«The Klutkoism». Saransk Case of 1934.

Abstract

The article is devoted to the events of the first part of 1930-ies in the Mordovian Autonomous Region. The politics struggle between different groups of the soviet and party ruling elite, which accompanied the process of the formation of Mordovian statehood and the korenization of the State machinery are considering as well. On the example of Mordovian oblast committee and Saransk town committee of VKP(b) some features inherent in the regional Soviet nomenclature of the 1930s are shown. The article acknowledges that in Mordovia, the struggle between various groups of the Soviet and Party elite was significantly influenced by the national factor and the process of indigenization of the administrative apparatus. At the same time, there was tension between the First secretary of the regional Party Committee sent from the outside, who tried to rely on his own proteges, and the regional nomenclature clans formed from local national cadres. Meanwhile, in the existing system of close-knit corporate groups and bureaucratic clans based on personal ties and mutual responsibility, there was a rapid degeneration of Party and Soviet executives. This led to the spread of such negative phenomena as leaderism, embezzlements, abuse of official position, etc. In preparing the article, the method of analyzing historical documents, historical and systemic, historical and comparative methods were used. Archival documents (from the Central State Archives of the Republic of Mordovia), as well as materials of the Soviet periodicals from the newspapers Volzhskaya Kommuna and Krasnaya Mordovia served as the basis for the source base of the article.