Eight archival documents related to the USSR Academy of Sciences’ plan to organize an Institute for the History of Technology are reproduced here. The documents detail how the proposal was put forward, discussed, and subsequently abandoned. They reveal the conflict between the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences and the AllUnion Society for the Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge over the Academy’s intent to absorb the Polytechnical Museum and the Polytechnical Library into the new history of technology institute. The failure of the plan led to a different proposal -to organize within the Academy the Institute for History of Science and Technology.