"We’re going to sow, not to remove mines": the local authorities and the total removal of mines in Kaluga region

Based on archival documents of the GKO, Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (b), the USSR Council of Ministers, structures of the USSR People's Commissariat of Defense, regional and district party and Soviet bodies, military units, military authorities, the Central Council of the USSR Osoaviakhim and its regional organizations, most of which are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, the role of regional and district authorities in the organization and conduct of solid demining of the typical agrarian region of the central Russia - the Kaluga region is examined. The approaches to the solution of this problem of the Center and the regional authorities are investigated. The dominance of the approach promoted by the regional and district leadership was not only a consequence of its leading role in the organization of demining in the field, but also reflected the gradual winding down of the space of non-economic coercion in the Soviet economy.

Kaluga Region, party and soviet leadership, miners, solid mine clearance, district committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Osoaviachim of the USSR