Sverdlovsk Railway Road in the End of 1940-ies - the Beginning of 1950-ies: State of Production Discipline

Abstract

The article is devoted to the subject only fragmentarily developed in the national historiography, especially in regard to its regional dimension. The study is conducted on materials of three regional and one federal archives of Russia: the State archive of the Sverdlovsk region, the Russian state archive of economics, Territorial body of Federal state statistics service for Sverdlovsk region and the Centre of documentation of public organizations of Sverdlovsk region with the assistance of the scientific and publicistic literature. The relevance of the topic is determined by its known importance for the social sciences, especially history, sociology and law. Scientific novelty of the work is seen in the fact that the new materials discovered by the author in these archives are introduced into scientific usage. It is argued that industrial discipline and criminality as social phenomena are traditionally researched by representatives of sciences such as law and sociology. It is stated that only several works can be mentioned within the historians’ works dedicated to the problems studied in the article within the USSR and the Sverdlovsk region in the specified period. It is declared that the choice of the research subject, in addition to a lack of historical research, is caused by the very significant role of rail transport in the economy. It is noted that one of the features of rail transport is the concentration in the sphere of its operation the large amounts of wealth. It is emphasized that the very specific nature of the functioning of the railways places high demands on the discipline of their personnel. It is proved that in the studied period the USSR was slowly overcoming the consequences of the Great Patriotic war. It is concluded that on the railroad the level of discipline was somewhat higher, and the level of crime was lower than in other sectors of the economy.

Keywords

• post-war years
• sverdlovsk oblast
• railway road
• industrial discipline
• offences
• theft