Social transformation of scientific intelligentsia of the 1920s: Kazan scientists

In the formed Soviet society of the 1920s special accent was made on creation of a new social layers of the society. During this difficult reconstruction practice there arose a lot of so-called "alien" elements. A significant part of scientific intelligentsia was ranked as "alien" for their bourgeois origin. "Bourgeois" origin became an original "stigma" for the owners, capable to exclude them from the Soviet reality, down to physical destruction. Social disorder of scientific intelligentsia became even more aggravated due to difficult material conditions. Economic cataclysms, chronic delays of salaries, absence of habitation, big prices, and shortage of food put scientific intelligentsia in the condition of physical survival. The opportunity to protect oneself and the family from social cataclysms compelled scientists of Kazan to leave the city. In hope for an opportunity to facilitate the financial position and to ''overwait" for the period of social shocks, scientists left for Siberia. Later, with the universal establishment of the Soviet power, scientists tried to return. Moreover, many higher schools of Kazan persistently demanded it. Sharp shortage of the faculty members was the condition in all higher schools at that time. But with the new power the situation changed, and many scientists were not granted the permission to return to their former workplace. The reasons for refusal were of extremely ideological and political character. Scientists-refugees were categorised as "alien" layers of the population. Having deprived scientists of the right to the freedom of movement and choice of a workplace, the authorities could get rid of the unwanted. Thus, the social policy on restriction of free movement promoted ranging of scientific intelligentsia by the degree of their loyalty to the Soviet power. There were also people the Soviet state desperately needed. All scientists sympathizing the Soviet power and ready to cooperate got an opportunity to return. Scientists who received the right to return lost the former status, forever having the stigma of the "bourgeois" scientist. This category lost a lot of social privileges and payments guaranteed by the authorities to the "Soviet" scientist. These changes, caused by revolutionary changes, promoted transformation of the whole social group, scientific intelligentsia, and development of a new identity.

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