DOI: 10.25136/2409-868X.2019.8.30518

Abstract: The subject of this research is the corruption practices among the party and economic leadership in the Ural Region during the Soviet industrialization period of 1930’s.  Based on the documents of party control bodies, the article examines the facts of misappropriation of funds and material resources. The relevance of this research is substantiated by the attempt to profoundly understand the causes of repressions of the 1930’s pertaining to regional government and big economic executives. The newly introduced into the scientific discourse historical sources allow clarifying the information on the factors affecting the delays in construction of a number of large industrial plants, as well as housing for workers and amenities in the industrial centers of Ural Region. The descriptive method allowed demonstrating the details of corruption relationships between the party leadership and executives of industrial plants. The historical-genetic method allowed reconstructing and specifying the circumstances of disruption in the construction of a number of important industrial objects, as well as clarifying the reasons of severe living conditions of the employees of large industrial construction projects of the Ural Region during the industrialization period. The novelty of this article consists in conducting a special scientific research dedicated to the corruption relationships between party nomenclatura and economic leaders. The conclusion is made that the unlawful actions of economic and party leadership contradicted the proclaimed by the Soviet propaganda image of a communist, ideas of equality and justice, inflicted irreparable reputational damage, and discredited the Soviet government system overall.

DOI: 10.25136/2409-868X.2018.11.28040

Abstract: This article examines the Sverdlovsk and Leningrad periods in biography of the prominent party leader and statesman Vasily Mikhailovich Andrianov. The biography of V. M. Andrianov has not previously been the subject of research. His role in the political events of the late-Stalinist USSR was not subjected to meticulous and unbiased research. The study of V. M. Andrianov’s biography will greatly contribute to restoration of the fuller and more objective perspective on the so-called “Leningrad Affair” – one of the famous political cases of the period of late Stalinism. The article uses biographical method that allows reconstructing and analyzing the paramount stages of Andrianov’s political biography, determine his characteristic traits. The authors introduce to the scientific circulation the previously unpublished documents from the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History, Documentation Center of Public Organizations of Sverdlovsk Region, and Central State Archive of the Historical Political Documents of Saint Petersburg. The article demonstrates that V. M. Andrianov was a talented leader and organization, known for stern temper and hard statecraft. He decisively punished the party and economic executives for violating the law and precepts of the supreme authority, whose actions were qualifies as “non-party” or “anti-party”. The personal and business qualities of V. M. Andrianov, demonstrated during his work in the Urals, greatly affected the policy of Smolny in the course of “Leningrad Affair”.