Vol. 1 No. 2 (2023)

The socialist society in the USSR was initially built on the ideological conviction of its architects in the possibility and necessity of creating a World Soviet Republic. The article is devoted to the analysis of the conceptual principles of the socialist global project, as well as the problem of the relationship between the concepts of their international and transnational embodiment in the communist ideas of the Bolsheviks. The task is to rethink socialist society, to see it as transnational rather than international. The justification for using the concept of “transnationalism” is substantiated by the organic connection of the projected socialist society with the capitalist world of transnational corporations and the general global orientation of communism. It is shown that the Communist International was built on transnational principles and that the Bolsheviks' recognition of the national equality of peoples was only a way to achieve the goal of a world without national borders. The problem of limiting the transnational socialist project to the framework of the national state is considered. The contradictions between the national interests facing the USSR in the international arena and those of the international workers' and communist movement, defended by the same state, were bound to lead to the collapse of the transnational project. Particular attention is paid to the problem of the Soviet people and Soviet identity. It is argued that the Soviet people managed to form certain supranational features, partially bringing transnational principles to life. However, it was the Russian people, with their readiness for self-denial, who played the decisive role. Although the transnationality of the Soviet people had ground and swallowed up the Russian national identity, it was built and developed primarily on a Russian basis

The article shows the contradictions in the formation of the Soviet hierarchically constructed federation, which was a tool for adapting the key goals of the Bolshevik project to the requirements of a comprehensive modernization of a multi-ethnic society, which was reflected in the works of Russian and foreign scientists. In connection with the ethno-national policy, modern scientists evaluate the Soviet statehood as an empire of nations, an empire of “positive discrimination”, which created modern nations. The transition from tradition to modernity carried out in the USSR was of historical significance for all the peoples of the country. This progress has been achieved through their solidarity work. The complex nature of the relationship between the centre and the ethno-national elites in this process is pointed out. The centre served as regulator and sponsor of modernisation, provided nation-building, and ensured that the multidirectional efforts of regional leaders and national-state units were balanced. At the same time, the ethno-political elite was actively embedded in the nomenclature order, participated in the implementation of the Soviet project and was responsible for its achievements and its failures. It is shown that ethnoidentity was flexible to the requirements of the Soviet political system, and socio-cultural processes connected the Soviet and ethnic, including the traditional values of a multinational society. The evaluation of the concept “Soviet people” should take into account the most significant results of the discussion in the scientific community. According to the author, co-citizenship in the USSR was based on the centuries-old experience of living together, a single political order and cultural inhomogeneity, which can hardly be interpreted as artificially created. The Soviet experience, especially in the ethno-national sphere, remains relevant, and the current historiographical situation provides new opportunities for scientific analysis

The article examines the process of formation of the armed forces of the Bolshevik coup in Saratov in October 1917 г. due to the purposeful activity of the Bolsheviks, called “military combat work”. Military work consisted in attracting the 60,000th Saratov garrison to their side. Combat work led to the creation of special Red Guard work detachments at enterprises, which, according to Soviet historiography, became the main striking force of the coup. On the example of the revolutionary events of 1917 in Saratov, the author shows the inconsistency of the thesis of Soviet historiography about the Red Guard as the main striking force of the Bolsheviks in seizing power and proves that the main role in the victory of the Bolsheviks was played by the large mass of soldiers in the rear garrisons of the Russian army, promoted by Bolshevik anti-war propaganda. © Герман А. А., 2023 30 Герман А. А. Захват большевиками власти в Саратове в конце 1917 г.: современное видение

The article provides an overview of the operations of the 23rd Rifle Division in the area of the Khoper River in early November 1919. At that time, the troops of the © Гнидо С. В., 2023 37 СТАНОВЛЕНИЕ СОВЕТСКОЙ ВЛАСТИ И ГОСУДАРСТВЕННОСТИ South-Eastern Front had a responsible task — to prevent the Denikinists from breaking into the flank and rear of the advancing formations on the Southern Front. After delivering a swift strike by the Red units on the flank of the enemy grouping, which by this time had reached the Povorino-Borisoglebsk-Novokhopersk area, the White forces in the Povorin direction were undermined. Fearing for their rear, the enemy hurriedly left the Povorino station on November 1 and began to retreat to the Khoper River. The Revolutionary Military Council of the South-Eastern Front was tasked with pursuing the retreating enemy and reaching the Khoper River as soon as possible. The actions of the troops of the South-Eastern Front, and in particular the 23rd Infantry Division of the 9th Army, provided the conditions for the development of the successes of the armies of the Southern Front, and primarily the 8th Army and Budyonny's Cavalry Corps. The article concludes that the actions of the troops of the South-Eastern Front fettered a large enemy grouping, and they did not allow the transfer of any significant forces of the Don Army to help the Volunteer Army advancing in Ukraine and the formation of Denikin's troops with the Ural White Cossacks

The article analyzes the problem of the recognition of the USSR by Norway in the early 1920s, examines the role of the issue of the status of the Svalbard archipelago in the rapprochement of the two northern countries in the conditions of non-recognition and economic blockade of the USSR by the leading powers of the world at that time. The work is based on the principles of historicism and objectivity; the model of neoliberal institutionalism and constructivism served as the methodological basis. The source base of the presented study, in addition to publications in periodicals, consists of official documents regulating the foreign policy activities of Russia and Norway. The article attempts © Рогачев И. В., 2023 46 Рогачев И. В. Шпицберген в вопросе признания СССР Норвегией to characterize the cession by the Soviet Union of part of the territories in the Arctic space in exchange for the recognition of the country and the establishment of a constructive dialogue between the two countries. The conclusion is that, despite geopolitical tensions, the ability to agree on territorial issues, regional cooperation due to common borders, cultural and historical heritage and geo-economic relations can become the basis for maintaining and further developing ties between the two countries

The activities of F. E. Dzerzhinsky as People's Commissar of Railways, Chairman of the Supreme Council of the National Economy in charge of the restoration of transport, agriculture, industrialization, the creation of new industries, the development of scientific research that ensured the economic independence of the USSR are revealed. His attention is shown to the search for internal sources of financing for industrialization, the economy regime; science used in production; management. The relevance of Dzerzhinsky's economic activity for the current state of Russia is noted

The attraction of foreign specialists can be considered one of the success factors for the industrialization of the USSR. The knowledge of foreign engineers and designers © Устинова С. Д., 2023 68 Устинова С. Д. Немецкие специалисты на Кузнецстрое в 1930-х гг. was necessary for the development of sectors of the economy that until this period were poorly developed in the Soviet Union. The experience of attracting inspectors can be useful, since this topic remains relevant today. Many countries still attract foreign specialists for the development of the economy and science. A study of the experience of the USSR in this area can help to understand what approaches and strategies were effective in the past and how they can be applied today

The relevance of the article is due to the insufficient study of the problem of the economy of forced labor in the USSR. The publication presents the results of studying the labor organization system of the special contingent corrective labor camps (ITL). The main sources of research are materials from the archival fund of ITL “Bakalmetallurgstroy — Chelyabmetallurgstroy” (BMK — ChMK). Research methodology: the concept © Кириллов В. М., 2023 72 Кириллов В. М. Сверхэксплуатация спецконтингента of a repressive-regime economy, methods of economic, social history, analytical. The author came to the conclusion that the winter of 1942—1943 was the hardest time for the physical condition of the ITL prisoners. This was the time of the peak of the superexploitation of the prisoners of the camp. The leadership of the ITL concealed the real physical condition of the special contingent, overestimating the size of the labor fund. It was impossible to preserve the health of the special contingent, since its physical costs exceeded its capabilities. Only in 1944 did systematic preventive measures begin to improve the physical condition of prisoners

The article deals with the problem of post-war national education of Soviet Germans, attempts to restore the German school starting from 1957. The post-war resettlement of Germans in the east of the country determines the geography of the topic under study: the territories of Western Siberia and Altai, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The prohibition of national schools in 1938, deportation during the Great Patriotic War, the special settlement , which lasted until the end 1955, — all this undermined the tradition of the German school, significantly reduced the level of literacy of Soviet Germans by that time. Reform limited 1957 consisted in attempts to restore only the teaching of the German language, it was not about the revival of the German national school. Language teaching was first introduced only in the primary grades, but it soon became clear that language teaching in general was needed in schools. The question of teaching staff was acute, there was a chronic shortage of teachers. A positive moment was the organization of the training of teachers of the German language on the basis of pedagogical schools in Altai and Kazakhstan, as well as the Omsk Pedagogical Institute. The first successes of the late 1950s soon gave way to stagnation, and then curtailment of the reform in the late 1960s. One of the reasons for the incompleteness of the reform in relation to the Germans was the retreat from the traditional pedagogical policy of the USSR, which developed in the pre-war period: since 1958, parents chose the language of instruction for their children. Having survived the deportation and special settlement , the parents were concerned about the future of their children, so they often refused the German language of instruction. The decline in national education in the 1960—1970s was a general trend in the USSR, by the early 1980s the number of languages in which teaching was conducted decreased from 46 to 16. A feature of the German school was the absence of teaching in German, only the study of German remained

Based on unpublished documents from the State Archives of the Republic of Crimea, funds of the Nizhnegorsk Local History Museum, personal archives of Crimeans whose relatives took part in the underground resistance movement, the article examines the activities of an underground patriotic organization led by Ivan Sergeevich Dyachenko on the territory of the Seitlersky (Nizhnegorsky) district during the years of Nazi occupation. Attention is focused on the personalities of the natives of the Seitler region, who contributed to the defeat of Nazi Germany and are actually forgotten today. The main combat operations of the underground are analysed: propaganda, sabotage and diversions. The author emphasizes the huge contribution of the Seitler (Nizhnogorsk) underground patriotic organization to the common cause of defeating the German-Romanian occupation forces in the Crimea

In the article, based on the analysis of a new source on the history of the German anti-Hitler Resistance — “handwritten testimony” of the Wehrmacht General Staff Major Joachim Kuhn, given by him on September 2, 1944 in Soviet captivity, the history of the German military conspiracies against Hitler is recreated. Major Kuhn's documents are a unique source of both German and Russian recent history. Joachim Kuhn since September 1943 belonged to the anti-Hitler opposition. His name became known in Germany after the assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944. Kuhn was in close contact with the actual leader of the conspiracy, Colonel of the General Staff, Count Stauffenberg, and his active participant, Major General H. von Treskov. Kun was convicted both in the Third Reich as a conspirator and defector and in the USSR as a war criminal. At the request of Günther Wagenlener , chairman of the Association of Former Repatriates, Prisoners of War and Family Members of Missing Persons (FRG), the Main Military Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation on December 23, 1998 rehabilitated the former German officer Kun Joachim, convicted in 1951 by the Military Court of the Moscow Military District, “due to the absence of corpus delicti in his actions.” In historiography, it was believed that Kuhn's traces were lost in Stalin's dungeons. But after the rehabilitation, documents from Kuhn's dossier became available to researchers. Based on Russian archival sources, the author of this article was able to trace Kuhn's life in Soviet captivity and after his return to Germany

The article shows how the attitude of the Soviet leadership to the Chetniks movement in Yugoslavia, led by Drazhi Mikhailovich, evolved during the Great Patriotic War; how were the ideas of the citizens of the Soviet Union formed through the state press in the USSR about the events in Yugoslavia, where two wars were fought simultaneously: the liberation and the civil war. The civil war did not allow to unite all the resistance forces in Yugoslavia, since the Chetniks and Partisans did not yield to each other on the issue of which of them was to become the undisputed leader in the fight against the invaders and collaborators. Special attention is paid to how the Soviet leadership gradually convinced citizens that it was the partisans led by the communist Josip Broz Tito who © Плужников Д. А., 2023 127 ДВИЖЕНИЕ СОПРОТИВЛЕНИЯ В СССР И В ЕВРОПЕЙСКИХ СТРАНАХ were the true patriots of the country, and not the Chetniks of Drazhi Mikhailovich. The author shows the role of print as an indispensable source of information for the researcher

The article is dedicated to two Uzbeks — Alexei Fleisher and Karim Turabekov, who became heroes of the Italian resistance movement. The Tashkent journalist S. N. Nesterovich wrote about their fate, who collected his articles, as well as articles by other authors, in his personal archive (f. 2657), now stored in the National Archives of Uzbekistan. The article was prepared on the basis of documents stored in his personal archive

In the article, the author examines the events of European history, known only to its main characters and their combat comrades-in-arms. Such a long silence is a consequence of the Cold War and internal problems of the international communist movement, as well as a consequence of the order of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command of August 16, 1941 № 270, according to which any Soviet soldier who surrendered to the enemy was considered a traitor. The collapse of communism, which opened access to many closed archives, re-awakened interest in this topic in Italy, Russia, Slovenia, Croatia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan. The author's many years of research made it possible to recreate the general picture of what was happening and to identify new ways to understand problems of great social interest in studying the role of the Resistance in World War II

The article analyzes the construction of the image of a Russian emigrant — a foreign compatriot — a hero of the resistance movement during the Second World War in the post-Stalin period. During this period, such artistic practices as literature, cinema, etc., acted as Soviet institutions of memory, broadcasting the new agenda of the Soviet state, which included former white emigrants — foreign compatriots in the pantheon of Soviet heroes. Particular attention is paid to the events of 1965, the year of the 20th anniversary of the Great Victory, which was a milestone both for the Soviet policy of memory and for the relationship between the Soviet government, society and foreign compatriots in general. The coming to power of a new generation of leaders of the USSR — former front-line soldiers was accompanied by the return of Victory Day (May 9) to the status of a national holiday in the USSR, and the memory of the war began to act as a national symbolic resource, including the memory of Russian emigrants — members of the Resistance movement. However, “trial” broadcast through artistic practices designed by the mid 1960s. The image of an emigrant — a hero of the European Resistance as a young Russian man of noble origin showed his ambivalence in a socialist society and for a long time he was not in demand by Soviet society and artistic practices, remaining mainly in the international sphere

A retrospective analysis of shadow entrepreneurship in Soviet Russia and the USSR shows the uniqueness of the institutional foundations of this phenomenon. The presence of insurmountable institutional barriers to legal entrepreneurial activity in the USSR forced entrepreneurs to assess the “costs of illegality” in order to make decisions about the possibility of operating in the shadow sector. As a result, several forms of shadow business have developed in the USSR: small private shadow business, organized shadow business structures, and shadow business that pose a threat to public security. An analysis of the current situation shows that shadow business in the USSR was possible due to the spread of corrupt practices. It is noted that during the period of perestroika, the institutional framework for overcoming shadow entrepreneurship was not created. It is concluded that entrepreneurial policy should be aimed at reducing the “costs of legality”

The article is devoted to the initial period of the formation of new forms of power at the turn of the 1980—1990s. Based on the assessments of well-known politicians and historians, the author analyzes the evolution of political and social processes in the USSR during the perestroika period. On the example of the activities of the Council of People's Deputies of Togliatti, the specifics of the work of this authority in the transition period are shown

The article presents practical experience in preserving the historical memory of the Soviet Germans deported to the Novosibirsk region during the Great Patriotic War. The algorithm of preparation, collection and generalization of documentary information © Скоп Е. А., 2023 178 Скоп Е. А. Сохранение исторической памяти о репрессированных советских немцах for the creation of the Book of Memory of the indicated persons is described. Forms of memory preservation through familiarization with expedition materials and work with youth in the school museum are considered