State and philately in Soviet Russia in the early 1920s: legal framework

After the end of the civil war in Russia, the process of normalization of everyday life gradually begins, in which there was a place for such a hobby as collecting postage stamps, that is, philately. However, almost immediately in this sphere of human everyday life, a conflict began to arise that is absolutely not typical for pre-revolutionary Russia. It consisted in an increasing number of contradictions between the individual aspirations of individual collectors-philatelists, including state structures, to add to their personal collections, on the one hand, and a growing understanding of the economic benefits of selling philatelic material abroad to solve pressing problems at home, on the other. To resolve this conflict the leadership of the country had to more clearly formulate its position on this issue. The purpose of the research is to examine the state policy in the field of philately and foreign trade in philatelic material based on the internal transformation of the main legal acts that appeared in the early 1920s. The main sources are regulatory documents of various levels: national and departmental. Among them, the key ones are the resolution of the Central Committee of Pomgol under the VTSIK, internal instructions to it, and the resolution of the VTSIK and SNK on philately in 1922. The analysis of the content of these documents allows us to distinguish two stages in resolving the conflict around philately and the sale of philatelic material abroad. At the first stage (until the autumn of 1922), the government of Soviet Russia proceeded solely from the urgent problems of creating additional sources of income from abroad for the necessary assistance to fight hunger and its consequences, and here the monopoly sale of branded stocks outside the country became a serious help. Philately as such did not exist, and the term “philately” was preserved only in the name of the Russian Bureau of Philately, established under the People’s Commissariat of posts and telegraphs. At the second stage (from the autumn of 1922), the situation changes dramatically. The word “philately” appears in legal documents, the state recognizes the right of private collectors to exchange philatelic materials abroad but establishes full and strict control over this process. Thus, the analysis of the main legal acts regulating the mechanism of development of both the philatelic movement within the country and the interests of the Soviet state in this area for just one year shows that the leadership of Soviet Russia has understood the important role of such an area of individual studies as philately. For the Soviet leadership, philately was not only becoming a very important tool for implementing domestic and foreign policy, even if initially exclusively economic, but, as the near future will show, including a very effective political, ideological, propaganda and educational one.

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