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Comrade Chernenko. Leonid Il ich asked ready made.108 In either case, the practice is Another event for which published So-
for a vote on this proposal (He has not read bound to cause problems for scholars who viet documents have been much more valu-
the text.). 105 How common this sort of are seeking to weigh the significance of able than the available unpublished hold-
practice was is unclear, but it is safe to particular inputs. Checking the date of the ings, is the Cuban missile crisis. Scholars
assume that Brezhnev and other members of inputs may occasionally be enough to sift out have not yet been granted free access to any
the CPSU Politburo, especially those who phony or insignificant recommendations of the relevant holdings in the Presidential
were elderly and infirm, would frequently from genuine ones (e.g., proposals that come Archive, the military archives, or the KGB
sign off on documents that they had not well after decisions have been made are archives, which will be crucial in helping to
read.106 That raises serious problems for automatically suspect), but in most instances resolve some of the lingering mysteries about
scholars who hope to trace the decision- the situation is at best indeterminate. the Soviet Union s role in the crisis. The
making process on specific issues and events. Yet another pitfall of archival research only archival materials that have been avail-
In some instances this matter can be in Russia and other ex-Communist states able up to now, at TsKhSD and the AVPRF,
handled by searching for connections be- and in Western countries as well is the add little or nothing to what is known about
tween presumed inputs and the subsequent difficulty of balancing published documents the crisis. As a result, the use of newly
evolution of Soviet policy. In the case of the against unpublished materials. On the one published documents about the Cuban mis-
Vietnam War, for example, Soviet leaders hand, it is true that published collections of sile crisis has been the only way to make up
usually paid relatively little attention except documents can cause a myriad of problems for the continued lack of access to the most
when the conflict directly affected U.S.- when the editors have an agenda of their important Russian archives.112
Soviet relations. Instead, they tended to rely own. A classic example of this phenomenon, One additional area in which the publi-
heavily on middle-ranking officials to lay cited by E. H. Carr, occurred in 1935 when an cation of Soviet documents has been of great
out policy guidelines and recommend deci- English publisher brought out an abridged importance is the question of nuclear weap-
sions on all but the most important mat- edition of documents and papers from the ons development and nuclear arms control
ters.107 Thus, when we come across propos- long-time foreign minister of Weimar Ger- policy. Access to the most important archi-
als from the Central Committee apparatus many, Gustav Stresemann.109 The publisher val holdings on this topic is still non-exis-
or the Foreign Ministry that were subse- conveniently omitted all documents that tent, and the unpublished items that are
quently incorporated with few or no changes would have detracted from Stresemann s available at TsKhSD (and to a lesser extent
in the Politburo s decisions about Vietnam, reputation, a pattern of omission that might at MID) are of relatively little interest. Hence,
we can deduce that these inputs were of key never have come to light had the full set of the publication of key materials and the
importance at top levels. documents not fallen by chance into British appearance of new first-hand accounts have
Unfortunately, though, the nature of and American hands at the end of World War been the only real sources of fresh evidence
inputs for most issues is not as clear-cut. II. Similar problems are likely to arise with about topics such as the early Soviet nuclear
Moreover, even when documents produced at least a few of the collections now being put bomb program, the problems experienced
at middle and lower levels of the bureau- together of documents from the former So- by Soviet nuclear-missile submarines, and
cracy correspond precisely with the deci- viet archives.110 the bargaining positions adopted by Soviet
sions that were made by the Politburo, re- On the other hand, it would be a serious officials in strategic arms negotiations. Of
searchers must beware of inferring too much mistake for scholars to disregard or place less particular interest in recent months has been
about those documents. It was a common emphasis on documents and other materials the serialized publication of the transcripts
practice among Soviet bureaucrats a prac- in Moscow that have already been published. of the U.S.-Soviet negotiations at the
34 COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT BULLETIN
Reykjavik summit in October 1986, which Ministry s role was actually quite limited. able to explain why unity and conformity so
reveal how close the two sides came to This was especially true on matters concern- often prevailed, and why it was the Soviet
achieving an agreement far more ambitious ing relations with other Communist coun- Union that usually ended up calling the
than either had anticipated or even wanted.113 tries (Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, North shots. During the 1968 crisis in Czechoslo-
Ideally, if free access to the most impor- Vietnam, North Korea, etc.), where party- vakia, for example, Polish and East German
tant archives in Moscow is eventually granted to-party ties tended to be far more important leaders wanted to resort to armed interven-
to scholars, the publication of documents than state-to-state interactions. On certain tion as early as March, and they did what
will no longer be so essential. Until that other issues, such as U.S.-Soviet relations they could to bring about a military solution.
time, however, the use of published docu- and policy toward Africa, the Foreign Min- But all their efforts would have mattered
ments will be a crucial supplement to on-site istry did play a significant role, but even in little if the Soviet Politburo had not finally
archival research. these instances it is essential that the decided, in August, that an invasion was
The reliance on published documenta- ministry s influence not be overstated. indeed necessary.
tion is only one of the methodological prob- One final pitfall for scholars working in Even in cases such as the Korean war,
lems caused by the continued unavailability the Russian archives is the occasional ten- for which it has long been thought that the
of materials in the Presidential Archive, the dency either to reinvent the wheel or to tail took much of the initiative, the situation
postwar military archives, and the KGB and attack straw men. Some of the participants may not be as straightforward as it seems.
GRU archives. Another obvious pitfall is in the CWIHP s conference in January 1993 Although a recent study based on extensive
the temptation to look for one s keys where seemed to find it remarkable that Soviet archival research has supported the view of
the streetlight is, i.e., to ascribe excessive allies and clients in Eastern Europe and the an active tail (i.e., the view that Kim Il-
importance to the documents that are avail- Third World often tried to influence Soviet sung was the driving force behind the plan to
able. Not only are the items stored at TsKhSD policy. Why this came as such a startling invade South Korea in June 1950, even
and the AVPRF merely inputs into the revelation is unclear. Should it really have though Stalin had to give final approval to
decision-making process; they are not nec- been surprising to find that the tail occa- the invasion), other evidence that has re-
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