Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2015 number

The article analyzes correlation between the main types of social mobility of the Siberian peasantry in the 1920s. The article’s problem field deals with determining basic trends and results of social changes the country underwent under NEP conditions. This issue caused much controversy amongst the Russian and foreign researchers of the Soviet history. In the course of the research the author applied comparative-historical and statistical methods. The analysis is based on the theoretical and methodological framework of contemporary peasant studies. Identification of stages in dynamics of vertical and horizontal social mobility of Siberian peasantry along with description of their specifics during the given period have become the major outcomes of the research. The early 1920s were marked by the ascending trend of the Siberian peasantry’s vertical mobility owing to other groups of rural population and returning migrants from the urban settlements. In mid 1920s the peasant migration into towns (including the push-pull migration) resumed and increased. The share of other strata of rural community (handicraftsmen, public servants, intellectuals, workers) also increased owing to the influx of peasants. At the end of the decade rural-urban migrations increased sharply. The number of collective and state farmers, other workers of state enterprises rose sharply. At the same time increment of persons employed in handicraft industry slowed down. In 1920-1922 the main trend in peasantry horizontal mobility was transition to the less wealthy groups (“obednyachivanie”). In 1923-1927 social mobility again demonstrated an upward trend when the share of the middle class rose significantly at the expense of the poor. A comparison of the Siberian peasantry’s social structure in 1920 and 1927 shows that the NEP village of the mid-1920s was characterized not by the growing numbers of “middle” peasants (serednyaks), but by the “leveling” of peasants on the lower social layer. At the end of the decade the vector of social dynamics changed again. The share of the mid-sized farms grew while that of the wealthy ones fell.