Educational Work Aimed to Strengthen Cooperation in Rural Areas of the Central Non-Chernozem Region (1921–1925)

This article examines the effect of mass agitation on the organization of agricultural production in general, and rural cooperation in particular, during the transition to the New Economic Policy of the Soviet state. The object of the study is the socio-political relations that were established in the course of the development of rural cooperation in a number of central regions of Russia. The subject of the research is the organizational and regulatory decisions of Soviet party and public bodies aimed to facilitate the production activities of both individual peasant farms and grassroot structures of agricultural partnerships, artels and communes. The purpose of the article is to identify the specific features of the processes that took place, fill the gaps in the historical coverage of this issue and determine the forms in which this work was carried out. In particular, it analyses the methods and nature of the impact on the population aimed to eliminate illiteracy and organize political and agricultural education as well as cooperative agitation and propaganda. The paper focuses on such a form of cooperative propaganda as agricultural exhibitions. The study is relevant due to the increasing scientific and practical interest in the experience of reviving rural Russia after the Civil War. The novelty of the research consists in the extensive use of previously unpublished archival documents and poorly studied sources. The results and conclusions indicate that cooperative agrarian agitation and propaganda in 1921–1925 played a positive role in establishing and strengthening cooperation in rural areas. However, in practice it was often far from the real interests of the peasant masses. Studying the experience of reviving cooperative processes in rural areas in the context of toughening international sanctions can be of great scientific and practical importance. The combination of mass propaganda and actual material and financial support can become an effective argument for the population to stay in rural areas as well as for developing production forms of cooperation.