Olga Aleksandrovna Sukhova,
Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Penza State University, Penza, Russia, е-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Soviet Village in the Second Half of the 1940s – Early 1950s: Mobilization Management and Social Interaction Practices
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2021-4-7
The relevance of the problem under consideration is determined by the need to develop a concept of studying the history of the collective farm peasantry of the USSR after the war when the new challenges of the time were faced. The aim of the study is a systematic analysis of the mechanisms and practices of socio-political interaction in the Soviet village in the context of implementation of mobilization model of agrarian development. The methodological bases were theoretical innovations of the system and synergetic approaches, sociology and the history of everyday life. Based on a broad source base, the author reconstructs the main channels of social interaction, communication in the system of interaction between government and society, decision-making bodies and the collective farm peasantry, identifies trends and specifics of assimilation, interpretation and adaptation to the incentives from administrative bodies. The levels of translation of managerial decisions were recorded: region – district authorities – rural administration – population of the Soviet village. As a determining factor in the post-war agrarian development of the USSR, the article considers the contradiction between the strengthening of the investment basis of the mobilization model, the tasks of optimizing resources for economic recovery and the sharp impoverishment of the collective farm village during the Great Patriotic War. The situation at that time brought to life a complex model of crisis management: the declaration of restoration of principles of social justice and the “standards” of the Stalinist neonep, guarantees of compliance with the collective farm legislation, caring for the needs of the village. At the same time, the range of application of non-economic coercion and administrative incentives and control in general was preserved and even strengthened. The result of deformation of the balanced model of socio-political interaction was the replication of similar practices of social adaptation. A sharp increase in appeals and complaints, labor absenteeism, excessive land use norms, natural redistribution of collective farm products, fictitious accrual of workdays, division of yards, theft of state and collective farm property are considered the responses of the collective farm village.
Publishing: 28/08/2021
The article has been received by the editor on 10.03.2021
How to cite: Sukhova О.А. Soviet Village in the Second Half of the 1940s – Early 1950s: Mobilization Management and Social Interaction Practices // Historical Courier, 2021, No. 4 (18), pp. 78–87. [Available online:] http://istkurier.ru/data/2021/ISTKURIER-2021-4-07.pdf
Links: Issue 4 2021
Keywords: The peasantry; the collective farm system; the transformation of the mobilization model; the practice of everyday economic life
The work was carried out with the financial support of the RFBR (project No. 18-09-00125) “Economics and Practice of social Interaction in the Soviet Village in the Context of the Mobilization Economy of the USSR in the 1930s – Early 1950s”.