Elections to the Soviets in the Don and Kuban regions (1925-1926): problems of choice of the reforms' course

The article discloses the relationship of elections to the Soviets in the territory of the Don and Kuban regions with the escalation of conflicts in the mid-1920s and the curtailment of the new economic policy. The abolition of rigged elections to local authorities in the autumn 1924 was a manifestation not only of intra-party struggle, but also of search for a compromise with a large part of the country's population - the peasantry, the approval of new priorities for the implementation of the new economic policy. The novelty of the work is the disclosure of the relationship between the liberalization of election procedures in 1925-1926 and the formation of an elevated status of the Soviets as bodies of local self-government.