Protest in the Provinces : Coming to Terms with Capitalism in Russia's Company Towns

Protest in the Provinces studies protest in Russia''s company towns after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when reforms in Russia led to a severe economic depression and political chaos. Protests about these crises were scattered and varied. By examining the responses to the reforms by three company towns--Cherepovets (steel), Komsomolsk-na-Amure (defense), and Surgut (oil and gas)--this book argues that a city''s level of dependence on the central state and the presence or absence of elite divisions shape how local elites interact with the public, which influences the size and intensity of protests.

In the immediate aftermath of the Soviet Union''s collapse, Russia entered "shock therapy": a series of neoliberal and seemingly democratizing reforms that sought to quickly undo the decades-old communist planned economy, fused Party-State autocratic political system, and highly centralized government. Russians were indeed shocked--by the resulting runaway inflation, political chaos, declining living standards, rising unemployment, and persistent wage arrears.Protest in the Provinces examines the popular reactions to this dire economic decline, which varied in scale, intensity, and aims across similar industrial company towns during the 1990s. Analyzing local media, archival documents, and interviews, Allison D. Evans provides a detailed and comparative history of protests in three such cities, Cherepovets--dominated by the steel industry, Komsomolsk-na-Amure--by defense, and Surgut--by oil and gas. In doing so, she illuminates a range of strategies local elites used to control and respond to protesters, which were influenced by the primary industry''s level of dependence on the central state and the extent of elite unity.Unique in its close-range analysis of participation and protest in provincial cities, this book reshapes understandings of Russia''s transition to capitalism and provides insights into the activism that continues in provincial Russia today.