Теоретичні засади соціальної політики УСРР в 1921-1928 рр.: місце робітників та селян в новому курсі.

Abstract

The article focuses on the formation of conceptual foundations of the state social strategy in the NEP period in relation to workers and rural people on the basis of published and archival sources, and scientific literature. After a long destructive period of hostilities, economic crisis and social and political experiments of the new government such current problems of public importance as saving homeless children, helping the unemployed, overcoming the housing crisis, the need to build a health care system, as well as the need to define new rules for the interaction between government and society were on the agenda for the state leadership. According to the class approach applied in this period, the state of different population segments was not identical. There were distinguished social groups which, due to their loyalty to the authorities or for other reasons, became the priority recipients of benefits, social protection, assistance, etc. The purpose of the article is to describe and compare the place of workers and rural people in the course of social policy of the USSR in 1921−1928. Given the scarcity of material resources and the established ideology frameworks, which defined the categories of “us” – “them”, it was supposed to spend state resources and efforts of leaders of all levels to provide material assistance only to certain social groups which made up the social base of the party. It is significant that proletarians and needy rural people were identified as the only recipients of urgent state aid at the 10th Congress of the RCPB in March, 1921; the difficulties of such social groups as artisans, employees, intellectuals and others were not officially mentioned. It was found out that the decisions of the party and the government in the field of social policy during the NEP period paid more attention to certain sections of the society. The vision of the party leadership of the place and the role of individual social groups in the structure of the new state society was manifested, first of all, in the documents that regulated the financial position of the population. Workers were traditionally supported by the Bolsheviks, who always declared this; rural people were divided into groups; they considered themselves to be illegally and unfairly transferred to minor roles, and their initiative to engage in active social and political life was confronted by distrust and opposition from the authorities.