Russia's Constitutional Court ruled Thursday that it would examine archives on the Stalinist purges, the Katyn massacre, and the Soviet invasions of Eastern Europe as it moves toward a verdict on the legality of the former Communist Party.


Reconvening for a brief session following a week-long recess, the court announced that it would accept about 1, 000 files documenting the party's activities throughout its 70-year history. It selected the documents out of about 47 volumes of evidence presented by both sides in the case.


The chosen files are expected to detail the party's involvement in mass repressions carried out under Josef Stalin's rule, including purges within the party itself.


Documents recently released aim to show that the party leadership ordered the massacre of some 20, 000 polish officers and soldiers in the Katyn forest during World War II.


The court's 13 judges have now heard the testimony of over 50 witnesses and legal experts in the case, which was brought to the court by pro-Communist legislators who challenged President Boris Yeltsin's decrees banning the party's activities after the August 1991 coup.


Among those archives that the judges accepted for examination are a party order in 1977 to demolish the house in Yekaterinburg, where Russia's last czar, Nikolai II, was shot along with his family in 1918.


The court will reconvene Nov. 4 and will move toward closing arguments.