‘When the Archives are Open’ … They’re Full of Falsifications Too, Mukhin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 30 – One of the most widespread beliefs among analysts and ordinary people is that when the archives of the Soviet Union are opened, they will provide a true picture of what took place. But that hope is misplaced, Yury Mukhin says. These archives are full of almost as many falsifications as the open sources people have relied on in the past.

            That should come as no surprise: Soviet officials were incapable of the kind of double bookkeeping such a view assumes. They could not engage in lies in public and then only report honestly in materials that have ended up in the archives.  Instead, the lies in one inevitably spilled over into lies in the other. 

            Such a reality, of course, does not mean that the archives are not an important addition to the understanding of the past. Were they not, the powers that be would not be fighting so hard to limit access to them. But it does mean that they have to be approached with the same caution that most people approach the open Soviet media.

            Unfortunately, that doesn’t always happen, and many assume that if something is in the archives, it is necessarily true.  In a commentary for FORUM-MSK, the Moscow commentator says that those who believe everything from the Soviet archives need to be reminded of that danger on a regular basis (forum-msk.org/material/news/15738490.html).

            “From time to time,” he says, “sensational revelations appear with the declaration that ‘the archives have been declassified!’ And everyone believes these ‘unclassified’ documents without any qualification.” But anyone who is interested in the history of the Soviet past needs to proceed with caution when such “revelations” occur.

            “The archives of Russia are crowded with falsifications,” Mukhin argues. “And anyone who is really interested in the history of our Motherland will encounter these falsifications on a constant basis.”  No one document or even group of documents should be accepted just because “they’re from the archives.”

            In support of that contention, he cites a 2009 study which demonstrated just how many falsified documents could be found in a single archive (ymuhin.ru/node/1963/v-opolonke-rosarhiva-vsplyl-pakt-molotov-ribbentrop) and provides an analysis of his own of documents from the archives that were included in a 1999 book on Lavrenty Beria.

            Those documents may actually have been in the archives, Mukhin continues; but other sources, both archival and not, show that they are not true. Preferencing archival documents in such cases is a dangerous and self-deceiving act, although he suggests that those who use the archives may be as interested in falsification as those who put things in them in the first case.

            A case in point, albeit one that Mukhin doesn’t mention, concerns lists of those who cooperated with the Soviet security services. Not surprisingly, these lists contain many mistakes, exaggerations by NKVD officers in many cases designed to make them look good or to justify more money for their activities.

            Unfortunately, in many places that were once part of the Soviet empire, such problems are often ignored; and peoples’ lives are ruined as a result.