Evacuation of Livestock in the Stalingrad Region in 1941–1944

The story of the evacuation of farm animals from the Western regions to the East of the country is one of the Great Patriotic War history’s dramatic pages, which has not been fully reflected in historiography. The purpose of the article is to fill this gap and highlight the issue of evacuation of livestock in the Stalingrad region in 1941-1943. The sources of the work were unpublished archival documents of the party-Soviet bodies. The Stalingrad region experienced two evacuations of farm animals. The first began in the summer of 1941. The western regions of the USSR, which were under attack by the enemy, evacuated millions of cattle to place them in collective farms and state farms in the rear. A significant part of the livestock was located in the Stalingrad region. In the summer of 1942, due to the approach of the front to the borders of the Stalingrad region, it was necessary to carry out a second evacuation of livestock to the districts of the Stalingrad region and neighboring regions located behind the Volga. After the end of the Battle of Stalingrad and the liberation of the areas temporarily occupied by the enemy in 1943, all cattle were reevacuated. The evacuation of farm animals was unprecedented in scale and required tremendous laboring and efforts from all agricultural workers, and prompt and effective leadership from the party and Soviet authorities. Despite the great damage caused to livestock by the war and the organizational difficulties of the first period of evacuation, it was nevertheless carried out in the Stalingrad region in an organized manner, with minimal losses as possible under the prevailing conditions.

Introduction. The Stalingrad region was founded on the 5th of December 1936. In 1939-1944 the territory and population of the region underwent changes. It included a number of areas of the Volga German ASSR and the Kalmyk ASSR eliminated in 1941-1943. The Astrakhan district was transformed into an independent region, the Germans and the Kalmyks were deported to the eastern regions of the country. Methods and materials. The author of the article uses statistical materials of the All-Union Population Census of the USSR of 1939 and the information and statistical reference book Stalingrad region (1939-1943). Figures and facts. A comparative historical method is widely used to reveal the peculiarities of the national composition of the population of the Stalingrad region and its neighboring regions, and to show the changes that took place in different areas of the region during 1939-1944. For the first time in research literature, 5 groups of rural areas of the region are distinguished. Analysis. The national composition of the population of Stalingrad, Astrakhan and rural areas of the region is investigated, and a comparison with neighboring regions is conducted. Representatives of more than 80 nationalities lived in the Stalingrad region, among them Russians (87.6 %), Ukrainians (3.6 %), Kazakhs (3.2 %), Tatars (2.8 %) and Germans (1.0 %) prevailed. Special attention is paid to the change in the territory and composition of the region’s population after the annexation of 7 areas of the eliminated Volga German ASSR in 1941 and 2 areas of the eliminated Kalmyk ASSR in 1944 and the deportation of Germans and Kalmyks to the eastern regions of the country. Results. The war led to a change in the national composition and a substantial reduction in the number of residents in the region. It took about 20 years to overcome the consequences of the war and deportation to restore the population of the Stalingrad region.

Introduction. The article deals with the creation and development of a commercial trade system in public catering in the city of Stalingrad and the Stalingrad region at the end of the Great Patriotic War and in the first post-war years. Methods. In this study, historical-descriptive (idiographic), historical-genetic, and historical comparative methods, as well as quantitative methods, were used in the examination of newspaper sources. Analysis and results. In order to replenish the budget and meet the demand of the population, already in the spring of 1944, free trade in alcoholic beverages began in the canteens of Stalingrad. In the spring and summer of 1945, the first restaurants and commercial halls at canteens opened in the city. The opening of commercial tea houses in the system of state and cooperative trade became widespread in early 1946 after the decrees of the USSR government were issued. This process took place in the face of an acute shortage of inventory, kitchen equipment, and utensils. A feature of Stalingrad was the complete lack of premises for new catering establishments. As a rule, commercial tea houses were opened at or instead of existing canteens. Since a significant part of the products for commercial tea houses were purchased from collective farms and the population at market prices, the cost of even the simplest dishes was 8–10 times higher than in ration canteens. Procurement of products occurred with difficulty due to the priority of mandatory supplies of agricultural products to the state. After the drought in 1946, even commercial tea houses and restaurants limited the sale of bread. At the same time, there was a second wave of the establishment of commercial restaurants and cafes. In 1947, commercial canteens with a small selection of dishes appeared, occupying a middle position between restaurants and tea houses. Having completed the task of attracting funds from the population, commercial catering enterprises, at the same time, did not become centers for cultural leisure. Most of the teahouses were located in adapted premises that needed repair and were poorly maintained. The assortment of dishes was not maintained, and violations of technology and theft by workers flourished. Most of the profits came from the sale of purchased goods, primarily alcoholic beverages.

Introduction. The study of social security issues is in demand in modern scientific literature and is conditioned by the high social significance of the topic and the contradictory nature of the established assessments of post-war measures of support for the disabled. Methods and materials. Methods of analysis and synthesis of information, problem-chronological and comparative-historical methods are used. The work is written on the basis of legislative acts, materials of the periodical press, and case documents from the funds of the State Archive of the Volgograd region. The sources record the normative-legal bases of providing pensions and benefits to disabled veterans of the Great Patriotic War and families of military personnel, the nature of the implementation of legislative acts at the regional level, and the peculiarities of the reflection of the problems of the postwar period in the regional press. Analysis. The study of materials of inspections and reports, statistical data on complaints and appeals of citizens, made it possible to assess the effectiveness of the activity of regional authorities in the sphere of social security of disabled veterans of the Great Patriotic War and members of families of military personnel in the Stalingrad region in 1945–1953. The article analyzes the practices of pension provision, employment, retraining of disabled people, solving personnel issues, and organizing public mutual aid in the first post-war years and at the end of the reconstruction period. On the basis of statistical data on the amounts of pension payments, the number of recipients of pensions and benefits, qualifications of employees of social security agencies, and the quality of work of the regional social security system during the period under study is assessed. Results. The main problems were caused by frequent personnel turnover and insufficient material base. There is a decline in the educational level of specialists in social security agencies and insufficient attention to the organization of advanced training courses by regional authorities. At the end of the period under study, the rate of employment of disabled persons, as compared to the first post-war years, is significantly increasing, while the rate of vocational training is decreasing. Successful practices of organizing pensions and verifying the correctness of pensions and allowances are identified. Authors’ contribution. Search, systematization, and analysis of archival documents and materials of periodicals on the topic of work with the subsequent presentation of the results in the main part of the article was carried out by D.V. Tretyak. The analysis of the activities of the cooperative movement to assist the disabled in the Stalingrad region and the formulation of generalizing conclusions were carried out by E.Ju. Bolotova.

A significant phenomenon in the years of the Great Patriotic War was the evacuation of population, enterprises and institutions to the Eastern regions of the country which changed to a great extent the appearance and gave a new impetus to the economic and socio-cultural development of the rear regions. Molotov region was one of these territories. The Executive Committee of the Molotovsky regional Council of Workers ' Deputies (regional Executive Committee) was responsible for organizing the reception of evacuees, and the city and district Executive committees, village councils, and collective farms were directly responsible for housing the evacuated population. Analysis of the records of local authorities provides an opportunity to study the policy implemented on the ground in relation to the evacuated population. The sources of the study were the documents of local authorities deposited in the funds of the regional Executive Committee, city and district Executive committees of Molotov region, but the funds are presented unevenly. The author comes to the conclusion that in practice of city and district authorities the work with certain categories of the evacuated population occured due to the administrative documents of the Molotov regional Executive Committee, operational tasks for supplying the evacuated population and their employment. It should be noted that the evacuated population as an integral group appeared mainly in summer and autumn 1941, when the main task facing the authorities was the rapid deployment of citizens. A significant ranking during this period was provided by the type of evacuation – organized arrived evacuated population (with enterprises and institutions) and unorganized arrived population (single). Further, in the recordkeeping documentation the ranking of the evacuation population according to definite categories was provided primarily when solving the problems of social supply of citizens and at their statistical accounting. According to the documents a number of groups being under special attention of the local authorities were identified among the evacuated population: children, engineering and technical workers of enterprises arriving for evacuation, evacuated families of red army soldiers, front – line soldiers, families of the red Army command staff, families of responsible party workers. Significant specifics in the mechanisms of work with evac population in certain districts of Molotov region have not been identified.

Introduction. The article considers the development of physical culture and sports in rural areas of the Stalingrad (Volgograd) region during the so-called Khrushchev Thaw. Methods and materials. The article is based on the documents of the current office work of the regional authorities, regional councils of voluntary sports societies “Kolkhoznik” and “Urozhai,” as well as on the materials of the periodical press. The method of comparative analysis was used, with the help of which the dynamics of the development of the material base and results of rural athletes were established. Analysis. The article shows the state of physical culture and sports in the village of the Stalingrad region by 1953, the activities of local government bodies, and rural voluntary sports societies in the development of physical culture and sports. The development of the material and technical base, mass physical culture, and individual sports is traced; the results of performances of rural athletes at the largest competitions of the country during the study period; and the achievements, problems, and shortcomings of rural physical culture and sports in the Volgograd region by 1964 are characterized. Results. It has been established that in the period 1953–1964, the authorities’ attention to the development of physical education and sports in the countryside increased significantly. Stadiums were built in most district centers, and complex sports grounds were built on state and collective farms. The physical education movement became truly mass, and the number of competitions increased. The unification of two rural voluntary sports societies into one society, “Urozhai,” in 1956 had a positive effect on the development of rural physical education and sports. However, the division of the governing bodies into urban and rural ones in the early 1960s led to a worsening of the situation. The regional council of the Union of Sports Societies and Organizations dealt only with city affairs, while the voluntary sports society “Urozhai” did not have the financial or personnel resources to fully manage physical education and sports in rural areas of the region. The level of training of rural athletes remained low, and the range of sports they practiced was limited.

The paper examined the historical experience of introducing crop rotations in agriculture and the problems of developing field crop production in the Kemerovo Region during the ninth (1971–1975) and tenth (1976–1980) five-year plans. Using archival documents and regional statistics, the author substantiates the fact that the grain industry of Kuzbass experienced difficulties during the historical period under review. The yield of grain crops steadily declined over the decade. If in 1966–1970 it was 14 c/ha, then in the first half of the 1970s it fell to 13, and in the second half it decreased to 12.3 c/ha. Gross harvests in collective and state farms of the region decreased from 1,343.2 thousand to 1,270 thousand and 1,155 thousand tons, respectively. State purchases in grain production in Kuzbass have decreased by half over the decade. One of the measures aimed at increasing the yield and increasing the harvest of grain crops was the introduction of progressive agricultural technologies, including crop rotations. However, the crop rotations developed in the region in the 1970s were fully implemented with high quality only in a small number of collective and state farms. Agricultural enterprises of Kuzbass did not use crop rotations on 14% of arable land included in crop rotations. The use of new agricultural technologies in the region was not given due attention. Collective and state farms did not keep mandatory crop rotation registration logs. In many areas, deviation from the project structure of sown areas led to a violation of crop rotation. This caused the spread of weeds, diseases and pests and a decrease in yield. Because of this, gross harvests decreased and the profitability of the industry decreased. Farms suffered economic losses. Low labor motivation of employees of agricultural enterprises caused a careless attitude to equipment, led to the improper use of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers, and non-observance of labor and technological discipline. Agricultural enterprises constantly violated the recommended rules and technologies. Correct crop rotations were introduced and mastered in a small number of state and collective farms. A number of agricultural enterprises, having introduced crop rotations, stopped observing them after a certain time and abandoned them. As a result, it was not possible to achieve a significant increase in field cultivation.

Russian livestock products occupy a leading place in total agricultural output. Despite of a significant decrease in producing volumes in compared to the prereform period (1990) - total milk from 55,7 mln tons in 1990 till 32,3 mln tons in 2021, livestock and poultry’s live weight from 15,6 mln tons till 14,6 mln tons, eggs from 47,5 mln units to 44.8 mln units and the number of livestock (especially cows, sheep and goats) - the share of the industry in total agricultural output remains at 47-48% level. In the postreform period, main groups of commodity producers’ role and proportion have changed. The Russian livestock products’ main producers before the USSR liquidation were agricultural organizations in the of collective and state farms (collective farms and state farms) form, where 82,7% of cattle in total and 74,5% of cows, 81.5% of pigs, 70,5% of poultry, 72,3% of sheep and goats were concentrated; 75-79% of products there, and only 21,6-24,8% in households were produced. Subsectors of livestock perform important social-and-economical and technological functions. Livestock and feed production facilities are like the rural population permanent employment sphere and on this basis the rural settlements’ stability function performing and rural lifestyle preservation are made. Currently, about 4,0 million people are permanently employed in the livestock’s subsectors. Due to animals and poultry the number of collapse process reforming, there the in Russian agricultural sector more than 38,0 thousand rural settlements were eliminated, and more than 12,5 th settlements remain without a population; rural population’s proportion from 26,4% in 1990 till 25,2% in 2022 (from 38.9 mln people to 36,7 mln people) were decreased.

The pattern of development of public ownership and gradual convergence of collective farm and cooperative ownership with state (public) ownership is manifested in the convergence of collective and state farms' conditions of economic management. The intensiveness of this process increased with the strengthening of the material-technical base and the equalization of the productive forces on collective and state farms, with the general increase in agricultural production, and with the increase in its effectiveness. The implementation of the policy of the March (1965) Plenum of the Central Committee of the Commuist Party of the Soviet Union — the policy of industrialization and intensification of agriculture and the acceleration of scientific and technical progress — led to the considerable growth of capital per worker and power per worker and to the lessening of the gap between these indicators on collective and state farms. While prior to 1965 collective farms in the Ukrainian SSR lagged roughly 2 times beh...

This concluding chapter presents a comparative analysis of agricultural privatisation and transformation policies, land reform and resulting changes in farming structures in Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) based on the country studies in this volume, the discussion at two workshops and on additional information from a related study on the political economy of agricultural privatisation and farm restructuring (Swinnen, 1997a). Our comparative analysis yields some general patterns in both the process of agricultural privatisation and land reform, the resulting farm structure, and their determinants. Some important observations are the following: Most CEECs have chosen to restitute collective farm land to former owners. Moreover, former owners who kept legal rights to their land were restituted property rights on their land without exception. Former owners who lost their legal ownership title were restituted land only in Albania, Slovenia and the Baltic States. In Albania the majority of land is distributed to farm workers. In the majority of CEECs, state farm land is leased, pending sale of the land. For example, in Eastern Germany nationalised land is managed by the Land Utilisation and Administration Company and leased to former owners who lost their ownership titles and to legal entities. The main exceptions are the restitution of state farm land in Slovenia, and the distribution to farm workers in Albania. Non-land assets have typically been privatised through other procedures than those used for land. In many cases they are privatised using vouchers 334which can be turned into capital shares in the new co-operative farm or used for purchasing non-land assets for private use. Privatisation does not necessarily lead to full transfer of all property rights to new (private) owners. In other words, the post-reform effective property rights distribution is only partially determined by the land privatisation legislation. Following the enactment of the necessary legislation, state and collective farms have been transformed into a wide variety of farm organisations, such as producer co-operatives, joint stock companies, limited liability companies, partnerships and individual farms. Large-scale production organisations still dominate agricultural production in several CEECs. Many new land owners lease their land to the large- scale successor organisations of the collective and state farms. In 1994, they cultivated more than two-thirds of the total agricultural area in Bulgaria, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In several other CEECs individual farming has become the dominant farm organisation. This includes Poland and Slovenia, where small-scale farming dominated under the Communist period, and Albania, Latvia and Romania, where spontaneous privatisation led to the widespread break-up of collective farms.

Agriculture has long been described as the Achilles’ heel of the Soviet system. Throughout Russian history the large and backward rural sector has been a matter of grave concern to the country’s rulers. The Stalin era is, of course, best known for the brutal collectivisation campaign of 1929–32. By the mid 1930s 99 per cent of the Soviet peasantry had been brought under Moscow’s control through the twin systems of collective and state farms. As the pre-war decade developed, so some of the harsher aspects of this system were softened. In 1935 peasants who had been forced into the new large-scale farms were allowed to cultivate in their spare time small private plots of their own land. In 1939 official blessing was given to the establishment of small quasi-independent working units within the collective farms, known as “links” (zven″ya). Nevertheless the prices paid by the state to the collectives for their produce remained pitifully low. Workers on both state and collective farms were very poorly paid. The supply of food to the Soviet citizen was barely adequate and the whole agricultural sector remained starved of labour and other resources that were directed towards the industrialisation campaign. The result by 1940 was a rural sector that still employed more than half the Soviet population but was grossly inefficient and generally neglected.KeywordsAgricultural PolicyAgricultural OutputRural SectorLivestock SectorParty OrganisationThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

National scientists have elaborated the reform's gist, approaches, stages and consequences in the Ukrainian agricultural sector during the XX - XXI centuries. These studies have been conducted by N. Zhulkanych, S. Zhyvora, M. Zyza, M. Lendiel, E. Mazur, O. Malyarchuk, V. Nechytailo and many others. The paper aims to perform the comprehensive study of general trends and peculiar features of the agricultural development of the Ukrainian SSR in 1963-1990 and to define actual advances and drawbacks on the basis of analysis of historical records and scientific literature. The object of research is agriculture as part of socialist economy in the USSR. The subject of research is the implementation features of agricultural policy of the Soviet power in the Ukrainian SSR, using the Western region of the Republic as an example. The economic strategy of the Soviet power involved a long-term industrialization of the agricultural sector. A distinguishing feature of the industrialization process was the use of systems of machinery in all branches of agriculture. The technological chain had to embrace the process from the sporadic application of machinery to the overall mechanization and automation of crop and livestock farming. The industrial background of production predetermined the implementation of the system of machinery with extensive power consumption, i.e. with the new technical bases. The resolutions of the March (1965) Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee defined the economic priorities and capacity development of the Republic. Capital investments were the economic basis for the increase of production potential of collective and state farms, solution of social problems in rural regions. The land productivity was increased mainly by means of land reclamation and production chemization, use of organic and mineral fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, etc. The supply of mineral fertilizers increased, but most of them were of low quality, non-concentrated and unbalanced in nutritional ingredients. In its turn it caused irreparable damage to the environment and polluted agricultural products with chemicals. The chemization undermined the population health and disrupted the ecological balance. Despite ultimate achievements in the rise of the industrial level of agriculture of the Ukrainian SSR, it didn't meet the needs of collective and state farms. A great number of labour-intensive processes in animal and crop farming were performed manually. In state farms, contrary to collective farms, the stock of tractors was newer, but much smaller. For many years the USSR was in the top ten countries of the world in terms of consumption of energy and proteins, contained in products per capita. However, the patterns were inconsistent with the scientifically grounded norm. Structural imbalance of the ration was the manifestation of the crisis in the USSR. To meet primary needs of Soviet citizens in products the May (1982) Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee adopted the Program of the USSR for the Period until 1990 and Measures of Its Implementation. The main issue of the Food program was to increase grain harvest. Grain production was the basis for and fodder supply of the country. Alongside with a substantial increase in products output in public economy the attention was given to the development of subsidiary individual holdings and fruit-and-vegetable cooperatives. The cooperatives and subsidiary holdings produced a great number of dairy and meat products, vegetables and fruits both for their own needs and for sale in collective farm markets. The state program predetermined the solution of agricultural problems by means of formerly used methods. The major problem of agriculture had to be solved by means of increase in the gross grain harvest. Thus, the implementation of agricultural policy of Soviet power in the Ukrainian SSR lead to great changes in agricultural production. At that time there appeared such new branches of economy specialized in services to agricultural production as waterworks and land reclamation, feed mill industry, farm building, machine engineering for animal farming and fodder production, procurement of agricultural products and agricultural processing. The study of this policy implementation proves that the average annual rates of agricultural production increased but they were inconsistent with high investments. On the one hand, the Food program testified the food crisis in the USSR, demonstrating the lag of the world socialist community from capitalist states. On the other hand, it had to increase the level of self-sufficiency, decrease the procurement of agricultural products from abroad and promote the solution of the world problem in general.

The authors studied the work of the courts of the USSR and the Stalingrad region during the Great Patriotic War and in the first post-war period, as well as the regulatory legal acts that guided the courts in their work. This is especially true in conditions where attempts to deny and deliberately falsify the historical events of 1941–1945 do not stop. The article highlights the issues of professional development of judges who do not have sufficient training in the field of civil law; the categories of cases considered during the period under study; the results of the work of the Stalingrad Regional Court in the first post-war years. The measures and means aimed at protecting the rights of military personnel are shown. The study was conducted on the basis of archival materials and regulatory legal acts covering the period from 1941 to 1947, including those stored in the State Archive of the Volgograd Region and in the funds of the Volgograd Regional Court. On the eve of the 80th anniversary of the Victory, it is important for the judicial system to preserve historical memory, to show the consistent development and continuous improvement of the court’s activities as an institution to ensure the protection of citizens’ rights and freedoms, the interests of the state in the war and post-war periods, and the basic moral values that guided judicial officers in their daily activities.

The article analyzes the prerequisites in the 1950s for the implementation of continuous electrification of Orenburg villages by connecting collective and state farms to high-voltage centralized power plants. In this paper, rural electrification is understood as the process of distribution and use of electricity in rural areas: in production needs, in households, household premises, cultural, educational and medical institutions. The objectives of the study are: the need to identify the main periods of the electrification process of Orenburg collective and state farms in 1953-1964; identification of the main indicators characterizing the dynamics of electricity supply of the Orenburg village, including through the development of centralized power supply in 1953-1959. It became possible to solve the tasks set by the researchers through the use of a number of scientific principles and methods, such as: the principle of historicism and objectivity (allow unbiased to identify historical patterns characteristic of a particular historical period); historical-comparative, which makes it possible to compare the pace of electrification of the Orenburg region with the rate of other regions and the entire Soviet Union, chronological, thanks to it the periodization of the process of electrification of the Orenburg village was made up, statistical and other methods. As a result of the analysis of archival materials, it was possible to identify two key periods in the process of electrification of the Orenburg village. The first of them is associated with the development of centralized power supply, expressed in the connection of villages and hamlets of the Orenburg region to state-owned power plants. These processes refer to 1953-1959. The second period, covering 1960-1965, is characterized by the implementation of the policy of continuous electrification, the prerequisites for which emerged in the first period. For the first time, statistical data reflecting a number of key indicators have been systematized: the dynamics of electric power supply to collective and state farms; the energy balance of electric loads intended for rural areas by energy districts of the Orenburg region; and changes in the total electric power generation in the Orenburg region during the period under consideration. It was found that up to 1970 the problem of centralized power supply to the countryside could not be completely solved, because even in 1959 collective farms received most of their electricity from their own power plants, not from state-owned ones.

The article is devoted to the problem of reorganizing agriculture on a socialist basis – collective farm construction, in particular, the activities of local party and Soviet bodies and the opposition of the population. The chronological framework of the study is the 1930s. This is a period of tough socialist pressure in the agrarian sphere, when the old traditional institutions for the life of the peasantry were being replaced by fundamentally new ones - collective and state farms. The relevance of the study is due to the need to study the historical experience of interaction between the state as an institutional authority and government on a regional scale, and civil society (local population) in modern conditions of modernization and transition to a market economy. The article is based on a large amount of factual material state archives and documentation centers of the modern history of the Rostov Region and Krasnodar Territory. The materials of these archives made it possible at the local level to investigate the contradictory nature of the process of collective farm development, which consisted both in the crimes of the local authorities and in the sabotage of the population, both collective and individual farmers. It is concluded, that by the end of the 1930s collective farms had become a natural and effective form of life in the countryside, which played a significant role in ensuring victory in the Great Patriotic War.