Timkin Yu. N. “Face of the village”: Activities of the Vyatka Provincial Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) to revitalize rural and volost organizations in 1924–1926 // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2024. V.9. №2. P. 89-108.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2024-9-2-89-108

Annotation

The author considers the litsom k derevne (‘turning to the village’) policy implemented by the ruling party in 1924–1926. The article is based on the materials of the Central State Archive of the Kirov Region and on the principles of historicism, objectivity and historical institutionalism. The author focuses on the activities of the commission for work in the village of the Vyatka Provincial Committee and its practical measures to create a non-party activist group, attract peasants and strengthen the lower Soviet level. The study of the peasant everyday life in one volost of the province, in particular of the communist peasants’ farms, showed that many members of rural and volost party organizations were not much different from the so-called “well-off village elite” and were closely connected with it. By joining the ruling party, young active peasants got a good chance to improve their social status and make a career. The provincial committee aimed at encouraging poor peasants, hired farm workers, peasants who served in the Red Army, Komsomol members and activists of delegate women’s meetings to join the party by promoting them to various paid positions in the Soviet and party apparatus and cooperation. The author argues that the litsom k derevne policy allowed the party elite to organize the rural poor and farm workers, thus, creating “rural proletariat”, splitting the village, and “making” a “class” of kulaks as its main enemy in the village.

Keywords

Vyatka Province, provincial committee, commission, volost organizations of the RCP(B), communists, peasants, poor people, kulaks.

About the author

Timkin Yuri N., PhD (History), Associate Professor, Department of Theory and History of State and Law, Vyatka State University. Moskovskaya St., 36, Kirov, 610000, Russia.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

The article was submitted on 09.01.2024.

Timkin Yu. N. “Peasant journey to the Communist Party and back”: Volost peasant organizations of the RCP (Bolsheviks) in 1918–1920 (based on the archival materials of the Vyatka Province) // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2022. V.7. №2. P. 47-67.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2022-7-2-47-67

Annotation

The article considers the development and work of the volost peasant cells of the RCP (b) in 1918–1920 through the relationship between the state and the people. The article is based on the archival materials from the Central State Archive of the Kirov Region and the State Archive of the Social and Political History of the Udmurt Republic, and on the historical-genetic and historical-institutional approaches. The author also analyzed materials from the funds of the Vyatka Gubkom and the Vyatka, Glazov, Kotelnich, Malmyzh, Nolin, Orlov, Soviet, Urzhum and Yaran regional committees of the RCP (b), Provincial Commission on the Party History, Vyatka Province Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers’, Peasants’ and Red Army Deputies, Yaransk Regional Committees of the Workers’, Peasants’ and Red Army Deputies Councils, Vyatka Regional Statistical Committee, and the personal fund of Vasily Georgievich Plenkov. The author examines the development and crisis of the volost peasant cells of the RCP (b) in the Vyatka Province in 1918–1920 in order to identify the features of the Vyatka peasantry in the early 20th century and peasants’ expectations from the new power; of the interaction between the Soviet power and peasants; of the crisis of volost cells and their transformation into power structures consisting of the employees of the Soviet volost institutions. The study revealed that on the eve of the 1917 Revolution, the Vyatka village community still existed though middle peasants prevailed. Peasants expected from the new government to solve primarily social-economic tasks: the lack of land, construction of road infrastructure, and social development. Bolsheviks only partially satisfied the peasants’ demands, which led to the strongest peasants’ dissatisfaction under the forced food policy and other political measures, and, thus, determined the crisis of volost cells in 1919–1920. The author argues that in the village dominated by communist peasants who wanted to develop their economy on the market basis, there was hardly any ground for the voluntary acceptance of communist ideas. Volost peasant cells were created as associations supporting the new government, but eventually either disintegrated or turned into the ‘party of power’.

Keywords

Vyatka Province, middle peasants, community, volost organizations of the RCP (b), war communism, crisis.

About the author

Timkin Yuri N., PhD (History), Associate Professor, Department of Theory and History of State and Law, Vyatka State University. 610000 Kirov, Moskovskaya St., 36.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.