Russian Bureau of Philately: the first attempt of creating a state philatelic organization

The article examines the history of the formation of the philatelic movement in the RSFSR/USSR in the 1920s, the specificity of which was manifested in the fact that the search for ways to consolidate the community of collectors was based on different, even diametrically opposed approaches. By the beginning of 1921, the idea of creating a state organization in the field of philately, which would not only regulate, but mainly control the development of philately in the country and the relations of collectors with foreign countries, was becoming more and more popular. An additional incentive to launch the project of nationalization of philately was the famine that engulfed a significant part of the country’s provinces in late 1920 - early 1921 and forced the Soviet leadership to find new ways to obtain additional financial resources, including in the form of foreign currency. In the country, a desperate contention broke out between two ideas about what state philately should be. The key point in this contention remained the question of either absolute recognition of the monopoly of foreign trade in the field of philately, or its actual denial. Initially, the second approach became the predominant line in the process of forming state policy in this area, which to a certain extent fit into some general easing in the conditions of the new economic policy. Created in 1921 in the structure of the People’s Commissariat of Posts and Telegraphs, the Russian Bureau of Philately, although it was a state organization, but both in terms of the composition of the leadership and the goals that these people set for themselves, actually turned into a screen for a direct violation of the state monopoly policy in the field of philately. In turn, the Organization of the Commissioner for Post-stamp Donations in Russia and Abroad, which appeared in 1922, was a bright antipode of the RBF. Its activities were based solely on the principle of the monopoly of foreign trade in the field of philately, and the management chose the tactic of relying on the so-called “ideological collectors”. As a result, in the Soviet philately in 1922-1924 there was a kind of “dual power”, which ended with the victory of the line of the Organization of the Commissioner. The defeat of the Russian Bureau of Philately in the struggle for control of the state philately was, in fact, predetermined initially due to a number of reasons. First, the position of the leadership of the RBF itself, where the main goal of its activities was to commercialize philately for personal purposes, in violation of the principles of the monopoly of foreign trade established by the state, and even direct smuggling activities with foreign counterparties. Secondly, the search for allies in their activities, including in public philately, among the representatives of the old philatelic community. Third, the active position taken by the leadership of an alternative state organization, whose activities increasingly corresponded to the political, educational and ideological role assigned to the philatelic movement in Soviet Russia.

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