Communist Party USA Donates Vast Collection Of Documents And Photographs To NYU

NEW YORK (AP) _ The Communist Party USA has donated a vast collection of its photographs and documents, including smuggled directives from Moscow, to New York University. <br/><br/>It will take years to

Tuesday, March 20th 2007, 11:46 am

By: News On 6

NEW YORK (AP) _ The Communist Party USA has donated a vast collection of its photographs and documents, including smuggled directives from Moscow, to New York University.

It will take years to catalog and include the collection, which also has original founding papers, personal letters and secret code words, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

NYU said the documents have never been made public before.

The archives will be kept at the university's Tamiment Library, which describes itself as a global center for ``scholarly research on labor and the Left.''

NYU issued a statement calling the archives ``among the most important ones in the United States documenting the history of the American Left.''

Michael Nash, director of the Tamiment Library, told the Times that the cache opens up new areas for research beyond the homegrown threat to security during the Cold War.

The Communist Party USA contacted Nash a year ago about donating the documents. He told the newspaper he was surprised to get the call. ``I didn't realize it (the party) still existed,'' he said.

Over the summer, Nash said, the university removed 20,000 books, journals and pamphlets and a million photographs from the party's offices.

NYU plans a symposium about the acquisition on Friday.