Stalin Digital Archive Unveiled

Yale University Press unveiled its online “Stalin Digital Archive” today. The archive contains newly declassified documents, including Stalin’s personal papers, and communications with heads of state during the Great Purges.

Several years ago, Yale University Press director John Donatich traveled to Russia. Men in white lab coats escorted him deep into Stalin’s archive, where he was handed Stalin’s personal copy of  Lenin’s book: The State and Revolution.

"..and he annotated this book five times, the color of the ink corresponding to the date of the reading. So here was a guy who was incredibly self-controlled. And really in control of the story he was going to tell about himself. And its quite chilling as you read this book alongside him…over his shoulder as it were."

Scanned images of those pages are among the more than 400,000 documents that will be available online through the Stalin Digital Archive.  

David Schiffman is the director of digital publishing at Yale Press.

"In here are some of the documents related to his policy with Germany before World War 2,  his directives to the Politburo after World War 2 outlining some of his strategies for dealing with the new world order, and also the complete wartime correspondence between Stalin and President Roosevelt."

John Donatich describes access to these materials as unprecedented:

 "...in a time when I think there is a certain questioning about what Stalin’s legacy is going to be internationally and within Russia."

The site, which is still under development, also offers tools that allow users to interact and collaborate.

For WNPR, I’m Diane Orson.