The archival branch of Ukraine from 1917 to 1960 ...
191
The VUTsVK perceived ‘ too broad an expansion of the concept of archival fonds of all-Union value ’ as the main disadvantage of the People ’ s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs ’ draft . The first meeting of the Committee was held on November 24 , 1928 . On December 8 , 1928 , M . Rubatch wrote a letter to M . Pokrovskyi in which he raised the issue of the inaccuracy in the Minutes of the meeting and demanded amendments . Soon , a comparative table of the main points of the ‘ Central Archival Administration Authority Ordinance ’ was sent to Ukraine . However , only minor amendments were introduced , and the final text was provided according to the People ’ s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs ’ draft . The Belarusian and the Transcaucasian Republics ( Armenia , Azerbaijan , and Georgia ) supported Ukraine and proposed their own projects as well 47 . Despite the protests of Union Republics , on April 10 , 1929 the Central Executive Committee of the USSR and the Council of the People ’ s Commissars of the USSR approved a mutual Ordinance to create the Central Archival Administration of the USSR 48 in which Art . 2 determined the concept of archival fonds of all-Union value . This concept covered a long abstract list of archival materials , including those belonging to the Congress of Soviets , the Central Executive Committee , the Council of People ’ s Commissars of the USSR , People ’ s Commissariats , and other all-Union bodies ; archival materials of the period of the February revolution of 1917 ; all materials related to the establishment of Soviet power on the territory of the USSR ; as well as documents on the Red Army history and the Civil War ; the archives of the central government entities which had functioned until October 1917 and public organizations whose the activities had extended on the whole territory of the state ; and all other relevant materials which could have been recognized having an all-Union value in accordance with the decisions of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR . The Central Archival Administration of the USSR had the rights to dispose of them at its discretion 49 . A huge number of valuable historical documents were removed from the territories of the Union Republics to the central archives of the Russian Federation and have still yet to be returned . In 1928 – 1930 , the New Economic Policy was drawing to a close to be replaced by collectivization , industrialization , the dispossession of kulaks , and a search for class enemies . Thus , the period of 1925 – 1929 was the only one in the history of the Soviet Ukraine archives when they could develop more or less freely . Indeed , Ukraine lost the battle for the independence of its archival branch and the consequences of this were tragic .
47
TsDAVO of Ukraine , F . 14 , Op . 1 , Spr . 161 , Ark . 117 – 124 , 130 – 131 .
48
Постановление от 10 апреля 1929 г . ‘ О Центральном архивном управлении Союза ССР ’. From electronic resources ‘ Библиотека нормативно-правовых актов Союза Советских Социалистических Республик ’. http :// www . libussr . ru / doc _ ussr / ussr _ 3567 . htm
49
Архивное дело . Iss . II ( 19 ), Москва 1929 , p . 111 – 112 .