On the peculiarities of using sources of studying the activities of the special services of the Soviet state

The object of the study is the process of studying such an unusual group of historical and legal sources, as documents of Russian special services: the Cheka, the OGPU, the NKVD, the KGB of the USSR. The subject of the research is the results of such a study, sometimes presented as an absolute truth. The necessity of maintaining the secret regime of documents of special services and very careful and careful use of open sources is substantiated. Particular attention in the article is given to the goals of historical research of the activities of special services, criticizing the position of liberal historians about the need to publicize the facts of the past. The methodology of the research is based on the use of the dialectical method, the method of comparison, history, the system method. Also, a functional method is used to identify the true goals of historical research. The main conclusion of the study is the substantiation of the need for wide use of thematic collections of documents prepared by the staff of the archives of the FSB and other archives. The scientific novelty and relevance lies in the author's posing the question of the purposes of historical research, scientific conscientiousness and the completeness of the use of information of a debatable nature.