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Humanitarian sciences in Siberia

2020 year, number

LATE IMPERIAL COLONIZATION IN ESTIMATES OF EARLY SOVIET EXPERTS

N.G. SUVOROVA
Omsk State University F.M. Dostoevsky, 55a st. Mira, 644077, Russian Federation
Keywords: колонизационные эксперты, колонизация, колонизационные практики, колонизаторство, колония, плановое переселение, окраина, colonization experts, colonization, colonization practices, colonization, colony, planned relocation, outskirts

Abstract

Based on published and unpublished works of colonization experts, the article identifies and analyzes the estimates of state colonization practices at the late imperial stage. In Soviet and modern historiography, the contribution of colonization experts of the 1920s is evaluated mainly in regard to the planned relocation concept’s development. However, their direct participation in the organization, implementation, scientific understanding of the pre-war period of colonization justifies the appeal to their retrospective assessments. The oppositionality, the left-liberal traditions of the officials of the resettlement department explain the critical attitude towards autocratic power. During the early Soviet stage the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the empire the colonization efforts outskirts were assessed as successful, but not completed due to external factors (revolution and wars). The effectiveness of the resettlement apparatus, the scientific feasibility of colonization programs including the priority of colonization practices over resettlement programs, the regulation of the resettlement flow explain a consistent return to the old principles and programs. Criticism of the pre-revolutionary colonization policy from the class standpoint as imperialist / colonialist Russification did not diminish the effectiveness of resettlement structures and the fruitful contribution of participants to the “active resettlement” matter. The main elements of criticism, as well as the set of necessary innovations (transition from resettlement to colonization, regulatingpeople elements and integrated planning, selection a quality colonizer), were proposed at the pre-war stage by experts as the completion of programs not finished due to the war. Special economic and political conditions for the implementation of early Soviet colonization projects strengthened national priorities to the detriment of regional interests.