Downloadable (pdf) temporary English language guide to the microfilm of Fond 515, "Files of the Communist Party of the USA in the Comintern Archives"
The CPUSA collection in the Comintern Archives (fond 515) includes 4,313 numbered files (dela). The material in the collection, largely the original headquarters records of the CPUSA shipped to Moscow many decades ago, spans the period from 1912 to 1944 with the bulk in the period from 1922 to 1936.
The files contain the original incoming mail, carbons of outgoing correspondence, reports from regional and local organizers, and internal memoranda produced by officials and offices of the national headquarters. For the first time, it is possible to document the functioning of the local party, its relationship to the international, and the importance of individual members in shaping the party's program. These materials also provide information about the ways in which ordinary people experienced communism. In addition to CPUSA records produced in America, these files contain documents created or gathered in Moscow by CPUSA representatives to the Comintern. The extensive files on the various immigrant/ethnic affiliates of the CPUSA (such as the Finnish Workers Federation) have material in both English and the language of the particular immigrant group being dealt with: Finnish, Italian, Hungarian, German, Chinese, Serbian, Croatian, Polish, Yiddish and so on.
A description and marketing information of the 326 reels of microfilm are found at:
http://www.brill.com/comintern-archives-files-communist-party-usa-cpusa
2 Replies
Kafui Attoh
Hi
Is there an active or working link to this Finding Guide. The current link is not working. Any advice on accessing this finding guide would be greatly appreciated.
kafui attoh
John Haynes
I prepared a temporary finding aid to the CPUSA microfilm (fond 515) when the Library of Congress obtained the microfilm. I don't know why LoC's link to that finding aid (register) is broken. IDC publishers, who marketed copies of the microfilm for the Russian archive, used the LoC's (my) temporary finding aid as the guide for its copies of the microfilm. But IDC's version has disappeared from the web. On looking at the IDC site, it isn't clear that it is any longer marketing the microfilm.
In any event, I will post a version of the temporary finding aid I edited for LoC in a H-HOAC post shortly.
Tim Davenport was at one time preparing a much more detailed finding aid to the fond 515 microfilm than my minimal version, but I don't know if that project (a daunting one for one person) was completed. Even my austere version used delo descriptions not only that I prepared but also on delo information from Harvey Klehr, Vernon Pedersen, and the late Herbert Romerstein.