Smychka () was a popular political term in

Soviet Russia The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...

and the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. It can be roughly translated as "collaboration in society" "union", "alliance", "joining the ranks". The generic meaning of the noun " смычка", derived from the verb "сомкнуть", is joining of two things: contact, joint, linkage, coupling, like joining the two opposite branches of a railroad whose construction was started from both ends. The best known example of the usage of the term was the

motto A motto (derived from the Latin language, Latin , 'mutter', by way of Italian language, Italian , 'word' or 'sentence') is a Sentence (linguistics), sentence or phrase expressing a belief or purpose, or the general motivation or intention of a ...

and the Soviet politics of "smychka of the city and the village" ("смычка города и деревни"), which was understood as the alliance of

proletariat The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian or a . Marxist ph ...

and the poor

peasantry A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasan ...

."The Economic Organization of War Communism 1918-1921", by Silvana Malle, 2002, , section 8.1: "Military Emergency and Smychka
p. 396
/ref>

References

{{reflist

External links

1924: Scissors Crisis
- "Smychka and the Scissors Crisis", at ''Seventeen Moments in Soviet History'', an essay by

Lewis Siegelbaum Lewis H. Siegelbaum is Jack and Margaret Sweet Professor Emeritus of History at Michigan State University (retired in 2018). His interests include 20th century Europe, Russia and Soviet Union. He has been with MSU since 1983.

Soviet internal politics Soviet phraseology