Adaptation Of Administrative Territorial Division During Change-Over To Planned Economy

The article touches upon the changes in the administrative territorial division of Eastern Siberia occurred from 1920 to 1937; the initial incentives of the administrative decisions are compared with their actual effects. The historical experience gives the possibility to assess the influence of the administrative territorial changes on the development of the regional economy. The Bolsheviks’ first large-scale reform in Eastern Siberia was the creation of national autonomies. The second great change of the Soviet government was “regionalization” of the mid-1920s, when the division into guberniyas and uyezds was replaced by the division into districts, and the local network was transformed from the volost one into the regional one. The third reform introduced in summer of 1930 partially revoked the second one as the districts were abolished. The three-level division (krai – district – region) became two-level one (krai – region). The region became the central authority able to inform the inferior structures of the governmental and party guidelines and to control their implementation. It is found out that the geography influence was stronger than the “leading willpower of the party” and theoretical fantasies concerning the speculation that the sudden start of the economic development could be caused by the administrative measures.