On heroic observance of the law

The declassification of documents from the Great Patriotic War, which are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defense, is certainly a good event. One can only agree with the positive assessments of the actions of the new minister. But there is no reason for excessive delight. The minister will simply stop the many years of profanation of the current legislation. Yes, and even then partially.

Indeed, declassified documents may be of serious interest to historians. It seems that they do not contain any big sensations that excite public opinion, but the source base for writing historical monographs is certainly expanding. The secrecy stamp is removed, in particular, from documents of the General Staff, fronts, armies, formations, political and personnel bodies, and military hospitals. However, the documents of the military tribunals have not yet been declassified, but, according to archivists from the Ministry of Defense system, only because they are under the jurisdiction of the Main Military Prosecutor's Office and the Main Directorate for the Activities of Military Courts. If they do not mind, then it is possible to remove the stamp from these documents.

Thus, we are talking about declassifying interesting, but still quite routine sources. Documents from the Main Intelligence Directorate are not subject to the order. Sources related to military issues, which are stored in archives not subordinate to the Ministry of Defense, will remain secret. And these, as far as one can judge, are the most important documents that allow us to understand the mechanism of decision-making “at the very top” - at the level of the Stalinist State Defense Committee. As well as documents on the activities of the repressive bodies, which had a huge influence on army life in those years. It is clear, however, that decisions on declassifying such materials are not within the competence of Minister Serdyukov.

However, the most interesting thing, in my opinion, about the ministerial order is that it only confirmed the researcher’s right to receive information, which, in principle, should have been in the public domain for many years. Let us turn to the Law on State Secrets of the Russian Federation, adopted in 1993. Its Article 13 (“Procedure for declassification of information”), in particular, states: “The period for classifying information constituting a state secret must not exceed 30 years. In exceptional cases, this period may be extended upon the conclusion of the interdepartmental commission for the protection of state secrets.” Thus, this year, documents relating to 1977 should be made public, excluding those that were left in closed storage for reasons. However, the Minister of Defense has only now handed over documents from many years ago to historians for use.

The fact is that in addition to the law, declassification rules were issued, which stipulate that the removal of the classification must be carried out by decision of a special commission. At first glance, there is nothing wrong with this, but in fact, this principle actually makes no sense in the law on a 30-year term. The commissions consist of living people, and they physically cannot make a decision on every archival file, not to mention every single document. Even if they work day and night, with breaks for meals and short sleeps, it will take years to sort through the millions of papers that have been classified since Soviet times. It is clear that Russian officials do not have such enthusiasm - moreover, experts note that the declassification process slowed down significantly in the second half of the 90s.

In European countries, a completely different principle has been adopted - declassification occurs automatically, and government bodies only decide on the issue of extending the period of secret storage of documents, the publication of which could harm the security of the country. It is clear that such an extension must be justified with serious arguments. It is easy to see that this is precisely the principle laid down in the Russian law of 1993. However, as we noted above, it is not implemented in practice. Minister Serdyukov, therefore, simply fulfilled the law, decisively ordering the removal of the secrecy label from documents that should have been declassified long ago anyway. However, changes to the declassification rules, bringing them into line with current legislation, were never made. Thus, the question of removing the classification of secrecy from documents, as before, depends on the good or bad will of a particular public administrator. But the “secret” stamp is still on many documents that are important for Russian history and do not pose any threat to national security.

There is another serious problem. The federal law “On Archival Affairs in the Russian Federation” (Article 25, Part 3) contains a rule on restrictions on access to archival documents containing information about a citizen’s personal and family secrets. Such documents can only be opened to researchers 75 years after their creation. The norm is quite liberal - it is unlikely that anyone will be pleased to learn from the publications of historians about their illnesses or details of their intimate life. However, practice indicates an extremely expanded understanding of “personal secrets” by departmental archivists. Here is the testimony of researcher Nikita Petrov from 2001: “In the Russian State Military Archive (RGVA), regular refusals to release long-declassified (back in 1992) files on the grounds that they contained “private life secrets” have become the rule today.”

Let’s say that, by decision of Minister Serdyukov, documents on the activities of some division or army commander were declassified. And they contain negative characteristics of his activities - they say he is indecisive, failed assigned tasks, and even abuses alcohol. For historians, this is extremely valuable information that allows us to at least partially understand the reason for the failures of the troops entrusted to a given military leader. According to current legislation, such information is not a personal secret. And what would come to the mind of a departmental archivist who believes that one can speak either well or nothing about an honored person? So the overly curious researchers are rejected.

Ridiculous? But isn’t it ironic that only in December 2004, at the urgent request of researcher Georgiy Ramazashvili, the Archive Service of the Armed Forces recommended that employees of the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense not check entries in user workbooks made when working with unclassified documents. Ramazashvili was studying materials in the archive about the fate of his great-uncle, a pilot who died during the war, and one fine day his notebook was cut with scissors, removing the text of a Soviet leaflet in German, which our planes scattered in the spring of 1942 over the occupied territory. Also, probably, personal secrets or state secrets, which through a misunderstanding ended up in the public domain. What would have happened if the researcher had not been so persistent and had not reached the military archival authorities? (By the way, when his rights were once again infringed, he went to court.) There is no doubt that checks of personal records would still be carried out.

Thus, it is not enough to issue a good order - we must also monitor its implementation, since domestic law enforcement practice (including in the archival sphere) can ruin any good undertaking. And the normal desire to comply with the law, “corrected”, as is customary in Russia, by by-laws, is recognized as almost a heroic act.