Activities of the All-Union Society of Assistance to Victims of the Intervention in Siberia (the practice of political mobilization of society)

The article examines the Soviet practice of mobilization of society for the solution of public problems on the example of the All-Union Society for the Assistance to Victims of the Intervention. The Society declared the humanitarian mission to calculate the damage caused to Soviet citizens by the interventionists in contrast to the demands of the Entente countries to admit the "Tsar's debts". A concrete historical approach to the research was used. The formation of the Society branches in the provinces and districts of Siberia, the organization of campaign for the collection of the claims of citizens and its results are analyzed. The article is based on unpublished materials of the State Archive of Novosibirsk Oblast (Fund 35). The analysis of organizational and administrative documentation allows asserting that the humanitarian objectives of the Society had a declarative character, the true goals were focused on solving foreign policy tasks: signing of peace treaties with the capitalist countries and breaking of the USSR's international isolation. This is indicated by the close relationship of the Society with the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, as well as the timing of the campaign for claim collection, which coincided with the period of negotiations about the conclusion of peace treaties. The Society ceased its activities after a wave of international recognition of the USSR. The research shows that six committees in provinces and a regional committee with a center in Novo-Nikolayevsk were created in Siberia in 1924-1927. At the same time, the campaign for collecting claims was carried out with the formation of a network of the Society's branches. By 1927 about 80,000 claims were collected in Siberia, which amounted to only 6% from the all-Union indicators. The minor results were caused by the short terms of the campaign. Moreover, it was carried out in difficult social and economic conditions. At the time, new administrative structures and management practices were approved, and local Soviet bureaucracy was overloaded. The basic methods of the population's mobilization for conducting the campaign for collecting claims were the administrative resource, propaganda and agitation. The most successful campaign was conducted in regions where heads of the committees were able to enlist the support of local intellectuals, students and office workers. But the number of these social groups was insignificant in the 1920s. Generally, the activities of the Society did not gain wide public support in Siberia. The citizens did not want to join the Society for the reason of membership payments. The campaign was complicated by the fact that a large part of the population lived in the country and was illiterate. Part of Soviet local officials showed a skeptical approach to the objectives of the Society. They interpreted it as another top-down project. It remains unclear whether the collected claims of citizens who suffered damage from the intervention were used by Soviet diplomats.

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