Harvard students interested in the inner-workings of the KGB or the last days of Stalin now have an invaluable new resource.

The Harvard College Library and the Davis Center for Russian Studies announced yesterday the exclusive purchase from the Russian government of a huge collection of formerly top-secret Soviet archives.

The collection includes documents ranging from party censuses to information on the inner workings of the Russian secret police. In all, Harvard acquired 10,000 microfilm reels of various Soviet archives for a total of 25 million images. The original documents remain in Moscow.

Marshall L. Goldman, associate director for the Davis Center for Russian Studies, said Harvard has provided its students with a rare opportunity for scholarship by purchasing the archives for $600,000.

"Harvard is the only place that has been able to come up with the money to buy them," Goldman said.

Although Stanford University's Hoover Institution also has the collection, Goldman said that only post-doctoral scholars can access the collection there.

Harvard's copies, on the other hand, will be open to undergraduates as well.

Goldman said the Russian government made the archives available for sale due to extreme financial difficulties. Harvard's purchase was finalized in late March, although not without some last-minute drama.