Dekulakization of Fisheries and Reindeer Farms in the Murmansk Area of the Leningrad Region in the 1930s

Abstract

The territory of the modern Murmansk Region was spared from the “struggle for bread” and peasant risings in the early years of collectivization. It should be noted that no such class as peasantry in the traditional sense actually existed in the region, the economic life of the villages being based on coastal fishing in the basins of the White and Barents Seas as well as reindeer husbandry. Dispossession of kulaks (dekulakization) in the Murmansk Area of the Leningrad Region was not limited to the early 1930s, as it was often described in regional historiography, mostly written during the Soviet period. In the course of this research, the comparative historical and historical-systematic methods were used. In order to fill in the gaps, the author analysed documents of the executive and party authorities of the Murmansk Area, mainly kept in the State Archives of the Murmansk Region, some of them being introduced into scientific discourse for the first time. Based on the materials, the most accurate number of dispossessed farms was determined and the characteristic features of dekulakization in the region under study were identified. Moreover, the paper outlines an area of further research into the repressive policy in the period after the main waves of dekulakization up to the late 1930s. In addition, the national context of the area is considered: nonnationals living in the border regions and the presence of an indigenous small-numbered people, the Sami. These factors influenced the course of dekulakization. Noteworthy, this paper is one of the first attempts to analyse the repressive policy in the Murmansk Area as a separate problem. The results of the research can serve as the basis for a comprehensive historical study on collectivization in the region.