Viktor Ivanovich Isaev,
Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Institute of History of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Historiography of the Everyday Life of Workers in the USSR in the 1920s−1930s: From Propaganda to Reality
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2024-5-12
The article considers the development of the historiography of the everyday life of Soviet workers at various stages of Russian history. In the twenties of the twentieth century, the approaches and methods of pre-revolutionary scientific schools were to a certain extent preserved in the study of the everyday life of workers; issues of nutrition and domestic life of workers, budgets of the working family, problems of restructuring of everyday life at the stage of transition from capitalism to socialism were actively and thoroughly studied. In the 1930s the topics of research are sharply narrowed, serious scientific books have become a rare occurrence, and the party and state propaganda declaratively states the growth of workers’ well-being and the formation of a socialist way of life. In the 1940s and 1950s, attention to the topic significantly weakened, since the possibilities for objective research were practically absent. In the 1960s and especially in the 1970−1980s. Interest in the problems of everyday life is gradually reviving, not least due to increased attention to the subjective factors of the historical process. However, throughout the Soviet period, with the exception of the late 1980s, the idea of the steady improvement of the workers’ lives in the USSR, prescribed by the Communist Party, prevailed. Objective study of the workers’ lives in the pre-war period began only in the post-Soviet period. At present, this topic is often the subject of research, serious failures of the Soviet state in the field of social policy are noted, especially in the 1930s, when the country was going through a period of forced socio-economic transformations.
Publishing: 28/10/2024
The article has been received by the editor on 08/07/2024
How to cite: Isaev V.I. Historiography of the Everyday Life of Workers in the USSR in the 1920s−1930s: From Propaganda to Reality // Historical Courier, 2024, No. 5 (37), pp. 157–171. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2024/ISTKURIER-2024-5-12.pdf]
The article was made on the topic of the state task “Socio-Economic Potential of the Eastern Regions of Russia in the 20th − Early 21st Centuries: Management Strategies and Practices, Dynamics, Geopolitical Context” (FWZM‑2024-0005).
Links: Issue 5 2024
Keywords: everyday life; historiography of everyday life; material and spiritual foundations of everyday life; social policy; early Soviet society