Natalia Anatolievna Potapova,
Candidate of Historical Sciences, Institute of History of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Novosibirsk State University of Economics and Management, Novosibirsk, Russia, e‑mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
State Policy and Migration Strategies of Peasant Labor Migration in the 1920s−Early 1930s
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2025-5-8
This article examines the evolution of the Soviet state’s policy towards peasant labor migration, or otkhodnichestvo, in the 1920s − early 1930s. It demonstrates that during a period of mass urban unemployment, which the authorities attributed to the existence of unorganized peasant migration, the Bolsheviks attempted to restrict this traditional practice of the Russian countryside. Throughout the 1920s and until the introduction of the passport system in the USSR in 1932, a series of measures were adopted to study, account for, and regulate these spontaneous movements, including for the purpose of supplying industry with workers and redistributing them across Soviet regions. The article shows that with the onset of industrialization, the state shifted from the passive measures of the early 1920s to a rigid etatization of labor migration to supply the industrial sector with labor. This was driven, in particular, by the fact that under industrialization, the surplus of workers was replaced by a labor shortage. Therefore, a system of khozyaystvennyye nabory (economic recruitment) was introduced to redistribute and control labor flows from the countryside. During collectivization, kolkhozes (collective farms), fearing the non-fulfillment of agricultural plans, began to obstruct the departure of peasants. In response, the Central Executive Committee (TsIK) and the Council of People’s Commissars (SNK) of the USSR issued a decree in 1931 legalizing otkhodnichestvo and introducing criminal liability for its disruption. The mass flight of peasants from the villages, triggered by collectivization, often occurred under the guise of legal seasonal work. It was under these conditions that a campaign of passportization began in the country in 1932, aimed at restricting peasants’ entry into cities. The introduction of the passport regime, under the threat of repression, significantly limited opportunities for unorganized migration but did not eliminate it completely. The introduction of passports should be viewed as one of the stages in the state regulation of otkhodnichestvo, since the previously introduced system of orgnabory (organized recruitment) did not cover all spontaneous flows of labor migrants. This measure was not the last−throughout the 1930s, the state continued to refine and tighten regulatory instruments, striving to completely eliminate any unaccounted-for movement.
Publishing: 28/10/2025
The article has been received by the editor on 05/09/2025
How to cite: Potapova N.A. State Policy and Migration Strategies of Peasant Labor Migration in the 1920s−Early 1930s // Historical Courier, 2025, No. 5 (43), pp. 84–93. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2025/ISTKURIER-2025-5-08.pdf]
The article was carried out within the framework of the topic of the state assignment of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation “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 2025
Keywords: peasant labor migration; migration policy; industrialization; organized labor recruitment; passport regime