‘I Fight Anyone Who Doesn’t Act as a Communist Should...’ Letter of F. A. Zemit to N.N. Krestinsky on Financial Work in Siberia. January 5, 1920.
| 02 June 2021
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Publication of archival documents
УДК 930.2:336.02/336.1«1920»
DOI 10.28995/2073-0101-2018-4-1137-1148
Dmitrii I. Petin,
Omsk State Technical University, Historical Archive of the Omsk Region, Omsk, Russian Federation
‘I Fight Anyone Who Doesn’t Act as a Communist Should...’ Letter of F. A. Zemit to N.N. Krestinsky on Financial Work in Siberia. January 5, 1920.
Abstract
The article offers a source study of the letter of the head of the Financial Department at the Siberian Revolutionary Committee F. A. Zemit to the People's Commissar of Finance of the RSFSR N. N. Krestinsky. Its text analysis clears up the issue of creation of Soviet regional governing bodies in the financial–economical sphere in Siberia at the final stage of the Civil War. The published source allows to outline major impediment to restoration of the Soviet finance system in Siberia after the Civil War: shortage of financial workers, their low professional qualifications, lack of regulatory documentation for organizing activities, etc. Key methods used in the study are biographical and problematic/chronological. Biographical method allows to interpret the document and to link it with professional activities of F. A. Zemit in Omsk. The problematic/chronological method allows to trace the developments in regional finance and to understand their causes by placing them into historical framework. The letter was written by F. A. Zemit in early January 1920 – at a most difficult time in his career in Siberia. The author considers this ego-document unique and revealing in its way. On the one hand, it is an official appeal of an inferior financial manager to the head of the People's Commissariat of Finance; its content is practical and no-nonsense. On the other hand, its style indicates a warm friendly and trusting relationship between the sender and the addressee; F. A. Zemit was, apparently, able to report personally to the People's Commissar of Finance of the RSFSR on the difficult situation in the region and to do so with great frankness. This publication may be of interest to scholars in history of Russian finance, Russia Civil War, Soviet society, and Siberia of the period.
Keywords
Personal provenance source, ego-document, Civil War, Soviet authority, Omsk, finance.
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References
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About the authors
Petin Dmitrii Igorevich, PhD in History, associate professor, Omsk State Technical University, national history department, assistant professor; Centre for Studying the Civil War History of the Historical Archive of the Omsk Region, chief archivist, +7-950-333-56-81, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Submitted 12.01.2018, published:
PETIN, D. I. “Ya derus' so vsemi, kotorye, ne tak postupayut, kak Kommunistu sleduet…”. Pis'mo F. A. Zemita N. N. Krestinskomu o finansovoi rabote v Sibiri. 5 yanvarya 1920 g. [I Fight Anyone Who Doesn’t Act as a Communist Should...’ Letter of F. A. Zemit to N.N. Krestinsky on Financial Work in Siberia. January 5, 1920. In Russ.]. IN: Vestnik arhivista / Herald of an Archivist, 2018, no. 4, pp. 1137-1148. doi 10.28995/2073-0101-2018-4-1137-1148