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Humanitarian sciences in Siberia

2017 year, number

SOVIET STRATEGY IN THE ARCTIC (1920s)

A.I. Timoshenko
Institute of History SB RAS, 8, A. Nikolaeva Str., Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia
Keywords: Арктика, Северный морской путь, Карские экспедиции, мобилизационные методы, государственное управление, Сибкрайисполком, Комитет Северного морского пути, Arctic, Northern sea route, Kara expeditions, mobilization methods, governance, Subkraiispolkom, Northern Sea Route Committee

Abstract

The article objective is to identify main problems related to the specifics of state management of the Russian Arctic in the 1920s. The research is necessary for revealing historical experience of the Russian Arctic and the Northern Sea Route development. The central place in formulating research tasks belongs to the analysis of mobilization methods used by the Soviet leadership to solve both economic and geopolitical tasks in the Russian Arctic zone. The article notes that the 1920s became the period of forming the centralized state administration in the USSR. The paper problematic field includes studying the essence of mobilization methods of the Russian Arctic administration and forming the system of national economic planning in the country including the Arctic territories. The author pays much attention to the continuity of the Russian state policy in the Arctic as a significant territory for effective national development. The article focuses on the events of the Soviet period initial stage, when Russia’s Arctic strategy already identified some prospects for the Russian North development. To solve this task, plans were outlined to develop transport communications, to build ports and industrial enterprises, as well as settlements. This task difficult for solving in high latitudes in the Soviet state administration was intended to be implemented step-by-step at first in the framework of activities of the Northern Sea Route Committee, organized according to the Soviet principles, and then of JSC “Komseverput” operating under the state patronage. The research concluded that using mobilization methods based on the centralized state administration in the USSR in the 1920s prepared a breakthrough development of the Arctic and the Northern Sea Route in subsequent years.