Formation of the Administrative and Territorial System of the RSFSR in the First Half of the 1920s (On the Example of Zoning of the West Siberian Provinces)

The article is devoted to the study of the problem of forming the system of administrative-territorial division of the Soviet state according to the materials of Western Siberia. Questions of regional zoning in the 1920s, which included project activities for the Ob and Kuznetsk-Altai Oblasts, as well as for lower-level zoning, are discussed. The stages of the development of administrative and territorial projects at the highest state level, based on economic factors, are shown. The author made an attempt to reveal the specifics of the implementation of the Gosplan project on the economic zoning of the RSFSR in the territory of Western Siberia controlled by Sibrevkom according to archival documents. According to this project, in the territory of the region, it was planned to establish two regions: Kuznetsk-Altai and Ob. Kuznetsk-Altai Oblast was designed as a future powerful industrial-agricultural combine. Ob Ob-last, planned by the State Planning Committee, had a pronounced agricultural purpose in terms of the nature of production. In practice, the project was launched from the bottom, with the enlargement of the regions. After the creation in 1923 of the Urals Oblast, which included most of the West Siberian territory, the project activity for the creation of two Siberian regions was completed. Preparatory work began on the formation of a unified Siberian region. The article contains detailed information on the conduct of lower-level zoning in Western Siberia using the example of Omsk Province. Despite the fact that the district that replaced the volost was to be built on the basis of economic gravitation, in practice, it was not possible to follow this rule everywhere in the process of lower-level zoning. Of great importance was the novelty of the regional division of the provinces, as well as economic, political and national peculiarities of the region. This article shows the relationship between different levels of government and the main problems the provincial leadership faced while implementing the central government's decisions regarding lower-level administrative zoning. It is concluded that the West Siberian regions planned by the Gosplan project were never created, remaining only in theoretical developments due to the existence of national administrative units such as the Kazakh ASSR, to imperfections in the administrative and territorial policy of the Soviet leadership in the first half of the 1920s. It should be added that the draft of the State Planning Commission gave the reason for the further development and improvement of the projects of the administrative and territorial structure of the RSFSR, which was embodied in the creation of a single economic region in Western Siberia - Siberian Krai.

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