The documents reproduced come from the Russian Centre for the Preservation and Study of Documents of Most Recent History (RTsKhIDNI), known until 1991 as the Central Party Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism. Until August 1991 this Institute was under the control of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and was a research centre for Party members. Its archives, whose holdings were until recently restricted to the Institute's staff and highly placed members of the Soviet Communist Party, contain material on people active in the world Communist movement from its beginnings to 1952.

The Russian material in these archives comes from several sources. The core of the collection came from the archives of ISTPART, the Department for the History of the Party formed in 1918 by the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). The ISTPART collection was supplemented by the personal archives of leading figures of the Russian Revolution, some donated, some confiscated, some transferred from local archives and from the current archive of the Central Committee.

Axelrod (1850-1928) 33 microfiche
Kalinin (1875-1946) Microfilm 220 reels
Kirov (1886-1934) Microfilm 45 reels
Martov (1873-1923) 34 microfiche
Molotov (1890-1986) 111 microfiche
Ordzhonikidze (1886-1937) Microfilm 121 reels
Trotsky (1879-1940) 1,129 microfiche
Zasulich (1849-1919) 34 microfiche
Zhdanov (1896-1948) Microfilm 35 reels and 517 microfiche

Published in association with the State Archival Service of Russia (Rosarkhiv)