Formation of the Soviet Philatelic Movement in 1917-1941: Identification of "Friends" and "Foes" Through the Eyes of Contemporaries

The specificity of the history of the formation of the philatelic movement in the RSFSR/USSR in the 1920s-1930s is that it was not historians but people who often had a very distant relation to philately as a field of collecting that made attempts to systematize the material and identify the main periods of its development. Such people did not go beyond the then party-political guidelines in their ideas, thus seeking to follow the "general line of the party" defined by party documents both in the theory of philately and in practice. The situation is supported by the uniqueness of the source base, since the only source that can be used to reconstruct contemporaries' understanding of the development of philately in the 1920s-1930s is a specialized philatelic journal that acted as a guide to the state policy in the field of philately. The author came to the following conclusions. Identifying the pre-revolutionary period of the development of Russian philately (before 1917), representatives of "ideological philatelists-collectors" interpreted it exclusively as a "foe" period, which had to be ostracized due to its non-proletarian nature. A characteristic feature of the 1917-1921 period is a kind of a "dual power" that developed in the philatelic community with two state structures simultaneously responsible for the development of Soviet philately: the Russian Philately Bureau and the Organization of the Commissioner of the Central Committee of Pomgol under the All-Russian Central Executive Committee for stamp donations in Russia and abroad. The 1922-1926 period is characterized by the overcoming of the "dual power" and the creation of the first public organization, the All-Russian Society of Philatelists (VOF). However, the euphoria of the beginning of the period (associated with the intense activity of VOF; holding of two congresses and an all-Union exhibition of philately, bonistics and numismatics; creation of Philatelic International) gave way to the emergence of pessimistic tones in the philatelic movement leaders' statements about the lack of proper attention from the leadership of the party and the country by the end of the period. During this period, "friends" dominated in philately, "foes" were consigned to the ash heap of history, and optimism still prevails over pessimism in the actual practice of the philatelic movement. The following period, 1927-1932, was a period of crisis: relations between the Soviet Philatelic Association and VOF became very tense, and there were serious disagreements within VOF itself. The situation in the country was changing, pressure from the state was increasing, political and educational organizations were beginning to close, which fully affected the philatelic movement in the USSR.

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