Organization of the First Post-War Elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in Leningrad in October 1945 – February 1946: Documents from the Central State Archive of St. Petersburg

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УДК 94(47)

DOI 10.28995/2073-0101-2020-3-836-847

Alexander I. Rupasov

St. Petersburg Institute of History, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation

Organization of the First Post-War Elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in Leningrad in October 1945 – February 1946: Documents from the Central State Archive of St. Petersburg

Abstract

By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of October 5, 1945, the first post-war elections to this supreme body of state power were scheduled for February 10, 1946. The political leadership attached exceptional importance to the election campaign launched in autumn 1945. The election campaign and its results could have been an indicator of the mood of Soviet society, permitting to estimate whether the victory in the war had been able to neutralize the accumulated fatigue from the hardships of the war and prevent the growth of negative feelings among the population towards the communist party and Soviet leadership. Thus, the authorities paid special attention to the organization of the elections to the Supreme Soviet in Leningrad, the city which survived the siege. Political and ideological support for the election campaign of autumn 1945 – winter 1946 was not the only task that the Soviet and party structures in Leningrad were concerned about. Purely organizational and technical aspects of the elections required coordination between a large number of departments and organizations. One of the most serious organizational problems was lack of trained personnel to work in election commissions. The Central State Archive of St. Petersburg has some limited number of documents that allow us to study the organizational and technical side of the elections in Leningrad in 1945-1946.

Keywords

Central State Archive of St. Petersburg, sources, archival documents, Leningrad, elections, organizational events, Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

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References

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About the authors

Rupasov Alexander Ivanovich, PhD in History, St. Petersburg Institute of History, Russian Academy of Sciences, department of contemporary Russian history, leading researcher, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation, +7-952-370-83-01, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Submitted 11.02.2019, published (for citation):

RUPASOV, A. I. Organizatsionnaya podgotovka pervykh poslevoennykh vyborov v Verkhovnyi sovet SSSR v Leningrade v oktyabre 1945 - fevrale 1946 g. Po dokumentam Tsentral'nogo gosudarstvennogo arkhiva Sankt-Peterburga [Organization of the First Post-War Elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in Leningrad in October 1945 – February 1946: Documents from the Central State Archive of St. Petersburg. In Russ.]. IN: Vestnik arhivista / Herald of an Archivist, 2020, no. 3, pp. 836-847. doi 10.28995/2073-0101-2020-3-836-847

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