Yaroslavl Regional Elite Bureaucratic Practices in Working with Citizens’ Letters in the USSR of the 1960s

Abstract

This article examines processes that took place in regional centers in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Issues of interaction between the regional party apparatus and ordinary citizens became particularly acute by the end of the Khrushchev era. This study is connected with the analysis of the problem of bureaucratic practices of the Yaroslavl regional elite in working with citizens’ letters in the USSR in the 1960s. We perform an analysis of a diverse source base: official regulatory documents, archival materials, sources of personal origin, including memoirs and interviews through a prism oral history. The context of the study is presented by the analysis of official documents revealing problems of the regional elite of the late socialist era: registry, forgery in state reporting, careerism. Consideration of various complaints took a serious place in the work of the regional bureaucracy. Critical letters in the absence of sociological institutions allowed the authorities to present the real moods and demands of the population. Complaints allowed us to identify the negative aspects of reality and respond to them. The materials contained in the letters were checked, and not always the facts they contained were confirmed. The regional nomenclature sought to protect its interests and not to give a reason for the center to perceive critical letters in its address as objective.