Vol 19, No 2 (2020): PEOPLES OF THE USSR IN THE YEARS OF THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR: ON THE 75th ANNIVERSARY OF VICTORY

Due to the multi-ethnic nature of our state, the ethnic factor has always been important in the recruitment, organization and combat use of the Russian armed forces. The deeper the ethnocultural, especially linguistic differences of the personnel, the more urgent was the need for a special organization of military service of the non-Russian contingent. The article is devoted to the analysis of ethnic processes in the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. Much attention is given to the dynamics of the quantitative and specific representation of Soviet ethnic groups during the war, the reasons for the reduction or, on the contrary, the expansion of this representation. The research is based on normative and policy documents that regulated mobilization and conscription work, as well as office documents that reflect the execution of state decisions. Among the latter, the author has identified a set of accounting and statistical materials of the central organizational and mobilization institutions of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR. The scientific novelty of the presented research is that for the first time the ethnonational aspect of the history of the red army during the Great Patriotic War was analyzed using quantitative research methods. This made it possible to significantly deepen the understanding of the ethnic processes taking place in the Soviet armed forces.

This article explores the causes of labor discipline violations and their dynamics during the Great Patriotic War by the example of a compact rear industrial center - the city of Kovrov, which became part of the Vladimir Region, which stood out from Ivanovo in 1944. Based on the analysis of the documents of the city committee of the city party, including the minutes of the city committee meetings, memoranda from party instructors, plans and reports on the work of industrial enterprises, the author concludes that there is some dynamics in the violation of harsh labor laws at the city enterprises. Studying the stated problem, it was possible not only to identify the causes of numerous violations of labor legislation by workers and employees, but also to find out the attitude and reaction of the Kovrov city committee of the CPSU (b) to these processes. In the course of the study, a fact was confirmed in many respects, which was repeatedly indicated in both domestic and foreign historiography about the continuity of processes in industrial enterprises of the prewar and war years. Moreover, it would hardly be worthwhile to reduce all complex life phenomena and contradictions exclusively to system errors and manifestations of Stalinism. In each specific case described in the sources, there was a human factor and, accordingly, the choice of officials. The revealed historical sources allow us to ascertain the presence of a certain dynamics in the number of violations of labor discipline at the level of the city and individual large enterprises, but which was not observed across the region. If large enterprises were characterized by wave-like dynamics of violations with a tendency to increase sharply at the beginning of the war, then small factories and artels showed a permanent decrease in such cases. An analysis of the labor practice of the war years forces, at least partially, to revise the thesis of Soviet historiography on the exceptional cohesion of the rear, but at the same time confirms the versatility and complexity of the daily lives of rear workers, emphasizes the harsh conditions in which workers and employees had to work during the war years and at the same time proves that the war years society was not monolithic.

This author examines the activities of Soviet party-state bodies in the field of propaganda among the population in the North Ossetian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (North Ossetia) during the Great Patriotic War. Propaganda is effective when its message is deeply rooted in the consciousness of the population group to which it is addressed. For this reason the media and the organizations of oral propaganda of North Ossetia sought to get the most accurate information on the particular group that was called upon to fulfill wartime tasks. The author used various types of sources, including documents from the Central State Archive of the Republic of North Ossetia that are here first introduced into scientific circulation. The paper identifies the directions of party-state bodies in organizing propaganda on the territory of the republic in 1941-1945, and it assesses the degree of their effectiveness. While the outbreak of the war led to an expansion of propaganda, there was an acute shortage of specialists in various fields of life, including in propaganda work among the civilian population. The paper reveals the main methods of forming the image of the enemy by propaganda bodies and the media. The author concludes that the activities of the propaganda apparatus in the republic during the War had a direct impact on public consciousness and contributed to the consolidation of the region's population in the fight against the enemy, and to overcoming the difficulties of the War years.

The authors analyze one of the aspects of the New Economic Policy (NEP), which meant finding a compromise between the Bolshevik party-state power and the Russian peasantry. This policy course is studied with the example of the large agricultural regions of the Don and Kuban. Using new archival documents and published sources, the authors reveal causal relationships between trans formations and changes in the status of local Soviets on national level and in the southern region, and show the impact of reforms on the economic situation and political behavior of the peasantry in the South of Russia. The authors highlight the features of the implementation of the “Face to the Village” policy in the Don and Kuban, which combined class and estate tasks of civil reconciliation, a slower pace of land management while maintaining Cossack allotments, and an active attracting of Cossacks and middle peasants to cooperations and Soviets, among other things. The refusal to use administrative pressure and the provision of the voting right to “deprived people” (lishentsy) during the election campaign led to the victory of the Cossack opposition in a number of local Soviets and land societies in 1925-1926. The result was a dual power situation in which village councils (sel'skie sovety) stood opposite to party committees. The reforms of the NEP period in southern Russia brought well-to-do strata of the population the right to participate in cooperations and local authorities (Soviets); they also led to the introduction of long-term leasing of land, separated farmers from the peasant community, and started the elimination of the traditional land use order. Reforms consolidated the division of the rural population into Cossacks and “nonresidents”, which contradicted the goals of socialist construction in the countryside; the Bolsheviks saw themselves threatened by a loss of control over local authorities, and by a loss of support from the poor and “nonresidents”. As a result, in the south of Russia the Bolsheviks rejected the “Face to the Village” policy course much earlier and with more decisiveness than in the country as a whole.

This article examines the notion of a “Greater Europe” in Russian foreign policy from the 1990s to the present. The idea developed as the Russian government sought to establish its national and civilizational identy in the wake of the USSR’s dissolution. At the turn of the 21st century, Moscow embraced the idea of a rapprochement with the rest of Europe. Pursuing the notion of “Greater Europe,” to create a single continental economic, political and cultural space, became a major diplomatic objective as it developed a strategic partnership with the European Union. However, in more recent years its outlook on the world has changed. Furthermore, after relations with Brussels deteriorated in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis and the latter’s imposition of sanctions has also affected Russian foreign policy. This article considers the emergence and evolution of the idea of a “Greater Europe”, and examines possible ways to realize this ambition. It argues that a EAEU-EU “combination” could become a basis for implementing this concept. However, any potential rapprochement can only be possible when the political barriers the EU established in its relations with Russia and the EAEU are removed.

The present article studies the views of the “godfather of Glasnost,” CPSU Central Committee Secretary Alexander N. Yakovlev (1923-2005), and how they evolved during the Perestroika period in the second half of the 1980s. The author analyzes Yakovlev's positions on issues of Soviet ideology at the beginning of Perestroika, arguing that at that time his statements on the need for radical improvement of ideological work did not differ from the views of other party leaders. Yakovlev's personal biography shaped his interpretation of important events of twentieth-century Russian history; he had fought in the Great Patriotic war and participated in the work of the 20th Party Congress and in the Commission of the CPSU Central Committee for the rehabilitation of victims of political repression. Yakovlev became the target of critique from the leaders of the newly created Communist party of the RSFSR, as well as from conservative CPSU members, in particular during the XVIII Party Congress in the summer of 1990; they criticized Yakovlev's work in the Central Committee of the CPSU and the extent of his influence on M.S. Gorbachev. The article traces changes in Yakovlev's assessments of the socialist formation, of Marxism, and of the political and legal structure of the CPSU. The author identifies a direct link between the problems of social and political life in the Soviet Union and changes in Yakovlev's public statements. This analysis leads to the conclusion that Yakovlev's influence on the President of the USSR, M.S. Gorbachev, was not as big as sometimes assumed. Since the beginning of 1991, Yakovlev's influence was gradually declining, and on the eve of the August putsch it reached its lowest point. The article is based on Yakovlev's published articles and public speeches as well as on archival materials from his personal fund that is preserved in the State Archive of the Russian Federation.

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