Bolshevik Leaders correspondence

Bolshevik leadership Correspondence. 1912-1927
Collection of documents 1996.
Compiled by: A.V.Kvashonkin, L.P.Kosheleva, L.A.Rogovaya, O.V.Khlevnyuk.

A. G. Beloborodov - V. I. Lenin

April 10, 1921

Rostov-on[a]-Don, 10.IV. 21 1

Vladimir Ilyich!

I have just returned from the Stavropol Provincial Congress of Soviets (the first congress after our arrival, until that time there was no elected power in the province). The mood of the congress was very indicative of the present mood in the province.

The uyezd congresses that preceded it consisted in the majority of non-Party people (by 60-65%). This is explained by the fact that the relations between the rural komyacheks and the masses have "disordered," since the komyaks have participated, and some quite successfully, in the implementation of the surplus appraisal. The majority of the county executive committees went to the Communists - both the pressure and the fact that non-Party people cannot allocate an appropriate number of their own to manage the departments of the executive committees.

At the provincial congress, the representation was as follows: communists - 69%, non-party people - 31%, 5 non-party people were elected to the provincial executive committee by decision of the provincial committee.

A new force has come to the province: demobilized Stavropol peasants - Budyonnovtsy and Zhlobintsy 2- led by [o] their commanders. They are extremely united and represent an element that can play a fairly significant role in the life of the province. Many of them are communists. This is the peasant flank of our Party, which differs from the rest of the masses of the peasantry only in greater consciousness, but which has retained a completely peasant outlook and rural sentiments. They were the brightest spot in the general mass of delegates to the congress (out of the total number of delegates, 40% were participants in the civil war). The revolutionary merits of those around them are regarded by these Budyonnovist communists from the point of view of direct participation in the civil war and the ability to fight. Partisans and independentists, they cannot stand visitors, they are drawn to power, they have the highest opinion of their abilities. They wanted to see only "their own" in the Gubispolkom.

The highlight of the congress was the sowing campaign and the surplus appraisal. The province completed only 43% of the apportionment (out of 30 [million poods] - 13), but everyone, including the communists, swore that everything was taken “under the broom”, that there were no seeds, there was nowhere to get it and it would be possible to sow no more than 20-30 % of spring compared to the task. There were reports from the field that the sowing that had begun was going poorly, some did not leave at all. Allowed free purchase and transportation of seed material; then, when reports were received from some districts that the necessary grain had been found while searching for seed grain, there was some pressure on the provincial authorities. The focus has shifted to the work of local authorities. At meetings of the faction of the congress, passions sometimes flared up to the point that they scourged the "policy of the People's Commissariat of Food and the People's Commissariat of Agriculture", declaring that the "statists" working in the province (i.e. standing on the national point of view) brought the economy of the peasants to ruin. The epithet "statist" in the mouths of some delegates was a swear word.

The message about the replacement of the surplus appropriation with a tax was adopted at the congress with restraint. Partly, because at that time even the all-Russian tax figure was not known. The same attitude on the ground. Many, especially in remote places, see this as serving the same apportionment under a new sauce (“although the surplus after the tax is allowed to be exchanged, it will be squeezed out again “under the broom” and there will be nothing left for exchange”).

The question of the tax was considered in the agricultural section of the congress. They spoke out against progressiveness - "the tax should be without progress, on condition - in no case should wage labor be allowed." They recognized it necessary "to increase the organization of cooperatives so that the surplus products of the peasants would not go to speculators, but would be exchanged in cooperatives."

It is not yet possible to obtain a general real picture of the attitude towards the tax and information about the results of sowing spring crops. It will be possible to report in a week - in a week and a half. All our activities reach the village very slowly.

Some data received from the Kuban region speaks for the fact that the announcement of the tax immediately deflated the atmosphere (the explanation is clear: the Kuban Cossack, in terms of his mental development, is superior to the Stavrop[olsk] peasant). Sowing of spring crops is more successful.

Before the next harvest, we must harvest 10 million [poods] in the southeast by appropriation (instead of the 65 m [million] that were not harvested). Since the address to the peasants [from] the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars states that "from now on, the allocation is canceled", we called this allocation "outfit". It is still difficult to judge whether this "outfit" will be realized, although the Stavropol[ol] congress, for example, adopted a proposal to carry out five million in the Stavropol[ol] province.

Upon arrival, I learned about the correspondence between Frumkin and the Central Committee on the transfer of the 1st Cavalry to the Donoblast region. If this were done, it would lead, on the one hand, to the fact that the army [would] cease to exist, since the fighters would, of course, go home: to the Kuban, Stavropol and the Don region. On the other hand, it would be such an invasion of politically unbridled elements that it would ruin all work, and, first of all, food.

I am sending two issues of the Stavropol[ol] statistic[ic] bulletin. There are extremely interesting data on the changes in the composition of the population caused by the war.

A. Beloborodov

RTSKHIDNI. F. 2. On. 1. D. 18266. L. 1-3. Autograph.

Notes:

1 Lenin read this letter on April 17, 1921 (V. I. Lenin. Biographical Chronicle. Vol. 10. P. 321). At the top of the first page of the letter is Lenin's inscription: "Vol. Molotov. To the attention of all members of the P-Bureau. NB important about the Budennovites, etc. 17/IV Lenin”; as well as Molotov’s note: “V. Molotov read

Send to the members of the p/b ”and the signatures of L. Kamenev and M. Kalinin.

2 This refers to the Red Army soldiers mobilized from the military formations of Budyonny and Zhloba.