Stalin Digital Archive

From 1924-1953, Joseph Stalin (1878--1953) ruled the largest country in the world, the Soviet Union, with an iron fist. He attempted to twist and contort the USSR into a modern communist country using authoritarian methods.

The Stalin Digital Archive provides unprecedented access to historically significant content and robust online capabilities for research and teaching. The result of years of collaboration between the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI) and Yale University Press, the Stalin Digital Archive (SDA) provides access to primary source materials from Stalin's personal papers and insightful monographs on communism. In addition, it seeks to advance research and teaching through new ways for scholars and students to interact with this content and collaborate. The SDA collections include:

RGASPI documents from Stalin's personal papers will eventually number over 400,000 pages. Highlights include: foreign policy with Germany before World War II; communications during the Great Purges; relations with Western intellectuals and leaders; and private notations on many Soviet leaders.

The Annals of Communism series contains 25 volumes of scholarly commentary, annotation, and interpretation of documents from state and party archives selected by teams of Western and Russian editors. These volumes span the history of Soviet and international communism.

From advanced search and browse functionality to personalized workspaces, the Stalin Digital Archive uses technology to enhance the process and impact of scholarship. The SDA allows users to compare documents, save searches and documents, and define tags. Users can also engage in discussions and share annotations and tags with others.