N. V. Tikhomirov “The Work in the Village is Very, Very Weak”: The Soviet Peasantry in the
Reports of Students of the Leningrad Polytechnic // Petersburg Historical Journal, no. 4, 2025,
pp. 276–289.

DOI: 10.51255/2311–603X_2025_4_276

Abstract:

Previously unknown to researchers, documents containing information about the life of the
Russian countryside in the conditions of Soviet modernization of the first post-revolutionary decade are being introduced into scientific circulation. The publication presents the reports of students of the Leningrad Polytechnic of Railways, prepared by them based on the results of their work in practice in the villages of the North-Western region of Russia in 1924. The records reflect various aspects of everyday life, leisure, economic relations and the mentality of rural inhabitants. These materials help to understand better the general state of the Russian peasant world during this historical period and the problems faced by the leadership of the USSR in implementing the socialist restructuring of the country. The reports reflect the contradictions that have arisen in connection with the introduction of a new taxation system, cooperative construction, the implementation of the ideas of the cultural revolution, and the training of personnel for party and Komsomol work. The publication aims to expand the scientific understanding of the participation of Soviet students in the implementation of Soviet government activities in rural areas. These reports quantitatively and qualitatively complement the existing database of sources used by historians to study the Russian peasantry in the 20th century. Their involvement in research practice will make it possible to strengthen the anthropological component of modern peasant studies and will serve as information support for scientific research in the field of rural everyday life, the everyday thinking of rural inhabitants, and contradictions in the interaction of the city and the countryside. The published materials will also be useful for clarifying the specifics of understanding the problems of rural areas by party and Komsomol activists and their tasks in solving them.

Key words: village, Komsomol members, cooperation, peasant studies, peasantry, Leningrad, everyday life, the bond of city and village, Sovietization, students.

Author:

Tikhomirov, Nikita Vadimovich — Candidate of Science (History), Associated Professor,
Department of source studies, Russian State University for the Humanities (Moscow, Russia).
E-mail: tihomirov_n@rambler.ru
ORCID: 0000-0002-2808-3763

References:

Daudov, A. H., Mamysheva, E. P. Kommunisticheskii universitet trudyashchikhsya Vostoka. 1921–
1938 gg.: Vzglyad cherez sto let [Communist University of the Working People of the East. 1921–1938: A look after a hundred years. In Russ.]. In Noveishaya istoriya Rossii. 2022. No. 2, pp. 372–384. DOI: 10.21638/11701/spbu24.2022.207

Korchagin, O. V. Leningradskoe otdelenie Kommunisticheskogo universiteta natsional’nykh men’shinstv Zapada (1920-e gg.) [Leningrad Branch of the Communist University of National Minorities of the West (1920s). In Russ.]. In Trudy kafedry istorii Novogo i noveishego vremeni. 2019. No 19, pp. 120–142.

Panin, E. V. Rol’ proizvodstvennoi praktiki v obuchenii studentov kommunisticheskikh vuzov v 1920-e gg. (na primere Kommunisticheskogo universiteta natsional’nykh men’shinstv Zapada) [The Role of Industrial Practice in the Education of Students of Communist Universities in the 1920s (on the Example of the Communist University of National Minorities of the West). In Russ.]. In Vestnik MGOU. 2013. No. 2. URL: https://www.evestnik-mgou.ru/jour/article/view/747/744 (accessed 15.05.2025).

Tikhomirov, N. V. Problemy kolkhoznogo stroitel’stva v Moskovskoi oblasti po materialam studencheskoi praktiki 1935 g. [Problems of Collective Farm Construction in the Moscow Region Based on the Materials of Student Practice in 1935. In Russ.]. In Vestnik Nizhegorodskogo universiteta im. N. I. Lobachevskogo. 2025. No. 1, pp. 53–62. DOI: 10.52452/19931778_2025_1_53

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