Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2020 number

The article discusses the problem of collective farmers’ exclusion from agricultural cartels («purge») in West Siberia in the 1930s. The author distinguishes two approaches in modern historiography to study the topic. According to the first one, purges were instruments of the state administrative and repressive pressure. The second approach is related to research of the collective farm society and processes taking place in it. The article objective is to show the possibility of implementing both methodological approaches using documentary materials of West Siberian Region; to answer the question - which approach seems the most acceptable? The article shows that the study of the issue will depend primarily on the approach of a researcher and archival sources he used. The state policy in the countryside during the 1930s varied. Therefore, the period chosen for studying plays an important role. Periods of tightening administrative and repressive actions were changed by periods of their weakening. Depending on this, the nature of the purges changed as well. Periods of weakening pressure on the village created an opportunity for collective farmers to regulate relations within their collectives without external pressure. Purges were used by them as a way to resolve conflicts arising in the collective farm society. This is pointed out in the works on social history. Policy of the state leadership and arbitrariness of local authorities did not exclude the “creativity” of collective farm masses, which solved the problems of collective farm societies using purge instruments.