ABSTRACT
This chapter will discuss surveillance reports on the mood of the population (svodki o nastroenii naselenia, or svodki) and their importance as a source to the study of Russian and Soviet history. Utilized by multiple regimes beginning during the First World War, svodki represented the state’s attempt to collect, classify and interpret public opinion and attitudes of ordinary citizens. But surveillance was not simply an act of monitoring; rather, modern states sought to act on the information collected in order to transform society in its own ideological image.
The chapter will provide an overview of the use of svodki as a source in Western scholarship on Russian and Soviet history, from the ‘totalitarian’ framework of the Cold War era to new historiographical trends after the opening of the Soviet archives in the 1990s. I then provide contextual background on the use of surveillance reports during the First World War, Russian Revolution, and Civil War, highlighting continuities and shared practices between Reds and Whites. Finally, I provide a case study using svodki from the Russian Civil War in the Urals city of Ekaterinburg to introduce the reader to the genre and to demonstrate possible analytical approaches. This provincial perspective nuances national studies by raising fresh questions about the limits of state power and highlighting the diverse and often contradictory procession of events outside of the capital.
