Archival Sources Review Devoted to the Angara Region Peasantry Study in the 1920s

The purpose of the study is to review archival sources devoted to the study of the Angara peasantry in the 1920s, their classification and characteristics. The State Archive of the Irkutsk Region (GAIO) and the State Archive of Contemporary History of the Irkutsk Region (GANIIO) have deposited a large array of archival materials that highlight state policy and the history of the development of the agricultural sector of the Angara region during the NEP period. Documents are divided into orders, instructions, orders, certificates, reports, extracts, reports, notifications from the field (complaints of the population), reports from OGPU employees. Archival materials allow us to analyze the effectiveness of all state measures of the Bolshevik government in relation to the peasantry. In addition to successes, they reveal the failures of Soviet government policy in the agricultural sector. Documentary data often records cases of abuse by Soviet workers, as well as the class nature of the ruling party's policy towards peasants throughout the entire period described. Documents from the Irkutsk archives provide an opportunity to see how agriculture was restored after the Civil War and how it developed during the NEP period, and also show what problems the peasantry faced. The facts set out in these documents are predominantly reliable, since their compilers had no reason to mislead the higher party authorities. Thanks to historical sources, the researcher can draw up a detailed picture of the development of the Angara village in the 1920s. However, as the author of the article notes, the documents of the Irkutsk archives are of a one-sided politically biased nature, since their compilers often labeled different categories of peasants based on signs of disloyalty to the Soviet government, and also did not question the legality of the implemented soviet policies and did not try to understand the peasantry in any way. Archival documents reflect only the economic development of the village and the state policy towards peasants, and leaving the way of life of farmers unaffected.