"Great difficulties": A.M. Soifer's report on the problems of establishing the Kuibyshev aviation institute in 1942

The paper is devoted to passive resistance as a reaction of bureaucracy to the decision of the central government to establish the Kuibyshev Aviation Institute. The authors try to interpret the motives and logic of the behavior of officials, and also draft scenarios for resolving the conflict. Special attention is paid to the mechanism of interaction between the management of the Aviation Institute and the authorities of the Kuibyshev region. In the appendix to the article the authors publish the text of the memorandum of the first director of the institute A.M. Soifer to the secretary for the aviation industry of the Kuibyshev Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks N.I. Mosalov “On the deployment of the work of the Kuibyshev Aviation Institute”.