The collection of declassified documents from Fond no. 5 of RGANI consists of documents from different sections of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, which in the 1950s and 1960s supervised Party development work, ideology, propaganda, science, education, culture, and agriculture in the RSFSR and other Soviet republics. At different moments within this period, the structure and content of documents deposited in these Sections changed, while the structure of the Sections themselves were repeatedly reorganized, their names and functions changing, sectors or subdivisions within the continuously being created or abolished. As a rule, these changes were connected with the strivings of the Communist Party leadership to improve the structure of the Party and state administration, in order to optimize the functional tasks of the Party apparat. These efforts continued in later years as well; however, the period of Khrushchev's rule (1953-1964) was marked by the most frequent and radical (also far from always justified) structural transformations of the Central Committee apparat.
This collection allows researchers to trace in detail all these changes and to understand better how the Soviet system of administration operated in the post-Stalin period. Among the voluminous and diverse documents in the collection can be found drafts of resolutions of the Communist Party Central Committee and USSR Council of Ministers; notations; letters; information; accounts; shorthand transcripts; manuscripts; memos from Sections and their subdivisions, local Party and soviet organs, ministries, departments, Soviet missions abroad, scientific and cultural institutions, scholarly institutions, individuals, and more.