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Transcripts from Soviet ArchivesVolume XI - 1931
II. Anti‐Soviet parties, nationalist organizations and groups in the USSR
Reference from the SO OGPU with a report to the management on the case of the ʺRussian Central Committee of the RSDLPʺ. December 26, 1930
No. 2
Reference from the SO OGPU with a report to the management on the case of the ʺRussian Central Committee of the RSDLPʺ 68a
Top secret
Head of SO OGPU Agranov
I. The nature, social base, personnel and objectives of the organization
Sher V.V. On November 30 of this year, he showed: “During my sabotage activity, I had the opportunity to check once again whether the work I was doing coincided with the directives of the Menshevik Central Committee. I met three times with a member of the Central Committee Abramovich during his stay in the USSR. ʺ “During these conversations, I could establish that: 1. The Central Committee has entirely embarked on a sabotage path in the struggle against Soviet power. 2. The Central Committee blocked with the engineering and industrial circles (the Trade and Industrial Party). 3. The Central Committee takes positive account of the possibility of intervention. 4. The Central Committee enjoys monetary support from groups awaiting intervention. ʺ
Zalkind L.B.December 2 of this year showed on the question of organization and cadres: “Strengthening the class line, the rapid elimination of all private capitalist elements in the city and countryside, the planned pace of social and technical reconstruction of industry and agriculture prompted the Central Committee of the Mensheviks abroad to make a decision on the transition to active opposition to the new course by supporting and organization of sabotage of economic construction in the USSR. The foreign Central Committee rightly believed that this decision was fully consistent with the mood of the Menshevik elements located within the USSR, and that it would find among them sufficient support for the implementation of its decisions. ʺAccording to the plan outlined by the Central Committee, both the central bureau and local committees, as well as grassroots cells, were to be built and recruited from the Menshevik staff of the state apparatus.ʺ
Petunin K.G. December 16, 1930 showed: “The main measures outlined by the Union Bureau for the implementation of the directive of the foreign Central Committee, consisted of the following:
1. To organize in all major central economic institutions, along with the organizations of the RSDLP, special sabotage organizations.
2. Retaining the leading position of the organizations of the RSDLP, involve anti‐Soviet persons in sabotage organizations who could by their participation contribute to the implementation of measures outlined by the RSDLP.
3. The main point and method of sabotage should be the plans of the corresponding economic systems, in the preparation and implementation of which it was necessary to create disproportions and bottlenecks, in order to thus create crises in various economic sectors”.
Zalkind LB. On December 4, 1930, showing the content of the work of the plenary sessions of the Central Committee, in particular the work of the first plenum on the organizational issue, he says:, that part of the employees of the Soviet state apparatus, whose roots are connected with the past, which are now being quickly replaced by a new shift. The unfolding purge of the Soviet apparatus has brought these elements to such a state that they represent extremely favorable material for recruiting into the ranks of the RSDLP. The urban commercial petty bourgeoisie presents the same favorable material. ʺ
Further, Zalkind, setting out Grohmanʹs report ʺOn the differences in the CPSU (b) and the RSDLPʺ at the third plenum, says: ʺOne of the bases to which it was intended to attach the work of the Social Democratic Party was the right deviation in the CPSU. The attitudes of the Right deviation, if they had triumphed, would have served as a reliable soil on which the Menshevik shoots would later grow. In essence, there are no qualitative fundamental disagreements between the attitudes of the right deviation of the CPSU and our platform. ʺ ʺAll the proposals of the right deviation, only more sharply expressed, we could put forward a minimum as our next program.ʺ ʺIn essence, we are the RSDLP, we are a continuation of the right deviation.ʺ
Groman V.G. December 15, 1930 shows: “With regard to the formation of party cells in institutions, it was decided to start organizing all the Menshevik elements in each institution, and also to try to get their representatives to local and factory committees. The very first attempts to organize the forces showed that ordinary employees do not go, that bringing their people to the local committees is not successful, since the guiding role of the communist cells turned out to be extremely clearly expressed, there were no connections with factories and factories, at least with the working environment, hence and it turned out what was stated above, namely, that the actual composition of the party cells was formed from groups of so‐called responsible workers, which to a large extent predetermined the tactics of party work. ʺ
Volkov I.G. On December 17, 1930 he showed: “The organizational question was discussed at the first meeting of the Union Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP in 1927. The message on this issue was made by Sher. The speaker informed the directives of the foreign Central Committee that it was necessary to start organizing the mass of the party in the USSR. First of all, it is necessary to gather the old Menshevik cadres. The main support at first should be employees, in order to gradually move to the recruitment of workers. It was decided to create Menshevik cells in the peopleʹs commissariats and large enterprises, while observing the strictest secrecy. ʺ
On December 14, 1930, a member of the State Bankʹs cell, Antokolsky, testifies about the organization: ʺThe main goal of the Menshevik organization was to overthrow Soviet power through armed intervention, led by France, with the participation of limitrophic states, such as Romania, Poland and others.ʺ ʺThe organization has its own cells in a number of state enterprises, where work is being carried out to attract new members from industrial and other workersʺ [...] ʺas a result of the work of the cells, there have already been cases of workersʹ unrest and discontent in a number of enterprises.ʺ ʺIt was also said here about the discontent of the upper part of the peasantry, mainly the kulaks.ʺ ʺIt was said about the need for the Menshevik organization to use these sentiments among the kulaks and the wealthy peasantry in the sense of organizing peasant unrest and armed uprisings.ʺ
We have different attitudes in the testimony of M.P. Yakubovich, a member of the RSDLP Central Committee. On December 8, 1930, he says: “Since the allied organization of the RSDLP, led by its new Central Committee, emerged as an illegal organization, it is quite obvious that at its very inception it was intended to seek and achieve its legality, which implied the inevitability of the counter‐revolution sooner or later., performed with a certain participation of the RSDLP. Thus, the question of the open counter‐revolutionary nature of the RSDLP does not need further clarification. It is only necessary to reveal in what forms and under what conditions it was conceived for the leaders of the RSDLP its possible participation in the preparation and execution of a counter‐revolutionary coup. Essentially, only two basic methods of action are possible here, with only a few compromises in favor of one or the other. One is the path that the Bolshevik Party once followed in its preparation for the overthrow of first the tsarist autocracy, and then the bourgeois‐democratic system, the path of political education of the organization of revolutionary or, as in this case, counter‐revolutionary activity of the masses in order to lead them into an uprising. Or another, closer in historical tradition to Menshevism, waiting for an upsurge in the revolutionary activity of the masses in order to timely lead their action.
The first path ‐ Menshevism ‐ in its past has always been characterized as Blanquist and conspiratorial and categorically rejected the possibility for Marxists to follow it. Of course, the strength of the historical tradition manifested itself in this case in deciding the question of the methods of political activity of the RSDLP, but even depending on it, it is quite obvious that in Soviet conditions, with a mass, proletarian nature of power, preparations for the armed overthrow of the Bolshevik dictatorship, even if the 100% Blanquist conspiracy is simply unthinkable. There remained, therefore, the only possible way ‐ the expectation of an upsurge of a counterrevolutionary wave, which should be caused by the wrong policy of the Bolshevik Party in order to lead this wave of mass upsurge and take its political leadership into our own hands. For this purpose, the Social Democratic Party did not have to carry out any mass work, this work was done for it by history, using the mistakes and crimes of the Bolsheviks. The RSDLP had only to train the cadres of the future mass leadership, rallying the old Menshevik cadres, replenishing them with all caution with fresh elements, and, most importantly, giving them in its instructions, first, clear political decisions that would answer the questions of current policy and explain them. as well as defining tactics for the period of time when events should break out, the complex of which is the concept of a counter‐revolutionary coup, and, secondly, clear programmatic decisions on the main economic and political issues that set the partyʹs tasks the day after the counter‐revolutionary coup. To this and only to this, with the consistent implementation of the second method of participation in the preparation of the counter‐revolutionary coup, the activities of the RSDLP should be reduced: the organizational cohesion of the old Menshevik cadres, very careful replenishment of them with fresh elements, supplying them with clear political decisions on all the main issues of current policy, as well as program decisions defining the tasks of the party after the coup; no propaganda, let alone agitational work, no organization of the masses ‐ the masses will come themselves, when the hour strikes, then broad party cadres will come. Any enthusiasm for mass work is a senseless violation of elementary conspiracy under Soviet conditions and the risk of unnecessary waste of personnel required at the time of a mass counter‐revolutionary action. However, such a consistent and straightforward point of view, seemingly divided in principle, never found firm support in the Central Committee, which made a number of compromises towards the careful and half‐hearted application, at least in some cases, of methods of mass work: conducting propaganda circles, speeches at work meetings, issuing leaflets, etc. True, the use of these methods of work was sporadic and accidental, but still took place. I was a fanatical opponent of this ʺoutburstʺ and violation of conspiracy, but did not find support in the Central Committee ‐ N.N. Sukhanov made fun of me. However, I did not find enough consistency in myself for the unconditional and straightforward implementation in life of the principles that I very zealously defended in words. On the question of the permissibility of sabotage activities, I, together with the entire Central Committee, completely rolled away from the principled positions on which we stood. The Central Committee, and I in its composition, considered it possible to use the widespread sabotage of bourgeois specialists, and, in a sense, to ʺleadʺ it in order to exacerbate the discontent of the masses and accelerate the onset of the counter‐revolutionary explosion. The Central Committee did not take upon itself the leadership of either all sabotage activities in the country, or the commission of individual sabotage acts. The RSDLP as a political party did not directly participate in them, but the Central Committee authorized the participation of individual party members in this activity and even, to a certain extent, recommended it.
With the exception of isolated isolated cases of mass counterrevolutionary work and participation in sabotage activities carried out by non‐party organizations, the work of the RSDLP was reduced to the performance of the functions I have outlined above. Party organizations or cells were built either in separate large central institutions, where a sufficient number of party members were accumulated for this, or they united party members who worked in several institutions, or all‐party members who worked in a certain city. These organizations contacted the Central Committee in the person of the organizational group that existed under it. The Central Committee supplied the organizations with informational literature, in which tactical decisions of the Central Committee on issues of current Soviet policy were to play an important role.
And in the testimony of December 17, 1930, Yakubovich says: “Participation in sabotage work, both mine and my political associates, became possible only as a result of the corresponding decision and instructions from the foreign party center of the Mensheviks. Moreover, the very idea of using social democrats working in Soviet institutions of their official position for purposes of a disorganizing character, as far as I know, first arose abroad, and the political tasks of disorganizing activity were established there. The decision on this issue took place at the very beginning of 1927, since during this period of time it became known to me from A.B. Stern, who, along with several others, maintained continuous contact with the Central Committee of the RSDLP in Berlin. Here I am making changes and corrections to my testimony dated November 12 of this year, where I incorrectly stated the content of my conversation with A.B. Stern, or, more precisely, several of my conversations with him on the topic of wrecking work and its tasks. A.B. Stern informed me that the Central Committee of the RSDLP, in connection with the ongoing evolution of the course of the economic policy of the Soviet government and the methods of its implementation, considers it necessary to intensify the political activity of Social Democracy in the USSR, in order to pass from passively waiting for the development of historical phenomena to direct participation in accelerating the onset of a counter‐revolutionary situation. The Central Committee came to the conclusion that in the concrete conditions of Soviet reality and soberly assessing the available quantitative and qualitative composition of the social democratic forces in the USSR, it should be limited by the old methods of propaganda and agitation, as the main means of influencing the working people and inciting them against the existing political and economic system is impossible. It is necessary to show maximum flexibility and to find methods of political action that specifically correspond to the given concrete political and economic conditions, as well as the state of the social democratic forces in the USSR. In such a specific way, the Central Committee recognizes the use by the Social Democrats of their position and actual influence in work in Soviet state and cooperative organizations in order to aggravate economic difficulties caused by the policies of the CPSU, and first of all, associated with a shortage of industrial goods for personal consumption and food products. Since the planned maneuvering of the available resources of scarce goods is one of the most important links in overcoming the difficulties experienced, it is extremely important to introduce disorganization into this particular branch of work in order to exacerbate and bring to the extreme limit the manifestation of a shortage of mass goods. consumption, especially in large industrial centers and other important points in the country. The task of the disorganizing activity in this case should be to create a situation of manufactured goods and food shortages in the USSR, or, in any case, external signs of such a situation.
Ioffe M.N. November 18, 1930 shows: “I, like a number of other members of sabotage organizations, from the very beginning of sabotage activities knew that the leadership came from the Menshevik center, which through its representatives in individual sabotage organizations, that is, through the leaders of these organizations conducts certain sabotage tactics. ʺ
In his testimony of December 18, 1930, Ioffe says: “Makarov, the leader of the Menshevik cell of the MTC, as well as Lyubinsky and I, all the time tried to give the cell a systematic character, so that from organized conversations on exciting current topics to move in a certain order to the elaboration of individual issues ... And although we have not completely outlived these conversations, nevertheless, since 1928, especially in the second half of it, the work of the cell has improved. We began to seriously study the questions after hearing an appeal by the Russian Central Committee to the members of the RSDLP, which indicated that the period of passive contemplation had passed, that each member of the Menshevik party must prepare himself to transfer party work to the masses. This appeal indicated that in order to be able to explain to the masses the goals, objectives and tactics of the RSDLP, you need to be able to give a proper criticism of the theory and practice of Bolshevism, therefore party members were called upon to carefully study all decisions of congresses, conferences and plenums of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b), illuminating them from the point of view of the theoretical and tactical guidelines of Menshevism. In accordance with this directive, we are putting both individual issues and the resolutions of the plenums of the Central Committee of the All‐Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) as a whole for discussion, and at our disposal were not only officially published resolutions, but also materials of party decisions sent out by the Central Committee of the All‐Union Communist Party only in the party order”.
Sokolovsky A.L. December 15 this year shows: “A unifying moment, a common platform on which all the indicated persons from different directions were blocked ‐ from the left internationalists to the former right defencists 69‐ the following circumstances appeared: complete confusion and disorientation of the Menshevik intelligentsia of various shades in connection with the onset of a new stage in 1928, a new sharp upsurge of the socialist revolution after the transition to the reconstruction period and the start of the development of socialist relations in the countryside. The mood was such that even such workers as, for example, A.V. Stern and I, who recognized the October revolution as a socialist revolution and shared the basic economic principles of the general line of the All‐Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, believed that measures in the countryside and high, sharply taken rates in the entire national economy would cause a deep economic crisis. The administrative interference in the economic process was especially frightening. These are the points of departure for the revitalization of Menshevik sentiments. A positive incentive for the rapprochement of these persons with different political aspirations was the general desire to influence in an organized manner the change in the course of economic policy of the government and the party in the sense of softening tension and reducing the pace of development of various sectors of the national economy, slowing down the pace of introducing socialist relations in the countryside. Most of the participants in this group believed that it was necessary to achieve only the gradual elimination of private property relations in the peasantry on the basis of economic displacement of the private sector by the socialist sector without the help of administrative measures that could create acute difficulties and bring the entire national economy to disorder. The impact on the economic policy of the government was conceived in the form of an active influence of the employees of the state apparatus on the elaboration of long‐term plans and annual control figures, on the development of directives and general decrees, on the development of major measures of an economic nature. ʺ “There was no strictly defined political physiognomy of the Bureau, since, along with right‐wing Menshevik views, there were leftist trends that considered the Soviet system unshakable. So, for example, Stern and I recognized the Soviet system as the most perfect form for the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialist construction with the introduction of the following adjustments: the abolition of the death penalty, freedom of speech and freedom of the press for socialist parties. ʺ
II. Sources of funding, block with TCH, Industrial Party and military work
Cher VV. November 30, 1930, speaking about the plenum of the Central Committee in 1930 and the decisions taken at it, shows: “The Central Committee approved the decision on a bloc with the Industrial Party and the connection with Torgprom, proposed by the foreign Central Committee, and authorized the financing of the foreign Central Committee by the Torgprom. At the same time, it was proposed to form a triune bloc of the RSDLP, TKP and the Industrial Party. ʺ
Groman V.G... in the testimony of December 15, 1930, gives a slightly different statement about the bloc with the TKP and the Industrial Party. He says: “The question of the attitude towards other anti‐Soviet organizations [is that] the members of the Union Bureau were looking for allies in the struggle against the Soviet regime. Sukhanov and Groman kept close contact with the emerging TKP represented by Kondratyev, discussing with him the general, economic and political situation and possible prospects for a coup. There was an attempt to contact the engineering center through Kondratyev, but it did not go beyond one informational meeting, since the representatives of the engineering center did not appear for a second invitation. In this meeting, it became clear against the working and directly restoration program of the engineering center, even with a military dictatorship.
IG Volkov. December 17 this year shows: “On the question of intervention, it was reported that a directive had been received from the foreign Central Committee, which indicated that intervention at the moment is an inevitable evil, and therefore it must be supported. In the event of intervention, it was planned to establish a bloc and agreements with other parties and groups both within the USSR and abroad, such as, for example, with the TKP, the Industrial Party and, in particular, with Torgprom. As far as I remember, no specific decisions on this issue were made by the Union Bureau. Comrade was instructed. Sheru on this issue to develop specific proposals and submit to the steering group. ʺ
If a member of the Central Committee Volkov I.G. does not clearly formulate the decisions of the Central Committee on a bloc with the TKP and the Industrial Party, then A.I. Antokolsky, a member of the State Bankʹs cell. December 14, 1930 shows: ʺThe Menshevik organization, in order to successfully carry out the tasks set by it to prepare for an armed intervention, entered into contact and contacted the Industrial Party and the TKP.ʺ Antokolsky is aware of this, despite the fact that the names of the Industrial Party and the TKP were conspiratorial.
Ginsburg AM. December 16, 1930 on this issue shows that even while Abramovich was in Moscow in July 1928, the latter in a conversation with him pointed out the need for a known contact with the Industrial Party and the TKP, while the name ʺIndustrial Partyʺ was established at the end of 1928.
Yakubovich and Sokolovsky give significantly excellent testimonies about the block. So, Yakubovich on December 8, 1930 shows: “1. On the attitude towards the Labor Peasant Party ‐ the community of the immediate political tasks pursued by both parties was established, and the readiness to go for a temporary political coalition in order to combine the efforts of the workers ʹand peasantsʹ democracy in the direction of creating a democratic state system that would protect the economic, social and political interests of the proletariat and the peasantry on the basis of their reasonable combination, without suppression of one of the contracting parties. The need to establish political contact with the Labor Peasant Party was recognized even now. 2.
Sokolovsky A.L... (protocol without date) shows that even on the pages of the Socialist Bulletin Dan and Abramovich spoke in favor of ʺthe practice of temporary blocking with labor and other parties.ʺ He shows: “On the issue of the attitude towards the TKP and other organizations, the Union Bureau, taking into account some commonality of the immediate political tasks of the RSDLP and the TKP, decided ‐ in order to create such a state system that would ensure the real protection of the political and economic interests of the proletariat and peasantry, go to temporary agreements with the peasant party on certain issues. The Bureau allocated Groman and Sukhanov for contact with the TCH, and it was agreed that the Bureau would not interfere with the work of the TCH, just like the latter in the work of the Bureau. At this meeting, the beginning of the establishment of mutual information on certain issues through Groman and Ginzburg with the Industrial Party, which carried out sabotage work in industry, was laid. The social nature and tactics of the TKP and the Industrial Party were generally alien to the Mensheviks. But on certain issues of counterrevolutionary activities leading, as a result, to the overthrow of the Bolshevik dictatorship, temporary agreements were recognized as acceptable. These agreements were consistent with the directives of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, whose leaders F. Dan and R. Abramovich and others spoke out even in the Socialist Bulletin for the practice of temporary blocking with labor and other parties in order to contact the struggle against the Bolshevik dictatorship.
In his testimony on November 30, 1930, Cher says that the Central Committee was financed by the Torgprom. And in the testimony of
December 5, 1930 on the same issue he says the following: “When we (the Russian Central Committee of the RSDLP) received a directive from the foreign Central Committee on the transition to disorganizing work in various sectors of the USSR national economy, that is, from about the beginning of 1928, funds began to flow. I received money from V.G. Groman, moreover, I heard from Groman and Abramovich when he was in Moscow that funds for maintaining the work are allocated by foreign Social Democratic parties, especially the German party, and, moreover, part of the funds comes directly from the 2nd International and Cooperative Alliance. Abramovich and Groman pointed out that when expanding the work, we,
LN Yurovsky. December 5, 1930 shows on this question: he believes that the Central Committee of the Mensheviks abroad received money from the Amsterdam International. There are no other, more specific indications about the sources of funding for the Central Committee of the RSDLP.
About military work Sher V.V. November 30, 1930 shows: “On the issue of collective farm development and the prospects associated with peasant uprisings, it was decided to immediately use the discontent of the peasants in connection with dispossession and the formation of collective farms to organize local uprisings. I was tasked with coordinating these actions with the TCH. As a result of my negotiations with the TCH represented by L.N. Yurovsky. a united military organization was formed, which included from the TCH Yurovsky L.N. and Kondratyev ND, and from the RSDLP ‐ I, Cher. The military organization was initially called the Military Commission. The military organization did the following work: through the Menshevik organizations at the Tula Arms Factory, I obtained weapons, which, by agreement with Yurovsky, were sent to the appropriate addresses in the TCH organization. Besides,
In the testimony of December 9 of this year. Cher, confirming his work in the military commission and the receipt of weapons from Tula, indicates that he sent Timofeev, a member of the State Bankʹs cell, for weapons. He connected the latter with Zalkind. There are no testimonies from Zalkind and Timofeev, as well as other defendants on this issue.
III. Stay of Abramovich in the USSR
On the question of Abramovichʹs stay in the USSR, there is the following evidence. Cher on December 30 this year shows that he had three dates in the summer of 1928 December 5 of this year. Cher reveals that Abramovich was in July 1928.
Zalkind December 2 of this year shows that Abramovich came to organize the Bureau of the Central Committee at the beginning of 192829. And his second conversation with Abramovich ʺtook place in the early autumn of 1929 in Sheraʹs office at the State Bank.ʺ
Ginzburg A.M. December 16 this year shows that Abramovich came between the first and second plenums of the Central Committee (192829). Groman December 17 this year shows that Abramovich came in the summer of 1928 ʺto finalize the organization organized by the Mensheviks within the USSR and [with the goal of] insisting on a change in tactics.ʺ
When Grohman asked in the presence of Cher what Abramovich looked like when he saw him, he replied evasively ʺwas probably with a changed appearance.ʺ A search carried out at Abramovichʹs sister in Moscow confiscated his letters dated May 16 and November 1, 1928. The interrogated sister testified that she had not seen Abramovich for a long time and about his stay in the USSR in 1928‐1929. I didnʹt hear anything.
IV. Peripheral organizations
A number of testimonies show that peripheral organizations were in Kharkov, Rostov, Nizhny Novgorod, Saratov, Leningrad, Tula, Astrakhan, Chita, Novosibirsk, and the Urals. By now it has been found out that the Ukrainian and Rostov organizations do not exist. Cher, who testified about this, admitted that they were fictional. According to Lezhnevʹs testimony, the organization included Feitelson, deputy head of the Credit Department of the All‐Ukrainian Office of the State Bank. When he was arrested and interrogated by the GPU of the Ukrainian SSR, it was found out that Feitelson is a philistine, not interested in any social and political work.
Tsederbaum‐Yezhov S.O., named by Sher as the head of the Lower Volga organization, was interrogated in October of this year, and testified about his connections with Sukhanov‐Groman:
“On the question of citizen Sukhanovʹs visit to me and the political conversation with him, I answer: in principle, I do not consider it possible to report to anyone about my visitors and conversations with them. As for my attitude towards Sukhanov, Groman and others, their political program is not clear to me. Suffice it to say that I remained, as I was, in my basic views a Menshevik, for whom, of course, such things as, for example, ʺthe formation of a workersʹ party with a socialist tingeʺ, etc., are unacceptable. But regardless of the political platform of citizen Sukhanov and his like‐minded people, I must point out that I could not have any political affair with them due to my distrust of him as a politician, since he does not have sufficient political stability. I don’t use to talk to people with excessive haste and changing his views repeatedly. This applies not only to citizen Sukhanov, but also to V.G. Grohman, who left the RSDLP with the motivation that he ʺquestioned the basic tenets of Marxism and considers it necessary to revise them,ʺ citizen Bazarov, who changed positions several times over the decade. I am not talking about the others in view of the fact that there is no political or party past behind them. Political activity for me, as for an old party and responsible leader, is conceivable only within the party framework, on party instructions, with party people. ʺ
No other arrested persons have confirmed the existence of
organizations in the indicated places.
V. Organizational and technical issues
1. Composition of the Central Committee of the RSDLP
Cher in the testimony of December 5 and 9 of this year. denies that Volkov and Petunii were members of the Central Committee, while they themselves recognize themselves as members of the Central
Committee.
Fin‐Enotaevsky on December 17, 1930 shows that he knows Groman and Stern among the leaders of the center. He was invited for an interview at the center in the presence of other persons: A. Stern, N. Sukhanov, V. Bazarov and N. Kondratyev. Participated in 6‐7 meetings that took place in the apartments of Groman or Kondratyev.
Yakubovich claims in his testimony that Sukhanov was the general secretary of the Union Bureau of the Central Committee. Zalkind (a member of the Central Committee), who gave frank testimony, asserts that Sukhanov was not a member of the Central Committee, pointing out only that he saw Sukhanov at the plenum of the Central Committee (interrogation in the presence of Comrade Agranov).
At the confrontation between Yakubovich and Sukhanov, Yakubovich said that he met Sukhanov in private apartments, where he did not remember (confrontation in the presence of Comrade Agranov).
2. Composition of the steering group
Cher on November 30 this year the leading echelon names Grohman, Ginzburg and Shera.
Zalkind on December 2 of this year, confirming the indicated composition of the governing nucleus, calls Groman the chairman, Ginzburg the deputy chairman, Shera the secretary‐treasurer.
Petunin on December 4, 1930, shows that he knows from Sheraʹs words that the secretariat included Sukhanov, Bazarov, Groman.
Yakubovich December 8 of this year shows that ʺthere was a leading five.ʺ It included: Sher, Stern, Sukhanov, Volkov, Groman, after the death of Stern ‐ Ginzburg. Cher was secretary, Stern was second secretary, then Sukhanov was secretary, and Cher was chairman.
Ginzburg shows on December 14 this year that Groman was the chairman, Cher was in charge of the technique of underground work.
December 19 this year Ginzburg calls the following composition of the leading five: Groman, Sher, Yakubovich, Sukhanov, Stern, and after his death ‐ Ginzburg.
Sokolovsky shows that the Bureauʹs presidium consisted of Groman,
Sukhanov, Ginzburg.
As can be seen from the above, even the members of this nucleus themselves do not have a certain clarity about the composition of the governing nucleus.
3. Plenums of the Central Committee of the RSDLP
From Sheraʹs testimony of November 30 of this year. it is clear that the plenums of the Central Committee were: 1st ‐ in the first half of 1928; II ‐ in the summer of 1929; 3rd‐spring 1930
Zalkind shows on December 2 of this year that the plenums were: 1st ‐
2nd quarter of 1928‐29; II ‐ November 1929; III ‐ January‐February 1930
On the agendas of the plenums, there is only one more or less summarized testimony from Cher on November 30 of this year.
4. Where did the plenums and sessions of the Central Committee take place?
Zalkind November 2 this year shows that the organizing meeting was at Gromanʹs apartment in early 1928‐1929. The first and second plenums were at the Malakhovka station, the third ‐ at Gromanʹs apartment.
Cher 5 and 9 December this year shows that the conferences took place in Gromanʹs office at the State Planning Commission and in private apartments at Zheludkovʹs. Cher, in a confrontation with Groman, argued that the meetings of the Bureau of the Central Committee consisting of Groman, Shera, Ginzburg with the participation of Sukhanov took place in his office at the State Bank. Groman denies this, saying that he has never been to Cherʹs office at the State Bank (confrontation in the presence of Comrade Agranov). Zalkind testified that he had never been to Cherʹs State Bank and did not know about meetings there (interrogation in the presence of Comrade
Agranov). Sher claims that the sessions and conferences of the Central Committee took place with the participation of Sukhanov and Groman at Sherʹs apartment; at a confrontation with Sher, Groman replied that he had not been there. Sukhanov, at a confrontation with Sher, said that he had not been at Sherʹs apartment (confrontation in the presence of Comrade Agranov).
5. Letters, literature, etc.
Yakubovich testified that he had repeatedly read the letters of the Menshevik Central Committee abroad. When asked by whom and how they signed, he replied that the letters were not signed, but an accompanying letter was signed. She signed herself with ʺthe Central Committee and two of the four surnames ‐ Dana, Abramovich, Garbi and Dalin.ʺ Cher says that the minutes of the sessions and plenums of the Central Committee were kept, while Grohman at the confrontation says no. Groman, in a confrontation with Cher, said that ʺS.V.ʺ do not read.
Yakubovich showed that it turned out 150 copies of ʺS.V.ʺ in bales going by ʺhigh speedʺ luggage. Fifty directive letters were published in two years, sent two by two to the city and sent to 100 addresses in an undeciphered form. Indications are unlikely. Cher said that he had an archive, and when we went to the place where the archive was stored, Cher refused to testify. No archive found.
6. General remarks
and. In all the protocols of those arrested, the ʺRussian and Foreign Central Committeeʺ is mentioned. In fact, the Central Committee of the Mensheviks was dissolved in 1922 and it is not. He is replaced abroad by a foreign delegation, in the USSR ‐ by the Bureau of the Central
Committee in Russia.
b. Renaming the party ‐ according to Sheraʹs testimony, this issue was resolved positively. Zalkind and others deny this.
EI Rabinovich. December 18 this year on this issue shows: ʺI personally considered, as I showed about this earlier, it is inexpedient to recreate the Menshevik party as such in its former form and therefore considered it necessary not only to formally rename the party, but also to accept the relevant conclusions in essence.ʺ
at. The arrested Ginzburg A.M. December 19 this year showed that even at the first plenum of the Central Committee, a commission had been elected to draw up a party charter. The commission, using written instructions received from the foreign Central Committee of the
RSDLP, drew up a draft charter.
Rabinovich E.I. December 18 this year shows the establishment of the union bureau of the Central Committee of the collection of membership fees. These testimonies have not been confirmed by anyone. The question of drafting the Party Rules is not at all clear.
e. Member of the cell of the State Bank Antokolsky December 14 of this year. shows: “At the meeting, the members of the organization were not given the issues of the newspaper “Socialist Bulletin” published by the center.
e. Of the 13 people named in the interrogation protocols, members of the Menshevik cell of the State Bank, we know of only two ‐ Sher and Berlatsky.
Head of the 2nd department of the SO OGPU Kolosovsky
68aʺUnion Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLPʺ ‐ in 19301931. The economic department of the OGPU of the USSR was investigating the case of the ʺcounter‐revolutionary sabotage organization of the Mensheviks in the economic and cooperative institutions of the USSRʺ (the so‐called Union Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP), which, according to the authorities, was closely connected with the processes of the ʺLabor Peasant Partyʺ and the Industrial Party. The trial in the case took place in Moscow on March 1‐9, 1931. 14 people (V.G. Groman, L.B. Zalkind, V.V. Sher, M.P. Yakubovich and others) were accused of trying to revive the Menshevik party in the country, create an opposition bloc to the ruling regime. By the verdict of the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR on March 9, 1931, all the accused were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. Some of them died in exile and labor camps, very few returned. In 1991 g.
69 ʺFormer right‐wing defencistsʺ ‐ we are talking about the so‐called socialchauvinists who justified the participation of their governments in the imperialist war by the need to defend themselves against the aggressor. Of the socialist parties in Russia, the Mensheviks took the defensist positions. Certificate of the SO and EKU OGPU on the results of interrogations of the accused in the Menshevik case. December 1930
Number 3
Top secret
Head of SO OGPU Agranov
From the testimony of Shera V.V. dated November 30, 1930, it is clear that:
1. Cher from the beginning of NEP was invited to the board of Vsekoles. He was invited there by the Mensheviks Tarasov‐Morozov, Ikov and Rumyantsev. There was no information that this invitation was of a party‐Menshevik nature. The fact that this group was actively working in the party was known, in 1924 [its members] were arrested, imprisoned in a political isolation cell and exiled.
2. Cher really knew Buksin, hid him in his dacha and provided financial assistance; the Menshevik Buksin worked in the organization of the RSDLP and, with the assistance of Cher, did not need the printers to restore the organization of the RSDLP.
3. The Mensheviks from Vsekoles were associated with the Bureau of the Central Committee in Russia, it is not directly clear why Sheru had to keep in touch with the Central Committee through MorozovTarasov.
4. Abramovichʹs arrival in the USSR, his visit to Ukraine and Rostov are unlikely.
Two emissaries of the ZD RSDLP sent from abroad to the USSR in 1927 and 1929. We identified and arrested in a timely manner.
5. The RSDLP, at the suggestion of the foreign Central Committee at the plenum of the Russian Central Committee in the spring of 1930, was renamed the ʺWorkersʹ Partyʺ. The 2nd department has no such information. Based on the general political attitudes and the historical role of the RSDLP, such a renaming is hardly possible.
6. Sher and Yurovsky (from the TKP) drew up appeals ʺto the peasant comradesʺ, calling for the struggle against dispossession, collectivization and uprisings. These appeals were usually sent through the TKP and signed by the ʺLabor Peasant Partyʺ and the ʺRussian Social Democratic Labor Partyʺ.
There was no distribution of leaflets with these two signatures. Fundamentally and for tactical reasons, the Mensheviks are hardly capable of making a printed speech with the aforementioned attitude.
7. ʺThe Central Committee approved the decision on a bloc with the Industrial Party and the connection with Torgprom, proposed by the foreign Central Committee.ʺ
“I remember the backstage conversations between members of the Central Committee after the plenum with a proposal to name this bloc either the Union for the Liberation of Russia, or the Union for the Renaissance of Russia.
8. Plenums of the Central Committee in 1928, 1929 and 1930. were held with the participation of representatives of the periphery: from Kharkov ‐ Ber, from Rostov ‐ Abram.
9. For sabotage work from the foreign Central Committee of the Mensheviks received (through Petunin and Groman) 165 thousand rubles.
These points are highly questionable. I know that the Menshevik Ber was really in Kharkov only until 1922. From that time, he was continuously in exile or in an isolation ward and could not be in Kharkov.
ʺAbramʺ ‐ the representative of Rostov ‐ is not known. In the ranks of the Mensheviks there was a Menshevik under the nickname ʺAbramʺ (Kuchin‐Aransky GD), who was arrested at the end of 1924. He was imprisoned in a political isolation ward and is currently in exile in Siberia.
10. This meant the creation of special organizations, both in the countryside and in units of the Red Army. The military organization was given a directive through the TCH on the use of local ties to form special insurgent organizations in territorial units.
11. Sher, through the Menshevik organizations at the Tula Arms Factory, obtained weapons, which, by agreement with Yurovsky, were sent to the appropriate addresses in the TCH organization.
At these points there is very little Mensheviks.
12. The accused Zalkind LB November 26, 1930 shows that after persistent repeated questions to Grohman about the source of funding, he said that the funds were drawn from the cash desk of the Menshevik Central Committee. The latter was faced with the question of active measures to counter the fulfillment of the five‐year plan. For this, the Central Committee outlined a new tactic, expressed in financial support for wrecking organizations working in the field of trade. In this the Central Committee of the Mensheviks saw the most convenient field for the implementation of its tasks, which boiled down, basically, ʺto incline the Soviet government to the right‐wing policy of the first years of the NEP.ʺ
It is doubtful that Zalkindʹs posing of the question to Groman in general and does not correspond to the attitude of the Mensheviks.
From all of the above and the protocols of the rest of the accused, it is clear that:
1. The content of the work of the exposed Menshevik organization is sabotage and counter‐revolutionary activity. It was as if this organization had no intention of conducting political work in general and among the working class in particular.
2. The accused do not know the organizational structure of the Mensheviks since the party went underground. They are called the foreign Central Committee and its members. In reality, the Menshevik Central Committee was dissolved in October 1922 and does not exist either in the USSR or abroad. Instead of the Central Committee, the Mensheviks have a Central Committee Bureau in Russia and the ZD RSDLP (Mensheviks). In the person of all the Mensheviks involved by the EKU OGPU, we have people who have long ceased party‐political work.
Head of the 2nd department of the SO OGPU Kolosovsky Memorandum of the AzGPU on the political situation and the activities of anti‐Soviet parties in the republic in 1930‐1931. No earlier than October 1, 1931
# 4
Top secret
By 1930, the political situation in the Azerbaijani countryside was extremely tense. The complications created by the left folds during collectivization are directly related to the general state of Party and Soviet work in the countryside over the entire preceding period. Work on all links in the village was launched over a number of years, and in the most remote areas it was not carried out at all and proceeded by gravity.
There was no special measure for class stratification in the countryside, as a result of which there was a strong, and in some places absolute influence of the kulaks and clergy on the bulk of the peasantry in the absence of work with the poor and farm laborers. The state of the party and Soviet apparatus, its inability to pursue a clear class line was determined exclusively by the contamination and absolute unreliability of the leading cadres of workers in the village, which is briefly characterized by:
1. The unpreparedness of the village apparatus to carry out the correct class line.
2. Significant contamination by an alien kulak element.
3. The existence of a connection between the Soviet apparatus and the kulak and bandit elements.
4. Widely practiced crime in the apparatus (bribery, embezzlement, extortion, misappropriation, etc.).
5. The isolation of the apparatus from the poor stratum.
6. Exceptionally weak activity of judicial organizations and bodies of the Prosecutorʹs Office, which in some places led to complete impunity and irresponsibility on the part of the Soviet apparatus and the kulak element.
The aggravation of the situation in the countryside was facilitated by the presence of kulak groups and intensive work on the part of antiSoviet parties ‐ Musavat 70 and Ittihad. To ensure measures for the collectivization of the Azerbaijani countryside in February 1930, a KGB operation was carried out to seize the kulak elite and members of antiSoviet parties.
As a result of the operation, the following were seized: kulak groups ‐ 138 with 956 members; anti‐Soviet groups ‐ 26 with 289 members.
In the course of collectivization, campaigns were carried out simultaneously to collect agricultural tax, state insurance, agricultural credit and others, which was the result of the arrears of past years. The grassroots apparatus was faced with the need to simultaneously carry out all these tasks and, due to its unpreparedness, general weakness, contamination by class‐alien elements, not providing support from the poor and farm laborers and, finally, due to the disorganization of the poor to fight the kulak, made a number of gross mistakes, curvatures and kinks. For instance:
and. During the period of the monthly ʺcampaign for collectivizationʺ, the growth of collective farms increased from 831 collective farms with 7566 farms to 1824 collective farms with 111,137 farms, i.e., 40% in relation to all farms of the ASSR, which was accompanied by rough administration, coercion, threats, violence against the middle peasant.
b. The confiscation and sale of the household property of the peasants from the auction was used, and, moreover, middle and poor farms were often under attack.
at. The unified agricultural tax was levied disproportionately and inappropriately to the capacity of the economy, with the presence of over‐taxation of the middle and poor peasants due to the undertaxation of the kulaks.
d. Procurement campaigns were carried out mostly in a compulsory manner through the distribution of norms proportionally to the households with the use of threats and reprisals.
e. Soviet and party workers, who carried out various campaigns in order to fulfill the tasks assigned to them, practiced threats of arrest and confiscation of property at meetings.
e. The hastily created collective farms were left to their own devices and deprived of any support and assistance.
The practice of ʺleftʺ bends, accompanied by the organized work of antiSoviet parties and active resistance to collectivization on the part of the kulaks, aroused strong discontent among the bulk of the peasantry.
1. The middle peasants and partly the poor in the villages, most affected by the anti‐Soviet element, fell under the influence of kulak agitation and the masses (up to 70%) began to leave the collective farms.
2. The kulaks, out of fear of reprisals, began to move to an illegal position and often adhere to gangster groups, dragging along with them provoked and disaffected middle peasants, and often the poor.
3. The criminal banditry operating in the ASSR by this time begins to regroup, enters a bloc with political gangs and, surrendering to the leadership of anti‐Soviet parties, becomes an armed part of all antiSoviet activities.
Banditry, significantly increased due to the fugitive kulaks, provoked middle peasants and poor peasants, by that time took on a pronounced political coloration with the transition to active actions.
Transcordian emigration, together with the leadership of the Musavat and Ittikhad foreign bureaus, concentrate their attention on the processes taking place in the Azerbaijani village, directing their practical work towards the creation of rebel outbreaks and the activation of illegal organizations within the ASSR, for which: and. Work is underway to draw up all sorts of anti‐Soviet plans.
b. Corresponding literature is being published.
at. Funds are being collected to subsidize illegal organizations within the ASSR.
d. Regular communication is being established between foreign countries and illegal organizations.
The initial orientation of the Musavatists towards Turkey by this time changed to England and France, and later to Poland.
In order to coordinate their actions in February 1930, on the initiative of the Poles, a conference of emigrant organizations was convened in Warsaw, as a result of which the activities of the Caucasus Independence Committee were aimed at creating special bandit groups and political leadership of the operating bandit groups within the Azerbaijan SSR.
The changed situation forced the Ittihad‐Islam party to re‐form into a new organization called the National Democrats so that when it establishes ties with European states, it does not show its outdated “Pan‐Islamic” ideas and has more opportunities to get involved in its organization. only the reactionary clergy, but also other elements hostile to the Soviet regime.
Finally, the Musavat party, relying throughout the entire period on the Turkic petty‐bourgeois intelligentsia, under the conditions of an intensified class struggle in the countryside, took a course towards organizing a kulak, shifting the center of gravity of its work to the countryside. Trying to take advantage of the aggravated situation in the village, the Foreign Bureau of the Musavat Party issued the following directive:
“In the name of national liberation, it is necessary to follow the events taking place under the influence of the above conditions and active organization, to disseminate, propagandize among the population slogans that attract and hopeful various elements and classes dissatisfied with the regime. For instance:
1. The land is the property of the cultivator, and the peasant is the owner of his product. Down with fixed prices! Long live free trade! 2. Azerbaijan ‐ for Azerbaijanis, Caucasus ‐ for Caucasians.
3. Employees, officials and workers of state institutions, factories and plants, cooperatives and other institutions must be from the indigenous population.
4. Only Caucasian military units should be stationed in the Caucasus.
5. The industry and wealth of Azerbaijan should be distributed in proportion not to the interests of all of Russia, but only to the interests of Azerbaijan and the Caucasus.
6. In order to agitate local communists in the national struggle against Moscow, it is necessary to make maximum use of the discontent observed among them. It is necessary to make one feel that if they move away from the Bolshevik regime before it falls, then in the future of Azerbaijan they will be looked at with good eyes.
7. Exposing the policy of Russianism, pursued under the formulas of communism, it is necessary to try to put the following slogans in the mouths of local communists:
a) independent Azerbaijan and the communist party;
b) independent Azerbaijan and economic policy”.
In support of this directive of the illegal organization, the Musavat Party, taking advantage of our weakness in the countryside, is developing an exceptional pace of work in all directions and within the Party and Soviet bodies. According to the documents of the Musavat and Ittihad organizations that we liquidated; the following slogans are established:
“To get Azerbaijan to be for Azerbaijanis” (Baku Musavat group).
“Promote free trade” (Aghdam and Baku Musavat groups).
“To organize the population for the struggle and overthrow of the Soviet regime” (Barda Musavat organization “Mutalif”).
ʺTo compile a list of communists and Soviet activists for their destruction on the first day of the seizure of powerʺ (Organization ʺMutalifʺ),
“Politically, it is necessary to lead active gangster groups and coordinate their actions” (Aghdam Musavat group).
“The presence of Russian units in the ASSR and their struggle against banditry must be used to disintegrate the command staff of the Turkic units. To motivate the presence of Russian units before the population as distrust of the Turkic units”.
“To motivate the non‐use of the Turkic units to combat banditry in front of the population as the unwillingness of these units to fight against the bandits” (Aghdam and Baku Musavat groups).
“Prepare an armed uprising for the overthrow of Soviet power, for which to introduce the idea of the precarious position of Soviet power and the inevitability of its fall” (the Urvatul‐Vuska organization).
The characteristic attitudes of the Musavat and Ittihad parties for individual strata of the city and village are: the protection of the kulak and its organization for an active struggle against the Soviet regime:
ʺTo carry on intensified propaganda about the end of the struggle of the Soviet government against the kulaks under the slogan:ʺ Elimination of the kulak as a class ʺʺ (Kazakh rebel organization ʺAzrael‐Firgasiʺ).
“The best and most advanced peasants, the most dangerous for the Soviet regime, are exiled to the North under the guise of kulaks” (Salyan Musavat group).
“Collectivization ruins and enslaves the peasant, leads him to the complete impoverishment of agriculture, deprives him of all rights to his property” (Salyan group).
“About cotton, it was explained that the latter is sown with the aim of creating economic dependence of Azerbaijan on Russia in relation to grain.
Therefore, in every possible way it is necessary to oppose the sowing of cotton” (from the testimony of the Barda Musavat organization).
For work among the intelligentsia:
“The Turkic nation and homeland are under the yoke of the Russians. The mashing of the Turkic personnel is increasing every day. Institutions and other leading organizations are russified, the Turks are not given the opportunity to culturally grow and develop. To liberate the nation and make it a full‐fledged master of its homeland, it is necessary to co‐organize and create its independence” (Baku Musavat Group).
ʺAzerbaijanʹs natural resources: oil, fish, are exploited by the Russiansʺ and further: ʺThere is an agreement between all European civilized countries on armed intervention against the USSR in order to liberate the peoples oppressed by the Russians and stop the tyranny of the communistsʺ (Salyan organization and Baku group of Musavat youth) On a working question:
ʺThe workers are the main driving force of the communist party; therefore, it is necessary to cause discontent among the workers with the Soviet regime and achieve their uprisingʺ (Baku and Aghdam Musavat groups ʺShuralah Islam Jamietiʺ),
“To point out to the workers the food difficulties, their material insecurity and explain that all this is happening as a result of the imposition of Russians in all areas of industry” (Adjikabul and Salyan Musavat groups).
About working among the communists:
“To involve members of the AKP (b) and KSM in the organization and try to promote them in the service, with the aim of implanting their own people in all parts of the Soviet apparatus and in all institutions of the Communist Party” (a group of Baku and Salyan youth Musavatists).
On work among the middle‐poor stratum:
“To explain to the poor and middle peasants about the large amounts of existing taxes, to point out the absence of private initiative. To use measures of threats, expressed in the fact that after the overthrow of the Soviet regime, all the poor and middle peasants ‐ not members of the organization ‐ will be repressed for their active help and sympathy for the Soviet regime” (Ajikabul Musavat group).
At the same time, the most reactionary counter‐revolutionary groups of the Ittihad party and the purely spiritual organization Urvatul‐Vuska, which sought to unite all Muslims, also stake on submission to their influence of the poor stratum:
ʺThe Soviet government does not allow us to breathe freely, especially to those who trample the religion of the Turkic people with their dirty boots.ʺ
ʺWe need to involve the poor, farm laborers, freeing them from membership feesʺ (Agdam organization ʺIttihadʺ),
“The unification of all Muslims in the world under a single religious leadership, like the Pope. To be able to provide real help to oppressed Muslims. ʺ
ʺTo recruit a large number of poor and middle peasants as a religious organizationʺ (The well‐known organization ʺUrvatul‐Vuskaʺ),
At the same time, the counter‐revolutionary sabotage organization ʺAzerbaijan National Centerʺ, which we uncovered, which aimed at overthrowing the Soviet regime and restoring ʺnationally independent Azerbaijanʺ by sabotage and organizing rebel groups, carried out the following:
1. Strived to create an industry independent from the USSR in Azerbaijan, which could serve as the economic foundation of the future bourgeois‐democratic republic in accordance with the outlined program of the ANC ‐ the expansion of the Turkic national capital.
2. The slogan of the Soviet government for industrialization in the national outskirts was used by the ANC organization in order to create an industry that could be the basis for the future independent Azerbaijan.
3. The organization carried out sabotage work in the field of industry, expressed in the delay in construction, its high cost and lack of planning.
4. In the field of agriculture, the organization in every possible way opposes the installation of displacing grain crops by technical ones in order to disrupt the measures of the Soviet government and at the same time preserve such principles that should contribute to the existence of a future independent Azerbaijan.
5. The ANC opposes the introduction of machines in the agriculture of Azerbaijan, which revolutionizes the consciousness of the peasant masses and runs counter to the ANCʹs guidelines for a strong individual farmer‐kulak.
6. The organization supports the well‐to‐do kulak elite of the village by pursuing an appropriate policy of prices for agricultural raw materials, at the same time distorting the governmentʹs line of contracting by lending to large kulak farms.
7. The organization uses its influence in the Soviet apparatus by systematically pursuing a policy of selecting from among nationalistminded workers and arranging people in such a way that would ensure the most effective conduct of counter‐revolutionary work.
8. The ANC strove to create reference points for counter‐revolutionary activities among the Turkic workers, for which:
a) recruited workers for enterprises, mainly from the petty bourgeoisie and the kulak elite of the village, seeking to contaminate the composition of the workers with a nationalist and counterrevolutionary element;
b) the organization in every possible way supports the unprincipled grouping of nationalist‐minded, backward groups of Turkic workers;
c) The ANC, not wishing to create an international industrial proletariat in Azerbaijan, seeks to build enterprises exclusively in areas with a purely Turkic population, acting in this case contrary to the technical and economic conditions of these enterprises.
9. The management staff of the ANC seeks to establish personal relationships with individual responsible workers in order to process them in a nationalist spirit and to use them in practice.
10. The ANC used the ideological inconsistency and instability, as well as the nationalist‐minded members of the CPSU (b).
11. The ANC, in essence, by all its work is in constant contact with the political emigre centers and other counter‐revolutionary sabotage organizations of the USSR, contacting its activities aimed at overthrowing the Soviet regime.
The work of the ʺAzerbaijan National Centerʺ was subsequently organizationally linked with both the Musavat Party and the Ittihad Party, and they jointly carried out work to stimulate discontent among the population and support the insurgency, for which a special rebel troika.
The general political situation, with active actions on the part of antiSoviet political parties, exacerbated the situation in the countryside. The mass transition of the kulaks to an illegal position gave rise not only to an increase in active and the growth of new bands, but also caused a trend towards an offensive movement by organizing uprisings in a number of regions.
The political parties ʺMusavatʺ and ʺIttihadʺ, having the instructions of the foreign bureau on the insurrectionary movement, assumed leadership in some places, becoming the head of the kulak‐bandit movement. Bandit groups by this time became armed fighting detachments of the kulaks and went over to an offensive struggle, carrying out terrorist acts against Soviet and party workers, collective farmers and the poor.
In a number of areas, rebel outbreaks and massive armed uprisings occur, of which the most serious and threatening were:
1. Kelbajar kulak‐bandit uprising in February 1930
2. Bandit and insurrectionary movement in the Nakhichevan region in February‐March 1930
3. In the Nukha‐Zakatala district (April‐June 1930).
4. Bandit‐insurrectionary movement in the border villages of Karabakh adjacent to the Kubatly region of Kurdistan.
5. The sharpest and most threatening in size kulak insurrectionary movement took place at the end of 1930 in the Gandzhinsky district with the threat of spreading to other regions of the ASSR.
The insurrectionary movement and the general tension of the political state in a number of regions necessitated the conduct of extensive KGB operations with the use of emergency measures, while simultaneously strengthening the party and Soviet work to strengthen the apparatus and correct previously made mistakes and excesses.
At various times from the beginning of 1931, in the Nakhichevan Territory, Karabakh, Kurdistan, Nukha‐Zakatala and Gandja districts, a KGB operation was carried out, as a result of which seized and eliminated.
Note: the column ʺAnti‐Soviet elementsʺ includes 721 seized people ‐ members of the political parties ʺIttihadʺ and ʺMusavatʺ.
In the course of the Chekist‐military operations, in addition to the seizures of the anti‐Soviet element, the rebels and the elimination of active gangs, work was carried out to seize weapons from the population, as a result of which the following was seized:
1) Firearms ‐ 26 114
2) Machine guns ‐ 2
3) Different trunks ‐ 4220
4) Melee weapons ‐ 21,597
Total: ‐ 48 933 units
At the same time, in the process of direct struggle, 340 bandits were destroyed in battles.
The activities of the KGB order significantly improved the political situation, completely eliminated the main insurgent centers, defeating the largest gangs and destroying their leaders. The remnants of the liquidated bandit groups were dispersed, lacking sympathy from the population, especially in the areas subjected to operations.
The most active part of the kulaks, lonely anti‐Soviet elements and accomplices of the bandits were seized, which, to a large extent, eliminated the main base for the formation of new bandit groups. As a result of the disarmament of the population, the areas affected by banditry are also deprived of a base for active actions, support and organization of bandit groups.
At the same time, through party and Soviet measures, the lower levels of the party and Soviet apparatus were strengthened, thanks to which the results of the operation were consolidated.
The complex of all measures in the areas covered by the operation achieved a complete change in the mood of the bulk of the peasantry, as a result of: and. There was a healthy growth in collectivization.
b. The poor and the laborers quickly went to the organization.
at. The vacillating middle peasant, having become convinced in practice in the course of the measures taken in the strength of Soviet power, quickly began to free himself from the kulak influence.
Subsequent measures were aimed at ensuring the cotton plan and strengthening the party and Soviet bodies in the cotton regions, where the situation has fundamentally changed today, despite the exceptional resistance of the kulaks and anti‐Soviet parties, acting under the slogan of fighting against the development of cotton growing, “transforming Azerbaijan to the colony. ʺ
At the same time, the livestock‐raising areas and especially the areas of the border strip remain in a state of neglect; there the influence of the kulaks is strong and the party organizations and the Soviet apparatus are extremely weak.
A brief description of the border areas boils down to the following:
1. For 850 kilometers, 14 regions with a total population of 335 thousand people are adjacent to the Persian territory. The border population by ethnic composition is predominantly Turkic.
2. The areas are culturally backward. The network of schools is very weak and is able to cover no more than 10% of young people.
3. Health care is in poor condition: there is one hospital (10‐15 beds per district with a population of 40‐50 thousand people), and in some districts there are no hospitals at all; the population traditionally uses medicine from healers.
4. The life of the peasantry of the old time has not changed, and all religious and everyday prejudices have been completely preserved.
5. The lower party apparatus is littered with an alien and anti‐Soviet element. In its cultural and political development, it is no different from the general illiterate mass; 40% of chairmen of village councils are absolutely illiterate.
6. All the measures of the party and government aimed at the political and economic strengthening of the border areas are not being implemented in some places.
7. Until 1931 inclusive, when drawing up budgets for national economic construction, the border regions were given the last place: if the central region received funds for cultural and economic construction by 100%, then the border region ‐ by 20‐30%, and some nothing.
8. The cultural backwardness of the population, the weakness and debris of the Soviet apparatus, the insignificance of the party and Komsomol stratum ‐ for the most part lead to a number of excesses during procurement and other economic and political campaigns.
The work of political parties and the influence on the border areas of emigrants systematically intensify anti‐Soviet agitation, therefore the kulaks in a number of villages are much more successful in their work than the Soviet apparatus, as a result of which a resettlement mood is created, banditry develops and the soil is created for new insurgent movements.
The situation is almost the same in the livestock regions located in mountainous areas, where the influence of the kulak is still strong, with the preservation of all the vestiges characteristic of the eastern countryside, and with the weakness of the Soviet apparatus, the absence of the organization of the poor and farm laborers.
The work of anti‐Soviet groups and parties, as well as the action of the remnants of bandit groups, is mainly manifested precisely in the highlands, partly in the Kura strip and in the border areas, where the influence of the kulak provides this work.
On October 1 of this year. the presence of registered anti‐Soviet forces in the countryside is expressed in the following:
1.15 political parties scattered with 200 members ʺMusavatʺ and
ʺIttihadʺ.
2. 44 bandit groups with 267 members plus 13 bandit groups with 49 undetected members: 11 lone bandits. Total ‐ 327 people.
The tendency of the remnants of illegal organizations today is aimed at gathering forces, creating new cells and forms of work. The remnants of the gangs, operating mainly in remote areas, strive for unification, actively opposing party and Soviet events in these points.
The most stable regions are cotton, where the work of Party and Soviet bodies this year has significantly strengthened and revived with the conduct of an organized struggle against the kulak.
Chairman of the GPU AzSSR Frinovsky
Head of SOCH AzGPU Gulbis
70 Musavat ‐ a political party in Azerbaijan in 1911‐1920. The program was based on the ideas of Pan‐Islamism and Pan‐Turkism. In September 1918 she headed the government. After the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan (April 1920), it ceased to exist.
Memorandum of the OGPU on the completion of the investigation into the case of the ʺAll‐Peopleʹs Union of Struggle for the Revival of Free Russia.ʺ February 1931
No. 5
Top secret
Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) comrade. Stalin
The investigation into the case of the ʺAll‐Peopleʹs Union of Struggle for the Revival of Free Russiaʺ ‐ a monarchist organization headed by Academician S.F. Platonov, finished. The testimony of the arrested members of the organization: Platonov, Tarle, Lyubavsky, Likhachev, Rozhdestvensky, Beneshevich, Izmailov, Andreev and others established that the organization aimed to overthrow the Soviet regime with the help of an armed uprising and foreign military intervention and the establishment of a constitutional monarchy led by the former Grand Duke Andrey Vladimirovich.
The organizationʹs program is based on the following provisions. “Future” Russia was conceived as a federation of separate states with their own governments, parliaments, freedom of language and cultural development, but united into a single whole by the AllRussian government headed by the monarch. Such autonomous states were supposed to be in Ukraine, the Caucasus, Siberia and the Don. Limitrophic states were to join the federation. Independence was recognized only for Poland and Finland. For the first time after the coup, it was planned to establish a military dictatorship with General Lokhvitsky (a prominent White émigré figure) as the dictator.
In the field of public education, it was planned to restore the prerevolutionary norms, both for higher and secondary schools. In the field of church policy, it was planned to conclude a union of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. The organization was guided by Germany, with which it was supposed to conclude a close militarypolitical and economic alliance.
The emergence of the organization dates back to 1925, the final design and strengthening ‐ to 1928.During its existence, the organizations have carried out the following practical activities:
1. A close business relationship has been established with the nationalist party of Germany represented by its leaders ‐ Professors Otto Goetsch, Otto and Jonas Schmidt. At the same time, contact was established with the German fascist organization ʺStahl Helmʺ (O. Getsch is one of the leading figures of this organization) 71... Relations with German nationalists were maintained during the trips abroad of Platonov, Tarle, Egorov and other members of the organization. The Germans provided regular financial assistance to the All‐Peopleʹs Union (about 5 thousand rubles a month). Between the leaders of the ʺAll‐Peopleʹs Union of Struggleʺ Platonov, Tarle, Yegorov and other representatives of German monarchist circles, negotiations were repeatedly held on Germanyʹs military intervention in the USSR. According to the plan of the organization, the intervention was supposed no later than the spring of 1931 and was supposed to begin with the landing of German troops from the Baltic Sea with a simultaneous attack on Leningrad and other points of the USSR by the German air fleet, whose base was located in Finland. ʺSteel helmetʺ pledged to deploy 15 thousand armed and trained soldiers,
2. On behalf of the organization, Academician Tarle repeatedly conducted negotiations with individual public and political figures of France in order to prepare public opinion for the intervention. The purpose of Tarleʹs negotiations was to establish business contacts with French statesmen and obtain consent from them for the German intervention in the USSR.
3. The organization concluded an agreement with the Vatican, which pledged to conduct anti‐Soviet propaganda abroad and finance the activities of the ʺAll‐Peopleʹs Union of Struggleʺ on the basis of the creation of a union of the Catholic and Orthodox
Churches. Negotiations with the Vatican were led by Professor Beneshevich the Canonist, Corresponding Member of the All‐Union Academy of Sciences and a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. The agreement was approved by Pope Pius XI, with whom Beneshevich had a personal meeting in 1928. In fulfillment of its obligations, the Vatican transferred 350,000 rubles to the Soyuz and developed intensive anti‐Soviet activities abroad.
4. Prominent White émigré figures (Kokovtsov, Maklakov, Struve,
Lokhvitsky and others) took an active part in the activities of the AllPeopleʹs Union abroad. Platonov, on behalf of the “All‐Peopleʹs Union”, negotiated in 1928 in Berlin with the former Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich, from whom he received consent to “ascend to the Russian throne”.
5. Platonov was closely associated with the German consul in Leningrad Tsekhlin, who was aware of the organizationʹs activities. The Platonovs regularly transmitted to the Germans reports on the expenditure of the amounts received. The reports were accompanied by informational information about the internal political situation in the USSR, the state of the Red Army and the activities of the Comintern. The head of the military group of the organization, Izmailov, regularly delivered information about the state of the Red Army to General Lokhvitsky abroad. The leading center of the organization was outlined the future government headed by Academician Platonov and Kokovtsov. The ʺAll‐Peopleʹs Union of Struggleʺ launched energetic activities within the USSR: 1. A military group of the organization was created, consisting of former officers (Izmailov, Petrov, Puzinsky, Kovanko and others), developed a concrete plan for the seizure of Leningrad and prepared an armed uprising for the beginning of the intervention. 2. A great deal of propaganda work and work was carried out to train anti‐Marxist scientific personnel, as well as personnel of future statesmen. For this purpose, a network of circles was created under the leadership of individual members of the organization. This network covered several hundred scientific workers in Leningrad alone. 3. The organization worked on the creation of centers of the ʺAll‐Peopleʹs Unionʺ in the periphery. There was a Moscow Center in Moscow, which included Academician M.K. Lyubavsky and professors: D.I. Egorov (Deputy Director of the USSR Public Library named after Lenin), Gauthier and Bakhrushin.
Simultaneously with the ʺAll‐Peopleʹs Unionʺ, a German spy network headed by a scientist, an employee of the Academy of Sciences, Professor Merwart, was discovered and liquidated. Merwarth, an old German spy (since 1913), was a prominent member of the All‐Peopleʹs Union of Struggle, being, in essence, an emissary of German intelligence at the leading center of this organization and an intermediary between Academician Platonov and the German consul in Leningrad Tsekhlin. Merwarth gave frank testimony about his role in the All‐Peopleʹs Union, as well as his espionage network, which consisted mainly of engineers and scientists who served in various institutions, mainly studying the natural productive forces of the USSR.
We consider it expedient to consider the case of the ʺAll‐Peopleʹs
Unionʺ at the court session of the OGPU Collegium.
Deputy Chairman of the OGPU Yagoda
71 ʺSteel Helmetʺ is a monarchist paramilitary union of former front‐line soldiers, created in Germany in November 1918. After the establishment of the fascist dictatorship, it merged with the storm troops.
Operational report No. 45 of the OGPU SPO on the activities of nationalist groups and their leaders in Central Asia, Transcaucasia, North Caucasian Territory, Tatarstan, Kazakhstan. September 1931
# 6
Top secret
Single nationalist groups
Nationalist grouping among Tajik workers
A nationalist grouping was revealed among the former workers of Tajikistan who were dismissed from work in Central Asia and are currently at work in Moscow. The group includes some former members of the Turkestan national counter‐revolutionary organization Milli Ittihad.
ʺMilli Ittihadʺ ‐ a national counter‐revolutionary organization that existed in the former Turkestan republic in 1919‐1923, set itself the task of armed struggle against the Soviet regime and organized the wellknown insurgent bandit movement in Turkestan ‐ the Basmachi. The group has a special safe house, where it regularly organizes ʺgapsʺ (interview parties) with drinking binges, where political issues are discussed. The discussion is being conducted in the plane of criticism of the national policy of the Soviet government. At one of the next ʺgapsʺ in August 1931, members of the group, expressing their dissatisfaction with the partyʹs policy regarding the indigenization of the Soviet apparatus 72in Tajikistan, they said: “There is no indigenization of the Soviet apparatus, Russians are being imposed everywhere. We need to get rid of these importers (i.e., European workers). Rooting, strengthening local cadres ‐ these are all empty words. There is no growth of local cadres, the reason for this is these importers who are pursuing a colonialist policy. The old people (meaning the old workers who had compromised themselves by participating in nationalist organizations) did not take care of raising young personnel, and as a result, the colonization of the newcomers. ʺ
Speaking about the development of national art, those present expressed dissatisfaction with the decisions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Tajikistan on the prohibition of the performance of nationalist plays and operas idealizing the times of the khanate: ʺIn Tajikistan, they deliberately do not provide opportunities for the development of national art.ʺ
Installation of the hiding leader of the counter‐revolutionary organization ʺMilli‐Istiklalʺ
At the end of 1929 in Tashkent on the line of V.O. the powerful nationalist counter‐revolutionary organization Milli‐Istiklal was liquidated. The organization set itself the task of overthrowing Soviet power and creating an independent national bourgeois state. The organization had a wide periphery (in the cities of Samarkand, Andijan, Namangan, Kokand and others) and maintained ties with the
Basmachi, the Afghan consulate and the Turkestan emigration.
One of the most prominent leaders of the organization, Ishan‐KhojaKhani, fled when the members of the organization were arrested. On August 15, 1931, Ishan‐Khoja‐Khani was discovered in the mountains. Moscow, which makes us assume that there are serious ties between the organization, with the help of which the object was hidden, and here. The development was transferred to the Special Department.
Ishan‐Khoja‐Khani played a leading role in all the largest nationalist counter‐revolutionary organizations in Central Asia during 19191929. The son of an influential clergyman, Ishan‐Khoja‐Khani enjoys great prestige in the circles of the Uzbek bourgeoisie and bourgeois intelligentsia. Subsequently received
Agent development ʺEmigrantʺ
A former teacher of the Central Asian Communist University, a Persian emigrant Bahrami, who has graduated from the KUTV, has been installed in Moscow, closely associated with the leader of the nationalist counter‐revolutionary organization ʺTurk‐Brligiʺ liquidated in Central Asia. The organization ʺTurk‐Blighiʺ was of a pan‐Turkic character and set itself the task of preparing the overthrow of Soviet power and the unification of all Turkic peoples into a nationalist bourgeois state. The organization tried to get in touch with the white Turkic emigration abroad. There is data, not yet specified, about the connection of ʺTyurgBrligaʺ with nationalist counter‐revolutionary organizations in
Azerbaijan. In conversations with a source, Bahrami, expressing dissatisfaction with the national policy of the Soviet regime, said: “They (i.e., Russians) create nationalists themselves.
Undercover development ʺJuniorʺ
A non‐partisan, doctor, Tatar Maksudov Garun Khodyevich, the son of a major Tatar nationalist leader Maksudov Khody and the nephew of the most prominent Tatar counter‐revolutionary national figure, the emigrant Maksudov Sadri, is being developed.
Before the revolution, Maksudov Khody edited and published the right‐wing nationalist newspaper Yulduz (Zvezda), and enjoyed great prestige among the Tatar bourgeoisie. His brother Maksudov Sadri was a member of the State Duma, one of the leaders of its Muslim faction and the leader of the Pan‐Turkists. After October he emigrated to Istanbul; professor at the University of Ankara. Khoda Maksudovʹs two daughters are married to those arrested by the OGPU ‐ Aitov (son of the millionaire Sultan Galievets) and Khodjaev (one of the leaders of the TKP in Tatarstan, the son of a major Astrakhan merchant).
Undercover development established that Garun Maksudov is well aware of the nationalist movement in Central Asia “Milli‐Istiklal” ‐ Munavvar Kara, Sha Rasul Zunun and others. He closely knows one of the active participants in the nationalist counter‐revolutionary movement in Tatarstan, the doctor Seyful‐Mulyukov Gizetdin, who works in Tashkent.
Maksudovʹs interesting tactical guidelines have been clarified. Maksudov believes that under these conditions, after a serious blow by the nationalist counter‐revolution in Tatarstan (the defeat of the Sultangalevites), in Central Asia (the liquidation of the counterrevolutionary organization ʺMilli‐Istiklalʺ, the shooting of the former chairman of the Supreme Court of the Uzbek SSR Kasimov, the arrest of a counter‐revolutionary group of workers of the NK education of the Uzbek SSR) and in other places, the development of nationalist activity poses a great danger and will only entail the loss of cadres of the nationalist intelligentsia.
“Now, under these conditions, nothing can be done. We must strive to retain the cadres of the intelligentsia. The danger of failure is great, and then the loss of those small cadres of the intelligentsia that exist now is obvious. ʺ
Hence his focus on preserving the nationalist intelligentsia by temporarily abandoning active anti‐Soviet activities among the masses and maintaining external loyalty to the Soviet regime.
Development ʺKhanʺ
A student of the Central Asian University Mansur Khudoyarkhanov, who is staying in Moscow on his way to Tashkent, was taken into development. M. Khudoyarkhanov is an active nationalist, grandson of the last Kokand khan, Khudoyarkhan. Expelled from the Komsomol. The investigation of the counter‐revolutionary organization ʺMilli‐Istiklalʺ liquidated in Uzbekistan established that M. Khudoyarkhanov brought the head of the organization, Munawarr Kara, to the Afghan consulate.
M. Khudoyarkhanovʹs elder brother Nuretdin‐Bek Khudoyarkhanov (teacher) in 1918 traveled illegally as part of a delegation of the Turkestan clergy to Istanbul to negotiate the occupation of Turkestan by the Caucasian army, which at that time occupied Baku. At the end of last year, Nuretdin‐Bek tried to create a counter‐revolutionary organization in Tashkent.
Another brother of M. Khudoyarkhanov, Islam‐Bek Khudoyarkhanov (a former officer) fled illegally to Afghanistan, where he entered the service of the Afghan government and was appointed military attaché in Paris.
The third brother of M. Khudoyarkhanov, Temir‐Bek Khudoyarkhanov (a former officer), is associated with an anti‐Soviet group of European literary workers in Tashkent, and is being investigated for a literary worker Grammatovich who was arrested for counter‐revolutionary activities.
M. Khudoyarkhanovʹs fourth brother, Azomat‐Bek Khudoyarkhanov (a former officer), a teacher at the national military school in Tashkent, was associated with a military worker, Kirgizov, who was arrested in connection with the case of the nationalist counter‐revolutionary organization Milli‐Istiklal.
Mansur Khudoyarkhanov, meeting with a source in Moscow and
processing the latter, sharply criticized the Soviet regime, accusing the Soviet government of colonizing, and made it clear that his views are shared by some other nationalities. The attitudes expressed by him are so interesting and characteristic of nationalist counter‐revolutionary groups that we cite them in detail.
“Socialism is a utopia. In the past, one Bukhara emir reigned, and now there are dozens. Where do we have national independence. How local workers become masters of their homes. In Kislovodsk, I met with one Turkmen, an employee of the State Planning Commission, who expressed strong dissatisfaction with the partyʹs policies and said that the attitude towards the national republics was very bad. And he was right. I was in Kharkov, Tiflis. I was amazed at the extensive construction there, as well as the fact that all Ukrainian raw materials are processed at local factories and plants. There is nothing of the kind in Turkestan, and if you think about it, there is no difference in his position under tsarism and now there is. For example, the Soviet government pays five rubles to our dekhkans for a pood of cotton, and for the same cotton abroad they pay 25 rubles in foreign currency. I, as an economist, know very well
Turkestan has a special policy: the chairman, to divert his eyes, from the indigenous population, his deputy, the actual owner is a Russian. Our nationals cannot stand such a situation and fall back to ʺcounter‐revolutionʺ. Kirgizov (arrested in connection with the case of the nationalist counter‐revolutionary organization Milli‐Istiklal) was an intelligent, heroic man; he did not put up with colonialism and in conversations with me often showed his dissatisfaction with the existing situation. ʺ
At the present time M. Khudoyarkhanov has left for Tashkent. We have focused on the OGPU PP in Central Asia.
Transcaucasia
Counter‐revolutionary insurgent organization in Western Georgia
In Western Georgia, in Mingrelia, in the districts of the former
Shorapansky district, a mass rebel organization called the AllCaucasian Secret Workersʹ Committee has been discovered. The organization was associated with the underground committees of the Georgian Mensheviks in the Poti and Zugdidi regions and with counterrevolutionary organizations still undetected in Tiflis, Batum, Sukhum and Guria. More than a thousand members of the organization have been identified who had membership cards, paid membership fees, and participated in illegal meetings.
Organization composition
The main asset of the organization consisted of members of counterrevolutionary political parties (mainly Mensheviks) and kulaks, mostly participants in various counterrevolutionary actions in the past, in particular, the uprising in 1924. The vast majority of ordinary members, however, were poor and middle peasants.
Among the identified thousand members of the organization, the poor made up 30%, the middle peasants ‐ 50%, farm laborers and workers ‐ 5%, and people from socially hostile strata only 15%. In some cases, the poor and middle peasants played an active role in the organization. There have been cases when the poor recruited kulaks in the organization. In the Chkhorutsk region, a farm laborer with 18 years of experience recruited Kikiani into the organization.
Noteworthy is the ease with which the organizers of the groups and cells managed to involve the poor and middle peasants in the organization. It was found that there was almost never a case of refusal to join the organization. There were cases of refusal to receive a mandate issued to members of the organization, but even then ‐ for reasons of conspiracy. There were no refusals to support the organization. None of the recruited middle peasants and poor peasants announced to the authorities that they were being recruited into the organization. The peasants willingly came to illegal meetings 20‐25 versts away. None of the meetings recorded a case of opposition to the rebel rapporteursʹ attitudes. In some cases, the organization included both party members and Komsomol members (in the Poti branch).
Organization tasks
The main task of the organization was to prepare a general armed uprising in Western Georgia. The main slogan of the organization was the promise ‐ after the coup to restore private property. Those who joined the organization were taught that the restoration of private property could occur only as a result of an armed uprising, that for this it was necessary to create combat squads, collect money and weapons, and outline lists of reliable people.
The leaders of the organization emphasized the need for an uprising and preparation for it with particular insistence. At a meeting of members of the organization in the mountains. Poti in June, the head of the organization said that everything was already prepared for the uprising, and that the latter was supposedly scheduled for August 1. At a meeting of members of the organization in the village of Kheta, a representative of the Sukhum organization said that it was necessary to be ready to speak, since the time of intervention is approaching, and soon foreign emissaries will arrive in Mingrelia. He proposed to outline and distribute posts among the members of the organization in case of seizure of power. 10 positions were distributed ‐ prosecutor, administrator, intelligence officer, etc.
Preparing the uprising
Preparing for the uprising, the organization strenuously acquired and distributed weapons. The main method of obtaining weapons was the disarmament of party and rural activists. In the Khetinsky cell, in order to compensate for the lack of weapons, it was decided to start making bombs. When one of the members of the cell was arrested, 14 bombs of significant destructive power were found. According to intelligence reports, the Poti organization sent about 20 rifles to its branch in the Chkhorotsky region in June. There was talk among the members of the organization that they had about 70 rifles in Guria.
The organization organized a number of active gangster actions and terrorist acts. On July 25, the Khet gang attacked the local collective farm and forced the collective farmers to set fire to the collective farm office. On August 1, the gang carried out two raids on workers in new buildings.
In order to terrorize the party and Soviet activists, the members of the organization strangled an active collective farmer‐Komsomol member Changuradze. On the same day, activist Kananadze was killed, suspected of passing information about the organization to the authorities.
Aggressive sentiments among the members of the Zugdidi organization (Mensheviks) are noteworthy. The news of the directives of the Foreign Bureau proposing to refrain from adventurous speeches caused an explosion of discontent among the members of the organization. Members of the organization said that Jordania had grown old, lost his mind and lost the ability to take action. Members of the organization insisted that it was necessary to prepare for an armed uprising and send people into the forest.
Events
The main asset of the organization has been withdrawn. In Mingrelia, 524 people were arrested, including Meks ‐ 219, fascists ‐ 79, bandits ‐ 5, accomplices ‐ 68, other anti‐Soviet elements ‐ 157.
On the night of August 20, the head of the Shorapan organization, Pkhaladze, was killed, and his closest assistant Tanakhadze was arrested. With the killed Pkhaladze, the seal and stamp of the illegal organization ʺAll‐Caucasian Secret Workers Committeeʺ, a code, 300 mandate forms (membership cards) and provisions on the rights and functions of triplets before and after the seizure of power were found.
Reasons for the performance in the Daralagez region of Armenia
In early August, an armed uprising took place in the Daralagez region against the communist government in the village of Arpa. The speech was attended by about 100 communists and Komsomol members. The speakers put forward a demand: to dissolve and re‐elect the district committee of the party, to stop procurement, to change the political line in relation to the attack on the kulaks, etc.
The speech had been prepared in advance and organized by an antiSoviet element who had crept into the party under the slogan of ʺfighting for the general line of the party.ʺ The immediate reason for the protest, however, was gross distortions and excesses committed during the conduct of economic and political campaigns. Procurement quotas were distributed among the villages without taking into account the capabilities of each village. The procurement rate of 6 thousand centners established for dairy products, partially fulfilled, was later doubled. Procurement organizations demanded the delivery of all dairy products, leaving nothing to the population. Productive livestock was prepared for meat. Procurement organizations did not pay money for the products handed over to those who did not fully fulfill the entire quota.
Almost everywhere in the region, procurement was carried out by administrative methods and threats of suicide with confiscation of property, moreover, the class approach was completely absent. The population was particularly outraged by the order to procure mice, moles and snakes. Along with this, the region experienced great food difficulties. The situation in the region was aggravated by the merger in a number of villages of party members with the kulak‐prosperous elite of the village.
At present, despite the elimination of the uprising, the situation in the region continues to remain tense. Peasants and individual party members who spoke at a gathering convened by the arrived party workers in the village of Ortakend openly declared ‐ ʺthe government is robbing us; we do not want such power.ʺ The demobilized Red Army men who were present at the gathering urged the peasants not to believe the party workers, as ʺthey lie, rob, etc.ʺ
About 40 party workers were transferred to the region for permanent work. District guidelines have been updated. The Soviet apparatus is also being renewed in the affected villages. The party members of the village of Arpa continue to consider themselves to be right, “speaking for the general line of the party, against the distortions made by the regional leadership,” condemning only the form of the speech. Despite the official condemnation of the protest by the party cells of the region, the majority of the party members still sympathize with the speakers. There is evidence of the presence in the village of Pashalu of a group of 15 party members and those expelled from the CPSU (b), who are preparing a similar speech.
Activation of Dashnak groups and individuals
As it was indicated in the bulletin No. 3 of August 1 of this year, the revival of the Dashnak groups in Armenia continues.
Dashnak organization in Martuni and N.‐Bayazet districts
The Dashnak organization in the Martuni and N.‐Bayazet districts began to organize the formation of precinct centers, putting forward the issue of convening a conference of representatives of the Dashnak organizations of the Martuni, Basargechar, N.‐Bayazet, Daralagez and Vedibasar districts.
To strengthen ties with the center in Tsrivan, the Martuni organization sent its representatives to Erivan. The charter and program of the Martuni organization were obtained. (Preparations are underway for its liquidation).
Dashnak organization in Zangezur region
In the Zangezur region, the members of the organization who remained at large after the liquidation of the Dashnak organization became active again, taking shape in a cell. The cell consists of 17 people under the leadership of Asatur Mashuryan. The cell has established a connection with the foreign bureau of ARPD through a resident of the village of Perosshen Aonk‐Baloyan Oganopoala. The leader Mashuryan, calling regularly meetings of the cell, urged: not to be afraid of arrests, not to sell the members of the PD and to carry out demoralizing work in collective farms and small cells, spreading rumors about the outbreak of war with the USSR and the imminent fall of Soviet power. The cell made a decision: to keep records of weapons and take from each member 15 rubles a month to help the families of the exiled Dashnaks. Preparations are underway to withdraw the asset.
Agricultural development ʺHighlandersʺ
The Dashnak group of Gerusy and Yerishen villages is becoming more active. According to the latest information, the group has established contact with the Dashnak groups of the Kafan and Sisian regions. The group had an illegal meeting, at which a member of the group, Sahak Mirtchyan, was assigned to communicate with other regions. At the same meeting, it was decided to create combat squads, the leader of which was Akopdisanyan, a resident of the village of Gerusy (a former officer of the tsarist army). The group collected 150 rubles, which were given to four families of arrested Dashnaks. Seizure of the groupʹs asset is planned.
Dashnak group in Kurdukuli region
There is a revival among the remnants of the Dashnak organization liquidated in May of this year. The remnants of the dashgroup in the village of Sardarabat had several illegal meetings, at which it was decided to carry out a terrorist act against the secretary of the district committee of the All‐Union Communist Party, the chairman of the collective farm and the chairman of the village council. The meetings also discussed issues of countering the measures of the Soviet government, recruiting new members, acquiring weapons and establishing ties with Erivan, for which in the mountains. Erivan sent three representatives. Revival among the remnants of the Dashnak groups is also noted in the villages of Kurdukuli and B.‐Shagrnar.
Development ʺPriestzhiyʺ
The development was started on a certain Shahverdyap who arrived in the village of Panik from the Kamarli region under the guise of selling alcoholic beverages. Shakhverdyan, having contacted a member of the p / d Meyronian Alexander, asked if there were anyone who wanted to cross over to Persia, declaring: “We are ferrying those whom the Soviet government is pursuing.” Measures have been taken to establish connections of the newcomer; surveillance has been established for him.
Resettlement trends in border areas with Turkey
Resettlement sentiment among the Turkic population, mainly in Armenia, continues to expand. The emergence of these sentiments is the result of the intensified anti‐Soviet agitation of the kulak and counter‐revolutionary elements. The weakness of the work of local organizations, excesses made during the x / p campaigns, food difficulties, unsettled land use, national antagonism with the Armenian population significantly contribute to the successful kulak agitation.
Dimensions of movement
The most affected by resettlement tendencies are Kurdukulinsky, Echmiadzinsky, Kamarli and Agbabinsky districts, moreover, it is characteristic that a significant percentage of the poor and middle peasants are covered by resettlement sentiments. In addition to those who moved in July this year. 160 people recently identified 222 more farms preparing for resettlement in Turkey. The total number of those preparing to leave for Turkey in these areas reaches 500 farms.
Resettlement Facilitation by Turkish Authorities
The Turkish authorities provide broad assistance to migrants, both when crossing the border, firing at our border units, and when settling in Turkey. Back in February, the Karakasskiy Vali (governor), who arrived in Igdir, ordered the kaymaks of the 73rd Igdir region to provide material assistance to the migrants from the USSR, and to reward those who facilitate the resettlement.
Expressing his views on the problem of settling the outskirts bordering the USSR, the governor said: “Having seized the Makinsky Khanate, we will secure both Ararats behind Turkey, and most importantly, we will come into contact with Soviet Azerbaijan. There are several million of the Turkic population in the USSR. Most of them are Sunnis and disposed towards us. If we are able to deepen our influence among this part of the Turks and win at least 100 people a year to our side, then this will be a big plus for Turkey. ʺ
The same attitudes, but in a clearer form, were expressed by the arriving in the mountains. Erivan in March this year Karsky merchant, member of the ʺKhalkʺ party Mamed Ali‐Akper Oglu. “The Turkic government, being interested in increasing the population of the eastern vilayets, decided to facilitate the influx of Turks from the USSR, who are provided with moral and material assistance. [...]. Therefore, the Turks accept the fugitives, helping them to transfer their families to Turkey. ʺ
From this it becomes clear the policy of encouraging resettlement by the
Turkish authorities and the assistance provided by the Turpograncommand, kulak gangs, under the cover of which the border crossing is carried out.
“An active kulak gang in the Vedibasar region, headed by Kerbalay Ismail, is negotiating with the Turkpogran command to move to Turkey. Kerbalay Ismail was assured that during the crossing he would be assisted by a special detachment of Turkish askers, armed with two machine guns, who would open fire on our border guards.
“He promised to supply 8 people from the Kargabazar village of Igdyr Kaymak who crossed to Turkey with weapons for the transfer of families that remained in the USSR. All the Turks who crossed to Turkey from the Soviet territories received land and dwellings in a few days after filtration. Only those who do not have relatives and guarantors in Turkey are detained for identification.
“On July 28, 11 displaced persons from the village of Kargabazar, Echmiadzin region (five middle peasants, two poor peasants and two wealthy ones) returned from Turkey to the village for their families. When returning to Turkey, they ran into our border detachment. Our detachment was fired on from the Turkish side with volleys of 10‐15 rifles; the migrants managed to leave for Turkey and take their families”.
On August 7, in the area of outpost No. 6 of the 40th border detachment, 15 people crossed to our territory from Turkey and began to transport cattle to Turkey. The expelled detachment of 45 Red Army men was fired upon from the Turkish territory. The number of those who fired at our border guards reached 200 people, of which up to 30 askers.
Resettlement of Turks from Armenia to Nakhichevan
In addition to resettlement to Turkey, among the Turks living in Armenia, there is a desire to resettle in the Nakhichevan SSR. This is explained by the lack of attention towards the Turks on the part of the Armenian workers. There are no responsible officials among the Turks in Armenia. Grassroots workers are weak. This circumstance is used by the kulaks to campaign for resettlement to Turkey and to incite ethnic hatred.
During July and August, 204 farms moved from the Kurdukuli,
Echmiadzin and Kamarli districts of the Armenian USSR to the Nakhichevan SSR, and another 200 farms intend to move.
There are cases of resettlement to Nakhichevan of almost half of the population, for example:
1. Arbat village: out of the existing 50, 40 yards have moved.
2. Village Chobonkara: out of 90 households, 30 moved.
Attention is drawn to the settling of immigrants in the border zone with Persia.
Instructions were given to prevent further emigration and resettlement. Informed by the Central Committee of the CPSU (b).
Agricultural development ʺSeidaʺ
Since the beginning of July, up to 30 people, dressed in ʺsendasʺ under the guise of beggars, have illegally crossed from Persia to our territory in small groups. Part of those who crossed went towards the villages of Ujary, Kurdamir and Geokchay, and the rest went to the village of Mugani. It was established that those who went to the village of Mugani had appearances at the objects of insurgent development.
According to preliminary data, those who crossed the border have special tasks to prepare the uprising. Of those who crossed, 9 people were detained, moreover, two of them escaped from custody, but were detained again. During the search, a number of suspicious documents and addresses were found. The detainee, who identified himself as Heydar Mir Abas Oglu, was found to have a small tissue paper with the inscription ʺyakivʺ and a number of numbers. During the search, Geidar tried to swallow this piece of paper.
One of the detainees has the belongings of Sadda‐Bek killed last year by the gang.
Forced intelligence work is underway. Measures were taken to detain the rest.
National region CCM
After a certain lull towards the end of 1930, in the spring of 1931, antiSoviet activity began to revive again, reflected in the saturation of the national regions with provocative rumors about the war, in widespread rebel agitation, a clustering of counter‐revolutionary elements, in a number of new attempts to form counter‐revolutionary organizations. In 1931, liquidated:
a) counter‐revolutionary organizations ‐ 9, 463 people were arrested;
b) counter‐revolutionary groups ‐ 69, 467 people were arrested;
c) single counterrevolutionary ‐ 668 people were arrested;
d) bandit elements ‐ 604 people were arrested.
Total: 2202 people.
Of great interest are the new slogans, forms and tactics of the kulaksʹ anti‐Soviet activities, which amount to:
1) persistent exaggeration of provocative rumors in order to instill confidence in the instability of Soviet power;
2) the striving of the kulak counterrevolutionary element for internal cohesion and for the establishment of unity of tactics, which was reflected in the more frequent kulak conferences and the discussions at them of these questions;
3) popularizing the attitude ‐ ʺnot to repeat the mistakes of 1930ʺ, carefully prepare, speaking not in isolation, ʺwhatever the pressure, patiently keep silent, hide in the collective farm, using your people in the Soviet apparatusʺ;
4) the strengthening and modification of anti‐Soviet activities along the religious line (nomadic propagandists, traveling sheikhs, the emergence of new candidates for sheikhs, the organization of catering in mosques, the organization of all kinds of ʺKurmalyks and Mavlidsʺ ‐ religious meetings accompanied by a feast, ʺziyafatsʺ ‐ collective pilgrimages on the graves of sheikhs, etc.);
5) even deeper and more thorough conspiracy of anti‐Soviet formations (it is done in such a way that an ordinary participant is neither personally, nor the name of another);
6) the systematic distortion and distortion of Soviet measures through their people in the Soviet apparatus, as a way of anti‐Soviet influence on the masses.
The dimensions of kulak counter‐revolutionary activity are clearly reflected in the data on mass demonstrations and terrorist
manifestations for the first half of 1931.
The kulaks make extensive use of the unsettled land relations in mountainous regions, provoking mass protests against the land management of collective farms.
In the village of Urari, Korkmar‐Kalinsky district of the DSSR, the RIC convened an inter‐village meeting of citizens to resolve issues of land management, which brought together up to 10 thousand people. The crowd provoked by the kulaks did not allow the chairman of the RIK to speak, shouting: “We don’t need land management and collective farms,” disrupting the meeting. The crowd began throwing stones at the chairman of the RIK and the party activists, demanding a written commitment from them ‐ ʺnot to organize collective farms, not to carry out land management and to tear the lists for resettlement,ʺ threatening reprisals if they refused. Only when the lists were torn up and the commitment was signed by the chairman of the RIK did the crowd disperse. It is characteristic that during the excess, which lasted four hours, the red partisans behaved passively.
In the village of Mugatyr, DSSR, women provoked by the kulaks forced the land surveyors to leave the village.
On June 29, an armed clash broke out between the communities of the villages of Sharoi and Sanduka of the ChAO due to a dispute over the Sarchikha pasture mountain. This dispute lasted for several years, annually accompanied by clashes and casualties on both sides, and the kulaks of both sides, inciting the dispute, are trying to rally the poor around themselves, taking her under their influence. Mass demonstrations on the basis of land management do not stop in August this year. On August 12, in the village of Kaka‐Shchura, Buinaksky district of the DSSR, a crowd of 300 people, provoked by the kulaks, led by them, armed with daggers, sticks, pitchforks, began to oppose the work of tractor drivers on land plots that had departed from the kulaks to the collective farm after land management. The cell secretary and propagandist, trying to reason with the crowd, were beaten, and the secretary was killed. The collective farm chairman was also killed.
On the basis of land disputes, on August 7, an armed clash occurred between the village of Benoy‐Vedeno of the Nozhai‐Yurt district of the ChAO and the village of Geratl DASSR, as a result of which one person was killed and two wounded by the Dagestanis.
Middle Asia
Nationalist counterrevolutionary groups in the city
Investigation into the case of the arrested literary worker of the State Publishing House of the Uzbek SSR Grammatovich.
PP in Central Asia arrested the author of Uzbek language textbooks, non‐party intellectual Grammatovich. The accused is the son of a former landowner, was twice expelled from the CPSU (b), was prosecuted for actively opposing land reform in Uzbekistan, and was purged from the university. In his textbooks, Grammatovich used antiSoviet articles inciting national antagonism as examples. He used nationalistic works of Uzbek bourgeois poets and writers (Chulpan, Mukhamedzhanov and others) as material. At the same time, he grouped around himself a White Guard element from the former Russian bureaucracy, whose support he enjoyed in the fight against communist teachers and authors of other textbooks of the Uzbek language (some persons from this group of former officials were also brought to justice for counter‐revolutionary activities in another case). Grammatovich was associated with and enjoyed the support of Uzbek nationalist circles, in particular, persons involved in nationalist counter‐revolutionary organizations uncovered in Central Asia. This support gave Grammatovich the opportunity to monopolize the production of Uzbek language textbooks for Europeans. The nationalist circles of the eastern national republics are currently fighting against Soviet power under the banner of fighting Russian colonialism and are formally dissociating themselves from Russian counter‐revolutionary organizations. A number of recent cases, however, give indications that in a number of cases nationalist counter‐revolutionary organizations are associated with the Russian counter‐revolution. In the Grammatovich case, there is some material indicating this kind of bloc of Russian chauvinist White Guards and the national Uzbek counterrevolution.
In this context, the testimony of Grammatovich is of great interest, which gives a characteristic picture of the combination of great‐power sentiments with the desire to please nationalists: “The Scientific Research Society at the Faculty of Oriental Studies has put forward a demand to view all published Uzbek literature. I was against it. In this case, there was also a moral influence on me by some Uzbek workers ‐ Atajan Khashimov, Shakirajan Rahimi, Gali‐Alim Yunusov (all members of nationalist groups). They instigated me to take up the fight against the Faculty of Oriental Studies. When I was in Samarkand, I often met these persons. There was not a single meeting without them raising the issue of the need to continue the struggle with the Faculty of Oriental Studies. They just didnʹt want any organization to train and graduate European specialists, politically trained, able not to miss the nationalist literature. The penetration of Europeans into their midst, of course, would prevent them from developing. I was convinced from my own experience that they have such a tendency, tk. there was some kind of alienation, despite the fact that I was their weapon against the Faculty of Oriental Studies. ʺ The Uzbek language textbook compiled by Grammatovich for Europeans‐workers of the Soviet apparatus, obliged by a decree of the government of the Uzbek SSR to eliminate illiteracy, was published in Uzbek by the Uzbek GIZ with the approval of the GUS in tens of thousands of copies, despite the fact that scientific research organizations were rejected as harmful and ideologically and methodologically: “My textbook was approved by the members of the GUS Atajan Khashimov and Gizi Alim Yunusov, who considered and gave a judgment about the textbook. ʺ “The 11th stereotyped edition of my book also contains a number of ideologically unrestrained and counter‐revolutionary articles. I told the board of the Uzbek GIZ that this textbook should not be published again without corrections. Lieberman, the former head of the publishing department of the Uzbek GIZ, said that the textbook should be published. In January 1930, the new head of the publishing department of the Uzbek GIZ, Epifanov, also told me that the chairman of the board of the Uzbek GIZ, Tadzhiyev, had ordered the publication of a textbook of 20,000 copies for five‐thousanders from Moscow ʺ(testimony of Grammatovich).
The contamination of the Soviet apparatus
It was reported that Shamsi Badretdikov, appointed Prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Uzbekistan in 1923, was a member of a nationalist counter‐revolutionary organization in the mountains. Andijan. There is evidence that, while occupying a number of responsible positions, he compromised himself with bribery. This circumstance is of particular importance in connection with the general contamination of the judicial apparatus in Uzbekistan by the anti‐Soviet element. In 1929‐1930. in the judicial institutions of Uzbekistan, a counter‐revolutionary organization headed by the chairman of the Supreme Court Kasimov was revealed (shot). The organization included former members of the nationalist counter‐revolutionary organization Milli‐Ittihad. Kasimovʹs group seized almost the entire judicial apparatus of the republic and used it for counterrevolutionary purposes for several years.
Insurgency and bandit movement in Turkmenistan
In the spring of this year, a mass (up to 400 households) of nomads from Kazakhstan flooded into Northern Turkmenistan under the leadership of a fugitive baysk and bandit element. Concentrating in the inaccessible sands, the nomads refused to recognize the power, created their own self‐government and organized armed gangs, which made a number of robberies and armed uprisings. So, in April, gangs of nomads, united with a local bandit element, destroyed a detachment of our troops of 50 people. The actions of the nomads were activated by the local counterrevolutionary groups who, in turn, spoke out. The latter, at the end of July, organized a raid on the regional center of the Kunya‐Urenichesky region of the mountains. Kunya‐Urgench. The city was captured and plundered. Subsequently, the movement, expanding, covered almost the entire northwestern part of Turkmenistan. As of August 12, 8 bandit groups with a total number of up to 1200 Yessadnikov were concentrated in the sands. On July 30, gangs of up to 300 people plundered the regional center of the Kazandzhik region. On the same July 30, the gangs destroyed a good detachment of 80 people with two machine guns. On the same day, another detachment (militia) of 40 people was destroyed. The development of the insurgent‐bandit movement was largely facilitated by the interruptions in the supply of grain to the areas affected by banditry and the mistakes and excesses made by local organizations. In the Kazandzhik region, in a number of places, bread was not issued during the months of March and April. In the Krasnovodsk region, the distribution of bread was stopped everywhere within two months. During livestock harvesting in Krasnovodsk and Kazandzhik districts, the payment of money for the surrendered cattle was greatly delayed. No industrial goods were handed out to cattle suppliers. The blanks were entrusted to private traders, influential bays, who ripped off the population. Cattle breeders without explanatory work were mobilized for long‐term public works on transportation (Krasnovodsk and Kazandzhik districts, the most affected by banditry). The aforementioned shortcomings contributed to the fact that in a number of cases civilians joined the gangs. In a raid on the mountains. KunyaUrgench was attended by up to 400‐450 people, of which about 75% were local farmers‐poor and middle peasants.
Massive anti‐Soviet manifestations in the countryside
Mass performances
Recently, there has been a noticeable decline in mass anti‐Soviet demonstrations. Compared to June, in July the number of registered mass demonstrations fell from 25 to three. In August, only one mass demonstration was reported (data for July and August are incomplete). The decline in mass demonstrations is explained by the settlement of the issue of supplying grain to cotton growers (the mass demonstrations that took place in the first half of the year were mainly due to an insufficient supply of bread to the population). Simultaneously with the decline in mass demonstrations, there is an increase in the organizing role of the anti‐Soviet element in them. The demonstrations that took place in July‐August did not arise spontaneously, as it had happened before, but they were preceded by a comparatively long preparation on the part of the bays.
Performance in the Alamedin region of Kyrgyzstan
In the Alamedin region of Kyrgyzstan, Russian kulaks, together with the Kyrgyz bays, organized an armed uprising against the government. The immediate reason for the protest was grain procurements. The Russian kulaks of the village of Alameda, having killed the chairman of the village council, who was carrying out the grain procurement, provoked a group of residents of the village and fled with them to the mountains, where they united with the Russian kulaks and bae‐manaps hiding there and organized an armed gang. In the future, the gang, partly by force, partly by provocation, attracted to its side some residents (Kyrgyz) of the Kara‐Kalinsk and Uzungir village councils. Subsequently, the gang was joined by the kulaks of the village of Prokhladny and Pervomayskoye, and it grew to 200 people. The overwhelming majority of the poor and collective farmers take an active part in the elimination of the gang.
Terror
There is an upward trend in the terror movement. In the first quarter, 78 cases of terror were registered in the republics of Central Asia, in the second ‐ 85. In the third quarter, only in the first two months, according to far from complete data, there were 60 cases of terror. Of these, in July ‐ 53. Terror is directed mainly against the kishlak activists ‐ 22 cases, workers of the lower apparatus ‐ 13 cases, collective farmers ‐ 15 cases (data for July). In most cases, the actual perpetrators of terror are kulaks and other anti‐Soviet elements. The participation of the poor (five cases) and middle peasants (one case) in the terror is insignificant (data for July). By its nature, the terror is broken down as follows: murders ‐ 47, wounds ‐ five, assassination attempts ‐ one, no beatings, no arson. Perpetrators of terror: kulaks ‐ 37, other anti‐Soviet element ‐ 17, middle peasants ‐ one,
Results of the conducted operational activities
As of August 9: since the beginning of spring, 98 counter‐revolutionary Bai groups have been liquidated in the Central Asian republics, 1013 people have been arrested for them. The total number of the anti‐Soviet element repressed during this period is 8228 people. 4595 people fled from the repressions and went into gangs, of which 657 people were arrested.
Red stick actions
In the Kokand region of Uzbekistan, a gangster element hiding in the turgai (thickets) was seized by the forces of voluntary self‐protection detachments from the dekhkans, the so‐called red stickmen. The detachments operated under the leadership of local kishlach and collective farm activists. 1200 people were organized in the detachments. Later, during the operation, another 1,300 people joined the detachments on their own initiative. As a result of the operation, 49 relatives of the Akhmet‐Kassan gangʹs accomplices were caught, 10 kulaks who fled from kulak villages. The leader of the gang, AkhmetKassan, finally hunted down by the red‐sticks in tugai, was forced to surrender to a detachment of GPU troops. Attention is drawn to the rise and active mood among the red sticks. In the village of Kenigs, a group of red‐stickmen, having detained the hiding ishan (clergyman), intended to drown him in the Syr‐Darya. The intervention of a GPU officer who arrived in time prevented the lynching of Ishan. The commander of one of the red‐stick detachments detained his kulak uncle, who had disappeared from the Andijan region. During the surrender of the leader of the gang, Akhmet‐Kassan, shots were fired. Red‐stick collective farmers from the neighboring village, having heard these shots, despite the night, immediately came to the shots. On the collective farms of Mulkabad, 15 people were recruited into the redstick detachment. 30 people came to the assembly point with their fodder and food. despite the night, they immediately came to the shots. On the collective farms of Mulkabad, 15 people were recruited into the red‐stick detachment. 30 people came to the assembly point with their fodder and food.
Kazakhstan
A nomadic insurrectionary movement in the former Adayevsky district
With the onset of the period of spring migrations, a mass of migrants from various regions of Kazakhstan flooded into the former Adayevsky district. The presence of a large number of fugitive Bai elements among the migrants and the dissatisfaction of the masses with the excesses committed by the local authorities gave the movement an anti‐Soviet character. The migrations were accompanied by robberies of lowerlevel economic organizations (cooperatives, purchase points), beatings of Soviet workers, and the dispersal of the authorities. In April, the migrants and the local population who joined them seized and plundered the district center of the Mangistavsky region ‐ Fort Alexandrovsky. The bulk of the nomads concentrated in the U. Urt area. In July, there were up to 13 thousand nomads here. Among them there were three gangs with a total number of up to 500‐600 people. The nomads refused to recognize the power and elected khans. The local population joined the nomads. During the months of June and July, the insurgents organized a number of large bandit uprisings. In June, the Aleksandrovsky Fort was seized by bands of insurgents for the second time. On July 29, gangs of up to 700 people made an attempt to capture the fort for the third time. On July 30, one of the gangs, having plunged into 40 sailing boats, attacked from the sea and plundered the fisheries in the Mangistavsky region. The success of the gangs was greatly aided by the excesses in the areas affected by banditry. In the Mangistavskiy region, when carrying out cattle procurement, a horse, which, according to the Peopleʹs Commissariat for Internal Affairs, cost 180 rubles, was paid 25‐40 rubles. The calculation was not made immediately, but receipts were issued. Subsequently, part of the receipts (for 500‐700 thousand rubles) was collected and lost for the calculation. It is now unknown who should pay for the surrendered livestock. A significant part of the middle peasants, when carrying out stocking up of livestock, were classified as well‐to‐do, and on this basis, no calculations were made with them. The debt to them was confiscated by the RIC. Fines in the amount of tenfold were imposed on those poor and middle peasants who did not fulfill the task of surrendering livestock in the manner of socialist competition.
Emigration to China
There is a significant increase in emigration sentiments in the border zone with China. During 1930, the number of those who emigrated and were detained while attempting to emigrate was 10,636. From January to May 25, 1931, 8755 people emigrated to China. In addition, a significant number of farms were detained at the border. Emigration continued throughout June and August. Emigration is mainly due to food difficulties in the border zone and the excesses allowed here in cattle procurement. The growth of emigration to Western China is significantly influenced by the activities of anti‐Soviet groups abroad. In Western China, a counter‐revolutionary national Kazakh center was organized, headed by the Kazakh prince Allen. The said center was organized with the aim of creating a national Kazakh principality in Western China. In some cases, migrations to China are organized by overseas circles and are carried out under the cover of foreign gangs. In the Sergiopol region, under the cover of a gang that had broken through from behind the cordon, 700 people were organized to migrate to China. The migrants had up to 145 units of various firearms and intended to break through to China by force of arms. In the Kuchum region, another gang that broke through from behind the cordon organized a migration to 500 households. The migration was prevented, the gang was liquidated. It draws attention to the fact that this year a large percentage of emigrants are middle and poor farms and collective farmers. Meanwhile, last year a significant part of the emigrants was Baystvo. A survey of some border areas showed that in some places up to 30% of the total population emigrated to China.
Fires
In a number of districts, in particular in the districts of the former Petropavlovsk and Akmola districts, cases of fires on collective and state farm fields have become extremely widespread recently. In some cases, due to drought, fires take on enormous proportions. Fires occur in most cases due to arson attacks by bays and other anti‐Soviet elements. In Enbekskhelder district, in aul No. 13, in connection with bringing the plan of meat procurement to the aul, the Baystvo organized the migration of 150 farms. Before migrating, one of the wellto‐do people set fire to the grass, as a result, several thousand hayfields burned down. As a result of the arson of the hayfields of the Primshinsky state farm (Ruzaevsky district), about 25 thousand hectares were burnt. In Tonkreyskiy region, 122 thousand hectares of hayfields of meat state farm No. 80, several horses and cars were burnt. There are human casualties.
Tartary
Nationalist (Sultan‐Galiev) organization in Krasnoborsk district
Nationalist counter‐revolutionary organizations
In the Krasnoborsk region, a nationalist counter‐revolutionary organization with the Sultan‐Galiev principles was liquidated. The organization focused on the white Tatar emigration and was associated with nationalists in the mountains. Kazan. At the head of the organization was the nationalist Sultan‐Galievite Fassah Gobbasov, an active participant in the White Terror in 1917‐1918. and the famous counter‐revolutionary uprising ʺZabulachnaya Republicʺ.
The organization received the Milli‐Yul magazine of the Tatar emigration, published outside the cordon, and at its group meetings arranged the reading and discussion of the articles it contained. At the same time, the organization carried out nationalist propaganda among the population. The latter, basically, went along the line of popularizing the Sultan‐Galiev ideas and idealizing Sultan‐Galiyev himself, who was presented as ʺa fighter for the liberation of the Tatars from the Russian yoke.ʺ The head of the Gabbasov organization, during the campaign to expose Sultan‐Galiyev (without the knowledge of the local authorities), together with Galyautdin Gabbasov who came from Kazan, held two general meetings of peasants, at which, having made a report on the Sultan‐Galiyev case, under the guise of exposing the Sultan‐Galievism, he popularized it : “Sultan‐Galiev, a poor man, a teacher, organized the same comrades around him, who set themselves the task of freeing the Tatars from the yoke of the Russians. Sultan‐Galiev strove to raise the
Tatar nation, give the youth Tatar culture, restore mosques, and remove Russians from public service. For this, Sultan‐Galiev and 60 of his comrades were arrested. However, there are still 400 of his comrades who continue the work of Sultan‐Galiyev. The seed of his teaching is scattered throughout Tartary, it will grow. ʺ
Among the members of the organization there were insurgent and terrorist sentiments. There was talk about the need for weapons. It was said that one of the members of the organization had a weapons depot left over from the Civil War. During the arrest of members of the organization, 8 units of firearms were seized. Members of the organization carried out a terrorist act against a member of the AllUnion Communist Party of Bolsheviks Dzhamilev. There is a suspicion that members of the organization set fire to a grain barn, in which five thousand poods of bread were stored. When the organization was liquidated, 12 people were arrested. During the arrest of the head of Gabbasovʹs organization, documents (letters, notes) were found confirming his counter‐revolutionary activities. In particular, a note written in the form of an instruction in Tatar was seized. Here is a literal translation: “Introduce decomposition into the artel, for this to create an opinion in the disbelief of the future life. ʺ ʺIn order not to take examples from figures, to come up with other ways so that such would be a brake on the creation of strong farms organized on a planned basis.ʺ “As a result of this, to convene secret meetings. To keep the decisions of the meetings secret, to strengthen women, girls and children. ʺ ʺTo create panic among other comrades, mysteriously steal business papers.ʺ “To answer inquiries about resolutions of general meetings with irony. In order to carry out secret affairs, appoint secret carts and secret business trips. Identify persons who are not amenable to secrets. ʺ
At the same time, 45 anti‐Soviet brochures (anarchist and Menshevik), appeals of the liquidated nationalist counter‐revolutionary organization ʺVolga Bulgarian Muslims ‐ Vaisovʹs Warriors of Godʺ, photographs of prominent nationalist leaders of the Maksudov brothers were seized from Gabbasov.
Muslim clergy
Development ʺAuthorityʺ
The former mukhtasib of the Menzelinsky region, Salimyarov, organized a counter‐revolutionary group from the mullahs of the former Menzelinsky canton, which set itself the task of overthrowing the Soviet regime.
The groupʹs activities extended to the Menzelinsky, Aktany and Muslyumovsky districts. The group periodically held meetings, Salimyarov gave the members of the group the following directive: “We need to fight with all our might to make everything ours. Destroy Soviet power or, in extreme cases, achieve concessions. For this, all advanced mullahs must become mullahs again and work, uniting into one whole. ʺ The group had a lively connection with the reactionary part of the Central Spiritual Directorate (Muslim) ‐ Tarjimanov, Fakhretdinov and Bubi, from whom they received instructions for their work. In turn, the group informed Tarjimanov about the mood of the masses, about the state of collective farms, about the number of arrested and active mullahs. Tarjimanovʹs group sent special people to contact Salimyarovʹs group. The group has been liquidated.
Development ʺOrganizerʺ
The counter‐revolutionary group of Muslim clergies in the Tukayevsky region was liquidated. The group was headed by Mullah Suleimanov, who worked on the instructions of the leaders of the Central Spiritual Directorate. The group was engaged in: a) collecting information about the mood of the population and information from the Central Administration; b) agitation against the measures of the Soviet government, in particular, collectivization; a) the spread of various provocative rumors about the fall of the Soviet regime, the governmentʹs persecution of religion, etc. The group had a live connection with the Central Dispatch Office, for which there was a whole group of signalmen. 14 people are accused in the case, including: mullahs ‐ six, kulaks ‐ two, middle peasants ‐ three, others ‐ three.
Development ʺNightʺ
The group of mullahs in the former Mamadysh canton, led by Mukhtasib Berkutov, was liquidated. The group set itself the task of preparing an armed struggle against the Soviet regime. The group was preparing an active performance during the spring sowing period. The group had connections with counter‐revolutionary elements in Central Asia. During the liquidation of the group, the following items were seized: a three‐line rifle and two revolvers. The group was created at the Central Spiritual Directorate, from where it received a number of guidelines. In the case, 75 people are accused, of whom: mullahs ‐ 20, kulaks and merchants ‐ 35, middle peasants and poor peasants ‐ 18, others ‐ two.
Massive anti‐Soviet manifestations
Terror
Terror is on the rise. From June 10 to August 10, 176 terrorist manifestations were registered. In April and May, 118 terrorist acts were registered. Of the terrorist acts registered in June‐August: 11 murders, 92 beatings, and 73 arson attacks. The recent increase in arson in Tatarstan [...] ...
Dispatched:
1) Menzhinsky; 2) Akulov; 3) Berry; 4) Balitsky; 5) Zaporozhets; 6) ZakSPU; 7) PP OGPU for CCM; 8) PP OGPU for Central Asia; 9) PP OGPU across Kazakhstan; 10) PP OGPU in the Tatar Republic; 11) GPU of the Bashkir Republic; 12) in the case; 13, 14, 15 ‐ in the department.
72 The rootization of the Soviet apparatus is the personnel policy in the USSR in the 1920s ‐ 1930s, focused on the training, promotion and use of national personnel (titular nationalities) to work in state and public bodies, in economic and cultural institutions in national formations.
73 Kaimakam is the governor, governor.
Memorandum of the OGPU on the counter‐revolutionary nationalist
Turkic party ʺMusavatʺ. October 10, 1931
No. 7
Top secret
I.
The role of ʺMusavatʺ in the counter‐revolutionary movement among the Turkic peoples and especially the Azerbaijani Turks is extremely great. Throughout the existence of Soviet power, Musavat was the leading, organizing force of the counter‐revolutionary movement, both abroad in the circles of Turkic emigration, and in the city and village inside Azerbaijan. Since 1928, Musavat has become so close to the Polish intelligence service that espionage has become one of the essential essential elements of the Musavatistsʹ activities on our territory. It is enough to analyze the main materials concerning the program and activities of ʺMusavatʺ in order to assert with all categorization that: the development of the Musavatists logically leads to the development of an insurgency and banditry in the Azerbaijani village,
At present, the head of ʺMusavatʺ abroad is the ʺForeign Bureau of the Central Committeeʺ consisting of: a) M.A. Rasul Zade (former chairman of the Azerbaijani parliament, the person closest to the Poles, he himself lives in Warsaw) ‐ chairman of ʺZBʺ; b) Mustafa Bekilova (closely associated with the adviser of the Polish embassy in Turkey Gavronsky and Turkish intelligence agencies) ‐ deputy chairman and c) members of ʺZ.B.ʺ ‐ Rustambekova (connected with Turkish intelligence), Mamed Ali Rasul Zade (brother of M. Emin), Khasmamedova (former Minister of Internal Affairs of the Musavat government), Mirza Bala and Kazim Zade.
The seat of the ʺForeign Bureau of the Central Committeeʺ is Constantinople, and the Poles are directly putting pressure on ʺZ.B.ʺ provided through M.A. Rasul Zadeh and the Polish Embassy in Constantinople. In fact, the Musavat organization is the so‐called Azerbaijan National Center, which formally is an inter‐party body that unites the entire Azerbaijani emigration, and the allotment consists of four Musavatists and one non‐party (Amirjanov), very close to the Musavatists. The said ʺAzerbaijan Centerʺ is directly part of the ʺCommittee for the Independence of the Caucasusʺ functioning in
Paris. The Musavatists also enjoy significant influence in the so‐called Peace Delegation, elected by the Azerbaijani parliament in 1919 to represent it at the Versailles Conference. The influence of the Musavatists in the ʺPeace Delegationʺ increased sharply after the as a member of the delegation, a former ittikhodist Meer Yakub Mehdiyev officially joined Musavat and actually ousted from the leadership of the chairman of the delegation Topchibashly (a well‐known oil industrialist, former member of the 1st State Duma), who constantly did not get along with the leaders of Musavat and tried to monopolize the right to represent the entire Azerbaijani emigration. Of the Musavat cells behind the cordon (Turkey and Persia), particular attention is paid to the Musavat organizations in Tabriz and Kars, which play a significant role in activating the rebel counter‐revolution on our territory and directly organize sabotage banditry and intelligence work in favor of Poland and Turkey. The Musavat underground on our territory underwent significant changes in connection with the strikes from our side. Until the significant defeat of the Musavatists in 1927, the Central Committee and the BC of Musavat were constantly reviving in different compositions. The existence of the Central Committee has not been revealed at present. It is characteristic that from the latest large‐scale development of the Musavatists ʺUnderpantsʺ it is clear that the couriers of the Zakordon organizations communicate directly with the grassroots Musavat organizations. The existence of the Musavat underground in Baku, Salyan and Cuba is obvious from this development.
II.
Musavat, the Turkic Democratic Federalist Party, emerged immediately after the 1905 revolution and took shape in 1917 as a party with the task of proclaiming the independence of Azerbaijan and the subsequent unification of all Turkic peoples on the basis of a federation: “According to its ideology and program, the Musavat” Is a Turkic party. [...] Turkish tribes, as peoples of a single kindred culture, will one day form a common Turkic federation” (report of MA Rasul‐Zade to the Polish consulate in Constantinople in 1926).
In 1918, the Second Musavat Congress put forward the idea of a Caucasian Confederation. “Such unification of the Caucasus as a political form contributing to the liberation of the Caucasus from Russian invasion and conquest, in the opinion of the party, does not contradict the interests of liberating the Turkish peoples from the same hated Russian imperialism; on the contrary, serving as a guarantee of lasting peace in the East and playing the role of a barrier against Russian penetration into the South, it can serve as the best factor in the struggle of the Turkish peoples against the age‐old enemy ”(ibid.).
In connection with this statement by the current chairman of the Musavat Foreign Bureau, the following conclusions should be drawn:
and. The idea of the Caucasian Confederation was perceived by Musavat as the only real means of supporting the imperialists and the necessary concentration and consolidation of all counter‐revolutionary forces of the Transcaucasus.
b. Pan‐Turkism is a slogan for Musavat, on the basis of which it is possible to attract the broad masses and contact with counterrevolutionary organizations of other nationalist republics (Milli Firka, Turkmen nationalist intelligentsia, Milli Istiklal).
In this way:
1. The Musavatists are connected with the political parties of Armenia and Georgia by the common interests of the struggle against the Soviet regime, and in essence, obligations to the imperialists. Goluvko at the February conference of counter‐revolutionary émigré parties (1931) in Warsaw bluntly stated: “The ideal of a common Caucasian organization and a united Caucasus is the same combination in which we can practically approach the matter. Outside of this, do not expect any help or cooperation from us. ʺ
2. With the Turkic counter‐revolution (Crimean, Uzbek and especially Turkmen) ʺMusavatʺ is united by the slogans of Pan‐Turkism, which play an essential role in drawing the broad masses into the counterrevolutionary movement. Being the most powerful nucleus of the entire Turkic emigration in general, the Musavatists not only deserve serious attention as a force competing with the Georgian parties in the KNK, but also draw attention to themselves as a group enjoying exceptional influence in the Turkestan and even in the Tatar emigration. During a long period of its activity and having come, however, for a short period to power, ʺMusavatʺ drew into its ranks and took under its influence the bulk of the Turkic Azerbaijani intelligentsia. He attached, like all counter‐revolutionary organizations in the East, great importance is the participation of the national intelligentsia in counter‐revolutionary work and opposition to the activities of the Soviet government on the ideological front. Musavat has paid and is drawing exclusive attention to the nationalist counter‐revolutionary treatment of young people. The illegal Central Committee and BC of Musavat, liquidated in 1927, achieved exceptional success in their time in seizing the organs and institutions of the Peopleʹs Commissariat of Education. The main command heights are in Baku, Baku, Salyan, Aghdash, Kurdistan, Karyagin, Lankaran, Kazakh, Shemakha, Geokchay districts and Nakhichevan region ‐ in a word, everywhere, except for Zakatalya and Nukha. The county departments of public education and the most important schools were actually in the hands of the Musavatists. In his testimony, the arrested chairman of the Musavat Central Committee Agamaliyev directly pointed out that: ʺThe main task of the Central Committeeʹs work was to conduct cultural and educational work in a nationalist spirit among the youth, to wrest the Turkic youth from under the communist influence.ʺ Despite the fact that such a pointed formulation on this issue is undoubtedly aimed at blurring the insurrectionary work of the Central Committee, there is no doubt that work among the youth has always been one of the most important tasks of the Musavat underground. In turn, the Azerbaijani counterrevolutionary intelligentsia, directly adjacent to the Musavatists, or in one way or another connected with them, as one of the most politically and ideologically qualified, exerts a certain influence on the Uzbek and significant influence on the Turkmen intelligentsia. The connections of the nationalist counterrevolution in Azerbaijan with the counterrevolutionary circles of Uzbekistan and especially Turkmenistan are well known. It is already quite obvious that the general upsurge in the counter‐revolutionary activity of the Turkmen nationalist intelligentsia is associated with the ongoing and ongoing influx of nationalist counter‐revolutionary elements from Azerbaijan into Turkmenistan. All this allows us to draw the following conclusions:
and. The development of Musavatists, mainly within the KNK and ties with the Georgian Meks, National Democrats and Dashnaks, is wrong.
b. Concentration of the development of Musavatists in the STR, due to the importance of Pan‐Turkic slogans, the role of Musavatists in the Turkic regions and among the Turkic emigration, would lead to a sharp fragmentation of related developments, would not make it possible to concentrate the necessary materials and, therefore, correctly manage the development of not only Azerbaijani, but also , to a large extent, of the Turkmen intelligentsia, a number of developments related to the Turkic counter‐revolutionary movement in general and developments in the Turkestan, mountain and partly Tatar emigration.
III.
It is enough to analyze the available materials on Musavatists in order to come to a completely definite conclusion that Musavat differs sharply from Russian and Caucasian political parties:
1. The ʺMusavatʺ program is actually known only in the emigre circles and among the same qualified Musavat elite inside the country, which by now can be considered defeated. The mass of participants in Musavat organizations, liquidated in recent years, do not know the Musavat program and are united not by this program, but by insurgent slogans and slogans of a Pan‐Turkic nature.
Feudal‐clerical elements inside the country, in whose involvement the Musavatists are interested, for example, deliberately do not get acquainted with the program, since it contains points that run counter to Islam.
2. ʺMusavatʺ is the most striking example of a counter‐revolutionary nationalist interventionist organization and can serve as the best illustration of the well‐known assessment of Comrade. Stalinʹs bias towards local nationalism (XVI Congress).
3. ʺMusavatʺ does not have a certain strictly thought‐out tactics. Musavatʹs tactics, especially in recent years, increasingly depends on direct directives from the ruling circles of Poland and is determined by the following provision put forward by the Musavat Foreign Bureau in an October (1930) directive letter to Musavat organizations in Persia: with facts, they want to feel and be convinced of the presence on the ground of a really effective organization that can make itself felt if need be. ʺ
4. In accordance with this, the Musavat nizovka is an amorphous mass, a conglomerate of counter‐revolutionary organizations and groups consisting of kulaks, beks, clergy, nationalist rural intelligentsia, uniting on a bandit insurgency platform, and, hence, not on the basis of the program followed by the Musavat elite ...
IV.
1. The rapprochement between the Musavatists and the Poles, which has continued for several years, has now led to a situation where, in fact, there is no Musavat counter‐revolutionary work without intelligence work in favor of Poland, there is not a single Musavatist who, coming from abroad to communicate with the Musavat underground, would not simultaneously carry out espionage for the Polish government.
2. The Polish‐Musavat bloc undoubtedly has deep roots. In their policy aimed at splitting the USSR, the Poles are generally guided by the Turks, whom they consider to be better allies for domestic political reasons than, for example, the Ukrainians. According to the Poles, Musavat Azerbaijan should be one of the strongest links in the chain of Turkic bourgeois states, which should begin with Idel‐Ural (support by the Poles of Ayaz Iskhakov) and end with Crimea (support by Jafar Seidamet).
3. In 1930, at a banquet of the leading émigré head in the Prometheus club, the famous Goluvko, through whom, up to his murder, Pilsudskiʹs party was leading the Georgian and Turkic counter‐revolutionary emigration, bluntly stated: “The attitude of the Polish government and the people is not determined by the sympathy or antipathy of individual personalities to your case. My policy is the policy of the entire Polish government and is one of the foundations of a program that will not change with a change of personality. ʺ
Back in 1929, the same Goluvko, at a meeting of the ANC in honor of his arrival, assessed Polandʹs expenditures on supporting anti‐Soviet organizations as follows:
“These costs are compared in importance with the costs of increasing the armament of the Polish army, because at the right time the armed action of the Caucasian and Ukrainian peoples (the Petliurists are being developed in the OO, not [in] the STR, although they can be considered political parties with more reason than the Musavatists)) against Russia will divert part of the forces of the latter, thereby increasing the power of Poland. ʺ
4. Military intelligence and the transmission of relevant information to foreign powers, first, mainly Turkey, and then Poland, has always been one of the main elements of the counter‐revolutionary work of the Musavatists on our territory. The military organizations of the Musavatists, which existed until 1927, were systematically engaged in military intelligence. The investigation of the Musavat underground organizations in 1927 established precisely that: “Collecting information of a military nature about the units of the Red Army, their movements, arrival, etc., weapons depots, their location, etc. was the responsibility of the military departments. ʺ
5. The further direction of military intelligence and, in general, espionage materials, which were concentrated in the illegal Central Committee of Musavat, was not developed at the time. However, on the one hand, the connection between the illegal Central Committee of ʺMusavatʺ, which existed in the period 1921‐1927, with the Turkish consulate in Baku and the sending of espionage information to Tabriz to one of the prominent figures of ʺMusavatʺ Mamed Isai Huseynov, who applied on behalf of an extraordinary conference of ʺMusavatʺ in Tabriz with the following direct proposal to the English mission:
ʺWe appeal to the mission with a request to accept all kinds of services from us: we maintain contact with the Caucasus and have the opportunity to provide information of a military and political nature.ʺ
6. In 1927, during the investigation into the case of illegal Musavat organizations, a direct espionage connection with the Baku Turk consulate of the well‐known Akhmedov group was also revealed. The indictment in the case states:
ʺThe Turkconsulate drew espionage information from the Musavatists and rendered assistance in the field of communication between the illegal Musavat Central Committee in the ASSR with the foreign bureau in Turkey.ʺ
7. Later documents of the Zakordon Musavat organizations also directly speak of the military intelligence activities of the Musavatists. Mamed Sadyk Kuliyev (one of the leaders of the Tavriz Committee) wrote in his instructions to the internal underground organizations of the Musavatists: ʺTake all measures to obtain military intelligence information in the near future.ʺ At the same time, in his letter to M.A. Rasul Zadeh, he gave the following characteristic motivation for the need for espionage in favor of Poland: “Since they (the Poles) are interested in us, they want to know what forces we rely on, since they are friends and a reliable authority, we should take the opportunity, and by delivering information to strengthen our positionʺ.
8. The influence of Warsaw on all the activities of the Musavatists, which was quite clearly defined already in 1928, was even more strengthened after the expulsion of M.A. Rasul Zadeh from Constantinople and his move to Warsaw. By directly influencing M.A. Rasul Zade (Chairman of the Foreign Bureau of Musavat), having established close contact with the Foreign Bureau through the adviser of the Polish Embassy in Turkey Gavronsky, without whose knowledge the Musavatists literally do not take a single serious step, the Poles actually became the leaders of Musavat, defining its tactics within Azerbaijan, and his attitude towards other emigre anti‐Soviet parties and even towards Turkey. In this respect, the trip of the Deputy Chairman of the Foreign Bureau ʺMusavatʺ Vekilov to Angora on a direct directive from Gavronsky, which took place in the spring of 1931, is especially characteristic. In a report from the Foreign Bureau about his trip, Vekilov said:
9. Judging by the entire course of Vekilovʹs conversations with Turkish statesmen, the Polish government by sending Vekilov to Angora pursued two main goals: a) to probe the attitude of the Turkish government to the Transcaucasian conference; b) to achieve rapprochement of the Turkish authorities with the Musavatists in order to influence the deterioration of relations between Turkey and the USSR. The position of the Turkish government at the present time can be characterized by the following statements of Turkish statesmen: 1) “The Azerbaijani‐Turkic cohesive group, not lagging behind Turkey in culture, should live independently in the Caucasian confederation. But we do not believe in the sincerity of not only Armenians, but also Georgians. [...] Poland is also in the orbit of France, and, in all likelihood, as the Caucasian committee, consisting of people who do not inspire us trust, is a body serving French interests in the Caucasus and Russia” (Minister of Internal Affairs Shukti Bey). 2) ʺContinue your work, the only condition is conspiracy and caution in the press.ʺ
10. It is characteristic that in a conversation between Vekilov and Chief of the General Staff Fevzi‐Pasha, the latter was interested in whether the Musavatists had people in Sarai, and in response to Vekilovʹs direct offer of espionage services (Vekilov said: “There are loyal comrades in these places, and if the Turkish the government has allowed, we would have contacted the homeland ʺ), Fevzi‐Pasha promised to discuss this issue in detail. Even more characteristic is the fact that after a conversation with Fevzi‐Pasha Vekilov was invited to the II Department of the Turkish General Staff, where he gave detailed information about the situation in Azerbaijan.
11. Espionage in favor of Poland, and partly, to a certain extent, in favor of Turkey is now such an integral and important component of the entire counter‐revolutionary work of the Musavatists on our territory that the transfer of the Musavat development to the Open Society Organization would cause significant breakthroughs in our work on espionage, sabotage, bandit and insurgency. This issue deserves all the more attention because in connection with Vekilovʹs negotiations with the chief of the Turkish General Staff, the Musavatists may intensify their espionage work in the Kara direction.
V.
1. Banditry and the insurrectionary movement in the Azerbaijani village, in fact, from the very beginning of the Civil War, are organizationally closely connected with the Musavat underground. Already in 1920‐1923. Musavat paid serious attention to the development of counter‐revolutionary work in the countryside and created a number of formalized organizations in the districts (Lankaran, Salyan, Shusha, Agdam, Jevanshir, Gyandus). At the same time, the social base of ʺMusavatʺ in the village was clearly outlined. Naturally, contrary to the statements of the Musavat leaders about the populist character of the party, the kulaks turned out to be this social base. The leaders of the organizations, who were not sufficiently sophisticated in politics and theoretical questions, stated bluntly: “The Musavatists, who directly lived and worked among the peasantry, enjoyed authority and influence among the upper echelons of the peasantry;
2. The expansion of the social base of ʺMusavatʺ in the village at the expense of the kulaks continued all the time. By 1927, the situation was such that the Azerbaijani GPU, after the defeat of the Musavatists, could state: ʺThe participation of organized middle and poor peasant elements in the Musavat organizations, as we see from the investigative materials, is limited.ʺ The Musavatist cells, liquidated in 1927 in the Lankaran district, consisted almost entirely of kulak elements. In the Geokchay region, all 17 arrested Musavatists turned out to be fists. In the Musavat organizations of the Ganja region, kulaks made up 76%. At the same time, the most active insurgent kulak elements joined Musavat and joined Musavat.
3. Already in the period 1920‐21. in all the uprisings that broke out in the Ganja, Karabakh, Lankaran districts, the Musavatists played an active and, in fact, a leading role. Before the defeat of the Musavat underground in 1927, the Musavatists carried out a great insurrectionary work. Musavat spread its network of military organizations widely. As a result of this work, only in the Lenkoran and Karabakh organizations, the number of trained rebels reached 600 people.
4. The role of ʺMusavatʺ in the insurrectionary movement of 1930 was even more serious. As of January 1, 1930, about 60 Musavat counterrevolutionary cells, covering 600 people, were counted in the Azerbaijani village. On March 24, 1930, the Musavat Foreign Bureau made a decision on the general leadership of the insurrectionary movement in Azerbaijan. In the process of liquidating the insurgent uprisings in Azerbaijan in 1930, the Azerbaijani GPU liquidated 18 Musavat cells with a total of 163 participants.
5. All this intensification of the bandit and insurgent work of ʺMusavatʺ was carried out under the direct instructions of the Poles and the British. It is precisely established that in 1928, during Vekilovʹs meeting with the Polish ambassador to France Artyshevsky and in Warsaw with Goluvko, both of them raised the question of activating the work of the Musavatists in Azerbaijan, and the Poles declared that they: “They have nothing against organizing any or a single blow, I wonder how successful this case would have been, and what would have come of it. ʺ When the prominent Musavatists Rustambekov and Khasmamedov met with the adviser of the Polish embassy in Turkey, Papke, the latter also raised the issue of intensifying the Musavat work and gave a direct order to organize gangs in the Azerbaijani village. In October 1929, the Polish consul in Tehran, who maintains close contact with the Tavriz Committee of Musavat, raised the question of the possibility of organizing two bands in the Azerbaijani or Persian Mugani for the subsequent formation of rebel detachments. In the same period, former Musavat officers, collaborating with the 2nd department of the Polish General Staff, developed a detailed plan for using the bandit elements of Persian Azerbaijan to create sabotage bands. The participation of the British in the bandit and insurrectionary movements in Azerbaijan is documented.
The military attaché of the Polish embassy in the USSR, Kovalevsky, who traveled to Tabriz in the summer of 1930, in his report to the head of the 2nd department of the main headquarters directly states: “The activity among the Kurds is directly related to the sabotage intentions of the British in the Transcaucasus, where the insurrectionary movement in Armenia is still continuing and mountainous Karabakh, supplied with money, weapons and ammunition with the assistance of British agents (White Guards in British trading companies in Persia, etc.) ”. The direct executors of all these plans were the Colonel of the Persian service, Kelbali Khan Nakhichevan, close to Musavat, and the leaders of the Musavat underground in our territory. Now it is absolutely certain that the agent (documentary) and investigative materials establish a direct connection between Musavat and Nakhichevan and the most active leading activity of the Musavatists in the gangster movement in 1930. Suffice it to point out that after the defeat of the most persistent and dangerous of the gangs of the Ganja district (Yakublinskaya gang) documents were found and testimony was obtained that directly testified that the five main gangs of the Ganja region were led by Musavatists and were, like the Yakublinskaya gang, in fact, Musavat combat groups. The inseparable connection between the activities of ʺMusavatʺ, and banditry, and the insurrectionary movement was such an important factor that one of the most serious shortcomings of the fight against banditry in 1930 should be considered the fact that the work on the Musavatists was mainly
VI. Conclusions:
1. The transfer of the development of ʺMusavatʺ as one of the most specific political organizations for the eastern nationalist counterrevolutionary political organizations in the Open Society Society creates a significant breakthrough in all eastern work in general.
2. This transfer would mean a deliberate weakening of all areas of work on the eastern nationalist counter‐revolution for the development of one narrow‐territorial area arising in connection with the presence of an effective bloc between the counterrevolutions in Azerbaijan and
Armenia and would lead to:
a) to the artificial rupture of objects closely related to each other, deconcentration of materials on the counter‐revolutionary movement in the East, thus making the correct leadership of places inconceivable; b) difficulties and breakthroughs in our fight against espionage, sabotage and insurgency in Azerbaijan.
Assistant to the head of the OGPU Dyakov