“THE DISTORTION OF CLASS POLICY STEMMED FROM THE IMPURITY OF TAX BUREAUCRACY WITH EXTRANEOUS PEOPLE”: ORGANISING A CAMPAIGN FOR CLEARING OF TAX SERVICES

The aim of the study is to investigate into the tax bureaucracy control mechanism which was implemented under the campaign for collection of arrears from private entrepreneurs and for clearing of tax bureaucracy. The source for the research is the instructions of Central Headquarters of working team for patronage over USSR People’s Commissariat for Finance and the instructions of Sverdlovsk Regional Financial Administration in respect to Sverdlovsk regional financial department. Under the campaign not only fiscal but also political aims were present: to demonstrate the determination of the government in its fight against private sector and to organise a clearing of tax bureaucracy from the representatives of class extraneous social groups. The engagement of factory workers, true proletariat, able to gradually fulfil the designated aims was seen as a guarantee of the campaign. Active participation of citizens who were not professionally qualified for this campaign led to the abuse and violation of legislature. However, in the view of the organisers this fact was not seen as a flaw considering the political character of the campaign. Financial workers were seen as potential law-breakers in the instructions; their activities were evaluated as not effective enough and contradicting the ideology. This approach contradicted the presumption of innocence, discredited both an individual worker and a financial organisation. This campaign testified for radical attack on the New Economic Policy not only in respect to its mixed economy but also to the institutions that provided the functioning of market mechanism in Soviet Russia. Financial organisations either disappeared or their activity was essentially transformed under the mobilisation model of Soviet economy.

New Economic Policy, financial body, taxation, human resource management, class, revision, clearing, private sector