Formation of the System of Local Bodies of Social Security in the Ukrainian SSR (First Half of the 1920s)

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The purpose of the article based on the analysis of archival sources and official documents, highlights the process of formation of local social security bodies in the Ukrainian SSR during the formation of the totalitarian regime. Find out the features of the social policy of the Soviet state and its political and ideological priorities in the social sphere. Determine the objective and subjective reasons for the failure of local social security bodies to provide full assistance to those in need. The methodology of the research is based on the principles of scientific character, objectivity, historicism. Methods: general scientific (analysis, synthesis, generalization) and special-historical (problem-chronological, structural-synthetic, comparative). To identify the size of the social contingent of persons under guardianship, the author used elements of the statistical method. Scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that the history of the formation of the Soviet social security system in provinces, cities and districts actually became the subject of this study for the first time. The author analyzed the structural and functional changes in the work of local social security bodies, which led to the centralization of the administrative apparatus and the decentralization of functions and the mechanism of servicing those in need. Conclusions. The formation of the local social security system went through two periods: the first lasted from February 1919 to June 1920, during which an independent three-stage social security system was formed in the Ukrainian SSR. The second falls on 1921-1925, during which there were significant functional changes in social security due to the transition to NEP. The first period was characterized by a philanthropic orientation of the social security organs, coverage of all categories of the population, and during the NEP there was a strict policy of “denationalization” of social security. The state has shifted many responsibilities of social self-sufficiency to the cooperation of disabled people, social insurance agencies and various committees of mutual assistance. The middle link has lost the coordination functions of assigning pensions and other benefits, turning into an organizational, inspection and instructor unit.