«Week of party propaganda» and the beginning of the activities of the provincial department of the RCP(b) for work in the village in the autumn of 1919 – winter of 1920. Based on archival materials of the Vyatka province
Authors:   Vyatka State University, Kirov, Russia, Timkin Yurii N. 
Published: June 2024

The scientific work is devoted to the analysis of the «Party Propaganda Week» and the beginning of the activities of the departments for work in the village of party committees in the autumn of 1919 – winter of 1920. The article is written on the basis of the documents of the archival funds of the Central State Archive of the Kirov region introduced into scientific circulation for the first time: Vyatka Gubkom, Kotel’nichskii, Malmyzhskii, Nolinskii, Orlovskii and Yaranskii ukoms of the RCP (b). The purpose of the study is to analyze the beginning of the formation of systematic agitation and propaganda work in the village. The author sets the following tasks: to clarify the specifics of the «party weeks» and the creation of departments for work in the village as part of party committees. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that this is the first attempt in local historiography to analyze the beginning of the systematic work of party committees among peasants. Our article is written on the basis of archival materials using the principle of historicism and the method of historical institutionalism. The «Party Propaganda Week», held for the first time in Moscow, Petrograd and other cities, on the recommendation of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), began to be held throughout the country, becoming one of the forms of agitation and propaganda work. The main goal of the «party week» is to acquaint the broad strata of workers and peasants with the ideas of the party and attract them to their ranks. It should be emphasized that no systematic work was carried out among the peasantry of the province until the autumn of 1919: there were no specialized departments of party committees that could work in the village, there were almost no trained organizers, agitators and propagandists, the task of conducting such work in the village was not realized in the party committees. An analysis of the first «party week» in October and the second – in November 1919 – allows us to conclude that the number of people who joined the party is impressive – 4482 people. However, there were not many peasants among them, who made up the absolute majority of the inhabitants of the province. Unfortunately, it was not possible to find out the number of peasants who joined the party, but the reports of agitators and reports of party committees indicate that the holding of «party weeks» in the village did not achieve its main goal – to attract as many workers and peasants as possible to the party. Realizing that the Central Committee of the party would not be satisfied with such results, the gubernatorial committee decided not to indicate in the final report the number of those who joined the party by counties, but to name the total number for the provincial organization. The failure in the village was covered by a significant number of Red Army and pro-Army men who joined the party. The results of the «party weeks» prompted the Gubernatorial committee to take measures to organize departments for work in the village in the ukoms, whose activities in the winter of 1919-1920 were just beginning to acquire a systematic character.