More than 200 secret documents of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Moldova (PCM) have been published in the volume “The Republic of Moldova from perestroika to independence, 1989-1991. Secret documents of the CC of the PCM”. The authors of the volume – historians Igor Casu and Igor Sharov – present the actions and opinions of the Communist administration on the events of the years of the national liberation movement. The book was launched at the State University of Moldova (USM) on September 1, Info-Prim Neo reports. Igor Sharov, historian and dean of the USM’s Faculty of History and Philosophy, said they processed over 36,000 documents, but published only 206 of them. “After the Cojocaru presidential commission started work, we were allowed access to documents that had been hidden until now. In this book, we included documents that cover the national renaissance period. Time will show how well we selected these documents,” he said. The book contains documents about the literary club “Alexei Mateevici”, which was under the scrutiny of the then CC and KGB, the movement’s leaders, including leaders of student movements, the relations between Chisinau and Moscow, Chisinau and Bucharest, and between the Communist Party of Moldova and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Doctor of History Igor Casu, director of the Center for Studying Totalitarianism of the USM’s Faculty of History and Philosophy, said the published documents are important not only for knowing what happened in that period, but also for seeing how things developed. “We have shorthand reports of June-July 1989, when there was discussed the linguistic legislation. We also have written reports about the discussions on who should be the PCM’s candidate for Supreme Soviet president. The book describes the composition of the PCM in 1986-1991. A clear crisis arouse in 1990, when the people stopped believing the implanted Communist ideals,” said the historian. Doctor of History Gheorghe Palade, lecturer at the USM’s History of Romanians Department, said the book reveals a living history hidden in documents. He stated that the published documents are long-awaited. “They should be no longer secret. It is important for us to know what happened then,” he said. The authors of the book announced that two more volumes will appear by the end of the year. They will contain secret documents from the archive of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Moldova.