A Rise and Development of Collective and the Soviet Economy in the Provinces of Black Earth Center in 1917–1918: Sources and Historiography
| 13 March 2025
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Publication of archival documents
Nikolashin V.P., Michurinsk, Russian Federation
A Rise and Development of Collective and the Soviet Economy in the Provinces of Black Earth Center in 1917–1918: Sources and Historiography
Аbstract
The article studies issues of collective farming in the countryside after 1917. Communes, cooperatives, societies turning to collective farming and later sovkhozes wereharbingers of the trend. They were acrucial link in the Bolsheviks program of land socialization. According to the authorities, emergence of new forms of farming in the Black Earth villages of 1918 was to be accompanied to only by changes in economicstructure, but also by transformation of socio-political realities. However, the "cautious" Soviet agricultural modernization came into conflict with obshchina values and pragmatic interests of the peasantry and propelled the traditional community towards resistance.The studied issues are of great significance as some aspects of formation and socio-economic development of collective and Soviet farms in the Black Earth regionin 1918 remain little studied. In recent years historians have conducted extensive work on the identification and introduction to scientific use of a vast array of documents, revealing issuesconcerning the formation and workings of collective and Soviet farms. Yet the full story of their formation and development which weaves together many facts of socio-economic, political and everyday life realities remains untold.A comprehensive study of published sources and those not yet introduced into scientific use, as well as of historiography allow study the issue. In accordance with the stated goalthe following objectives have been formulated: to study the memoirs and published documents collections, to identifypertinent archival documents, to analyzethe historiography.The geography of the article is confined to the provinces of the Central Black Earth region (Orel, Kursk, Tambov and Voronezh). These provinceshavestrong economic ties and similar climate.Studying the local and central archives sourceson formation and development of collective and Soviet farms in the Black Earth region in 1918 allow identify several documents groupswith similar quantitative and qualitative attributes. Published documents, memoirs, and historiography have broadened theresearch basis.
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About the authors
Nikolashin Vadim Pavlovich, PhD in History, senior lecturer of the departmentof public administration of theMichurinskState Agrarian University, Michurinsk, Russian Federation,+7-905-121-95-13, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it