District Committees of Public Security in Yakut Region in Period of Revolution of 1917: Forming and Activities

Abstract

The activity of district committees of public security, which began to appear after the formation of the Yakut Committee of public security on March 4, 1917, is considered. It is noted that numerous rural and volost committees were subject to the district committees. It is shown that in Yakutia of that period there were 5 districts (Yakutskiy, Vilyuyskiy, Olekminskiy, Verkhoyanskiy and Srednekolymskiy), which appeared after the release of “Regulations on the administration of the Siberian provinces” in 1822. It is reported that the main activities of the public security committees included the provision of food and the maintenance of order in the regions. It is shown that while in the majority of regions in the initial period of the revolution the representatives of the cadet party had the most power, in the Yakutsk region, the Bolsheviks and SRS had the power to control the whole region. A review of the archive materials is made. It is indicated that the greatest amount of material preserved on the activities of the Vilyuyskiy and Olekminskiy districts. The relevance of the study is due to the fact that in the modern period the history of local committees of public security is insufficiently studied, in turn, in the Soviet period, the activities of the committees have always been studied in the context of the problems of the formation of Soviet power. It is concluded that the activities of the committees had a positive impact on the economic condition of the region.