Cooperative organisations of northern Karelians in the 1920s (based on the example of the Ukhta District)

Abstract

This article presents the activities of cooperative organisations in the Ukhta District in the 1920s. The main objective of the research is to consider the various types and forms of cooperative associations of residents of the Ukhta District of Karelia and establish the most important areas of their activities. The leading research methods are historical narrative, analysis and synthesis of information identified in archival and printed materials, methods of microhistory and regional studies. The main sources of the research are documents from the funds of the National Archives of the Republic of Karelia. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that, using the example of the Ukhta District, inhabited by northern Karelians, it examines the development of various types of cooperative peasant associations in Karelia, taking into account not only the national specifics, but also natural environment and climatic and foreign policy factors. In this regard, the difficulties of restoring the economy at the beginning of the New Economic Policy in the Ukhta District, which suffered from military operations and bad weather conditions, are revealed. Using the example of the Kemsk-Ukhta District Union of Cooperatives, distinctive features in the work of cooperative societies in the border zone were discovered and general shortcomings of consumer cooperation in the 1920s were detected. Other types of cooperative associations created in Ukhta district have been established: credit partnership, agricultural commune, land reclamation partnership. The peculiarity of peasant cooperatives in northern villages, where reindeer herding partnerships were created, was clarified; the importance of peasant cooperation for the economic growth of Ukhta district is shown.