Documents of federal archives as a source for studying rural population's voluntary migrations to Siberia and the Far East in the 1930s

The aim of the article is to present the cognitive capabilities of documents stored in the Russian State Military Archive, the Russian State Archive of Economics and the State Archive of the Russian Federation, which became available in connection with their publication in the collection Eastern Vector of Resettlement Policy in the USSR in the Late 1920s - Late 1930s and the publication of a collection of documents The Tragedy of the Soviet Village. Collectivization and Dispossession in the study of resettlement processes in the USSR in the pre-war period, planned, regulated and supported by the state. Previously, documents relating to this period were kept secret, which is why this stage in the history of organized migrations to the eastern regions was not studied enough, while these "voluntary-forced" migrations played an important role in the settlement, agrarian and industrial development of Siberia and the Far East. Published sources are of different years and places of origin, differ in types (mostly they are office materials of various departments), require verification, in connection with which we used special methods: the historical-genetic method made it possible to restore the chronological sequence of events, highlight the main stages; the historical-comparative method helped to reveal common and special features in the process of implementing the resettlement policy; the statistical method contributed to the work with digital material. In the course of the study, documents related to the 1930s were studied, which showed that in the country during the period of collectivization of agriculture and the dispossession of the peasantry, in parallel with forced migrations, organized voluntary resettlements of entire collective farms and individual families were carried out in different regions, including Siberia and the Far East. These regions were traditionally the main recipients of the labor force due to the need for their settlement and economic development. The modernization of the country during the years of the first five-year plans required the intensification of the development of the eastern territories, the strengthening of the defense capability of the borders, and the creation of their own food base. The study showed that the central archives contain documents on voluntary Red Army and "kolkhoz" migrations, previously secret and inaccessible to researchers. Despite the fact that their number is limited, in combination with materials from the archives of individual regions, they can help to recreate a concrete historical picture of the mass resettlement in the 1930s, determine its effectiveness, identify the main forms, methods, organizational technologies, and directions of the resettlement movement and its approximate dimensions. The information contained in the documents makes it possible to better understand not only the complexity and inconsistency of the state's resettlement policy in these years, but also the social, political and economic situation in the country as a whole.