Documenting Communism
Published May 30, 2024
In the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse, the deputy director of the Hoover Institution, Charles Palm, embarked on a 12-year project to copy and publish millions of previously secret Soviet files, exposing the brutal reality of communism. Despite opposition from critics in Russia and the United States, the project triumphed, resulting in the publication of numerous scholarly works and setting an example of cooperation between once hostile nations. As communism continues to attract youth who have never experienced its brutality, the Hoover Institution's collection of Soviet archives serves as an invaluable resource to educate and expose the true nature of this deadly ideology.
To learn more or to purchase your own copy of Documenting Communism: The Hoover Project to Microfilm and Publish the Soviet Archives click here.
Check out More from Charles Palm:
- Read "The Document that Ended an Empire" from Charles Palm here.
- Read "Two Eras" from Charles Palm here.
The opinions expressed on this website are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Hoover Institution or Stanford University. © 2024 by the Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University.
>> Charles Pallm: In the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, freedom and democracy were on the rise, and communism was largely discredited. But in recent years, communism and its utopian dreams have regained popularity, particularly among Western youth who have never seen or experienced the brutal reality of its regimes.
What, then, can be done to restore the truth about communism? What can be done to educate the younger generation about the inherently tyrannical and ruinous nature of the communist ideology? An ideology responsible for the worldwide deaths of over 100 million people, deaths by executions, government induced famines, and forced labor camps.
Throughout its history, the Hoover Institution has endeavored to record the truth about this deadly ideology. In my new book, Documenting Communism, I tell the story of a project undertaken in the 1990s to save the history of soviet communism. When the Soviet Union fell in 1991, the new Russian government opened the soviet archives for the very first time.
This created an opportunity to copy millions of previously secret files on soviet communism and to illuminate its terrible consequences, including the unnecessary deaths of 20 million of its own people. As deputy director of the Hoover Institution at that time, I recognize this as a chance to realize a central mission of the Hoover Institution and its founder, Herbert Hoover.
That mission has been to document dangerous ideologies like communism and it's like minded cousin, socialism, and in the process, help promote peace, liberty, and prosperity for all. After connecting with Rudolph Pikhoya, the newly appointed head of the soviet archives, I proposed a collaborative project to copy and publish these newly opened archives.
We sought to make them available to every everyone without restriction, and provide a better understanding of what really happened behind the Iron Curtain. During this 12-year project, we microfilmed over 10 million pages of previously unseen documents. For the first time, the complete history of the Soviet Union could finally be told, it could no longer be ignored, falsified, or effectively defended, it was all now a matter of record.
The political workings of the Communist Party, the ruthless actions of the NKVD, Stalin State Police, the operations of the Gulag, the system of forced labor camps, and countless soviet crimes. Including the Katyn forest massacre of polish officers during World War II, the downing of Korean Airlines flight 007, and the coverup of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
All these and much more have been brought out into the light. The project faced staunch pushback in Russia and, surprisingly, at home among some in the United States still suspicious of the West and opposed to sharing their archives with foreigners. Many Russians, especially in the media, accused Pikhoya of exploiting his own history and selling out his country.
Critics in the United States mistakenly saw the project as an attempt to monopolize access to the soviet archives and to use financial incentives to secure them. Despite this opposition, we persevered and eventually prevailed. Strong support from the Hoover Institution and its donors enable us to make our project a reality.
The numerous benefits of this project continue even today. Hundreds of scholars have come to the Hoover archives to use the collection. They've published dozens of scholarly works based on them. Two examples stand out, the Pulitzer Prize winning book Gulag, by Anne Applebaum, chronicles the history of the forced labor camps, what she has called the quintessential expression of the soviet system.
The other is Stephen Kotkin's definitive biography of Joseph Stalin, one of the world's most deadly tyrants. In addition to this scholarship, the project set an example of cooperation between once hostile nations. Despite cultural differences and logistical challenges spanning three continents, the desire to seek and deliver truth, however uncomfortable, successfully united both sides.
The work undertaken by the Hoover Institution is as valuable as ever. Communism and its utopian promises continue to attract those who have never experienced its brutality, especially our youth. For those willing to learn, this collection of soviet archives exposes communism for what it really is, a system that delivers only the opposite of what it promises.
We at Hoover, hope my book will be a source of inspiration to those who stand against threats to liberty and who support Hoover's continuing efforts to document and expose them for all to see.