1,200 Stalin files sent to archive

MOSCOW -- The Kremlin has turned over about 1,200 of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's personal files to the Russian State Archive, an official said Saturday.

The declassified files include Stalin's correspondence with Soviet chief of secret police Nikolai Yezhov, who presided over widespread purges in the 1930s.

Other parts of Stalin's archive containing defense and intelligence secrets remain classified in accordance with Russian law.

Russia's State Archive has received about 20,000 files from Soviet Communist Party and government archives since 1996.

Russian officials have said they believe more than 20 million people were victims of Stalin-era purges before the dictator's death in 1953. More than 10 million are said to have died.