The Image of the Real Socialism of the 1960s-1970s in the Memoirs of the Party Functionaries on the Oblast Level

Oberiukhtina M.L. The Image of the Real Socialism of the 1960s-1970s in the Memoirs of the Party Functionaries on the Oblast Level. This paper analyzes the image of the real socialism of the 1960s - 1970s, presented in the memoirs of the first and second secretaries of regional committees of the Communist party of the eight regions of the RSFSR. The body of sources consists of a unique diary of the secretary of the Penza regional committee, published in 1967, notes the secretary of the Magadan regional committee and of several post-Soviet memoirs – autobiographical narratives, the study of which requires a different approach. The paper which is based on the corpus of sources deals with the images of various elements of the soviet social-political system. The attitude of the memoirists to the two opposite components of Soviet society - the party leaders and the common people. The study touches upon the problem of inconsistency of late Soviet socialism promoted ideals, as well as the problem of the functioning of the socialist system in this inconsistent state ideology.