The dissertation defines the potential of holding 1 documents «The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine» preserved the Central State Archives of Public Organizations of Ukraine to study the formation and development of the democratic opposition in the USSR in the restructuring years. For this purpose, the author identifies and describes the main groups of documents preserved in the specified holdings (documents of the organs and organizations of the Communist Party of Ukraine, documents of non-communist non-governmental organizations and political parties, documents of state authorities and administration, correspondence of citizens to the republican and union party leadership); defines formation and development aspects of the democratic opposition in the USSR in the years of restructuring (establishing and activity of informal organizations, organizational structure and functioning of the People’s Movement of Ukraine for the restructuring, the birth and development of a multiparty system); and reveals their significance as a historical source.
The author shows that the documents holding «The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine» is an informationally rich historical source. By giving a holistic view of the establishment of the party-state system in Ukraine, they simultaneously reveal the mechanisms and peculiarities of its action, reflecting the socio-political, socio-economic, cultural life of Ukraine of the Soviet era. At the same time, they require a critical approach to their study. Particular care should be taken to study the documents of the CPU, possibly checking the information provided in them by other sources. It is necessary to carefully approach the analysis of other groups of documents of the holding, because of political situation having imprinted their content.
The proposed classification of the documents takes into account the place they occupied in the daily activities of the Communist Party of Ukraine, contributes to the development of a methodology for their study and scientific use. This is especially true of the documents of the bodies and organizations of the CPU (its congresses and conferences, the Central Committee, local party bodies and primary party organizations), which make up the bulk of the documents of the holding.
Specific examples show how the study of the Central Committee of the Communist Party archives allow to confirm or refute certain provisions contained in such a controversial variety of historical sources as recollections. In particular, the documents show that the vision of the former President of Ukraine L.M. Kravchuk of his role in establishing the People’s Movement of Ukraine for the restructuring, fixed in his memoirs «We have what we have», does not stand up to criticism.
The research introduces a significant amount of documents to the scientific circulation, which until now are little- or unknown to researchers general public. Among them are citizens correspondence to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, the Central Committee of the CPSU, separate republican and allied party figures. As an important source of studying the modern history of Ukraine, they allow us to determine the attitude of people towards the political course chosen by the authorities, to follow the formation of public opinion about the main sociopolitical processes that took place in the republic. In particular, citizens’ letters, statements, and complaints have considerable source potential for studying the formation and development of the democratic opposition in the USSR.
