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Review of the political state of the USSR
Review of the political economy of the USSR in February 1924
Archive source: ʺTop Secretʺ: Lubyanka to Stalin on the situation in the country (1922‐1934), v.2 1924, part 1.2, Moscow, 2001
March 22, 1924
WORKERS
Delayed wages. In February, there was again an increase in discontent over wage arrears (in Moscow in February, fermentation on this basis was noted at 33 enterprises against 23 in January). In the metallurgical industry, dissatisfaction with the delay in wages was noted at the factories: in Moscow ‐ at Sokolnichesky Mechanical, Ruskabel No. 2, etc .; in the Ural region, Tula and Bryansk provinces (in the Pochep factory district, non‐payment of wages for a month and a half), Azerbaijan and the Far Eastern Branch (workers of the Dalzavod have not been paid wages since the second half of October); in the textile industry ‐ at the Reutov paper‐spinning mill with 2,500 workers and other factories in Moscow and the provinces ‐ Simbirsk, Ryazan, in the Transcaucasus (at the Nukha silk‐winding factories since November) and the Bashkir Republic; on railway transport ‐ in the provinces of Yeniseiskaya, Tverskaya, Kharkovskaya (Izyumsky district), Akmola, Cherepovets and
Karelia; at sawmills and logging in Karelia, Arkhangelsk and Vologda provinces. Salaries are especially severely delayed in the mining industry (the North Vyatka mining district, the Pobedinsky mines of Ryazan province, the Santo and Chimkent mines in Turkestan, the oil fields of Azerbaijan, the Makeevka Yugostal combine and the coal industry in the Donbass, at the Chelyabinsk mines, where it has not been paid since the second half of November, Iletsk salt fields and a number of mines, and in the Far East region, where there is a debt for 5‐8 months, etc.).
Reduced wages. Lower wages through lower grades and rates and higher output rates are also becoming common. In Moscow, 34 enterprises were dissatisfied with these reasons (against 14 in January). Fermentation was noted at the factories of OrekhovoZuevsky district. (a paper‐spinning mill with 5,000 workers), at the Danilovskaya convent (where there was a 20‐minute break in work), at the Metallolampa plant (660 workers). In the provinces at the enterprises of the Kiev province, Belarus (timber mills), Yaroslavl, Odessa, Voronezh (railway workshops, where the ʺItalianʺ was carried out) and Nizhny Novgorod provinces (Sormovo). The Leningrad region stands out, where the reduction in wages reaches 25‐30% (ʺKrasny Putilovetsʺ, the Baltic plant, a number of sections of the Oktyabrskaya railway, the 2nd section of the traction service of the North‐West railway).
Low rates. Growth of dissatisfaction with the demand for higher wages is characteristic of the reporting period. In Moscow, discontent on this basis was noted at 54 enterprises in February (against 22 in January). Insufficient wages are noted in the provinces: Tula, Tsaritsyn, Georgia (metal industry), Penza, Tambov, Severo‐Dvinskaya (rail and water transport) and in the textile industry of the Moscow region. At the same time, discontent is especially strong among workers with lower qualifications.
Index. It should be noted the mass dissatisfaction on the basis of the loss on the exchange rate by the workers when converting the commodity ruble in gold terms. In Moscow, less than one third of workers were insured against loss on the course. In the Kuznetsk Basin (Siberia), workers lost up to 30% of their earnings.
Currency abnormalities. It should also be noted abnormalities with the issuance of a significant percentage of Soviet signs on account of wages (noted at 13 enterprises in Moscow and individual factories in the provinces: Nizhny Novgorod, Tula, Simbirsk and Siberia), as well as payment of salaries in kind or bonuses to cooperatives (noted on a number of outskirts provinces: Cherepovets, Tomsk, Bashrespublika, FEV, Votoblast, Novonikolaevsk, Simbirsk gubernias and Kalmyk republicsʹ 8). When wages are paid out in goods, workers often have to sell them below cost due to the lack of close markets (Bashkortostan), while in cooperatives the prices for goods are too high or there are no necessary goods.
Failure to issue special and overalls. The non‐issuance of special and overalls continues to be noted in accordance with collective agreements (Kuban‐Black Sea region, fields of the Bibi‐Heybat region in the Caucasus, Tula metal plants, the Ural mining industry and railway transport in the regions: Leningrad, Bryansk and Tambov provinces).
Staff reduction. The downsizing of staff that continued in February was also reflected in the mood of workers in the respective enterprises. The reduction of workers in the metallurgical industry and at the factories ʺRuskabelʺ No. 2 and 3, the aircraft plant ʺMotorʺ, the Moscow power plant in Moscow, in Karelia, Tambov, Simbirsk, in Nizhny Novgorod (Telephone and Remvozduhozavod No. 2), in Leningrad (plant ʺKrasnogvardeetsʺ) and Siberia (Abakan plant). It is planned to make reductions at the Leningrad factories Krasny Putilovets, Krasny Vyborzhtsy and Metallichesky. A significant reduction is also being made in the textile industry.
Strike movement. The level of the strike movement remains the same in February; in total, information has been received about 29 strikes in the USSR, of which only 20 took place in February. The reason for most of the strikes is the delay in the issuance of salaries and, in part, the decrease in rates and the high production rate. Strikes are distributed by industry as follows:
Strikes
industry
Metalworking
8
Mountain
five
Textile
3
Chemical
3
In Moscow, only 3 significant ʺItaliansʺ were recorded, lasting no more than an hour. A significant strike movement took place in Donetsk province, where 9 strikes took place in February, 7 of them at the Yugostal Makeyevka combine on the basis of late payment of wages (more than 1,500 workers participated). In all cases, the strikes were liquidated by the immediate liquidation of workersʹ debts. During two other strikes in Donbass, complications took place: at the Borovsky mine of the Yenakievsky district, the workers demanded that the trade union organize a general strike, and at the Konstantinovek state leather plant, where the workers, due to the non‐liquidation of debts since December, beat the technologist and tore down the telephone in the office.
Housing issue. Dissatisfaction with difficult housing conditions is noted in a large number of provinces. The workers of the Kashira power plant live in old barracks, which do not keep warm. Unimportant living conditions are noted at all large textile factories of the Moscow region. Workers of the Bibi‐Heybat fields (Caucasus) live in dilapidated houses. In Donetsk province. in a number of mines, prostitution is developing due to overcrowding. The same phenomena are observed in a large number of other provinces.
Cooperatives. Workersʹ cooperatives, due to their inability to work, high prices and lack of consumer goods, did not win the confidence of the workers. In Moscow, dissatisfaction for this reason was noted at 12 large enterprises: at the ʺProletarskaya Dictatorshipʺ factory of the Orekhovo‐Zuevsky Trust (20,000 workers), especially on the basis of constant queues for bread, the lack of a canteen or poor quality of food sold in existing canteens (factory of the former Schrader, ʺKley‐Utilʺ No. 7, plant ʺAMOʺ), Discontent for the same reasons is noted in many provinces of the USSR.
Closure of enterprises. The declining sales crisis in our industry stopped the process of closing and liquidating enterprises that was observed in December [1923] ‐ January [1924]. During the reporting month, the closure of factories was noted mainly in the chemical industry (glass factories in the Bashrespublika, Azerbaijan and Odessa province, matchbooks in Kiev province) and in the forest (Novonikolaevskaya, Yeniseiskaya and Semipalatinskaya provinces). In addition, the crutch plant in Donbass has been canned and, due to the lack of raw materials, the Tutaevskaya linen factory and Kanatnaya named after Kalinin and factories of the Yaroslavl province.
Unemployment. The closure and conservation of enterprises and layoffs have increased unemployment in a number of provinces (Tver, Chernigov, Yekaterinoslav, Yaroslavl, City Republic, Belarus, Ural region, etc.). There are 8,000 unemployed registered at the Grozny Labor Exchange and the same number of unregistered persons who have turned into vagabonds huddled in ruins. By February, there are unemployed: in the Kiev province. 30,000, Odessa 20,000, Azerbaijan 21,000 (versus 10,000 in July), Kazan 17,500 (a further reduction of 900 workers at the Powder Factory is also planned there.)
The mood of the unemployed is unsatisfactory, and in some places hostile to the Soviet regime and the RCP (Belarus, Chernigov, Kiev and other provinces). In some places, banditry and prostitution are noted among them. In Belarus, the unemployed apply for assistance to the Council of Peopleʹs Commissars, the CEC,
RCI, Sovprofbel, etc. Among the unemployed, Art. In Chelyabinsk (Siberia) leaflets were distributed to the unemployed, urging them to fight against Soviet power. In January at the station. Liski (SouthEast), the appeals of the ʺparty of the unemployedʺ were pasted up with an appeal to organize in order to come out on January 9 with demands to improve the situation of the unemployed.
Administration and workers. Workersʹ dissatisfaction with the administration on the basis of mismanagement, abuse and rudeness in February increases (in Moscow, fermentation on this basis among workers was registered in February at 30 enterprises against 20 in January). Everywhere it is noted that workers are extremely interested in doing business at the enterprise and are highly responsive to the phenomena of mismanagement, negligence and omission.
Mismanagement. During the month of February, there are a lot of cases of mismanagement throughout the Union and in all branches of industry, and especially in the mining industry. In particular, the phenomenon of mismanagement is noted: in Moscow ‐ in Tsentrosoyuz (in warehouses) and at a number of Moscow enterprises, in the Vladimir province. (plant ʺRed Octoberʺ), in the Voronezh province. (mechanical factories, where the administration undermines production in order to return factories to their former owners), Yaroslavl (linen factories), Novgorod, Smolensk (mechanical plant), in Donbass (Krasnogvardeisky mine, Metallurgical plant), Kievskaya, Kuban‐Chernomorskaya (cement and timber factories), in Turkestan (leather factories), in Tambov (Kozhtrest and Makhorfabrika), in the Urals (gold mining and coal mines), the Far East (gold mining), in Grozneft, etc.
PEASANTRY
Implementation of a single tax. As of February 1‐15, a single tax was fulfilled: less than 50% of 5 provinces
70‐80% 16 provinces
50‐60% 8 ‐ ʺ‐
80‐90% 15 ‐ ʺ‐
60‐70% 11 ‐ ʺ‐
90‐100% 12
Attention is drawn to the fact that the highest percentage of unified tax receipts falls on regions that are extremely unfavorable in economic terms (North‐West, Vitebsk Gubernia, Saratov, Vyatka, Armenia), in Crimea the tax has been fulfilled by 80‐100% (see Appendix).
The Far East, where only half of the tax has been passed, and some individual provinces (Dzhetysuyskaya ‐ 17%, Western Georgia ‐ 29%, Semipalatinskaya ‐ 48.9%, Votskaya oblast ‐ 54%, Novgorodskaya ‐ 55%, Omsk ‐ 57%).
The tax arrears are mainly the poor, who often have no food and face the danger of reducing the area under crops due to the lack of semimaterials. She pays the tax by selling inventory or livestock, or borrowing from kulaks. A huge number of applications for tax cuts are received: in the Vologda province. ‐ 78000, Gomel ‐ 31000.
Repression. To increase the income of tax residues, repression is usually applied ‐ inventory and sale of property, up to the arrest of defaulters. In some provinces, the number of those arrested reaches several hundred per district, and in the Stavropol province. during the campaign, over 10,000 non‐borrowers were arrested.
Cash tax. The slow receipt of a single tax, especially in the outlying provinces, is partly due to the lack of banknotes. Thus, the dekhkans of Turkestan have almost no money. In the Kalmyk region. for the same reason, the tax is sometimes levied on fuel, household items, clothing. The consequence of this is a significant dissatisfaction with the monetary calculation of the single tax (Yenisei province, Tersk region).
The abnormalities of the unified tax campaign. In a number of areas, the tax apparatus is not well‐regulated and contains undesirable elements. In the Pskov province. (Kholmskiy u.) A group of tax collection agents beat the peasants, threatening them with execution. Across the Karachay‐Cherkess region the incorrectness of taxation and tactlessness of the inspectorate were noted. In Bukhara and Syr Darya region. bribery is highly developed in the financial apparatus. In Semipalatinsk province, due to the unreliability of the composition of the financial workers (the former White Guard bureaucracy), the tax was thrown heavily on the Kyrgyz population. In Bashkiria, applications for tax cuts are subject to stamp duty, often exceeding the tax rate itself.
Lack of benefits for families of Red Army soldiers. Particular discontent among the peasants is created by the fact that when collecting taxes, the provisions on granting benefits to the families of the Red Army soldiers are not observed, as can be judged by the enormous number of letters from the countryside to the Red Army. They indicate that a single horse is sold for not paying the full tax, and the last belongings of the horseless are described. The letters contain advice ʺto quit the service and go home to save property and establish order, since the local authorities do not want to reckon with the fact that the Red Army men are the defenders of the republic.ʺ
Other taxes. Everywhere there is particular discontent with other taxes, besides the single 19, which, in the opinion of the peasants, should have abolished all other taxation. In Ukraine, they are especially dissatisfied with insurance, which is viewed as a new type of tax. In the Podosenskaya parish. Achinsky u. Yenisei province. 20,000 poods are charged for the single tax, and 18,000 poods for the voluntary budget. In the half‐starving Vitebsk province. for local needs 10 kopecks are charged. gold from every pound of tax. In the Odessa province. a tax on industrial raw materials and vegetable gardens was announced.
The difficult economic situation of the poor. The circle of regions in which the poor, and partly the middle peasants, have already eaten up all their bread, is expanding more and more. The sale of live and dead implements to pay taxes leads to the destruction of agriculture in a significant part of these areas. Almost all the northwestern provinces and Kirkrai, and partly the Republic of the Volga Germans, Bashkir, Tatar, Vyatka, Samara, Mari regions, Ural, Crimea were affected. The economic situation in Vitebsk province. worsened even more due to the massive death of livestock. In the Pskov province. in 1923 cattle lost 30%, horses ‐ 10%. In Vyatka lips. there are many villages where there are no livestock. In Bashkiria there are 50‐70% of horseless, in the Zyryansk region. ‐ about 50%.
Hunger. In many of these areas, the poor feed on surrogates. In Karelia, 20‐60% of the population goes hungry. In the Kuban‐Black Sea region. part of the population after the tax was left without bread. Armenia is partly starving (deaths from hunger have been registered), Omsk province, Kalmyk region, Bash Republic.
The economic strengthening of the kulaks. Along with the deterioration of the economic situation of the poorest strata of the population, there is a process of economic strengthening of the kulaks. In Vyatka gubernias, Voronezh, Ivanovo‐Voznesensk and Yaroslavl, it is noted that along with impoverishment and hunger among the poorest strata of the village, the kulaks are flourishing, improving their farms and having significant grain surpluses. In a particularly strong form, the economic strengthening of the kulaks and the enslavement of the poor are noted in Kirkrai and Turkestan.
Lack of seeding material. A number of districts, and the poor almost everywhere, feel an acute shortage of semomaterial for the upcoming spring sowing campaign. The lack of aid from the Semssud can create a significant undersowing in the northwestern provinces, the Volga region, the Far Eastern District, Turkestan and the provinces of the Kustanai, Akmola, Omsk, Bashkiria, and the Ural regions. and Tersk region.
In the Leningrad province. many of the poor did not plant the fall planting due to lack of seeds. In the Samara province. even the middle peasants lack 30% of the semomaterial.
Land management. The situation with land management is also very bad. The attitude of the poorest strata of the peasantry is sympathetic to it, but work is hampered, on the one hand, by the high cost of land management work, and on the other, by the opposition of the kulaks, who had previously seized the best plots of land. Dissatisfaction on this basis of the poor, who have lost part of the land during the famine years and are now striving to expand their crops, is significant (Gomel province, Urals, Belarus, Novgorod, Chernigov, Odessa). In Smolensk Gubernia, all the former landowners found themselves in the position of the kulaks, who in 1923 were allotted land from the estates belonging to them before the revolution. In the Kiev province. dissatisfaction with 20 komesam, which in some places capture the best plots of land, is noted.
Forests. The slow work on allocating local forests to them is responding hard to the peasants. The need for building materials and fuel, high prices for timber and poor forest protection leads to massive forest thefts (especially in the central, north‐western, western provinces). The introduction of payments for timber in a number of regions has deprived the population of earnings and the peasants are smuggling it, terrorizing the forest guards (in Vitebsk province, a number of cases of forestersʹ injuries have been registered). In addition, the low payment of the forest harvesters (in some places 10 rubles in gold per month) promotes the development of bribery among them and often direct assistance to peasants in the theft of timber.
Lack of earnings. There is an intensive process of allocation of proletarianized elements in the countryside, who replenish the cadres of the unemployed in the cities, and often criminals (Center, North‐West, South‐East, Bashrespublika, Kirkrai). The peasantry in a number of provinces expresses dissatisfaction with the lack of earnings. In the Moscow province. the peasants are dissatisfied with the fact that they cannot teach their children the craft. In the Vologda province. there is a massive influx of volunteer peasants into the army units (even into the command staff), despite the extremely low rates.
Dissatisfaction with the currency. In some places, due to the rapid fall of Soviet signs 21, which undermines the paying capacity of the village, there is discontent with the chervontsy, which, in the opinion of the peasants, are the cause of the depreciation of the Soviet signs (Center, Ukraine).
ʺScissorsʺ 22. Despite the sufficient increase in prices for agricultural products, the purchasing power of the village is still weak. The reasons for this are the still too high prices for manufactured goods and the rapid fall of Soviet signs. In addition, the poor and middle peasants no longer have grain to sell. “When the price of grain rose, the peasants were robbed,” writes the peasant of Chistopolskiy. In some places, the situation of the poor, due to the rise in the price of bread, even worsened since the poor themselves buy bread (Vitebsk province).
Agricultural loan. A number of provinces (Belarus, Saratov, Kiev, etc.) note the great interest of the peasantry in obtaining loans for agricultural machinery, as well as the influx of peasants into the cities for loans. In the Saratov province. there is a lack of agricultural machinery for leaving the warehouses. However, credit is given mainly to more powerful farms (Tomsk Gubernia), and for the poor, its conditions are extremely difficult (Tersk Region). In general, the peasantry is still poorly informed about the procedure for lending, which is used by the kulaks, conducting agitation in the sense that agricultural loans serve to enslave the peasantry (Tsaritsyn province).
State farms. The state of state farms is almost universally unsatisfactory. Everywhere there is mismanagement, negligence, and often direct criminality of the administration in relation to the peopleʹs property entrusted to it. For example, in the Don region. much bread was left unharvested in the fields in autumn. In the Yaroslavl province. grain rots in bins, inventory is plundered by the administration itself. In many state farms, managers are the former owners of these estates. The peasants have a negative attitude towards state farms, and in some places they are so hostile that they set fire to their buildings (in Belarus, in the Oryol province).
The mood of the village. The insufficiency of a single tax, the simultaneous collection of various other taxes, the imperfection of the Soviet, rural and volost apparatus, the still noticeable discrepancy in prices for products of urban and rural industries, and especially the failure to comply with tax benefits in relation to the families of the Red Army ‐ all this creates an unsatisfactory mood of the peasantry in the reporting period. On the other hand, the isolation of the village from the city, the restoration of the pre‐war standard of living in the city, with severe poverty in the countryside, negatively affects the political mood of the village. At non‐party conferences, it is indicated that the Soviet government cares more about the city than about the village, from which they only take taxes (Ukraine, Tsaritsyn province, Buryat‐Mongol region).
The noted fact of the economic strengthening of the kulaks entails an increase in their influence in the countryside, especially in the outskirts (Siberia, the Urals, the Far East, etc.). At peasant meetings, the kulaks often throw the entire burden of taxes on the poor, who are economically dependent on them (Vladimir, Karelia, Novonikolaevskaya, Ural, Votskaya oblast, Orenburg gubernia, etc.). In the Far East and the Kuban, the poor are under the strong influence of kulak‐bandit groups.
In the Ukraine, the Kuban, Siberia and the Far East, the kulaks are conducting widespread anti‐tax agitation, especially about local taxes.
On the basis of collecting other taxes, the kulaks are successfully conducting anti‐tax agitation (Siberia). In the Yenisei province. they thwarted the fee for the volost budget. In Novonikolaevsk [gubernia] the kulaks refuse to pay the local tax to the volbudget. At one meeting, a resolution was adopted: in view of the existence of a single tax, not to pay on the volbudget. In the Omsk province. the kulaks have achieved such a distribution of the tax (by shares) that the poor are often forced to pay more than the kulak.
It is also noted that in connection with the death of Comrade. Leninʹs kulaks spread rumors about tax privileges, which resulted in a temporary decrease in the receipts of the single tax.
Attention is drawn to the observed striving of the peasantry to join the ranks of the RCP in connection with the death of Comrade. Lenin (noted for the Kupyansk district of the Kharkov province, the Fokinsky district of the Bryansk province and the Saratov province). In the Volga region, the Terarmy men who have returned from the training camp are organizing into ʺunions of changemenʺ, quite numerous organizations that tend to lead the local bodies of Soviet power; the weakness of the local party work creates the danger of using these groups in the direction of turning them into peasant unions.
RED ARMY
The political mood of the Red Army in February is not entirely satisfactory due to a number of economic reasons: poor uniforms, poor living conditions and, in addition, delays in demobilization, overloading of squads due to a shortage of personnel in units. There was some improvement in mood by the end of the reporting period due to rumors of demobilization.
Food supply. Despite a number of orders for the issuance of goodquality products, the issuance of stale and skinny meat, bad cereals, poorly baked bread, etc. ‐ is still a frequent occurrence, noted by almost all military districts. In units of the Moscow Military District, the Separate Caucasian Red Banner Army and the West Siberian District, tobacco was not issued, as a result of which the Red Army soldiers often sell sugar to buy it (at the end of January, tobacco was issued in half). In January, almost all parts of the Zapfront were not given sunflower oil for half a month.
Outfit. The issue of uniforms continues to be extremely acute. In the units of the Moscow Military District, the lack of such in the field units reaches 30‐50%, and even 60% of shoes, and often the Red Army men are shod in bast shoes. On the Western Front, the lack of uniforms in individual divisions is 20‐50%, in the Volga VO ‐ 30‐70% and shoes ‐ 50%, in the Leningrad VO and South‐West ‐ 50% of uniforms and shoes. In the Separate Red Banner Army, the hozaparat supplies uniforms to the units unevenly.
Unconventional uniforms. One of the reasons for such a situation with uniforms is its substandard nature, which is noted by almost all districts. So, the shoes issued in the 5th division of the Zapfront turned out to be with burnt soles and withstood no more than 3 weeks of wear. The same was noted in the 18th division of the Moscow Military District.
Barracks. Insufficient repair of the barracks in the fall created extremely difficult housing conditions in the reporting period. In a number of units of the Western Front (4 separate cavalry brigade, 7 cavalry division and 4 Chongar division), the West Siberian district (12 division), PrivO (32 and 34 divisions) and in a number of other units ‐ the barracks are blown out, not equipped and the sewage system often does not work, as a result, the conditions of life in the barracks are extremely unsanitary. In some places there is no equipment in the barracks and even bunks (10th Army Corps, 34th Terdivision, Moscow Military District). In the Leningrad Military District, Petrotok threatens to shut down military units due to nonpayment of up to 100,000 rubles. for lighting the barracks.
Overloaded with outfits. The position of the Red Army men is aggravated by the overloading of outfits due to the shortage of units. In a number of parts this is reflected in classes that are conducted intermittently. The Red Army men say that they were mobilized for guard duty, but not to train fighters from them.
Demobilization mood. The mood of most of the Red Army men, and some of the junior command staff, is characterized as demobilization. According to the MVO, this mood only towards the very end [of service] weakened due to the rumor about demobilization. During the reporting period, there were a number of cases of simulation, illness and self‐harm in units of the Moscow Military District, in some places and direct refusals of the Red Army to comply with the orders of the command staff (noted in certain parts of the Moscow Military District, Zapfront, Leningrad [district] and Ukraine).
Discontent with taxation of families. To a large extent, the demobilization mood in the units is caused by letters received from the countryside about heavy taxes, the failure to provide any benefits to the families of the Red Army soldiers and the use of repression due to tax arrears. In the Leningrad Military District (23rd and 24th regiments of the cavalry division), the Red Army men returning from vacation led anti‐Soviet agitation among their comrades.
The rudeness of the command staff. In the attitude of the command staff to the Red Army, a number of cases of rudeness are noted, up to and including assault and the manifestation of the old officerʹs habits and orderly. Individual cases of beating of Red Army soldiers by command personnel were noted in almost all districts, and this phenomenon is especially developed in parts of Ukraine and the Separate Caucasian Red Banner Army. These phenomena are often partly characteristic of the political composition.
Service attitude. The attitude of the command personnel to their duties is characterized mostly as official and formal. Almost everywhere there is a weak interest in classes, a lack of initiative and the dumping of their duties on the junior command personnel, often poorly trained. There is a negligent attitude towards the storage of secret documents and even cases of theft of such in the headquarters of units (7th and 6th cavalry divisions and the directorate of the chief of artillery of the 29th [division] 23 on the Zapfronte and separate units of the ZapSibVO and the Leningrad region).
Drunkenness. Drunkenness among the command staff and partly the political staff is highly developed. In the 57th regiment of the 19th division, the command staff drank on patronʹs money. Heavy drunkenness was observed during the terrorist gatherings in the Leningrad district. Drunkenness is widespread among the political workers of the 35th division of the West Siberian
District. Everywhere the drunkenness of the kompolitstaff has a demoralizing effect on the Red Army soldiers.
The relationship between the command and political personnel. Tensions between the command and the political staff on the basis of mutual disregard are extremely common. In the Separate Cavalry Brigade of the Moscow Military District, the disagreements between the commander and the military commissar of the brigade are decomposing into the brigadeʹs command staff. A similar phenomenon is observed in individual units of the 14th, 18th and 84th divisions of the Moscow Military District, the 6th and 7th Cavalry Divisions and the 32nd Infantry Division of the Zapfront and other districts.
Command staff and paints. In some places, there is friction between the former commanding officers and the paints. In a number of units, the latter complain that they are not promoted, leaving them in squads and platoons.
Anti‐Soviet agitation in units. Cases of anti‐Soviet agitation in units are sporadic. In one of the companies on the Western Front, an open agitation of a Red Army soldier against subordination to command personnel was noted. In some units, there were calls for nonattendance due to lack of uniforms and poor food.
The mood in connection with the death of comrade. Lenin. Death of Comrade Lenin created a depressed mood among the Red Army soldiers. For a while they even stopped all complaints and in general the mood was more stable. The mood of the commanders from among the former officers was for the most part hidden and expectant, and in some cases a certain gloating was noted.
ANTI‐SOVIET PARTIES AND GROUPS
Anarchists
Federation of Communist Anarchists 24. Anarchist activity is still lively in the USSR, but weak in the center. The strengthening of their work in a number of anarchist groups was established. In the Gomel province. the aspiration of anarchists to create peasant unions is noted. In the Voronezh province. anarchists try to attract excommunists to themselves. In the Far East, there is organizational work to unite anarchists with populist groups. Work is planned among the peasants and workers in the spirit of maximalism and syndicalism, and it is planned to convene a Far Eastern Conference of Maxes and Anarchists.
The disintegration of the anarcho‐groups in the Omsk, Kuban‐Black Sea, Smolensk and Odessa provinces is noted, expressed in the desire of their members to join the RCP.
Anarcho‐syndicalists. A meeting was held in Kiev on the issue of uniting underground work. It was decided in the future to be guided by the directives of the anarcho‐syndicalists of the emigrants in Berlin, with whom communication is maintained through Kharkov. Work after the Kiev conference revived, steps were outlined for agitation against the entry of workers into the ranks of the RCP.
Mensheviks
In Moscow, there was no widespread mass activity of the Mensheviks; internal party, propaganda and organizational work is underway. The publishing activity, interrupted on the September leaflet ʺTo the Studentsʺ, is now being restored.
The activity of the Mensheviks in Leningrad is very significant, especially among the organization of Social‐Democratic youth who went underground after the arrests. At the end of December, an issue of the ʺWork sheetʺ was published here.
Their work is also highly developed in the South‐East and, in particular, in Rostov, on the Middle Volga and Ukraine (in particular, in Kiev), where after the September defeat [1923] by the January defeat the organization was completely restored.
Work on the elimination of the Menshevik Party through congresses of the ʺformerʺ is being carried out in the provinces: Vladimir, Yaroslavl, Smolensk, Nizhny Novgorod, Bryansk, Kuban‐Black Sea, Tomsk, Yenisei, Far East Military District and Ukraine (liquidation work is best done in Ukraine).
In the Ural province. a small group of Mensheviks are campaigning against self‐liquidation. In the Ufa province. the meeting of former Mensheviks adopted an undefined resolution stating that they cannot be held responsible for the governing bodies of the RSDLP, from which they had broken away from 1919, and their goal is to help the USSR in freeing the workers from the yoke of capital and to fight against reaction. By this resolution, the group dissociates itself from the Social Democrats.
Right SRs
Insignificant activity of the Socialist‐Revolutionary organizations is noted in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Odessa and Irkutsk provinces. In connection with the congress of the former Social Revolutionaries in Odessa, an underground leaflet was issued. Organizations have no connection with the workers, but they are connected with the peasants through rural cooperators. All the attention of the Socialist‐Revolutionaries is drawn to the preservation of old cadres, scattered in concentration camps and through exile.
During the reporting period, a number of operations were carried out on the Right Socialist Revolutionaries, as a result of which a group of students of the Petrovsk Agricultural Academy, who published the democratic magazine Stremlenie, and the underground Vyatka Committee of Right Socialist Revolutionaries, and a number of prominent Socialist Revolutionaries (10 people in total) were arrested. In the latter, there was a ʺCommittee for Mutual Assistance to Exiled Socialist‐Revolutionariesʺ, which had the goal of establishing communication with the exiles.
Left Social Revolutionaries‐legalists
The union of the Left Socialist‐Revolutionaries and Maximalist Socialist‐Revolutionaries [ 25] continues its work to strengthen and organize the local cells defeated by recent operations, the Central Bank issues a number of circular letters for local workers. The next bulletins of the Central Bank are being published and contacts are being established with local organizations.
Underground. At the end of January and at the beginning of February, underground organizations of the left Socialist
Revolutionaries‐internationalists were exposed in Odessa, Kiev, Leningrad and Novgorod / Recently, the activity of the underground has not been noticed, only lonely workers are working (Moscow, Odessa, Kharkov). In Moscow, a small group of the underground published a magazine printed on a typewriter in a very limited number.
Monarchists
On the initiative of the former Empress Maria Feodorovna, at a meeting of members of the former imperial family in December [1923], it was decided to declare the son of Kirill Vladimirovich, Vladimir, the heir to the throne, and to entrust the head of power to
Nikolai Nikolaevich.
The emigre circles of Yugoslavia are agitated by the spread of the Navy of rumors about the forthcoming intervention in Russia in the spring. This is evidenced by the telegrams of the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich about the manifesto calling on all Russians to liberate Russia from the Bolsheviks, the order of General Wrangel to all the ranks of the Russian army living in Yugoslavia indicating the possibility of fighting the Bolsheviks, and letters sent by emigration to Soviet Russia.
Republican Democratic bloc
The ʺNew Tacticsʺ group of the Cadet Party, headed by Milyukov, is busy creating an association of emigre political parties that stand on a republican‐democratic platform and are interconnected by a common political ideology, but have so far acted separately.
The idea of creating an association met with sympathy in the groups ʺPeasant Russiaʺ ‐ Maslov and Argunov, the Prague group of the ʺPeopleʹs Freedomʺ party, the Republican Democratic ‐ Savinkov and the Democratic Cossack Union.
Nationalist movements
ORDER
Georgia. Turkish ʺRed Crescentʺ provides assistance to the Georgian emigration. There is information about the decision of the Parisian center of the Mensheviks to raise an uprising in Georgia by the time of the Anglo‐Russian conference. Information about the terror prepared by the Georgian Mensheviks was confirmed.
NORTH CAUCASUS
Chechnya. There is a revival of the activities of the Ittikhat‐Islam party 26, and its actions are becoming more conspiratorial. A number of meetings of prominent figures of the organization (Gotsinsky, Ali‐Mitaev, Belo‐haji and Turkish agents) took place, followed by agitation for insubordination to Soviet power and rumors about the arrival of the Turks.
In the Novochechensky and Nadterechny districts, an intensified campaign is under way for the strengthening of religion by the mullahs led by Belo‐haja. According to the directives of the latter, recruitment into detachments for the spring insurgent work is under way. All work on Chechnya is directed by Gotsinsky, who is in contact with the North Caucasian Central Committee of this organization. In flat Chechnya, the population of one of the villages did not allow a meeting of ittihatists to be held, which indicates a change in the mood of the population after disarmament.
City Republic. The situation in Ingushetia is similar to that in Chechnya. From the material confiscated from one of the mullahs of the Nazran district, it is clear that there is a network of ittihast organizations with a district committee in Ingushetia. There is a great demand for weapons among the Ingush.
TURKESTAN
Ittihat Islam. The work of ittihatists is aimed at involving the village youth in the national movement. In Margelansky district they are campaigning against the education of children in the Soviet school.
Ashri Maarif. The society extends its activities to counties and even rural municipalities, where they organize their branches. The slogan is ʺThe formation of the Muslim masses is a guarantee of liberation from European dominance.ʺ
Mahkamai‐Sharia. The struggle of the conservative and progressive part of the clergy for the possession of the Tashkent society of Mahkam‐i‐Sharia ended in victory for the conservatives. The head of the Tashkent Moscow School, a progressist, was dismissed. The authority of the clergy among the population is strong. In Fergana, he is actively campaigning for the return of the vakuf property by the Soviet government. The local clergy in Ferghana works in contact with the Ittikhat‐Islam organization.
Basmachism 11. Basmachic washers, as before, use spray techniques in response to the pressure of the red parts. In the Samarkand region. it does not decrease due to the transition of gangs operating in Bukhara.
Elimination of the uprising in Khorezm
The reason for the uprising in Khorezm was the inconstancy of tax forms. The clergy, militia, bai, nukers (farm laborers) took part in the uprising. Dzhunaid Khan, taking advantage of the moment, approached the oasis in order to occupy Khiva, but was thrown back. The rebels in the Pitnyak and Khazar‐Asp area were overtaken by the 4th regiment. The rebels, having lost 200 [people] killed, scattered. Several people were killed and wounded on our side.
According to the information received, the Yomud khan campaigned for help to Dzhunaid Khan.
BASHKIRIA
The struggle of nationalist groups around the issue of declaring the state language is noted. Bashkir groups require the declaration of the mountain‐Bashkir dialect. In contrast, the Tatar group declares that many people in Bashkiria do not understand this dialect and that they should not be constrained by the compulsory study of this language. The implementation of the Bashkir language is carried out in the form of attracting people familiar with this language, often politically unreliable, to Soviet work. Along with this, the intensified Bashkirization of the Soviet apparatus has caused discontent in the Russian cantons, where Russian workers claim that such a national policy will lead to their final elimination from work.
BURYAT REPUBLIC
The struggle around the Renovationist movement in the Lamaist clergy is developing and intensifying. The reactionary lamas, out of fear of losing their property privileges, enters into an agreement with the Soviet feudal lords, and on the basis of the struggle against renovationism, organizations arise that send their delegates to Moscow and Tibet with complaints against the reform organizer Afgan‐Dordzhiev. On the other hand, there were favorable results of the movement among the lower clergy. Pupils of religious schools at datsans and so‐called khuvaraki are transferred to Soviet schools of their own accord. The leaders of the reformist trend are trying in every possible way to involve local authorities and organizations of the RCP and RKSM in the struggle. In this regard, the regional committee of the RCP and the Council of Peopleʹs Commissars issued an order on the non‐interference of local Soviet and Party organizations in the affairs of the clergy.
RELIGIOUS CURRENTS
Orthodox clergy. Along with some successes of the Tikhonists in the fight against the Renovationists 28 (Odessa, Crimea, Oirotskaya obl.), A decrease in their activity and the transition from Tikhon to the Renovationist Synod (Siberia) are noted.
Discontent with Tikhon among the reactionary bishops and laity (due to his introduction of a new style) spread to the provinces, causing autocephalous aspirations there (Simbirsk, Astrakhan provinces). The co‐religionists were autocephalized, choosing Nicholas as their bishop (before that they were associated with the Orthodox Church) for the same reasons of discontent.
A number of bishops dissatisfied with Tikhon were assigned to distant dioceses, but refused to go. In Ukraine, there is a bloc of Tikhonists and Renovationists in the fight against autocephalists.
In connection with the order of the NCJ to prohibit the celebration of persons on trial, a number of bishops turned to Tikhon with a proposal to order his disobedience. Tikhon refused to give such an order, fearing that it would be interpreted as a renunciation of church authority.
Sects. Among the sectarian groups, the struggle around the issue of recognizing the compulsory military service is intensifying. Among Baptists, dissatisfaction with EVERYBODY is growing. The Tsaritsyn and Amur communities decided to consider compulsory military service even with arms in hand. Caucasian Baptists 29 are preparing a similar resolution of the issue at their congress. A schism on this issue is also observed among evangelicals 30.
Muslim clergy. The district congress of the Muslim clergy in Siberia was generally loyal to the Soviet regime. A minority of the reactionary Tomsk clergy left the congress, considering muKhtasib Valiyev ʺrevolutionaryʺ.
CDU sends the muhtasibs a copy of the certificate issued by Comrade Smidovich on January 2 this year, which says that the laws of the USSR do not prohibit teaching religion to children under 18 at the request of their parents. Taking advantage of this, the Muslim clergy is beginning to teach young children religion in groups of 1050 people on the spot.
BANDITRY
Petty criminal banditry continues to manifest itself in the Central and North‐West regions.
The observed appearance of a few groups of Finnish intelligence officers ceased with the onset of cold weather. It is noted that a prominent participant in the Karelian uprising, Ilmarinen, who began to recruit bandits for an attack on Soviet Russia, due to poor recruitment results and the alleged disagreement of the Central Karelian Committee, abandoned his intention.
In the West, there is a concentration in the border regions (Luninets,
Pskovichi, Glubokoe, Dokshitsy) of the bandit detachments of Balakhovich and Antsipovich, and the formation by Polish officers of gangs from former volunteers of the Polish army who received land in the border zone. There was noted a case of Polish policemen coming over to our side and sending delegates for negotiations with a view to a massive transfer to us with all weapons, which is explained by their difficult financial situation. In Poland, there was an uprising of draft‐age peasants in Sventsianskiy district. and the activities of a partisan detachment, expressed in raids on estates and farms (Disnensky district). Within the district, both criminal and criminal‐political banditry associated with the white organizations in Poland, from where they receive the directives, is active. Gangs are destroying the rural Soviet apparatus. Noteworthy is the lively reconnaissance activities of bands of Polish origin in the border zone of the BSSR and their establishment of contacts with prosperous farmers sympathizing with them. Characteristic is the emergence of a number of gangs operating under the guise of a special detachment (Dorogobuzhsky district of Smolensk province), then militia (Goretsky district) or employees of a special department (Bocheikovsky district of Vitebsk province); the last gang during the robbery subjects the population to severe torture.
In Ukraine, criminality is still developed, with which the Volyn and Kiev provinces are most affected. Petliuraʹs banditry did not appear; Treikoʹs gang went underground, and the ringleader with some of his accomplices fled to Poland. During the reporting period, up to 10 small‐angle gangs were liquidated. Registered is 30 gangs of 302 bayonets.
In the South‐East, 31 there is a revival of the political banditry that had died down in the Kuban‐Black Sea and Tersk regions and partly in the regions of the Dagrespublika and Nagorno‐Chechnya populated by the Cossacks, where it turns into a national‐political one. The largest gang of Kozlikhin (numbering 65 sabers with 3 machine guns) receives directives from the foreign counter‐revolution and is financially supported by the villagers and farmers.
Criminal gangs operate in the Stavropol, Terek provinces and Dagestan, raiding trains, postal and telegraph offices and civilians. In the Gorsky and Chechen republics, in Karachai and Dagestan, criminal and domestic banditry is developed. The measures taken to combat banditry have not given full results so far. There are only 31 gangs of 245 sabers registered.
In Transcaucasia, only petty criminal banditry is noted. Registered 19 gangs of 214 sabers.
Cattle theft continues in the Volga region (Kirkrai). Thanks to the measures taken through the creation of the so‐called inter‐district commissions and the convocation of all the leaders of the ʺbarantaʺ, the latter was eliminated in the south of Akmola and on the borders of the Karakalinsky districts. A gang of 300 people, led by Rainkul
Barankul, ceased their activities.
Basmachism in Turkestan continues to decay, which is especially observed in Fergana, Samarkand region. and partly in Eastern Bukhara. In Western Bukhara, enmity between individual gangs reaches armed clashes; among them, as well as among the population, there is a turning point towards sympathy for the Soviet power, as evidenced by the surrender of the emir of Bukhara by the prominent kurbash. This turning point affected the policy of the Afghan government (which began to view the Basmachi as a simple crime). It is nevertheless worth noting the possibility of some kurbashs uniting separately operating Basmachi detachments in the spring. Along the way, there are cases of cruel reprisals by the Basmachi against the population sympathizing with the Soviet regime. In total, 58 detachments of 8993 dzhigits are registered.
In Siberia, only petty criminal banditry is noted. Information about the recognition of Soviet power by white detachments under the command of prominent rebels ‐ former officers Khrapovitsky and Derevyakov in Yakutia ‐ was confirmed.
In the Far East, despite the elimination of Shadrinʹs gang, the mood of the peasants of the Chita u. in Transbaikalia it is very hostile towards Soviet power (with the exception of the poor). Kulak rebels of the Annunciation district on the Amur they were sprayed, partly dispersed to their homes and partly seeping abroad.
In the foreign region of the Far East, the centers of the white detachments are Manchuria, the Hailar region and the area of Art. The border, where the refugee materially needy mass has accumulated, from which the White‐headed, using the patronage of the Chinese authorities, form detachments. The appearance of several detachments of 1000 people is noted (Chernyaevo, Aigurnya and Sanchagou). A fact that clearly characterizes the attitude of the Chinese authorities to the USSR is the beating and humiliation of the interned Red Army detachment of the 49th division of the OGPU. Pom. chief of staff of the detachment comrade Grigoriev was shot by a Chinese picket.
The leadership of the White bandits from the Sychevsk organization located in Harbin continues to be noted, despite the unsuccessful Annunciation uprising; Obviously, some of their illusions have not yet completely dissipated, as evidenced by the decision of the Sychevites to register ʺtheir forcesʺ, to create a commission to discuss the mobilization plan and to convene the Amur Cossack Troop Circle for the election of the ataman.
Deputy Chairman of the OGPU Yagoda
Head of the Information Department of the OGPU Prokofiev Review of the political economy of the USSR in March 1924
April 19, 1924
WORKERS
Untimely payment of wages. The delay in wages is being overcome only in a few provinces (Kharkov, Vladimir, Ivanovo‐Voznesensk, Semipalatinsk, Nemkommuna and some others). For the rest of the provinces, this issue still continues to play a primary role among the reasons for the discontent of the workers.
At the enterprises of the Moscow province. March saw a significant increase in grievances over wage delays compared to February (18,000 workers in February and 50,000 in March), driven by financial constraints due to monetary reform. A delay in wages was noted here at the enterprises of GOMZ (9,150 people), the Renovated Fiber Trust (3,800 workers), the Farforotrest (2,500 people), the Orekhovo‐Zuevsky Trust (7,990 people), Electrotrest (3,500 people) and a number of others.
In some branches of industry, wages were delayed in the metallurgical industry ‐ in the Ural region, Nizhny Novgorod province. (a slight delay of 4 days at Sormovo), Yaroslavl, Vladimirskaya, Orel, Tula, Leningradskaya (at the plant ʺResoraʺ since January), Cherepovetskaya, Vologda, Bryansk, Chernigov, Donetsk (Makeyevsky combine Yugostal), Kiev, Yekaterinoslav [provinces] and in the FEB; in the textile industry at factories in the Tambov province. (almost from January), Kostroma, Bryansk, Gomel [provinces] and Nemkommuna; in the mining industry in the Ural region (the situation is especially acute in the Chelyabinsk mines), the Far Eastern Military District (all enterprises have debts since last year), Vyatka, Irkutsk, Aktobe and Tomsk provinces and the Bash Republic.
Dissatisfaction with the payment of wages in kind (with manufactured goods or bonds to cooperatives) is quite common. In the Tambov province. the woolen cloth given out on account of the salary was sold by the workers for 50% of the cost price. In the Nizhny Novgorod province. discontent was caused by high prices in cooperatives and lack of necessary goods. Similar phenomena took place at the enterprises of the Vladimir province, Kharkov, Tomsk, Semipalatinsk, in the Crimea, Belarus, the Ural region, the
Bashrespublika and the Far East Military District.
Monetary reform and wages. March monetary reform 32 almost everywhere aroused considerable interest from the workers. The transition from commodity calculation of wages to chervonnoye has created an alarming mood almost everywhere due to fears of a decrease in wages. At a number of enterprises in the provinces of Yaroslavl, Yekaterinoslavskaya and Kostroma, even disturbances were noted, accompanied by the demand for the payment of wages in commodity rubles. Discontent was eliminated each time by explanations about the premiums on high prices. Dissatisfaction with the payment of wages for the 2nd half of February at the parity of the commodity ruble 1 rub. 50 kopecks gold covered 117 enterprises in Moscow with a total number of workers of about 58,000 people, and it was most strongly noted among textile workers
(14,000 workers in 20 enterprises), metalworkers (12,500 workers in 34 enterprises) and printers (16,000 workers in 29 enterprises).
At the Dux plant, dissatisfaction turned into an Italian in the turning and tool shops, which lasted one day (100 workers). At all enterprises in Moscow, after the awareness campaign, the mood of the workers quickly improved.
It should also be noted dissatisfaction on the basis of untimely issuance of increases for high prices, noted at enterprises with up to 44,000 workers, in particular, at the enterprises of Machinotrest (formerly Guzhon, Bromley), Krasnopresnensky cotton trust, Shelkotrest and Moskvoshvey.
Lower wages and low rates. Reducing wages by lowering grades, limiting extra earnings and lowering rates was one of the major reasons for worker discontent. At the Hammer and Sickle plant, formerly Gujon, discontent took place in Moscow, which resulted in a partial strike in early April on the grounds that prices were cut by 10‐12% and the issuance of 25% for extra work was canceled. A decrease in wages in Moscow was noted at the factory of varnishes and paints, the former Mamontov, and the brewery ʺTrekhgorʺ. Overtime work stopped at Taganrog metallurgical plant (Donetsk province); running‐in at the Donugol mines has been reduced. The same phenomena were noted in Chechnya (Grozneft), Tatrespublika, Vladimirskaya, Poltava, Leningradskaya (factory named after Samoilov and the Krasnaya Zarya plant), Orlovskaya (railway transport), Kiev and other provinces. Finally,
Dissatisfaction with low rates continues to be noted in many enterprises. In Moscow, it was noted at 25 enterprises with a total number of workers up to 7000 people, and especially strong discontent on this basis among the workers of
Vsemedikosantrud. At the furniture factory of Schmidt, on this basis, the ʺItalianʺ took place. In other provinces, low rates were noted in Nemkommun (railway workers receive an average of 6‐8 rubles), Cherepovetskaya (logging), Turkestan (in oil fields, the average earnings are 7‐8 rubles), Severo‐Dvinskaya (medical workers), Kostroma province., Yekaterinoslavskaya, Donetsk, Tver, Saratov and many others.
Rising unemployment. The significant cut in March contributed to a further rise in unemployment. It is noted in the metallurgical industry of the provinces of Donetsk, Bryansk, Yekaterinoslav, Nizhny Novgorod (in Vyksa district, 2,000 workers are reduced, at the Sormovo plant ‐ 5,000 people), the Tatrespublika (at the Kazan gunpowder plant, 1,100 people were dismissed), Simbirsk (at the Cartridge plant, 300 workers are dismissed), FEB, Omsk province. and Karelia; in the textile industry in the provinces
Ivanovo‐Voznsenskaya, Vladimirskaya, Penza, Kostroma. On railway transport in the region of the provinces of Cherepovetskaya (up to 60%), Oryol, Akmola, Orenburg, Semipalatinsk (up to 1100 people were dismissed on the South Siberian railway) and SyrDarya; in the mining industry ‐ in the Donetsk province. (South Chemical Trust and at many other mines), in the Ural region (at the Chelyabinsk mines, 3,000 workers are reduced, due to the transfer of mines to the management of Promtorg and a decrease in orders from 24 million to 30 million poods.), Tomsk province, FEV and Orenburg trades); in the timber industry ‐ Cherepovets Gubernia, Karelia (50% of workers have been laid off in Severoles), Leningrad, Arkhangelsk and Nemkommun. In Moscow, the reduction is carried out at the enterprises of the MKH (1380 workers are to be dismissed on the Kazan railway), in the Kazan railway workshops (1600 workers out of 1800 were dismissed),
Among the unemployed, especially the former Red Army soldiers, there was strong discontent in some places. In Minsk, a group of unemployed former Red Army soldiers is seeking to replace all employees of the labor exchange and is campaigning among the unemployed against the Soviet regime. Odessa unemployed ‐ demobilized Red Army soldiers sent a delegation to the head of the labor exchange demanding to give them the right to control the demand table. The stock exchange is campaigning for a demonstration demanding work. In Nemkommun, an anonymous letter was found at the labor exchange, which says that the unemployed will be forced to go against the Soviet regime. Among the unemployed laborers and adolescents in Kiev and Akmola province. criminality is developed. In connection with the demobilization, we should expect a further replenishment of the unemployed and an increase in discontent among the unemployed, former Red Army soldiers.
The mood of the workers. The mood of the workers in the reporting period was quite stable. This is evidenced by a significant decrease in the number of strikes. The influence of anti‐Soviet elements among workers is noted in a few provinces: Yekaterinoslavskaya (the plants named after Marx and Krasny Progress, where anarchoMakhnovist sentiments are noted), Altai province. (railway workers), Irkutsk (Kropotkinsky and Leninsky mines) and the Bashrespublika (Baikarevsky mine). Anti‐Soviet agitation was carried out at the Arkhangelsk timber factories in connection with the election campaign in the factory committees.
As a symptom of the satisfactory political mood of the majority of workers, it should be noted that they are more interested in production, which is noted in the provinces: Bryansk (Maltsevsky Combine), Irkutsk, Tambov, Karelia, Tomsk, Yekaterinoslavskaya, Leningradskaya. At the central mine of the Mariinsky group (Tomsk Gubernia), during a power plant fire, outraged workers wanted to throw former officers, speculators and another unreliable element working at the mines into the fire, considering them to be the culprits of the fire.
Strikes. The decline in the number of strikes is characteristic of the reporting period. In March, information about 19 strikes was received (in February ‐ about 29). The largest number of strikes took place at metal enterprises (7). 4 ʺItaliansʺ were carried out in Moscow, of which the most significant was at the Dulevo Porcelain Factory (600 workers). The strikes were caused by delayed wages (8), low rates (3), high production rates (2). Most of the strikes did not last more than a day. The longest strikes were in Karelia (logging workers were on strike for 6 days) and in Yekaterinoslav (at the Artem Metal Plant ‐ 3 days). Most of the strikes on the basis of wage arrears were eliminated immediately when even a small advance was paid. This indicates that if appropriate measures are taken to put pressure on economic entities, it is quite possible to avoid a strike;
Price reduction campaign
The state of the Moscow market is characterized by the considerable resistance of private trade to lower prices. The rise in prices for nonstandardized products (meat, milk and vegetables) and others continues. It should be noted that some goods were sold on the free market below the prices of the Komvnutorg (tea ‐ the market is 3 rubles 60 kopecks, and the announced prices are 4 rubles). Not only the market shows upward trends in prices, but also cooperation and the cost of the commodity set for March 22 does not differ much from the February one (2 rubles 03 kopecks instead of 2 rubles 05 kopecks in February), although a decrease in state and cooperative trade by 6.9%, and on market ‐ by 2.8%, but further decline is not expected, as indicated above.
In the provinces, the picture is somewhat different. In most provinces there is a significant decrease in prices. The campaign was launched by state and cooperative trade, followed by the private market. The cooperatives are conducting this campaign at a great loss for themselves (the Mountain Republicʹs reduction cost 50,000 rubles). In a number of provinces, price reductions have created stagnation in private small‐scale trade (Yaroslavl, Kustanayskaya, Vologda, Nemkommuna, Dagestan, Votoblast and others), largescale private trade in places reduces prices, and in places leads a wait‐and‐see policy (refrains from buying new goods and does not old market). In the Kaluga and Tula provinces, due to the lack of coordination of actions, the cooperatives were left without flour and other products, and the price of flour immediately rose from 1 ruble. 40 kopecks. up to 3 rubles.
Thus, the sore spot in the course of the campaign to reduce prices both in Moscow and in the periphery is the rise in prices for nonstandardized products. Therefore, state regulation of prices for nonstandardized products is necessary, especially in industrial areas (Moscow, Donetsk, in the Urals). Otherwise, the campaign to cut prices will be thwarted by the private market.
PEASANTRY
The most important issues around which the interests of the peasantry revolved in the reporting period were the still unfinished collection of the single tax and the forthcoming sowing campaign.
Uniform tax campaign. According to incomplete data, on March 1‐15, a single tax was received: less than 70% of the assignment for 8 provinces, from 70 to 80% ‐ for 17, from 80 to 90% ‐ for 16, up to 100% and completely ‐ in 28 provinces.
Turkestan and the Far East are the most backward in the implementation of the tax (in the latter, the implementation of the second half of the tax has just begun). In addition, the provinces of Yaroslavl (less than 70%), Tsaritsyn (about 60%), Karelia (less than 70%) and the City Republic (about 65%) are far behind.
In most provinces, the poor are mostly the poor. Failure to pay the entire tax by other strata of the village is noted only in Turkestan (in the Samarkand region alone, 50% of the arrears are kulaks and bai), Karachay‐Cherkess region. (part of the Cossacks), Akmola province. and FEB.
To end the tax campaign, most of the provinces carried out shock campaigns (ten‐days, fortunes, etc.) to collect arrears. Almost everywhere they were accompanied by mass arrests of peasants, confiscation of livestock, implements and household belongings. In the Stavropol province. the number of peasants arrested reaches 11 thousand people in the Tambov province. ‐ 4500 people, and in the Velsky district. Smolensk lips. 3000 people. Characteristics are the figures of the confiscated property of the debtors of the Stavropol province: 500 horses, 1000 cattle, 44 camels, and several thousand small livestock. Many buildings, agricultural equipment and 32,000 poods. grain forage. In many provinces, confiscated property is sold for a pittance, and the cattle, due to the lack of preparation of financial authorities for its maintenance, is returned back.
The delivery of tax arrears is almost everywhere extremely difficult for the poor and partly for the middle peasants due to the depletion of grain reserves, lack of earnings or abnormal pay for work for government agencies (logging), and in addition, the collection of various other taxes. The massive spread of rumors by the kulaks about a tax cut in connection with the death of Comrade had a very strong effect on the weakness of arrears. Lenin (Severo‐Dvinskaya, Akmola, Novo Nikolaevskaya, Poltava and other provinces). A number of provinces are expressing apprehension about the possibility of full delivery of the tax due to the extremely difficult economic situation in the countryside. Such messages have been received in individual northwestern provinces, as well as in the Stavropol, Omsk, Syr‐Darya, Turkmen provinces and some others, where a shortage of 10‐15% of the tax target is expected.
Sowing campaign. In the course of the current sowing campaign, a number of provinces are identified, which for a number of reasons are under the threat of a more or less significant undersowing. The reasons for this are the depletion of grain reserves and weak hopes for help from the Semssud due to the unpreparedness of the organs of the Peopleʹs Commissariat of Agriculture and cooperation, as well as a strong shortage of both living and dead implements. A similar situation is noted in the North‐West, in some provinces of the Volga region, Turkestan, Kirkrai and Siberia. The Chuvash Republic lacks almost half a million poods of seeds. An extremely difficult situation is in the Kalmyk region, Vologda province, Votskaya (Glazovsky district), Kuban‐Black Sea, in the Far East in the Amur, Trans‐Baikal and Primorsk provinces.
The difficult economic situation of the poor. Due to the depletion of grain reserves in the poorest farms of the village, food with surrogates is very common, and in some places there is real hunger. Prodcrisis among the poor is noted in all north‐western provinces, Kirkrai, Bashkiria, Tatrespublika, the Urals, Crimea, Armenia and Siberia.
The mood of the village. The political mood of the countryside is characterized by an increase in the political activity of the peasantry, which is expressed in a significant spread of tendencies towards the creation of peasant unions, an increase in its interest in cooperation and the further development of the process of class stratification in the countryside.
In March, there continued to be discontent over pressure on the collection of a single tax, which was accompanied almost everywhere by the confiscation of livestock and equipment. In letters from the countryside to the Red Army, complaints about difficulties in meeting taxes and the ruin of agriculture continue to dominate, and in the partially starving provinces there is even an angry mood on the basis of lack of earnings and lack of organized assistance. On the other hand, recent economic measures (the introduction of hard currency, lower prices for manufactured goods and the provision of agricultural loans) and the strengthening of the international position of the USSR greatly raised the prestige of Soviet power in the countryside.
The class stratification of the village. The fact of the economic strengthening of the well‐to‐do and partly middle‐peasant strata of the countryside, noted in the last reporting period, along with the ruin of the poor and the growth of farm laborers, determines the class stratification of the countryside and the separation of the poor into a politically stable group. This is evidenced, first of all, by the desire of the poor to join the RCP ‐ a fact indicated in the last reporting period in connection with the death of Comrade. Lenin and continues to take place in a number of provinces (Tambov, Tula, Tsaritsyn, Chelyabinsk district of the Ural region, Arkhangelsk, Saratov, Kharkov, Podolsk and Karelia).
The strengthening of the political activity of the poor is fully evidenced by the struggle to strengthen the komezams in Ukraine (Donetsk and Kiev provinces); the seizure of the committees of mutual assistance, 33 which in a significant number of provinces become primarily organs of the poor and are growing in spite of the hostility of the kulaks and partly of the middle peasants; and, finally, a sharp antagonism with other strata of the village on the basis of the most important issue of the day ‐ land management (Nemkommuna, Gomel and Kiev provinces, Bashkiria and
Turkestan). Thus, while there is still a significant dependence of the poor on the kulaks, one can nevertheless state the deepening of the class stratification of the countryside and the desire to free the poor from under the kulak influence.
The speeches of the kulaks in the reporting period are characterized by agitation in connection with the repressions against the arrears of the single tax and the desire to disrupt the campaigns of insurance and collection on the local budget. A number of cases of active protests by kulaks were noted in view of refusals to pay taxes in the provinces of Karachay‐Cherkess, Cherepovets, Arkhangelsk, Yenisei and Tomsk. At the non‐partisan conferences in Ukraine, there were demonstrations of kulaks demanding equality with nonchewers. In the Ural region and in the Kuban, there are kulak groups that have the character of conspiratorial gatherings, and, finally, in the Far Eastern Military District, ferment continues among the kulak strata of the village and the Cossacks, resulting in the beating of the communists, inciting hatred of Soviet power and preparing an uprising.
Peasant unions... The growing political activity of the kulak and middle peasant strata of the countryside has recently found its expression in the form of a significant spread of the ideas of organizing peasant unions. In the Moscow province. at a number of non‐party conferences, peasants made statements about the need to create peasant trade unions to protect the economic interests of the peasantry; the noted performances took place simultaneously in the districts of Dmitrovsky, Mozhaisky, Kolomenskoye, Yegoryevsky and were accompanied by criticism of Soviet power. In the Circassian‐Adyghe region. the idea of creating a ʺunion of grain growersʺ in the form of a cooperative and professional association of the peasantry, with the goal of protecting the peasants from illegal actions of the authorities and direct exchange of products with the factory, bypassing the transfer authorities, was widely spread. In the Yaroslavl province. (Rybinsk and Danilovsky districts) Peasantsʹ speeches with proposals to organize peasant unions took place at meetings in connection with the issue of peasant mutual assistance committees. At the district meeting of the Kozlovsky parish. a proposal was made to petition the authorities for permission to create a peasant union that would protect the interests of the peasants. The idea of peasant unions in Siberia is widely spread. Even a peasant traveler arrived in Novonikolaevsk to clarify the question of organizing a peasant union. Similar facts were also noted in the Kaluga, Gomel and Saratov provinces, and in February and in the Volga region in the form of a process of spontaneous emergence of ʺunions of changemenʺ (terarmy). It is characteristic that in a number of cases the idea of creating a peasant union was also shared by village communists (Siberia, Circassian‐Adyghe region.). In the Gomel province. proposals to create a peasant union were made by kulaks, middle peasants and former communists and workers of the executive committees.
Rural cooperation. With the question of strengthening the political activity of the countryside, it is necessary to compare the observed increase in the interest of the peasantry in cooperation and the tendency towards the independent organization of peasant cooperation. A strong growth in the interest of the peasantry in cooperation was revealed during the campaign of voluntary membership. An increase in the number of members of consumer societies and an increase in the number of primary cooperatives are observed almost everywhere. The tendencies noted become especially important if we take into account the inertia and isolation from the places of the governing cooperative apparatus, strong competition from the private market, and the dominance of kulaks and traders in rural cooperation. An attempt to seize grass‐roots cooperation by the kulaks is a very frequent phenomenon (Karelia, Tatrespublika, Yekaterinoslavskaya, Tambovskaya and other provinces). In the Yaroslavl province. in the grassroots cooperation, the dominance of the Social Revolutionaries is observed.
Tendencies towards the creation of independent peasant cooperatives. In Siberia, the idea of creating an independent peasant cooperative society became widespread. In the Omsk province. SocialistRevolutionary elements led a campaign to undermine confidence in the cooperative bodies, to organize a non‐cooperative union for the purchase of dairy products; As a result, the supply of dairy products decreased, and in the Tara region, 52 artels broke their ties with the regional unions. In the Irkutsk province. Socialist‐Revolutionary elements are working to create kulak cooperatives. Population of Kontorsky district Krasnoyarsk province. decided to create its own peasant cooperative, independent of consumer cooperation. In Kansk y. Yenisei province. meeting [representatives] of 9 villages decided to create an independent peasant cooperative,
RED ARMY
Supply. There were no improvements in the state of food supply for the Red Army in the reporting period. In all districts, the facts of the issuance of low‐quality products, poor baking of bread and incomplete distribution of tobacco and fats continue to be noted. In parts of the Western Front (29th rifle division and 4th cavalry brigade) and Ukraine, spoiled fish were issued, on the basis of which there were even cases of Red Army men refusing food (23rd division of the UkrVO). In the military hospital of the 1st Cavalry Division (Ukraine), the sick were given stale and raw bread, from the use of which the patients developed nausea and pain in the stomach. Parts of Ukraine are also experiencing frequent interruptions in food supplies. Almost the same is the situation with food supplies to the units of the North Caucasian Military District, where bread baking is especially bad. Parts of the Volga region are supplied somewhat better, West Siberian and Caucasian military circles. Interruptions in the delivery of tobacco were noted in parts of the Zapfront, the North Caucasian District and in the Separate Caucasian Army.
The issue of uniforms is still not settled. In the MVO units, the urgent need for uniforms caused dissatisfaction among the volunteers of the 1902 [born] recruitment (it was promised to issue it within two weeks), which nearly failed the recruitment campaign. The Red Army soldiers of the cavalry squadron of the 14th division submitted a memorandum to the commander and the military commissar of the regiment, in which they declared their unwillingness to serve in the army due to lack of uniforms. The lack of uniforms varies in parts of Ukraine from 10 to 25%, in the North Caucasian military district ‐ 50%, in the Volga region ‐ from 15 to 40%. Some improvement in the situation with uniforms has recently been noted in units of the Western Front, with the exception of the 37th division, where the lack of it is still significant.
Withdrawal of uniforms from the demobilized. In the reporting period, there was massive discontent among the demobilized Red Army soldiers on the basis of the seizure of their first‐term uniforms and their exchange for second‐term ones. Many demobilized were faced with the need to leave the unit in rags. Discontent on this basis spread among the remaining Red Army soldiers. With the introduction of the order of the RVSR on the abandonment of the first‐term uniforms for the demobilized, discontent will be eliminated.
Housing and sanitary conditions. The lack of equipment in the barracks continued to be a serious issue for many units. In many parts of the Western Front, firewood is scarce and the barracks are poorly heated. A shortage of barracks equipment and poor heating is noted in parts of the Moscow Military District (84, 18 and 6 divisions), the Western Front, Ukraine (3 and 15 rifle divisions) and others. Due to the lack of firewood in the units of the Moscow Military District, there was an increase in colds. Due to the cold in the barracks, the Red Army men did not undress for several days, as a result of which severe lice was observed.
Of the mass diseases of the Red Army, in addition to colds, it should be noted malaria ‐ in the North Caucasus (2 cavalry divisions up to 60% of the composition suffer from malaria), venereal ‐ in parts of Ukraine and Western Siberia, scabies (30 and 51 divisions of the Ukrainian Military District).
Demobilization mood. The impending demobilization of 1901 increased the mood for demobilization. There was a negligent attitude towards classes and even threats to desert in case of further delay (Zapfront). The demobilization mood is also caused by the continuing letters from the countryside about the severity of taxes and repressions for arrears. Along with this, it was noted, however, the desire for a better mastery of drill training for fear of being left in the units and a great interest in political studies.
The relationship between the Red Army and the command staff. A serious reason for the dissatisfaction of the Red Army men is the growth of the old officerʹs habits of the command personnel (rudeness, drunkenness, swearing and brute‐forcing), which are rooted in the attitude towards the Red Army soldier even on the part of the political staff. The rudeness of the command staff was noted in parts of the North Caucasus Military District (2 and 14 Cavalry Division and 22 Infantry Division), the Separate Caucasian Army, the Western Front (2, 5, 37 and 27 Infantry Divisions and 7 Cavalry Division), UkrVO, Moscow Military District (artillery park of the
14th division, 250 regiment 84 division) and others.
The exploitation of the Red Army for personal needs is a massive phenomenon, observed in almost all districts; there are frequent cases of sending messengers at the disposal of wives, mothers, etc. for household work. The commander of the 87th regiment of the 20th division keeps two messengers of the Red Army (coachman and servant) in his apartment. The commander of the 33rd division of the Western Front forces his messenger to do various household chores, calls him nothing more than a batman.
All these phenomena create in places strong dissatisfaction of the Red Army men with the command personnel. On this basis, attempts were made to beat up command personnel in the Moscow Military District. In the 251st regiment, a Red Army soldier, dissatisfied with the commander and supported by his comrades, tried to beat the commander. In the cavalry squadron of the 14th division, a Red Army soldier fired a shot at one of the commanders.
Command staff. Among the command staff from among the old officers, all sorts of groupings are very common (especially in units of the Western Front). This kind of amalgamation of the old officers, which make up a significant percentage of the command staff, poses a certain danger. A number of groups have a certain monarchical bias. In some cases, the groupings of command personnel seek to paralyze the actions of political workers and painters or to survive them from the units. The groupings of the command personnel also result in a desire to select their own people from among the former colleagues in the old army.
Drunkenness of the com‐ and administrative staff is very common. In 22 divisions (SevKavVO), it bears a general character, and the political staff does not lag behind the command staff. Heavy drunkenness is noted in parts of the 35th division (ZapSib VO), the Zapfront, the Separate Caucasian [Kazakh] army, etc. On the basis of drunkenness, the emergence of groups of old officers on the Zapfronte is noted (4, 37, 5 and other divisions).
The relationship between the old and the red command staff. On the basis of material and legal inequality in the units, there is enmity between the senior commanders and the painters. The latter are reduced to the status of a tsarist corporal. The attitude of senior command personnel to paints sometimes comes to mockery. Kraskomov is sent to dirty work and on guard duty, deprived of the right to receive firewood and uniforms, subject to disciplinary punishments on a par with the Red Army soldiers and lengthen, against the existing provisions, the period of their internship.
The mood of the paints in this regard is demobilization, dissatisfaction with the Soviet regime and a depressive mood appear. Getting from the university environment of amateur performance and activity into an atmosphere of lawlessness and forced inaction, the painters are organizationally opposed to the old command staff. In the 77th regiment of the 26th division of the ZapSibVO, the Kraskoms delivered a number of ultimatum demands to the military commissar to change their position in the regiment and to protect them from the persecution of the old command staff. The same was noted at the headquarters of the ZSVO front and in the div [isional] school.
Rubbing paint is especially practiced in special units of the artillery and navy under the guise of poor training and unskilled paint.
ANTI‐SOVIET PARTIES AND GROUPS
Anarchists
After the operations carried out among the anarchist students in Moscow, the activities of the anarchist‐communist centers stalled. Among the members of the WFA secretariat there are major disputes over the assessment of Leninʹs role, in connection with the speech of Karelin and others, who expressed condolences in the press on Leninʹs death. Anarchist associations in North America and anarcho‐syndicalist in France attacked the WFA with harsh accusations for this letter.
On the ground, it should be noted the work among young people and, in particular, on the decomposition of the RKSM. Symptoms of this work are evident in Ivanovo‐Voznesensk Gubernia, Kronstadt (among the members of the KSM of the Red Navy), Severo‐Dvinsk Gubernia, Rostov‐on‐Don, Arkhangelsk and Bryansk
Provinces. The influence of anarchists among workers is noted in Moscow among bakers (anarcho‐syndicalists) and in Yaroslavl at the Westinghouse plant (anarchists‐communists). An anarchist organization was liquidated in Arkhangelsk, ciphers, stamps and a seal, correspondence and a prepared appeal ʺto the peopleʺ were found.
Mensheviks
In early March, an operation was carried out to confiscate active workers in the Moscow organization of the RSDLP, and leaflets from the Bureau of the RSDLP ʺTo all party membersʺ were seized. At the end of March, up to 700 copies of the Sotsial‐Demokrat magazine No. 1‐2 for January‐February 1924, issued by the Central Committee Bureau, were confiscated. The leaflets “To All Party Members” contain an acknowledgment of the ongoing collapse of the Menshevik Party and call for increased party energy. At the end of
February, a leaflet ʺTo All Party Membersʺ was distributed in
Leningrad; in addition, signed by the ʺPetrograd Committee of the RSDLP,ʺ a leaflet was issued here for the 7th anniversary of the February revolution.
The idea of calling congresses of former Mensheviks is spreading, but the results are poor. Conferences were held in the Nizhny Novgorod province. (90 people, mostly workers) and the Perm District. Declarative statements of groups of former Mensheviks in Ufa and Blagoveshchensk have been published.
On March 10, a group of 20‐25 Mensheviks was liquidated, which was conducting covert agitation at the Sormovo factories of the Nizhny Novgorod province, and illegal literature and correspondence were seized.
Right SRs
As before, the Social Revolutionaries have not been active. The issue of the need to penetrate the working environment was discussed in Moscow, but practically nothing has been done. Attention is drawn to the agitation of individual Social Revolutionaries for the organization of peasant unions in the districts of Moscow province. (Dmitrovsky, Mozhaisky, Kolomensky and Yegoryevsky) and the activities of single Social Revolutionaries to conquer the primary cooperative network in the Irkutsk and Tambov provinces.
In March, operations were carried out against the Moscow SocialistRevolutionaries and the ʺSociety for Aid to Political Prisonersʺ, and a number of prominent Socialist‐Revolutionaries were arrested and issues of the Socialist‐Revolutionary magazine ʺRevolutionary Russiaʺ 34 and the leaflet ʺOn Morozovʹs Deathʺ were seized. In Baku, a part of the archive of the Baku organization of right‐wing socialist‐revolutionaries was discovered, from the documents of which the connection between the Socialist‐Revolutionaries and the white command in 1918‐1919 is established.
The right wing of the party lives with the aspirations of reforming the RCP under the influence of NEP. The mood of the left elements, who do not reconcile with an open coalition with the bourgeoisie, is decadent and characterized by a desire not to interfere with the work of the Bolsheviks, but also not to break with the title of socialist‐revolutionaries. In this mood, they are strengthened by respect for Lenin as a brilliant leader.
The process of withdrawal from the AKP of the broad SocialistRevolutionary masses continues, despite opposition from the Right Socialist‐Revolutionaries. There were exits from the AKP in Krasnoyarsk (15 people), Tatrespublika (12 people), Crimea (12 people), Samara (12 people), Tambov (7 people) and
Moscow. Conferences on self‐liquidation of Socialist‐Revolutionary organizations were held in Skopinsky. Ryazan lips. and Odessa province. (107 people). The mood among the legalists is motley. Some of them sincerely break with the party, while the majority have in mind only personal peace of mind.
All the central organs of the foreign SRs are concentrated in Prague. The party has become corrupted from idleness, being supported by the funds of the Czechoslovak government. Information about the withdrawal of a number of old socialist‐revolutionaries from the Socialist‐Revolutionary Party in Russia is extremely depressing to the party delegation abroad.
Left SRs
In the Moscow legal association of left Socialist‐Revolutionaries and maximalists at Sunday meetings, attacks against the RCP and Soviet power were noted when discussing issues of the current moment. In Odessa, the remnants of the underground were liquidated, and 23 people were arrested and literature and archives were taken. In Oryol, a congress of former Left SRs took place, which passed a decision on self‐liquidation.
In Berlin, the ZDLSR magazine ʺThe Banner of Struggleʺ 35 was published, containing sharp attacks on the Soviet government. The magazine is designed to promote the ideas of the Left Narodnichestvo in Russia and is sent to a large number of members of the LSR association and maximalists and responsible parties and Soviet workers.
Nationalist movements
NORTH CAUCASUS
The activity of the local counter‐revolution after the last measures of the Soviet government in the fight against national banditry is characterized by a transition from active actions to deepening work on the ideological front and a large conspiracy of nationalist] organizations. The change in the tactics of the national movement was a consequence of the turning point in the mood of the masses after the disarmament. In order to reveal to the masses their readiness to renounce activity, the local counter‐revolution itself is forcing some of the gang leaders to appear. But at the same time, they seek to delay time until spring in order to re‐occupy the lost positions. Thus, a strong political agreement is being established between the North Caucasian counter‐revolutionary organizations, which is evident from the planned nature of their partial actions. The connection between the Transcaucasian and North Caucasian counterrevolutionary groups is noteworthy. In particular, the Georgian Mensheviks pay great attention to the North Caucasian counter‐revolutionary organizations. A meeting of all Caucasian leaders was held in Constantinople, at which the issue of an uprising in Dagestan under the leadership of Chelokaev and with the participation of Azerbaijanis was discussed.
In Dagestan, there is a strengthening of Bahaʹi organizations that exist legally and set themselves the goal of preventing wars, murders, ʺuniting mankindʺ, equalizing rights, etc. In the event of war, these organizations must campaign against war and taxes. These organizations are actually used by foreign counterintelligence services for espionage.
GEORGIA
The further disintegration of the Georgian Mensheviks continues. Almost all transport workers, former Mensheviks, apply to join the Communist Party. A turning point is also observed in the mood of a part of the intelligentsia, sincerely striving for joint work with the Soviet government.
TURKESTAN
The life of the Ittikhat‐Islam organization noticeably revived. The decree on attracting kishlak youth to the organization is being carried out. In Samarkand, Tashkent and Kokand, a number of meetings were held at which issues related to the latest events (the death of Comrade Lenin, party discussion) were discussed. There is a tendency to use national formations in which they hope to find a supporting force.
In Namangan u. Fergana region, there is an agrarian movement of farm laborers aimed at seizing the land of the bais. Manapas and mullahs tried to organize resistance, demanding that local authorities not touch the vakuf lands, disbanding sections of farm laborers, women departments and closing new schools. In view of the refusal to satisfy these requirements, the bai and manapi were forced to give up 800 dessiatines to the farm laborers. land. Recently, bai, in order to divert the attention of farm laborers from their lands, send them to seize the vakuf lands.
KHOREZM 36
In the reporting period, the full picture of the Khorezm uprising came to light. The government elected as the 4th kurultai deprived the bourgeoisie and clergy of not only electoral, but also civil rights. The clergy was especially strongly infringed upon by the policy on the vakuf issue. The unification of monetary systems in the absence of financial support from the center forced the Khorezm government to press on the tax apparatus in the context of the colossal collapse of the dekhkan economy (agricultural tax was twice the khanʹs rates).
The created situation was taken into account by Dzhunaid Khan, who in December [1923] declared that he would not put up with the Bolsheviks. The command decided to eliminate Dzhunaid Khan, starting the operation on 15 February. Dzhunaid Khan, warned of this, decided to forestall events and launched an offensive against Khiva. Under the pressure of our units and thanks to the support of two Turkmen tribes, the first attempt by Dzhunaid Khan to occupy Khiva was eliminated, but his forces remained. With more than 2000 people in his detachments and almost the same number of unorganized gangs, as well as the support of the population, Dzhunaid Khan decided to take Khiva for the second time. At the end of February, the command managed to occupy the main base of Dzhunaid Khan ‐ the well of Balakala, but it was not possible to develop this operation due to the difficulty of supplying units in the sands.
In accordance with the current situation, the Central Asian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP adopted a number of resolutions aimed at expanding electoral rights and reducing the tax burden on dehkans and attracting middle peasants to Soviet construction.
TATARIA
An underground newspaper ʺKhikhikatʺ published (presumably among the Tat [ar] students) was discovered ‐ the organ of the regional committee of the Young Turkic revolutionaries, apparently connected with the Kazan Socialist‐Revolutionary underground. The newspaper contains sharp criticism of the Soviet regime.
FIGHT AGAINST BANDITISM AND CRIME
Banditry
The state of banditry in the USSR in the reporting period is presented in the following form.
Western edge. In the foreign region of the Western Territory, the concentration of bandit detachments of Balakhovich, Antsipovich and others is still noted. Balakhovich is the head of a timber industry partnership, which employs up to 1000 Balakhovites, and in fact is an agent of the 2nd department of the Polish General Staff, with the goal of monitoring the local population and suppressing possible local peasant movements. There is also information about the alleged transfer of gangs to our side.
Ukraine. In Ukraine, political banditry is passive and a manifestation of criminal banditry is observed. The active gangs (from 3 to 15 people) are composed primarily of local residents and rob cooperatives and individuals. A total of 35 bands (304 bayonets and sabers) are registered.
Southeast. Political banditry in the South‐East is not very active and, in fact, is of an organizational nature (establishing communication with the bandits and with the population). Attention is drawn to the increase in the Kozlikhin‐Kovalev gang (now liquidated) to 120 bayonets ‐ sabers at the expense of the deserted pre‐conscripts in 1902. The spread among the population of an appeal sent from abroad with an appeal to prepare for an uprising is noted.
In the mountainous districts of the region, criminal‐household and national‐political banditry is still strongly developed. In the Karachay‐Cherkess and Kabardian regions. the emergence of bandit detachments of 10‐15 people is noted, making raids on Soviet institutions, state structures and railways. At the same time, there are cases of assistance of the population to the units to combat banditry. In total, 28 bands are registered (453 bayonets ‐ sabers).
Caucasus. Political banditry continues to remain underground. The activity of criminal gangs is insignificant. Registered 18 gangs (188 bayonets ‐ sabers).
Turkestan. The Basmachi of the Fergana and Samarkand regions have been defeated and demoralized by the actions of our units. The mutual hostility of the gang leaders makes them incapable of fighting. On the other hand, the previously observed voluntary surrender of the bandits, due to the agitation of the ringleaders and the repressive measures against those who surrendered, stopped. The remaining gangs of political slogans do not have and do not enjoy authority among the population.
In the rest of the territory, the Basmachis are still active, which is facilitated by the strict centralization of the Basmachi command and the close proximity to the Afghan border, where the gangs are hiding from the actions of our years [uchih] detachments (Bukhara).
In total, 55 detachments are registered in Turkestan (8900 bayonets ‐ sabers).
Far East. The foreign White Guards are actively working on organizing white detachments, recruiting fighters from the refugee masses. In her work, she is associated with Western monarchist organizations (Navy, etc.). In January, on the initiative of one of the white organizations, a congress of the Cossacks was convened on Chinese territory, which was attended by 60 delegates. On our part, as a result of the work of foreign organizations, there are incessant raids on the border areas by bands robbing Soviet institutions and citizens, an increase in anti‐Soviet agitation among the peasantry and the presence of rebel groups among the kulaks and Cossacks.
The operations carried out in the Blagoveshchensk region prevented the uprising scheduled for April 1. 19 rebel cells were liquidated, and 200 of the most active participants in the conspiracy were captured.
In other districts, only the manifestation of petty criminal banditry is noted.
Cleaning Moscow from socially harmful elements
During the period from December last [1923] to March 15, the troika to clean up Moscow from socially harmful elements carried out 6 operations. In all operations, 2092 people were arrested, of whom 279 were released, 1813 were convicted (137 people were imprisoned in a concentration camp and 1676 people were deported). Sent: to the Pechora Territory ‐ 146, to the Narym Territory ‐ 143, to the Urals ‐ 251, to Vyatka ‐ 6 people, all for a period of 2‐3 years. The rest are prohibited from staying in the largest points of the USSR and the border strip. The distribution of those arrested by nationality is as follows: Russians ‐ 904 (43.2%), Jews ‐
868 (41.5%), Georgians ‐ 178 (8.5%) and others ‐ 142 (6.8%).
Fight against counterfeiters
Until January 1, the troika for the fight against counterfeiters liquidated 3 large organizations of counterfeiters across Moscow, and 142 people were arrested along with the sellers. In JanuaryMarch [1924] 4 organizations were liquidated, in which 296 people were arrested. During all operations, accessories, cliches, printing presses and unfinished banknotes of various denominations were seized.
On the periphery, organizations in Odessa and Kursk province were discovered and liquidated until January. (the village of Ivanovskoye, Lgovskiy district), Kiev, Saratov (Volga organization, which had branches in Saratov, Samara, Tsaritsyn, Orenburg and Mogilev‐Podolsk), [where] counterfeit silver and gold money was made ‐ only 5 large organizations with 268 arrested counterfeiters and distributors. From January 1 to March 25, organizations were liquidated in the city of Rostov‐on‐Don, in the City Republic, the Dagrespublika (aul Shali), in Astrakhan (the remains of the SaratovVolga organization) and the Kuban‐Black Sea region. ‐ only 5 large organizations with 376 arrested.
Liquidation of the Chinese Workersʹ Union
Recently, an espionage organization acting under the guise of a union of Chinese workers has been discovered and the Central Executive Committee of this union has been arrested in Moscow.
The Union of Chinese Citizens, organized in 1917 from declassed elements, was renamed the Union of Chinese Workers in 1918. The leaders of the union ‐ members of the RCP ‐ informed the Chinese government about the Chinese Communists loyal to the Soviet regime and the RCP, facilitated the relocation of Chinese intelligence officers, ferried weapons and carried out orders from Chinese government institutions to combat the penetration of revolutionary influence into China. On the instructions of the Chinese government, some Chinese loyal to the Soviet government were killed.
In addition to legal organizations, the union had conspiratorial secret brotherhoods ʺKhu‐ghuʺ and ʺTszai‐Liyaerʺ, nationalpatriotic organizations that turned into criminal gangs (Khunhuz). These gangs killed members of the union, loyal to the RCP and Soviet power, committed murders of a criminal nature. The gang members had dens for smoking opium. The leaders of the unions that existed in Yekaterinburg, Tashkent, Yuzovka, Irkutsk, Moscow, Petrograd, Vladivostok and Chita held responsible Soviet posts, often being members of the RCP.
Deputy Chairman of the OGPU Yagoda, Head of the Information
Department of the OGPU Prokofiev