissariat of the Interior, for the Interior, of Interior Affairs, of Internal Security etc - follow, wherever possible, the most accurate and common usage.

The dates provided for each organisation are the dates of the oldest and most recent documents in the collection, not the dates of the existence of the organisation.

In many cases the finding aids for several collections are published on the same reel, whilst in the case of some large collections the finding aids occupy a number of reels. For instance, on page 3, the finding aids for RTsKhIDNI fond 2 Ul'ianov, V.I. (Lenin) 1881- 1923 are on 12 reels and those of fond 17 Central Committee of the CP 1898-1991 on 17 reels; whereas the finding aids for thirty-five smaller collections, starting with fond 24, are on a single reel (2.38).

When any of the documents belonging to a fond have been filmed already, as well as the finding aids, there is an asterisk * on the left of the fond title. The details of the files of documents filmed then follow the finding aids listing for each archive.

The files of nine key figures of the Revolution have been filmed and published by Chadwyck-Healey in a separate collection, Leaders of the Russian Revolution. These are clearly noticed in the RTsKhIDNI finding aids listing.