“All must be fired immediately”: optants in Soviet civil service (from the history of municipal economy of Petrograd in the early 1920's)

The article based on previously unknown archival documents investigates the measures of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd (Leningrad) Provincial Soviet against optants who lived in Petrograd and Petrograd province in the early 1920s. Particular attention is paid to actions taken by the Administration Department of the Petrograd Executive Committee aimed at the dismissal of the optants working in the Department of municipal economy, as well as the anti-optants campaign in the Petrograd Soviet press. It is concluded that these activities were designed to purge public institutions from the optants who were to be deported from Soviet Russia (USSR).