First Years Of Soviet Power Research Articles

People’s Houses as Centers of Cultural and Educational Work on the Eve of the Revolution and the First Years of Soviet Power (Based on the Western Region of Russia)

The article deals the process of creating people’s houses as centers of educational and cultural work for the adult population in the provinces (at the beginning of the 20th century and the first years of Soviet Power). The research is based on
 archival sources The article considers the role of the public, government and party structure representatives in the organization of out-of-school education. It is noted that indi-
 vidual landowners, representatives of zemstvo, organizers of cooperatives are initiators of people’s houses creation in the pre-revolutionary period. They could use cer-
 tain financial resources for that purpose. The author notes that in the early years of Soviet Power, the workers themselves played a special role in organizing various local cultural and educational institutions. They themselves, without any instructions
 from above, participated in prepairing and conducting mass cultural and propaganda events. Subsequently, the element of spontaneous organization of people’s houses gradually began to be replaced by planned work under the control of local
 party and Soviet governing authorities. The article shows the dynamics of growth in the number of people’s houses
 and other cultural institutions of the Western region of the RSFSR in the 1918–1921s. The author cites data according to which in the middle of 1921 there were 235 people’s houses in the Smolensk Governorate alone. Libraries, reading rooms, drama, art, music studios and various clubs worked there

Legal liability for offenses in the field of nature protection in the first years Soviet authority and times of NEP

The article examines the process of establishing administrative responsibility, which was regulated in the Land Code of 1922, the Forest Law of 1923, the Administrative Code of 1927, the Mining Code 1928, in the first years of Soviet power and the times of the NEP. Measures of administrative responsibility in the form of fines, seizure of land plots and transfer to other users, and payment of fees were considered, depending on the type of infringement and the amount of damage caused. Based on the results of the research, the following conclusions can be drawn: 1. Administrative responsibility in the field of nature protection was reflected in the content of the Administrative Code of the Ukrainian SSR of 1927, which contained provisions regarding the protection of forests, parks, squares, the fight against damage to crops, meadows and pastures, and violation of hunting and fishing rules. At that historical period, the Administrative Code of the USSR was the only document adopted in Europe, except for Portugal, which was effective on the territory of a specific state. A characteristic feature of the codified act was the presence of a significant number of articles devoted to administrative violations in the field of forest protection. 2. It is shown that the development of administrative responsibility in the field of land protection took place according to a complex scenario, due to the fact that acts adopted in Soviet Russia and the USSR, which underwent transformation in connection with the transition to the NEP policy, were in force in this field. The foundations of responsibility in this area were laid by the Decree "On Land", adopted on October 25, 1917. The Land Code of the USSR of 1922 established such norms of administrative responsibility for offenses as the imposition of fines, the termination of the right to use land, and the seizure of land plots. 3. In that historical period, considerable attention was paid to the protection of subsoil on the basis of the Mining Code of 1928, which established the norms of administrative responsibility for violations of the established rules and instructions related to illegal development, livestock, prospecting, exploration, extraction and processing operations natural mines. 4. Administrative responsibility in the field of forest protection was regulated in the Law on Forests of the USSR of 1923, the content of which was influenced by the norms of pre-revolutionary law and the Forest Charters of the Russian Empire, which defined the composition of offenses and introduced a system of fees and fines. The law "On Forests of the Ukrainian SSR" established responsibility for illegal felling of forests, setting fire to forests, spoiling them with cattle and carrying out secondary forest use without permission, and provided for incentives for forest guards to apprehend offenders.

To the 100th anniversary of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR: a retrospective analysis of the concept of crime of the first years of Soviet power

The author analyzes the development of the concept of crime contained in the Guidelines on Criminal Law of the RSFSR of 1919 and the first Criminal Code of 1922. The conceptual issues of the formation of the analyzed concept are considered. The main criminal legal views of 1917 - 1922 that influenced the development of criminal legislation are investigated; the concept of crime formally defined in the Guidelines on Criminal Law of the RSFSR of 1919 is analyzed G. and the Criminal Code of the RSFSR 1922

Об издании сборника документов «На началах самоопределения»… К 100-летию государственности Удмуртии»

The article reviews the documents collection “On the principles of statehood,” prepared by the archivists of Udmurtia in 2020 and dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the statehood of the Udmurt people. The review shows that for regional historiography, this publication is almost the first experience of publishing of documents by type. It publishes minutes of the first national-cultural organizations and Udmurt congresses, general meetings and gatherings of citizens, Soviet and party bodies of 1917–21, which highlight the history of preparation and creation of the Udmurt Autonomous Oblast. The structure of the collection is described, and the documents included are characterized. In addition to documents from the Udmurt archives, the collection also includes documents from federal archives and those of neighboring regions. The first section includes documents of the Udmurt national movement of 1917 – the first half of 1918. The second section contains documents on the initial stage of the self-determination process of the Udmurt people covering the period from June 1918 to August 1920. The third section includes documents on formation of the Votyak Autonomous Oblast (VAO) from preparation and adoption of the decree on November 4, 1920 to the First Congress of Soviets of the VAO. It should be noted, that photo documents included in the collection complement the text nicely. It is concluded that the documents in the new edition sufficiently cover the realization of the right of the Udmurt people to self-determination. The review appreciates the scientific and reference apparatus of the collection. A detailed introductory article contributes to a deeper understanding of the sources. Extensive notes prepared by the compilers help navigating the documents and supplement their content, expanding the regional context and integrating it into the Russian historical process. The appendices are analyzed. They include lists of participants of the congresses and biographical data on the most active figures of the national-state construction. It is concluded that the reviewed collection adequately replenishes the source base on the early Soviet history of the region. It contributes to intensification of the study of the history of national politics and national-state construction in the first years of Soviet power and can also be used in the educational process in the educational institutions of Udmurtia.

The Network of Rural Settlements of the Tomsk District in the 1920s: Quantitative and Qualitative Characteristics

The paper presents the characteristics of the rural settlement network of the Tomsk District of the Siberian Territory, which existed in 1925–1930 as an independent administrative-territorial unit formed from the territories of the former Tomsk and part of the Mariinsky uezds, as well as five districts of the Narym Region of the Tomsk province. For the first time, data on the number, typology, and size of rural settlements of the district by the number of yards and the number of inhabitants in the 1920s are presented. The dvornost’ and population size of settlements of different statuses are analyzed, the average size of a peasant yard is determined depending on the type of settlement by the number of persons living in it. The obtained statistical data on the state of the network of rural settlements of the Tomsk district are compared with similar indicators of the pre-revolutionary period. The conclusion is made about quantitative and qualitative changes in the development of the rural settlements network of the district in the first years of Soviet power, expressed in the appearance in the typical structure of settlements with a new status — communes, state farms, agricultural artels, experimental fields, as well as in an increase in the share of hutor, vyselki, zaimka in the total number of rural settlements. The influence of socio-economic modernization on the network of settlements, an increase in the number of new types of settlements along the Trans-Siberian railway (stations, booths, barracks, sidings) is traced. There was a reduction in the size of farmsteads in rural areas, an increase in the density of the settlement network due to the spread of individual land management in the form of farms.

Две России в одной судьбе: к биографии Ивана Гавриловича Галкина (1896-1937)

The transformation of Russian society, caused by the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War, led to the emergence of categories and strata of the population that became alien to the Soviet society, as a result, were subjected to various kinds of restrictions and discrimination. The officers were in a special position in this respect. On the one hand, they attracted the attention of the Soviet government, since they were “potentially inclined” to counterrevolution. But on the other hand, their experience, both military and civilian, was, at times, relevant for the institutions of the new regime. Studying the difficult situation of the former officers in the RSFSR-USSR, specialists are increasingly resorting to biographical research. At the same time, close attention is paid to, among other things, ordinary participants in the events, whose fate, sometimes, is also in many ways indicative. In the light of this problem, this work presents the complex and ambiguous life path of the wartime officer Ivan G. Galkin, who consistently served in the Russian (Imperial), White and Red armies, who later became a Soviet employee in Novosibirsk. The genre features of the presentation determined the theoretical basis for the preparation of the work - the combined combination of the anthropological approach, the theory of social adaptation and the historical and biographical method. The purpose of this publication is to reconstruct the life path of Ivan G. Galkin, to present the forms of social adaptation of “former people” in Soviet Russia. The study is based on a set of unpublished biographical sources from the funds of federal and regional state archives, as well as documents and oral history preserved in the family of the hero of the publication. The fate of the hero of the article vividly demonstrates the contradictions of social and political everyday life in the first years of Soviet power. The ambiguous position of the representatives of the former officers in Soviet Russia is clearly shown. Indeed, as can be seen from the example under consideration, despite honest service in the Red Army and Soviet institutions, Ivan G. Galkin remained a stranger to Soviet society. This publication may be of interest to researchers of the military and social history of Russia in the first quarter of the 20th century, as well as to specialists in practical genealogy.

Free Religious Communities in the North-West of Russia Between 1917 and the Late 1920s

The article deals studies the existence and activities of the free Protestant communities (Baptists, Evangelists, Adventists, Pentecostals) in Petrograd/Leningrad and the Russian North-West, from establishment of Soviet power until the end of the 1920s. Soviet power had mixed consequences for the free communities. On the one hand, the new ruling party’s generally negative attitude to religion and its orientation towards constructing an atheist society had negative consequences for all religious organizations. On the other hand, due to elimination of the state church, free communities acquired equal rights with other religious groups. During the first years of Soviet power, anti-religious repressions centered first and foremost on the Russian Orthodox Church. The attitude of the new regime towards religious sects that were previously oppressed under the tsarist regime was more tolerable. Atheist propaganda in the 1920s was not so active as in the next decade. Confiscatory measures against church organizations had less serious consequences for free communities that did not possess considerable assets or real estate. During the 1920s, due to the difficulties experienced by the Orthodox, Roman-Catholic, and Lutheran churches, the free sects managed to intensify their activities and to expand their influence among the believers in the North-West, especially among the ethnic minorities (Finns, Estonians, Latvians, Germans). This situation had lasted until the late 1920s, when a total offensive against religion was initiated.

Конфуций во «Всемирной литературе». Доклад В.М. Алексеева о китайском философе в 1921 году (по материалам Архива А.М. Горького ИМЛИ РАН)

The article introduces an unknown report of the sinologist V.M. Alekseev on the alleged translation of Confucius, made at the editorial Board of the publishing house “World Literature,” into scientific circulation. The speech preserved in the typewritten record of the meeting of April 1, 1921, represents a prominent event both in the history of the publishing house itself and in the history of Russian Sinology. The presented material shows that the “World Literature” was not only a publishing institution of the first years of Soviet power, but also a major scientific center, where it was possible to gather leading writers and scientists. The attached report by V.M. Alekseev is supplemented by an extended discussion, which clearly illustrates the scientific level of the debates that were conducted in the “World Literature” during the preparation of the majority of both published and conceived books. At the same time, the published report is valuable as an independent research covering the history of the study of Confucius, existing translations, as well as the domestic reception of Chinese philosopher’s teachings.

On the Issue of the Activities of Foreign Banks in the Far East of Russia in 1922– 1925

Using documentary sources, some published here for for the first time, this article aims to analyze and summarize the activities of branches of foreign banking institutions in Vladivostok after the end of the Civil War and the military intervention of allied troops and the establishment of Soviet power in the Russian Far East from 1922 to 1925. The role of branches of foreign banks in the economy and money market of the region during the period of foreign intervention is revealed. A brief description of the branches of foreign banking institutions (Japanese Chosen Bank, Yokohama Haste Bank, and English Hong Kong Shanghai Bank), which continued their activities after the evacuation of foreign military units from the region, is given. The necessity of the presence of these institutions in the territory of the Russian Far East in the first years of Soviet power is determined in view of the close connection of the region with foreign markets and the importance of Manchu transit, which takes place to a large extent with the participation of these banks. The article shows the inability of the “young” Far Eastern Region, the industry and economy of which were in decline and were just beginning to recover, to resist the activities of foreign financial institutions. It was impossible for Soviet banking institutions relying on hard foreign currency to begin operations in the region quickly to replace foreign banks. The main economic indicators of the financial activities of these banking institutions in the period under review and their relationship with the Soviet financial and economic bodies of the region are given.

The Smolensk variant of Belarusianization in the 1920s

In 2021, the Smolensk historians Yevgeny Kodin and Olga Kobets published the first monograph in Russian historiography on the processes of Belarusianization in the RSFSR in the interwar period. In the book, on the example of the Smolensk region, the issue of extending the decisions of the 12th Congress of the Bolshevik Party (1923) on the korenization to the border regions of the Russian Federation with the Byelorussian SSR is touched upon, which is extremely relevant for the national policy of the first years of Soviet power. The authors drew on significant and valuable material from local archives and tried to find out whether the views of modern historians on the problem of the content and results of the Belarusianization policy correspond to the realities of the era. The monograph significantly corrects existing ideas about the practical implementation of the Belarusianization course and in particular, convincingly shows the tactics of the Smolensk authorities to interpret the instructions from Moscow on the introduction of the Belarusian language into the school system as secondary and temporary.

Историко-правовые и идейно-политические предпосылки формирования и развития института народного контроля в СССР

Introduction. The controversial nature of most of the aspects related to the content and essence of people’s control, the assessment of its historical role and significance in the system of state administration of the Soviet period, the effectiveness of legal regulation and the political problems of its implementation still arouses a genuine interest of the scientific community in the study of this phenomenon. Theoretical analysis. People’s control in the USSR was both a developed ideological and political concept and a real political and legal institution. The founder of the concept of people’s control was V. I. Lenin, who, in his numerous works, described a clear justification of its relevance in the conditions of socialist democracy. Empirical analysis. It was revealed that the process of development of the institution of people’s control in Soviet Russia was largely influenced by the worldview of the country’s top leadership, which demonstrated polymorphism of opinions on the role and significance of popular control in the system of socialist governance. There are three stages of formation and functioning of the system of people’s control in Soviet Russia, which had their organizational and institutional features. Results. The study of the ideological, political and historical and legal prerequisites for formation of popular control led to the conclusion that popular control was a specific institution characteristic of the socialist type of government. It passed a rather difficult historical path: from workers’ control in the first years of Soviet power to a very complex organizational and institutional system of state and public control in the last decades of the existence of the USSR.

Implementation of Repression Policy in Kirghiz SSR in 1937—1938

The issue of the implementation of repressions against the “Trotskyists”, “Zinovievites”, “Rightists” and other “enemies of the people” living in the Kirghiz SSR in 1937—1938 is examined in the article. Both objective and subjective prerequisites for the punitive activities of the security agencies in the first years of Soviet power are considered. The relevance of the study is due to the interest of scientists and the public in the period of Stalinist repressions, the assessment of these events. The study was carried out on the basis of materials from the archives of the State Committee for National Security. The novelty of the research is due to the fact that these documents are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. In addition, statistics are provided on some categories of repressed in the republic, which are also published for the first time. A rethinking and political assessment of the events of this difficult period is proposed. The repressive activities against the so-called “enemies of the people” in the political aspect are analyzed, since the special services were an instrument of the ruling party and obeyed. The role and place of the security agencies, the mechanism for implementing repressions and illegal methods of conducting investigations based on archival documents of the State Committee for National Security of the Kyrgyz Republic are shown.

Причины институционализации административной ответственности в постреволюционной России (1917–1924 гг.).

Introduction. The relevance of this topic is due to the ongoing reform of responsibility for administrative offenses, discussions in the scientific literature on the delimitation of crimes and administrative offenses and the grounds for their delinquency. The study of the historical stages of the normative isolation of responsibility for administrative offenses from the point of view of events taking place in political, economic and social life, in our opinion, helps in determining the development trends of this institution. In this article, the author aims to identify the reasons and conditions for administrative responsibility as an independent institution after the Great October Socialist Revolution. The gradual normative separation of responsibility for administrative offenses from criminal responsibility falls on the period of war communism and the first half of the New Economic Policy (NEP). Methods. The author uses the classical historical and legal research method, which includes both a chronological analysis of social, political and economic factors, and a study of the legal regulation of legal institutions over a period of time. Results. In the first years of Soviet power, administrative coercion, along with other measures of state coercion, was considered as one of the means of strengthening socialist legality and fundamental order and security. The normative separation of administrative responsibility from criminal responsibility during the first half of the new economic policy was due to the development of economic relations and technical progress. In general, it was associated with Soviet ideology, a permissive type of legal regulation, an increase in the number of rules issued by the state in various spheres of public life, the creation of control and supervisory bodies that required their own operational leverage on citizens and organizations, including in the form of imposing penalties.

Practical implementation of interventional doctrines against illegal trafficking

The article is devoted to the analysis of the problem of application of interventionist doctrines of legal responsibility for illicit drug trafficking. It is noted that the interventionist doctrine is a prerequisite for the creation of legal norms, and is also a source of law that affects the content of regulations. There are three doctrines of responsibility used in the field of drug trafficking: interventionist, eclectic, liberal. The main stages of anti-drug legislation are considered and three periods of use of interventionist doctrines are identified: 1) time interval from X to early eighteenth century; 2) the first years of Soviet power in 1917—1921; 3) the stage from 1974 to 1989. The most characteristic features of the interventionist doctrine in the field of responsibility for illicit drug trafficking are singled out: 1) wide use of the norms of the criminal legislation; 2) application of severe penalties; 3) the priority of public interests to the detriment of the interests of the individual. It is stated that in practice, on the basis of such doctrines, legislative acts were adopted, in which the penalties were the death penalty, long terms of imprisonment, confiscation of property. Thus, after the end of the fighting of 1917—1921, a significant number of drug addicts appeared in the country, among former Red Army soldiers who committed crimes in order to obtain money to purchase such substances. It is shown that the use of interventionist doctrine has not led to a decrease in the number of drug addicts, the number of crimes related to these dangerous substances. These results indicate the need to amend the articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, which set long terms of punishment. Key words: Criminal Code, Ukraine, legal liability, interventionist doctrine, drug trafficking, punishment.

Восприятие революции 1917 года и первых лет советской власти русской эмиграцией

Статья посвящена восприятию российской пореволюционной эмиграцией революции 1917 г. и первых лет советской власти. Взгляды разных представителей эмигрантов не только отличались друг от друга, но и эволюционировали со временем, что породило в эмиграции «теорию двух революций» и концепцию «единого революционного процесса».

Formation of Environmental Legislation in the Early Years of Soviet Period

This article analyzes formation and development of environmental legislation in the early years of Soviet period based on systemic, comparative-legal, systemic-structural and logical research methods. Political processes of the first half 19th century in the Soviet Union had a huge impact on the part of the public political life of Kyrgyzstan, including the processes of legal development. The main purpose of this article is to study the formation, emergence of the first norms in the field of ecology, their isolation, the formation of codified acts in the first years of Soviet power and identification of especially significant features in the formation of environmental legislation. The research results are useful in the justice, legislative activity, law enforcement practice fields, as well as in scientific research in this area.

Становление единой трудовой школы в России в 1918–1922 годы (по материалам Государственного архива Курской области)

The relevance of the study is to show the positive experience of the formation of a labor school in Russia. It has a theoretical and practical orientation, because, firstly, this issue has not been thoroughly investigated before and, secondly, the modern school has obvious problems with the organization of labor education. The positive experience of training and labor education in 1918-1922 will allow us to find a solution to today's problems. The purpose of the article is to study the formation of the unified labor school of Kursk province in accordance with the Regulations on the unified labor school and the Basic Principles of the unified labor school. The objectives follow from the purpose of the article and are to reveal the historical conditions of the formation of a unified labor school after October 1917, to characterize the labor method of education, to analyze the organization of the training system in a unified labor school in accordance with the normative documents of the Soviet government. Methodology. The work is based on methods of analysis and synthesis, as well as historical-comparative, his-torical-legal, historical-pedagogical methods. Results. Kursk province, with the advent of Soviet power, actively joined in large-scale changes in the field of education. During the construction of the education system from a "clean slate", there were many problems associated with the devastation and famine in the conditions of the civil war and the policy of war communism. One of the main methods of training was the labor method. The organization of work in the school was built according to the individual characteristics and age of students. Conditions for agricultural work were created at schools. Conclusions. The experience of creating and operating a unified labor school had a positive result. The principles of the labor school laid down in the first years of Soviet power expanded in subsequent years. Labor has firmly entered the system of values of Soviet schoolchildren. The positive experience of education and upbringing in 1918-1922 is still relevant today.

Vladimir Strekopytov. The Rebel Commander

The article explores of the life and work of one participant in the White movement, Vladimir Strekopytov. Born in Tula and a staff captain in World War I, in March 1919 Strekopytov led the anti-Bolshevik uprising of the Red Army in Gomel. For a long time, the events of the Gomel anti-Bolshevik uprising, known as the “Strekopytovsky rebellion”, remained a little-known and unexplored event of the Civil War. Despite the fact that, in the first years of Soviet power, a number of publications based on recollections of participants in those dramatic events had come out, many facts related to the uprising remained outside the scope of study. The scantiest information has been preserved about the leader of the insurgents: the name by which the uprising entered historiography, and the mention that he was a former officer. The real name of the leader of the Gomel uprising became known thanks to researchers from Estonia, who opened an investigation into participants of the Gomel uprising at the end of the last century. In the history of Russian Civil War, the Tula detachment that he led made an unprecedented defection from the Red Army to the White Army. He made his way from Gomel, through Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltic states and joined the North-Western Army under General Yudenitch. After the disbandment of the North-Western Army in February 1920, he headed the Tula workers’ artel in Estonia, in which he gathered former members of his detachment. Vladimir Strekopytov lived in exile in Estonia and was engaged in social activities. After the unification of Estonia with the USSR, he was arrested by the NKVD in 1940 and executed in April 1941.

Преступления против правосудия в советском уголовном законодательстве

The article analyzes the Soviet criminal laws containing criminal attacks against justice. Starting with the Decrees of the Council of People’s Commissars and ending with criminal codes, the Soviet legislator is trying to create a system of crimes that violate the interests of justice. The doctrinal views of scientists on the essence and types of various criminal manifestations that encroach on the foundations of judicial and public power in the Soviet state are presented. The research methodology was made up of specific historical and comparative (comparative legal) approaches to the legal nature of the institution of crimes against justice. The basis for the formation of conclusions is a general inductive method, which allows from private (casuistic) legislative fragments to come closer to the general principles of legislative registration of the protection of the interests of justice. In the course of the study, a number of theoretical propositions were identified and systematized. Particular attention is paid to the 1960 Criminal Code of the RSFSR, in which, for the first time in the history of Russian criminal legislation, all crimes against justice were collected together in one chapter and systematized. The authors suggested that a kind of “inertia of legislation” in the issue of legislative regulation of crimes against justice in the first years of Soviet power is explained by the general approach to judicial and public power as a faceless part of the mechanism of state administration. And only over the years does a fundamentally different approach to the protection of public relations in the sphere of justice begin to take shape.

Evolution of “Academic Sector” of Soviet Historical Science in 1920s—1960s.

The evolution of the “academic sector” of Soviet historical science is analyzed, the process of its formation and subsequent development is considered. The relevance of the study is due to the methodological searches of modern historiography, focused on the study of the internal mechanisms of the development of the research tradition. The author identifies the main stages of building the organizational structure of the Soviet academic historical science, relying on a wide range of published and previously not introduced into circulation of archival documents, as well as taking into account the latest developments of modern historiographers. The author believes that the model of organizing historical research within the framework of the USSR Academy of Sciences was formed under the influence of the pre-revolutionary tradition and institutional “experiments” of the first years of Soviet power. In the course of the study, the author came to the conclusion that the first stage of the formation of the “academic sector” of Soviet historiography fell on the 1930s and was associated with the formation of the “academic center” — the Moscow institutes of the Department of History and Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, the second stage of this process ended in 1950s and assumed the formation of “academic periphery” — institutions of the historical profile of branches, bases and departments of the USSR Academy of Sciences and republican academies of sciences. The author believes that the formation of the “academic sector” took place under the influence of external (political-ideological) and internal (scientific) factors.