Appeal to the society and the President of Russia on the eve of Commemoration
Day
(victims of political repressions).
Being a sovereign, democratic constitutional state today’s Russian Federation cannot be the successor of the politics realized in the Soviet-Union during the Communist regime – a regime which is responsible for mass repressions against citizens of ist own state, adventurous experiments to achieve the „world revolution“, etc. The legal succession of the Russian Federation towards the former USSR is limited de jure and comprises just a few aspects of international relations. However, the bigger part of archival documents of the Soviet (and even the Stalin) era are still kept secret or remain unaccessable to historical researchers by means of fake hurdles (see: Igor Kurlandskiy „Vultures are circling above history““. – „New Paper“; N° 117 dated 20.10.2010) . The fact of persistent safekeeping of millions of files about the history of political repressions of the Stalin era and aftermath brings about outrage and incomprehension among the public.
This situation with regard to secrets of the Soviet times is supremely inadequate in view of today’s conditions prevailing in our society, the members of which are wholeheartedly prepared to assimilate the plain truth (even if it is most hard to bear). For this reason we request basical changes of the present situation as to the lifting of nondisclosure and access to the archives for historical researchers; we furthermore claim to consolidate the efforts of society and state going in this direction.
Ir is absolutely necessary to abolish the regime of relaxation in secrecy restrictions of archival documents, which came into existence at the turn of the century, since this system proved a failure: it resulted in the actual fact that the research of the history of the Soviet-Union stagnated. We disapprove and mistrust the work of the Intergovernmental Commission of Protection of State Secrets who is acting in this domain and postulate to take away the functions of relaxation in secrecy recstrictions applicable on most of the document complexes of the Soviet era from their competence and consult and closely cooperate with historians, qualified archivists and notable persons from science and culture.
We furthermore request to finally implement the norms defined in the Law of Archival Matters of the Russian Federation, according to which documents having surpassed a storage time of more than 30 years, are subject to public access (as a rule, reality shows that nowadays the vast majority of documents has been shut away for 70 to 80 years). Alle exceptions from this rule must have a clearly expressed reason and should be subject to an unambiguous juristic definition and confirmation. We insist that all documents covering the period before 1953 (and including the year 1953) will be opened and made accessible to researches without delay. Exceptions may be made only in case of materials of weapons of mass destruction and external espionage.
It is also most essential to immediately proceed with the suspension of the common regulation of the Ministery of Culture, the MVD and FSB of the Russian Federation dated the 25 July 2006 (file reference N° 375/584/352) which confirms the situation concerning „The Method of how to give people access to documentary materials ...... with regard to closed criminal and administrative proceedings once instituted against politically repressed individuals....“; this is an illegal and reactionary act of law, which keeps historians from working with the most important sources about the history of political repressions, such as the archival court records (investigation) opened on victims of political persecution.
Historians must regain access to records of this kind to the full extent. The
sanctions imposed on the basis of the afore-mentioned directive grossly infringe
upon the rights of the scientists
and the interests of science and society, but it also violates § 7 of the Law of
State Secrets and the effective ukase „About the abolishment of restrictive
entries“...“ dated the 23 June 1992. (These acts of law, too, were intended to
guarantee the public access to documents on the history of repressions).
We protest against the fact that employees of archives and public officials treat data privacy protection like a fetish; these people just plead data privacy giving as their pretext that, hence, they have the right to deny historians access to archives on a big scale and refuse delivery of records, which, formally, are no longer subject to confidentiality at all – this is an attitude which inflicts immense damage to science, as well as to society in general. It is most essential to finally give a strict definition of the term of „data privacy protection“ by law, exclude ist implementation with regard to deceased persons and also suspend it towards biographical data, witness statements on repressed individuals or the active participation of persons in repressions.
We request that historians are being guaranteed unresisted access to the governmental archives, where the most comprehensive record base from the Soviet era, starting with the years 1917-1918, are under safe custody. We allude to the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation, the Central FSB Archive, the Archive of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, the Central Archive of the Ministery of Defense and others. In these places, unless they to not transfer their documents to the State for further safekeeping as intended by law, they should at least apply the same regulations with regard to researchers like those which are realized in the State Archives of the country.
Scientists must get access to the scientific data banks of governmental archives, they must be guaranteed the possibility of an unobstructed research in all fields that are of interest to them. The hitherto existing procedural manner must be abolished, a method which allows employees of the Archive of the President, the Central FAS Archive, the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation and others, to select upon request of researchers for a specific historical subject, on their own authority, in their sole discretion, just those records, which they think appropriate to be reached out - basing their decision on their own private motives. Hence, they pursue an illegal censorship of information. This method of acting without authority, the preparedness to deliver a limited quantity of data and at the same time refuse to show researchers documents the secrecy of which has been lifted since long, must be forbidden by law as soon as possible. Due to an almost complete inaccessibility to governmental archives disposing of a huge number of records, any visit of such archives by researchers turns out to be entirely senseless, even in case, just formally, the secrecy of certain records has already been abolished to a small extent.
We adress ourselves to the President of Russia, to all governmental and political figures in this country with the appeal to undertake all necessary steps which will bring a solution of the problem, which will result in free access to the arcives of the Soviet era.
We address oourselves to the mass media requesting them to target their readers, inform them about the situation concerning the secrecy of records in our archives and make it the topic of discussions in the press, in radio and TV broadcasting. We appeal for the generation of an informative data base on all cases of illegal and antidemocratic nondisclosure of documents of the Stalin era, which are being kept in governmental and magisterial archives in our country.
We address ourselves to the figures of science and culture and the chairmen of religious confessions with the appeal to intensify their fight for the disclosure of the secrets of the Communist era, in order to implement the abolishment of secrecy in the archives, liquidate the present access policy, which regulates the possibilties of access for historians to archival sources and lay the necessary foundations for a detailed, objective research of the Soviet era, one of the most important chapters in the histiry of our country.
Vladimir Lavrov,
Doctor of Historical Science,
Deputy Director of the Institue of Russian History of the Russian Academy of
Science;
Igor Kurliandskiy,
Candidate of Historical Science,
Scientific staff member with the Institute of Russian History of the Russian
Academy of Science
„New Paper“, 27.10.2010