Functionality and mentality of the leaders of soviet production in the upper Volga regions (1960-80s): the potential of sources and key characteristics

Abstract

The article analyzes the range of sources, functional features and mentality of regional production managers in the USSR in the 1960-1980s. The body of sources was based on oral history evidence obtained through focused interviews. Interviewing representatives of regional authorities in the 1960s-1980s. conducted personally by the author in 2016-2019. The source base of the study includes memoirs, unpublished archival material from the Center for Documentation of Contemporary History of the Yaroslavl Region. The theoretical basis of the publication is connected with the principle of historicism, the value and institutional approach to historical research, the use of oral history methods, source analysis, and content analysis. The article raises the question of the debatability of terms denoting the leaders of the Soviet economy. It is concluded that the direct management of production at the regional party level was carried out by the second secretary of the regional committee of the CPSU, branch secretaries, heads of departments. The opinion of the interviewed representative of the authorities is recorded that the management of production was under the joint control of 4 power structures: the management of the enterprise, the party committee, the trade union, the Komsomol. It is noted that the life values of the leading cadres of the regional level of power were closely connected with the communist ideology and official guidelines. Discipline, collectivism, responsibility were significant components of self-identification of representatives of the regional authorities. It is emphasized that informal connections were an important segment in the mentality of regional leaders of Soviet production