The first opinion poll (soviet historiography of deputeess' mandates in Catherine's legislative comission)

This work raises the question of the Soviet historiography of deputy mandates in the Legislative Commission of Catherine II. The objectives of the study include analysis of the most held points of view in the Soviet historiography on the nature and content of the mandates, finding out the reasons for their appearance, ascertain of the special features of Soviet historiography of the mandates. The most valuable part of source base of this work consists of few studies tend to items directly on the development of the issues raised by the orders: such as the studies by V. Nikonova, A. Kamkin, V. Nedosekin, M. Kurmacheva, M. Belyavskiy. The other group (N. Pavlenko, N. Druzhinin, G. Bykonya, P. Gratsianskiy et al.) involves the works of researchers, who looked into various aspects of Russian history of the second half of the Eighteenth century. The next group includes the works of Soviet historians on historiography and source. Comparative analysis of the findings of the pre-revolutionary Russian and Soviet historians would be impossible without the use of the works of A. Kiesewetter, V. Ulanov, V. Semevskiy and others. Identified by Soviet scientists the claim of all estates to the norms of law and legal practice, largely coincided with the observations of the pre-revolutionary researchers. However, Soviet historians have paid attention not only to the demands of the mandates, but also on their class essence. In the study of "novyi" period of Russian history to the fore were the problems of the class struggle and the genesis of capitalism. And deputy mandates were considered from this point of view. The result of this approach was to identify a conscious anti-feudal protest of the peasantry and selfishness of requirements of Russian nobility. But the narrative of searching only desire to expand the privileges of the ruling class in the nobility offers, in our opinion, did not comply with the law on the basis of the determining role, because mandates drawn up in the transition from feudalism to capitalism and had to reflect the contradictions for that time. Obviously, setting to disclose of anti-national nature of requirements of the ruling class was a priority in Soviet historiography. But the dichotomy of "progressive reactionary" did not allow to clearly explain the differences in the assessment of identical requirements in mandates of different estates. Mandates were not allowed to explain the reasons for the enunciation of the peasant question in the rank of the main issues of Russian life. Thus, the internal inconsistency in the works of Soviet scientists was inevitable.

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