Attributes of the Ideology of Communism in the Old Believer Village of the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR in 1920s-1930s

Abstract

The subject of the research in the article is the problem of the real functioning of the elements of communist ideology (after 10 years of Bolshevik power) in rural areas, significantly remote from the capital's proletarian center both in territorial and ideological terms. In this case – in the Old Believer villages of the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR (BMASSR). The object of the study is the main and auxiliary institutions of Soviet power in the Tarbagatai, Mukhorshibir, Bichur aimags of the BMASSR (the turn of the 1920s-1930s). The following aspects of the topic are considered: the ideological viability of party and Komsomol organizations in rural councils, as well as the impact on the life of Old Believers of Soviet holidays, patronage of workers in Verkhneudinsk, the work of friendly courts in collective farms, acting as binding practices of a new in content, but traditional in the form of everyday life. The historical-genetic method necessary for studying the evolutionary changes of the phenomenon was used to characterize the work of the party and Komsomol cells of the Semey in 1925-1935. The historical-comparative method, highlighting the common and special features of various subjects, was necessary when analyzing the activities of rural party members and Komsomol members, as well as to describe the differences in the effects of new household practices. As the main conclusion of the study, it should be highlighted that the functioning of various institutions of Soviet power in the Old Believers' environment of the BMASSR was focused on the external, material side of life (the creation of cultural and educational space, the foundations for a new, collective economic reality). The internal, ideological side of the ongoing changes, for the most part, has not yet found its manifestation in the work of the local ("Old Believers" in terms of personnel) Soviet power. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that archival information is introduced into scientific circulation, showing that the transformation of the Old Believer community of Buryatia is an internal process that does not directly relate (but indirectly related) to the active actions of the Soviet government.