The Stakhanovites of the peat industry of the 1930s: An answer to the modernization challenge of the era

The article examines the development of the Stakhanov movement in the peat industry of the USSR on the example of centralized peat farms of Glavtorf and peat processing of individual industrial enterprises and trusts in the territory of the Kuibyshev, Penza regions and the Mordovian ASSR during the pre-war five-year plans. The source base of the article was the funds of the Russian State Archive of Economics, regional archives of the Penza, Samara regions and the Republic of Mordovia, articles by peat specialists, an autobiographical brochure by the drummer Nikolai Zezyulin. Unlike other industries, for which historians have noted an increase in accidents, the specifics of the work of Stakhanovites on peat-mining machines were manifested in the prevention of breakdowns and improvement of equipment. In the peat industry at the all-Union and regional levels, there was a combination of material and moral factors stimulating the Stakhanov movement.