Ural in the context of the 1923 administrative reform projects

The article deals with the interaction of the central and local authorities in organizing the administrative division of the Urals in the early 1920s. The author describes three projects of the Urals’ division, which differed in size, borders and the status of the future administrative units. Analyzing the correspondence between the central and local commissions, the author states that the project implemented in the Urals was developed by the local authorities. The local project contradicted the idea of economic zoning and was not fully adopted at the center: according to the decision of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on November 3, 1923, the Ural region was established on a temporary basis, until the subsequent zoning of Siberia. This conclusion changes the image of economic zoning as a deliberate administrative reform and the experimental zoning of the Urals as the first step of this reform. The creation of the Ural region has become a concession to the regional leadership to gain support in the matter of organizing administrative and territorial reforms, as it solved the problem of eliminating the provincial division, studying the local economy, and delegating some power to the region. However, the lessons learned from the creation of the region and its subsequent functioning were taken into account in the administrative reforms at the remaining territory of the Soviet state and influenced the subsequent reform of the administrative division that followed in 1934.