The Problem of collectivization in Right-Bank Moldova in the Soviet historiography

Abstract

The object of this research is the Soviet historical paradigm in its development. The subject is the achievements of Soviet historians in studying postwar collectivization in Right-bank Moldova. The author dwells on the impact of objective and subjective factors upon the course of historical science during the Soviet period. The article traces the evolution of topics and assessments given in the articles, monographs and collective summary works dedicated to the history of the republic. The novelty of this study is consists in the analysis of the works of Soviet historians from the perspective of modern historical paradigm, which was founded by the scientific school of V. P. Danilov. Examination of the Soviet historiography of collectivization in Right-Bank Moldova allows making the following conclusions: 1) the key problem of Soviet historians consisted in the limited access to archival documents; 2) the agrarian historiography of the problem is often subjective and interprets the information from available archival documents and various statistical records through the prism of generally accepted Soviet ideological attitudes; 3) same as in studying collectivization of the 1920s – 1930s, the topics associated with the violations during collectivization and “dekulakization” remained under the ideological ban; 4) the specificity of historiography of collectivization in Right-Bank Moldova was the significant attention of historians to this problem in the late 1960s – 1970s, which the author believes is associated with L. I. Brezhnev, who was the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the 1951 –1952 and the conventional methods for organizing the collective farms in the republic.