Under President Viktor Yushchenko’s recent edict on the declassification and study of archival documents related to the Ukrainian liberation movement, political repressions, and the Holodomor in Ukraine, the central and local authorities are to declassify all such documents in their possession. Activities along this line have been underway for quite some time, yet the edict has a pivotal point in the declassification project. The edict envisages the lifting of all restrictions on accessing any archival documents dating from 1917-91, without exception. It should be noted that the State Archives of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) contain some 800,000 volumes.
Making top secret documents public knowledge has met with varying responses in Ukraine. Some say this is a belated move on the part of the government, while others are adamantly opposed to it. Nevertheless, most Ukrainians regard this declassification as an objective process that allows Ukrainian society to obtain more information about its past. More on the diversity of declassified documents and their availability and significance for Ukraine in the following interview with Volodymyr VIATROVYCH, advisor to the acting head of the SBU and director of the SBU State Archives.
At the briefing on the presidential edict, the acting head of the SBU Valentyn Nalyvaichenko stressed that, starting from Jan. 23, 2009, the Ukrainian state will no longer store top secret documents. In other words, all such documents will be declassified. What does this mean for our state and society? In what way is this situation different from the SBU’s previous declassification efforts?
“This means that on the date the presidential edict was issued, large-scale planned activities began in Ukraine to declassify all documents of the Soviet punitive-repressive bodies. We are entering a new phase of this project. It is important that the edict applies not only to the Security Service of Ukraine, but also to other government agencies, including the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Foreign Intelligence Service, State Department for Execution of Punishments, and others. I am convinced that there are very interesting documents of historical value in the archives.
“In implementing the edict, we are bringing archival practice into conformity with Ukrainian legislation, namely the Laws “On State Secrets” and “On Information.” These documents cannot be considered classified because they contain data on repressions, violations of human rights and freedoms, misfeasance, and so on. They contain no information whose disclosure can damage the national interests or security of Ukraine. Nevertheless, until recently these documents were stamped “Classified“ or “Top Secret,” creating bureaucratic obstacles in their study and publication.
“We are opening access to a great deal of documents for researchers and for every who is interested individual in order to considerably expand our understanding of Ukrainian history in the 20th century. Declassification will be followed by publication. With the aid of the files produced by punitive-repressive authorities — even though these documents are special in certain ways — it will be possible to give a fair assessment of the totalitarian communist regime.”
We know that a large amount of information will be gradually declassified. What kind of information is subject to declassification?
“This includes variegated data, including documents, photos, and charts. The documents are actually investigation files, criminal cases, and directives for the Soviet state security agencies, ranging from the Cheka to the KGB. There are also progress reports and memos submitted to the authorities and party leadership. There are a great many materials confiscated from victims of Soviet repressions, including diaries, letters, and documents of organizations that struggled against the Soviet authorities.
“There are case files related to individual ‘subjects’ — people marked for destruction by the Soviet punitive-repressive system. For example, the Berloha case concerning the leadership of the OUN-UPA liberation movement in the 1940s and the 1950s. Part of the documents in the case files were destroyed, but several thick dossiers have survived. These contain graphic evidence of the specifics of the [NKVD’s] struggle against the Ukrainian underground activists. Another similar case, entitled Blok, reflects the KGB’s struggle against the dissident movement in Ukraine in the 1960s through the 1980s.
Such dossiers contain diversified information, including descriptions of the situation in Ukraine, secret agents’ reports concerning some or other events, KGB responses to them, as well as data on measures against “manifestations of nationalism” and various punitive operations.
“Here is, for example, a chart from the declassified files pertaining to Operation “West” in October 1947. In the course of this large-scale operation, over 77,000 persons were deported from the Western Ukraine within several days. These files reveal a number of various details: who was deported, how many of them and where, as well as the number of trucks, trains, manpower, and equipment involved. Despite its scholarly and historical value, this information was previously inaccessible.
“Another example that illustrates the absurdity of the Soviet regime and its oppressive policy is found in the files on individuals who, back in the 1960s, “succumbed to the influence of bourgeois culture,” and listened to jazz and rock-’n’-roll records. But the most absurd fact is that more than 300 pages of these files, with photos of Elvis Presley and Louis Armstrong, were kept by the Ukrainian state as secret information that could damage Ukraine’s national security.”
How will journalists, researchers, students, and ordinary citizens of Ukraine be able to access declassified documents? Where will these files be stored?
“Declassification entails certain bureaucratic procedures. First, the lists of the documents subject to declassification are generated. The SBU archives alone store some 800,000 volumes (each can consist of several hundred pages and hundreds of documents), so their declassification will take about a year.
“Making these documents public knowledge is the next stage. We will set up task forces made up of historians in Kyiv and other cities; we will ask their advice on the prioritized order or publication.
“We will develop a network of information and reference rooms where our documents will be accessible. At present, such centers are operating in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odesa. Others will shortly open in the Crimea and Lviv. The rest will be launched in all regional centers by the end of the year. In addition, researchers will be able to use such declassified information for writing books, monographs, and collections of articles. The next scheduled stage is the creation of a special website with archival data.
“We count on public support, particularly from scholars, journalists and all others interested in the declassification of these archives. Your newspaper’s publications have drawn public attention to the declassification process and to some of the documents that have become public knowledge, for which I am grateful. Owing to this, our reading and informational-reference rooms see increasing numbers visitors.”
Considering that a great many documents will be declassified, people will be able to learn the truth about some unknown episodes in their lives and that of their relatives. Won’t this cause certain problems in our society, with some Ukrainians getting even with others over newly discovered past offenses? After all, many Ukrainians have collaborated with the KGB under the Soviets.
“We must primarily concentrate on people who fell prey to the Soviet regime as victims of repressions and those whose names have been forgotten—not because there is no one to remember them, but because the totalitarian system tried to conceal all traces of them in secret files. It is our task to declassify documents with information about crimes perpetrated by the Soviet government and about political repressions; we are not going to parade as criminals all those who worked for the KGB. However, considerations like the “embarrassing” character of these crimes’ public exposure for certain individuals must not become a restraining factor. It is our moral and historical duty to make public knowledge all documents related to our complicated history.
“Take the Central and Eastern European countries where such declassification has played a positive role. Their societies have morally cleansed themselves and finally left the burden of the totalitarian regime in the past. They will never return to it. Declassifying archives is a guarantee of the irreversible process of building an independent democratic Ukraine, a guarantee of the real freedom of one and all because the state has no right — nor should it — to conceal its crimes from the people.”
Will the persons proven to have been involved in such crimes and repressions be brought to justice?
“People who will study and interpret these declassified documents will arrive at their own conclusions. This is a scholarly matter, although I do not rule out the possibility that law enforcement agencies will take an interest in their findings and draw legal conclusions on certain individuals. I consider this to be an absolutely normal phenomenon; we are talking crimes without a statute of limitations, so apparently the perpetrators must be punished.”
A number of European countries, including Central and Eastern European ones — Poland, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Latvia, and others —have at one point gone through the so-called lustration process. Isn’t this declassification of Soviet-time archival documents Ukraine’s belated lustration?
“When it comes to declassifying archives, it is better late than never. I also believe that Ukraine ought to have clearly distanced itself from its Soviet past in the early years of independence and stopped keeping secrets of a nonexistent state. I must point out, however, that in Ukraine it is not lustration but the process of revealing historical truth, providing free access to information dating back to the Soviet period. In contrast to this, lustration is not merely disclosing some information; it envisages certain legal inferences made on the basis of such declassified information. This requires the enactment of laws that impose certain restrictions on people convicted of participation in the punitive-repressive system in terms of civil service or occupying other official posts.”
Is the Verkhovna Rada planning to pass any lustration bills?
“I am a historian, head of the SBU archives. You’d better address this questions to politicians who are actively involved in the lawmaking process. I wonder if they are prepared to do so.”
A pitched political struggle has been underway in Ukraine for quite some time, in the course of which politicians have never stopped short of using dirty technologies, raising the subjects of unity, language, regionalism, and so on. Could this declassification of archives become an acute issue that will be used for political purposes?
“Apparently, everything is incredibly politicized in our country, yet I am convinced that, on the contrary, our declassification efforts will place our past beyond the boundaries of politics. Every Ukrainian will be able to acquaint himself/herself with information on Ukrainian history. It means that politicians will no longer be able to manipulate our past. It is only the lack of knowledge and absence of information that makes it possible to use history to serve political interests. For example, our MPs, probably having nothing else to do, move bills like the one entitled ‘On Legal Responsibility for Heroization of the OUN-UPA,’ thus demonstrating their total historical ignorance. After the declassification of [pertinent] documents such politicians should have finally realized that one must assume responsibility for every word said about Ukrainian history. Also, making information public knowledge will allow the Ukrainian in the street to see through such political manipulations.”
On January 28 President Viktor Yushchenko signed an edict appointing Valerii Khoroshkovsky first deputy head of the Security Service of Ukraine. The next day the press cited an unidentified source in the Presidential Secretary saying that this may be followed by his promotion to the acting head of the SBU: “There is strong likelihood of this happening. Many of us believe that Nalyvaichenko, the current acting head of the SBU, is already working for (Prime Minister) Tymoshenko.” Would you comment on this?
“I am not commenting on this situation. I am not a politician and consider working with the archives and studying history to be my main duty. Meddling with politics may hazard the declassification of the archives and the restoration of historical memory.”
In this case, could the likely replacement of the acting head of the SBU affect your archival work?
“A number of changes that have been carried out under Nalyvaichenko’s command are largely irreversible. Even a coup — God forbid! — wouldn’t stop this process. The declassification of the archives, even if belated, is a natural and long-anticipated phenomenon in our society.”
As a historian, who do you think should supervise the SBU, or is it an independent structure?
“As a historian, I can say that a special service should never be controlled by a political force. This was the case under the Soviets, when the KGB was the ‘sword and shield’ of the CPSU. This is very dangerous because it can lead to authoritarianism — and this wouldn’t be the worst outcome. The Ukrainian Constitution set forth a model that balances all branches of power, which is acceptable to our country.”
In other words, the Security Service of Ukraine is, in reality, under the president’s control?
“That’s right. As the guarantor of the Constitution, he must have certain tools, including the SBU, with which to guarantee Ukraine’s security.”
