The Genesis of the Soviet Regional Nomenklatura as an Element of the Nomenklatura System: a Case Study of Perm (Molotov) Oblast in the 1920s – early 1940s

The article reconstructs the formation process of the Soviet nomenklatura in the Perm (Molotov) Region. The purpose of the study is to show, on the basis of previously unpublished archival materials, how the process took place in the Urals, to identify its main stages and features. The problematic of the article is primarily due to the lack of publications on this topic, since research is usually focused on the study of party nomenklatura. The source base includes documents and materials from the Center for Documentation of Public Organizations of the Sverdlovsk Region, the Perm State Archive of Socio-Political History, and the Perm State Archive of the Perm Territory: resolutions, regulations, instructions, nomenclatures, and lists of nomenklatura workers dated 1920-1930. In the article, the author examines the nomenklatura from the standpoint of a systematic approach, highlighting the subsystem of the Soviet nomenklatura and focusing on the interrelationships of the system elements. The following periodization of the process of the Soviet regional nomenklatura formation is proposed: the genesis of the Soviet nomenklatura as part of the party one (1926-1936) and the formation of an independent branch of the Soviet nomenklatura (1937-1941). Based on a comparative analysis of the party and Soviet nomenklatura, the features of the Soviet nomenklatura structure are revealed: its specialization in the branches of housing and communal services and general administrative management, and a complex hierarchy of interactions with subordinate organizations. It is suggested that the emergence of the Soviet nomenklatura as a relatively independent element of the system was due to practical necessity (the complexity of managing the party nomenklatura), as well as the need to introduce personal responsibility for personnel decisions. Prospects for further research are seen in the need to differentiate the conceptual apparatus of the subject of research, a deeper study of the internal structure of the nomenklatura, as well as scrupulous identification of various interrelations of the nomenklatura system: both inter- and intra-nomenklatura