"Documenting Communism:" The Hoover Project to Microfilm and Publish the Soviet Archives (Part 1)

Charles (Chuck) Palm, a graduate of Chinook High School, class of 1962, is the Deputy Director Emeritus of the Hoover Institution located on the campus of Stanford University. His 2024 book, "Documenting Communism," is based on the agreement he negotiated in 1992 to microfilm the archives of the Soviet Communist Party and Soviet State. The project involved the microfilming of over 12 million documents. The narrative that follows, written by Palm, is an overview of the challenges of and results from the massive documenting project. Retiring in 2002, he completed thirty-one years of service at the Hoover, including eighteen years directing the Hoover Library and Archives.

Chuck was born in Havre, Montana in 1944 and grew up in Chinook. His dad was a butcher and his mom a teacher at Meadowlark School. During high school he edited the high school newspaper, was co-salutatorian and "delivered the Great Falls Tribune." He has a brother, Victor, who lives in Easton, Pennsylvania. His sister, Ardis Conrad, lives with her family on a farm/ranch south of Chinook. Chuck married Miriam Willets, whom he met in the Stanford Library, in 1968.

The narrative that follows is from material in Chuck's recent book, Documenting Communism, and is an overview of the both the challenges and outcomes of the project to microfilm millions of documents from the Soviet archives.

Used with permission from the Hoover Digest

Charles G. Palm

In December 1991, the Soviet Union was dissolved, and seventy-four years of Communist tyranny and global menace came to an end. Within months the new Russian government, led by Boris Yeltsin, and the Hoover Institution (on the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto, California) concluded an agreement to microfilm and publish what was then one of the world's largest, untapped archival treasures - the archives of the Soviet Communist Party and Soviet State. The 12-year project that followed produced and published some 10 million pages on 11,819 reels of microfilm now safely deposited and opened to all at the Hoover Institution in California, in Russia, and at four other major libraries around the world.

My memoir, "Documenting Communism," tells the story of that project, which I initiated and directed as Hoover's deputy director. On the Russian side, my partners were archivists Rudolf G. Pikhoia and Sergei Mironenko. We were joined by British publisher, Charles Chadwyck-Healey, president of Chadwyck-Healey, Ltd., which marketed and distributed the microfilm. It is a story of opportunities seized, obstacles overcome, and a mission accomplished.

The first opportunity came in May 1991, eight months before the Soviet Union collapsed. Back in May, I learned that Pikhoia, then the archivist of the Russian Soviet Republic, one of the fifteen Soviet republics that made up the Soviet Union, was visiting the United States. I invited him to the Hoover Institution. During his stay, he was introduced to Hoover - its archivists, scholars, and administrators. We made friends instantly and discussed undertaking some modest joint projects. Since I had not raised money for any such projects, I envisioned a slow-developing relationship. Then, suddenly everything changed.

The attempted coup against the Gorbachev government in August 1991 presented a second opportunity. After Yeltsin put down the coup and regained authority in Moscow, he seized the archives of the Soviet Communist Party and put our new friend, Pikhoia, in charge of them and in addition appointed him head of the State Archival Service of Russia, which included 18 federal archives and 2,000 provincial and party archives containing hundreds of millions of documents. Pikhoia was now the man to see for Russian archives.

In November, after the dust settled, I went to Moscow to meet with Pikhoia and continue our talks. To win an agreement with the Russians, we had to accomplish three things: gain the trust of Pikhoia and the directors of the repositories that held the archives, get the financial resources to pay for it, and put together a package that was attractive to both sides.

To gain trust it was important to show empathy for the situation Pikhoia found himself. He and his colleagues were opening seventy years of secrets. They had to do it without alienating the Russian people, already humiliated by their defeat in the cold war and in a difficult economic state. I let Pikhoia know that I respected and understood the spot he was in and that we were there to help. Also, I was careful about moving too quickly. The Russians have always been suspicious of outsiders. They were especially so after the collapse. Accordingly, I first proposed two small projects that would benefit the Russians directly and quickly.

One was a joint exhibit that would employ a dozen or so Russian archivists and that would open in both Moscow and California. Bringing the Russian archivists to Stanford for the exhibit opening, of course, was attractive to them. The second project involved entering cataloging data about their archives into the Research Libraries Information Network, a library bibliographic database with worldwide access. The project gave the Russians access to American technology, including computers and other equipment. They readily agreed to do both projects.

At that November meeting, I made no proposals to microfilm millions of pages of their archives. Had I done so, it might have ended the conversation. Instead, I invited Pikhoia to the January meeting of the Hoover Board of Overseers in Washington, D.C. That is when I made my pitch. Doing so at the Washington meeting proved advantageous. Pikhoia met our major donors and participated on the program with other distinguished speakers, including leading figures in government. Pikhoia could see that we had the resources to successfully undertake a big project and, if necessary, the political clout to protect it. It was also a chance for our overseers to size up Pikhoia. There would be no project unless both sides- Pikhoia and our Board - approved.

What was it that we and Russians were going to do together? What would be the scope and size of the project? We could have settled on a small project - a few hundred reels of microfilm, as other publishers at the time did. It would have been much easier to accomplish and much less controversial. I decided instead to go big - 25 million pages on microfilm with a budget of $3 million ($6.5 million in today's dollars). This was our one chance to get it all out safely before the window of opportunity closed. The number was also large enough to engage the Russians at full capacity for several years. I did not want to leave anything on the table. In the end, 25 million proved to be unrealistic. We settled for 10 million -still the largest collaborative microfilming project ever undertaken abroad by an American research institution.

Shortly after the February Board meeting, I met Pikhoia again in Moscow. We were joined by Charles Chadwyck-Healey, an enterprising and competent publisher. Chadwyck-Healey could provide technical help in setting up the microfilm operation in Moscow, processing the microfilm at his facility in Cambridge, England, and marketing and distributing the microfilm. He became a third partner.

I brought to Moscow a thirty-page agreement, containing the elements of the projects. They included:

• production of microfilm of 25 million pages of archives, paid for by the Hoover Institution: equipment, labor, supplies, and processing.

• an editorial board of historians to select the materials to be filmed - three picked by Hoover and three picked by Pikhoia.

• deposit of the microfilm sets at Hoover and in Russia.

• royalties of 27% of gross sales to the Russians and 13% to Hoover.

• donation by Hoover of microfilm of Hoover's entire collection of Russian archival holdings.

I withheld the last element until all other matters had been discussed and debated. It was an element that no other competitor could offer and one that changed the project from an agreement between unequals - a wealthy buyer and an impoverished seller - to a collaboration between equals. For every reel of microfilm we got from the Russians, they would get a reel of microfilm from us, eventually transferring to the Russians microfilms of Hoover's entire world-renowned Russian collection. When I introduced this last piece of the puzzle, Pikhoia reached across the table and shook my hand. At that moment we became partners in an historic enterprise.

The agreement was signed at a second meeting on April 17. Four months after the fall of the Soviet Union, the chief archivist of the Russian nation had agreed to open 74 years of secret archives and to copy them for worldwide distribution. It was a remarkable moment for Russia. It was also a remarkable moment for Hoover. We had just won a worldwide competition to copy and publish a large part of the Soviet archives.

Making it work was the next step. Everything had to be purchased and shipped to Russia - 11 microfilm cameras, 3 microfilm readers, 3 inspection stations, 3 duplicators, 4 processors, computers and printers, spare parts, sump pumps, book cradles, even stools and chairs for staff to sit on. Hoover and Chadwyck-Healey staff went to Moscow to set it up in the three repositories holding the archives. They encountered all sorts of problems: water supply, plumbing, lighting, and voltage variations. They took with them every possible tool they might need: tape, pipe fittings, paper, and ordinary tools. Finally, by the end of 1993 - a year after the agreement was signed - all the equipment was in place and ready for use.

Our Russian partner furnished the staff to do the work: preparing documents for filming, operating the cameras, developing the film, and shipping it to the Chadwyck-Healey facility in Cambridge, where every frame was checked and corrections faxed back to Moscow. The Russian staff then re-filmed pages that had been incorrectly filmed. Finally, the corrected film was shipped back to Cambridge where it was spliced into the appropriate reels.

As with any new startup enterprise, we had initial problems: misusing new equipment, slow production, and poor communications. In order to improve production, we took two important steps. First, we changed the way we paid for labor costs. Instead of a yearly amount paid upfront, we paid a fixed amount per reel due only after the reels had been produced and received. The second step was to give the Russian project staff a 20% bonus, which increased motivation and reduced turnover.

We also had to motivate the upper level administration, some of whom did not like the idea of a foreign project operating in their repositories. A key mistake I made was not providing more incentive to these folks. I had assumed that the benefits to their repositories would be motivation enough. Beginning in 1998, I corrected the problem and provided financial support for a 7-volume documentary publication that gave publication credits and generous stipends to a number of archival administrators. In the meantime, we relied on Pikhoia, who was always ready to correct any problems we had. With his leadership, the project was safe. Without him, it was not.

See 9/25 paper for part two