Review of the political state of the USSR

Review of the political and economic state of the RSFSR for MayJune 1922

Top secret

Store as cipher

August 7, 1922

To the head of the Severo‐Dvinsky city department

Veliky Ustyug

The attached review of the political and economic state of the RSFSR for May and June 1922 includes data on the state of the Republic by districts, and the main material for this part of the review was generalized and summarized information regularly received by the department of state information of the Information Department of the GPU from all provincial and regional bodies of the State Political Administration.

The second part of the review is a description of the activities of counter‐revolutionary parties and groups based on data received by the GPU Information Department from the Secret, Special and Eastern departments of the GPU. The description of each party or group includes not only its activities within the RSFSR, but also its foreign work according to the data of the Inotdel of the GPU.

In the introductory part of the review, a characteristic is given of the moods of workers, peasants and Red Army soldiers of the Republic, and the main material for judgment was the data of the State Information Agency, highlighted in the daily special policy summary of the Informotdel of the GPU.

Head of the Information Department of the GPU Ashmarin

GENERAL POLITICAL SITUATION

The reporting months May and June can be considered the months of a turning point, and, moreover, a turning point for the better. This is noted in the sentiments of all groups of the population without exception, it is also noted in most sectors of the countryʹs economic life.

The wave of the general economic and political crisis, which began to rise in February, after the comparative prosperity of the autumn and winter months, this spring wave of crises and discontent, which in essence became usual during the years of the revolution, reached its climax in April. It was the month of its highest rise, a month of massive discontent among all groups of the population, a month marked by almost the greatest development of hunger, a month marked by a sharp drop in the productivity of our industry. In May, there was no further deterioration, and by the end of the month, the first weak signs of an imminent recovery appeared. In June, this recovery is already more clearly manifested with greater certainty, and most of the regions of the Republic are characterized by the continuous slow improvement of the general political and economic situation. By the end of June, the fact that we have passed the most difficult, most difficult moment, and moreover, apparently, finally, is already pouring out with complete certainty. And last year, in the same months, the country experienced a turning point even more rapid, even more dramatic, and, however, this did not prevent it from going through a series of disasters in six months: economic, industrial, agricultural, financial, etc. year so optimistically to look at the opening political and economic prospects, which makes us so sharply, so decisively qualify the current state as a period of recovery, than this summer differs from last year. The first factor that gives grounds for drawing all these conclusions is now, with complete certainty, a good harvest.

If at the beginning of this month it was still impossible to speak about it with complete certainty, if the beginning of the month inspired some more fears for its future fate, if at the beginning of the month there were still some formidable signs of a possible breakdown (we are talking about mass hailings ¹²⁶ that took place at the end of May and at the beginning of June, about the mass appearance of locusts, filly ¹²⁷ , etc.), then the end of the month leaves no doubt that victory on this front is undoubtedly ours.

The second factor influencing our political and economic situation and, to the same extent as the harvest, sharply improving our situation, is the complete and undoubtedly revealed in the last two months, the halt in price growth.

The significance of these two factors is enormous. From the characteristics given below, it becomes clear how they are reflected in the moods of some of the largest groups of the population ‐ the moods of workers, peasants and Red Army men.

WORKERS

The general political sentiments of the workers are fully subject to the factors indicated above.

At the beginning of May, they are still almost entirely, almost universally unsatisfactory. In many areas, may is marked by frequent unrest and strikes. From the beginning of June, almost throughout the entire territory of the Republic, improvement begins, continuing and developing throughout the month.

The quietest areas for the reporting period were: Central, Western, Volga and Kirgiz krai. Of course, here too there were frequent cases of unrest and conflicts, and here there has not yet been observed that evenness that characterizes really calm regions, but nevertheless, here, in comparison with the previous months, the situation must be considered very improved. Siberia and Turkestan should be included among the less prosperous regions in terms of working sentiments. In Siberia, particularly strong discontent was noted in the Tyumen and Tomsk provinces. We will not dwell on these unrest in detail, since this will be done when considering the political and economic state of Siberia, as a separate economic unit of the Republic. In Turkestan, workersʹ unrest occurs mainly on the railway lines. It should be noted

There are two areas that are absolutely not included in the category of convalescents ‐ this is the North‐West of the Republic and Ukraine. Until very recently, the workers in these regions have continued to remain embittered and actively hostile to the Soviet regime and the RCP. May and especially June are marked in Ukraine by a huge wave of strikes, sometimes taking on the character of a real movement.

These phenomena became especially acute in Odessa, where within a short period of time all the largest enterprises, both civil and military and transport, managed to re‐strike. By the end of May, the strike wave spreads to the neighboring Nikolaev and Kiev provinces.; the movement continues unabated until the end of the reporting period. Only in the north of Ukraine, in the Kharkiv region, the wave subsides earlier ‐ by June 20th. The moods of the workers of the North‐Western Territory are also unsatisfactory, and in St. Petersburg they deteriorate significantly by the beginning of June, and this whole month passes with an extremely unfavorable picture of workersʹ moods. Here the situation is aggravated by the fact that a fairly significant part of the increase in workersʹ discontent in the North‐Western Territory in general, and in St. Petersburg in particular, should be attributed to a corresponding increase in the activity of anti‐Soviet parties. In other regions of the Republic, as we have already said, it is generally calm, especially by the end of the reporting period. Delays in the payment of wages and rations continue to be the main cause of worker discontent. It is due to the significant improvement in the situation on this issue that the weakening of workersʹ discontent must be more attributed. Another circumstance that excited the masses of the workers was the continuous rise in prices. Quite naturally, the cessation of the further rise in the cost of living could not but reflect in the most favorable way on the mood of the workers. Another important consequence of this phenomenon was that in this regard, the issue of insufficient tariff rates was somewhat softened,

It has already been indicated above that among the factors that influenced the deterioration of the mood of a part of the workers, one must consider the intensification of the activity of the counterrevolutionary parties. This fact is beyond doubt. In the past June, there were cases of revival of phenomena that seemed to have long been forgotten by the proletarian population of the Republic. These are unrest and strikes of a political nature. There were several similar strikes during the reporting month. Among them, first of all, it is necessary to single out the strike at the Prokhorovskoye convent, the workers of which went on strike because of the arrest of six active Social Revolutionaries working at the factory. For the same reasons, there was unrest at the former Butikovʹs Moscow factory. In addition, many unrest provoked by the Mensheviks were noted in the Moscow factories. The activity of the Social Revolutionaries in St. Petersburg also intensified. There they succeeded in causing quite significant disturbances. In other areas excluding Georgia, in June the [influence] of counterrevolutionary parties and groups was, as in previous periods, absolutely negligible. The attitude of the workers to the process of the SRs is generally very sympathetic, which is proved by the brilliant results of the demonstration on June 20, as well as by the myriad of resolutions passed by the workers at meetings in which they unanimously demand the application of the most severe punishments to the SRs.

PEASANTS

The mood of the peasants during the May‐June period is generally much better than the mood of the workers. This is explained, of course, by the fact that exhausted, worn out by wars, epidemics and poor harvests, they now use all their attention only to restore their economy, and this directly depends on the fate of the harvest, which, as we said above, must be good. The second reason for the improvement in peasant sentiments is that famine, which held more than 1/3 of Russia in its grip, can now be considered completely broken. To a greater extent, this was facilitated by the energetic activity of Russian and foreign organizations to help the hungry. On the other hand, hunger has been overcome by the fact that the harvesting campaign has already begun in many localities and in some places even new bread has appeared.

The mood of the peasants is generally even throughout Russia with a clear bias towards further improvement. The only exception is the North‐West Territory, the mood of the peasants of which is unsatisfactory due to the large under‐sowing and the death of a significant part of winter crops.

Other regions of the Republic, we repeat, give a much more comforting picture. Of course, there are quite frequent cases of dissatisfaction, and there, in many places, from time to time, a hostile attitude towards Soviet power flares up, but in general these cases do not characterize the general picture in any of the regions of the Republic.

One of the main reasons for peasant discontent is the carrying out of a labor tax in the midst of the suffering, which, given the now almost universal horselessness, is an extremely heavy and in some places completely impossible burden for the peasants.

The second reason for dissatisfaction is the intense tax collection on butter and eggs. He arouses especially strong indignation in areas that were not officially declared starving, whose population bore all the burden of the grain tax and did not enjoy the support of either the Soviet or foreign bodies of Pomgol.

The third reason for dissatisfaction is the collection of monetary taxes and levies. In many areas, the impoverished peasantry is forced to sell their last property to pay them.

These three main reasons for the discontent arising in places in the village are also the main campaigns currently being carried out in the village. In this regard, it can be noted once again that the discontent caused by them is sporadic and in general the campaigns are going well. The worst thing is the collection of the general civil tax in favor of the hungry, which, as we have already indicated above, is explained by the enormous impoverishment of the village in two lean years.

The village is currently engaged in field work. Strada is in full swing. The peasant is not thinking about anything else; he is not doing anything else.

The desire of the peasants to restore the economy is enormous, the desire of the peasants to increase the area of upcoming winter crops is noted everywhere, in many regions peasants switch to multifield at the first opportunity ¹²⁸. Early take‐off of steam is now practiced in most areas. Everywhere there is a great striving of peasants to eliminate agricultural illiteracy.

How much the peasantry is interested in the agricultural campaign is shown by at least one fact that the end of the campaign to confiscate church values took place with the complete indifference of the peasants. The grain loan ¹²⁹ had not yet reached the village until July. Of course, there are isolated places where peasants began to buy its bonds, but in the overwhelming majority of regions the peasantry does not even know that it has been issued and, in any case, has no idea about its goals and benefits.

The situation in the hungry provinces is gradually beginning to improve. Cases of starvation are gradually becoming less frequent. Hunger is felt most of all in the provinces located across the Urals. This is explained by the fact that aid to the hungry in these areas began to be provided only in the spring.

RED ARMY

The Red Army men are still the most reliable, most relaxed part of the population of the Republic. This is explained by the fact that they represent the only group, the supply of which is carried out almost regularly, almost normally.

Their mood in most areas throughout the entire reporting period remains quite favorable and the combat capability of the units is still at the proper height. Desertion is almost never observed. The situation with political work is somewhat worse. Until recently, in a very significant number of units, there continues to be a great shortage of political workers. In some places, this leads to even partial cases of decomposition in parts and in places even to manifestation in looting parts. The latter was observed in Ukraine, where the atrocities of the units allocated to eradicate banditry in the Kremenchug province almost caused open indignation among the population. However, all these are only isolated cases, by no means characterizing the general situation.

The sharp exception to this picture of well‐being is only one district. We are talking about the insurrectionary movement of Turkestan. The objective conditions of the region, it would seem, demanded that the Red Army units stationed there keep, if not in a privileged front position, then at least at the level of the norm. Meanwhile, it is in this region of the Republic that the supply of units is placed below any criticism. The same, if not worse, is the case with the political state of the army (this is discussed in more detail in the part of the review that examines the political and economic state of the Republic by region).

The situation in the Saratov garrison is still bad.

OVERVIEW OF THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC STATE OF THE REPUBLIC BY DISTRICTS

CENTRAL PROVINCES

(Vladimirskaya, Vyatskaya, Voronezhskaya, Votskaya, IvanovoVoznesenskaya, Kurskaya, Kaluga, Kostromskaya, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Orlovskaya, Penza, Rybinskaya, Ryazanskaya, Tambovskaya, Tula and Yaroslavskaya)

When making an overview of the central provinces, it is quite natural to single out Moscow and the surrounding areas, information about which is the most complete and accurate. In addition, the working masses concentrated here react more strongly to the difficulties of our economic bodies, which are reflected in their material situation. It should be noted that, on the whole, the mood of the workers of the Central District is more favorable compared to the last previous months, especially in the provinces. In Moscow and the Moscow region, here and there discontent of the workers comes to light, caused mostly by economic reasons, such as nonpayment of salaries for several months, large deductions for state payments and other reasons of the same kind. Sometimes this discontent results in short‐term strikes; in the last month they have definitely begun to decline and are no longer widespread. Of the strikes of a political nature, it is necessary to note that at the factory of the Prokhorov district, caused by the arrest of workers, and in connection with this unrest at the factory of the former Butikov, with the alleged arrest of 10 participants in the strike. Refusal to participate in the demonstration on January 20 is noted there (there are few such factories), where the work of the Mensheviks is also noted, who in this case revealed much more energy than the Socialist‐Revolutionaries themselves, who campaigned both personally and through proclamations calling for the admission of their representatives to trial in as defenders. A more gratifying picture is drawn in the period under review by reports from places where, in most cases, owing to relatively normal supplies, the mood of the workers is quite satisfactory and the attitude towards the Soviet government and the RCP is favorable.

Only Kaluga, Vyatka and Yaroslavl lips. note the strike trends based on the same economic reasons. This was especially evident in a number of strikes in the Yaroslavl province. due to non‐payment of salaries for several months.

Regarding the transport workers, we will point out that during these months there were no particular disturbances, but only sometimes the same discontent, which did not take on a mass character.

It should be noted the frequent delay in June of wagons with food cargo, sometimes arriving at the station. Moscow and adjacent [stations] up to 600‐700 wagons per day.

Reviewing the reports from the localities about the mood of the peasantry of the central provinces, it can be stated that in May and June the latter express not discontent, but rather, concern over the lack of semidirectional materials and places of dead inventory. But in connection with the good prospects for the harvest, already in the middle and the end of June, a benevolent attitude and confidence in the Soviet government, especially among the poorest classes, is increasingly noted. Some dissatisfaction is caused by the egg‐oil tax, but still, on the whole, it is going satisfactorily and is fulfilled by an average of 40‐50 percent. True, no voluntary contributions have been registered. It is often necessary to resort to coercive measures. Due to the difficult times, the labor tax is not going well, but the attitude towards it is much more positive than towards the labor tax. In the Kaluga province. the peasantry has a negative attitude towards the new land reform. Subscription to a grain loan in the peasantry does not enjoy great success due to the lack of awareness and therefore distrust in him, as well as in some places due to lack of money. The most successful subscription is in Vyatka and Kaluga provinces. The attitude to cooperation is rather indifferent, due to the lack of commodity exchange funds among the broad masses. It is necessary to note the widespread desire to expand the cultivated area, while being delayed by the lack of seeds and agricultural implements.

In relation to anti‐Soviet parties, in most cases, a benevolent attitude towards them is revealed only on the part of wealthy kulak elements, while the rural poor are sympathetic to the RCP.

The attitude to the process of the SRs is indifferent, with the exception of certain places where resolutions are adopted requiring severe punishments.

Summarizing the mood of the peasantry for this period, we come to the conclusion that the prospects for a satisfactory and in some places good harvest (damage for various reasons is still very insignificant) brought a certain reassurance to the peasant environment and a good attitude towards Soviet power.

Still, the most reliable part of the population of this region must be considered the Red Army units. All reports state the normal supply of units, and only some provinces (Kostroma, Vyatka) note the lack of summer uniforms and linen. Political work is being carried out somewhat weakly in the Tambov and Oryol provinces, the result of which is the indifference of the Red Army men to the RCP and the ongoing process of the SRs. Desertion is not noted in the reports, with the exception of Ivanovo‐Voznesensk, where this phenomenon, although to a very weak degree, was nevertheless observed in connection with field work.

An unsatisfactory mood is observed in some units and among the workers of some military workshops in the center of the Republic ‐ Moscow. And here (as in the beginning of the report, where it was said about workers), discontent is caused by purely economic reasons and sometimes causes undesirable phenomena. So, for example, in the military repair shops of Okkhozupra, due to nonleave to field work, non‐payment of salaries for several months and poorly conducted political work, we observe increased desertion. In sewing workshops No. 2, engineering workshops, the Moscow fortress warehouse, Lefortovo and Mokartu, there is a strong discontent caused by the same reasons. Discontent is observed in some combat units, for example, in 438, 154 rifle regiments and several smaller military units, which causes a decline in their discipline and combat capability.

Almost all reports from the field point to the unsatisfactory mood of the Soviet employees, a passive and sometimes hostile attitude towards the RCP, caused by the monetary crisis and delayed payment of salaries. The work of rural volunteer committees in some provinces (Tambov, Vladimir and Kostroma) is extremely weak. Drunkenness and a decline in their authority in the eyes of the population are noted among rural workers in these provinces. Bribery has become commonplace; the isolation of rural cells from the broad peasant masses is observed.

In the Oryol province. By the measures taken by the gubernia executive committee, work on the ground has definitely begun to improve, and the Tverskaya province also notes a cheerful mood. The general civil tax is almost nowhere fully implemented. In some places, due to the lack of banknotes among the population, it is extremely weak.

The confiscation of church valuables has been carried out almost everywhere; excesses on this basis are not recorded. The population in many places is quite friendly to this event, while the clergy are passive. The schism of the church is increasingly beginning to take over the province. In a number of provinces, the progressive clergy, still few in number, recognize the behavior of Bishop Anthony as quite correct and approve of the attitude of the Soviet government towards the church.

In conclusion, a few words about the activities of anti‐Soviet parties in the central provinces. The only one who has been showing some activity of late is the Mensheviks. In connection with the process of the SRs, they developed a rather energetic work in the Moscow industrial region, speaking in person, sending letters and throwing out leaflets calling for refraining from demonstrations and sending their representatives to the court as defenders. Their activity spread to the following plants and factories: in Orekhovo‐Zuevsky u. at the Equipment Art Plant, Mehartzavod, Mechanical and Optical

Plants; at the Kolomna plant ^{130 of} the same district, in Moscow at the Sokolnichesky mold plant number 2, at the Dynamo ¹³¹, AMO ¹³², in the Miussky tram park, at Avtozavod number 2 and some others. At the same time, there is a striving to conceal the work as much as possible and go underground. In June, the MK RSDLP turned its attention to the Social Democratic Union of Working Youth, whose activities are now beginning to develop widely. There is a transition of former members of the RKSM to the Union of Social Democratic Youth, which are readily accepted and promoted to responsible party positions. The release of the 2nd issue of the ʺYoung Proletarianʺ magazine is planned.

The rest of the political parties did not reveal themselves in any way during this period. Registered small groups of right and left Social Revolutionaries are not active.

NORTH‐WESTERN REGION

(Arkhangelsk, Vologda, Zyryanskaya ¹³³, Karelian, Murmansk, Novgorod, Olonets, Petrogradskaya, Pskov, Severo‐Dvinskaya and Cherepovetskaya)

The acute devastation of some regions of the North‐West of the Republic, caused by the White Karelian adventure, floods and excessive rains that adversely affected the state of crops, poor supply and much more, which will be discussed below, had an extremely unfavorable effect on the general political situation of the region.

Most of the provinces during the reporting period provide a picture of the unsatisfactory mood of all groups of the population. In addition to the facts already mentioned, one of the main reasons for peasant discontent is the lack of seeds, and poor harvest prospects in June. These reasons are common to the overwhelming majority of provinces.

The discontent of the peasants, however, nowhere takes the form of active protests against Soviet power. In May, the Cherepovets province was a certain exception, where, judging by the reports, such attempts were not observed. Underseeding in this province was expressed in 30% of the entire crop area; in the month of June, the poor condition of the grain is already revealed, which, of course, cannot help to improve the mood. The same figure is also expressed in the undersowing in Petersburg province, where, moreover, as it turned out in June, from 50 to 80% of winter crops perished in many places. In the Pskov province, which in May seemed the most prosperous in all respects, in June 50 thousand dessiatins died from excess precipitation, some of which, nevertheless, may still be sown again due to the arrival of seed for this purpose. Zyryansk region and Karttrudkommuna suffer from a shortage of draft animals. In the Zyryansk region. cattle perished in large numbers over the past winter from lack of fodder, while in Karelia during the uprising [it] was almost entirely driven away by bandits to Finland.

The peasants are greatly dissatisfied with the imposition of all kinds of taxes, especially general civil taxes, the collection of which (especially in connection with the widespread monetary crisis) throughout the territory of the region is very weak. The food situation of peasants in the overwhelming majority of the region during the reporting period remains very difficult. This is especially noted in the reports of the Karelian Labor Commune, devastated by the uprising. In the Zyryansk region. in connection with the famine in May, there were frequent cases of robbery by peasants of semets. In many provinces of the region, the welfare of the peasants was catastrophically affected by the unprecedented flood that took place this spring, which caused incalculable losses to the region. The provinces of Pskov and, in part, Novgorod are relatively favorable in relation to peasant sentiments.

The mood of the workers in the period under review is as unsatisfactory as the mood of the peasants. The main reason here is, as in the Moscow and Southern industrial regions, poor supply. The comparatively satisfactory condition of workers in early May by the end of the month deteriorated greatly, especially in the Petrograd region, where the lack of tariff rates and the introduction of payment for rations caused a number of short‐term strikes.

The strikes continue and throughout June they roll from one plant to another.

In the same month counter‐revolutionary agitation, especially the Socialist‐Revolutionary, intensified in the factories. The arrest of the Socialist‐Revolutionary Kapustin causes openly revealed discontent among the workers of a number of large factories, such as Metallichesky ¹³⁴, Arsenal ¹³⁵, the Goisler plant, Obukhovsky ¹³⁶, Aleksandrovsky and Nevsky paper spinning factories. But a huge number of workers are not sympathetic to the SocialistRevolutionaries.

In Petrograd and Kronstadt, numerous demonstrations against the SRs are taking place with great revolutionary enthusiasm.

In other provinces, workersʹ discontent did not appear in such a sharp form as it did in Petrograd. In May, a 2‐day strike was noted at the Onega plant (Kartrudkommuna) and a strong decline in the mood of the Arkhangelsk workers. In June, short strikes took place in the Pskov province. at peat mines and among the Petrozavodsk workers of the Karelian commune. Among the latter, there is a Menshevik agitation. Transport workers showed more of this calmness during the reporting period. The end of June marks the onset of an improvement in the mood of workers almost

everywhere, which is caused by material satisfaction.

Naturally, the general deterioration of the political situation in the region could not but entail intensified counter‐revolutionary phenomena.

In most provinces, the period under review gives rise to a significant increase in banditry, mainly criminal. On the territory of the Pskov province. at the end of May, small gangs, belonging to the Savinka organization, appear.

The activities of anti‐Soviet parties also revived during the reporting month. There is an increase in the agitation of the Mensheviks among the Petersburg workers, in particular, at the Sestroretsk plant ¹³⁷. The Left and Right Socialist‐Revolutionaries are also trying to carry out organizational work in Petrograd, which, however, they fail due to the scattered organizations and the severity of the conditions for normal work. In the Novgorod province. In early May, the Mensheviks and Socialist‐Revolutionaries succeeded in creating ferment among the Velikie Luki artel workers.

The mood of the Red Army men in the region remains calm during May ‐ June. Sometimes noted in connection with interruptions in one or another supply, light outbreaks of unrest and discontent of the situation as a whole do not characterize at all. The only area unfavorable in relation to the Red Army sentiments is the SeveroDvinskaya province, where, due to the lack of rations, by the end of May, cases of robbery of the warehouses of the Semfond became more frequent. Reports from the same province, as well as from the provinces of Petrograd and Vologda, note a slight increase in desertions from units. This phenomenon is explained by the beginning of field work. The combat effectiveness and discipline of the units during the reporting period remains at the proper level.

Due to the ongoing layoffs and other reasons indicated at the beginning of the review, the mood of the regionʹs co‐workers is extremely unsatisfactory.

The confiscation of valuables in most of the provinces of the region ends and proceeds calmly. An exception is the Arkhangelsk province, where the campaign encountered stubborn resistance from the kulak element.

WESTERN REGION

(Bryansk, Vitebsk, Gomel, Smolensk [provinces], Belarusian Republic)

The severe shortage of banknotes and foodstuffs among the economic agencies of the Western Territory, which resulted in the extreme untimely payment of salaries and rations to workers, had a very bad effect on the mood of the latter. This dissatisfaction, however, is not of a serious nature, and it never came to serious unrest. In some places, this cause causes temporary performance degradation. The latter circumstance is also influenced by the extreme lack of supply of raw materials and fuel, as a result of which there are frequent cases of temporary closure of enterprises.

Despite this, the mood of the working masses of the Western Territory can be considered generally and generally satisfactory, and anti‐Soviet parties (Mensheviks and Socialist‐Revolutionaries) are not working among them. In a number of better‐off factories, resolutions are passed regarding the SRs trials requiring severe punishments. It also indicates that the occasional discontent is based solely on purely economic reasons.

The mood of the peasants is somewhat less satisfactory than the mood of the workers. This is mainly caused by the lack of dead implements, seeds, and in some places and sown area, as a result of which in many areas there is a hostile attitude of peasants to state farms and a desire to distribute their land among themselves. The desire to expand the cultivated area is observed everywhere. In the month of May, the political mood of the peasantry was most alarming in the Gomel province, where the peasants often refused to elect to the executive committees. In June, the situation there improved somewhat, although the attitude towards the authorities and the RCP was still hostile.

Egg and butter taxes in the region on average for May ‐ June are fulfilled in the amount of 50‐70%. The hard tax is going very satisfactorily. The rafting campaign and logging are also successful.

The work is somewhat hampered by the lack of banknotes and the heavy debt of the logging authorities. The Red Army masses of the Western Territory, as in other regions of the Republic, are the most reliable part of the population. In general, supplies are normal, political work is being carried out satisfactorily, relations between the Red Army men, command personnel and political workers are good. Many demobilized people remain volunteer in the service. In Minsk province. it is necessary to note the weak concern of the chiefs in providing economic assistance to the Red Army units, which, quite understandably, causes a decrease in the mood of the Red Army soldiers. The work of anti‐Soviet parties in military units is not observed, with the exception of the 17th division, where the SR group is registered.

As for the urban population, there is mostly the usual grumbling and discontent caused by inaccurate payment of salaries and rations.

The lack of banknotes is reflected in the collection of the general civil tax, the implementation of which does not exceed 50%, and even less in the villages. Cooperatives that do not provide workers and employees with adequate support work poorly.

Provincial food organizations are busy in May and June with a voluntary membership campaign and explaining the new structure of trade unions. They are also conducting a wide campaign to help the starving. There is a shortage of active professional workers in the counties.

The work of the Party organization has significantly improved lately. The center of attention of the leading Party bodies is now directed to the protection of organizations from the corrupting influence of the surrounding petty‐bourgeois elements and the NEP. In conclusion, it is necessary to point out banditry, which has not yet been completely overcome in this region. The main groupings of bandits were observed in the border strip ‐ Sebezh and Polotsk. Vitebsk province, Borisov, Igumensky and parts of Bobruisk [u.] Minsk province. Most of the gangs are of foreign origin. The work of these Savinka gangs is reflected in the neighboring provinces ‐ Smolensk and Gomel, but here they are already mostly local and criminal in nature and are very small in number. In total, on July 1, according to an approximate estimate, there are about 20 gangs with a total number of 400 people in the four provinces of the district.

The work of anti‐Soviet parties in the region is so insignificant that there is no need to talk seriously about it. The organizations of the RSDLP have recently begun to show some revival.

UKRAINE

(Volyn, Donetsk, Yekaterinoslav, Zaporozhye, Crimean, Kiev, Kremenchug, Nikolaev, Odessa, Podolsk, Poltava, Kharkov and Chernigov [provinces])

The situation in Ukraine in May‐June allows us to wish for great improvements in the mood of almost all classes of the population.

The difficult economic condition of the region is especially strongly reflected in the mood of the working masses of both industry and transport. The lack of necessary material resources on the part of the Soviet bodies of Ukraine does not present them with the opportunity to regulate the supply of workers in the region, and this, of course, causes hostility from the workers towards the authorities. The situation is further complicated by the fact that the still cheerful counterrevolutionary fraternity of various shades and groupings are trying to use this moment, pushing and provoking the masses to strike.

Almost all of southern Ukraine in May and, especially [in] June, is engulfed in a wave of large and small strikes, seizing alternately state‐owned enterprises and transport. It should be noted, however, that all of them are purely economic in nature, in most cases shortterm, and are immediately terminated with the satisfaction of the workersʹ demands. Quite curious is the extraordinary speed that spread rumors of strikes northward. Quite often these rumors are accompanied by calls to support the strikers. This confirms our assumptions that some counter‐revolutionary forces are stirring up the masses, provoking them to protest, and, if we take into account the revival of the activities of the Mensheviks and SocialistRevolutionaries, noted in the current months in Ukraine, then we, perhaps, are unlikely to be mistaken if we will partly attribute this to their influence.

The largest percentage of strikes falls, as already indicated, in the southern provinces. So, in the Odessa province. In June, workers at the factories of former Belenov, Fenrik and Kahn went on strike, loaders went on strike, and work was intermittent at other factories. Almost simultaneously with this, the railway workshops of Art. Odessa, half of all shops, Shipyard, Voznesenskoe depot, former Repit factories, Black Sea and Rope factories. At the same time, reports indicate an increase in Ivanovo‐Voznesensky and Odessa y. counter‐revolutionary agitation.

In the neighboring provinces the situation is somewhat better, but even there it is far from happy. In Yekaterinoslavskaya province. there are short strikes that take place during May and June among railway workers demanding an increase in tariff rates. Workshops of railway workshops, workers of traction services, military transport and so on have been on strike for several weeks.

Very strong strike tendencies among railway workers are also noted in the Kiev province. Here the reason is the reduction of staff and the late payment of salaries. The strike wave in Kiev itself is also engulfing military enterprises. At the Kiev artillery warehouse, due to the reduction (according to the order of the RVSR) tariff rates, an unusually long strike took place, lasting a week and a half (an unprecedented phenomenon in the last year). It is extremely characteristic that it was led by the SHSU. In the same period, there are strikes among the workers of the Kherson water area. In the Kharkov factory district, the improvement in the material situation of the workers in June creates a turning point in the mood for the better. In general, we must note again that the further we move towards the northern border of Ukraine,

Among the Soviet employees, as well as among the workers, there is also strong discontent in connection with the continuing layoffs and abnormal supplies. In some places, the strike tendencies prevailing among the workers in May infect even Soviet employees. This was observed in the Kharkov province. and in the Crimea. It must be said that the work of the Ukrainian co‐

institutions is still not quite well‐organized, although, of course, the situation is incomparably better now than it was last year.

In comparison with the workersʹ part of Ukraine, the peasantry did not show much discontent during the period under review. Seed material arrived almost everywhere on time and in sufficient quantity. This brought a certain calm to the peasant masses, which was especially intensified in connection with the expected good harvest. The only reason for dissatisfaction among the peasants is the only local taxes.

Hunger in the southern Ukrainian provinces is slowly declining. To a large extent, this must be attributed to the intensification of the intensity of the work of the ARA.

For the most part, the population is rather passive about the campaigns to confiscate church valuables and, apart from a few small cases, the campaign did not cause any unwanted excesses anywhere.

In the Nikolaev and Kremenchug provinces. discontent among the peasants was caused by the atrocities of the Red Army units sent there to fight the bandits.

The general condition of the Red Army units of Ukraine can be considered satisfactory, the only exceptions are the aforementioned Nikolaev and Kremenchug provinces, where cases of desertion and the transition of the Red Army to the side of the gangs are becoming more frequent. Weak and political work in the units.

Let us also point out the state of banditry and counter‐revolutionary organizations in the region. Despite the fact that compared to last spring ‐ in the summer, when banditry spread in a wide wave across the steppes of Ukraine, we can consider this spring more than successful.

Despite this, there is still not a single province of the South and Southwest where gangs headed by all sorts of atamans, commanders and ʺcommanders of rebel districtsʺ do not roam. The closer to our western borders with Rumania and Poland, the more numerous and better armed the gangs are, the stronger their ties with the Petliura and White Guard centers beyond the cordon. It is in these areas that they express their activities in ʺdashingʺ raids on defenseless towns and villages, destroying the Jewish population, slaughtering dozens of Soviet employees, robbing stationary cash desks and destroying telegraph and telephone property. They do not disdain the most common criminal acts. Further to the east, they already completely lose any political coloring and are already engaged exclusively in criminality. Over time, they increasingly lose touch with the local population, more and more often cause a hostile attitude towards them, which is manifested mainly in the organization of volunteer detachments for active struggle. This is the best guarantee that the banditry, which has taken the deepest roots in Ukraine, will eventually be completely eradicated.

The most susceptible to the action of gangs are Kiev, Podolsk, Odessa and Nikolaevskaya provinces. In the first, they work in small detachments everywhere. In the forests of Cherkassky u. detachments of Vegus and Iskra united. With the united detachment is the commander of the rebel district Oryol. In the same provinces, the detachments of the ʺBlack Crowʺ and Struk operate.

In the Podolsk lips. there are cases of gangs crossing the border into our territory. In Bratslav u. Operated by a small gang of atamans Levchenko, Viter, Ladyzhnikov, Galichevsky, each numbering 1530 people. They carried out a number of raids on Cape

Menshikovskoye and the surrounding villages, where over 75 state employees were hacked to death. A gang of 15 sabers and [with] two machine guns crossed over from across the Romanian border.

If we do not take into account the revival of the activity of the Mensheviks and Socialist‐Revolutionaries noted above, the revival in general is insignificant, then we will have to state with confidence that on the territory of Ukraine (as in most other regions) the activities of the counter‐revolutionary parties do not pose any threat to Soviet power.

Only in Crimea has recently revived the activity of monarchist‐Black

Hundred organizations.

CAUCASUS

(Donskaya, Terskaya, Kuban‐Black Sea, Stavropol, Gorskaya,

Dagestanskaya, Kabardinskaya, Karachay‐Cherkesskaya ¹³⁸, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan)

The Caucasus, and especially the Transcaucasia, later than all other regions of the Republic became part of the Soviet Federation. Its ethnographic fragmentation and an endless number of regions with a patriarchal way of life, economic fragmentation caused by natural conditions made it extremely difficult to build Soviet power. National and religious fanaticism of the population, age‐old hatred for the oppressor of Russia ‐ these are the conditions that the Soviet regime had to face in the Caucasus. All of the above, of course, refers to the southern part of the region, which lies beyond the borders of the Kuban and Stavropol lips.

But even to the north of this border the Sovietization of the districts encountered painful difficulties.

The whole of South‐East Region is populated by wealthy kulak Cossacks and is therefore the most fertile soil for all sorts of counterrevolutionary adventurism on the part of the White Guard elements, settled here since the time of Denikin ¹³⁹.

All this confronted the Soviet government with extraordinary difficulties ‐ to bring this region into that state of relative calm in which it is now.

And to this day this region is full of all sorts of remnants of the White Guard organizations destroyed last summer. Supported by all sorts of Constantinople and Parisian ʺCommittees for the Liberation of the Kubanʺ, ʺUnited Cossack Councilsʺ and other organizations whose names have no end, these remnants of the white hordes of spring, together with the gangs, are carrying out their destructive work. Supported by local kulaks these gangs shkurovskogo monarchic‐ ¹⁴⁰ and SR‐wing and sometimes wander around the Republic of the South‐East.

All of the above already to some extent characterizes the mood of the more prosperous kulak stratum of the peasant population, which is still hostile to Soviet power.

The rest of the peasantry, especially the poor, as the reports indicate, are very friendly towards the Soviet government and its measures. It is among this stratum of the peasantry of all the provinces of the South‐East that the reports for May‐June state the greatest calm, which is now supported by the hope for a new harvest, which promises to be good.

The peasantry yearns for peace and in Soviet power is gradually beginning to see the power that is the strongest and most acceptable to itself of all that has existed until now. The change in the mood of the broad peasant masses is undoubtedly taking place, and the reports more and more often note the negative attitude of the peasants towards the bandits.

The famine of the last year, which has seized this region as well, makes the peasants turn their attention to the restoration of their economy destroyed by war and famine.

And the gangs, therefore, quite naturally, cannot but arouse hostile attitudes towards themselves from the rural population. There is a phenomenon in this respect that we noted in Ukraine. The mood of the peasantry was undoubtedly positively influenced by the timely provision of seed material, which was delivered in sufficient quantities.

Not entirely satisfactory, as a result of hunger, all sorts of taxation passes among the peasants, causing strong criticism of the authorities.

It should be noted that the famine in this region until the end of June, as can be seen from the reports, had not gone down noticeably, and the more difficult it was for the poor peasant to pay taxes.

With regard to the mood of workers for the period under review, the summaries paint a rather favorable picture almost everywhere.

Irregular supplies, staff cuts (the latter circumstance in many places is caused by the lack of raw materials) do not hesitate here, as in other regions of the Republic, to cause discontent among the workers, which, however, does not take on a serious character.

The only exception is the transport workers of the Don region. and the workers of the state‐owned enterprises of Azerbaijan, who during the reporting period, especially June, for economic reasons and partly anti‐Soviet agitation of the Socialist‐Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, held a number of short strikes.

It is important to note the fact that the Mensheviks, who considered the Caucasus their citadel, are no longer popular among the working masses even in their native Georgia.

We cannot but dwell on their activities during the reporting period. The month of May is the month of the most intense work of the Mensheviks.

Encouraged by the resolution of the Conference of the Three Internationals to ʺcollect and revise materials related to Georgiaʺ, the Mensheviks decided to prove to the West that the population of Georgia is entirely on the side of the national government and that the working class is actively fighting the Soviet regime, standing on the side of social democratic thought.

The demonstration of all classes of the population on May 26, the day of the declaration of Georgiaʹs independence, had to prove this.

As was to be expected, the carefully worked out plan for the demonstration, which the Mensheviks intended to turn into an armed uprising, failed, and all the enormous work done by the Mensheviks went to dust. It boiled down to insignificant petty actions by the chauvinist intelligentsia and the unconscious part of the workers, who in some places even assumed that this demonstration was organized by the communists. Both in Tiflis and in a number of district towns, these few demonstrations on May 2426 were easily dispersed. The dispersal of rallies and gatherings did not go without casualties, the number of which reaches 20 killed and wounded.

After the failure of this militant work, the Mensheviks again resumed their daily activities ‐ provoking the masses of the workers to strike, but this work, as the reports indicate, is not being successful.

In conclusion, let us point out the activities of the remaining counterrevolutionary organizations, which, as already indicated at the beginning of the review, are so rich in this region of the Republic.

The White Guard organizations still cover the Caucasus and the Kuban in a dense network. They maintain the closest ties with the transcordon counter‐revolutionary émigré groups. Of the organizations in the first place, of course, should be put the organization of General Shkuro, who has in almost all departments of the Kuban, in almost all areas of the Stavropol province. their numerous cells, leading their corrupting propaganda among the Cossacks.

There is no doubt that Shkuro is the inspirer of the bandit movement of the South‐Eastern Territory and that he has the most significant place in the gathering of bandit detachments that were scattered last year after the defeat of Serebryakovschina ¹⁴¹. It should be noted, however, that banditry, which has lost all roots in the peasantry, is developing extremely weakly, despite all the efforts of its leaders. The activities of anti‐Soviet parties are insignificant. The only exception is the widely developed activity of the Left SRs working in the Kuban and Stavropol Gubernia.

PRIVOLGA REGION

(Yekaterinburg, Astrakhan, Bashkir Autonomous Regions ¹⁴², Tatar Republic, Commune of Volga Germans ¹⁴³, Mari Autonomous

Region, Perm, Samara, Simbirsk, Ufa, Tsaritsyn, Chuvash Autonomous Regions, Saratov)

The Volga region, the most seized by hunger, seemed to paint the bleakest picture of the mood of the workers and peasants. However, to our great satisfaction, we can say just the opposite. To a greater extent, this must be attributed to the attention rendered to the region by the center and party Soviet organizations.

If May does not yet give the desired picture, if at factories in one or another area of the Volga region we still register not only strike tendencies, but even strikes, if in the peasantry of many localities of the region May still gives strong discontent and fermentation, caused in most cases by a lack of seeds , agricultural implements and the uncertainty of the fate of the harvest, then June, as the workers are satisfied, the supply of seeds is intensified, with good views for the harvest, it definitely creates a turning point in the mood of the population, and it is possible, without exaggeration, to say that the reports of this region in comparison with other localities in recent 23 weeks paint a picture of the most satisfactory political situation. Banditry, which developed here in the months of the greatest famine, has now completely lost its roots in the local population. Individual adventurers, criminal and political,

Let us now dwell in somewhat more detail on the political mood of the other classes of the population of the Volga region.

The mood of the Volga workers during the period under review can be considered generally satisfactory, especially towards the end of it. In the month of May, the workers in most of the provinces are still not quite satisfactory. For economic reasons, however, there are short‐term strikes in the Astrakhan province. and the Tatarstan Republic, liquidated by the satisfaction of the workers. Mari and Samara lips. note the hostile attitude towards the authorities. Unemployment is increasing in the Tsaritsyn province. Due to the lack of raw materials and fuel, some factories are forced to close. This is especially felt in the handicraft industry of the region.

The month of June gives a picture of more cheerful moods. Attempts to strike were only among the workers of the chemical industry of the Tsaritsyn province. All other provinces have noted an improvement in the mood not only of the working masses, but even of the unemployed, who are provided with all possible assistance in many places.

The attitude of the majority of the workers towards the Soviet regime, the RCP is trusting. They are sympathetic to the trial of the Socialist‐Revolutionaries and in most cases pass resolutions stigmatizing the Socialist‐Revolutionaries. The latest measures of the Soviet government (grain loans, workersʹ insurance, collective agreements) find a rather lively response among the masses. Some dissatisfaction is caused only by the rude treatment of the administration at some factories of the Samara, Tsaritsyn province, Chuvash oblast, as well as the continuing failure to pay salaries in some places. The general position of the industry is affected by an acute shortage of raw materials and fuel, which results in the closure of enterprises such as the Sylʹvensky glassworks, Pashitsky iron foundries (Perm province), a number of factories in the South Urals (Ufa province) and the Mari region. The lack of banknotes forced the Saratov province. to close a number of enterprises and the Cooperative Trust. Along with these summaries, an increase in labor productivity is noted more and more often, reaching in some places up to 100‐120% of the task.

The mood of the transport workers is also quite satisfactory. Recent improvements in supply have brought peace to their mass. The exception is the Saratov railway and water junction, where the possibility of a strike is not ruled out and where anti‐Soviet agitation is noted. Most of the unemployed are the Tatrespublika (15,000 and 3800 people to be dismissed) and Nemkommun (1500 adults and

5000 undersized).

In the mood of the peasantry, we also notice a turning point for the better in the month of June. The month of May, especially in its first half, gives a generally not entirely favorable mood of the peasantry, however, as seeds are obtained in sufficient quantities, the mood improves greatly, and the June reports give a rather joyful picture. Of the 13 provinces of the Volga region, only two northern provinces are a sharp exception in this department: Yekaterinburg and Perm, where the undersowing in many places is expressed in 30‐50%, where the incorrect distribution of seeds is most often noted and where help to the starving began to be provided only in spring. These circumstances, of course, could not but affect the peasant masses and it is not surprising that their mood, especially the poor and part of the middle peasant, continues to be unsatisfactory throughout the period under review. But in relation to other provinces, as noted above, we can confidently say that the calamity of this region has been defeated. The peasants express a completely trusting attitude towards the authorities and the RCP, seeing the real results of their concern for them. Given the critical situation with agricultural implements, the peasantry is striving in many places to manually increase the area under crops. Where this is not the case, the peasantsʹ striving for the transition to a multifield system is noted. The peasants are even more encouraged by the good prospects for the harvest. No serious damage has yet been reported.

With regard to the immediate fight against hunger, the June reports also indicate a number of positive results. Many provinces report a decrease in the number of deaths from hunger. The legacy of hunger ‐ infectious epidemics and, especially, typhus are not yet on the decline. [In] the last month, cases of cholera have become more frequent in all provinces of the Volga region. The provincial authorities are carrying out preparatory work for the tax in kind. The oil and egg tax, which is being carried out now, does not find sympathy among the population due to hunger. Labor tax is also weak. The procurement of fuel and the timber yard is in some places satisfactory, but in some places it is on the eve of a complete breakdown due to deficiencies in banknotes.

The peasantry, like the rest of the population, is calm and sometimes sympathetic to the confiscation of church valuables.

The general civil tax is weak due to the lack of banknotes among the population.

During May and June, among the state employees, we note partial dissatisfaction with the inaccurate distribution of salaries. In general, the mood is quite satisfactory.

Concerning co‐construction, it is necessary to point out that the departments of public education are in the most deplorable state, on which the new economic policy has most affected. The everdecreasing number of loans granted to people from the public is forcing the latter in some provinces to resort to introducing fees at schools in order to permanently suspend work.

There is not much to write about the Red Army. As in this region and throughout the Republic, the life of the army has entered a normal rut and the mood of the Red Army is very cheerful. The latest reports of June indicate a weakening of political work among the Red Army soldiers. It is also necessary to point out that the Mari region, in all respects lagging behind the rest of the provinces of the region, in this case sends unsatisfactory reports about the life of the Red Army units, indicating both their poor supply and, naturally, strongly reigning discontent in them. Particular attention should be paid to the military unit of Saratov province, where political work is extremely weak, and unsatisfactory sentiments are observed even among the military communists. With regard to party work, the summaries indicate inaction in rural parts due to material insecurity of members, which forced the Mari region. to dissolve the rural party organization. Some provinces note the dissatisfaction of ordinary members with the self‐supply of responsible workers, and drunkenness is not uncommon. The best are the organizations of the Tatrespublika, Chuvash region. and Tsaritsyn province, which vigorously conducted the last campaigns.

In conclusion of our report, let us dwell in somewhat more detail on the activities of the gangs, which we briefly mentioned above. The most affected are Tsaritsyn province, Nemkommuna, Samara and Saratov province. The largest and most dangerous gang in the region is still the Serov gang, which numbers up to 80‐100 people. By the end of June, under the influence of the persecution of it by our units, the gang began to decompose and among the bandits there is a desire to voluntarily surrender.

The Yerkin gang, which operated until now, was scattered at the end of June, Yerkin himself was killed. Some specific activity is shown by a gang under the command of the Cossack Borodin, which consisted of Ukrainians, Cossacks and Kirghiz. Its number is over 100 people, as well as some of the smaller gangs from the Antonov ¹⁴⁴ remnants. In view of the fact that the activities of all these gangs are mostly expressed in raids on villages, they have lost all support from the local population and even arouse hostile attitude on the part of the peasants, who in some places are waging an armed struggle against them. We can confidently say that banditry, a remnant of various White Guard invasions and uprisings, is finally becoming obsolete in the Volga region.

Almost complete inactivity is noted in the life of various anti‐Soviet parties in the Volga region.

KYRGIZ REGION

(Aktobe, Akmola, Orenburg, Ural, Semipalatinsk, Kustanai and Bukeevsk)

The Kyrgyz Territory, in comparison with the regions bordering on it ‐ Siberia and Turkestan, is the quietest of the outskirts of the RSFSR.

The percentage of workers in this district is very small, due to the lack of a developed industry. Among the small number of workers available, we can state a rather good mood. This is noted by both state and private industry and is explained to a large extent by the normal organization of state supply in this area. It is clear that here, too, interruptions in supply do not hesitate to cause corresponding discontent, but during the reporting period such phenomena were rare and did not generally affect the mood of the workers.

The overwhelming majority of the population of this region are Kyrgyz peasants, and in the western regions of the region (Orenburg and Ural provinces) ‐ the Cossacks.

The general attention of the peasants of the region, as well as throughout the rest of Russia, is focused on the fate of the harvest, which is the only way to restore the peasant economy destroyed by long years of turmoil. And the harvest this year in Kirkrai is expected to be above average, in connection with which the mood of the peasantry is quite satisfactory and their attitude towards the Soviet government and the RCP is good.

Only on the Volga do they cause dissatisfaction in places, especially in areas adjacent to the Volga region, affected by last yearʹs crop failure. In the same part of the region, the labor tax is very difficult, which is explained by the enormous shortage of draft animals. In some places, there was a normal distribution of repair material, most of all reflected, of course, on the peasant poor.

The worst of all is the mood of the Ural and Orenburg Cossacks, who still do not want to come to terms with the Soviet regime, despite the fact that the material well‐being of their economy is not worse than that of the rest of the peasantry.

In such a situation, of course, banditry cannot fail to find a fertile ground here. Serovʹs gangs, supported by the Cossacks, which we mentioned in our review of the Volga Region, roam only in the Ural Bay. Apart from them, the relatively small gangs of Gorin ^{145 and} Ivanov operate.

Of the other provinces, the appearance of gangs is noted only by Semipalatinsk province, where a very peculiar Larin gang, consisting mainly of adolescents and women, numbering up to 350 people, operates, and Bukeevskaya province, in connection with the increase in banditry, declared a state of siege.

The state of the Red Army units in the region is generally quite satisfactory. Parts of the Semipalatinsk provinces are poorly supplied, which causes only partial dissatisfaction. Weak political work among the Red Army men in the Orenburg province.

With regard to party work in Kirkrai, it is necessary to note a reason that is so characteristic of most of our outskirts ‐ the great lack of party workers. In some places, there is a massive withdrawal of communist peasants from the Party as a result of ruined farms. The confiscation of church valuables ends and takes place without any special incidents.

The fight against hunger is carried out vigorously, as a result of which hunger is declining.

SIBERIA

(Altai, Novo Nikolaev, Omsk, Tomsk, Tyumen, Chelyabinsk, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk and Yakutsk)

Siberia, due to its territorial dispersion, provides very incomplete information on the state of all population groups.

Based on the available material, we have to state that here, too, the ubiquity and untimely supply of workers causes ferment and discontent among them. The Tyumen and Tomsk provinces are especially unsatisfactory. In Tyumenskaya, this reason was caused in enterprises and Kolchuginsky mines by a decrease in productivity by 45‐50%. At the end of June, the mines went on strike. The rest of the provinces ‐ Altai, Yenisei, Omsk, Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk ‐ are much less likely to report cases of workersʹ dissatisfaction. Novo Nikolaevskaya and Chelyabinskaya provinces are in a somewhat better position, celebrating the good mood of the workers in connection with the satisfaction of their material needs. In transport, there is also discontent among workers, caused by the same reasons, which, however, does not result in strikes or other unwanted excesses.

A large percentage of the kulak population in Siberia is reflected in the general mood of the peasantry. All kinds of taxes cause strong discontent in the Siberian region and are poorly implemented. In the provinces of Novo Nikolaevskaya and Omsk, the dominance of kulaks in the executive committees was noted, as a result of which the poorest peasantry was left without seed material.

The harvest at the end of June is beginning to somewhat improve the mood. Mass damage to crops as a whole in Siberia was not recorded, with the exception of Tyumen province, where locusts damaged 150 thousand dess. A detachment is organized to fight it.

The situation of the starving people in the western provinces of the region ‐ Chelyabinsk and Tyumen ‐ is still difficult. Pomgols are not able to feed all those in need. Over 200 people die every day. In addition to famine, typhus and cholera epidemics intensify throughout Western Siberia in June. Tyumen province. registered 780 cases of typhus in the last week of June, Chelyabinsk ‐ 77 cases of cholera, Omsk ‐ 114, Novonikolaevskaya ‐ 968 cholera cases. The mortality rate is from 30‐60%.

It is not entirely happy with regard to party work. Material insecurity and hunger greatly reduce discipline and sometimes cause unacceptable phenomena in the communist environment.

Tyumen province. notes cases of criminal offenses, drunkenness, selfishness among many communists of local organizations, issuing to places ʺillegal orders to collect food for themselves and, along with this, increasing cases of starvation among communists.

A number of provinces (Tomsk, Omsk, Tyumen and Altai) report mass withdrawals from the party of ordinary members ‐ peasants.

Professional work in the reports for the reporting period is extremely poorly covered.

Little information is available about co‐construction. In Siberia, as in the rest of the provinces of the Republic, non‐payment of salaries for several months is most noted, which causes employees to leave for private individuals to work.

Describing the mood of the peasantry and the rest of the population of Siberia, it is extremely indicative to note that only the eastern provinces of Siberia, least affected by hunger and with the largest percentage of the kulaks, actively opposed the seizure of valuables.

And banditry, which is becoming ever smaller, also lasts the longest in the eastern part, that is, in the Tomsk, Irkutsk, Altai and Yakutsk provinces. The number of individual gangs does not exceed 70‐100 people each, they are armed quite well and in some places are connected with the peasant population. Most of the gangs are led by former white officers. Relations with any organizations are not marked. An exception is the Yakutsk region. There, banditry is still rebel in nature and is supplied with weapons and equipment from the Far East, Japan and even America. The total number of insurgents reaches a total of 2 1/2 thousand people, they are grouped around the city of Yakutsk. In early June, they occupied the city of Vilyuisk.

More attention should be paid to the elimination of these belobands, for during the two reporting months, reports indicate their strengthening.

There is not much to write about the counter‐revolutionary parties, since none of them is doing much group work. Several different small political groups are registered in Siberia, under the supervision of the relevant Soviet authorities. The latest report marks a revival in cadet circles.

An exception to this general inertia and inactivity is represented by the monarchists, who have recently developed quite vigorous activity on the territory of the central Siberian provinces; Attention is drawn to the increasing frequency of the disclosure of active White Guard organizations there.

TURKESTAN

(Tashkent, Amu Darya, Turkmen, Semirechensk, Samarkand,

Fergana, Syrdarya and Dzhetysu)

The Soviets in the Central Asian republic of Turkestan, as in many of our remote outskirts, do not yet represent a sufficiently formed and strengthened government. The lack of culture and underdevelopment of the majority of the population, the patriarchal‐clan way of life, the lack of a sufficient number of local or at least sufficiently adapted to the conditions of the region of experienced Soviet workers ‐ all this creates extremely difficult conditions for the events of Soviet power.

We do not have to pay much attention to the mood of the workers, since the industry here is generally underdeveloped. Among the small number of workers here, as indicated by a number of reports, the mood for economic reasons is unsatisfactory, and among the railway workers in May‐June, discontent even spilled over into a series of short‐term strikes.

Of great interest is the rest, overwhelmingly agricultural, part of the population. The national antagonism that exists between the indigenous population and the Russian rebels, not only does not decline, but on the contrary has been growing especially strongly in recent months, in connection with the implementation of a new land reform, the eviction of Russians and the transfer of land to the Kyrgyz. Among the evicted, this event causes strong discontent, sometimes resulting in the form of active opposition. The latter circumstance forced us to suspend further evictions in June until the end of the new harvest. The Kyrgyz, as one would expect, are taking a very active part in carrying out the reform, and this, of course, further aggravates ethnic strife. Ethnic enmity is especially sharply revealed in the Dzhetysu region,

In the rest of Turkestan, the mood of the peasant population is calmer; this is due to the weakening of anti‐Soviet agitation, as well as the upcoming good harvest. The last event of the Soviet government to a large extent attracted the native peasantry into the ranks of its supporters. Until recently, the kulak population and mullahs were actively campaigning against Soviet power, but reports from the end of June mark a turning point in the attitude of the Muslim clergy towards Soviet power in connection with the issuance of a decree recognizing the courts of biys and kazis ¹⁴⁶... All this information, it would seem, suggests that the situation in Turkestan is generally favorable. However, we must state with sorrow that one reason will not give an opportunity for this land, which has suffered so much from the revolution, to begin economic and cultural development. This reason is banditry.

Until now, still do not have sufficient symptoms to ensure that it could be said that such a strongly developed in Turkestan Basmachi ¹⁴⁷ movement is on the wane. On the contrary, all the information for June indicates the strengthening of Basmachism in the Fergana and Samarkand regions.

Enver Pasha continues to be the central figure grouping around him all those dissatisfied with the policy of the Soviet regime. In the military field, all his efforts are now aimed at creating a large armed kulak and a regular army. Enver pulled Bukhara Basmachs to the eastern part of Bukhara near the town of Baisum, gradually armed with the help of Afghanistan, starting in May ‐ June he established contact with numerous Basmachi detachments of Samarkand and Fergana regions. The passivity of the latter in June must be attributed exclusively to the directives of Enver Pasha, advising the Basmachis under the guise of peace negotiations and complete pacification to arm themselves and prepare for new actions.

At the same time, Enver directed his activities to create an appropriate political mood. With the help of agitation by officers of the former Turkish army scattered throughout Central Asia, Enver is gradually gaining greater authority in the eyes of the local population. It begins to believe that Enver is working with the knowledge and consent of the Unity and Progress Party, especially since so far none of the Turkish organizations maintaining friendly relations with Soviet Russia have expressed their protest against Enverʹs adventure.

Simultaneously with Enver, “Central Asia” began to develop its activities ‐ a new organization with the slogan “Development of Islam and the unification of all Muslims”. Under her name, appeals are spread among the Muslim population, even far beyond the borders of Turkestan, with an appeal to fight against the three enemies of Muslims. The place of honor is given, it is true, to the capitalist countries ‐ England and France, but the organization against the Soviet regime and the communists is no less vigorously promoted. The organization calls on Muslims for a merciless ʺholy war.ʺ

In the face of the ever‐increasing danger of the Basmach movement, which now numbers 45,000 fighters, we cannot but pay attention to the extremely grave condition of the Red Army units of Turkestan.

Drunkenness, bribery, robberies (most often in border units) have recently begun to be noted in almost every bulletin on Turkestan. It is clear that in such a situation the political mood of the units cannot be satisfactory. What more, when reports in the Dzhetysu region. indicates the corrupting effect of the leadership of the political department on the Red Army.

There is an urgent need to increase tenfold attention to the Red Army of Turkestan, to establish, first of all, the normal supply of units and politically refresh them with new workers. The threat of an armed clash with Enver and other capitalist forces of the region is approaching every day and the Red Army should be ...

In conclusion of the report, a few words about Soviet party work. If in the large centers of the region the work is more or less adjusted, then in the localities it is extremely bad. And it is not surprising, since not a single part of the RSFSR needs workers as much as Turkestan. Communist and Soviet penetration into Turkestan is not yet strong enough for the local population to begin to allocate a sufficient number of necessary workers from their midst. The situation is aggravated by the fact that the comrades who were transferred to Turkestan from other regions of the Republic, far from all can get used to the peculiar conditions of the region and rather quickly succumb to fatigue and apathy.

REVIEW OF THE ACTIVITIES OF THE COUNTERREVOLUTIONARY PARTIES

Right SRs

The Right Socialist‐Revolutionaries are the only anti‐Soviet party that is active both in establishing its own apparatus and in the direct struggle against Soviet power. It is the only party that managed to get through the years of the revolution with its fighting capacity, at least in a minimal scale. The greatest activity and ability to overcome the colossal obstacles that the organs of the GPU put in the way of its work are, of course, shown by the Moscow organization of the AKP. This is best illustrated by the speed with which she recovered from the devastation inflicted on her at the end of April. Already in mid‐May, the technical apparatus of the organizations was adjusted to such an extent that it allowed the SRs to publish the 2nd issue of the Trud newspaper and a large amount of literature. We need to add to this,

During the reporting May and June, the Moscow organization is working to strengthen the party apparatus, in the second half of May it collects donations for the restoration of the party printing house. During May, they succeeded in organizing the publication of Party literature relatively well and in publishing two more issues of the Trud newspaper. In parallel with the work of the Moscow organization, quite intensive work is being carried out by the Central Bank of the AKP located in Moscow. The provincial organizations of the AKP party in a huge number of cases do not lag behind the Moscow one, and, in terms of the degree of setting up a purely military matter, in many ways even surpass it.

Of the organizations that have become clear during the last period, by their combat work, in the first place, no doubt, should be put ʺHeadquarters of Action and Executionʺ, which we liquidated at the end of May in Akmola province. This organization set itself the goal of overthrowing Soviet power and transferring all power to the Constituent Assembly. The performance was planned to be carried out simultaneously throughout Siberia.

A plan of terror against the communists was outlined. [The number of] active members of the organization has reached 150 people.

An even more extensive, albeit one that set itself less important tasks, the combat organization was discovered in the Kuban. The number of its members reached 250 people, and most of them were former cadets, officers, nurses, priests and other public, the class origin of which is quite certain.

The organization was quite active in preparing for the uprising, had connections with other areas where agitation was carried out everywhere.

The South‐Eastern Territory is generally one of the centers of concentration of the Socialist‐Revolutionary activities. In the Terek region. there is a Socialist‐Revolutionary organization that unites and directs the actions of almost all gangs operating in the City Republic, and here, as in the Kuban, the organization includes a lot of white‐officer elements. There is also a small military organization in the Stavropol province.

Ukraine is another very saturated with Social Revolutionaries. The Kharkov and Odessa organizations are especially energetic here, regularly publishing underground Socialist‐Revolutionary newspapers and leaflets. In the Crimea, the Social Revolutionaries work mainly in cooperative bodies.

In other regions, the Socialist‐Revolutionaries are much less active, they do not conduct combat work at all and in most cases, like other anti‐Soviet parties, are engaged in ʺorganizational work.ʺ Of the total mass of right‐wing Socialist‐Revolutionary organizations of this type, several stand out: the Ural organization, which managed through the bodies of cooperatives to acquire some influence on the population; Terek and Semipalatinsk organizations also working in the field of cooperation and working among the peasant masses; and the Pskov organization.

The general mood of the right‐wing Socialist‐Revolutionary masses is angry. There is information that some local organizations decided ‐ in the event of a death sentence to members of the AKP, who are now on trial, to start terrorizing Soviet party workers. At the same time, in many organizations, in connection with the energetic activity carried out by the local GPU, some confusion reigns.

It should be noted [as] an extremely characteristic phenomenon: the decision of the Zlatoust organization of the AKP, which considers it necessary to immediately convene a legal All‐Russian Congress of the AKP on the liquidation of the party, because, in their deep conviction, the mass of members of the Socialist‐Revolutionary Party stands for the need for the closest cooperation with the Soviet government and communists in the restoration of a united proletarian front to fight the advancing capital.

Left SRs

The party of the Left Socialist‐Revolutionaries, apart from the absolutely inactive anarchists, undoubtedly ranks first among the anti‐Soviet parties in terms of internal disorganization and the resulting inaction and harmlessness.

Small, scattered, completely unrelated to each other in most cases, its groups, scattered over the vast territory of the Republic, for the most part with rare constancy are engaged in completely hopeless for them ʺorganizational activity.ʺ

The two months under review did not bring anything new to their work, added nothing to their political significance.

Of course, there can be no question of the activities of the Left SRs on an all‐Russian scale. True, at the beginning of June a conference of one of the Left Socialist‐Revolutionary groups was held in Moscow, a conference that called itself quite significantly ‐ the AllRussian one. However, its political weight, its influence not only on the political life of the Republic and even on the life of local party organizations was so negligible that it is, of course, not necessary to speak of it as a serious political phenomenon, to consider it as an act of party activity on an all‐Russian scale.

The reports from the SO GPU do not give the slightest indication of the existence of any single party center among the Left SRs. In Moscow there is a Central Bank of the underground and a Central Bank of the overground. Both the one and the other are threatened by the Central Committee from prison on each specific case. Thatʹs not all. There is still some kind of underground that threatens all three of these centers.

The local organizations of the Left SRs, as already mentioned above, are almost everywhere completely harmless. Only in the Kuban, and in some places in Siberia, the organizations of the Left SRs can be spoken of as facts that at least minimally affect the general life, the general political condition of these areas.

In the Kuban, the active activities of the Left SRs began relatively recently (a month and a half ‐ two months ago). During this time, the organization managed to contact Novorossiysk, Sochi and Tuapse. There is information about establishing ties with Rostov and even Moscow. In Krasnodar itself, the Left SRs feel so strong that they are already trying to start anti‐Soviet work, as, for example, they are trying to disrupt the current tax campaign by infiltrating the ob‐prodkom.

There are also quite strong organizations in Stavropol Gubernia, Tersk Region. It is necessary, however, to make a reservation that the real power of these organizations is very relative, and one can speak of it as a power only in comparison with the complete impotence of other Left Socialist‐Revolutionary organizations.

The Siberian organizations of the Left SRs are much less active than their organizations located in the South‐East of the Republic. The largest organizations are located in Omsk, Chelyabinsk, Ufa and Izhevsk. All the attention of the Left SRs working on the territory of the Republic is mainly focused on the work of the cooperative bodies. This is the only field where they manage to achieve at least some success. So, for example, summaries of the Novgorod and Tver provinces. note the penetration of the Left SRs to the provincial cooperative congresses. Information from the Ufa province. say that there the introduction of the Left SRs into the cooperatives has reached a degree that allows them to influence individual workers

ʹand peasantsʹ groups through cooperative bodies.

The attempts of the Left SRs to work directly among the masses invariably end in complete failure. Most of their attempts to work in Soviet institutions and professional organizations are also unsuccessful. The influence of the Socialist‐Revolutionaries on all, without exception, groups of the population is negligible.

The activities of foreign Left Socialist‐Revolutionary groups are limited to the publication of the Znamya magazine and the leadership of the Scythians publishing house, a publishing house that mainly produces fictional Russian literature, and in most cases has a bias towards idealism.

It is necessary to speak separately about the alliance of the Left Socialist‐Revolutionaries‐maximalists, for it is not a constituent part of the party of the Left Socialist‐Revolutionaries, but only a left‐wing Narodnik group that is coalizing with it. It is headed by the Central Secretariat of the Union, independent of the Central Committee of the LSR.

Like all other leftist populist groups, the Union of Left Socialist‐

Revolutionaries‐maximalists is not particularly active.

Mensheviks

All the activities of the Mensheviks during the period under review were concentrated, as before, in the largest centers of the Republic saturated with the industrial proletariat. The main areas of their work are still Moscow and Petrograd, and their Moscow organization shows the maximum efficiency. Petrograd and Odessa are not lagging behind either.

The Moscow organization, in view of the expansion of its activities, had to co‐opt new persons to work in the committee. The committees are strictly secret and almost the majority of members live illegally. Meetings of the MK RSDLP take place regularly and active workers are involved in them.

The organization finally went underground and all its activities are strictly conspiratorial. Her work still takes the form of agitation in factories and the occasional publication of leaflets and proclamations (the latter type of activity has intensified in recent years, as discussed below) and the dissemination of the Socialist Bulletin. The MK RSDLP pays very significant attention to work among working youth, in connection with which the development of the activities of the Social Democratic Union of Working Youth has recently been noted. The latter plans to publish in the near future the 2nd issue of the magazine ʺYoung Proletarianʺ. The reporting two months resulted in an increase in the number of former members of the RKSM joining the SDSRM. They are very readily accepted by the Social Democratic Union and in most cases are promoted to responsible party posts. The active workers of the Social Democratic Union are looking for connections with the

Komsomol members and lure the weaker ones to themselves. The Social Democratic Youth Union is also used by the party as a technical apparatus for the distribution of literature and for communication with the districts. For example, the bureau of the Union of Social Democratic Youth organizes in the districts special apartments with membersʹ duty, from which local workers receive literature and party documents on various issues.

The Petrograd organization of the Mensheviks is less active than the Moscow one. Its activity is expressed in oral and written agitation at some St. Petersburg factories, mainly at the Sestroretsk Arms Plant, where they have something like a cell. The PC also publishes its own typewritten magazine, ʺRabochiy leafʺ, of which there were two issues, and also issues leaflets.

Among the provincial organizations, one should single out organizations: Minsk, Vitebsk, Gomel and Novonikolaevsk, Kharkov and Odessa.

The organization of the Social Democratic Bund operates in Minsk ¹⁴⁸... The work is carried out mainly in the trade unions, with the main objects of attention being Rabispros and

Vsemedikosantrud. By the end of June, the Vitebsk organization was defeated, its members in the majority were arrested and will probably be expelled in the near future. Before the defeat of the organization, it was possible to get several people into the local Council, where they spoke out with demands for ʺdemocratic freedomsʺ, etc. Quite energetic work was also carried out among the Jewish masses. The organization managed to get eight of its members to a non‐partisan Jewish conference held in late May. At this conference they demanded the establishment of a united front of socialist parties in Russia. In Tyumen, the Mensheviks distributed leaflets about the lockout at the printing house of the former Sytin, and also campaigned against the seizure of church values. The fact is quite remarkable, although, however, it is far from being isolated. Novonikolaevskaya organization is one of the largest provincial organizations of the RSDLP ‐ it has over 50 members. The organization works primarily in Soviet institutions (VSNKh, Sibprodkom, Sibtsentro‐Union, etc.). Its activity is insignificant. Kharkov and Odessa organizations publish leaflets and their own magazine.

Among the non‐Russian Menshevik organizations, it is necessary to put in the first place, of course, the work of the Menshevik organizations in Georgia.

Compared to the work of the RSDLP, the Georgian Mensheviks have done a great deal of work during the period under review. On May 24‐26, the days of the celebration of the ʺliberationʺ of Georgia, the Mensheviks decided to officially mark with grandiose demonstrations against the ʺBolshevik tyrannyʺ, in fact, with an attempt to organize a mass popular uprising (this is described in detail in the corresponding passage of the second part of this review). Here we want only to shed some more detail on the role of the Mensheviks in this ʺenterprise.ʺ

The decisions of the Genoa Conference to remove the question of Georgia as a question of a country lying outside Europe, and the decision of the Nine (which had not yet disintegrated by that time) on the collection of materials on the Georgian question for the upcoming World Workersʹ Congress put the Mensheviks before the need to create material, which would have yelled to the whole world, would have convinced the workersʹ congress and would have reached the ears of the ʺhigh patronessʺ ‐ the Entente.

From the end of April, the Mensheviks began to feverishly prepare for the May 26 celebration. Through colossal ideological and programmatic concessions, a united front is being created with the right‐wing bourgeois‐nationalist parties in the person of the Parity Committee. By the 20th of May, slogans were worked out, instructors, organizers, etc. were sent out to the provinces. The matter, of course, ended in nothing, they did not succeed in provoking the population to a real active uprising against Soviet power. After that, the activity of the Mensheviks immediately began to decline and at present no complications from this side can be expected in Georgia either.

The revival of Menshevik activity throughout the Republic over the past two months must be explained by the fact that a number of large campaigns conducted by us, of which the first place should be placed: the campaign to confiscate church valuables, the process of the Social Revolutionaries that has begun, the re‐elections of the Soviets that have taken place in some centers, etc., could not force the Menshevik Party to refrain from expressing their opinion on all these reasons. Most of all, the Mensheviks were angry about the Socialist‐Revolutionary process, the first days of which were marked by the issuance of all kinds of proclamations, proclamations, leaflets, etc., and their distribution among enterprises. This moment should be considered the moment of maximum development of their activities in Russia for the two reporting months.

The influence of the Mensheviks on the working masses is extremely negligible. Even in Georgia, the workers hardly succumb to their provocation, and if on a local scale they can sometimes cause minor troubles to the Soviet power, then on a national scale they are at least of a real political magnitude that can somehow influence the political life of the country. certainly not.

The foreign delegation of the RSDLP during the reporting period did not show itself in anything. Its activity is still in the publication of the ʺSocialist Bulletinʺ. Its influence on emigration is even more negligible than the influence of their Russian counterparts on the proletariat of the Soviet Republic. The process of the SRs, as one would expect, causes a fierce campaign in their organs.

During the period under review, the so‐called Moscow and Petrograd groups of Social Democrats again made themselves felt in public: these groups, according to their program, stand entirely on the platform of the Second International and are almost a copy of Scheidemannʹs ¹⁴⁹ Social Democratic Party of Germany. These groups, by the way, threw out the slogan of overthrowing Soviet power.

During the period under review, a weekly newspaper of social democratic thought, Zarya, also began to be published abroad, the publishers of which call themselves adherents of Plekhanov ¹⁵⁰ and Potresov ¹⁵¹. There is an assumption that there is an ideological and organizational connection between the Moscow and Petrograd groups of Social Democrats and the Zarya magazine.

Anarchists

The activity of the anarchists over the past two months is so scanty that it is, of course, not necessary to speak of it as a phenomenon that has at least some political national significance.

Some revival of their activity, which was noted in early May, caused by the execution of the anarchist Cherny ¹⁵² and expressed in the distribution of leaflets calling for ʺbloody revengeʺ, by mid‐May was replaced by sheer prostration, which continues to this day.

Of course, there can be no question of any influence of the anarchists on the masses. All their powerless attempts to provoke, or rather to provoke, at least some active manifestations of the populationʹs protest against Soviet power invariably end in nothing. Scattered, fragmented into many, continuously, irresistibly decaying further and further groups, they are certainly incapable of any not only creative, but even destructive activity, and from this, as, indeed, from all sides, not the slightest danger to They do not represent the republic.

The most active anarchist groups, groups of underground workers, are now associated in most places with a purely criminal element, are still permanently occupied with preparatory work and the organization of exs. However, as one should assume, they did not commit any expropriations during the reporting period (except for a completely comic case ‐ theft from anarchists of their own group of three poods of typographic type), and in the future, I suppose, there will be no.

A group of ʺKorelimitesʺ unsuccessfully tried to re‐register the members of their organization. Some members of this group offered to distribute their own, unread literature.

Itʹs all.

Cadets

The cadet groups located within the Republic did almost no work during the reporting period. Only small groups located in Siberia showed some activity, but even there, the matter was limited to insignificant agitation in a close circle. In all other regions of the Republic, the work of the cadets ceased completely. Even the student and professorship work carried out quite energetically throughout the winter of 1921‐1922, even this work died (perhaps in connection with the beginning of summer vacations) ¹³³.

The Moscow cadets conduct almost no political activity. The only thing that can be noted is the entry of the famous cadet Kizevettera ¹⁵⁴ into the Enes cooperative publishing house ʺFor a friendʺ, headed by Melgunov ¹⁵⁵, which is the concentration of the Enesesʹ activity and with undoubted reliability pursues political goals, in addition to official cultural and educational activities.

The activity of the cadet circles of the emigration has considerably weakened lately. The small amount of data at our disposal indicates a tendency among the Cadet circles to come to an agreement with the monarchists. Motivating this allegedly by the fact that in connection with the campaign carried out by the Soviet government to seize church valuables in the midst of the Russian peasantry, nationalism and religious fanaticism flared up with unprecedented force.

On the other hand, the ʺLeftʺ Cadets are quite unequivocally seeking rapprochement with the Right Socialist‐Revolutionary and Savinka groups.

Monarchists

The past two months have passed with the monarchists under the sign of the most intensive preparatory work for the forthcoming second monarchist congress. The need for such a congress was felt by monarchist circles for a long time. In the ranks of monarchist groups, dissatisfaction with the activities of the Supreme Monarchist Council as a whole and with the activities of Markov, especially on the part of Shcheglovitov, grew ¹⁵⁶. Another incentive for convening a congress is the need to revise some of the basic orientation issues. Finally, the third reason is the need to unite the multitude of new monarchist groups and to settle the growing rift between the Navy and the National Revival group.

The National Revival group was organized relatively recently. It is headed by Shcheglovitov. It takes an irreconcilable position in relation to the policy pursued by the Navy, although it is included in it as one of its constituent parts. The main point of divergence between them is the question of how to restore the monarchy in Russia. While the Navy considers it necessary and sufficient for this to only have ʺlegalʺ rights to the throne, the National Revival group believes that this requires the free expression of the will of the masses.

Dissatisfaction with the activities of the Navy by the end of June takes on a very impressive form and, in addition to tactical and programmatic discrepancies, is mainly caused by the exclusively insignificance of the results of the annual activity of the Navy.

How strong this dissatisfaction is is shown by the fact that over the past months in monarchist circles they have been persistently talking about the need to replace Markov II with Prince Golitsyn ¹⁵⁷. Recently, Markovʹs position in the Navy has been somewhat strengthened in connection with the entry into the council of Rimsky‐Korsakov ¹⁵⁸, who is an ardent supporter of Markov.

Dissatisfaction with the policy of the Navy comes mainly from the Budapest monarchist circles, who consider it necessary to raise the question of a complete change in the composition of the Navy at the upcoming monarchist congress. It is from them that the initiative for nominating Golitsyn comes from. Their point of view is shared by monarchist groups located in France, Serbia and Bulgaria.

The second issue of concern to the monarchist emigration is the question of a change in orientation. The panic that gripped the Berlin monarchists in connection with the conclusion of the RussoGerman treaty at Rapallo ¹⁵⁹ gradually subsided by June, but nevertheless the mood of the monarchists soured sufficiently. The situation in Germany became so obviously precarious that the question of the need to move their activities somewhere else was presented in a very acute and decisive form. Two such places were named ‐ France and Hungary.

The idea of the possibility of rapprochement with French government circles arose among the monarchists during the Genoa Conference, and already in May, their Paris group, with the participation of a representative of the Navy, began preliminary negotiations with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, negotiations with the ultimate goal of influencing the French government in order to end further ignorance of the Russian monarchist movement by France. However, until the beginning of July, these conversations did not lead to any results.

Supporters of the Hungarian orientation argued their position by the fact that the ardent monarchist Prince Golitsyn, who is in Budapest, occupies an almost official position under the Hungarian government and enjoys the rights of an accredited ambassador, with whom the Horthy government ¹⁶⁰ invariably consults on all Russian questions. At one time, supporters of the Hungarian orientation, it seemed, had already won a complete victory, but at the very last moment, when the ʺpreparations for the roadʺ almost began, the matter stalled due to the fact that the Hungarian government did not bother to provide the Navy for more than two months responding to a request for permission to host the proposed monarchical convention in Budapest and brought the Navy to the need to begin petitioning other governments for this. Recent reports indicate that the monarchists still managed to obtain permission from the Hungarian government to hold a congress and that it will soon be held in one of the towns of Hungary.

The move of the monarchists to Hungary was even more impeded by the report made by Prince Volkonsky ¹⁶¹ at a meeting of the Navy, in which he definitely indicated that the Hungarian government had recently taken the point of view of the need for a decisive struggle against monarchism, and therefore the Russian monarchists in Hungary should, of course,, there is nothing.

The Markov II group generally opposes the move from Germany, arguing that a very close relationship has been established with German nationalist and monarchist circles through the intermediary of Biskupsky ¹⁶² , Miller‐Guldman and Count Revantlev, and that the contact established with the Bavarian monarchist organization Aufbau ¹⁶³ , will enable the Russian monarchists, despite the events that took place in connection with the murder of Rathenau ¹⁶⁴ , to feel sufficiently firmly on the territory of Germany.

Relations between the monarchists and Wrangel have somewhat deteriorated in recent years, as a result of the latterʹs refusal to openly display monarchist slogans.

The split between the Navy and the Efimovsky group largely faded away.

As before, during the reporting two months, the organization of more and more monarchical associations throughout the Balkan Peninsula, especially [in] Serbia and Bulgaria, is noted (information was obtained before the defeat of the Russian army in Bulgaria). The main activities in Prague are the Union for the Liberation of the Cossacks, which was founded in 1921, and the Bengi group. In Constantinople, the monarchist union was again organized by them. Kozma Minin (about him in detail, see the paragraph ʺWhite Guardsʺ).

The activities of the Far Eastern monarchists received a heavy, perhaps fatal blow in the form of the scandalous flight of Ataman Semyonov ¹⁶⁵ with all the monarchistsʹ sums of money. In the monarchist groups scattered across China, complete confusion reigns in this regard.

The activity of the monarchists on the territory of the RSFSR is extremely insignificant and consists mainly in the spread of all sorts of provocative rumors.

Of the monarchist organizations liquidated in the last two months, it is necessary to single out only a few officer organizations that worked in Siberia and had as their goal there to raise uprisings against Soviet power.

White Guards

The work of the White Guards inside Russia is taking on new forms. Organizations that arose on Russian territory during the period of its isolation, led exclusively by local forces and means (with the exception of border areas and Savinkovʹs organizations, where even during the period of isolation there was a connection with abroad), now, thanks to the new economic policy and the facilitation of communication with Zakordon, are beginning gradually get in touch with foreign centers of counter‐revolution and receive funds and directives from there.

The monarchical organization in Constantinople “All‐Russian Association named after Kozma Minina” has repeatedly provided active support to the Crimean green gangs, up to the landing on a specially chartered steamer in the area of Sudak and Yalta in the amount of 20 scouts (one hundred ‐ at the end of October last year). Communication with the Greens ¹⁶⁶ is still maintained by single dispatches of counterintelligence officers to the Crimean ports on foreign ships.

Under the French intelligence service in Constantinople there is a Russian department, in which exclusively Russian spies, mainly from the old gendarme officers, serve. The department has a whole cadre of Russian agents specifically for the trip to Russia, and some of them have made at least 10 flights recently. The headquarters of the Kuban government, located in Constantinople, maintains contact with rebel groups and organizations in the Armavir region.

All this definitely affects the growth of organizations in the South, South‐East of Russia and the Caucasus; one of the largest organizations there is the organization of General Shkuro, with cells scattered throughout the Caucasus.

Among other areas, it is necessary to note the revival among the White Guards who are in the Kyrgyz Republic. In Orenburg, the former Dutovsky ^{167 began to} stir officers and other counterrevolutionary elements who began to conduct open counterrevolutionary agitation. In Kirkrai, the SocialistRevolutionary counter‐revolutionary organization of the Headquarters of Action and Execution, which was discovered there, was liquidated, an organization that set as its goal the overthrow of Soviet power and the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. The organization had branches throughout Siberia. In addition to the White Eagle monarchist organization discovered in the Krasnoyarsk region, White Guard appeals with a call to arms were also found there. In Pavlograd, a counter‐revolutionary organization was uncovered, during the liquidation of which many forged documents, appeals and orders were discovered. The organization had connections with Barnaul and other cities of Siberia.

In the last weeks of June, there was no information about the appearance of White Guard organizations in the

Republic. According to the available information from some provinces, it is clear that the White Guard work has generally faded and is in a wait‐and‐see attitude. There are suggestions that the White Guard organizations in Russia are going underground to develop new methods of struggle, depending on the economic situation of the country, the upcoming harvest and, at the same time, the mood of the masses.

From the number of foreign organizations, except for the abovementioned organization. Kozma Minin, it is necessary to note the emergence of a new group calling itself ʺChaikovtsyʺ ¹⁶⁸. The center of the said organization is located in Paris. There is a branch in Poland. Its main leaders have not yet been established, and the plan of its work has not yet been clarified. The organization maintains contact with Moscow.

The work of the center of the Savinka organization has recently been concentrated on the territory of Poland, the center is in Warsaw, and the branches are on the western border. Recent reports say that the work of the Savinkaites in the center has almost stopped due to a lack of material resources, and most importantly, the disagreements that have recently taken place among the leaders of the Savinka organization. The latter was the reason for the intensified transition of agents of the Savinka organization to the service of Wrangel. In addition to all of the above, the decline in the mood of the emigre circles, which has been quite noticeable recently, contributes to the weakening in the work of the Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom. All the aforementioned phenomena in the Savinka camp served as a motive for the transfer of the center to Romania and the city of Bender. Only the SZR and S.

Savinkovskaya cells in Russia have mostly lost contact with their center and are only engaged in criminal banditry.

Very little is known about Savinkov himself. Available information suggests that after his release from arrest in Genoa, he went to Paris. What he did there is unknown. One can only assume that the excessive secrecy of his work means that he is apparently starting some new adventures.

CHURCHES

Orthodox clergy

The schism among the churchmen, which began on the basis of the question of whether the Soviet government should be rendered assistance in the confiscation of church valuables in favor of the starving, and which spread further to the most basic questions of the organic structure of the Orthodox Church, as is known, which led to a change in the higher church hierarchy, up to Patriarch Tikhon himself, during the two reporting months he also moved to the provinces; it is true that in the localities it is still in a very disorganized and embryonic form, but nevertheless it should be noted that the spontaneous pressure from below is very strong and that the reactionary groups of churchmen, in a significant majority of places holding church power in their hands, have a very difficult time and that the struggle flares up along the entire front.

Today the entire Orthodox clergy has split into three sharply different groups.

The first group is the churchmen following the highest church administration and the Living Church group ¹⁶⁹. In most cases, these are petty clergy, previously in a full enclosure. They hold meetings on the ground, at which they pass resolutions welcoming the organizations of the VTsU, campaign in the press in favor of the seizure of church valuables, and in places, as was the case, for example, in Rybinsk, Tsaritsyn, Rostov‐on‐Don, etc., they even decide to carry out a local coup.

The second group is hesitant. Its contingent is mainly high‐ranking churchmen, intimidated by repressions and do not dare to openly declare themselves supporters of Tikhon. Some representatives of this group are secretly waging a campaign against the renovationists ¹⁷⁰, but at the slightest pressure on them, they fearfully begin to scream (even in the press) about their alleged loyalty, commitment, and almost loyalty to the Soviet regime and the All‐Russian Central Administration. This group does not present any danger now.

The main church head, now retired, is the main contingent of the third group. They are irreconcilable. They are everywhere trying to compromise the renovationists, to discredit them in the eyes of the masses of believers as Soviet mercenaries. However, they do not pose an excessive danger, for, despite all their rage, they are still afraid to act openly.

Without exception, the entire church mass is now busy preparing for the upcoming church congress, which, apparently, is to serve as an arena for the struggle between the first and third groups of churchmen (of course, there is no need to talk about the second, because it is a ʺdead bodyʺ and will fall on that cup weights that will outweigh).

The campaign to confiscate valuables has ended throughout the Republic, with the exception of some distant outskirts (Siberia, Turkestan). In general, the campaign can be considered successful, and its results are quite satisfactory. The excessively small amount of collected gold is noteworthy.

Currently, a significant number of trials of churchmen are underway in the Republic, accused of resisting the confiscation, concealment or theft of valuables, as well as active support of the church counterrevolution.

Believers and the rest of the population are in most cases loyal to the processes, while workers and peasants are almost always sympathetic.

Baptists

The Baptists are very energetic at the moment. They organize numerous meetings, lectures and disputes. They operate in close contact with the evangelists ¹⁷¹ and the Tolstoyans ¹⁷². Their attitude to the Renovationist Church is negative, although this is not revealed in an open form. The attitude towards Soviet power is, of course, unfriendly.

At the present time they have managed to establish a very good connection with abroad. ARA and the Brazilian consulate serve as a link.

Baptism and evangelism are developing especially strongly in Siberia, where they capture significant masses of the kulaks and intelligentsia.

BANDITRY

The bandit movement now observed on the territory of the RSFSR is only a miserable fragment of that powerful and formidable stream that seemed to threaten to flood the entire Republic in the spring of last year. The current months force us to come to the conclusion that banditry, which has completely lost support in the peasantry, has not only diminished in number, but has also qualitatively degenerated.

This is most clearly seen from the fact that banditry has lost its leaders. Large people associated with political parties (such as Antonov), and sometimes even with real governments (Makhno), were either killed or completely left the gangster movement and, on the one hand, remained at the head of a purely criminal element, on the other ‐ professional bandits with many years of practice, for which now, of course, it is impossible to get involved in any other business.

The composition of the rank‐and‐file members of bandit gangs has also changed radically: in connection with the abolition of the appropriation system, the insurrection completely died out; in connection with the end of the war and demobilization, the ʺgreenʺ army also dissolved. With the change in the social composition of the bandit detachments, of course, their political aspirations also changed and, most importantly, their relations with the peasantry changed completely.

Banditry, which for many years was a form of the peasant insurrectionary movement, has now become an anti‐peasant phenomenon in most regions, arousing in the peasantry a feeling of acute enmity and often forcing the peasants to actively take up the organization of self‐defense.

It is necessary, however, to make a reservation: everything that we said about banditry applies to all the regions covered by banditry, with the exception of two ‐ Turkestan and the Yakutsk Region, which will be discussed separately.

All gangsters noted in the current period on the territory of the Republic are divided into three categories, completely different from each other both in their origin and in class composition, goals and system of internal organization, etc. The first category of gangs are imported gangs. They operate, of course, only in a relatively narrow border zone; they are formed and are guided in their actions by foreign White Guard centers. This includes most of the gangs working in the area of our western border and on the territory of the Right‐Bank Ukraine.

The second category of gangs are local professional gangs. These gangs consist of a purely criminal element, in most cases they do not even try to attach themselves to any slogans. Of the banners used by them, the most common are the Right Socialist Revolutionary. These gangs do not have their permanent residence, they roam, depending on their size (either from county to county, or even from province to province).

The largest and most serious category of bandits is, of course, the third category ‐ the category of political insurgents. We will talk about it in more detail when we touch on the issue of the development of the bandit movement in Eastern Siberia and Turkestan, as well as in the relevant places where the political state of the Republic is examined by region. Here we will only point out that, fortunately for the Republic, this group, which in many respects resembles, and sometimes surpasses in size and danger even the formidable bandit movement of the past, is now observed only in the most remote outskirts of the RSFSR.

The calmest in terms of the development of banditry in them are the Central and Northwestern regions of the Republic. There is no trace of banditry in the Central District. With the final liquidation during the spring of this year and the last remnants of Antonovism, a truly unprecedented calm for the RSFSR was established in the region.

The northwestern region, which adjoins most of its most important provinces to the border strip, which just a few months ago completed its difficult Karelian adventure, undoubtedly cannot be so serenely calm as we observe in the central provinces of the Republic. Often gangs of Polish origin come to the area, in addition, he constantly lives under the threat of a repetition of the invasion of gangs from Finland. This threat has become very real. Numerous reports recently received from Finland indicate that there is an increasing recruitment of bandits all the time, the number of which by June reached a rather impressive figure ‐ 2,500 people and continues to increase all the time. However, so far the North‐West region is still free from bandit gangs and can be ranked among the republicʹs districts that are free from banditry.

The Western Region along the Polish border is much more disturbing than the two previous ones. As mentioned above, banditry in this area is completely alien (of course, from Poland), the exception is the Gomel province, which has its own criminal banditry.

... open clashes with our units. All their activity is reduced only to attacks on Soviet institutions, state farms, individual Soviet party workers, or even just on peaceful peasant villages. The largest groups of bandits at the end of May were observed in the territory of Vitebsk province. and SSR B.

Banditry also increased somewhat on the territory of Ukraine, especially on the Right Bank. The greatest concentration of gangs is noted in the provinces of Podolsk, Kiev, Kremenchug and

Poltava. The activity of the gangs is extremely insignificant and, for the most part, is limited to the destruction of factories, state farms and an attack on railway lines. In some places, the use of terror is practiced quite intensively against responsible party officials.

Most of the gangs working in Ukraine wear Petliuraʹs watered paint. Many of them have connections with Ukrainian centers abroad.

Ukraine undoubtedly ranks first in terms of the degree of development of professional banditry, which, by the way, has taken here, by the way, extremely peculiar forms. In another of our last yearʹs reports, we wrote that banditry in Ukraine is, in a huge number of cases, a kind of “waste trade” for the peasantry, devastated and corrupted by many years of civil war. By the summer of this year, this phenomenon has intensified even more and has taken on clearer and more definite forms. The vast majority of gangs operating on the territory of the Right Bank do not have a permanent ʺsolidʺ composition. They are continuously replenished by local peasants, who, after several successful raids, return to the villages again to peaceful work. The total number of bandits in Ukraine is estimated at about 1,500 people, grouped in 70 gangs.

Thus, banditry in Ukraine is now developing again, of course, not to the extent that we saw last year. There is certainly no reason to count on its immediate elimination. To a large extent, the intensification of banditry in Ukraine depends on the revitalization of the activities of the Polish and especially the Transcordon Petliura organizations.

In the South‐East region of the Republic, the bandit movement somewhat subsided over the reporting period. By July 1, only three more or less significant bandit groups can be noted throughout the territory of the region. The first of them works in the Kuban. Its head is Belov. The second group, operating within the Stavropol province, is led by the old, known since 1920, the head of the bandit gangs of this area, Esaul Toothless ¹⁷³. In Terskaya lips. under the command of Grabov, the third group of bandits is working, it includes the former Sychevsk gang. These three groups do not show excessive activity and their whole activity is reduced to attacks on co‐institutions and murders of co‐workers.

After the liquidation of the uprising in Svaneti, banditry almost disappeared in Transcaucasia and only in Signagh u. small gangs, led by former Georgian officers, still roam in Georgia. They do not differ in anything special, except that they are the only and the first gangs in the entire existence of the RSFSR, going under purely Menshevik slogans.

The total number of bandits operating in the South‐East and

Transcaucasia slightly exceeds 1,300 people.

Serovʹs gang, working in the southeastern part of the Volga region and the northwestern part of the Kyrrespublika, is probably the last ʺcloudʺ of the dispersed Antonov ʺstormʺ (I apologize for the hackneyed quote). This is the only political gang in the old sense of the word. True, being pressed from all sides by our units, cut off from the peasant gangs, forced by virtue of its ʺprofessionalismʺ from time to time to turn to criminality, it represents a very miserable likeness of last yearʹs gangs; nevertheless, however, this is the only gang operating on the territory of the Republic that brings to mind the names of Popov, Vakulin ¹⁷⁴, and sometimes Antonov himself. During the two months under review, the gang entered the ʺliquidation periodʺ and in the near future will probably be destroyed, and with it the entire Volga banditry, because apart from it, there is not a single gang on the entire territory of the Volga region, at least some significant.

The increase in the number and activity of bandit gangs roaming Western Siberia is explained by the fact that many gangs are almost completely tortured and destroyed after the defeat of the Kolesnikovites and Kaygorodians, many gangs that have already been removed from the register are now forced to re‐enter the fight under the influence of hunger, even, in fact, not with Soviet power, but simply for its existence. The organization and connection between the West Siberian gangs is completely absent. Each bavda acts independently. The Altai province is the most infected with banditry, the bandits of which go under the Socialist‐Revolutionary slogans, and where there are quite large gangs (up to 800 people in number).

In Eastern Siberia, in essence, there is no banditry as such. There is a huge uprising of the population of the Yakutsk Region that has been going on for several months.

The situation in the area has not improved one iota over the past two months. Much of the area is still in the hands of bandits. Information from recent weeks indicates that the city of Vilyuisk has been taxed, and that the gangs continue to spread in the western directions. The number of bandits is not exactly clear. According to some sources, it allegedly reaches 6,000, but according to others, it is much less than this figure, although, in any case, not less than 2,000 people. The population that has not gone into gangs almost everywhere sympathizes with the bandits and helps them in every way. Among the Yakut intelligentsia, there is a very significant Japaneseophile group, which supposedly belongs to the ideological leadership of the movement.

The rebelsʹ connection with the Far East is beyond the slightest doubt. The bandits are apparently getting weapons and supplies from Okhotsk. The presence in the gangs of a significant number of Socialist‐Revolutionary groups, noted last month, is still observed today. In addition, the last two months have given a significant increase in the monarchist movement among the bandits.

If we are forced to qualify the East Siberian insurrectionary movement as an uprising, then we cannot but qualify the Turkestan Basmak movements otherwise than as an open war. This movement has been continuously developing for the third year already. The ranks of the Basmachi rebels are increasing every day. The movement has the greatest degree of development in two regions ‐ Fergana and Bukhara. The increase in the number of bandits is facilitated by pan‐Islamist agitation, the sympathy of the residents of the mobilization and assistance from Afghanistan. The leadership of the insurgentsʹ actions is concentrated mainly in the hands of the commander‐in‐chief of Kurshirmat ¹⁷⁵, who is currently carrying out major work on organizing detachments subordinate to him. The main organizer and leader of the movement is Enver Pasha.

At present, the center of its activities under pressure from our units has been moved to Eastern Bukhara, where the rebels have cleared a number of cities: Gissar, Gegar and Karatog. In his letters to the Afghan Minister of War, Enver explains his retreat by the lack of ammunition and asks for help.

Among the detachments of Enver, an organization of the type of regular armies is being planned. In the Dushanbe region there is a school for training instructors, a similar school supposedly exists under the Emir of Bukhara. Enver gets its patrons from Afghan territory, while food and fodder, thanks to the sympathy of local residents, is taken locally.

Basmak gangs operating in the Samarkand region are distinguished by almost the least activity. They recently carried out an attack on Samarkand.

The appearance of gangs in the Semirechensk region is noted, although their number and activity there is insignificant, however, due to the excited mood of the population of the eastern part of the region, the slogans ʺBeat the Communistsʺ, ʺDown with confiscation and land reformʺ may be successful. In total, 45,000 fighters were registered in Turkestan by June, according to the GPU bandit department.

ESPIONAGE

The centers of foreign and White Guard espionage on the territory of the RSFSR are all kinds of missions and representations, from diplomatic and trade and ending with organizations to aid the starving.

In fact, the vast majority of diplomatic missions are engaged in espionage. During the reporting period, the SB GPU was convicted of espionage: the Latvian diplomatic and optical mission ¹⁷⁶ together with offices in Moscow, Petrograd, Kharkov and other regions; Norwegian authorized representative office in Moscow, Tiflis and other places; the Finnish diplomatic mission, together with the optation and other commissions in Moscow and St. Petersburg; Swedish trade mission in Moscow; Estonian diplomatic mission together with commissions in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Omsk.

A very significant center of espionage organizations is the ARA, the entire composition of which consists exclusively of former officers and police officials (a significant part of them were directly involved in the intervention in the period 1917‐1921). The ARA is trying in every possible way to recruit former White Guard officers and others with an established counter‐revolutionary reputation. Every effort is being made to recruit and employ responsible Soviet workers, in particular, the Red commanders.

The intercepted documents undoubtedly establish the true nature of their activities and prove that the ARA, in addition to helping the starving Russia, also pursues other goals that have nothing to do with humanitarian ideas and philanthropy. The personal guilt of espionage and counter‐revolution of many responsible Americans ‐ leaders of the ARA organization in Russia ‐ has been established. The GPU does not begin to isolate them only because the aggravation of the relationship between the RSFSR and the ARA will weaken the assistance provided by the ARA to the starving population of the Republic.

The overwhelming majority of other ʺcharitableʺ bourgeois organizations that provide aid to the starving do not lag behind the ARA. Their activity is of much less importance, if only due to the fact that its size and political possibilities are much less significant than those at the disposal of the ARA.

Review of the political and economic state of the RSFSR for July 1922

August 1922

GENERAL POLITICAL SITUATION.

INTRODUCTION

In a previous survey of the political economy of the Republic for the months of May and June, [we] pointed out two main factors influencing the mood of the workers and the rest of the urban working population, on the one hand, and the peasantry, on the other.

These factors are the revival of industry, or rather the turning point towards revival, and mainly the already sufficiently evident good harvest. These factors remain dominant in the reporting month of June. At first glance, a number of local reports are striking reports about the closure of enterprises for a more or less long time, about the lack of supply of raw materials and fuel, about the unsettled sales, commodity exchange, etc. But all these phenomena are inevitable when the entire structure of our industry is ongoing centralization, on the one hand, and its localization, on the other hand. All of the above is further complicated by the nationwide financial crisis.

However, simultaneously with these summaries, more and more information is received indicating that this or that plant, this or that enterprise begins to fulfill the task in the amount of 100 percent or more. The provision of enterprises with raw materials and fuel is increasingly noted. Throughout the Republic, reports indicate the repair of enterprises destroyed during the war and revolution. These are all true symptoms that our industry is slowly but surely on the road to recovery.

We indicated in more detail about the state of the industry in the survey by districts.

WORKERS

Undoubtedly, the mood of the working masses depends on the state of industry, on the provision of its food and financial resources.

In the last report, we pointed out that the most disadvantaged areas in terms of workersʹ attitudes are the Central and North‐West regions and Ukraine. There were no significant improvements in these areas during the reporting month. In the month of July, the Western Territory also has to be ranked as disadvantaged regions, in which the mood of the workers has sharply deteriorated compared to the previous month.

At the majority of factories and enterprises, we note discontent, at very many of them there are strikes. After being liquidated on one, a strike breaks out on another, gradually taking over most of the large enterprises.

What are the reasons causing them? The leading reason, of course, is material insecurity. Already at the beginning of our survey, we pointed out that the industry of the Republic is only on the road to recovery, and it is clear that during this period it cannot yet regularly supply workers.

It is this ‐ the delay in rations and salaries, poor living conditions, and sometimes taxes that cause strikes.

But are these reasons the only ones? I see, no. We would incompletely characterize these strikes in the indicated 4 regions if we attributed them only to the indicated reasons. These are, or rather, not reasons, but reasons; undoubtedly we will not be mistaken if we attribute the occurrence of the strikes to the intrigues of the Mensheviks and Socialist‐Revolutionaries. And in this case, the difficulty of the Soviet organs plays into their hands. The agitation of anti‐Soviet parties is not everywhere conducted in an organized manner, very often it is carried out by individual Mensheviks and Socialist‐Revolutionaries, as they say, ʺat their own risk and peril.ʺ But the fact is that the work of restoring the workers against Soviet power in the indicated regions is being carried out. A characteristic factor in this case is the position of the Western Region. The report for the last month points to the relatively calm mood of the workers in the region. During the same period, the work of anti‐Soviet parties was not noted either. In July, the picture changes: on the one hand, we receive information about a whole series of strikes, on the other hand, about the revitalized work of the Mensheviks and Socialist‐Revolutionaries. Naturally, these two phenomena have to be closely connected with each other, because the general financial situation in the reporting month did not deteriorate so much. Sometimes they manage to cause not only discontent of workers against the administration of the enterprise or the corresponding economic body, but also hostility towards the Soviet government and the Communist Party, as, for example, in some factories in the southern provinces, Ukraine and the Gomel province. Western Territory, at some factories of the Petrograd industrial district (factories named after Zinoviev, Metal Plant).

It must be pointed out that sometimes strikes are really the only way for workers to fight against the administration, which in some places does not take sufficiently vigorous measures to provide workers. We can notice, for example, strikes in the Maltsevsky factory district, where such were sanctioned by the sub‐district committee of the Metalworkersʹ Union.

So, regarding 4 districts of the Republic, we have to admit that the mood of workers in the reporting month did not noticeably improve, in the Western District, as [we] have already indicated, it even worsened significantly for the above reasons.

In other regions of the Republic (Volga region, South‐East and Caucasus, Turkestan, Kirghizia and Siberia) the mood of the working masses is much more favorable. If strikes are observed in these districts, then only as isolated cases and by no means are of a mass character. The discontent of the workers, it is true, is noted here quite often, but how could it not be, if the regular supply of workers has not yet been established, if there are such provinces as, for example, Terskaya, where salaries and rations have not been issued to workers of many enterprises from the month of March. Naturally, the workers are forced to look for work on the sidelines, sometimes leaving work in droves. We observe such phenomena in the Karachay‐Cherkess region. South‐East, in Semipalatinsk and the province (Ekibastuz mines) and in the Saratov province. among water and railway workers. In the last province, this phenomenon threatens the river fleet to be left without the most necessary cadre of qualified workers. However, on the whole, judging by the information from the localities, we must admit the mood of the working masses in these regions is

incomparably calmer than in the first four regions.

How are the last measures of Soviet power carried out in the working environment?

Social insurance of workers is almost universally implemented and only in some places there is a delay due to the lack of banknotes at the economic agencies. Private entrepreneurs, although, as one should expect, have a negative attitude to social insurance, they make the relying contributions.

The method of collective agreements, apparently, does not yet have wide application and is therefore poorly covered in the reports we received, it is not necessary to draw any conclusions on this issue.

Of political issues, the trial of the Social Revolutionaries was a militant one in the reporting month, however, in the working environment he lost the interest he had last month, which is explained by its delay.

In June, this question was never examined in the press, and only 23 factories received information that the workers spoke out in favor of the Socialist‐Revolutionaries. In the end, this question aroused some interest among the working masses, [which] we will point out in the future report for the month of August. The attitude to other issues of the political life of the Republic is very passive. In general, it should be noted that political work in factories and factories is being conducted extremely unsatisfactorily, especially in the provinces, which partly explains such an indifferent attitude of the workers to the current issues of the countryʹs life.

Here is a brief summary of the political status of the working class of the Republic, based on the information we receive.

PEASANTS

At the beginning of the report, we pointed out that the second factor influencing the mood of the population is a good harvest. And if this reason is positively reflected in the mood of the urban population, then all the more it should influence the mood of the peasantry. And indeed, if this month, as well as last, we can note with satisfaction the extremely favorable political state of the village for us, then we should attribute this to the harvest to a greater extent.

The mood of the peasantry continues to remain even in all districts of the Republic, and only the North‐West Territory, as in the previous month, is a sharp exception. Again, the reason is a poor harvest of grain. We observe a strongly depressed mood of the peasantry especially in the Arkhangelsk, Vologda, Novgorod, Cherepovets, Petrograd and partly Pskov provinces. It is clear that in these provinces taxation causes the greatest discontent. In some provinces (Vologda and Cherepovets), it is aggravated by the death of livestock.

In other districts of the Republic, due to the good harvest, the mood of the peasantry is clearly good. The taxes, however, continue to cause some discontent and are not paid in full, for the peasantry has been devastated by last yearʹs famine; a huge shortage of horses, as well as a difficult time, are the reasons for the poor performance of the labor tax.

In connection with the general impoverishment of the peasantry, we observe in July the following almost ubiquitous phenomena: the enslaving deals of the poor, and sometimes the middle peasants with the kulaks, the sale of property for a pittance, the sale of standing grain, etc.

The decree issued by the All‐Russian Central Executive Committee on the termination of enslaving deals, issued in connection with this phenomenon, greatly delighted the poor and quite naturally aroused the anger of the interested kulaks. It is also necessary to point out that in the hungry regions, the actions of the Soviet government, both central and local, aimed at rendering assistance to the countryside, yielded certain positive results.

In July we observe that the peasantry has turned all its eyes to the restoration of its economy and therefore reacts extremely weakly to the political questions of the day. The process of the Social Revolutionaries almost did not touch the village, there are only a few volosts registered where this issue was covered. In most cases, favorable resolutions were adopted, and only in the Tambov province. in Lipetsk u. under the influence of the agitation of the kulaks and counter‐revolutionary elements, the resolution on the application of severe punishment to the Socialist‐Revolutionaries was rejected. The confiscation of church valuables also took place with the peasantry completely indifferent to this issue. They were also not interested in the current schism in the church. And even banditry, which for such a long time nourished itself in all respects by the forces of the village, and that has now lost all roots in the peasantry, was dispersed, degenerated into criminality and as such causes only a hostile attitude towards itself as a force that prevents the rapid restoration of the economy. Only here and there the kulaks, hostile to the Soviet regime, support the bandits, hiding them and supplying them with food. It was this ‐ the desire of the peasantry to direct life to a normal track ‐ that partly knocked the ground out from under the gangsʹ feet.

The reporting month of July in the village is spent preparing for the harvest and taking care of the upcoming sowing. With regard to the latter, everywhere there is a striving of the peasantry to increase the area under crops and, in general, to improve land use itself. In the Volga region, in many provinces, peasants in droves come to land departments to agronomists for explanations and information on land use issues.

By the end of the month, peasants, under the influence of rumors about the excessive collection of natural tax, are expressing concern, fearing being left without the required amount of seeds.

So, summarizing everything that we said about the peasantry, we can state in July, as in the past, that the mood of the countryside was favorable for Soviet power in all districts, with the exception of the Northwestern Territory, which was mentioned above, and Turkestan. We will not repeat the latter here, because we wrote about it in detail in the last report and in this when reviewing the political and economic state of the Republic by districts. We will only point out that the main reasons preventing the establishment of Soviet power remain the same two: firstly, the antagonism between Russian settlers and native peasants and, secondly, the Basmach movement that is strongly developed here.

RED ARMY

The state of the Red Army units as a whole still remains at the proper height. However, during the reporting month, the number of reports indicating the unsatisfactory condition of individual units in a particular province increased compared to the previous month.

Political work is poorly conducted in places, which sometimes brings corruption and even leads to looting. The phenomenon of atrocities of the Red Army units was noted in the south‐west of Ukraine in Poltava, Nikolaev and Kremenchug provinces, in Polotsk u. Vitebsk lips. and partly in the Gomel province. in the border counties.

For reasons of ignorance of political work and inattention to the material needs of the Red Army, discipline falls and the mood of some units in Moscow Gubernia, listed in the review of the central provinces, deteriorates. Such phenomena are also noted in some provinces of the Northwest Territory.

The situation of the Red Army units in Turkestan remains the same as last month. There were no noticeable improvements either in supplies, or in mood, or in discipline. But letʹs not repeat ourselves. In previous reports on the Red Army units of Turkmenistan, we wrote in detail.

So, with the exception of the indicated provinces, where you should pay attention to the Red Army units, in the rest of the provinces of the Republic, the Red Army men are still the most reliable part of the population.

REVIEW OF THE ACTIVITIES OF THE COUNTERREVOLUTIONARY PARTIES

Monarchists

May and June passed in intensive preparations for the monarchist congress. The congress took place in June in Budapest. At this congress of the ʺeconomic restoration of Russiaʺ the methods and means of the transfer of Russian monarchists from Bulgaria to Hungary were discussed, and mainly the question of convening a congress of all monarchists living abroad.

The tasks of the upcoming congress are to discuss the transfer of some contingents of Wrangelʹs army to Hungary, as well as to take a decision on issues that have arisen in connection with the conference in The Hague ¹⁷⁷.

The main incentives for convening the Budapest congress, as indicated in the last survey, were, firstly, the imminent ʺministerialʺ crisis in the Supreme Monarchist Council and, secondly, the need to reconsider the main issues related to orientation.

As for the crisis in the Navy, the reasons for it are mainly the following: The Navy, created a year ago, united all supporters of monarchist thought among the emigration into one whole. It consisted of far from homogeneous elements: liberals striving to unite with the Cadets, absolutists, extreme elements.

All of them are headed by Markov II, an uncompromising person, not created to reconcile these trends.

Liberal monarchists blamed Markov II for his political struggle with the socialists in general, and not with the Bolsheviks in particular, and for his reserved attitude towards Wrangel. They say: “Wrangel is our only hope. Without it, intervention would be an empty phrase. Better to temporarily make peace with the Cadets, Social Democrats and Socialist‐Revolutionaries in order to crush the Bolsheviks. ʺ

It is interesting to note the divergence of these two currents on the Jewish question, which is as follows. Liberal monarchists consider it necessary to give them (the Jews) a guarantee and thereby attract them (and their capital) to their side.

Markov and his supporters take into account the enormous role played by anti‐Semitism. They say there is no shortage of pogrom elements that put anti‐Semitism on a par with monarchism. The Jewish question is resolved in Russia in a natural way.

Personal scores, personal debts, personal misunderstandings make themselves felt especially acutely in the extremely condensed atmosphere that has created around the Navy.

These are the sentiments that reign around the Navy itself and which put the monarchists before the need to take stock of their work before the congress.

Another reason (as already pointed out) is the issue of orientation.

Among monarchists, there are two main currents on the question of intervention against Soviet Russia. One of them is Francophilia, headed by Trepov ¹⁷⁸, the leader of the monarchists in Paris.

This group considers it necessary to start an armed struggle against Soviet Russia as soon as possible, believing that the conjuncture, in connection with the failure of the conference and the refusal of Soviet Russia in loans, is quite favorable.

This group, represented by Trepov, received an audience with Poincaré, during which he promised him material and spiritual support from France. Poincaré agreed with the well‐known plan of intervention in Russia with the participation of the Wrangel and Romanian armies. He promised to get the consent of the Bulgarian government to send 15 thousand Wrangel soldiers to Greece. To Greece precisely because they wanted to divert the attention of the public circles in Bulgaria and mainly the Bulgarian communists.

Poincaréʹs only objection to supporting the Russian monarchists was that the Germanophile Russian monarchists were acting on the instructions of the German monarchists.

Trepovʹs platform threatens to split the monarchist movement, since the monarchist Central Committee in Berlin still does not agree with the plans of Trepov and his French friends. Berlin monarchists are against direct intervention, against Trepovʹs Francophile activities, against the candidate for the Russian throne, Prince Kirill Vladimirovich, nominated by the Russian monarchists in France.

As for the general candidacy for the Russian throne, there is one more person ‐ former Prince Nikolai Nikolaevich, about whose role there are two opinions; first: (Markov 2nd ‐ Krasnovites) consider it necessary that Nikolai Nikolaevich proclaim himself the Russian emperor or, in extreme cases, ʺthe guardian of the Russian throneʺ; second: (zemstvo, commercial and industrial circles, cadets, Savinkovʹs group, Wrangel and his army) consider it correct only to appoint Nikolai Nikolaevich as supreme commander in chief of all anti‐Soviet troops in order to bring the new composition to the Constituent Assembly under his candidacy.

However, Trepovʹs Francophilic group hopes to eliminate these two differences and, under its leadership, unite all Russian monarchist trends on the Francophile platform. To this end, a preliminary meeting of the delegates of both currents was held in Geneva, which was supposed to prepare the ground for the monarchist congress. Each of these currents has put forward its own positions.

The Berlin group, which stands on the platform of the Reichengall Congress, believes that only monarchist Germany can destroy Bolshevism in Russia. In return, Russia will demand a revision of the Versailles Treaty, the economic destruction of Poland, and will provide Germany with certain economic benefits in Russia. The Supreme Monarchist Council in Berlin considers the restoration of the monarchy in Germany to be a matter of the near future and does not consider it necessary to change the wait‐and‐see policy to an immediate military intervention in Soviet Russia.

The Parisian party does not agree with the decision of the Reichengal Congress and does not want to make its plans for the restoration of monarchical Russia dependent on political changes in Germany. Trepovʹs party is looking for French support for an early intervention against the RSFSR, leaving the Francophile policy for the near future, and considers it necessary to involve America in addition to France.

At the meeting, Trepovʹs party tried to distract the Berlin delegates from their German orientation, using the Rapallo Treaty for this purpose, proving that precisely at the moment, “when the Bolsheviks in Russia have no influence” and France is ready to support, the intervention can count on success.

The Paris delegation proposed to present at the upcoming monarchist congress a common resolution of both monarchist parties, which should protest against the relationship between Germany and Russia and emphasize the Russian‐French‐American solidarity and the long‐standing friendship between France and Russia.

For the sake of common interests, the Berlin group was ready to unite all Russian monarchist forces.

Thus, the preliminary meeting of both delegations in Switzerland paved the way for joint work at the forthcoming congress.

The other line is taken by the constitutional monarchists. This group, led by Efimovsky and Biskupsky in Berlin, has abandoned, if not formally, then in fact, from the Markov group and is nominating the former Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich to the throne.

Kirill Vladimirovich considers himself to be to some extent a liberal, adheres to the point of view that the restoration of the throne is possible only with the support and help of the Russian peasantry. To carry out their plans, the constitutional monarchists decided to shift the center of gravity of their activities to the appropriate work among the peasants in the South of Russia and mainly in Ukraine.

They lost faith in the active intervention led by Wrangel. Therefore, it was decided to prepare it gradually and, above all, to win the favor of the peasants, supplying them with goods. For this purpose, the constitutional monarchists created a trading society ‐ the Kr [isyan] eastern trade union. This society came into contact with other organizations with funds, such as the All‐Russian Peasant Union and the [Union] of the Free Cossacks.

The agreement between them took place on the following principal conditions. The main goal of the united society is to restore, in addition to Soviet power, trade and economic relations with Ukraine and Russia by helping the peasantry through local (underground) organizations of the All‐Russian Peasant Union, as well as peasant cooperatives.

As far as we can see, the line followed by the constitutional monarchists is essentially at variance with the line of Markov. It takes into account the role of the Russian peasantry, counts on it as a force on which it will be possible to rely on favorable results of the intervention. To this end, they try to help him at the moment when it experiences great difficulties in restoring its destroyed economy by war and revolution, they are trying to attract the peasantry with real material assistance.

To what extent such assistance is possible on their part is, of course, a very, very dubious thing, but that the course taken by the constitutional monarchists is the fruit of their five years of experience, which made them understand that the time of frontal attacks has passed, that a party counting on vitality should seek support among the masses (of course, not the workers), forced them to turn to the peasantry, to its well‐to‐do part, offering them material assistance, as indicated by their connection with Ukraine.

Of the other most monarchist groups, the National Revival, headed by Shcheglovitov, should be noted.

The events that took place in connection with the disarmament of Wrangelʹs army in Bulgaria had a strong impact on the political activities of the National Revival. Some of the members of the editorial board of Russkoe Delo, the Main Council were expelled from Bulgaria, the newspaper R [usskoe] d [elo] was closed.

Currently, the political center of the ʺNational] Revival]ʺ is going to move to Serbia in Belgrade.

Recently, Shcheglovitovʹs attention has again been drawn to Germany, where he intends to resume his activities and contacts, seeking to conclude agreements on the model of those carried out in Austria with some large German firms.

The Ukrainian Gromodyansky Committee in Prague has recently attracted the attention not only of the Black Hundred Ukrainian emigration, [but] other areas as well.

Recently, former ministers, large and small figures of the UN S, who sense not only material gain, but also hope to use the ʺhospitality of the Czechsʺ for a new concentration of forces in order to create a political bloc that would unite in themselves all political actions, have begun to come to Prague from everywhere abroad and in Ukraine.

Now the leaders of the Social Democrats and SocialistRevolutionaries of Ukraine are also concentrated in Prague.

The Tarnow Center began to lose its authority. There are rumors that the Komodian Committee will take away from the Tarnovsky Petliura Center not only governmental functions, but also the command of the Petliura army, interned for this purpose in June of this year. in Polish camps.

The plans of the Gromodyansky Committee also include the transfer of several thousand Cossacks, Kubanians and Ukrainians to the Carpathian Rus with the Wrangel army.

It remains to point to two significant organizations of monarchists, such as: a large organization in terms of the number of members (1,500 people), headed by the Russian Committee in the Danzing region and the Russian Council under the commander‐in‐chief of the Russian army, General Wrangel, in which there have been changes in the composition of recently.

At the beginning of the report, we forgot to point out the combat group (terrorist five) at the Navy.

The five consists of persons who have taken an oath to carry out all the orders of the Navy in full and at all costs; this group was preparing an attempt on Comrade. Chicherin, Rakovsky ¹⁷⁹ and Krestinsky ¹⁸⁰.

In conclusion, let us note the attitude of foreign monarchists to the illness of comrade Lenin.

The monarchists had high hopes for the departure of

Comrade. Lenin out of order, which, in their opinion, would have caused discord between the Bolsheviks at the first false step in domestic or foreign policy.

This is the work that the monarchists have done abroad this month. Their work in Russia is negligible.

Only the Ural province. reports that advertisements with the slogan “Down with the communists, long live Nicholas II” are being pasted in the city of Uralsk, provocative rumors are spreading about military events in the Kuban, about Wrangelʹs landing, etc.

Cadets

There is a lull in the organizational work of the foreign cadets. Only recently has the influence of cadets on the student emigre environment been observed: so, recently, the organizational activity of the student organization has been manifested.

The board of ORESO ¹⁸¹ (Association of Russian émigré student organizations) has begun preparatory work to convene the 2nd Congress of Russian émigré students in October. The congress will be attended by all student organizations abroad, which have accepted the student‐wide emigrant platform, proclaimed at the first congress and are currently members of the ORESO. The government of the Czechoslovak Republic officially authorized the convocation of the congress in Prague.

Among the public activities of the Cadets, it is necessary to note the persecution of the Smenovekhites, which reached the extreme limits through the Cadet press.

At an extraordinary general meeting of the Union of Journalists and Writers in Berlin, the question was unofficially raised about the possibility of employees of the publishing house ʺNakanuneʺ staying in the Union, where it was recognized: members of the Union who joined the editorial board of ʺNakanuneʺ, due to their complete divergence with the tasks and goals of the Union, from among the members exclude. It is interesting to note the motivation that preceded the decision: ʺSucking Soviet gingerbread has no place in the Union of Journalists and Writers.ʺ

Among prominent Cadets, there is growing hope for a rapid evolution of the Bolsheviks towards the recognition of the bourgeois order.

In their opinion, NEP is the result of the influence of bourgeois ideology (white thought) on the leaders and wide circles of the Communist Party. The only salvation for the communists is an open renunciation of socialism, made before the whole world.

The work of the cadets in Russia is reduced to using book publishing houses for the work, organizing various unions (poets, writers, etc.).

There is a noticeable attempt by the cadets and popularists to take under their influence students in higher educational institutions.

In the provinces among the members of the Cadet [party] there is noticeable depression, due to stagnation in work.

The attraction of prominent and active members of the Cadet [party] to the center is noticeable, for which, under various favorable pretexts and business trips, they are trying to transfer and settle in Moscow.

SRs

All anti‐Soviet parties are currently experiencing a crisis. Everywhere there is a split into two parts ‐ to the right and to the left. Anarchists, Mensheviks, Cadets and even monarchists are experiencing stratification, the cause of which is the Soviet regime and the policies it pursues.

The Socialist‐Revolutionary Party is no exception in this case.

Abroad, besides all the groupings that have existed so far, we see a group with Kerensky ¹⁸², Bunakov, Avksentiev ¹⁸³, so to speak, the arch‐right.

In Russia, there is a division of groups that do not agree with the line of the Central Committee, condemn it, and make attempts to legalize themselves.

In the last report, it was pointed to the resolution of the Zlatoust organization of the AKP on convening a legal congress in order to enter the open road of cooperation with the Soviet government and the RCP.

In the reporting month, we see a similar phenomenon.

In Novonikolaevsk, the Socialist‐Revolutionary organization faced the question of legalizing work. In this regard, two trends emerged: some, who consider it necessary, in case of serious reprisals against the Socialist‐Revolutionaries after the trial, to openly go over to the side of Soviet power for honest and loyal work together with the RCP, others, irreconcilably opposed to the government, are ready to go deep underground, staying true to the principles now pursued by the Socialist‐Revolutionary Party. This phenomenon in

Novonikolaevsk, in all likelihood, is a response to the decision of the Zlatoust organization.

If this stratification, the separation from the line of the Central

Committee of the Socialist‐Revolutionary parties goes further, then in the near future we will witness a significant transformation of the Socialist‐Revolutionary party.

At the moment, the main attention of the SRs, as in the last reporting period, is focused on the process. They publish the relevant literature, leaflets, as we see in Odessa, where a pre‐process leaflet was found in the main workshops under the title ʺTrial of the Party.ʺ The Odessa organization is generally quite powerful, it numbers about 300 people.

The organization publishes the newspaper ʺZnamya Trudaʺ, 15 issues have already been issued, besides that, propaganda leaflets are being published. All this literature is scattered at meetings, distributed among sympathizers and in places where people gather.

We see a fairly strong grouping of SRs in Tomsk. Here they are trying to take over the cooperation. They are making a successful selection of co‐operators in the Tomgubsoyuz. One of the main tasks of the Tomsk organization is the disintegration of the Soviet apparatus. Under various pretexts, prominent Socialist‐

Revolutionary Party workers are trying to get into the center.

Recently, a large influx has been observed in the Saratov province. right‐wing Socialist‐Revolutionaries ʺconstituent membersʺ. Soviet and economic bodies and mainly cooperatives are beginning to fill up with new arrivals.

In the city of Stavropol, there is a unification of the white officers with the right SRs and cadets. True, there is still no active political work, but, according to available data, it is planned for the fall.

In Pskov, the Social Revolutionaries, in connection with the process, are preparing an economic strike in the land administration.

After some recovery from the defeat received in April, the Moscow organization again suffered a significant blow. A number of active workers, members of the Central Bureau of the AKP and others have been removed from it.

A lot of literature was confiscated: The Revolutionary Deed magazine, an organ of the Petrograd organization Revolutionary Russia, Trud newspaper, an organ [of the organization] of the AKP Moscow Bureau, leaflets, a verbatim record of the process, minutes of the meeting of a foreign delegation, correspondence with Vandervelde, a lot of printed material.

What the organization had been establishing over the course of several months, such as the printing house, a relatively wellestablished publication of the Trud newspaper, published in July in

2 issues, has now largely gone down the drain.

We do not yet know how the places react to the verdict against the SRs, but, undoubtedly, we are facing a significant revival of the work of the SRs both in the center and in the localities.

Mensheviks

The Menshevik party remains the most active of all the so‐called socialist parties.

The most powerful of its organizations are, of course, St. Petersburg and Moscow, but the periphery also has many places where the Mensheviks do quite significant work.

Now, after the subsequent arrests of the Mensheviks, the Moscow organization is carefully conspiratorial, going deeper and deeper into the underground.

The Mensheviks continue to publish and distribute their printed organs and literature.

This is the work of the Mensheviks in federation.

At st. Moscow North Railway a Menshevik leaflet with a protest against the detention of a group of Mensheviks was found in the middle repair workshop of the traction service of the 1st sector.

In Moscow, among the students of the Institute of National Economy. Karl Marx revealed the opposition‐Menshevik trend. So far, he has not shown social and political activity due to the overload of students with educational work, in connection with the examination session.

In the Butyrsky district of Moscow, there is a group calling itself ʺSocial Democratʺ. The goal pursued by the group is the restoration of the workers against Soviet power, the convocation of a Constituent Assembly, or, in extreme cases, a constitutional monarchy. From this group, several people were identified ‐ members of the group and several sympathizers.

In the workshops of the 1st section of the North Railway. the leaflet ʺAppeal to all Moscow workersʺ was discovered, issued by the

RSDLP on June 15, 1922.

The work of the Mensheviks at the Glukhovsky convent is noted.

In Sokolniki, proclamations of the Central Committee and the EC of the RSDLP dated July 13, 1922 were pasted up.

A group of Mensheviks was discovered in Vneshtorg.

The work of the Moscow organization of the Mensheviks, which had quieted down at the beginning of the reporting month, after the last arrests in the 2nd half of June, begins to gradually revive, the Mensheviks who have escaped arrest live illegally and are hiding in the outskirts of Moscow in their dachas. To conceal themselves, active workers of the RSDLP use fictitious forged documents.

There are two trends among the Moscow organization ‐ left and right. The latter has a connection with the non‐party group of Social Democrats, which threw out the slogan of overthrowing Soviet power. This group, however, has not shown itself in anything lately.

In Petrograd, the Petrograd organization is intensifying its work among the workers.

The Petrograd Committee of the RSDLP, starting from June of this year, has been publishing a typewritten magazine ʺRabochiy

Listokʺ.

In the provinces, the work of the Mensheviks during the month under review was expressed as follows.

In Minsk, two groups of Bundists were found: in the scientific society of doctors, another of 12 people, actively working in the Vneshtorg of Belarus.

In Vitebsk, during a search of the Mensheviks, a resolution of the RSDLP Committee on the trial of the Socialist‐Revolutionaries was found, which the Mensheviks intended to submit to a meeting of the

City Council.

In Vyatka, the administrative exiles working in the gubernia council of national economy ‐ Mensheviks, spoke actively at the meeting of employees. Some of them were elected by a meeting to the peopleʹs courts and the local council. Recently, administrative exiles have been actively speaking at meetings and conferences.

In Novonikolaevsk, the Mensheviks did not take part in the antiSocialist‐Revolutionary demonstration and were indignant at the trial of the Socialist‐Revolutionaries.

In the Tyumen province. at the congress of food cooperators, two Mensheviks, representatives of the All‐Russian Union of Industrial Cooperation, called for protesting against the arrest of the former board of the Industrial Union, considering the arrest a violation of cooperative ethics. The board was arrested for official fraud.

In the Tver province. at the Morozov convent the Mensheviks formed an organizational bureau, the purpose of which was to prepare general meetings of workers.

In the Moscow province. Mensheviks are trying to overthrow the rule of Rabispros.

The Kharkov organization of the RSDLP issued the 10th issue of the magazine ʺSocial‐Democratʺ, the organ of the Kharkov committee of the RSDLP.

In Kiev there is a group of Social‐Democratic youth, which is doing quite successful work in contact with a circle of SocialistRevolutionary youth.

In Nikolaevsk, the organization of the RSDLP split into two pronounced directions ‐ right and left.

In Poltava, the existing organization of the Mensheviks of 30 people does not show active work.

In Tomsk, in connection with the campaign of re‐election of the boards of the UCHTPO and trade unions, the work of the Mensheviks is noted, trying to discredit the candidates nominated in the list of the RCP and to deceive persons with a petty‐bourgeois psychology.

As for the activities of the RSDLP abroad, we have no information about it. According to the editorial of the Socialist Bulletin No. 11 entitled “In the Struggle for Unity,” we can judge the assessment of the attitude towards the RCP and Soviet power.

The article concludes that Bolshevism is currently a ʺsubclassʺ antisocialist state organization hostile to the working class, therefore, there can be no united front with the Bolsheviks referred to in the article as the camp of the bourgeoisie.

This article caught the Central Committee by surprise in Russia, [which] does not agree with the official party organ to reconsider the issue of further tactics without its knowledge, although for its part it has nothing against revision, considering it only necessary to do this not by an article, but by the official party document.

Left SRs

A detailed assessment of the work of the Party of the Left SocialistRevolutionaries was given in the last survey, to talk about it now is to a large extent to repeat itself, for there are almost no changes in the general position of the party. The work carried out by the party of the Left Social Revolutionaries is insignificant; it has no particular influence on all classes of the population without exception.

We will only point out the rapprochement of the Left SocialistRevolutionaries with the Right, which is noted in many places. This is indicated by information from Petrograd, Kursk, Kharkov, Vitebsk.

In St. Petersburg, a certain bloc of Left Socialist‐Revolutionaries with the Right has even been established. In parallel with this, the St. Petersburg Left Socialist‐Revolutionaries are in solidarity with the Mensheviks in anti‐Soviet work, rendering each other mutual support.

In Kharkov, signed by the organization of the united right and left Social Revolutionaries, a proclamation was issued indicating a crisis in the party and the need to implement the idea of unity.

Of the most noticeable cities in the work of the Left SRs, Krasnodar, with an organization of 5 people in Labinskaya stts., Nizhny Novgorod, where the organization decided to legalize, create a provincial committee and gather a provincial organization from representatives of the counties, Vyatka, where the organization went underground.

A fairly significant organization is registered in Taganrog, where there are 50 people. Due to hunger, she does not actively work. Finally, the Left SRs are most active in the cities mentioned above, where they are uniting with the Right.

In the reporting time, by the way, another underground group crystallized ‐ the Alekseevskaya, which the leftists themselves call ʺCommunists at five minutes.ʺ

Anarchists

If we characterized the work of the Socialist‐Revolutionaries as having no influence on the masses, then to an even greater extent this can be said about the work of the anarchists.

The fate of the Mensheviks, Socialist‐Revolutionaries and other parties overtook the anarchists, and among them we observe a split into two parts. One is trying to legalize itself, while the other, on the contrary, is conspiratorial, going deep underground.

Among the legalized organizations, confusion and scattering are noted, which is mainly explained by a series of searches, arrests among all anti‐Soviet parties and, in particular, among anarchists.

Legal groups do not enjoy any influence and, thanks to their insecure semi‐legal position, eke out the most miserable condition.

Among the anarchists of the underground, especially among its prominent workers, there is a tendency to concentrate both the activists who remained at large and scattered anarchist groups for joint underground work.

But again, the disintegration to which the Anarchist party underwent, due to its inactivity during the existence of Soviet power, mistrust of each other, suspicion, provocation, finally paralyzes its work.

CHURCHES

In the last survey, three main groups of Orthodox clergy were characterized, which were the result of the new renewed movement.

These groups are as follows: renewed, expectant and reactionary.

Of these three trends, the most numerous until now remains the reactionary trend, in which almost all the influential and authoritative elements of the church leadership are united among believers.

The split among the clergy, which has engulfed almost all of Russia in its movement, has recently slowed down. This is due to the fact that the Renovationists to some extent exhausted the entire supply of priests who, thanks to the split, followed the reformers. It must be said that the contingent of recruits consists of a large number of drunkards, offended and dissatisfied with the princes of the church, which greatly contributes to the development of antagonism between the two main streams of the clergy.

Now the influx has stopped, because the more sedate, true adherents of Orthodoxy do not go to them, among them the last rabble, which has no authority among the believing masses. This circumstance is used by the reactionary clergy in order to discredit the new Renovation movement, he succeeded in Chelyabinsk, Samara and other cities, where the Renovationists had previously passed a resolution in the spirit of support for the UCU, now to disrupt meetings, to pass resolutions on non‐recognition of the

UCU.

And there is no need to talk about the mass of believers. Except for the very insignificant individual transitions to the side of the renovationists, we can assume that the schism in the church, which split the clergy, has not yet touched the believing masses. True, this question worries her to a great extent, but she still remains true to the old traditions.

As for the confiscation of valuables, it is finally completed throughout the Republic. Among the clergy and believers, excesses and agitation against the seizure were not observed during the current period of time.

A few words about Baptists. Recently, their strong quantitative reproduction and the growth of communities among the peasant masses have been noticeable. They are actively recruiting new members. At meetings organized by them, rather sharp attacks are made against the Soviet regime.

On the 5th of September, the All‐Russian Congress of Evangelical Christians is to be held in Moscow.

The Baptists are calling their convention at the same time, [in] which the final merger of Baptists and evangelists under the name of the All‐Russian Union of Evangelical Christians Baptists is to take place.

BANDITRY

In the reporting July, banditry continues to concentrate in the border provinces. It is here that it bears most of all a political character, for in the central provinces it has finally lost its soil in the peasantry, and if it [is] elsewhere, it continues to cause even anger and active opposition of the broad peasant masses.

What is the position of banditry in the border zone? We will start at the northern Finnish border and move south and further east.

Armed White‐Karelian detachments, noted in the last survey for June, continue to concentrate all in the same areas ‐ in Finland on the border with Russia. Despite the information received about their upcoming performance, they are not active in June. In general, any significant performance by them is hardly possible, for, on the one hand, the political mood of Finland does not favor this, on the other hand, among many members of the detachments, there is a reluctance to continue the struggle with Soviet Russia. This is taken into account by the organizers of the Karelian movement, who have turned all their attention to underground work in our rear, for which, according to available information, they are forming special insignificant gangs in Finland.

Anti‐Soviet organizations are also engaged in the same activity in Latvia, where in the reporting month their activities were limited to expelling their agents to our territory to organize speeches and organize communication of gangs with representatives from outside the Cord. However, they did not manage to develop any major work, and so far the matter was limited to a speech in the Pskov province. an insignificant gang of 20‐30 people under the command of a prominent Savinkovsky leader Colonel Vasiliev.

In early July, they carried out raids on Kholm and Demyansk, where they plundered Soviet institutions, cooperatives and released prisoners. Despite Vasilievʹs desire to attract the peasantry to his side with Balakhovichʹs methods (distribution of looted property) and thereby raise an uprising, he still did not succeed, and the population, with the exception of the kulak and White Guard elements, reacted passively to his appeals.

In the same Pskov province. several more gangs of Savinka color were discovered, the total number of participants in which is extremely small and reaches 70 people.

In the western provinces in July, banditry began to subside, firstly, as a result of the beginning of field work and, secondly, as a result of the energetic measures taken to eliminate the gangs. Only in the border districts of Vitebsk province. the emergence of new foreign gangs was noted, which, however, did not show activity. They revealed themselves only with rare raids on the executive committees and on cooperatives for earning a livelihood. In general, all the activities of the Savinka and balakhovich gangs of foreign origin are mainly reduced to underground work among the peasants, and the organizations of the foreign countries ‐ to the formation of conspiratorial ʺfivesʺ both on their territory and on ours, the duty of which is to agitate among the peasantry and maintain communication between the gangs ... The total number of the latter reaches, according to the latest information,

The Petliura bandits in the south‐west of Ukraine in the provinces of Podolsk, Kiev, Kremenchug and Kharkov are much more active. These provinces are their permanent areas of operation. In the three border gubernias they have underground organizations that enjoy the sympathy of some part of the population and are led by Petliura officers and instructors who keep in touch with scattered gangs. At this time, the gangs of these provinces pose a rather serious threat to the upcoming collection of tax in kind. In recent years, gangs have again taken up the destruction of railway lines ‐ a phenomenon that has long been noted in the activities of gangs. From these provinces, they very often carry out raids on the neighboring Odessa and Nikolaev provinces.

In the rest of the provinces, banditry has quantitatively increased, but it is much less active. The remnants of the Makhnovists and other White Guards who have lost their permanent, well‐

established ties with organizations outside the Cord are wandering here, and therefore [they] degenerate into criminal gangs, causing a hostile attitude of the peasantry. Of the largest gangs, the newly emerging in Chernigov province deserves to be noted. Skubakʹs gang of 150 people, in Yekaterinoslavskaya province. Makhnovist gang of Syrovatsky and Gubarsh of 150 people and in Kharkov province. gangs Nedelko and Tkachenko with a total number of 50 people. The same gangs often move to Donetsk province, in which, moreover, purely criminal banditry has developed recently.

In the Crimea, the bandits finally calmed down and in small groups are trying to get into the cities. In general, in the reporting month, Crimea was less susceptible to gang activities than other regions of the South.

The number of gangs in Ukraine is approximately 70, with a total number of bandits ‐ 1,500 foot and horse with 16 machine guns.

In connection with the activities of Petliuraʹs gangs on our territory, let us briefly point out the activities in June of Petliuraʹs organizations beyond the cordon. It should be noted that their activity in the reporting period revived. All their attention was drawn to the transfer of the most reliable Petliura members, most of the command personnel, from the Polish camps to Bessarabia, where Petliura, apparently, was organizing new detachments. In addition, volunteers are recruited in the camps, whose detachments, under the guise of working squads, appeared in the border zone. According to the latest information, small detachments of officers are crossing the border and are tasked with grouping in the Fastov direction.

Let us point out, however, that the mood of the internees in the camps is extremely unfavorable for the Petliurists, and the recruitment of volunteers is carried out in secret from the bulk of the internees.

In the South‐Eastern Territory of the Republic, banditry continues to decline in July, which is mainly explained by the loss of trust and support from the local population.

Over the past month, the voluntary turnout of bandits has increased. The remnants of the once large gangs behave passively and only in Tver lips. from time to time, the gangs of Mordachev and Bogomazov manifest themselves with raids.

A lull is also observed in the Transcaucasia, where banditry has become dispersed and has lost its political color, degenerated into criminality. In Georgia alone, Chelokaevʹs gang still operating here ¹⁸⁴ survived. At the end of July, attacks by Persian robbers on our border line also became more frequent.

There is no need to talk about banditry in the Volga region. In July, Serovʹs gangs of all‐Russian persuasion lived out their last days here. The hostile attitude of the peasantry towards them, the energetic measures taken by the GPU authorities to eliminate them, and their decomposition through agitation, calls for a voluntary turnout ‐ all this led to the final disbandment of the gangs. Some of the leaders were destroyed, some were captured; Serov himself has lost faith in the possibility of the revival of the gang, intends to flee. Already in early August, we received information that Serovʹs gangs were finally liquidated.

Criminal banditry, which has intensified in spring due to famine, has also begun to decline due to a good harvest.

In the West Siberian District, the lull that came after the defeat of the Kaigorodov and Kolesnikov bands continues to this day. The remnants of the gangs, split into small groups, went into the forests, and only hunger forces them to sometimes raid the villages. These gangs, once definitely of the Socialist‐Revolutionary style, have now almost completely lost their political coloring, they can be called criminal rather than Socialist‐Revolutionary. And as such, they finally lost the sympathy of the countryside ‐ a phenomenon that we have already observed in the rest of the Republic. However, it would be somewhat premature to assert that banditry has finally been eliminated in these districts. Moving further east, we are in Akmola and Tomsk lips. we come across criminal gangs, SocialistRevolutionary and even monarchist, but their numbers and activity are insignificant. The well‐armed and active gang of Zinoviev, consisting of officers and whose slogan is ʺFor Nicholas IIʺ, deserves attention. Further east in the Altai lips the gangs are certainly operating from the Socialist‐Revolutionary, which have close ties with the Socialist‐Revolutionary organizations in the villages and villages. The most active and largest gang is in the area of the river. White gang Karman Chekurakov of 500 people. These gangs enjoy the sympathy of the population.

Quite active Social Revolutionary gangs, sometimes carrying out raids on even small garrisons, are registered in the Yenisei and

Irkutsk provinces.

In general, in Siberia in the above‐mentioned provinces, up to 2000 bandits in 30 gangs are registered.

Banditry in the Yakutsk Region, which took on such a rampant scale last month, when the years were besieged by numerous gangs. Yakutsk and Vilyuisk, in July sharply declined and began to decompose. This is explained by the political turmoil in Vladivostok, from where the gangs received support all the time. The officers who led the entire movement in July abandon the units to their fate and, together with the rebel headquarters and the regional administration, flee to Nelkan. The detachments, left without leaders, from the Vilyui and Yakutsk regions moved eastward towards the same city of Nelkan.

It remains for us to point out the state of Basmachism in Turkestan.

During the reporting month, we have not observed any significant changes in the Basmak movement. There were only isolated speeches that played almost no role in the general course of events. There were some minor gangs crossing over to our side, but even those groups left us again. The attitude of the population to the Basmachs is different, but on the whole it is still very sympathetic. Basmachi continues to be ruled by Enver Pasha, who has reconciled with another leader of the Basmachi Ibrahim Bek ¹⁸⁵, and now [they] act in concert. In July, we caught in the Fergana region. former commander‐in‐chief of the Basmachi Muetdin.

The total number of Basmachs in Turkestan still remains about 45‐

46 thousand.