Soviet Reforms Research Articles

From Imperial Russia to the Soviet Union: formal and non-formal vocational education in Kyrgyz lands in 1917–1918

ABSTRACT This study aims to examine the vocational training activities carried out in Kyrgyz lands during the transition from Imperial Russia to the Soviet Union and the role of these activities in the construction of a new society. The study focuses on the norms and institutions involved rather than on the curriculum of these schools introduced by the Soviet reform. The role of agricultural vocational schools changed after the February and October Revolutions in 1917. Two prominent vocational schools, Pishpek Agricultural School (1890), established by the Russian Empire, and the Zhetysu Agricultural School (1918), were operated in Kyrgyz lands. These schools aimed to meet the need for qualified workers in the field of industry and food production. After Russia’s defeat in World War I (1914–1918), the most urgent problems addressed by the Bolsheviks were regaining the trust of the peoples in the lands controlled by Imperial Russia, solving the consequences of the economic crisis, and transforming society by using, among other means, vocational education.

Становление и развитие системы здравоохранения коренных малочисленных народов Дальнего Востока как фактор этнодемографии (1920–1980-е гг.)

The article examines the formation and development of health care for the indigenous minorities of the Far East during the Soviet reforms. From the standpoint of theoretical and methodological developments of social history, the demographic situation and accessibility of medical services for small ethnic groups of the region during the pre-Soviet and studied periods are considered. An analysis of medicalization as a factor of ethnodemography is presented. Based on statistical data, the inconsistency of the thesis of the “extinction, threat of disappearance of indigenous minorities” with historical reality is revealed. In connection with the President of the Russian Federation’s assignment to the Federal Agency for Ethnic Affairs to develop a Concept for the Development of Indigenous Minorities of the North, Siberia, and the Far East for the period up to 2036, the need to abandon the traditionally established understanding of their “otherness” is justified. Conclusion dwells upon the fact that ethnic minorities living in the region are integrated into the demographic structure of the Russian population and, in several key characteristics, differ little from the rest.

Economic reforms in the USSR: 1921—1985

The paper deals with the theory and practical experience of Soviet economic reforms in 1921—1985. The authors discuss current literature on the subject and suggest methodological tools for the analysis of Soviet economic reforms, their stages and conceptions. Special attention is paid to the “new economic policy” of the 1920s (nep) and “Kosygin reform” of 1965. The authors figure out three basic concepts of Soviet reforms: improvement of planning administration, development of the key indicator of economic performance, and complex improvements of the economic mechanism

ИЗМЕНЕНИЯ ГРАНИЦ РЕГИОНОВ ЦЕНТРАЛЬНОЙ РОССИИ В XVIII-XX ВВ

The article discusses the administrative-territorial division of Central Russia (within the modern Central Federal District) over the past three centuries. The purpose of the study was to find out how the composition of regional centers and the territories of the regions associated with them have changed during this time. There are two periods of the most active transformations - the provincial reform of Catherine II, 1775-1785, and a series of Soviet reforms of 1917- 1970, - between which the borders of the regions in the center of the country were stable. Based on a wide range of cartographic sources (both published and archival), accurate maps of the borders of the regions for 1760 (provinces and governorates) and 1792 (governorates) were compiled; then they were compared with each other and with the borders of modern regions. Based on this comparison, it was shown that the composition of regional centers in Central Russia was significantly stable: 13 of the 17 modern regional centers were previously the centers of provinces, and 12 of them were provinces even earlier. On the contrary, the borders changed significantly at each of the stages of transformation, which is related to specific circumstances: the provincial reform of Catherine II was carried out based primarily on the principle of approximate equality of the population of provinces and counties; Soviet transformations were based on the logic of industrial development. The historical ties of the territories in both cases were little taken into account, and as a result, in most cases the core of the region is surrounded by the periphery, which in the past changed its administrative registration. The work contains maps of the historical borders of each of the regions, which have independent scientific and practical significance.

Действо о человеке абсурда: Кругом возможно бог А. Введенского

This paper examines the dramatic text God May Be Around by Aleksandr Vvedenskii, which is viewed through the prism of the medieval mystery play. The structure of the text and the main motifs of the play are analyzed, and they reveal to us that this is a new type of the eschatological mystery play, created as a response to the apocalyptic changes in society after the Bolshevik Revolution. The categories of time and death are interpreted against the background of the Soviet reforms of the 1920s (calendar, religion), which brought about a feeling of instability and disintegration of the world.

Причины блиц-успехов СССР в импортозамещении и технологизации производств (1965–1975 гг.)

Based on archival documents of RSAE and the German Federal Archive, never used before in Russian historiography the article examines the reasons for the success of the USSR in organizing import substitution and tecnification of industry in the period of 1965–1975. The author shows that the authorities of the German Democratic Republic led by V. Ulbricht played the decisive role in adoption of the new mechanism of Soviet reforms in the state economy by the head of government of the USSR A. Kosygin.

Dialectics of Tradition and Modernization in the Constitutional Development of Russia

The Soviet project reflects the cultural, historical, economic, and ethnonational resources of non-Western modernization. The Marxist Party of the USSR controlled power by building an ideological and political-managerial vertical that connected Soviets, party, trade union, and other public associations, the press, enterprises, settlements, the army, schools, families, all generations of society, and art. “Perestroika” destroyed the ideological and political “core” of the soviet system (repeal of Article 6 of the Constitution). The separation of powers replaced the system of the Soviets. The Russian state has lost its political ideology, significantly weakened its security agencies and army, and lost a significant part of its economic potential. China and Vietnam took into account the costs of Soviet reforms, drew the appropriate conclusions and took a different political path, which Russian researchers have yet to study. Later, after 2000, new political reforms began in Russia, which made it possible to move on to the creation of the ideological and political "core" of the new state. Under Vladimir Putin, the institute of the presidency really formed such a political “core” that would help to gradually move along the path of consolidating the political system and society, solve national security issues, and revive the economy and the system of educating young people. Amendments to the Constitution Russia in 2020 summed up a certain result of the formation of a strong state.

On the Role and Place of Perestroika in the Cycle of Russian — Soviet Reforms in XX Century: A Political Aspect

The article analyzes the reforms of the political system of Russia, starting with the revolution of 1905 and ending with the reforms of Boris Yeltsin in the 90s of the twentieth century. The author shows t that the political model that had developed in tsarist Russia by the beginning of the last century did not meet the needs and realities of that time and did not allow the country to develop dynamically. The inconsistency of the reforms proposed by Nicholas II, against the background of Russia’s unsuccessful participation in the First World War, led the country in 1917, first to the February and then the October revolutions, which ended the monarchy, proclaimed a republic, first bourgeois, and then Soviet. But even these reforms did not allow us to abandon the authoritarian form of government that reigned in the Soviet Union for more than 70 years. The reform initiatives of the 60s by N. Khrushchev and A. Kosygin, aimed at softening the current political and economic regime, also had little success. The most decisive attempt to transform this regime towards its greater effectiveness and sustainability were the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev, known as “perestroika”. They assumed a radical transformation of the existing political and economic slowness by giving it real competitiveness, more active involvement of citizens in public and business activity, rejection of the ideological and political monopolism of the Communist Party. But the initiators of perestroika failed to implement all these ideas in a short five-year period. Many of their ideas were embodied in the reforms of Boris Yeltsin, the results of which were enshrined in the Constitution of the Russian Federation in 1993. But their practical implementation in the last decade of the twentieth century showed that so far Russia has not been able to completely abandon the ideas and principles of political monopolism, which do not allow the people to put into practice their socio-economic potential and ensure the country’s sustainable and progressive development.

The End of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance

This paper analyzes the negotiations within the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance during the final years of its existence, focusing on the Soviet reform proposals and M. S. Gorbachev’s vision of the “Common European Home” as well as on Eastern European reaction to them. In the second half of the 1980s, Gorbachev tried to found a “unified market” for the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance by introducing a market-oriented reform of the organization. However, this attempt did not materialize because of the East German and Romanian objections. After the collapse of Eastern European socialist regimes in 1989, the Soviet leadership urged the member-states to accelerate the reform of this international organization, hoping to achieve the pan-European economic integration through close cooperation between the totally reformed Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the European Community. Although the Central European countries, namely Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland, aspired to join the EC individually, they agreed to participate in a successor organization of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance because the EC was not ready to accept them. Accordingly, by the beginning of 1991, all the member-states agreed to establish a consultative organization, which would be named the Organization for International Economic Cooperation). However, as the Soviet Union failed to sustain trade with the Central European countries, the three countries lost interest in the project. As a result, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance was disbanded without any successor organization. In other words, it did not collapse automatically after 1989 but came to an end as a result of various factors, such as rapidly declining trade between the member-states, Western disinterest in the cooperation with it, and the Central European policy changes.

Формирование населения и динамика развития российского Севера в 1920-е гг.

Based on the analysis of All-Union Population Census of 1926 and a wide range of general and regional scientific research, the author studies the processes of demographic and economic development of territories located in the Russian North and conventionally designated by the author as regions of Euro-pean, Ural, Siberian and Far Eastern North. The paper identifies key trends and features of Northern re-gions' development in the 1920s, caused by the first Soviet reforms of the administrative-territorial struc-ture of the country, economic development and national state policy, which had an impact on the demo-graphic processes in the regions including population size, its composition and settlement structure. It is found that the economic development was the most active in the bordering areas, where intensive development of industry and transportation implied the need to strengthen national defense and expand trade and economic ties. This mainly concerned the regions of the European and Far Eastern North. The regions that were rich in natural resources, especially gold deposits, such as Yakutia, also developed more actively. Other regions of Ural and Siberian North developed in a more traditional way, based on growth of wood harvesting and fishing industry. Improving of living conditions of the indigenous peoples of the North, material support for their farms, medical care and legal assistance, introduction of education among the population in the 1920s had a positive impact on the economic and demographic development of the indigenous population.

Охотничий промысел северных селькупов в 1920-х – начале 1960-х гг.: обзор рукописи Е. Д. Прокофьевой

The article is to study the hunting of the Northern Selkups in the era of active socialist transformation of the Selkup economy (1920s – early 1960s). So far, none of the scientific publications have considered this topic in detail, assessing its scientific significance and novelty. The scientific significance is emphasized by the new round of industrialization of polar latitudes, which necessitates taking into account the survival experience of the ingenious northerners in their extreme climate. The research tasks include consideration of the manuscript of the ethnographer and scholar of Siberia E. D. Prokofieva “Hunting of the Taz-Turukhan Selkups,” kept in the Archive of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It was written on the basis of data collected by E. D. Prokofieva during her expeditions to the northern Selkups in 1925–28 and in 1962. The study of E. D. Prokofieva’s manuscript has been carried out using comparative historical method, methods of analysis and description. The research has resulted in the following conclusions: At the time of the socialist reforms of the Selkup economy, the Selkups still used their traditional means and methods of hunting. The Soviet transformations in the sphere of hunting — the positive ones — include a new procedure for accepting furs from the hunters, which spared them the arbitrariness of private buyers; study of the region’s natural resources and measures for preserving and restoring the number of head. Collectivization, settled lifestyle of hunters in the kolkhozes farmsteads necessary for their work in the new sectors of economy, and elimination of the interval between the hunters’ trips to distant hunting lands allow no unambiguous assessments. These transformations resulted in a drop iof productivity indicators of the Selkup hunting and in violation of the original hunting regulations, thus launching the process of degradation of the Selkup hunting tradition. Soviet reformers were unable to solve some of the oldest problems of hunting, such as lack of transport reindeer, etc. The region administration and the kolkhozes heads had a plan to bring the hunting industry to the forefront, but by 1960 it had not even begun to be implemented. E. D. Prokofieva’s manuscript fills in the gaps in the characterization of some elements and phenomena of the Selkup culture and introduces into scientific use a new valuable source on the history and ethnography of the peoples of Siberia.

The Russian Far East during the Perestroika

The publication describes the main changes in Soviet foreign policy in the APR and trends in the state of society and power in the Russian Far East during the years of perestroika, and draws a conclusion on the influence of late Soviet reforms on the destruction of socio-political unity. Far Easterners, including party and state leaders, showed an ambiguous reaction to the challenge of perestroika. Their character changed with the manifestation of the multilayered consequences of the reforms. The long-term state program for the development of the Far East developed in 1987 was an attempt by reformers and Gorbachev personally to ease social tension in the region and at the same time strengthen the position of the USSR in the APR. But in terms of its implementation indicators, it turned out to be the worst in Soviet history. The process of maturation of the situation of transition from the state of social stratification of society towards the social split in the region is highlighted.

Will China Suffer the Same Fate as the Soviet Union?

It was widely assumed in the West following the collapse of European socialism that China would undergo a similar process of counter-revolution. This article seeks to understand why, three decades later, this hasn't happened, and whether it is likely to happen in the foreseeable future. The article contrasts China's “reform and opening up” process, pursued since 1978, with the “perestroika” and “glasnost” policies taken up in the Soviet Union under the Gorbachev leadership. A close analysis of the available data makes it clear that China's reform has been far more successful than the Soviet reform; that, in contrast to the Soviet Union in the 1980s, all the key quality of life indicators in China have undergone significant improvement in the last 40 years, and China is emerging as a global leader in science, technological innovation and environmental preservation. The article argues that the disparate outcomes in China and the Soviet Union are the result primarily of the far more effective economic strategy pursued by the Chinese government, along with the continued strengthening of the Communist Party of China's leadership.

СОЦИОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ ПРОБЛЕМ ПРОИЗВОДСТВЕННОЙ ДЕМОКРАТИИ В ПЕРИОД ПЕРЕСТРОЙКИ

Declared in 1985 by the Soviet leadership headed by Mikhail Gorbachev, the policy of «perestroika» was based on a pecu- liarly understood return to the principles of the reign of V. I. Lenin. The reforms included the process of introducing industrial democracy along the lines of the Yugoslav economy. The election of the management staff of state-owned enterprises should 1) contribute to improving the efficiency of the national economy; 2) extend electoral procedures to the sphere of economic corporations, thus supporting the reform of the political system in the area of transition to competitive elections. The concept of «industrial democracy» is extremely policemen. Western researchers include in its framework very diverse phenomena and processes, from the right of employees to speak out on important management issues, to participate in the management of the enterprise and receive a share of the company's profits. The Soviet reformers of the perestroika period were based on the Yugoslav experience, embodying the philanthropic prin- ciple of «class cooperation» in the process of socialist construction. Moreover, the results of attracting employees to the en- terprise management process were very contradictory. The article considers one of the aspects of this process – sociological research conducted by Soviet researchers at state- owned enterprises. Sociologists studied 1) the attitude of employees to the system of elective leadership; 2) the reaction to the introduction of institutions of industrial democracy; 3) the compliance of the results with the stated goals of the party leadership. As a result, the following main positions were identified: the unwillingness of employees to accept innovations «from above» as an urgent need; the incompetence of employees, including candidates for managers of enterprises and institutions; the preservation of relative inviolability of forms of state ownership, which did not allow the introduction of a new system for managing this property.

The Perestroika of International Criminal Law: Soviet Reforms and The Promise of Legal Primacy in International Governance

This article examines how the perestroika gave rise to a new legal thinking that helped spark a broader transformation of international law and governance. Building on the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, the article analyzes the emergence and short-lived influence of the professionals behind the new legal thinking of the perestroika. This elite operated at the crossroads between international and domestic law and politics. At this juncture, and in an attempt to safeguard and solidify their own position, they promoted the primacy of international law over politics by calling for, among other things, the establishment of an international criminal court. Building on the thinking of this elite that coexisted with concurrent streams of investments into international law from both East and West, a geopolitical window for new criminal law initiatives beyond the state was opened. It was in this brief window of opportunity that the field of international criminal justice was developed as a reflection of a wider universalist promise of establishing legal primacy in international governance.

The Growth and Marcescence of the “System for Optimal Functioning of the Economy” (SOFE)

This article discusses the perhaps most systematic attempt to develop mathematical methods for use in planning and management of the Soviet economy: the system for optimal functioning of the economy (SOFE). The intellectual ferment of the post-Stalin “thaw,” and increasing difficulties in managing the growing economy, opened the way to new approaches to Soviet economics. Scholars, primarily at a new Academy of Sciences institute for applying mathematics to economic problems—the Central Economic-Mathematical Institute—developed a series of models and policy recommendations in dozens of monographs, articles, and conference reports from 1963 to the mid-1980s. Despite evident support at two CPSU Party Congresses (1966, 1971), SOFE never got traction in the official planning or administrative organs, although some specific mathematical methods and recommendations derived from SOFE were used experimentally, and indeed partially applied in plan implementations. The last act of SOFE came with the incorporation of many of its ideas in the final Soviet reform—Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika. I survey the evolution of the SOFE research program and its policy recommendations, arguing that it was inherently incapable of providing viable reform recommendations due not only to the difficulty of that task but also the political opposition to the recommendations derived from that program.

The Perestroika of International Criminal Law: Soviet Reforms and the Promise of Legal Primacy in International Governance

The article examines how the perestroika gave rise to a new legal thinking that helped spark a broader transformation of international law and governance. Building on the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, the article analyses the emergence and short-lived influence of the professionals behind the new legal thinking of the perestroika. This elite operated at the crossroads between international and domestic law and politics. At this juncture, and in an attempt to safeguard and solidify their own position, they promoted the primacy of international law over politics by calling, among other things, for the establishment of an international criminal court. Building on the thinking of this elite that coexisted with concurrent streams of investments into international law from both East and West, a geopolitical window for new criminal law initiatives beyond the state was opened. It was in this brief window of opportunity that the field of international criminal justice was developed as a reflection of a wider universalist promise of establishing legal primacy in international governance.

ABUSUFYAN AKAEV’S WORKS IN ARABIC

The article examines writings of the outstanding Dagestani scholar, journalist and poet, religious figure Abu Sufyan Akayev (1872-1931) from the village Nizhnee Kazanische. As an influential representative of Jadid movement at the beginning of the twentieth century, he belonged to the renown Muslim reformers and enlighteners, such as Muhammad ʻAbduh, Rashid Rida, Ismaʻil Gaspraly, ʻAbd al-Rahman Umerov, Qayyum Nasiri, Shihad al-Din Marjani.He wrote works mostly in Kumyk, Arabic, as well as in Azerbaijani and Persian languages. His writings in Arabic are still poorly studied.Some of them appeared in all the 12 issues of the popular magazine on Shariʻa matters of the early Soviet reforms known as Bayan al-haqa᾽iq (1925-1928) whose editor-in-chief he was. He was also the author of articles appeared in some issues of the Arabic-language newspaper Jaridat Dagistan (1913-1918). Some of his letters composed in Arabic are very informative. In addition, Abu Sufyan was the author or compiler of several other publications in Arabic, including a number of booklets devoted to tajwid; multilingual (in 4, 5, 6, 7 languages) dictionaries, in which Arabic vocabulary has always been given in the first place; explanatory-etymological and political dictionaries; several bilingual (Arabic-Kumyk) books.It is noteworthy, that it was Akayev who edited with detailed comments the Arabic book of the well-known Dagestani scholar Hasan Alqadari Divan al-Majnun. Some poetic works created by him in Arabic have been preserved too.Akayev is known as a Katib (copyist) of more than 15 Arabic-language books published in Temir-Khan-Shura, Port-Petrovsk, Bakhchisarai and Simferopol. He is the author of a historical work written in Arabic about the events of the period of the 1917 Revolution and the Civil war in Dagestan.

‘And all our classes turned into a flower garden again’ – science education in Soviet schools in the 1920s and 1930s: the case of biology from Darwinism to Lysenkoism

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this article is to outline the evolution of biology education in Soviet schools in the 1920s and 1930s. After some introductory consideration of the ideological changes taking place in the field of genetics that impacted on the teaching of science and led to botany being favoured over biology in schools, the first part outlines the development of the natural sciences curriculum in the context of the Soviet reform of the school, which, after the October Revolution, abolished traditional teaching methods in favour of the active methods of American schools. The second part reconstructs the evolution of the teaching of biology through analysis of the biological station for young naturalists, ‘K. A. Timiriazev’, a centre created in 1919 by the famous biologist Boris V. Vsesviatskii (1887–1969). The third part illustrates the characteristics of botany education in schools of the 1930s, with a focus on the dissemination of the new scientific anti-genetic conception (known as Lysenkoism) and teaching practices in city and rural schools after the publication of Vsesviatskii’s textbook. The fourth demonstrates a progressive assimilation of the anti-genetic doctrine of Lysenkoism by teachers, with particular attention to the question of the natural sciences school curriculum and teacher training in the field of botany.

“Islamic Revival” in Dagestan: 25 years later

More than twenty five years passed from the beginning of the Islamic growth in Dagestan. It is the time to evaluate this phenomenon. As specialist in Oriental studies and social anthropology I am going to do it on the basis of archival and field research materials gathered in the republic from the autumn 1992 till the summer of 2016. I happened to witness the very beginning of the Islamic growth as well as fall of enthusiasm related to Islam. This paper aims to clarify the nature and results of the Islamic growth. What was the reason of the so-called Islamic revival? How does it correlate to the imperial Soviet past in Russian Caucasus? What did the Islamic growth result in? What was eventually revived if any? And last but not least — how was the return of Islam to public sphere related to the growth of conflicts and social instability in the region? The fall of the one-party Soviet system was accompanied with the appearance of numerous Islamic parties and movements. All of them appealed to the restoration of religious freedom for Muslims, the return from the official state atheism to Islam, consolidation of Russia’s Muslims on the basis of Shari‘a and to the revival of high pre-Soviet Islamic culture in perspective. Post-Soviet Islamic parties appeared to be strikingly short-lived: all of them disappeared already in the 1990s. Hopes on Islam as the means of political liberation and national self-determination of Soviet Muslims in Dagestan proved to be wrong. Politics seems not to be a stable factor of the Islamic growth. Religious statistics defines it better. One should note unprecedented growth of religious Islamic institutions in Dagestan. However the quantity does not mean quality. Islamic cultural revival did not yet happen in the republic. It seems that the Soviet past still affects Dagestani Muslims stronger that it seems at first sight. Following Soviet reforms and forced secularization pre-revolutionary Muslim society exists no more. The general course of the Islamic growth was much affected by transformation of post-Soviet Russian polity in the region, economic devastation, growing unemployment and aftermath of two bloody Russian-Chechen wars. In addition, the so-called Wahhabi opposition appeared to be a serious challenge to the post-Soviet Russian rule in the Caucasus. Nowadays it disappears but other radical Muslim movements such as Hizb al-Takhrir were introduced in the region.