The Hoover Institution Library & Archives and the Hoover History Lab invite you to a book talk with author Charles Palm and Stephen Kotkin about Documenting Communism: The Hoover Project to Microfilm and Publish the Soviet Archives on Thursday, November 7, 2024, from 4:30 PM to 6:30 PM PT. Moderated by Eric Wakin.
In late 1991, the Soviet Union was officially dissolved. Over the next 12 years, the Hoover Institution microfilmed and published the newly opened records of the Soviet Communist Party and the Soviet State. Among the 10 million pages were records of the central organs of the Communist Party; the NKVD, which regulated the ordinary lives of the Russian people; the GULAG, the secret police department that ran the forced labor camps; and the 1992 trial of the Communist Party.
Charles Palm, who led this mission, details how he and his colleagues secured a historic agreement with the Russian Federation, then launched and successfully carried out the joint project with the Russian State Archives and their partner, Chadwyck-Healey Ltd. The success of the project hinged on managing logistics among the three partners across three continents, facing down critics in Russia and elsewhere, and navigating the unstable political terrain that prevailed in Russia during the 1990s. The Hoover Institution’s decisive action during a brief window of opportunity preserved on microfilm and provided worldwide access to the records of Soviet Communism and helped bring to account one of the most consequential ideologies of the 20th century.
BIOGRAPHIES
Charles G. Palm is deputy director emeritus of the Hoover Institution. During a Hoover career of more than thirty years, Palm held increasingly responsible positions, including assistant archivist (1971-74), deputy archivist (1974-84), archivist (1984-87), head librarian (1986-87), associate director for library operations (1987-90), and deputy director (1990-2001). He was appointed by President George H. W. Bush to the National Historical Publications and Records Commission in 1990 and by Governor George Deukmejian to the California Heritage Preservation Commission in 1983, serving as chairman from 1997 to 2004. Palm is a fellow of the Society of American Archivists, past president of the Society of California Archivists, and a trustee of the Herbert Hoover Foundation.
Stephen Kotkin is the Kleinheinz Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution as well as a senior fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He is also the Birkelund Professor in History and International Affairs emeritus at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School), where he taught for 33 years. He earned his PhD at the University of California–Berkeley and has been conducting research in the Hoover Library & Archives for more than three decades. Kotkin’s research encompasses geopolitics and authoritarian regimes in history and in the present. Kotkin’s publications and public lectures also often focus on Communist China.
Eric Wakin is the deputy director of the Hoover Institution, a research fellow, and the Everett & Jane Hauck director of the Hoover Library & Archives.
