Trends in the Development of Local Soviets in the Autonomous Regions of the North Caucasus Region in the Context of the New Economic Policy (1924–1929)

The formation and strengthening of local Soviets in the autonomous regions of the North Caucasus is an important but little-studied aspect of the new economic policy in the region. Therefore, the article is devoted to clarifying the trends in the development of local Soviets in the autonomous regions of the North Caucasus Region in 1924–1929. The study reveals the organizational and personnel strengthening of local Soviets, their formation through elections and relationships with citizens’ gatherings. The basis of the research is a historical new institutionalism, which makes it possible to determine the interaction of formal and informal structures of society, and the practices of policy participants. The transition from appointed revolutionary committees to elected Soviets took place gradually in the autonomous regions of the North Caucasus, from 1921 to 1924 (faster in North Ossetia and Adygea, slower in Chechnya). The organizational and personnel weakness of the village and district Soviets by the mid-1920s is established. The chairmen and secretaries of village Soviets often became undesirable persons for the Communist Party – officials of the tsarist era, clergymen, disloyal intellectuals. Documents in Russian were not well understood by the population. Rural gatherings replaced village Soviets, and often made decisions at the will of the well-to-do strata. There were practices of “dual power” at the local government level. The policy of “reviving the Soviets” (1924–1929) in the autonomous regions of the North Caucasus had peculiar tasks: organizational and financial strengthening of local Soviets; translating office work into regional languages and eliminating the illiteracy of deputies; ensuring a politically loyal core of Soviets’staff from among farmhands and the poor peasants, workers; eliminating the political influence of rural gatherings and well-to-do stratas of society. The transition from NEP to collectivization qualitatively changed the functions of local Soviets, making the primary task of managing the modernization of the economy.