Working Norms and Practices of the Soviet Elite in Leningrad during the late Stalinist Period

Abstract

The study of the history of Leningrad of Stalin’s period was subjected to a rigid ideological impact, which is why, for a long time, it was examined selectively, in accordance with strict party attitudes. For the reason of the decades-long process of rehabilitation of the victims of the “Leningrad affair”, there were no approaches in the scholarship to assessing normative and extreme everyday life in the corps of Leningrad state cadres. The article aims to present the research of the Soviet elite working norms and practices in 1945–1950. The main attention is paid to the political biographies of the Chairmen of Leningrad Local Government. The research is based on the oral history and the emotionology methods, documents from St. Petersburg, Moscow and Crimean archives. The generation of Leningrad leading cadres came to the state positions in the late 1930s, after the repressions of the “Great Terror”. Members of the Soviet elite underwent testing of their professional skills during World War II and the siege of Leningrad; directed the accelerated postwar recovery of the national economy. In the late 1940s, they became the victims of the so-called “Leningrad affair”. Understanding normative working routine and. and everyday life under crisis involves identifying and analyzing feelings and associated behavior. Analysis of everyday life involves identification of events and processes that recur in the personal and professional life of Soviet nomenclature workers. Understanding extreme everyday life involves identification and analysis of feelings and associated behavior in extreme conditions (such as conflicts, fabricated criminal cases, arrests, etc).