Istpart
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The Commission for the History of the October Revolution and the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), abbreviated Istpart (Истпарт, from Istoriya Partii: 'History of the Party'), was the research institution that laid the institutional foundation for Soviet party historiography. Founded in 1920 under Mikhail Olminsky's leadership, it collected, archived, and published memoirs and documents through a central body in Moscow and over 70 local bureaus nationwide, issuing the journal Proletarskaia revoliutsiia from 1921. Merged into the Lenin Institute in 1928, it continued as a department of the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute until 1939, when its regional branches were dissolved and their functions transferred to party archives.
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Sources
- Wikipedia (RU) Russian Wikipedia: full institutional history, structure, leadership, and timeline of Istpart (1920–1928 as independent body, merged into Lenin Institute 1928, dissolved 1939)
- Wikipedia (EN) English Wikipedia: establishment by Lenin, Olminsky/Pokrovsky rivalry, 72 local bureaus by mid-1922, Proletarskaia revoliutsiia journal, merger with Lenin Institute
- historicalmaterialism.org Barbara C. Allen review of Larry E. Holmes's Revising the Revolution (2021): scholarly assessment of Istpart's inherent tension between scholarship and party politics, personal rivalries between Olminsky and Pokrovsky, and Istpart's role in constructing an ideological canon