Face to the Village
Subtitle: The Riazan countryside under Soviet rule, 1921-1930
By: Tracy McDonald
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Toronto; Buffalo
Language: eng
Number of pages: 422
ISBN-13: 9781442640825
Subjects: Politics and government; Rural conditions; History; Peasants
Description: In the summer of 1924, the Bolshevik Party called on scholars, the police, the courts, and state officials to turn their attention to the villages of Russia. The subsequent campaign to 'face the countryside' generated a wealth of intelligence that fed into the regime's sense of alarmed conviction that the countryside was a space outside Bolshevik control. Richly rooted in archival sources, including local and central-level secret police reports, detailed cases of the local and provincial courts, government records, and newspaper reports, Face to the Village is a nuanced study of the everyday workings of the Russian village in the 1920s. Local-level officials emerge in Tracy McDonald's study as vital and pivotal historical actors, existing between the Party's expectations and peasant interests. McDonald's careful exposition of the relationships between the urban centre and the peasant countryside brings us closer to understanding the fateful decision to launch a frontal attack on the countryside in the fall of 1929 under the auspices of collectivization.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [381]-404) and index.

Tracy McDonald is an assistant professor in the Department of History at McMaster University.