The financial situation of the Soviet intelligentsia in the period of the new economic policy

The article examines the processes related to the dynamics of the financial situation of the Soviet intelligentsia in the period of New Economic Policy (NEP). The key issues of the research are the measures of the Government policy to increase the living standards of intellectuals, its forms, and methods. A special emphasis is placed on grounds for refusing military-coercive methods by government officials to impact intelligentsia, in favour of financial support of this social stratum. There was an urgent need of Soviet authorities for certain intellectual production. This circumstance determined a highly differentiated approach to issues of financial support for intellectuals: the labor of technical professionals demanded by the regime, despite adverse public response, started to be highly paid. The «specialist» singling-out occurred among intelligentsia: intellectuals, who continued to exercise their occupation, were almost exclusively technical specialists. The «bourgeois specialists» were opposed to the humanitarian intelligentsia, whose professional skills were not claimed yet by the new Government. It was only towards the end of the 1920s that the living standards of teachers, cultural workers, etc., improved to some extent. The study highlights the compelling reasons for the overwhelming majority of intellectuals, despite some differences in their social and financial situation, to cooperate, though reluctantly, with the regime by the late 1920s. Note is taken that among the factors that positively influenced the intellectuals’ attitude towards the Soviet rule, the rise in financial living standards of intelligentsia in the 1920s is of particular importance.