able to advance in this direction. In January 1919, after the Battle of Shenkursk, the allied forces were driven out of the Shenkursk area. Battles around the station of Plesetskaya followed. On February 20, 1920, the Red Army entered Arkhangelsk. By that time, all allied troops were already evacuated.
In 1930s, the Soviets carried out the same experiments in economics as elsewhere in Soviet Union. The peasants and fishermen were forcibly organized into collective farms. These were heavily subsidized, which eventually brought the agriculture to the collapse in 1990s, when the subsidies stopped. Arkhangelsk Oblast was and remains attractive as an area for exile, forcible resettlement, and prison camps. Actually, the first prison camp, Solovki Prison Camp, was created in 1920 on the premises of the former Solovetsky Monastery. Novaya Zemlya from 1950s, when its population (mostly Nenets) was strongly recommended to leave, became the military ground for nuclear bomb testing.
Arkhangelsk Oblast proper was established in 1937. Before 1991, the high authority in the oblast was shared between three persons: The first secretary of the Arkhangelsk Oblast CPSU Committee (who in reality had the biggest authority), the chairman of the oblast Soviet (legislative power), and the Chairman of the oblast Executive Committee (executive power). In 1991 the CPSU lost all power. The head of the Oblast administration, and eventually the governor, came to be elected or appointed.
The economic crisis of 1990s, after the fall of the Soviet Union, struck Arkhangelsk Oblast very badly. Although there remains a strong demand for timber, the basis of the oblast's economy, the population of Archangeslk Oblast has steadily declined, especially in rural areas. Many villages either have been deserted, or are on the verge of disappearing
