SERAP Books

Riazanskaia Derevnia 1929-1930: Khronika Golovokruzheniia. Dokumenty i Materialy

This publication is a collection of documents on collectivization and peasant resistance in Ukraine during the height of the first phase of collectivization. Documents are in Russian or Ukrainian, according to the language used in the original. The editors have divided the collection into four parts: the views from the capitals (all-union and republic), the views of official functionaries in the countryside, the views of peasants, and the anatomy of a peasant rebellion in the Vinnitsia okrug village of Cherepashintsa. Documents are from the Central State Archive of Social Organizations of Ukraine and the State Archive of Vinnitsia Province.

This work is a study of the Stalin-Era Research and Archives Project of the University of Toronto, funded by a MCRI grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

$40.00US for individuals/$50US for institutions
Add $3.00 for shipping for the first $50.00 of an order; add $1.50 for each additional $25.00.
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For information on ordering Kollektivizatsiia i krest'ianskoe soprotivelenie na Ukraine/Kolektivizatsiia i selians'kii opir na Ukraini, please contact Carmine Storella:

Russian Publications Project
Centre for Russian and East European Studies--4G12FQ
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PS
15260
USA

tel: (412) 648-7403
fax: (412) 648-2199
bchase+@pitt.edu

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Review

This work is a study of the Stalin-Era Research and Archives Project of the University of Toronto, funded by a MCRI grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Riazanskaia Derevnia 1929-1930: Khronika Golovokruzheniia is the product of a collaborative effort by scholars from the University of Toronto, the State Archive of Riazan Oblast and the Russian Academy of Sciences, and will be of interest to scholars of 20th century Russian and Soviet history, peasant studies, collectivization, regional history and the Soviet legal system and secret police.

The volume consists of four introductory background chapters and a large selection of primary materials from the Riazan oblast archives. The first introductory chapter discusses the place of these documents in the oblast archives in general and the special relationship between the archive and collectivization. The second focuses on the significance of the volume both for the specialist and the general reader. The third introductory piece provides historical background on peasant agriculture in Riazan before collectivization. And the fourth is an introduction to the process and legislation of collectivization with a particular emphasis on the collectivization drive in Riazan oblast.

Many of the primary documents in this collection are OGPU secret police reports on the situation across Riazan province between February 1929 and July 1930. Part one of the collection is devoted to documents which cover the immediate buildup to the first drive for the wholesale collectivization of agriculture in the region up to the end of 1929. Part two covers the chaos and violence of the initial stages of the first collectivization drive in January and February of 1930, during which a significant number of regions within Riazan oblast had been declared 100% collectivized by mid-February. This initial thrust came to a temporary halt with the publication of Stalin's article of March 2, 1930, in which he blamed the violence and chaos of the winter months on local cadres who were "Dizzy with Success." Parts three and four capture the temporary retreat associated with the reaction to "Dizzy with success," the confusion of local cadres, the massive withdrawal from the new collective farms by the peasantry and the escalation of peasant resistance to the system and its representatives.

In addition to secret police reports, the collection includes documents from the Communist Party apparatus as well as the state and the judiciary, which broaden the scope of the work and provide a context for the OGPU reports themselves.

The volume is significant in a number of ways. Riazan oblast is an interesting locale situated between the Central Industrial Region and the Central Black Earth Region, bordering on Moscow oblast to the northwest and sharing shifting borders with the turbulent Tambov oblast to the southeast. The kinds of documents included in the volume have recently been declassified and therefore have not appeared in the existing document volumes on collectivization. The secret police reports found in local archives are very different from the compiled reports found in RTsKhIDNI. Many more scholars have seen these central reports and the provincial documents provide a fascinating comparison and serve to greatly enrich the more familiar svodki. The volume provides a virtual day-by-day account of the first major thrust for collectivization, its initial implementation, its reception and its violent excesses at the local level.

$40.00US for individuals/$50US for institutions
Add $3.00 for shipping for the first $50.00 of an order; add $1.50 for each additional $25.00.
Shipping costs must be paid when book is purchased.

For information on ordering Riazanskaia Derevnia 1929-1930: Khronika Golovokruzheniia. Dokumenty i Materialy, please contact Carmine Storella:

Russian Publications Project
Centre for Russian and East European Studies--4G12FQ
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PS
15260
USA

tel: (412) 648-7403
fax: (412) 648-2199
bchase+@pitt.edu