Counter-Gift in the Provincial October: The Economy of Festive Exchange in the Southern Urals, 1924–1987

Abstract

The relevance of the study stems from the fact that the model of the Soviet festival as a system of gift exchange (J. Brooks, drawing on M. Mauss) was built on central press material and has not been tested against regional economic practice. The aim of the article is to verify this model on the material of Chelyabinsk Region and to identify its regional corrections. The sources include documents of the Chelyabinsk regional committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and city bodies of 1924–1961 (plans, resolutions, budget estimates, allocation orders) held in the United State Archive of Chelyabinsk Region and the Troitsk city archive, as well as a continuous survey of the anniversary issues of the newspaper “Chelyabinskiy rabochiy” for 1927–1987; comparative diachronic analysis and critical analysis of source vocabulary are applied. The results show that in the province the gift economy is documented directly, in formulas of “production gifts to the Motherland”, budget estimates and pledges. In 1927 the exchange was reciprocal and targeted; from the mid-1930s the counter-flow became obligatory and planned; in 1946 the holiday itself turned into a duty (“red convoy days”). By 1957–1961 the urban resident became the addressee of the gift, and by 1987 contract deliveries and self-financing became the unit of account.