Abstract: The article examines the large-circulation newspapers of the oil industry enterprises of the Ural-Volga region in the 1960s-1980s as sources for the study of labor motivation. For the first time, newspapers produced at the oil enterprises of Bashneft, Permneft and Tatneft are being introduced into scientific circulation. Initially, an assessment of the information potential of the sources was carried out. Based on the selected materials, a content analysis of letters from oil workers to the newspaper of one of the divisions of the Permneft production association "Neftyanik Polazny" in 1973 - 1985 was performed. Descriptive methods of source analysis are also used in this study. Content analysis was provided by MAXQDA 2022 and UCINET software and consisted in analyzing the frequency of occurrence of selected categories and their visualization to assess the degree of significance of social and industrial topics related to labor motivation for oil workers. The study proved that for the employees of NGDU "Polaznaneft" the most urgent problems were related to "bottlenecks" in the social sphere and in the organization of production processes. In addition, it is noted that the category of "production management" was a key factor in solving various problems. The results of calculating the frequency of occurrence of categories and visualizing these frequencies can be useful for further research in the field of labor motivation.

Abstract: Тhe article discusses the information potential of sources related to the problems of wage inequality in Russia in general, and in the Central Industrial District (CID) in particular. Chronological framework of the study is 1910s – 1920s. The purpose of the study is to analyze archival materials of the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), the State Archive of the Tver Region (GATO), the State Archive of the Tula region (GATO), allowing to identify features in the study of wage differentiation in industry. The relevance of the study is due to the lack of a structured description of archival sources of wages in the specified period. The analysis of sources is done taking into account the representativeness of the results of archival heuristics carried out on the basis of scientific reference apparatus and documents from the funds of federal and regional archives. The archival materials considered in the work contain information about the wages of various categories of employees, their distribution by regional and professional principle, as well as changes in these indicators over time. The author comes to the conclusion that the degree of completeness of the source base varies for different categories of workers throughout the chronological framework under consideration, but this fact does not prevent the solution of certain issues related to wage inequality.

Abstract: This article describes the experience of content analysis of letters from oil industry workers in 1956. New little–studied sources are being put into circulation - the territorial-branch newspapers "Neftyanik of Tataria" and "Neftyanik of Bashkiria". The purpose of the study is to research the system of motivation of workers of oil-producing enterprises of the Ural-Volga region through the prism of their letters to the editorial offices of territorial-branch newspapers. The object of the study are the letters of employees published in newspaper issues for 1956. The comparison of letters published in newspapers was carried out in two aspects: by type of newspaper publisher and territorial affiliation. The article describes the experience of content analysis of letters from employees of associations and enterprises of the oil industry. The text of the article describes the analysis of letter materials carried out using the MAXQDA computer program, which implements the basic content analysis method. The use of the program made it possible to obtain data on the characteristic problems of concern to oil workers, the links between the identified categories. The UCINET program was used to visualize the data. The obtained results expand the understanding of the sources used in research on labor motivation, as well as directly supplement the data on motivation and stimulation of labor in the post-war USSR. The content analysis of the revealed semantic categories of letters showed the special importance of the category "production management" for solving both industrial and social issues.

Abstract: The question of the evolution of industrial motivation is a relatively new area of modern research in economic history. Active research on this topic in Russia began in the 1990s, relying mostly on the sources that characterize social aspects of industrial development of the Russian Empire and Soviet Russia of the 1920s – 1930s. The evolution of industrial motivation at the Soviet enterprises did not receive due attention. This article examines one of the key factors of industrial motivation –differentiation of wages based on the archival and published materials of the large oil and gas company “Tatneft”. The subject of this research is the dynamics of wages among various categories of Tatneft employees over the period from 1950s to 1980s. Research methodology leans on the principles of systematicity and historicism, as well as historical-comparative method and statistical analysis. The novelty lies acquisition of new knowledge on one of the crucial factors of incentivization and motivation of employees, as well as in introduction of new archival sources into the scientific discourse. The author concludes on the tendency towards equalize "net" salaries of different categories of employees of the company; however, the analysis of the dynamics of total wages of Tatneft employees taking into account bonuses, indicates a noticeable discrepancy.