What is it about?
This study of Penza suggests that Soviet authorities engaged in an effort to raise the level of institutional discipline of local officials. Penza's fulfillment of its 1920 grain quota indicates local officials worked to reach institutional goals.
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Why is it important?
Penza province’s procurement experience suggests a more complex picture of Civil War economic management and state-peasant relations and that stable provinces, strategically situated, allowed the Bolsheviks to avoid more widespread peasant violence, driven to a great degree by large-scale forced grain requisitions in 1920-21.
Perspectives
This study of Penza suggests that by late 1920 the resources available to provincial authorities to reinforce the procurement work of local officials had expanded well beyond agents and brigades. Thus, when Penza reached 105% fulfillment of its rather modest procurement quota this was not a significant procurement success as much as a bureaucratic one; provincial officials managed to enforce expectations that subordinates work well beyond their previous capacity to accomplish institutional goals.
Peter Fraunholtz
Northeastern University
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This page is a summary of: Ruling the Soviet Countryside behind the Frontlines, Russian History, December 2022, Brill Deutschland GmbH,
DOI: 10.30965/18763316-12340040.
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