The Civil War in the Politics of Memory and Historical Memory of Soviet Society in the 1920

The purpose of the article is to analyze the conceptual foundations and mechanisms for the implementation of the memory politics in relation to the Civil War in the early Soviet period, representations of the memory of it in the political and social practices of that time. The study was based on normative, informational and analytical documents published and archived by the Communist Party and Soviet state bodies (RCP (b)/VKP (b), NKVD of the RSFSR, Red Army, OGPU), as well as on resolutions of workers and employees meetings, letters of Soviet citizens to the authorities and press, materials of the periodicals, poetry. The article discusses the role of the Civil War period in the formation of memory politics in relation to its events, the formation and development of memorial practices, motives and factors for the adoption of the official memorial discourse on the Civil War in early Soviet society. The author analyzes the role of the main actors and tools used in the politics of memory, proves that both the state and society actively participated in the formation of the Civil War image, and the memory itself was "multivariate". he study concluded that the period of the Civil War played a fundamental role in the formation of the value, ideological and socio-psychological foundations of its perception in early Soviet society, in the formation of the basic mechanisms of the Bolshevik memory politics in relation to its events. The population needed to overcome traumatic memories of the practices of violence and survival, sought to adapt to the new reality, used reinterpretation of their own experience. Politically active, sincerely believing in the ideals of October, part of the population was involved in the politics of memory, not only responding to the calls of the communist party and the Soviet state, but also showing creative energy and initiative. The interpretative model of the history of the Revolution and Civil War, proposed by the authorities, explained the reasons for the birth of the Soviet state and it prospects, became "a foundation myth", the core of the new historical consciousness and identity of the Soviet people. At the same time, the memory of the Civil War was multivariate: on the one hand, idealized memory fueled protest moods and behavior, on the other, traumatic memories were preserved among peasants, workers, intellectuals, people who had moved into "internal", and sometimes open, opposition to the Bolsheviks.