Revolutionary False Heroes: Impostor Practices Among the Nomenclature of Siberia and the Far East in 1920−1930s

The article, based primarily on archival materials, analyzes the practices of attributing revolutionary merit to persons who made a nomenklatura career in the post-revolutionary period.In the early Soviet period, fictitious biographies saved people of "alien" origin, hiding traces of compromising episodes and forming a correct "heroic" biography, the most demanded by the era.In the east of Russia in the nomenclature there was a noticeable layer of former Red partisans, who often fought not so much against the Whites and invaders, but rather engaged in looting of the population and social cleansing.For the party-state authorities, the problem of identifying those numerous communists who, with the help of forgery, secured their initial authority and subsequent prosperous existence in the rank of honored revolutionary, underground fighter, and partisan was of great importance.A certain matrix of reactions to exposures of false heroes was formed, with a hierarchy of the severity of misdemeanors.Exposing people without a revolutionary past or who attributed their achievements and exploits to themselves was a common practice, which became especially relevant during the purges of the ruling apparatus.But even after the terror of the 1930s, the Party retained many people with fictitious biographies who remained in the rank of privileged fighters for Soviet power.