Cultural and educational work in the Red Army during the civil war in Russia: a lapidary historiographic review of Soviet literature published in the second half of the 1930s - the first half of the 1950s

Russian military history experience testifies that the historical phenomenon of party and political work functioned in the Armed Forces of the Soviet state. Within its framework, cultural and educational work was carried out as an integral part, but with a certain degree of independence. The problems of cultural and educational work were considered from a historiographic perspective in Soviet historical science. It took place in the system of theoretical and methodological coordinates, which was based on dogmatized Marxism in its Bolshevik dimension (read: Leninism), adapted to the needs of the communist party that ruled in the Soviet state. The author of the present research conducted in the format of a lapidary historiographic review, made an attempt to cover the Soviet literature published in the second half of the 1930s - the first half of the 1950s, which reflected certain aspects of cultural and educational work in the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army during the Russian Civil War (1918-1922). It is taken into account that the process of creating and building up historiographic sources in the chronological framework indicated above, took place under the conditions of permanent development of Joseph Stalin's cult of personality along the ascending line, which left a mark on the literature on the considered topic. It was established that in the second half of the 1930s - the first half of the 1950s there had not been published any studies dedicated specifically to cultural and educational work in the Red Army. The cultural and educational work was considered among other constituent parts of party and political work in the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army with this or that degree of detail. It is stated that nowadays a nihilistic attitude towards literature subjected to a historiographic review is unacceptable, only on the grounds that it appeared in Soviet historiography during the period of Joseph Stalin's cult of personality. These scientific works need to be reexamined, which is possible under the conditions of theoretical and methodological pluralism of opinions, which consolidated in modern Russian historical science.