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.