Most of the documents on which this book is based are from the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsial’no-politicheskoi istorii, hereafter RGASPI), the former Central Party Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (TsPA IML pri TsK KPSS). For an outline of the history and holdings of the archive, see J. Arch Getty, “Researcher’s Introduction to RTsKhIDNI,” in Rossiiskii Tsentr Khraneniia i Izucheniia Dokumentov Noveishei Istorii: Kratkii Putevoditel’, ed. J. Arch Getty and V. P. Kozlov, Moscow, 1993, v–xix. Some documents were from the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History (Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv noveishei istorii, hereafter RGANI), the former archive of the General Department of the Central Committee, and from the State Archive of the Russian Federation (Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiskoi Federatsii, hereafter GARF), the main archive of central state institutions. A few documents are from the Central Archive of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (Tsentral’nyi arkhiv Federal’noi sluzhby bezopasnosti Rossiiskoi Federatsii, hereafter TsA FSB).
Russian archival documents are cited and numbered by collection (fond or f.), inventory (opis’ or op.), file (delo or d.), and page (list or l., or in plural, ll.): thus, for example, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 165, d. 47, l. 3 means RGASPI archive fond number 17, inventory number 165, file number 47, page 3.