Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History

The Russian State Archive of Socio - Political History ( RGASPI; Russian Российский государственный архив социально - политической истории, РГАСПИ ) in Moscow is the main archive for the socialist history of Russia.

The document collection was from the Central Party Archive of the Institute of Marxism -Leninism and forth based on the files of the CPSU ( prior to 1953 ), its predecessor, and the Komsomol. It contains documents pre-revolutionary Bolshevik parties and libraries from exile during the Tsarist era, including Marx, Engels, the RSDRP, the First, Second and Third Internationals and the Cominform.

Personal papers of Bolshevik leaders such as Dzerzhinsky, Kalinin, Kamenev, Stalin and others, as well as RSDRP leaders like Martov, Plekhanov and Axelrod are stored here.

The archive includes an extensive audiovisual collection of Lenin and the party conferences from 1922 to 1976. Some documents of the Comintern, the Politburo and the International Department of the CPSU, and private citizens are not accessible.

Records from the period after 1953 are located in the State Archive of Contemporary History RGANI, important documents, including the Presidential Archive.