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- Convenors:
-
Ardak Abdiraiymova
(Academy of Logistics and Transport)
Roza Zharkynbayeva (Al-Farabi Kazakh National University)
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- Discussant:
-
Wendy Z. Goldman
(Carnegie Mellon University)
- Format:
- Panel
- Theme:
- History
- Location:
- Lawrence Hall: room 105
- Sessions:
- Saturday 21 October, -
Time zone: America/New_York
Abstract:
Among the numerous works dedicated to the history of World War II in the post-Soviet and post-socialist space, significant interest is dedicated to the everyday life of socialist citizens, a major share of which took place in the industrial sphere. Studying the war not only from a military perspective but also from the standpoint of its economic potential and the impact that it had on everyday practices and work behavior of socialist citizens has appeared particularly stimulating over the past decade. In the present-day context, the Russian invasion in Ukraine raises again the question about the official memory politics of World War II in the Soviet Union and its successor states and nurtures discussions about the price of victory, of the mechanisms through which the Soviet state mobilized its citizens for exhausting labor and deprivations that ultimately led to Victory. The latter – as most scholars agree – was due to the extreme mobilization of resources, including those of the civic population and the rear which took a substantial part in the cost of the military efforts. A comparative analysis of the labor conditions in work enterprises during the war would help not only understand the mobilization nature of the war-time economy, which exerted to the utmost the available human potential in the rear (including women, children, and elderly people), but also the mobilization politics of the state in general.
The session proposed hereby aims to put on a discussion the ultimate mobilization of resources in the Soviet Union during the war years and the impact that it laid on the social organization and everyday life of the population in the rear. Taking an impetus from the concept of “mobilization economy,” the four papers in the session will analyze the labor discipline and work motivation in the intensified work effort, with a specific focus on the defense and weapon-production industry where the radicalization of the military agenda was at its utmost. On the basis of archival materials that were made accessible only recently, the papers in the session will highlight some less known and previously tabooed aspects of history in the rear during the war – the work discipline and attempts at its sabotage, the authorities’ abuse of power on factory workers, the industrial disasters, and the repressions on the working population. Whilst three of the papers are focused on data from Central Asia and specifically, Kazakhstan, which was one of the defense industry centers in the Soviet Union during World War II, the fourth paper throws a comparative glance from Eastern Europe where sudden mobilization of the population occurred with the falling of these states within the Soviet sphere of influence. The parallel study of the processes running in Central Asia and Eastern Europe will help rethink the official memory frameworks about the war (with the prevailing heroic overtones) and will seek to foster the understanding of the mobilization politics in the Soviet Union and Russia – in the 1940s and in the present day too.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Saturday 21 October, 2023, -Paper abstract:
In the Soviet and in part modern Russian historiography, the ideological paradigm made it impossible to go beyond the existing social order and was focused only on showing exceptionally heroic pages in the history of the Soviet home front. At the meantime, the residual principle of financing the social sphere of enterprises, since the main leitmotif of life on the Soviet rear was the slogan: "Everything for the Front, Everything for Victory!", led in the end to the expansion of informal labor practices and an increase in the level of deviant behavior of factory workers. In particular, during the war there were cases of theft, fraud, working on the side, i.e. part-time work at another enterprise, and unauthorized manufacture at the factory of not permitted scarce products, the so-called "consumer goods" and sale at the market, etc. The paper will illustrate that the deviant behavior of the workers was caused not only by the desperation of people driven to total poverty and struggling elementarily to survive, but also by a decline in trust in the state and the growth of anti-Soviet sentiments.
On the basis of materials of Kazakh and Russian archives, including declassified documents, "Special folders", the Party Control Commission of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) and the primary party organizations of enterprises (some of them are introduced for the first time) will be considered the little-known, previously tabooed pages of history of enterprises of the rear in the wartime. Protocols of Party bureau meetings, public and private general plant meetings, departmental party organizations, etc. are largely unused sources, however, they allow us to reconstruct the real, unvarnished / everyday life of the leading social group of Soviet society, which previously appeared in the works under the expression " industrial cadres", hear the voices of real people. The study of the informal labor practices of Soviet workers will provide an opportunity to go beyond propaganda and penetrate deep into the epoch and come closer to understanding the people of those times, their values and motivations for behavior.
Paper abstract:
Nowadays propaganda and agitation as a tool of reconstruction and interpretation of the social history of Soviet society are progressively beginning to be reflected in new works on the history of the home front. During the war years the priority role in the formation of labor behavior of Soviet citizens at enterprises was given to a massive agitation-propaganda work, which had to stimulate the labor motivation of workers.
The paper will examine the influence of the mobilization mechanism of Soviet propaganda and agitation on the labor motivation of defense industry workers in Kazakhstan during the war, the degree of involvement and motivation of the agitators themselves, and the final results of propaganda work. It would be shown that the motivation to hard work had a different nature, due to coercion and measures of material incentives for workers.
As a main group of sources in the report we will present documents from the fonds of the State Archive of the Russian Federation (Fund 6903 of the USSR State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting (Gosteleradio) and others) and the Archive of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the former party archive (AP RK). These are documents of Fonds No. 708 (Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Kazakhstan) and No. 725 (Party Control Commission under the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (b) of the Kazakh SSR).
Paper abstract:
The paper is focused on the analysis of the planning and management system of the production process at the evacuated industrial enterprises of the USSR during the war years 1941-1945.
The work planning system at defense enterprises was, as a rule, extremely uncoordinated. Many industrial enterprises during the war were also evacuated in a hurry, which was compounded by a disorganized management system, as well as by a lack of workplace organization, and noncompliance with safety measures.
While the Soviet defense industry was experiencing dramatic growth, the Labor System remained a restraining factor in the Soviet Union. At the same time, even with increased control over the productivity level and morale of workers at strategically crucial industrial defense enterprises, there emerged new forms of economic and personal interactions among industrial workers under extreme war conditions during the period of increased total control.
In this paper, author attempts to indicate that despite poor working conditions and absolute control by the regime, labor relations and the management system actively transformed, giving birth to hybrid forms of relationships.