| Publication |
2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
IT ALL BEGAN in 1917 when many people came to develop the romantic notion that secrets in international affairs were no longer secrets and that diplomacy and politics should be an open book. It was then that Baltic Fleet Bolshevik sailor Nikolai Markin was instructed to organize the publication of secret treaties concluded by the preceding regimes. He arranged for the publication of several collections which historians later dubbed the "Markin Collections." The latter-day intellectuals Markin roped in to publish the documents thought it was a good idea to follow with publishing documents of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs relevant not only to the past but also to current foreign policy affairs. In 1919, this resulted in the appearance of the Vestnik NKID (Herald of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR) which published diplomatic notes and other documents of the Commissariat along with articles by individual contributors.
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