The magazine “Voprosy strahovaniya” (“Issues of insurance”) (1922-1937): revival, editorial and authorial staff, and contribution into the study of the history of social (employee) insurance

In the article the author refers to the Soviet period of the issue of the journal “Voprosy strahovaniya” (“Issues of Insurance”) that earlier attracted few attention of researchers. The publication considers reasons for the revival of the publication, the editorial and authorial staff, continuity with the pre-revolutionary Bolshevik press and the contribution to the organization of the study the history of social insurance. The author pays special attention to the development of the plot line of publications on the history of workers' insurance. It was allotted the reasons and periods of their publication, found the connection between the content of historical articles and essays with the struggle in the highest echelons of power. The author came to the conclusion that the immediate impact on the reduction of printing in the journal of memories was the result of the purge in 1929 of the People's Commissariat of Labor and the Central Department of Social Insurance. Many of specialists working in them were former Mensheviks, participants of the pre-revolutionary insurance movement and cooperated with the magazine. Based on the analysis of texts, the author singles out the process of depersonalizing the history of social insurance that began after the purges of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Attention gradually concentrates on directing the working insurance campaign by V.I. Lenin and J.V. Stalin. Quotations from their works increasingly replaced history. As the study showed, the role of “Voprosy strahovaniya” was not limited to historical publications. The author pays attention to the active promotion of the Bolshevik view of social history by the journal. This was reflected in the organization and holding of memorial evenings, the regular struggle to expand insurance propaganda, participation in the development of programs for special courses and the placement of book reviews. The crowning of the activities of the journal in this direction was the formation in 1926 of a special scientific and historical institution - Commission for the Studying the History of Social Insurance) (Istsotsstrakh). For this, the editors assembled and united the participants of the insurance movement from all over the country. Thus, the magazine created the prerequisites for organizing an in-depth study of the problem. At the same time, the close attention to it could reveal serious contradictions in the present Bolshevik approach to history. For example, in the issue of the role of Menshevik liquidators in the insurance campaign. The author came to the conclusion that it was mass repressions against participants of the pre-revolutionary insurance movement that caused the “forgetfulness” of the history of workers' insurance and the renaming of the magazine in 1938 into “Socialnoe strahovanie” (“Social Insurance”).

Keywords

Authors

References