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Review of the political state of the USSR
Review of the political state of the USSR in May 1925
Top secret
July 3, 1925.
Moscow
Ex. No. ... Top secret Store as Tov code ....
An overview of the political state of the USSR for the month of May 1925 is being transmitted.
The review was compiled on the basis of state information data from the OGPU Inform Department, supplemented by materials from the OGPU departments: Secret (anti‐Soviet parties and groups) and counterintelligence (banditry).
This survey, in view of its top‐secret nature, should be kept on par with the code. Making copies and making extracts is not allowed in any case.
The PP of the OGPU and the chiefs of the OGPU governorates should acquaint the heads of the OGPU DTO with the overview. In addition, they can give an overview for reading to the secretaries of regional committees, provincial committees, regional committees and the Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP, as well as the chairmen of the executive committees and the Central Executive Committee from the autonomous republics.
Deputy Chairman of the OGPU Yagoda
Head of the Information Department of the OGPU Prokofiev
WORKERS
The general mood of the workers continues to be quite Soviet in May. At the same time, the size of the strike movement and the growth of economic conflicts, which have assumed significant proportions in the textile industry and some other sectors, indicate an undoubted increase in activity in the working environment. This activity at this stage is not of any pronounced anti‐Soviet character, but is directed largely against the administration and is mainly limited by the framework of economic demands. Most of the strikes in May are in the nature of demonstrations to draw the attention of the Soviet government to the situation of the least paid groups of workers. At the same time, there is a tendency towards a longer economic struggle and, which is especially characteristic of Ivanovo‐Voznesensk province., to involve neighboring enterprises in the strike movement in order to ensure the success of the strikes. Hence the ʺcreepʺ of some strikes. The workers usually think here, too, that they are fighting not against the Soviet regime, but exclusively against the distortion of its directives by the administrative apparatus (for example, a letter from textile workers to comrade Rykov with a request for protection).
One of the reasons for the growth of the strike wave is also the fact that despite the relatively low authority in many cases in the eyes of the workersʹ cells and especially the factory committees (which in the eyes of the workers are compromised by the compliance of the administration by the fact that they did not defend the demands of the workers) the mood of the workers very often does not find legal exit on the trade union and party lines.
The strike movement in the textile industry reaches a significant development in May. Among other groups of workers, builders and loaders draw attention to themselves, where the tense mood is due to extremely low earnings (for builders, compared to last year, it is 30% lower, which is partly due to the huge influx of unemployed builders. The ferment in these groups is therefore partly a reflection of the unemployed sentiment. The rest of the industries also have conflicts over measures to raise labor productivity, but to a lesser extent, especially the glass industry, where strikes have taken place.
Textile industry
Strike movement. The wave of the strike movement in the textile industry reaches its greatest development in May. A total of 12 strikes were registered (almost 50% of all strikes per month). The movement covers factories in the Moscow province. (5 strikes) and IvanovoVoznesenskaya (6 strikes). The strikes in May were protracted (half of the strikes last from 1 to 5 days) and were transferred from one enterprise to another. Only one of the Ivanovo‐Voznesenskaya
lips. about 12,000 workers went on strike in May.
In Moscow province. one of the largest is the strike at the Krasnoye Znamya factory of the Yegoryevsko‐Ramensky Trust, 6,000 workers, which involved 1,800 workers and lasted from May 27 to June 1; the strike arose on the basis of the compaction of the working day in the mule department by removing one piecer from each pair of machines, and the issue was not coordinated with the workers and the very rationality of this event was controversial even for the plant management itself. The most active instigators of the strike were individual members of the RCP and the factory committee; they began work after leaving the previous number of piecers. On May 7, 200 spinners of the Glukhovsky district of the Bogorodsko‐Shchelkovsky trust went on strike for the second time (after the April strike) due to the underdevelopment of the basic rate; the strike lasted an hour, but the strike mood gripped the workers of the entire factory (up to 14,000 people). On May 11, the workers of the Zubovsk district of the BukharaRussian partnership went on strike, demanding an increase in rates by 50% (average rate of 26 rubles). On May 8, 44 weavers went on strike at the ʺRed Uzbekistanʺ factory because of the underdevelopment of the basic rates they had received earlier. At the Khapilov factory, 20 weavers went on strike on the grounds of poor quality of raw materials.
The movement along the Ivanovo‐Voznesenskaya lips is especially characteristic. The most significant is the strike at the Teikovo field (May 6‐9), which involved 5,000 workers out of 7,280 workers at the factory. The reason was the transition to 3 machines and 4 sides, carried out by the administration and the factory without the knowledge of the workers. The initiator was a group of 15 former communists, and among those campaigning for the termination of the work were also individual candidates of the RCP; The strikers demanded the abolition of the new method of work, payment for downtime due to strikes in February and March, the re‐acceptance of workers dismissed after past conflicts, the immediate dismissal of the director and chairman of the factory committee. A commission created from representatives of local authorities and elected from workers, most of the requirements were satisfied (the transition to 4 sides was canceled, it was decided to pay for the days of the strike and it was promised to remove the director in case of confirmation of the facts of poor management of the work, and re‐elect the chairman of the factory committee). Concessions to the workers of the Teikovo factory became known in other factories, where there was already significant fermentation on the basis of low rates, the transition to an increased number of sides, and caused a number of new strikes (B. Dmitrovskaya, Staro‐Dmitrovskaya, Small Linen State Trust and 2 strikes within one week at the B. Kokhomskoy mine). The strike at the Staro‐Dmitrovskaya convent lasted from 13 to 18 May; the strikers sent delegates to neighboring factories (B. Dmitrovskaya, Zaryadye, Rabkrai, Novo‐Voznesenskaya) with a request to join the strike; negotiations were conducted with Teikov over the phone, from where she was invited to the factory. Maleeva, former member of the RCP and leader of the Teikovo strike (several delegates from Teikov arrived at the factory). The strikers demanded the abolition of the transition to 3 machines, the settlement of prices at all factories, the improvement of the quality of raw materials, payment of for absenteeism through the fault of the administration and the issuance of a loan in cash. The strike was ended after promising to resolve all issues within six days. The strike from the Staro‐Dmitrovskaya factory spread to neighboring factories (B. Kokhomskaya, Malaya Linnaya and B. Dmitrovskaya), in addition, strike tendencies were observed in almost all textile factories in the province. On May 16, spinners went on strike at the B. Kokhomskoy deposit, and on May 21, 500 water boats, in both cases, the workers presented a demand for an increase in prices and the abolition of new methods of work. payments to workers for absenteeism due to the fault of the administration and the issuance of a loan in cash. The strike was ended after promising to resolve all issues within six days. The strike from the Staro‐Dmitrovskaya factory spread to neighboring factories (B. Kokhomskaya, Malaya Linnaya and B. Dmitrovskaya), in addition, strike tendencies were observed in almost all textile factories in the province. On May 16, spinners went on strike at the B. Kokhomskoy deposit, and on May 21, 500 water boats, in both cases, the workers presented a demand for an increase in prices and the abolition of new methods of work. strike tendencies were observed in almost all textile factories of the province. On May 16, spinners went on strike at the B. Kokhomskoy deposit, and on May 21, 500 water boats, in both cases, the workers presented a demand for an increase in prices and the abolition of new methods of work.
Transition to an increased number of machines. The immediate cause of the strike movement was the transition to work on an increased number of machines and sides. However, the main one should be considered dissatisfaction with the low level of wages. The tightening of the working day and the transition to a new method of work were not usually accompanied by an increase in the generally low rates typical of the textile industry. With the transition to several machines and sides, earnings, as a rule, increased for only a small group of people who were transferred to the best technically machines. In IvanovoVoznesensk Gubernia, in addition, the fact that the transition to an increased number of machine tools before the revolution was not a success for the capitalists, the factory owners, was strongly influenced by the long strike sustained by the workers on this basis. As a result, here in almost all factories the innovation met with resistance from the workers,
Unpreparedness of the campaign. A very important point was the lack of preparation of the campaign (organizational and technical) on the part of the administration, trade union organizations and provincial committees. In many cases, the measures were introduced without a preliminary explanatory campaign exclusively in the administrative order (Weaving factory No. 2 of the Orekhovo‐Zuevsky trust, Teikovskaya factory of Ivanovo‐Voznesensk province., IvanovoVoznesensk, Vladimir and Yaroslavl provinces). During the transition to an increased number of machines and sides, the shortcomings of technical equipment, severe wear and tear of machines and poor quality of raw materials were often not taken into account. Discontent for these reasons was noted at most enterprises (Khapilovskaya m‐ra Vigontrest, Vysokovskaya m‐ra Tver cotton trust, factory ʺRed textile workerʺ of the Serpukhov trust, factory named after Nogin, Zubovskaya factory of Bukhara‐Russian trust and others in Moscow province; B. Kokhomskaya, Staro‐Dmitrovskaya, Spinning mill in B. Ivanovo‐Voznesenskaya m‐ry and a number of factories in IvanovoVoznesenskaya province.). The movement was caused not so much by the fact of a significant tightening of the working day, but by the shortcomings with which this campaign was accompanied.
Downtime due to the fault of the administration is very numerous (lack of raw materials and materials, poor quality of raw materials, etc.). At the Polyanskaya paper‐spinning factory in Moscow province. idle time on this basis reaches large proportions and does not take into account why workers do not earn their basic salary. At the factory ʺRed Mayakʺ of the Leningrad province. cars sometimes stand for whole days. At the factory ʺKrasny Uzbekistanʺ (Moscow), due to a lack of raw materials, 25 and 90% of all looms were stopped for one day. Similar phenomena have been reported in many factories.
Underdevelopment of the basic salary. All these abnormalities further exacerbate the situation, since the inability to develop higher standards leads in a large number of cases to a decrease in the already rather low wages of textile workers. At the Paper Spinning Mill of the OrekhovoZuevsky Trust, with the transition to 4 sides and a simultaneous increase in the speed of machines, earnings of some categories fell sharply by 50%. Low earnings due to non‐production of norms are noted at most factories in Ivanovo‐Voznesensk province. However, it should be noted that in isolated cases those working on 3 machines earn significantly more than those working on 2 machines (for example, the factory named after Nogin of the Ivanovo‐Voznesensky State Trust, the Bolshaya Krasnaya factory of the Shuisky district). In these cases, there was dissatisfaction among the topics remaining on 2 machines, that the transition to 3 machines with the provision of better equipped machines leads to a decrease in the earnings of the rest of the workers. At the weaving factory ʺRab [ochiy] landʺ of Ivanovo‐Voznesensk province. workers declare that the transition to 3 machines is not voluntary since those who remain on 2 machines (worse) are reduced.
Rates. Finally, a large number of dissatisfaction is caused by the reduction in prices, carried out in connection with the revision of norms at a number of enterprises. Suffice it to say that this was the direct cause of 5 strikes (out of 12) in the textile industry. In connection with a significant decrease in earnings in some shops of the Yakovlevskii f‐k Ivanovo‐Voznesensk province. workers were supposed to send to Comrade Rykov, a delegate with a letter in which they declare that ʺthey were completely crushed by the new ratesʺ, and they turn to him as a representative of the workers and peasants ʺto take them under their protectionʺ; at the same time an application was submitted to the director, which was also signed by the members and candidates of the RCP. In many cases, the prices are not announced in a timely manner, and the workers do not know about them until they receive the pay books (the ʺLeader of the Proletariatʺ factory of the YegoryevskoRamensky Trust, factory ʺProletaryʺ trust Mossukno, Yuryev factory ʺProletarian avant‐gardeʺ Vladimir province. and etc.).
Demands for an increase in wages. The movement among textile workers is generally reduced to demanding higher wages. In some cases, workersʹ demands are reduced to a 25‐50% increase in wages. In view of the fact that the real increase in wages as a result of the increase in output covers relatively small groups of workers, put on the best machines, and the whole mass of textile workers has not been increased wages, the situation in this respect continues to be tense.
Metal industry
Strikes. In the metal industry, conflicts over higher yields and lower prices are less severe than in the textile industry. May gives a strong decline in strikes (2 strikes against 10 in April). It should be noted, however, that the conflicts here are far from limited to these strikes. A partial strike in the shell shop of the Perm Gun Factory on 4 May, lasting 4 hours, was caused by a decrease in prices and an increase in rates; the workers presented a demand to reconsider the developed norms within 2 weeks. The strike at the Petrovsky mechanical plant in Kaluga province, which took place on May 18‐19, was caused by a delay in wages; The strikers organized a strike committee, which included members of the bureau of the RCP cell and the chairman of the factory committee.
Dissatisfaction with higher rates and lower prices. Rising rates and lowering rates continue to be one of the main reasons for worker discontent. In many factories, due to the excessive increase in the norms, the workers ʺdrive outʺ only bare rates, without receiving additional work (the plant named after Petrovsky, Yekaterinoslavskaya province). At the Bryansk plant ʺProfinternʺ in the Bryansk province. on this basis, a member of the RCP called on the workers to strike and declared: ʺEnough to be silent, we must quit work, then they will think of us.ʺ
Dissatisfaction is aggravated by the reduction in prices without the knowledge of the workers (Boltorezny plant in Leningrad province, Perm gun plant in the Urals, Electrosila in Ukraine). At the latter, due to the halving of prices on the initiative of the appraiser, the shop foreman, the candidate of the Communist Party of Ukraine, campaigned for a strike, declaring: ʺThis will be so as long as the workers do not allow themselves to sit on their necks, the workers did the revolution not in order to live in povertyʺ; in some of these plants, productivity drops.
Demand for an increase in wages. Since at most enterprises, workersʹ earnings are low and do not rise for unskilled workers above 17‐20 rubles. (factories of Ukraine named after May 1, ʺKrasny Progressʺ, Sudostroitelny named after Marty), and among qualified workers it decreased (sometimes almost by half, at ʺKrasny Sormovʺ in Nizhny Novgorod province. instead of the 60 rubles they produced in April, may no more than 35 rubles), workers put forward demands for an increase in wages (Leningrad factories, factories of Ukraine and the Prioksky Mining District). At the Electrosila plant in Kharkov province. workers demanded an increase in the extra earnings from 50 to 70%. At some factories, anti‐Soviet elements are campaigning for higher wages (Kiev ʺArsenalʺ and other factories).
Skilled workers leaving. Failure to meet the requirements entails the departure of workers from enterprises (Sormovo factories, Leningrad ʺRussian Dieselʺ, ʺEconomizerʺ, Marty Shipyard ‐ Odessa province). In connection with rumors about high wages in other cities, workers at Odessa metal factories take the payment and leave, the same is noted in other areas (Nizhny Novgorod).
Mining
Dissatisfaction with higher rates and lower prices. Dissatisfaction with higher rates and lower rates is also growing among mining workers; although one strike was recorded in May (Suchanskiy coal mines in Primorskaya gubernia), but conflicts take place in a number of mines in Donbass and Yekaterinoslavskaya guberniya. (Side‐anthracite mine management, Rudchenkovskoye, ʺParis Communeʺ, mine [named after] the October Revolution). At the latter, the full development of the norm causes diseases (up to 20% are sick with hernia), and in case of non‐fulfillment of the norm, the administration removes from work or reduces in the categories as weak. It makes workers especially nervous about raising rates and lowering rates without their knowledge.
At the Anzhero‐Sudzhensk mines (Siberia), due to the fact that the prices were 50% lower than the old ones, the workers say that ʺthe heads build their well‐being on the unhappiness of the workerʺ and that ʺsuch actions are not proletarian.ʺ
Chemical industry
Strikes. Rising norms and decreasing prices caused 3 strikes at glass factories. On May 5, 400 workers of the plant. Bukharin (Guskombinat of the Vladimir province). The strike on May 6 spread to the neighboring factory of the same plant (factory named after Zudov). The initiator of the strike was the factory committee, which, despite the signing of a collective agreement, incited workers to demand higher rates, as a result of which 200 workers of the gutta went on strike. On May 8, the Guttinsky shop of the Velikodvorsk glass factory in Ryazan province went on strike, since the workers were not announced the prices for piecework for April; 250 workers out of 850 people went on strike.
Construction workers
Dissatisfaction with low rates. In May, unrest among construction workers intensifies, resulting in conflicts and strikes. Low rates and unemployment are among the main reasons for dissatisfaction. In the Leningrad province. 300 carpenters went on strike at the shipbuilding office. In the Altai lips. On May 20, 75 workers of the Barnaul State Construction Office went on strike, the strikers presented a number of demands (an increase in rates, the transition to single work rates, timely payment of wages), in addition, there were tendencies among them to disperse the state construction office, consisting of former contractors. This strike was greeted with sympathy by the majority of workers in view of increasing unemployment. In Saratov, the workers planned to stage a demonstration demanding ʺwork.ʺ A tense mood is also observed among the builders of Ulyanovsk.
Movers
Dissatisfaction with low wages and growing unemployment. In May, the strike movement among loaders on the basis of small wages, already noted in April, intensifies. In Samara, on May 11, 460 water transport loaders went on strike together with city loaders. The organizer was a loader, a member of the RCP, under whose leadership a strike committee was created and a demand was made to raise wages from half a penny to two kopecks per pood and to dissolve the loading and unloading bureau. After the announcement by the gubernia trade union about the dissolution of the loadersʹ trade union, on May 14, about 100 workers began to work, and on May 18, all the rest, and half of the loaders applied for re‐joining the Union. The strike of loaders working from the transport office at the Sokol stationery factory in Vologda province, which took place on May 9, also caused by extremely low earnings (in fact, with a 12‐hour working day, earnings do not exceed 1 ruble). Finally, on May 14, 905 loaders of the Minusinsk railway went on strike. (Altai province), demanding an increase in wages by 25 kopecks. in a day. Strong fermentation is noted among Odessa loaders on the basis of the forthcoming reduction and acute unemployment. There were calls to ʺslaughterʺ the communists.
Timber industry
Delayed wages and low rates. The reasons for workersʹ dissatisfaction are still the systematic delay in wages and extremely low rates (Kaluga, Arkhangelsk, Novgorod, Pskov [provinces], the Urals, etc.). At the end of May, workers at the Krasny Profintern timber mill in Yuryevets (Ivanovo‐Voznesensk province) went on strike on the grounds of low rates. The demands made by the workers (increase in wages, increase in staff, change of the pre‐order, etc.) were partially satisfied. Salaries are especially scanty at the logging sites of Verkhne‐Volgoles and Dvinles (Pskov province), where workers working from sunrise to sunset receive 40 to 50 kopecks. in a day.
Workersʹ mood
The strike movement in the textile industry and conflicts in a number of other industries are not accompanied by the manifestation of any significant anti‐Soviet sentiment on the part of the workers. The movement has the character of intensifying activity in the struggle on an economic basis. Part of the strikes, as noted above, is also intended to draw the attention of the higher trade union and party bodies to the mood of the workers.
The nature of the strike movement. One of the most characteristic moments of the economic conflicts in May is the striving striving to get involved in the movement of neighboring enterprises. Communication is established by sending a delegation or sending notes. The striking workers of the Teikovo factory sent 5 delegates to Ivanovo‐Voznesensk to inform the strikers of the Staro‐Dmitrovsky factory. The workers of the Staro‐Dmitrovskaya factory send their two delegates to the neighboring Bolshaya Dmitrovskaya factory with an appeal to join the strike. At the same time, the delegation was sent to a number of factories (Novo‐Voznesenskaya, Zaryadye, Rabkrai). The workers of the B. Dmitrovskaya convent sent a note to Staro‐Dmitrovskaya with the following content: ʺWe workers greet you for your dedication and advocacy for the improvement of the workersʹ lives, and we ask you to come and stop our factory and make a general strike.ʺ An employee of Chesnokova from the Small Linen Convent of the State Trust came to the Zaryadye factory and campaigned for a joint strike performance. At the factories of the Gostrest of Kineshemsky, Shuisky and Rodnikovsky districts, in connection with the strikes of the Ivanovo‐Voznesensky textile factories, agitation was noted to support the strikers, while it was indicated that ʺif they do not support, then the Soviet government promised to the Teikovo workers will not be fulfilled.ʺ In many factories of Ivanovo‐Voznesensk province. The satisfaction of the demands of the Teikov workers caused the following rumors: “The Teikovites went on strike, demanding better working conditions and higher wages, hence the conclusion that they cannot improve their situation with silence and requests, a strike action is necessary” (Zaryadye factories, Voznesenskaya, Staro‐Dmitrovskaya). “It is necessary to apply Teikʹs experience in our factories” (B. Dmitrovskaya and the factory “Rabkrai”).
The promotion of activists from among the workers and former communists. Another characteristic moment of the movement is the promotion of individual activists from among the workers into groups that are leaders of the strike movement. At the Teikovo factory of the Ivanovo‐Voznesensk Textile Trust, the strike is led by an initiative group of 15 former communists and 20 non‐party people headed by Maleeva (also a former member of the RCP and a shop delegate). At B. Dmitrovskaya the most active were a former member of the RCP and two weavers. At the factory ʺKrasnoe Znamyaʺ of the YegoryevskoRamensky Trust, a former member of the RCP was the leader; among the active leaders of the strike were former members of the RCP, some communists and members of the factory committee. A number of activists showed up at other textile factories in connection with the strikes. It should be noted that groupings based on economic demands with the participation of especially active workers ‐ former members of the RCP and often communists were also noted at a number of other enterprises in various industries (Arzhenskaya Cloth Factory in Tambov Gubernia, Bytoshevsky Glass Factory in Bryansk Gubernia and Glass Factory named after I. Zudov in Vladimir province, etc.). Usually, activists are very popular among non‐party people and behave very cautiously, in any case, they do not show themselves in any speeches of a political nature. The nature of the conflicts in May is largely determined by the sheer lack of authority in many enterprises of factory committees and party members, as well as in the administration. In a number of cases the trade union organizers completely discredited themselves by supporting the line of business executives without any regard for the real possibilities of working on conditions offered by the administration. At the Staro‐Dmitrovskaya convent and in other factories, workers refuse to negotiate with local authorities and the administration, demanding a commission from the center. The following fact is quite indicative: at the M.‐Kokhomsky convent, a group of workers went to the former owner of this manufactory Shcherbakov, now working in Textiltrest and in charge of the M.‐Kokhomsky convent, with a request to increase their wages. The demand of the strikers at the Teikovskaya field and in April at the Glukhovskaya field (to be re‐elected as factory committee) is characteristic; the active leaders of the strike, Moiseeva and Maleeva, were included in the re‐elected factory committee of the Teikovskaya factory. At the Krasnoye Znamya factory of the YegoryevskoRamensky Trust (Moscow Gubernia), at a meeting of the striking muleschikov, the workers attacked the factory and the cell, pointing out that they were not defending them; ʺCommunists are exploitersʺ. At the Stodolsk Cloth Factory named after Lenin in the Gomel province. at the meeting to renegotiate the collective agreement, the workers who spoke pointed out that the agreement, discussed by the factory and the administration, is presented to the workers only to assert that the Union and the trust are one and the same, and although the Union is Soviet, it looks at the workers worse than in bourgeois states ʺ.
Dissatisfaction with the factory committees. Dissatisfaction with the factory committees is manifested in the demand for them to lower large rates. A candidate of the RCP of one of the weaving factories of the Orekhovo‐Zuevsky trust, on the basis of a reduction in prices, wrote a statement demanding a reduction in rates to elected officials; the statement had 78 signatures. Workers of the 2nd Republican factory in Kostroma province. they say: ʺWe need to relieve our factory committees and trade unions, because a lot of people have settled there, and this is a big overhead expense.ʺ At the Tula factories, some meetings at the Armory factories during the reporting campaign of the Metalworkers Union did not take place at all, the workers said: ʺWhat should we do there, just listen that the Board of the Metalworkers Union is getting big pay and does nothing for us.ʺ
Anti‐Soviet agitation. The tense atmosphere created in certain enterprises, especially in the textile industry, is being used by some anti‐Soviet elements among the workers for the purpose of conducting anti‐Soviet agitation. Although such agitation does not cover the bulk of the workers, it is still widespread, especially in some enterprises. Agitation is being conducted almost exclusively against the administration, communists and trade union workers, who ʺare only concerned with improving their position and are not interested in workers.ʺ Agitation has an impact on some groups of the most backward workers. At the factory ʺTulmaʺ (textile), Yaroslavl province. there is talk: ʺIf there will be a coup, another party will come to power, a real worker, with which life will be better, all careerists in the party have signed up to it in order to receive a large salary.ʺ At the same time, the workers point to the administration and members of the factory committee. At the Stodolsk Cloth Factory (Gomel Gubernia) there are performances in the spirit that “the Soviet government does not protect them, the communists are nobles, a special privileged class that is in power and enjoys all earthly goods; the top authorities are completely alien to the working‐class people who managed to cling to the workers and deceived their trust. ʺ At the Leningrad textile factory No. 3 ʺKrasny Mayakʺ agitation was carried out against the elections in the communist factory committee, with which the majority of workers agreed, one worker said in his speech: the time of the revolution has gone bad; Obviously, the Vikings will have to be called up to rule. ʺ In connection with the strikes at the textile factories, at the factory them. Shagov State Trust of Ivanovo‐Voznesenskaya
Province. dissatisfaction was expressed with the fact that the Soviet government concealed such phenomena as strikes from the working masses and did not want to cover them in the press. On May 29, at the Prokhorovka convent, anti‐Soviet leaflets were found protesting “against the deception of the masses by the Soviet government and against the dictatorship”; leaflets called on ʺall class‐conscious workers to unite and act in an organized manner.ʺ
Similar performances are noted among metalworkers and mining workers. At the Krasny Arsenal plant (in Leningrad Gubernia) there is an agitation that “Soviet power led the country to ruin, and now it is leading to Hindenburgism” 163... At the Elektrosila plant, anti‐Soviet elements point out to the workers that ʺthe explosion in Sofia is a disgusting act of the communists, that money for foreign propaganda is a burden on workersʹ shoulders.ʺ Near the Luhansk cartridge plant (Ukraine) leaflets were found, which say that ʺSoviet power is a partnership of exploitation of Russiaʺ and the workers and peasants are called upon to overthrow the ʺJewish governmentʺ. At a general meeting of workers in the machine shop of the Krasnodon Mining Administration (Donbass), the brigadiers who spoke openly attacked members of the RCP, calling them bloodsuckers; these actions found a sympathetic attitude among a section of the workers. In the Rovenets mining administration, one hacker who always speaks at general meetings declares: “I am a socialist, and they persecute me everywhere; as I look at the leadership of the party in the country, I see the clear death of Russia. ʺ
Unemployed
In April and May, a number of excesses were noted among the unemployed, accompanied by very pronounced anti‐Soviet protests. The movement covers the same areas where the movement of the unemployed took place last summer (Belarus, Ukraine, some Volga and Siberian provinces and the Far East). Unskilled workers and construction workers are especially active everywhere; these are the groups that experience chronic unemployment. In some areas, the movement also covers other groups: textile workers in the central provinces, metalworkers in Odessa province.
Rising unemployment. In addition to the main cadres of the unemployed, in most trade union members, after last yearʹs purge, a moment that aggravates the unemployment situation is a huge influx of peasants from regions affected by crop failure (from the provinces of Tambov, Voronezh, Oryol, Kursk, Ryazan, Penza and Saratov). The situation of these groups of the unemployed is extremely difficult due to the lack of any organized assistance to them. In Moscow, they spend the night on the streets and boulevards, engage in begging, and women in prostitution; the unemployed gather in huge parties at the recruiting centers and talk about the ruin of the economy as a result of taxes and crop failure. In Astrakhan, the influx of peasants into the trades was so great that a significant number of them did not find work and the local authorities had to allocate significant funds to send the peasants back home, since they sold everything they had and were starving (the return sending of the peasants was only partially possible). In an anonymous letter to the chairman of the provincial executive committee, the unemployed threaten to destroy cooperatives and shops if they are not sent home.
The reason for the growing dissatisfaction at this time is disappointment in the hopes of getting a job during the construction season. Even those groups of union members who get a job are not satisfied with it due to the low wages in the construction industry, which have been established due to the large supply of labor. The members of the trade unions sent to work continue to consider themselves unemployed, since the present meager wages (on average 30% lower than last year) of construction workers for the summer season cannot provide them for the whole year.
Excesses at labor exchanges. AT In May, the tense mood of the unemployed resulted in a series of speeches, especially in Minsk and Kiev. The mood of the unemployed in Belarus is constantly noted as extremely agitated; lately there has been a definite pogrom mood among the unemployed, there have been calls to smash institutions, beat up workers of the Peopleʹs Commissariat of Labor and rob shops; anti‐Soviet sentiments are especially strong. On May 30, due to a slight delay in the issuance of benefits, a crowd of unemployed people in Minsk burst into the office of the Peopleʹs Commissariat of Labor, the chairman of the Council of Peopleʹs Commissars Comrade Adamovich could not calm the unemployed. The next day, a crowd of unemployed, in view of not being sent to work, contrary to promises, tried to beat the Peopleʹs Commissariat of Labor; the latter barely disappeared into the building of the Council of Peopleʹs Commissars, and a huge crowd of unemployed followed him. On the proposal of the Council of Peopleʹs Commissars, the unemployed were nominated to discuss the situation of the unemployed. In connection with the arrest of the active instigators of the protest and the unemployed who threw a stone at the labor commissar, the unemployed were allocated delegates demanding their release, and agitation was conducted to move in a demonstration to the GPU. The situation remains tense. In Bobruisk, unemployed builders tried to remove from work those working on the military buildings of the fortress; the engineer who invited them to disperse was beaten; the unemployed were removed with the help of the Red Army. The situation remains tense. In Bobruisk, unemployed builders tried to dismiss those working in the military buildings of the fortress; the engineer who invited them to disperse was beaten; the unemployed were removed with the help of the Red Army.
In Kiev, numerous excesses and demonstrations were noted among the unemployed during May. On May 8, the head of the labor exchange and one of the representatives of state institutions who were recruiting the unemployed were beaten by the unemployed. On May 13, a crowd of 500 unemployed people with a banner captured in one of the clubs went to the SHSG, demanding work. Representatives of unemployed railroad workers came to the unemployed, promising to support their movement. During May, the excesses on the stock exchange did not stop.
A number of excesses of the unemployed were noted in Odessa, Kharkov, Saratov, Siberia and Vladivostok.
Anti‐Soviet character of the unemployed. The demonstrations of the unemployed were strongly anti‐Soviet in nature. Individuals who stood out from among the unemployed tried to impart an anti‐Soviet character to the movement, throwing out the slogans: ʺTo act by other meansʺ, ʺto take up arms,ʺ etc. In Minsk, agitation was carried out to show the workers of the West ʺthe true position of the workers of the USSR.ʺ Among the unemployed in Kiev, some individuals are campaigning to ʺtake up arms and go to the gangs, disrupt all sorts of meetings and arrange it so that they know abroadʺ; rumors spread that ʺRussian troops stationed on the Polish borderʺ would come to the aid of the unemployed.
During the May Day demonstrations, there were a number of cases of attempts by the unemployed with separate demonstrations under the slogan ʺGive us workʺ (Bobruisk, Pervomaisk, Saratov and Vladivostok). The Omsk Labor Exchange is campaigning for the organization of a ʺunion of the unemployed.ʺ In Vladivostok, a group of unemployed people tried to come out on May 1 with a black flag and the slogan: “Give bread and work to the former fighters for Soviet power”; the arrested ringleaders were found to have appeals on behalf of the ʺWorkers ʹand Peasantsʹ Committee of Impactʺ (see Appendix No. 2).
The claims of the unemployed. The demands of the unemployed, put forward during the demonstration by the groups of ringleaders, were demagogic in nature. Basically, they boiled down to the requirement “to reduce the salaries of responsible workers and specialists to 100 rubles. with the aim of creating a fund to help the unemployed, reducing family members of communists and non‐proletarian elements, reducing the number of Komsomol members sent to work. ʺ In view of the prevailing unskilled composition of the unemployed, in some places there is dissatisfaction with the extraordinary sending of demobilized Red Army soldiers to work (see Appendix No. 2).
PEASANTRY
The political mood of the village
The political mood of the countryside in the period under review is characterized mainly by the continuing growth of the political activity of all strata of the peasantry and the intensifying class struggle. The overwhelming part of the middle peasantry is generally passive and expectant, often with distrust of the new course proclaimed by the party, expecting its real results. Against this background, the general growth of the political activity of the village at the moment, due to inertia on the part of the grassroots Soviet apparatus and especially the lack of coordination of the work of the cooperatives, KKOV, land management, often takes an anti‐Soviet direction (the demand for the organization of peasant unions, the transfer of power to non‐party peasant conferences instead of Soviets, etc.).); these demands mainly come from the middle peasants and the poor.
Along with this, we are witnessing a further increase in the activity of kulak and anti‐Soviet elements in the countryside, unleashed by the latest re‐elections to the Soviets; it finds its expression in the desire on the part of these groups to seize power, to influence the work of the grassroots co‐apparatus, and most importantly ‐ to lead and direct the growing political activity of the countryside towards the anti‐Soviet side. The intensification of activity in these groups, and especially the pressure on the poor from the significantly changed composition of the grassroots co‐workers, leads to a sharp exacerbation of the class struggle in the countryside. In a number of regions (Ukraine, the North Caucasus, Siberia), two assets are being created: one from the poor and former workers of the Soviet apparatus, the other from new employees of the apparatus, mainly from the well‐to‐do part of the countryside and often headed by the kulaks.164.
Peasant unions
The demands for the organization of peasant unions continue to be presented at various meetings, conferences and congresses. In the Moscow province. in Serpukhovsky u. such requirements were put forward at meetings dedicated to May 1. A number of individual performances were noted in the Kursk, Yaroslavl, Cherepovets, Poltava, Kiev, Novonikolaevsk provinces and in the Stavropol district (North Caucasus). In Ustyuzhensky u. Cherepovets lips. even an initiative group of peasants from three neighboring villages was created with the aim of creating a peasant union; the group included the peasants‐leaders, as well as several glass factory workers associated with the village.
Registration of the idea of cross‐unions. Most of the speeches put forward the peasant union as an organization that should resolve issues of the peasant economy, which are unsatisfactorily resolved by existing organizations (cooperatives, KKOV, land authorities, etc.). In the highest degree characteristic in this respect is the program of the peasant union, set forth in a letter to the editors of the ʺKrestyanskaya Gazetaʺ, drawn up by a middle peasant s. Winery of the Stavropol District (the letter was intended for a wall newspaper, and a group of middle peasants and poor peasants of this village associates with it).
The program of the cross‐union of the peasant of the Stavropol district. The author of the program presents the plight of the peasantry as a prerequisite for the organization of a ʺgreat, tightly welded peasant unionʺ, whose labor ʺonly those who do not want, do not use them.ʺ The program covers the creation of a comprehensive peasant cooperatives and the resolution of the land issue. The author criticizes the existing cooperation, which covers only an insignificant part of the peasants: ʺThat member, and that is not a member, and contributions to it are three kopecks.ʺ
Organization of cooperation. Cooperation should cover all members of the peasant union (that is, all the peasantry, since the union, as a monopoly owner of land, leases it only to members of the union) and act as an intermediary monopoly in the exchange between agriculture and urban industry. Specifically, the author presents it as follows: “Letʹs say, a member of the cooperation invested 100 poods. wheat and received 100 rubles. a receipt: on the delivery of goods from factories and factories, each member can take all his invested labor ‐ what he needs”, collected 100,000 poods. bread and made an agreement with the worker comrades that they accept bread from us for 1 ruble. 20 kopecks, and we, members of our cooperation, rent for 1 ruble; here 5000 poods already remains in place, which we can turn wherever we want and by 100,000 rubles. buy a product ʺ.
Resolution of the land issue. The main point of the land program of the union is the requirement that ʺall land should be our great peasant union.ʺ Persons belonging to another union should not use land (this is directed against employees in the Soviet apparatus, who also receive land at the same time). The Union leases land to its members for 3 rubles. per tithe per year for 1‐2 years without limiting the size of the lease, but so that there is enough land for all members of the union. The land is leased to the poor for free for up to 2 years and in the amount that he can work with his labor.
Help the poor. The program of the union provides for broad assistance to the poor (ʺthe union must provide great assistance to the peasants, devastated by the revolution, war and famine,ʺ ʺwe must arrange so that we do not have horseless peasants in the peasant unionʺ). For this, in addition to the rent, a special tax is imposed on members of the union who have livestock (“put 1 ruble for a horse, 1 ruble for a bull, 50 kopecks for a sheep”).
Most of the rent and fees for livestock go to distribution among poor peasants for the purchase of equipment ʺeither irrevocably or for 10 years without interestʺ; the smaller part is given by the union for state needs (ʺalso give a piece to the air fleet, etc.ʺ). Taking upon itself the care of the underpowered peasants and some assistance to the state, the union will relieve the peasants of all other state taxes.
The Cross Union as a Mutual Aid Organization. Most often, the idea of a cross union is presented in the form of a mutual aid organization. In Kursk province. at a non‐partisan conference in Podgorodischenskaya parish. the peasant proposed creating an alliance to support the poor and provide them with work during a crop failure. In the Poltava province. at a meeting of members of the CNS in the village. Brialovka of the Kremenchug district, there were proposals to create a peasant union instead of the KNS. In the Cherepovets lips. the initiative group that was created imagines the union as a body that collects membership fees based on the profitability of the economy in the general treasury, from which assistance is given to the poor peasants.
Cross unions as a political organization. Along with this, a number of speeches have in mind the organization of the cross union as a purely political organization. At a non‐partisan conference of one of the volosts of Kursk province. it was proposed ʺto liquidate the Soviets and organize peasant unions instead.ʺ In the Stalingrad province. at a nonpartisan conference in stc. Stepano‐Razinskaya in the debate on the report on the gubernial congress of Soviets spoke a teacher who insisted that non‐party conferences of peasants transfer the functions of the Soviets [to the peasant unions]. In Novo Nikolaevskaya lips. at the May Day meeting in the village. Novo‐Coen made a peasant call to organize in cross unions; to the indication of a member of the RCP that ʺwe already have poor organizations, like KKOV and agricultural collectivesʺ, the answer was: ʺFirst we organize, and then we will go to collectivity.ʺ Finally, the appeal is definitely counterrevolutionary. pasted up in the premises of the village council with. Martynovka of Shevchenko district of Kiev province, where the cross union is presented as an international organization of peasants: “Let us, comrades villagers, raise our red banners on May 1 and trumpet our worldwide trumpet ‐ villagers, unite into a great world organization. Down with the Jewish kingdom, let the preparatory movement live. ʺ
Growth in the activity of the kulaks
Groupings of the kulaks and anti‐Soviet elements. The growing activity of the kulaks finds its especially vivid expression in the creation of groupings together with various anti‐Soviet elements in the countryside (various former Whites, anti‐Soviet part of the intelligentsia, merchants, etc.). If earlier such groupings were noted as temporary organizations setting certain goals for themselves (elections to the Council, etc.), recently a number of groups that are no longer of a temporary nature have been noted. Such groups aim to fight against land management, discredit local authorities, re‐election village councils, and often terror against communists and workers of the Soviet apparatus. In the Tambov province. one of these groups (the village of Kashirka in Borisoglebskiy district), headed by a miller and uniting the kulaks and the middle peasants, is conducting monarchist agitation. In Yekaterinoslavskaya province. (from. Novo‐Grigorievskoe Melitopol District) there is a group of 23 wealthy peasants, led by the local priest and seeking to return the lands taken from the kulaks. There are a large number of groups in the North Caucasus, and they unite anti‐Soviet Cossacks, repatriates, former white officers and representatives of the tsarist and local authorities; lately, such groupings have been formed around anti‐Soviet‐minded elements who have passed into the lower government apparatus. In the Don district in the village. Kuznetsovskoye, one of these groups is conducting anti‐Soviet agitation and is seeking re‐election of the village council, appointing a former ataman to the post of chairman of the village council. In the Shakhty district (the village of Sokolo‐Kundryuchevskoe), a group of former whites who served in punitive detachments posted a notice on the door where the election committee was located, threatening the communists with reprisals.
The grouping of the wealthy peasantry in the Priluksky district of the Poltava province is highly characteristic. (v. Vecherki); at the conspiratorial meetings of this group, issues of ownership of land and forests were discussed, while it was indicated that since the Soviet government changed its policy, it is necessary to also seek ownership of land and forests.
Terror. A detailed study of the phenomena of terror in the countryside shows the existence of very diverse causes here. So, in a number of cases, terrorist acts are carried out by significant groups of peasants on the basis of various abnormalities in the work of the lower apparatus, in this regard, the increased incidence of terror against foresters and workers of the grassroots apparatus in starving areas due to the insignificance of assistance provided to the population is especially characteristic. As a typical kulak terror, it is necessary to note the phenomenon of terror against workers in land management and against Komsomol organizations in the countryside. The following facts are especially characteristic: in the Moscow province. (Bogorodsky district, Kormilino village) moonshiners set fire to the estate of the RLKSM cell secretary, having damaged the fire engine in advance; buildings, inventory and livestock were burned down; a member of the Komsomol was beaten during a fire, and threats were heard to set fire to the houses of the rest of the Komsomol and Communists. In Primorskaya lips. a group of drunks destroyed a school with. Pavlenkov Khabarovsk u., Where the performance took place; young people were beaten, badges with portraits of Lenin were torn off, etc. Among the rioters was a member of the village council.
Anti‐Soviet agitation. The period under review was also characterized by an increase in anti‐Soviet agitation in the countryside. The agitation is mainly directed against the communists. In this respect, the speech of the Presidential Council of S. Petrovsky Bogorodsky u. Moscow province. at the May Day meeting: “The authorities have many henchmen, such as secretaries of the RCP, RLKSM cells, wolves, volunteer organizers, political educators and many others who receive salaries and do nothing. All this falls on the peasantʹs neck. ʺ Another characteristic aspect of agitation is the desire to discredit in the eyes of the peasantry the new course of the Soviet government in relation to the countryside. In the Oryol province. (Bogoroditskaya vol. Orlovsky district) the kulaks say to the poor peasants: ʺThey are selling your last farms for a tax ‐ this is the sloganʺ facing the village. ʺ Newspaper reports of white terror intensifying in the West,165, were material for strengthening anti‐Soviet agitation and spreading provocative rumors in the countryside. The speech of the former chieftain stts. Konelovskaya Donskoy district: “Itʹs great to be beating the face of the communists abroad, it wouldnʹt hurt us to do this on our own.” The growth of anti‐Soviet activity of the kulaks is manifested in a significant number of all kinds of handwritten leaflets, appeals, anonymous letters, etc., noted in many provinces.
Aggravation of the class struggle in the countryside
The respite that occurred in the grassroots co‐apparatus as a result of the recent re‐elections, as well as the increased activity of the kulaks and the prosperous middle peasantry, result in pressure on the poor, leading to an intensification of the struggle between these groups in the countryside. At the same time, the struggle is mainly around the influence on the grassroots government and issues of land management. The re‐election resulted in the isolation of the poor, on the basis of which a strong development of ʺdefeatistʺ sentiments is observed in their midst, in some places resulting in the phenomenon of the Red Terror (Ukraine, Siberia). These sentiments of the poor are reflected among village communists, especially in Siberia, where they are often a source of aggravation of relations between the party and Soviet apparatus and the peasantry. These phenomena in a particularly sharp form [appear] in certain regions of the Union, where the group enmity of the peasantry was largely preserved on the basis of the preserved economic inequality of the groups of the peasantry representing the former estates (Cossacks ‐ nonresident in the North Caucasus, new settlers and old‐timers ‐ in Siberia), or as a result of shifts in political life that occurred in the peasantry during the revolution ( non‐chews and the rest of the peasantry in Ukraine). In other regions, phenomena of this kind are so far isolated, it is possible to outline similar phenomena in regions of crop failure in the form of selfimposed seizure of surplus from the wealthy part of the village by starving peasants.
Ukraine. With the comtesams, a situation had arisen by this time when the non‐chews found themselves in places completely isolated, having against themselves not only the kulaks, but also the middle peasants. In a number of cases, non‐swindlers are so terrorized that they do not even attend the meetings of the village council. In the Kharkov province. (v. Stavskoe) the newly elected village council (mostly middle peasants) takes away from the non‐chews the estates they received under the old village council. There have been a number of cases of terror against non‐swindlers. Agitation has intensified against the Comtesams, as well as against the KSM and RCP cells; in with. Pisarevshchina of the Priluksky district, a note was sent to the Komsomol cell demanding that it leave the village immediately.
The moods of non‐cheaters, as well as party members, created on this basis, are characterized by the following facts: in the Odessa province. (v. Olshanka, Pervomaisky District) the list of communists in the second elections was ruined, in this connection the communists declared: “We now have nothing to do in the Soviets, we now have other rulers who used to drink blood from us, but now they will drink even more when we became in power”. In the Podolsk lips. in with. In the tribusovka, the non‐chewers at the meeting of the CNS talked about the need to arm themselves with scythes and step on the kulaks. There are many cases of the Red Terror in the form of arsons of kulak households and the planting of anonymous letters with the threat of murder or arson.
North Caucasus. In view of the significant clogging of the grassroots co‐apparatus in the North Caucasus, the aggravation of the contradictions between the Cossacks and nonresident here takes on a particularly acute character. The struggle over land management has been especially aggravated. Clashes between nonresidents and Cossacks in a number of cases threaten to take on a serious character. In stts. Leushkovskaya, Pavlovsky district of the Kuban district, the Cossacks, headed by a former active White Guard, tried to hold only Cossacks in the re‐elections to the Soviet, rejecting the candidacies of nonresident and communists; nonresidents demanded the removal of the White Guard, and then the Cossacks left the meeting and organized a separate meeting. A member of the RCP, who invited the Cossacks to disperse, was greeted with a hail of stones. In this regard, the Cossacks announced a boycott of the nonresident, deciding not to plow their land under the threat of severe punishment for the violator of the decree. In a number of districts, Cossack threats of reprisals against nonresidents were noted in view of rumors about the arrival of Wrangel. In stts. Ternovskaya (Kuban) nonresident are so terrorized that they are afraid to speak at meetings. In stts. Balakovskaya (ibid.), The Cossack spoke: ʺWe, the Cossacks, have been waiting for Wrangel and are waiting, and Wrangel will still come, and then we will outweigh all the nonresidents.ʺ
The pressure of the Cossacks provokes a desire to repulse among the nonresident, especially the demobilized Red Army men. The following fact is especially characteristic: “In stc. In the Anastasievskaya Kuban District, rumors were circulated about the alleged beating of communists and nonresidents; in order to protect the demobilized Red Army soldiers from other cities, they decided to form a battalion at an illegal meeting and elected commanders; it is characteristic that the demobilized Red Army men talk about the fact that the communists began to support the Cossacks and therefore they will have to raise an uprising. In stts. Popovich, there were cases when the demobilized turned to the GPU with a request to supply them with weapons; there the demobilized Red Army men were going to kill the counterrevolutionary Cossacks with sticks.
Siberia. The aforementioned sentiments of ʺdisillusionment with the Soviet regimeʺ among the poor find a particularly vivid expression among the former partisans of Siberia and partly the Far East, who are groups of new settlers and poor peasants who are in hostile relations with the more prosperous part of the village ‐ the old residents. Most of the partisans held Soviet and public posts in the countryside, having low‐powered farms, or were fed exclusively near the Soviet apparatus. The new turn of Soviet power, which has so far found expression in the form of attracting other layers of the peasantry to the co‐apparatus, arouses opposition among the partisans, since it means for them the need to leave the co‐apparatus and the deterioration of their material situation. The following fact, noted in the Yenisei province, is very characteristic: in the Kansk district. partisans pursued the state bearer, trying to kill him as an obvious enemy of the Soviet regime. The mood of the partisans is clearly expressed in the following statement: “In the administration of Soviet power, there are handlers and old officers who press us because we fought against
Kolchak; under the old regime, life was easier for us”.
In the Trans‐Baikal province. appeals were circulated signed by former partisans of an anti‐Soviet character. One of such appeals indicates that the partisans were ʺmeanlyʺ deceived, thrown overboard, ruined, ʺa crowd of bandits who came to the ready, settled on a hundred‐ruble salaryʺ East in May).
Reflection of the mood of the partisans among the village communists. The sentiments of the partisans in Siberia noted above find their vivid reflection among the village communists, in the majority of the former partisans. A survey of the countryside in recent years has revealed a number of shortcomings in the work of the cells: the continuation of the line of war communism in relation to even the middle peasants and the wealthy, isolation from the middle peasants, focus exclusively on the poor and even a group of new settlers. The opinion of the village communists of the Tomsk province is characteristic. about the re‐elections: “The poor people and the communists who did not dare to vote presented a sad picture; so strong is the influence of the kulaks that only a change in this policy and the introduction of the dictatorship of the proletariat for the second time will correct the situation, otherwise terror threatens. I myself have heard from the poor and the communists that if the state does not change policy, then we ourselves will raise our weapons and deal with the bloodsuckers. ʺ The re‐election led to the fact that in some places in the villages two assets are created: one around the village councils, where the communists did not go, and the other around the cells; There is a bitter enmity between both assets (Yenisei province, Kansky district).
Red banditry. The mood of the poor peasants and the guerrillas is sometimes poured into the phenomenon of red banditry. The following two cases, which took place in April, are especially characteristic. In the Altai lips. (v. Ust‐Taimak) a candidate of the RCP threw a bomb into the prayer house of the Baptists, and the priest and four other Baptists were killed; the cell reacted sympathetically to the murder (“this is not hooliganism, but a political act”). In another village (Borovlyanki, Biyskiy u.), two middle peasants were killed; the murder involved five communists and five poor people ‐ former partisans. The murder was revenge for the beating of the communists. In the village. Solonovka of the same province, the members of the cell, together with the head of the district militia, killed a wealthy peasant, during interrogation the party members declared: “Our communists are being killed, and we have taken the path of killing bandits; our party members were afraid of bandits and kulaks,
Land management
The intensification of the class struggle in the countryside finds vivid expression in the struggle for land. Land management issues are most acute in Ukraine and the South‐East. The kulaks and the prosperous peasants adjacent to them oppose the land management in order to prevent the cutting of excess land, at the same time, they are seeking to return the previously taken land by all means.
Land conflicts in Ukraine. In Ukraine, conflicts between the well‐to‐do strata of the village and those who are not scammers are a widespread phenomenon. In the Priluksky district of the Poltava province. kulaks use a method of intimidation, sending anonymous letters with threats of murder, ʺred cockʺ, etc.; the non‐cheaters, in turn, begin to apply the same method to their fists. So, when in the village. Tribusovka Podolsk lips. on the ground of land quarrels, the kulaks in the field knocked out one of the unkemptʹs eyes, the latter, in this regard, at a meeting of the CNS, talked about arming themselves with scythes and attacking kulaks. In the Shevchenko district, the relationship between the noncheaters and the well‐to‐do part of the peasantry on the basis of dispossession is so aggravated that an insignificant reason is enough for it to turn into a massacre. The KNU members claim that if the kulaks don’t give up the surplus [land] and the authorities do not pay attention to it, then they will cut out all the kulaks and burn their property. In with. In a stepped (of the same district) on the basis of land quarrels, both sides await arson at night, one kulak economy has already been burned down by the non‐scams.
The relationship is aggravated due to the fact that the kulaks take back those that have moved away from them when cutting the land, arbitrarily seizing and sowing them. In stts. Tauzhnoy, 200 kulaks and wealthy peasants forcibly seized their former land, on the basis of which up to 70 court cases arose. The same is observed in other provinces. In the Kharkov province. in a number of villages, well‐to‐do peasants organize and self‐tax to hire lawyers and petition for the return of land taken away during dispossession.
Land conflicts in the North Caucasus. In the North Caucasus, the struggle of the Cossacks and nonresidents over land is still acute. In with. Kanelovsky, the Don District, the Cossacks, opposed to the allotment of land to other cities, say: ʺOh, I would give them land, as we gave in 1905, so that only heads were lying everywhere.ʺ On the hut. Zadonsky, a secret group was organized from nonresident on the basis of land disputes with the aim of setting fire to buildings and killing livestock belonging to the indigenous population. The struggle here is especially intensified in connection with the change in the composition of the new Soviet apparatus in the direction of strengthening the representation of the kulaks in it. In stts. When discussing the issue of allotting land to nonresident Cossacks and some members of the village council, the Cossacks and some members of the village council shouted: “We need to think about our own people who will arrive from abroad (i.e., must be sent to their province. ʺ In stts. Velichkovskaya Popovichi district The Council and the Cossack part of the population at the general meeting decided to annul the land management in 1922 and go over to the forms of land use in 1912; the nonresident, especially the demobilized Red Army soldiers, are very indignant and embittered and threaten the kulaks to repeat 1918. There are cases of unauthorized seizure of lands by nonresident Cossacks.
The high cost of land management. As one of the abnormal phenomena of land management (in addition to widespread abuses of the land management apparatus), it is necessary to note the high cost of land management work. It sometimes leads to ugly forms of enslavement through land management of the poor. So, in the Levokumsky district of the Tersk district (North Caucasus) only for the payment of the sums due for land management, the poor give their plots for a year or two to the wealthy for their use. In the village Skorzhinsky, Levokumsky district, Tersky district, four well‐todo householders leased most of the land of the poor for a period of 12 years without any payment, subject to repayment of land management costs (see Appendix No. 4).
Situation in areas of crop failure
In the reporting period, there was an aggravation of the situation in areas of crop failure, especially in the Center: Tambov, Orel and Voronezh provinces.
Hunger. In these areas, the famine in places resembles the Volga region of the twenty‐first year in size. In the Tambov province. in total, about 800‐900 thousand people (25‐30%) currently need help, and about 50% of the total population feeds on surrogates. Cases of starvation are no longer isolated, over 75 of them have recently been registered. The number of swollen and stomach diseases is also very high. In only one with. 650 people fell ill from surrogates and 20 families were swollen. In Kurdyukovskaya Vol. hungry people (14,000 people) eat grass, oak bark, etc. There were several cases of eating fell, in the village. Borisoglebskiy burners because of a dead cow that died from anthrax, a fight broke out between the starving, who took her corpse piece by piece. In the Voronezh province. hunger also affects a very significant part of the population. In Rossoshansky. 157054 people feed exclusively on surrogates, 56884 people sit completely without bread, 8381 people are sick from hunger. Art. Melovatsky KKOV registered 10,000 hungry people. In Bogucharsky u. 20,568 people eat surrogates. In Usmanskiy u. 72,065 people need food aid, of which Several cases of consumption in food fell and one case of poisoning on this basis.
In the Oryol province. about 328,700 people in need of immediate assistance (up to 20.3%). In Orlovsky u. about 40,000 people are starving. In Dmitrovsky u. in only two volosts more than 2 ʹ/ 2 thousand people are starving, in 8 volosts of the Yeletsky district. recently there have been 16 deaths due to hunger and 370 stomach diseases. In Streletskaya parish. up to 80% of the population go hungry, and in Lama parish. up to 25% of starving people are swollen. In the
Baklanovsky district, 75% of the population eats potatoes and surrogates, there are many deaths from hunger, and in only one village. Cossacks over 200 families are swollen, in Pokrovskaya parish. about 90% of the population go hungry.
Partial famine is also noted in Ukraine: in the Yekaterinoslavskaya province. in the Melitopol district there are 30,000 in dire need and in one NovoSergievsky district 8,000 people are starving. In the Kiev province. up to 100,000 people are registered in the Shevchenko district in 13 districts. In the Odessa province. (Odessa district) in 4 districts over 7,000 people are starving, in the Kherson district (Kachkarovsky district) there are 6,000 hungry people, in the Zinovievsky district (Elizavetgradsky district) about 20,000 people are starving.
Economic stratification. The growing hunger with the relative insignificance of assistance provided by the state (for example, in Esipovskaya Vol., Tambov Gubernia, 34 poods were given for 7,500 people starving, there are many similar facts), and the lack of the issued semssud leads to an ever‐increasing stratification of the village. In all districts, there is a huge number of onerous deals, cases of sale and lease of significant allotments of land for a pittance (often for two poods of flour a tithe), facts of a complete sale of living and dead implements up to the sale of roofs from houses and residential buildings. Along with this, there is a relative growth of kulak and strong farms, buying and renting land and equipment from the poor and part of the middle peasants.
The care for work is very great, from one Alekseevsky district of the Oryol province. in two months more than 1000 people left, and there is a great retreat in other areas.
The decline of the poor, and partly of the middle peasant farms, enslaving deals with the growth of the (relative) wealthy gave an extraordinary aggravation of class hostility in the countryside. A number of cases have been noted when a crowd of starving people went to rich peasants and raked out grain and flour from their barns. In with. Gladyshevo, Tambov province. the crowd so ʺcleanedʺ the bins of the priest. Burning houses and barns among the rich is much more common. This phenomenon has recently assumed a mass character; so, in Lipetsk u. Tambov lips. there have been 290 arson cases recently. Mood. The mood of the peasantry in the most starving regions is in the majority hostile. There are a lot of rumors and talk about the purchase of bread by the Soviet government in the fall at the limits, and now it is selling at triple and quarter prices. There is a lot of talk about the good living of workers provided with certain wages, and hence the growth of anti‐labor sentiment. These sentiments are especially widespread among the peasantry, who left in search of earnings and returned with nothing. Many were not accepted as members of trade unions, hence the talk about the advantages of workers with their unions over the peasantry. Individual co‐institutions strongly contribute to the growth of such sentiments; so, for example, the Talovsky elevator (Voronezh province), releasing the waste of the best quality to the employees and workers, refused the peasants, referring to the fact that ʺthe peasants have a KKOV.ʺ When the vacation was allowed, then the garbage began to be issued absolutely unusable. In the Tambov province. the mass of abuses by the grassroots co‐apparatus in the distribution of semssud and food aid (this phenomenon is also noted in the rest of the provinces), as a result, gave a number of attempts on grassroots coworkers and the growth of anti‐Soviet sentiments. In with. Taloka at a general meeting, one of the speakers offered to go with a black poster to the elevator for bread, and in one of the villages of Tambov u. there was an attempt to burn down the pre‐village council (see Appendix No. 5). Taloka at a general meeting, one of the speakers suggested going with a black poster to the elevator for bread, and in one of the villages of the Tambov u. there was an attempt to burn down the pre‐village council (see Appendix No. 5).
ANTI‐SOVIET PARTIES AND GROUPS
Mensheviks
THE USSR. In the reporting period, no vigorous activity of Meks was noted. The investigation into the case of the Leningrad Mensheviks arrested in April confirmed the testimony of the Menshevik AP Banzina about the existence of a connection with foreign Mensheviks through the Finnish Ambassador in Leningrad, published in Pravda on May 16, 1925.
The liquidation of the Odessa and Leningrad groups was carried out. In Leningrad, the remnants of the local organization were finally liquidated. 26 people were arrested, only the leaders and active workers of the local organization. In Odessa, a group of Menshevik youth was liquidated, 18 people were arrested, and literature and some of the equipment for printing literature were confiscated. An operation carried out on the Sormovo group of Meks found the numbers of the Socialist Bulletin.
Abroad. At the invitation of the Central Committee of the French Socialist Party, Dan came to Paris as an expert on Russian affairs. The foreign delegation of the RSDLP (m) in an information letter to the USSR speaks out against the merger of Russian trade unions with the Amsterdam International 166.
SRs
THE USSR. In May, a number of AKP organizations were defeated, and some important party centers were liquidated. The following AKP organizations were liquidated: the Leningrad AKP organization, and the new AKP Central Bureau, created after the exposure of the provocation in the ranks of the party in the USSR (bespalovshchina), was arrested (40 people were arrested in total); the Stalingrad organization of the AKP, headed by the regional bureau (20 people were arrested); the southeastern regional organization headed by the southeastern regional committee (operations were carried out in Rostov‐on‐Don, Krasnodar, Novorossiysk, Armavir, Pyatigorsk, Nalchik, Nakhichevan, Stavropol, and up to 200 people were arrested); Novozybkovskaya group of AKP in Gomel province. (5 people were arrested).
In view of the operations carried out, the AKP did not appear vigorous, with the exception of the distribution in Leningrad on May 1 of hectographic leaflets signed by the Northern Union of the Socialist Revolution.
Abroad. In May, Chernov continued to travel to the Baltic countries with the aim of establishing a united front of emigrant organizations to fight the Bolsheviks and friendly relations between the ZD AKP with the Social‐Democratic leaders. In an essay read in Riga, Chernov reported on the agreement between the Socialist‐Revolutionaries and the PPS, which he described as an outstanding event in the history of the struggle of the socialists against the Bolsheviks and the USSR. Chernovʹs negotiations with the Ukrainian Radical Party 167 on the issue of a united front were unsuccessful due to the fact that the latter consider the treaty with the PPP to be directed against the selfdetermination of Ukraine.
Union of Left Socialist Revolutionaries and Maximalists
THE USSR. The information bureau of the association in Moscow does not carry out any work. The surviving members of the party on the ground, fearing failures, refrain from work for now. Attempts to establish work were noted only in Moscow.
Anarchists
In Moscow, the underground activity of anarchists among the students intensified. Leaflets signed ʺworkers anarchistsʺ were pasted up and scattered around. Underground anarchist groups also showed noticeable activity in a number of provinces. At the factories of the North‐Vyatka mining district, Vyatka province. local anarchist workers are actively campaigning and the number of anarchist sympathizers is growing. In the Ishim and Kungur districts (Ural), anarchists are campaigning against the measures of the Soviet government and public organizations. In Leningrad, the underground work of the anarchists is to grope for connections between individual groups, they continue to collect money in favor of the arrested. Orenburg anarchists keep in touch with the Meks and Socialist‐Revolutionaries. In the Kiev province. noted the desire of the anarchists to equip the printing house together with the Socialist‐Revolutionaries.
The operations carried out against the anarchists during the reporting period revealed an underground group of anarchists in the Yaroslavl province. and found 100 pieces of leaflets, intended for release on May 1. Among the arrested 9 anarchists ‐ 5 Komsomol members and members of the RCP. The leaders of an anarchist underground organization (Belarus) were arrested. The main nucleus of the Samara underground organization was liquidated, and 61 copies were found. underground magazine ʺRenaissanceʺ.
Monarchists
In connection with the Bulgarian events in a number of provinces (Nizhegorodskaya, Saratovskaya, Vladimirskaya, etc.), a wave of Black Hundred provocative rumors about the impending war of the European states with Soviet Russia, about the imminent fall of Soviet power and the imminent return of Nikolai Nikolaevich swept. Artists from Umansk, Voronezh province. provocative rumors spread about the impending ʺpeasant revolutionʺ, which would end in the beating of the urban population. In the name of the Ostrogozh district body of the RCP and the KSM and the militia, a threatening letter of monarchical content was received on behalf of the ʺlocal organizationʺ, threatening to kill everyone in view of the return of monarchism. In the Saratov province. there are a lot of rumors about the imminent action against Soviet Russia of the Baltic states, supported by Britain and America. As before, monarchist and Socialist‐Revolutionary newspapers and proclamations were sent out from abroad. Monthly, there are 4‐5 thousand copies of them at one Moscow post office.
RELIGIOUS CURRENTS
Orthodox clergy. The death of Tikhon still continues to serve as a source of various interpretations and judgments among the churchmen. The most reactionary part of their death is considered by Tikhon a heavy blow. Those who are more conciliatory towards the Soviet regime consider the death of Tikhon the beginning of a new era, when the persecution against the church for its counterrevolutionary nature will cease. The majority, however, behave expectantly. Tikhonʹs will be considered by many to be not authentic. A significant role in its compilation and publication is attributed to Metropolitans Tikhon of Ural and Peter. The latter, as the locum tenens of the patriarchal throne, most of the bishops in Moscow are dissatisfied and do not dare to oppose him only for fear of a church schism. Peter, seeking support, is trying to rely on the right‐wing churchmen (Danilovites), who are trying to take him under their influence. Metropolitan Peter is little known in the provinces. Speeches against Peter, except for the Yekaterinoslav Bishop Ioannikiy, who declared himself Metropolitan of ʺAll Ukraineʺ, were noted by Bishops Boris of Ryazan, John Morshansky and Eurasius Rybinsk. Bishop Seraphim of Orlov and John of Ustinsky ‐ on the eve of the declaration of independence. At the local level, a number of leaders of the reactionary church are trying to obtain a legal basis for the creation of local administrations and thereby legally unite the churchmen of their region (Crimea, Ural, Amur province). For closer unification, attempts were noted to convene church congresses (Transbaikal and Irkutsk provinces, Tatrespublika). The reactionary part of the churchmen uses Tikhonʹs death not only for oral, but also for written anti‐Soviet agitation. So, in the Bryansk province. a pogromous appeal ʺTo All Christiansʺ was issued. It should be noted that large preachers (bishops, etc.) have recently begun to conduct anti‐Soviet church agitation. In a number of places, several cases of commemoration of the king were noted, as well as the distribution of the pogrom book of Nilus among the peasants168 (Tomsk province). The village councils and VIKs sometimes support the reactionary direction of the church, which is especially noted in the Urals and Tambov provinces.
Not confining themselves to anti‐Soviet agitation, reactionary clergy seek to unite into closer groups than church communities: the ʺUnion of Believersʺ in Belarus, ʺa circle of zealots of Orthodoxyʺ (in the Terek region, in the Salsk and Black Sea districts), ʺcommittees to help prisoners and exiled priests ʺ(In Moscow, Tomsk and Irkutsk provinces), etc. Members of such associations took part in a number of excesses caused by reactionary clergy: in Stavropol, a crowd gathered twice to the executive committee, demanding the release of Bishop Raphael. In the Stavropol District, in one of the villages, a gathering demanded the extradition of those responsible for breaking church windows; The chairman of the church council, taking advantage of the opportunity, held here the re‐election of the village council and the secretary of the RLKSM cell. In with. Vedomshi of the Vladimir province. a group of peasants, agitated by the priest,
Along with this, there are demonstrations against the renovationists. An attempt at beating, opposition to the transfer of the church to the renovationists, etc. (Semipalatinsk, Moscow, Yekaterinoslav provinces and Minsk district in Belarus). In the city of Uralsk, the Tikhonists, having extinguished the lights in the renovationist church, staged a massacre.
Renovators. The main activity of the Renovationists during the period under review was limited to preparing the ground for the upcoming council, convening pre‐election diocesan congresses, conferences, etc. On the part of the Renovationists, there is a tendency towards reconciliation with the Tikhonites on the platform of the 1923 cathedral. 169 Individual cases of reconciliation through the transition to the Tikhonites are few. In connection with the uncertainty of the situation in the Tikhonov church, the reactionary churchmen in some places began to go over to the renovationists (Ryazan, Yekaterinoslav and Ural provinces).
BANDITRY
Central District. There were no changes in the state of criminal banditry in the Central District during the reporting period. Only the liquidation of a number of criminal gangs in the Nizhny Novgorod, Voronezh and Orel provinces is noted.
Northwest region. In the North‐West region, the activity of intelligence work on the part of Finland and Latvia is noted. In the area of Petrozavodsk u., a number of illegal crossings of Finnish counterintelligence agents from among local peasants were noticed. In Sebezhsky u. a gang of 8 people is operating, headed by an agent of the Latvian counterintelligence service, Serguchenko. There is some lull in the area of criminal banditry.
Western region. In the West, there are two spy gangs of Plesnyak and Shumsky‐Shpakovsky operating; the appearance of Ivanovʹs gang, formed in the Luninetsky region and transferred to our territory, has already shown itself in active speeches. In addition, the activity of criminal banditry in Belarus (in the Bobruisk and Minsk districts), in the Smolensk and Bryansk provinces is noted. Over the past period, the Plesnyakov and Bogdanov gangs have been liquidated.
On the territory of Poland, the formation of sabotage gangs continues, and instead of the exposition of the 2nd Department of the General Staff, Balakhovich now took up this matter directly.
Ukraine. In Ukraine, the growth of banditry, mainly criminal, continues. In addition to the areas indicated in the last survey, the growth of banditry captured the Odessa, Kharkov, Yekaterinoslav provinces and the AMSSR, which have been relatively calm until now. A sharp increase in the activity of banditry is noted during the reporting period in the Kiev province, where a number of raids and speeches speak of a single plan and their leadership from Kiev. Over the past period, 4 gangs have been liquidated. Only the attack of the Galyuk gang (Kharkov province), which defeated the forestry, the cooperative and the selbudinok, was of a political nature and left behind a note with Petliura slogans.
The raids of sabotage gangs from the Romanian and Polish territories continue. Raids were carried out on the border post of the Kamenets border detachment and in the area of the Mogilev detachment, where the gang crossed into our territory.
North Caucasus. Political banditry in the region has almost been eliminated. The political bands of Salov, Pronin, Ali‐Bulat and partly Kiselev, which had shown activity in the first quarter of this year, were defeated. At the same time, criminal banditry developed especially in some areas (Chernomorsky, Maikop, Salsky, Armavir and Tersky). So, in May and the first half of June, 127 raids were made on co‐institutions, co‐workers, etc. The increase in banditry is mainly due to unemployment and crop failure. Cattle‐stealing and horse‐stealing in the border (national and Cossack) districts and regions also took on a mass character, mainly on the basis of unsettled land relations. The development of banditry makes the workers and peasants extremely nervous.
Transcaucasia. Criminal banditry in Azerbaijan has increased significantly. In other areas, criminal banditry manifests itself only in petty robbery and cattle theft. During the past period, the Kambarishvili gang was very active; proclamations with the signature of Noah Jordania and correspondence with abroad were found with those killed during a clash with it. The return of reconciled gangs from abroad continues. Over the past period, 6 gangs have returned, in addition, a number of individual prominent criminal gangsters have been reconciled.
Middle Asia. In Turkmenistan, the Basmachi are active only in the Lenin District, where a number of small groups and gangs united under the general command of Yak Kazar‐oglu with the aim of robbing and protecting the smuggling smuggled from Afghanistan. In Uzbekistan, most of the large kurbashs who surrendered continue to group around themselves smaller kurbashes and horsemen, trying to seize power in the villages by means of terror, violence and night robberies. Most of the most prominent of them carry out justice and reprisals against the terrorized population and collect taxes from them. This situation forced the removal of 25 kurbash and 37 accomplices and an additional campaign to explain the campaign. The Basmachi are especially active in the Kashka‐Darya region, where a significant number of permanent and incoming gangs operate.
Deputy Chairman of the OGPU Yagoda
Head of the Information Department of the OGPU Prokofiev
True to the original: Secretary of the OGPU Inform Department
Soloviev
APPENDIX No. 1
ECONOMIC SITUATION AND POLITICAL SITUATION OF
WORKERS
Textile industry
Strikes in the Moscow province. F‐ka ʺRed Bannerʺ YegoryevskoRamensky trust (Bronnitsky district). There are 6,550 workers. On May 19, the plant management, in agreement with the city department and the said department of the Union, issued an order to reduce one piecourer from each pair of machines. The transition to compaction was not agreed with the workers, not even one machine was tested. The administration and the factory took a bureaucratic approach in this regard. The very rationality of this event was controversial for the plant management itself. On this basis, on May 28, the second shift of the muleschikov declared a strike (the cars were idling). At 4 oʹclock in the afternoon, the first shift joined the second shift; a total of 571 people were on strike. May 29 at 6 oʹclock In the morning, all the mulesters, including 840 people, went on strike. The Mülschikov strike was led by a former member of the RCP, who arrived from the Orekhovo‐Zuevsk factory. At a meeting of the Mülschiks on May 28, workers who were protesting attacked the factory, the union and the party; shouts were heard: ʺDown with the factoryʺ, ʺCommunists are exploiters.ʺ The workers demanded that the compaction order be canceled. By the end of the day, other departments of the factory (water and preparatory with 1869 workers) also went on strike. On May 30, there was an attempt to start up the waterworks by factory workers, but several workers who appeared, took off their belts, threatening some of the workers with beating. Some members of the RCP took an active part in the strike, among which a member of the factory committee stood out, calling for the head of the factory to be removed on a wheelbarrow. departmentformer members of the RCP and a group of active workers of 11 people. The strike ended at 2 pm on June 1. The work began under the old conditions.
Glukhovskaya m‐ra Bogorodsko‐Shchelkovsky trust. May 7 this year the workers of the spinning department (200 people), having found out from the checkbooks received in their hands, that in April they again had underdevelopment, stopped working. The high spirits of the spinners were passed on to the rest of the workers throughout the factory. The break in work lasted for one hour. The mood of the workers is agitated, there is an accumulation of working groups discussing the situation. The possibility of new complications is not excluded. The total number of workers is about 14,000 people.
Zubovskaya mr of the Bukhara‐Russian partnership. On May 11 at 12 noon, workers stopped working, demanding an increase in wages. We started work the next day after it was explained to the workers that the question of rates had been submitted for permission to the textile workersʹ department. In particular, workers have put forward a demand to increase rates by 50%. The average rate at this time is 26 rubles. (total of 650 workers).
F‐ka ʺRed Uzbekistan” Podolsk district, workers 1490 people. On May 8, 544 workers in the weaving department went on strike for 4 hours because of the poor quality of raw materials and the underdevelopment of the basic rate due to the administrationʹs wrong label on the sizing machines.
Hapilovskaya f‐ka Vigontresta. The workers of the weaving department, including 20 people, did not work for half an hour because of the poor quality of the duck. We got to work after promising the best quality duck.
Strikes across the USSR. Teikovskaya factory Textile Trust of IvanovoVoznesensk province. (7280 workers). On May 6, a strike broke out at the factory on the basis of the transition to 3 machines and 4 sides. 5,000 people took part in the strike. The administration and the factory carried out this measure, completely disregarding whether the worker could cope with the work on 3 machines. The initiators were a group of 15 former communists. The direct reason for the strike was the directorʹs order to fire two female workers who did not agree to work according to the new method, and one of them injured the head of the factory guard who was trying to force [her] out of the factory gates. The strikers made demands: 1) not to switch to 3 machines and 4 sides, 2) demand payment for downtime in February and March 3) immediately hire workers who, in the opinion of the strikers, were illegally fired, and 4) dismiss the director and chairman of the factory committee. On May 8, a provincial commission was formed in the amount of 5 people from representatives of local authorities and 7 elected from the workers, which proceeded to resolve the demands made by the workers. On the first point, it was decided: to cancel the transition to 4 sides, on the second ‐ to pay workers for the days of the strike from May 6 to 9. On the issue of removing the director and chairman of the factory committee, it was decided: the factory should be re‐elected ahead of schedule and the director removed from work if the facts of poor management of work and inattention to the workers are confirmed. A meeting was convened by the commission to announce the decision to the workers. The workers began to go to the machines, but some of the instigators of the conflict and individual Leninists called on the strike to continue until representatives from the center arrived. Especially the chief leader of the strike, the shop delegate Maleeva, insisted on this. The workers were distrustful of the arrived member of the Central Committee of textile workers and even demanded an identity card from him. The workers began work at 1 pm on May 9 after the Central Committee chairman promised to resolve all other issues in the near future.
Staro‐Dmitrovskaya block Ivanovo‐Voznesensk province. On May 13, the workers of the Staro‐Dmitrovskaya mry, in connection with the satisfaction of most of the requirements of the workers of the Teikovo factory, went on strike, demanding the abolition of work on 3 machines, the settlement of prices at all textile factories, the abolition of auxiliary workers, the improvement of the quality of weft and warp, payments to workers for absenteeism not working through the fault of the administration, the issuance of a loan in cash, the issuance of overalls to apprentices and additional payments to them for March up to 60 rubles. per month. The workers elected a 10‐member commission to discuss these requirements. May 14 this year the workers of the morning shift did not start work, the more active of them tried to call the workers of the B. Dmitrovsky district, the Novo‐Voznesensk factory and the factory “Zaryadye” and “Rabkrai” on strike, sending delegations for this purpose. Arrived on May 14, Deputy. The workers did not allow the chairman of the Textile Trust to speak, shouting that they would negotiate with a commission from the center. On May 15, the workers of St. Dmitrovsky convent showed up to work on a dial tone, but they did not resume work, and 8 communists intending to start work were met with noise and shouts. Some of the strikers who worked on single machines were removed. At 11 oʹclock. in the morning, the strikers contacted Teikov on the phone and asked Maleeva (the main leader of the Teikov strike) to immediately arrive in Ivanovo‐Voznesensk; In addition, the worker Kislyakova, on behalf of the strikers, sent a telegram to Moscow to the department of textile workers at the All‐Union Central Council of Trade Unions with a request to send a commission to discuss the issue of transferring to 3 machines. At the St.‐Dmitrovskaya convent during the performance there were 5 people, those who came from the Teikovskaya convent and informed the striking workers about the state of affairs at the Teikovskaya factory, and at the St.‐Dmitrovskaya convent, unknown persons submitted a note with the following content: “We, the workers of the B. Dmitrovskaya convent, greet you for your loyalty and advocating for workersʹ interests; come to us, stop our factory for a general strike. ʺ The strike of workers at the Staro‐Dmitrovskaya factory of the Textile Trust ended, and the workers began work on May 18, provided that their demands were analyzed in a conflictual manner within 6 days. The mood of the workers is agitated, and a repeat of the strike is possible.
Bolshaya Dmitrovskaya block Ivanovo‐Voznesensk province. (workers 4166 people). In connection with the Teikovo strike and the satisfaction of workersʹ demands at the B. Dmitrovskoy field, fermentation was noted, resulting in a strike. On May 16, 30 apprentices at the weaving factory went on strike, demanding that they be given apartment money. The strike lasted 10 minutes, and they added to the demand for apartment money the payment of 14% from each ruble earned by the weaver and the change of the foreman for rough treatment, threatening a second strike in case of dissatisfaction. May 18 in the morning apprentices for 15 minutes. the machines were not allowed, an attempt was made to go on strike from one building. Among the workers, the agitation of a former member of the RCP (now a candidate) Eliseev and two weavers, Kramova and Gorbunova, for a strike was noted. The factory works, but the mood of the workers is excited.
Bolshaya Kokhomskaya block of Ivanovo‐Voznesensk province. (4,298 workers). In connection with rumors of strikes at the IvanovoVoznesensk and Teikovo factories, on May 16, the workers of the Spinning Mill went on strike for an hour and a half, demanding the cancellation of work on 3 machines and an increase in wages.
On May 20, workers of the water department of the Bolshoi Kokhomskaya field went on strike for the second time, demanding an increase in wages. Through the efforts of the management and the factory committee, the workers got down to work. On May 21, both department shifts went on strike, again demanding an increase in wages by 25% and the issuance of 5 rubles. apartment. In connection with the strike of water workers, the bank and other departments were suspended due to a lack of raw materials. A total of 500 people went on strike. The strike ended on 22 May. The workersʹ demands have not yet been met.
Small Linen Market of the Gostrest of Ivanovo‐Voznesenskaya Province. In connection with the strike at the Teikovo Sea and strikes at other factories, 80 workers of the water department went on strike on 19 May. The strike lasted from 5 oʹclock. in the morning until 2 oʹclock. day. A demand was made for an increase in prices. The workers started to work with the condition to consider their demands by June 1.
Textile factory of the Kustanai province. The Commission for the Liquidation of the Textile Factory, chaired by a representative of the RCI, decided not to pay a two‐week allowance (day off) to the dismissed workers during the liquidation of the factory, but to announce the dismissal two weeks in advance. In this regard, the first shift of workers, and after it the second, stopped working. Then all the weavers left their work. The next day, the workers came to the administration demanding to appoint a general meeting to clarify the issue. Some of the workers continued to work, while among the rest there was talk about the need for a general factory strike.
Transition to 3 machines and 4 sides. Paper‐spinning mill No. 1 (Orekhovo‐Zuevsky trust, Moscow province). There are 3,559 workers. There is strong dissatisfaction with low wages among mules and watermen. Vaterschiki indicate that due to the increase in the course of cars, the transition to 4 sides, earnings decreased from 50‐60 rubles. up to 30 rubles. per month. Strengthening the movement of machines entails an increase in the percentage of rejects.
Weaving factory No. 1 (of the same trust). There are 2,500 workers. At the factory, dissatisfaction with low wages continues in connection with the transition to 3 machines. There have been cases when the daily wages of weavers on 3 looms were 29 kopecks lower. earnings of working on 2 machines. The reasons for the decline in earnings are: poor varieties of warp, duck, unequipped machine tools, low prices and a deliberate decrease in the intensity of labor by workers.
Weaving factory No. 2 (of the same trust). There are 2,300 workers. Workers continue to complain about the difficulty of working on 3 machines. The workers are unhappy with the fact that the transfer to 3 machines is made without prior discussion with them. There are deliberate absenteeism in order to achieve a transfer back to 2 machines.
Faculty of Vysokovskaya m‐ry of Tver trust (Klinsky district of Moscow province). There are 4440 workers. Among the weavers working on 3 sides and water women there are complaints about the difficulty of the work. On May 29, the bank brokers, having come to the RKK meeting, categorically declared that in the future they would not work according to the new method. The issue has been temporarily settled with a statement from the administration and the factory committee that in the future the work will be carried out only as a test one and will be finally resolved at the production meeting.
Spas‐Nudolskaya factory of the Multicolored Trust (430 workers). The director of the factory gave an order to switch the weavers to 3 looms, and this issue was not coordinated either with the cell or with the factory. The mood of the workers is unsatisfactory.
Nizhne‐Seredskaya factory (Gostrest) of Ivanovo‐Voznesensk province. Among the workers, there is fermentation on the basis of the transition to 3 machines and 4 sides. The factory is restarted, and the workers recruited for it give their consent to work on 3 machines and 3 sides, saying that this consent was torn from them by economic pressing against the wall. There are rumors among the workers about the strike and about demands similar to those made by the striking workers of the Teikovo factory and the factory of Ivanovo‐Voznesensk province. The spinners are especially dissatisfied with the rounding of the hundredths, which is why the workers did not receive 2‐3 rubles each. Due to the fact that rounding up affected other workshops, working groups go to the administration for an explanation of this measure.
F‐ka them. Nogin Kineshemsky u. Ivanovo‐Voznesensk province. Workersʹ dissatisfaction with the transition to 3 machines and 3 sides is noted. In the last days of May, the bank brokers, leaving their jobs, came to the director with a request to increase their salaries, as was done by the workers of the Teikovo factory.
F‐ki them. Edelman and them. Sverdlov, Kovrov Trust, Vladimir Province. The transition to 3 machines and 3 sides by the workers was greeted with hostility. The workers point out that it is difficult to work on three machines due to the worn‐out machines and tools. On the other hand, workers fear that unemployment will increase with the transition to a new method of work.
High rates and low rates. F‐ka them. Rudzutaka of the Flaxut Trust, Moscow Province. Strong dissatisfaction of workers with low wages was noted: coil winders generate an average of 20 rubles. per month, in view of the large production rate, the shortage of coilers per day is expressed in the amount of 9 poods. The mood of the winders was agitated by the refusal of the factory committee and RKK to increase their wages.
Weaving factory of the Orekhovo‐Zuevsky trust (2,375 workers). On the basis of low prices and low salaries, the candidate of the RCP wrote a statement demanding a reduction in the rates of elected persons (factory and others). 78 people signed the statement.
Yakovlevsky factories 1st Flax Board of Ivanovo‐Voznesensk province. There is a sharp discontent among skilled workers in the weaving department and locksmiths with low wages. Locksmiths indicate that they receive 15 rubles. less monthly than weaving apprentices. Apprentices earn up to 60 rubles in the weaving department. per month, and the artisans of the mechanical department up to 45 rubles. Weavers receive the same rate. Skilled workers demand higher wages, threatening to strike. The workers intended to send delegates to Comrade Rykov with a letter in which they outlined their needs and complained that with the new prices ʺthey were completely crushed.ʺ At the same time, the director of the factory received an application with 78 signatures from the workers of all three factories for a wage increase. The application contains signatures of members and candidates of the RCP.
F‐ka ʺRed Octoberʺ NGSNKh (Nizhny Novgorod province). Due to lower prices, skilled workers quit their jobs and go to other factories. This is noted in the spinning department especially among the apprentices.
F‐ka [named after] Karl Marx of the Kovrov trust of the Vladimir province. Due to high standards, productivity in some departments decreases. In the weaving department, a worker on one machine with an 8‐hour working day produces no more than 2 meters.
Metal industry
Strikes. Perm gun factory (Ural). On May 4, a strike took place in the shelling shop of the Perm Gun Plant on the basis of a sharp decline in prices and an increase in production rates. The head committee did not take any part in the revision of the prices, arguing that he must approve the prices and norms after they were worked out. On April 30, in the shell shop No. 2, the plant management posted new prices indicating that they will be introduced from May 1, the last RKK have not been approved. Due to the fact that in the shell shop, in addition to an excessive reduction in prices compared to prices in other shops, the ranks were also reduced, the workers intended to go on strike on the same day, but, thanks to the late time and the factory committeeʹs promise to settle this issue on holidays, the workers agreed to work until the end of the shift. On May 4, the workers called the technical director and the representative from the factory, who were presented with requirements: either to leave the old rates and norms, or to revise the newly developed ones within two weeks; after the director and the factory committee agreed to the latter, the workers began work after a 4‐hour break. The main initiators of the strike were two old workers, former members of the RCP, and a group of 11 non‐party members.
Plant ʺTrudʺ of the Uman district of Kiev province. The foundry workers went on strike on May 9 due to delayed wages for the second half of April, and no casting took place that day. In the rest of the shops, work continued. The strike ended the same day.
Agricultural machinery plant them. Petrovsky (Odessa province). On May 13, workers went on strike on the grounds of delayed wages (advances of 2‐5 rubles were issued). The strike began in the carpentry shop, where the initiator was a member of the presidium of the Metalworkersʹ Union. The carpentry shop was joined by a paint, foundry and others. The next day, a representative of the okr trade union bureau, the chairman of the okrpartkom and the chairman of the okrRIK, arrived at the plant and offered the workers to start work, while the workers continued to strike, demanding immediate payment of wages. The strike was liquidated by notifying the workers that the money had been received and would be given out.
Petrovsky mechanical plant of Tarusa u. (Kaluga province.). On May 17 and 18, workers of a mechanical plant went on strike due to delayed wages. The chairman of the organized strike committee was a member of the bureau of the RCP cell, and the secretary was the chairman of the factory committee. On May 19, the secretary of the district committee of the RCP arrived at the plant, who announced to the party workers that if they did not resume work, repressive measures would be applied to them, after which they stood at the machines. At 4 oʹclock on May 13, the rest of the workers began work after the director announced a telegram from Moscow that the money had been sent to pay the salaries.
High rates and low rates. Mechanical foundry A CMC (Moscow). There is a sharp discontent among workers in connection with the reduction of prices; an application was filed with the factory against the decline. The initiators are individual members of the RCP.
The Krasnoye Sormovo plant (Nizhny Novgorod province). At the plant, there is a strong dissatisfaction with motorists on the basis of lower prices. The monthly earnings of motorists, which previously reached 60 rubles, currently does not exceed 34‐40 rubles. There have been many conflicts in the stamping department due to the high rates and low prices.
Baltic plant of the Leningrad province. On the north shipbuilding branch, on the basis of low prices, there are many conflicts, which are mostly resolved not in favor of the workers. Particularly noted is the dissatisfaction of the workers with the foreman Belov, who arbitrarily lowers prices. Performance drops.
The Krasny Putilovets plant, Leningrad province. In the crucible‐foundry workshop of the Krasny Putilovets plant, there was a reduction in wages by 20‐25%, which caused discontent among workers.
In the model workshop of the same plant, there are cases of workers falling from too much fatigue. The reason is low prices, forcing the worker to strain unbearably.
Plant ʺElectrosilaʺ Ns 1, Kharkov province. The appraiser on his own initiative in the turning shop has almost halved the prices. On this basis, conflicts are noted. Shop foreman Klimenko (KP (b) U candidate), instead of settling conflicts, kindles passions, declaring that this will continue as long as the workers are allowed to sit on their necks.
Steam Locomotive Plant (Kharkov). A group of turners from the mechanical department of the assembly shop raised a bagpipe on the basis of low prices, saying that it was impossible to work with such prices. Some highly skilled turners, who used to earn 90 rubles. per month, produced in April no more than 27 rubles.
The Krasny Arsenal plant, Kiev province. Due to the reduction in prices by 30%, there is a departure of highly qualified workers from the foundry. Sharp dissatisfaction with low prices is noted in the machine shop. Newly employed highly skilled workers do not put up with low prices and take the calculation. Some shops are campaigning for higher prices.
Izhevsk factories (Votsk region). In the sawtooth workshop of the Izhevsk factories, there is a sharp dissatisfaction among the workers with the new prices, there is a tendency to switch from piecework to day work. The workers dissatisfied with the established rates say: “You work like an ox, up to 600 poods. you drag a day on yourself, and the earnings are not more than 17 rubles. ʺ
Mining
High rates and low rates. Mine No. 1 of the Gorlovsky Ore Administration of the Artyomovsky District. On May 10, the mine workers refused to work due to the increase in production rates. The workers are promised to revise the norms. The WASH MoD insists that the norms should not be revised due to production cuts.
Lateral‐Anthracite Mine Administration of Donugol. There is a strong dissatisfaction of the workers of the miners over the increase in the norm from 14 to 18 170 vershoks without their knowledge. The hackers consider these actions of the administration to be arbitrary and declare that ʺif the business executives want to take away our earnings, they will take it away for the last year too.ʺ Similar phenomena were noted at the Rudchenkovsky mining department of Donugol ʺParis Communeʺ.
And the Nzher mines (Siberia). In some cases, the prices for piecework in mines at the Angerskiye mines turned out to be 50% lower than the old ones. The workers say: “In order to raise labor productivity, the worker needs to increase nutrition, since workers will work on bread and water with a 70% loss of working capacity only until the summer, and then they will only be suitable for transfer to social security. Such actions on the part of our heads are non‐proletarian since they build their wellbeing on the unhappiness of the worker. ʺ
Suchanskiy coal mines of Primorskaya lips. In early May, a change of 36 miners went on strike on the grounds of low prices (mine No.
2). Dissatisfaction with low prices and the possibility of a strike is also noted at mine No. 9.
Chemical industry
Strikes. Plant them. Bukharin (glass) Guskombinat Vladimir province. On May 5, the factory workers went on strike on the grounds of raising the rate. Particularly strong dissatisfaction was expressed by pieceworkers, who, when the contract was renewed, the work they performed in excess of the norm was included in the norm for the same monthly salary. The pieceworker used to produce 50 glasses and 20 over the norm, when the contract was renewed, 20 extra glasses were included in the norm, so he had to work out 70 glasses, and the salary did not increase. A total of 421 workers were on strike. Some of the workers applied for re‐admission to the plant since the administration announced the calculation of workers who did not want to get to the machines. The strike was ended on 11 May. Every day of the strike brought up to 1,500 rubles. loss.
Plant them. Zudova Guskombinat of Vladimir province. On May 6, 250 workers in the gutta went on strike. The workers of this plant until now were not familiar with the rates under the new contract. The chairman of the factory committee Turbin (obviously of a Menshevik deviation), having arrived from the delegatesʹ meeting from Gus‐Khrustalny, misinformed the workers, promising colossal increases. When, after having worked for a month, the workers saw that the new collective agreement only gave rise to day laborers and cut the wages of pieceworkers, they became agitated and demanded the arrival of the chairman of the regional union of chemists Mikhailovich. Instead of settling the conflict, the members of the factory committee and chairman Turbin tried to inflame the workers. When Mikhailovich and the representative of the district committee of the RCP arrived, the factory committee entered into an argument with them, despite the fact that the collective agreement had already been signed,2 cop. instead of 6 and a production rate of 45 instead of 55 per day. As a result, on May 8, the workers of the gutta quit their jobs. It was clearly seen that the strike had infiltrated from the. Bukharin, some of whom were the instigators of the conflict at the plant. Zudova. In Velikyodvorie, some elements are trying to kindle the workers of the hot gutta workshop and involve them in a strike, and Turbin and Volkov put a lot of effort into this. On May 8, a member of the Central Committee of Chemists arrived in Velikodvorie, reproaching the factory committee for allowing a strike without the sanction of the Central Committee of Chemists. On May 9, a general meeting of workers was convened, at which questions were raised: 1) about the resumption of work at the plant and 2) about the choice of representatives for immediate consideration of prices. Five plenipotentiaries were selected to review the prices and the question of reopening was voted on. The majority of votes decided to start work. The strike lasted one day. The decaying elements among the workers are the head office of Turbin and the members of Volkov and Kudryavtsev, who receive 260 rubles each. per month. The precommission for surplus salaries acquired a piano, a gramophone, etc.
Velikodvorsk Glass Factory, Ryazan Province. On May 8, the Gutten shop of the plant went on strike, as the workers were not announced the prices for piecework for April. Some workers have campaigned not to start work until prices are announced. At 8 oʹclock in the evening on May 8, the plenum of the factory committee decided to immediately start work, after which it would enter into negotiations with the administration on the issue of prices, but, despite this, the workers did not start work. On May 9, the workers of the gutta decided to introduce about 5 people from the workers to participate in the commission for the development of quotations, after which they began work on the same day. The strike lasted 26 hours, with 250 out of 850 people on strike.
Glass factory ʺDruzhnaya Gorka” (Khimprom, Leningrad province). For the removal of one worker from work by the red director for violating internal regulations, the workers protested: they went on strike for 30 minutes. The red director (Dashkevich) was dismissed by the Union for a tactless act.
Timber industry
Strikes. Ivanovo‐Voznesenskaya province. Workers at the Krasny Profintern timber mill in Yuryevsk at the end of May went on strike for 1 ʹ/ j hour, demanding an increase in wages, the issuance of overalls, an increase in the number of pilots from 7 to 11 people, an increase in the number of car drivers and a change in the chairman of the factory committee. The strike was liquidated by partially satisfying the demands of the workers (the issuance of overalls, the staff of the carriage drivers was increased, and the former head of the plant, Makarov, who enjoys authority among them, was nominated by the workers in the factory committee).
Tverskaya lips. Mologoles. A group of 26 peasants who worked on the banks of the river. Mologa in the warehouse of the Mologoles ʺKulyakʺ concession and receiving 1 rub. per person for a 12‐hour working day, May 23 this year demanded an increase in wages to 1 ruble. 50 kopecks on the refusal of the foreman to increase their wages, the peasant workers went on strike.
Karelia. Integrated logging of Drevtrest and Lesprom. In the development of the forest, workers went on strike on the basis of low wages. The strike lasted one and a half days. Prices for unloading one fathom of firewood did not exceed 1 ruble. per callout 1 cub. fathoms of firewood at a distance of 10 fathoms, along the bank of the river ‐ 1 rub. 20 kopecks. The workers demanded to be raised to 1 ruble. 50 kopecks per fathom.
Construction workers
Low rates. Leningrad province. 300 carpenters at the shipbuilding office went on strike due to low wages and the lack of a collective agreement. The carpenters worked for nothing for 3‐4 ʹ/ 2 months without receiving any wages.
Altai lips. On May 20, three cartels working from the Barnaul state construction office, including 75 people, went on strike, demanding: 1) the timely payment of wages, 2) the transition to a single rate of work, 3) an increase in wage rates. The direct reason for the strike was nonpayment of wages. The workers, having arranged a meeting, decided to stop work and convene a citywide meeting of workers of the entire Union of Builders, at which they [began] to insist on the dispersal of the state construction office, which allegedly deliberately delays the delivery of construction work and which consists of former contractors, foremen, etc. The news of the strike was met with great sympathy among the majority of the members of the Union, in view of the increasing unemployment since half of April. At a general meeting of workers on May 21, workers, when asked to start work, said: “We cannot work, when we are hungry. We are not allowed to earn even 30 rubles during the season. per month, and the chapters themselves receive 150 rubles. ʺ The strike was liquidated on May 22 with the proviso that the conflict commission would revise the rates. If the rates turn out to be unacceptable, then convene a general meeting at which to elect a committee to protect their interests.
Movers
Low rates. Vologda province. On May 9, workers ‐ unloaders of firewood from barges at the Sokol factory, working from the transport office, among 250 people, went on strike due to low wages. A loader worker with a 12‐hour working day earns no more than 1 ruble. per day at an extremely high rate (for 12 people, loaders need to unload 25 cubic meters from a barge per day at a distance of 80 fathoms). Before the strike was announced, the workers applied to the office for a wage increase, but received no response. The plant management of the Sverdlovsk paper and cellulose enterprises terminates the contract with the transport office for unloading firewood and recruits artels of unloading workers, the plant management assigns wages to workers higher than the transport office. The transport office agreed to the workersʹ demand, increased wages, and after a 6‐hour break, the workers began to work.
Samara lips. May 11 this year in the city of Samara, loaders working on water transport refused to carry out unloading work. After lunch, the city movers joined them. A total of 460 people refused to work. The motives for the termination of work were put forward by the loaders as follows: 1) improve their financial situation by increasing wages (previously received on ʹ/ 2 cop. from a pound of transported cargo), at the moment they demand an increase to 1 and 2 kopecks, 2) the dissolution of the loading and unloading bureau headed by the head of the bureau (member of the RCP). The ideological inspirers of the strike are Grigoriev, chairman of the board of the workersʹ committee of loaders. On May 13, loaders headed by Grigoriev organized a strike committee called the Revolutionary Committee. Formed around the head of the bureau Konovalov, a group of 45 loaders (all members of the RCP) are called by most loaders a ʺgroup of spiesʺ. On May 12, a general meeting of the Union of Loaders was held at the transport workersʹ club, which was attended by a representative of the gubernial trade union, comrade Kiselev and Chairman of the Union of Loaders Comrade Endrzhai. Since at the meeting they did not come to any decision, for the movers did not stop their demands, then the representative of the gubernia trade union announced the dissolution of the loadersʹ trade union. On May 14, out of the number of strikers, 100 people, economically less well‐off, expressed a desire to join the Union again and have already started work, then up to 50% of the movers applied for re‐joining the trade union.
Workersʹ mood
Aggravation of dissatisfaction with the trade union organizations and cells of the RCP. F‐ka ʺZarya socialism” Yaroslavl province. At the factory, not only among the non‐party workers, but also among the party members, there is dissatisfaction with the composition of the bureau of the RCP cell, where all the central administrations went, such as the director, the chairman of the cooperative, the chairman of the factory committee ‐ up to 10 people, while from the workers only 5 people entered the cell ... Therefore, the second group has too hard to defend certain interests of the workers, especially since the factory pays more attention to its personal affairs.
2nd Republican factory of Kostroma province. In connection with the downsizing at the factory and the impending closure of it, the workers say: “We need to relieve our factories and trade unions. After all, a lot of people have settled there, and this is a big overhead expense. ʺ
ʺPrivolskaya communeʺ of Ivanovo‐Voznesensk province. Discontent of workers with the factory is observed. The workers, having re‐elected the old composition of the factory committee for drunkenness, lose respect for the new, since the latter does not protect their interests.
Teikovskaya factory, Ivanovo‐Voznesensk province. The striking factory workers, among other demands, also put forward a demand for the immediate re‐election of the factory committee. The re‐elections on May 17 were attended by the main leaders of the Teikovo strike, Maleev, Mineev, Kuvshinov and Moiseev; some of them pointed out: ʺArrests and violence against workers are taking place not only abroad, but also in our country,ʺ and sought to ʺkindle the passionsʺ of those present and turn them against the communists. The new factory committee included 6 communists and 9 non‐party people, including Maleev and Moiseev.
Tula arms factories. The reporting campaign of the Metalworkersʹ Union at the Cartridge Plant was held with a passive attitude on the part of the workers. Some meetings did not take place at all, as all the workers dispersed, many workers said: “What are we going to do there. To hear only that the board of the Union of Metalworkers gets big stakes and does nothing for us. ʺ
Stodolsk Cloth Factory named after Lenin of the Gomel province. Out of 2,000 workers, only 300 gathered at the meeting to renegotiate the collective agreement. Slatin, a former Menshevik, who spoke, pointed out that the Union had approached the workers in the wrong way, demanding an increase in the intensity of labor. The collective agreement was discussed themselves, and the workers are presented for approval. Unions and trusts are one and the same thing, and although the Unions are Soviet, they look at the workers no better than in bourgeois countries. Those who advocated the collective agreement were not allowed to speak.
Perm Arms Plant (Ural). The workersʹ dissatisfaction with the factory committee is caused by the fact that the latter did not take any part in the revision of the new prices at all.
Anti‐Soviet speeches and agitation. F‐ka Tulma, Yaroslavl province. (textile). Some factory workers say: ʺThere will be a coup, another party will come to power, a real worker, under which life will be easier and freer.ʺ Agitators find sympathy among the working masses. The workers support them with the words: ʺYes, things are not going well with us now, there are not communists in the party, but careerists, and they signed up to receive a large salary and live better.ʺ The workers point to the factory administration as an example.
Prokhorovskaya m‐ra (Moscow). On the night of May 22, leaflets were found at the Prokhorovskaya convent and in the Presnensky tram depot protesting against the arrest and exile of the anarchists, against the deception of the masses by the Soviet government and against the dictatorship. The leaflet encourages all conscious people to unite and act in an organized manner.
Plant ʺKrasny Bogatyr” Rezinotrest Moscow province. In connection with the suicide of Savinkov, anti‐Soviet agitation was observed on the part of a former member of the RCP, who accused the Soviet government of waging a civil war, he also opposed the trade unions, pointing out that they were economic, not political, organizations.
F‐ka ʺRed Mayakʺ No. 3 of the Leningrad province. The anti‐Soviet element, both during the elections to the City Council and in the factory committee, campaigned not to elect communists, with which the majority of workers agree. One of the workers pointed out that the communists do not need non‐party people, and non‐party people are against the elections of the communists, since they all messed up during the revolution. The worker finished with the words: ʺWell, what, obviously, the Varangians will have to be called up for management.ʺ
Plant ʺRed Arsenalʺ of the Leningrad province. Among the workers of the instrumental workshop, agitation is being conducted against the Soviet regime, which allegedly led the country to ruin and is now leading to Hindenburgism.
Plant ʺElectrosilaʺ of the Leningrad province. Agitation is being conducted among the workers against the Communists, and it is pointed out that the explosion in Sofia is an abominable act of the Communists, that money for foreign agitation is a burden on the shoulders of the workers.
Stodolsk Cloth Factory, Gomel Province. Worker Maksimov often opposes Soviet power, pointing out that the communists are nobles, a special privileged class sitting in power, occupying all responsible posts, enjoying all earthly goods, receiving a large salary and protecting only their own pockets. At the top, according to Maksimov, there are people who are completely alien to the working class, who have managed to cling to power and have deceived their trust.
ʺVesuviusʺ match factory, Gomel province. The mood of the non‐party workers is unsatisfactory, and the dissatisfaction with the members of the RCP is especially strong. Cases were noted when at general meetings, when party comrades spoke, shouts of ʺdown withʺ were heard and the chairman of the meeting left his seat, walked among the workers and persuaded to listen to the speaker.
Krasnodon Mining Administration of Donetsk Province. At the general meeting of the workers of the machine shop, two foremen spoke ‐ Zhugenko and Miroshnichenko, who called the communists blood drinkers. At the Valentinovsky mine of the Rovenets mine administration, the anti‐Soviet agitation is being carried out by the cutter Samoilov, who declares: ʺI am a socialist, and they persecute me everywhere, as I look at the leadership of the party in the country, I see the obvious death of Russia.ʺ With such agitation, he speaks at general meetings.
Kodrinsky glass factory (Kiev district). The son of an administrator (a former member of the RCP) opposes Soviet power, pointing out that now it is not the dictatorship of the proletariat, but the dictatorship of the party. Trotsky was removed from office because he demanded the dictatorship not of the party, but of the proletariat.
Linovitsky sugar factory, Poltava province. A group of seven workers is systematically campaigning against the Soviet regime and the Communist Party. This agitation hinders party and professional work.
Diamond mine of the Luhansk District, Donbass. The hospitalʹs paramedic Zolotovsky (a former member of the RCP) is agitating among the workers, pointing out that all newspaper reports about the international situation are ʺsheer lies.ʺ “If the communists hold on, it’s only through violence and dictatorship; sooner or later there will be no Soviet power and power will pass to the Mensheviks with the close participation of Trotsky, who resigned for the good of the homeland. ʺ
Luhansk cartridge plant. Anti‐Soviet handwritten proclamations were scattered near the Luhansk cartridge plant. In the proclamations, Soviet power is viewed ʺas a partnership for the exploitation of
Russia.ʺ Further, leaflets indicate that the situation of the workers did not improve at all with the conquest of the proletarian revolution, that the tsar and the bourgeoisie used to drink the blood of workers and peasants, but now exploitation is called raising productivity, that now there is no freedom of speech: if you say something against the bosses, they will write it down in counterrevolutionaries. The proclamations end with attacks on the trade unions (the shop of the bosses) and on the cooperatives (the profits from the cooperation are in the pockets of the red bosses, and the workers and peasants need to contribute shares).
Correct: Secretary of INFO OGPU Soloviev
APPENDIX # 2
MOOD OF THE UNEMPLOYED (May Content)
Moscow province. The Central Labor Exchange has recently registered 126,000 unemployed people, of whom 5,500 are employed in public works and 13,000 work in labor collectives. The influx of unemployed people over the past week exceeds 24% compared to April 1, 13% of those arriving at the exchange are newcomers.
The influx of the unemployed in sections of laborers and builders is also observed at the regional offices of the labor exchange; Thus, 250‐300 people arrive at the Krasnopresnenskaya Exchange every day, of which the exchange manages to register only 120‐200 people. The daily demand for laborers is 5‐10 people. According to the
Zamoskvoretskaya Labor Exchange (section of laborers), there was a daily congestion in connection with the parcels of 3‐4 people to public works, which generated a lot of scandals and fights. There are 12,000 unemployed at the Sokolnicheskaya Labor Exchange (section of builders), of which 90% are peasants. Every day 500‐600 people arrive at the exchange, and 100‐150 are sent to work.
The mood of unemployed laborers and builders in Moscow is extremely excited. Mass dissatisfaction is caused by the insufficient provision for public works, low wages in public works, in which women working on turning out stumps earned an average of 20‐22 kopecks. per day, and high rates. At the Zamoskvoretskaya labor exchange there was a demand to convene a general meeting of the unemployed and the establishment of control from the unemployed over the activities of the exchange. Agitation of certain individuals against Soviet power and the growth of anti‐Semitism were noted. Low wages and high standards entail unemployed refusal to work. On the Rogozhsko‐Simonovskaya exchange, 36.4% of all cases of sending to work were refused in May.
The difficult financial situation of the unemployed is aggravated by the lack of housing, which causes a massive gathering of unemployed in the open air in Sokolnicheskaya Roshcha and Kalanchevskaya Square.
The situation among unemployed construction workers deserves special attention. The latter have 23829 registered on the Central Exchange. Material assistance from the labor exchange and the Union of Builders is very insignificant, limited to the issuance of an allowance in the amount of 5 rubles. per month and only to members of the trade union. There is no dining room available to receive reduced‐price meals. Lunches for 15 kopecks. the unemployed receive ISNS from the canteen, but the unemployed are often unable to use them. Especially the peasants who do not receive any benefits.
The nervous mood that has recently been observed among construction workers is caused by the introduction of a new tariff guide, according to which the salary of construction workers is reduced to 21% on average, and in some places even 30%. So, in the construction season of 1924, the asphalt worker, without concluding collective agreements, received 1 ruble for a square fathom. 90 kopecks, and this year earns 1 ruble under collective agreements. 29 kopecks Dissatisfaction in some places results in open calls for demonstrations and strikes on a citywide scale, refusal to work against the established reduced prices for construction work.
Vladimirskaya lips. In view of the notification received that from the factory ʺ5th Octoberʺ (Strunino) they will be transferred to work at the factory ʺKrasnoe Echoʺ of Pereslavl district. 600 people and refusal to give work to the unemployed who were at the labor exchange, among the latter Lapin (a former member of the RCP), Aksenov, Turusov and Zemtsov (Gorbaty), former members of the RCP, campaigned for organizing a strike of the unemployed, who are listed on the Pereslavl labor exchange to 1000 man.
Belarusian SSR. Minsk. As of April 1, the number of unemployed in Belarus has reached 7,800, of which about 6,000 are in Minsk. In Minsk, the number of unemployed has recently increased by several hundred people, and every day more and more unemployed are arriving, mainly there is an influx of peasants. The financial situation of the unemployed is bad. Government assistance is very limited. The mood of the unemployed is always defined as unstable, thanks to which the unemployed are good ground for the spread of anti‐Soviet agitation and all kinds of provocative rumors. Unemployed people come to the Central Election Commission and the Council of Peopleʹs Commissars almost every day, expecting to receive some kind of material assistance or employment.
At the end of April, a number of excesses took place at the Minsk Labor Exchange. Unemployed sections of unskilled workers, dissatisfied with the sending of exclusively demobilized Red Army soldiers to public works, tried to break the partition behind which the employees worked, and only the summoned alongside the police managed to free the premises from the unemployed. After that, the unemployed went to the building of the CEC, demanding that the chairman of the CEC Comrade Chervyakov and singling out delegates for negotiations. The instigators of the scandals are the unemployed Libes, Nosov, Lebedev, Libeznik and others, who called for the destruction of the exchange, and the latter threatened to beat the head of the labor exchange. The unemployed Turin campaigned among the unemployed about the need for war and a general Jewish pogrom.
In connection with the influx of the unemployed and the beginning of public works, the mood of the unemployed‐demobilized Red Army soldiers worsened. A demobilized Red Army soldier, a member of the Union of Builders Loiko, said to the unemployed: “During the war we were needed, at that time we risked our lives and did not take into account anything, and when the war ended, we were sent to the stock exchange, where we had to sit without work for 6 months or more and no one pays attention to us. Soon, patience will run out, and we will begin to beat the Jews so that not one remains. The Soviet government persecuted the nobles, but the opposite happened ‐ there were now more nobles. What equality and brotherhood is now, when one is dying of hunger, and if he turns to someone for help, then they do not want to talk to him. This is what we have won for ourselves. ʺ
Unrest among the unemployed at the Minsk Labor Exchange in the last days of May and the first days of June turned into an acute form. The unemployed sections of unskilled laborers, of whom more than 3000 people are registered at the Minsk Labor Exchange, having learned about the arrival of peat bogs from Kaluga to the peat extraction of the water supply and power station in Minsk, were outraged, considering this act wrong, and filed a complaint with the RCI and the Central Control Commission. It was decided that the artel of the Kaluga residents, as highly skilled workers, would remain at work as a demonstration for the unemployed at the Minsk Labor
Exchange. Leaving the kaluzhan people fueled the fermentation even more. The unemployed, gathering daily in front of the labor exchange, said that the administration was to blame for their plight. Some of the unemployed incited the rest to beat the administration, throwing them out of the second floor, other loners said, that everyone needs to get together to arrange a demonstration around the city, so that all countries know that it is not so good for a worker in the USSR, as they write in the newspapers. Discontent on May 30 at 5 pm resulted in a scandal on the stock exchange. From one oʹclock in the afternoon, unemployed people engaged in public works began to gather in the yard of the stock exchange to receive their wages. It was three oʹclock in the afternoon, and the money had not yet been issued. The unemployed rushed into the office of the labor commissar to beat him. Bursting into the office of the commissar, the unemployed began to demand money, raised swearing, began to throw chairs, beat inkpots, etc. The arrived chairman of the Council of Peopleʹs Commissars Adamovich persuaded the workers to calm down, but they continued to scandal and calmed down only when they started issuing money. But here a second scandal arose, since, when sending the unemployed to public works, they were promised to be paid 1 ruble each. 50 kopecks, and calculated at 1 rub. 25 kopecks
In the morning about 9 oʹclock. In the courtyard of the stock exchange, a crowd of several hundred unemployed gathered, waiting for the parcel, to whom it was announced that the parcel would not take place. This embittered the unemployed, and the entire mass of the unemployed rushed into the office of the Peopleʹs Commissariat of Labor, threatening to throw him out the window and demanding immediate employment. A detachment of militia was summoned, but the militiamen failed to calm the unemployed, after which a detachment of Red Army men from the division of the GPU troops was summoned. The Unemployed Peopleʹs Commissar of Labor Erofeev, who came out at that time, was surrounded, demanding to give work, threatening him with beatings, swinging fists, etc. Erofeev managed to escape from the crowd, and he ran across the square to the building of the Council of Peopleʹs Commissars. The whole mass of the unemployed rushed after him, and only at the entrance to the building of the Council of Peopleʹs Commissars, the latter were detained by the police and the Red Army. During the chase, the unemployed screamed whistled at Erofeev, and one of them threw a stone at him. The chairman of the Council of Peopleʹs Commissars, Comrade Adamovich, who invited them to return to the exchange and send their delegates to him. In the crowd of the unemployed, there was talk that “we are being bullied, you (pointing at the police) are going against us, you must know how we are starving, and therefore must go along with us, we are not afraid of victims, we will all lie down here, let us be shot, we donʹt care when and where to die, give them to us, we will arrange our own lynching over them (this is in relation to the administrators of the Peopleʹs Commissariat of Labor and the Exchange), we will destroy them here. ʺ A definitely pogrom mood was created among the unemployed. There are calls to smash institutions, beat Soviet central administrations, and rob shops.
On June 2, a crowd gathered again in the courtyard of the exchange, and some individuals called for lynching the administration, again go to Chervyakov and Adamovich to demand work, etc. The unemployed immediately learned that one of them had been arrested on June 1 (Fleer, who threw a stone). This message aroused strong indignation among the unemployed, among them it was heard that it was necessary to gather the organized and go to demand the extradition of Fleer.
On June 5, having gathered at the labor exchange, the unemployed learned about the arrest of some of their leaders. This message again caused indignation, the unemployed said: “If we keep silent, then in a week we will all be transferred to the basement. We must demand the release of our arrested comrades, we must all prove that we are not afraid of arrest, but the Soviet government ‐ the power of the workers is afraid of its own unemployed. We must all come out together and demand work, as well as the release of our comrades. ʺ
The mood among the unemployed remains tense. Excesses in the future are, in all likelihood, inevitable.
Bobruisk. On April 30, the unemployed (there were 1,141 people on the Bobruisk labor exchange as of May 1), having gathered at the exchange building, they demanded to give them a flag to participate in the May Day demonstration, suggesting that they write the slogan on the flag: “Give a job,” but after negotiations the unemployed, having received 200 lunches, went their separate ways. The initiators of the statement are the demobilized Red Army soldiers. There was talk among a small part of the unemployed that if they were not provided with work in the near future, they would have to go into the forest and organize gangs.
The situation of the unemployed of the Union of Builders is bad. During the May 1 holidays, they spoke in favor of protesting in the streets, arguing that many people who did not take part in the revolutionary movement of recent years, in strengthening Soviet power, are now in positions of responsibility and live luxuriously. Some of the unemployed called on the workers for a union strike.
On May 6, in the Bobruisk fortress, a crowd of 250 unemployed from the labor exchange came to the workers engaged in the development of bricks, which began to persuade the workers to quit their jobs. To the unemployed came the head of the work in the fortress ‐ an engineer who tried to persuade them to disperse, otherwise promising to exclude them from the exchange lists. The unemployed became very agitated, and some began throwing bricks at the engineer, who quickly disappeared. The Red Army men were called in to restore order.
Ukrainian SSR. Kiev. Starting on May 4, anti‐Soviet agitation has been intensifying in all sections of the labor exchange and middle bureau. There is talk that ʺif we knew, we would have turned the barrel the other way,ʺ voices are heard calling to ʺslaughter the communists.ʺ On May 8, one of the representatives of state institutions, who recruited unskilled workers, and the head of the labor exchange, comrade Mikhno, who tried to calm down the unemployed. On May 13, a crowd of 500 people gathered, which went to the GIK, on the way they were joined by the unemployed lonely. Passing one of the Kiev clubs, the demonstrators captured the banner. Those who approached the unemployed were told that they should go to the SSGC, where the issue of unemployment would be discussed. At the meeting, the unemployed Chaly (intellectual) showed himself especially sharply, throwing demagogic slogans into the crowd like that ʺtoday is the last and decisive battle, we must put the question of unemployment squarely before the authorities: either today or never.ʺ The crowd roared and raged. A resolution was adopted, proposed by representatives of the SHGS, which spoke of the need to take urgent measures to eliminate unemployment as soon as possible.
On May 15, the mood of the unemployed did not subside. The excitement was especially supported by the unemployed food worker Dotsenko, who gathered around him the unemployed and led a sharp agitation among them, which boiled down to a call to ʺtake up armsʺ, because otherwise, in his words, ʺnothing will come of it.ʺ At a meeting of the commission for the development of the requirements of the unemployed, the unemployed Chaly proposed a resolution that boiled down to the demand to remove all wives and members of communist families from work, to reduce the rates of responsible workers and specialists to 100 rubles, and to send no more than 10% of Komsomol members to work. If these requirements were not accepted, Chaly threatened to “achieve their satisfaction in other ways,” but after a long debate, a resolution proposed by the SHSU was adopted.
On the same day, at about 7 oʹclock in the evening, a meeting of unemployed food workers opened, the meeting was stormy, and the speech of the pre‐union comrade Musatov was constantly interrupted from places. When the latter began to prove in numbers that unemployment was declining, he was not allowed to speak. There were shouts: ʺLie, we donʹt need numbers, give us bread, give us work.ʺ The speeches of all the speakers of the unemployed were reduced to a demand to give complete freedom to private capital, since this is ʺthe only measure that can help the unemployed.ʺ A. Averchenko, a member of the presidium of the meeting, urged the unemployed, despite the fact that “there will be arrests today or tomorrow,” not to be afraid to speak. According to him, “in a year or two, unemployment will be eliminated since we have reached an economic dead end. The day is not far off when there will be shouts of ʺlet the king‐fatherʺ, etc. Moreover, the unemployed Dotsenko said: “Not only can you expect demonstrations from a hungry crowd, but you can also expect more. We must remember the fifth year. We have nothing to lose, we are on the brink of death ʺ171.
Both at the labor exchange and in the middle of the buildersʹ bureau, individuals carried out intensified anti‐Soviet agitation. They all called for new demonstrations. Among these persons, the unskilled laborer Zadorozhny was especially prominent, who ridiculed the delegates who “could not talk” with the representatives of the SHSG and “sold for 4 rubles. and lunch cards. ʺ Then he said that it was necessary to ʺdisrupt all meetings and arrange it so that they know abroad, and if they find out there, then we have nothing to fear, we should take up arms and go to the gangs in the forests.ʺ In case of dissatisfaction with the demands of the unemployed, he proposed ʺto gather and organize a demonstration throughout the city, choosing an initiative group for this in advance, then beat and beat those who sit on soft chairs, issue orders and circulars, receive special orders and do nothing.ʺ
At the same time, rumors persisted among the unemployed that ʺif the requirements of the unemployed were not met, Russian troops stationed on the Polish border would come to their aid.ʺ One of the agitators gathered a lot of listeners around him and began to say: “Comrades, why are you silent, how long will you be afraid of this new nobility. They have money for the organization of the May 1 holiday, which cost no less than 10,000 rubles, to repair the burnt‐out Odessa theater, 150,000 rubles. they also found money for organizing various clubs and corners, for conducting agitation about China, for maintaining a pack of party members, they have money, but for the workers they have no money. They are fighting against classes, but they themselves create such, they destroyed the nobility, and they themselves became nobles. If the worker has managed to acquire some hovel in his life, they oppress him and do not accept him into the Union; if the peasant is hardworking and does not drink, he managed to acquire 5‐6 dessiatines, then he is a kulak. They took the peasantry and divided it into several categories, removed the seventh skin from us, peasants, in order to fill our bellies, in order to walk freely, and this is called workers ʹand peasantsʹ power”.
The greatest aggravations are in the section of laborers and builders. Anti‐communist agitation was carried out especially sharply here.
On the same day, rumors spread among the unemployed that some unknown person, judging by the reprimand of a Pole, had proposed to subsidize counter‐revolutionary agitation among the unemployed, and in this regard, there was intense talk in the metal workers section that the demonstration was provoked by a counter‐revolutionary element.
On May 22, the unemployed Chaly appeared on the stock exchange, who began to agitate very carefully for a new general meeting of the unemployed, bypassing all sections. He proposed to schedule a meeting on May 24 in the royal garden, saying: ʺIf the authorities do not allow us to arrange a meeting, then we will gather, take stones in our pockets and go to smash the executive committee.ʺ
On May 23, three typewritten leaflets were posted in the middle of the buildersʹ bureau with the following content: “Comrades, unemployed. Not the ghost of hunger, but real hunger makes itself felt stronger and stronger. Our wives, children and ourselves are exhausted in search of earnings, our daily piece of bread. Everywhere we get the answer ‐ no work. Comrades, we, the 30,000 unemployed in Kiev, know well that neither comborbez nor the middle bureau create work, public works will not save you from starvation, since through them you can arrange 3,000‐5,000 people, but what remains to do for the rest of 25,000 people ... Existing on one lunch card with your family is not a long way to make money. At the last general meeting, much was said about the incorrectness of the actions of the labor exchange, but this is not the root of evil, etc.
Odessa lips. April is characterized by an increase in unemployment mainly due to the unskilled labor force. The total number of unemployed people in Odessa is about 32,000 people. Currently, out of this number, only 2800 people are employed in public works. The mood is especially turbulent in the section of laborers, where many criminals have accumulated, released from the DOPR for unloading.
At the general meeting of the unemployed of the Union of
Metalworkers, the mood of the masses was very stormy. Attacks against communists and responsible workers were noted. Individuals tried to disrupt the meeting, and threats were heard all the time at the presidium and leaders of the Union. One of the unemployed proposed ʺin order to eliminate unemployment to free the bourgeoisie and all merchants from taxes so that they can expand their enterprises.ʺ
At a meeting of unemployed water workers, delegates to Moscow were elected with a complaint about the Union and the State Chapters, which allegedly did not hold resolutions of general meetings of water workers. After the meeting, one of the unemployed beat the head of the personal table of Goschap Zhurak, explaining this with revenge for the fact that Zhurak, settling personal scores with him, dismissed him from Goschap.
In Pervomaisk, one unemployed (former criminal) beat a deputy. Chairman of Social Insurance for refusing to issue benefits. Among the unemployed, there are a large number of screamers who stir the masses all the time.
On May 1, this initiative group thought to organize a demonstration demanding an improvement in their life. On May 1, one of the unemployed, having come to a general demonstration, brought a poster with the slogan: ʺLong live May 1 — you give a job.ʺ
Kharkiv province. On the morning of May 19, up to 500 unemployed people working in public works in the Klochkovsky district quit their jobs and gathered near the office of the district, where two unemployed spoke out, demanding an increase in wages in connection with an increase in production rates. The chairman of the public works workersʹ committee, who spoke, promised to settle the issue of wages in the coming days. After that, the unemployed began to work, and the administration made a temporary concession and slightly increased wages.
The situation with the unemployed is threatening, since 15,000 unemployed laborers have accumulated in Kharkov, of which only 1,725 people are employed in public works.
Donetsk province. The unemployed in Artemovsk and Mariupol are in very difficult material conditions. Most of the unemployed have absolutely no means of subsistence. In Artyomovsk, demobilized Red Army soldiers apply to the chairman of the All‐Russian Central Executive Committee with a request to influence the local labor exchange in terms of providing them with work and material assistance. General indignation is caused by the fact that the unemployed, who have not found work for a year and a half, are expelled from the Unions.
Astrakhan. As of April 10, 10,738 people are unemployed. The situation of the unemployed outsiders is difficult; they sold everything they had ‐ shoes, underwear, etc. We have to spend the night in the open air or on the piers. Most of the unemployed want to go back, but they do not have the means for this. The GIK has created a special commission for unloading the shelters. The commission was released 5,000 rubles, for which it was able to send 1,300 people, then the dispatch stops due to lack of funds. The unemployed sent an anonymous letter addressed to the chairman of the unloading commission, with the following content: “On the 10th day of April and until April 13, the unemployed of Penza, both Tambov and Saratov, are asking for the pre‐governorate executive committee ‐ send us immediately to our homeland because we stopped in Astrakhan, but there is no work in Astrakhan, and all the money has been eaten, and all the clothes, there is nothing to get home with. Please do not refuse us, otherwise the workers of the city of Astrakhan are sending us to start, and they will help us, in two days we will start differently, firstly, there are many of us here, so a hungry person will be worse than a beast. First of all, we will begin to rob cooperative, grain, as well as all bread shops, and so that this does not happen, then we ask for dispatch in two days, you know what the workers can do, and there will be many victims, and unpleasant rumors about the USSR, and on us foreign countries will laugh. Do not allow this to happen, the good is far away, and the bad is even farther away. We ask you to start sending, do not delay, otherwise we will start, look, make no mistake. The quieter you go, the further youʹll getʺ.
Saratov province. On May 1, one unemployed ‐ demobilized Red Army soldier called on all the demobilized to get together and come out with a poster ʺletʹs work.ʺ
Altai lips. At the Barnaul Labor Exchange, there is a tendency to convene a citywide meeting of the unemployed in order to influence the construction workersʹ department in order to provide work as soon as possible. On April 22, a group of unemployed protested loudly against the personal list sent by Gostorg about sending 21 people to work. One of the unemployed snatched this list from the hands of the head of the labor exchange. At the same time, the unemployed Zakharov said: “To hell with the trade union, he promised to give work back in March, and everyone does not give it; it’s bad that the unemployed are poorly organized, otherwise they’d take their membership cards back and throw them back.”
Omsk lips. At the labor exchange there was a case of propaganda of the intellectual Maslov for organizing a union of the unemployed. Maslov motivated the need for such an organization by the inaction of the administration of the labor exchange. There are over 6,000 unemployed people in the city.
Vladivostok. As of April 1, there were 6509 unemployed. On May 1, a proclamation by the unemployed demobilized was supposed to organize a demonstration with a black flag and the slogan: ʺGive bread and work to the former fighters for Soviet power.ʺ Three appeals were found in the possession of the leader Semin. Exactly the same proclamations were found pasted around the city, in which, among other things, it is said: “Comrades, Red Army men, military men, demobilized, unemployed workers and peasants. The Workers ʹand Peasantsʹ Committee of Influence calls on you just as in the old days honest fighters called on May 1 all advanced workers and peasants to take to the streets in order to defiantly present an ultimatum to the tsarist government and show that they were right in their demand, and among the workers and peasants to show that power is not in the people in power, but in the hands of the people ... When you were in the army, they told you everywhere and everywhere ... that the gates will be open for you everywhere and everywhere ... now see for yourself that the promises are right ‐ first of all, not the demobilized, but the newly baked members of the RCP, who speak a lot, but do little, and give you the right to walk freely on all streets and search a recommendation from a party member of the RCP and just as freely at the labor exchange to stand in line with a stomach free from food for several months until ... you have to take someone by the throat. The Workers ʹand Peasantsʹ Committee for Influence calls on all comrades to reveal a protest against the adventurers who are representatives of the authorities in order to get rid of the arbitrariness and violence of those gentlemen who arrange their well‐being at the expense of underdeveloped and intimidated non‐party workers and peasants ...
Correct: Secretary of INFO OGPU Soloviev
APPENDIX No. 3
THE POLITICAL MOOD OF THE VILLAGE
1. Cross unions
Centre. Moscow province. May 8. Kashirsky u. In Zhilevskaya led. for the first time it was noticed how in isolated cases some peasants raised the question of rallying the peasantry through the peasant trade union, as a necessary measure to improve their situation. The peasants of this volost are nervous and angry, which is explained by the lack of money, bread, and clothing.
Serpukhovsky u. In Lopasnecha parish. in the village. Oksino at a meeting dedicated to May 1, the question of organizing peasant trade unions was understood.
Orekhovo‐Zuevsky u. In Vospushenskaya parish. the local paramedic raised the issue of organizing peasant trade unions.
Podolsky May 29. The chairman of the Svitinsky district council raised the issue of peasant unions during the re‐elections in Voronovskaya parish.
Resurrection u. In the village. Krasnovidovo Pavlovsk parish On May 22, in a teahouse, while talking about the closed Aleksin factory, the peasant Bukashkin said: “That is why we are not allowed a peasant union, that they are afraid of us, because we have a lot of strength, and if we were in a union, we would show how close the factory, and, besides, our union would protect us from an unbearable tax, otherwise the Soviet government does not see how and in what situation the peasant is. Whether you are strong or not, but drive the agricultural tax, and if there was an alliance, he would show them from whom to take, and from whom wait. ʺ Bukashkin is a moonshiner.
Kursk lips. April 17. At the volost non‐party conference in the village of Ivanovo, Lgovsky district. the peasant Gridin said in his speech: ʺIt is necessary to liquidate the Soviets and organize peasant unions in their place.ʺ After a series of speeches by delegates, the conference did not agree with Gridinʹs proposal.
At the non‐partisan conference of Podgorodischenskaya parish. Shchigrovsky u. the speaker was a peasant s. Gryaznoy Bolotov said: ʺWe are not organized, and therefore we are experiencing grief and need, now the workers do not worry about it, because they have their own organizations that protect them and take care of them, now we would not go hungry either.ʺ Further, he spoke in the same spirit and reduced his speech to the need to organize a union of peasants in order to support the poor peasants and find work during a crop failure.
At the conference of non‐party peasants of the Staro‐Gorodskaya parish. Belgorodsky district, where up to 400 people were present, one of the delegates made a proposal to organize a peasant union.
Yaroslavl province. 25th of April. At the entrance to the Oktyabrskaya parish. Rybinsky u. The delegate speaking in the debate pointed out that ʺthe devastation and decline of peasant farms can only be corrected by organizing special unions, as is the case with the workers, who could be interested in and study the life of the peasantry.ʺ In the Volga Volga. of the same county, individual village councils of the Florovsky district brought with them to the vol‐congress a mandate from the population, which also noted the need to organize peasant unions of the type of trade unions uniting workers. In Borovsk parish. Yaroslavsky u. The delegates pointed out that the committees of mutual assistance are working weakly, there is nowhere to get support for the peasants, because both the cooperatives and the committees of mutual assistance have lost all credibility among the masses. It is necessary to organize peasant unions, which will be the only way out of the difficult oppressive situation.
Tula lips. In early April in the village. Budagovishchi, the former nobleman Zhudin, being in the House of the Peasant, led agitation among the peasants against the consumer cooperatives, pointing out: “These cooperatives exist for the purpose of robbing the peasants, and before private merchants took almost no profit, and also now. The peasants need to organize their union and put the issue before the authorities in such a way that until then we will not pay the tax, until there is a good price for bread in the fall, or not pay at all.
Northwest Territory. Cherepovets lip. June 1st. Recently, in the Stulovsky district of the Sominskaya vol. Ustyuzhensky u. an initiative group for organizing the cross union begins to emerge. This group is not yet formalized, no meetings are being arranged, this issue is being discussed openly, but only in private conversations. The goals of the union, in their opinion, should be ‐ the organization of the entire peasant population, one union, which would have its cells in the field. Membership fees should be calculated at a certain percentage of the profitability of the farm and collected in one general cash office, thereby helping the poor peasants, which, according to the group, is the main task of the union. In such conversations, the group explains the usefulness of such for the peasants of the indicated region, that the percentage of the contribution from the peasants of the grain‐growing provinces will be equal to the harvest of the middle peasant of the Sominsk Volost. and the main help will go to them. Committees for mutual assistance of peasants are considered the same cells that are provided for by the cross union, but they see the difference only in membership fees, which are set in the same amount for everyone in the communes. In addition, he cites the example of workers who join the RCP party without much difficulty, have trade unions, from which they receive various assistance during illness.
The peasants of the vil. Kuchino, Stulovo and Pakhnovo of Sominskaya vol., Where such interviews are mainly arranged, since the members of the group live in these villages. All like‐minded people come from peasants (according to their development, the leaders of the village), some of them work at the Smerdoml glass factory.
The group intends to contact the editorial office of a local newspaper for clarification in order to inquire about the existence of a central union in Moscow.
Ukraine. Kiev province. May 20. In the premises of the village council with. Martynovka of the Shevchenko district, two appeals were found, written in Ukrainian; in the proclamations, the peasants were called upon to prepare for May 1 for a speech and it was indicated that if they were silent, then the servant, ʺthrownʺ at them by the workers, would reign again for centuries. The appeal ends with the words: “Let us, fellow villagers, raise our red banners on May 1 and trumpet our worldwide trumpet ‐ villagers, unite into a great organization. Down with the Jewish kingdom, let the preparatory movement live. ʺ
Poltava province. May 20. In with. Brialovka of the Kremenchug District at a meeting of members of the KNU, there is a bias towards the wellto‐do element and there are demonstrations demanding the dissolution of the KNU and the creation of a peasant union. Up to 12 members of the CND were noticed in such speeches.
Kharkiv province. May 20. In with. Kotelny of the Akhtyrka district, peasant Lugovoi agitates for the need to organize all the peasants in order to better present the demands of Soviet power.
North Caucasus. Don district. May 1. In the city of Yeisk, a member of the City Council S. Medvedev is working hard to create a union of grain growers. Medvedev is closely associated with an employee of the South‐Eastern Selbank, who is trying to move to the Yeisk Agricultural Partnership, where it is possible to get closer to the grain growers, Kondratenko, a former Socialist‐Revolutionary, participant of the 1st All‐Russian Peasant Congress.
Stavropol District. May 15. In with. The winery in the RIC filed an application from a group of peasants demanding the organization of a peasant union to protect the interests of the peasantry, and free cooperation, and free Soviets.
June 1st. Around May 10, two peasants came to the wine club and asked the head of the club to review and correct an article they had for the newspaper. The head of the club sent the submitters of the letter to the regional executive committee; having been to the district executive committee, the applicants turned to the district committee, where they submitted an official application for organizing a peasant union. The letter, called ʺDuma of a Peasant on Labor,ʺ turned out to be drawn up by a peasant s. Winery Ponomarenko. The question of the need to create peasant unions in the village. The winery comes from the so‐called ʺVyshinskaya hundredʺ of this village, inhabited mostly by the poor population. The rumor about the creation of peasant unions was among the peasants even before Easter week; who first spoke about the union is not established, the ideological inspirer of this is the peasant Ponomarenko M.K., a middle peasant by social status, has a small farm, a former Red Army soldier, last year he was elected a member of the village council, but was dismissed for systematic non‐attendance at meetings of the village council. Judging by the information collected, Mr. Ponomarenko, in conversation with the peasants, spoke in favor of such a state system, under which there should be no police, no courts and other bodies of state power.
M. Ponomarenko is obviously an anarchist object. The draft and the original of this letter are kept by Ponomarenko. Ponomarenkoʹs associates in the case of peasant unions are: Krashenitsa Grigory, a poor man, developed, evasive, known from the court as a malicious person; Fedorenko Kondrat Trofimovich, middle peasant, former sergeant major, attitude towards Soviet power is hostile, does not enjoy authority among the peasants; Bondarenko Illarion Karpovich, an ordinary peasant, a poor man, weak‐willed, undeveloped, sympathetic to Soviet power; Trukhachev Stepan Gavrilovich, although he denies his attitude to the peasant union, he claims that there is a group of 500 people in the village who wants to have a peasant union, so that the land is not redistributed, that it is state‐owned, that there are no taxes other than land,
We have groped for tendencies towards the organization of peasant unions in all districts, except for the Moscow and Turkmen regions.
Here is a copy of the letter from the peasant Ponomarenko:
ʺDuma of the peasant on laborʺ (Letter to the editor)
“The thought of a peasant about labor. Peasant labor is great wealth. But this wealth just does not fall into the hands of the peasants. Only those who do not want to do not use our labor, otherwise we can say that everyone who wants to gobble up our bloody sweat and uses only because our peasantry is darker than the night, deceived, conceived by the old system and still does not can see the truth that should already appear before his eyes. This is the truth and I understand it this way. It should appear only when we have a great and tightly welded peasant union. And the time has already come, and we, the peasants, must all as one get down to business, since our fellow workers have learned what was needed. And only then can we shake off all the parasites from our shoulders, let them no longer roam in our darkness. We peasants there is only one left separated, like sheep in the field, and everyone who wants to attack us and shears us. Itʹs time for us to get down to business ourselves. We must arrange our union. We must arrange our own cooperation, but not the same as it now exists ‐ we have that member, and that one is not a member, contributions are three kopecks. We must arrange for our union such cooperation so that all members of our union would be members of the cooperative to one person and not put three rubles in contributions, but put all their surplus of our labor there. And so that this work we have invested in cooperation could be appreciated by us ourselves, so that we can establish the correct price for each pood of bread handed over, as well as other products handed over by us. We ourselves must send all our products of our labor wherever needed, where people cannot live without us, and we cannot live without them. We must do a great job with these comrades — the exchange of our peasant labor for their factory labor. May the insatiable creatures that eternally devour our labor no longer be gorged by our labor and our blood sweat. We can arrange it like this: say, a member of the cooperation has invested 100 poods. wheat and received 100 rubles. a receipt for the delivery of goods from factories and plants, each member can take what he needs for his invested labor. You can also say this: here we have collected 100,000 poods. grain and made an agreement with the worker comrades, they accept grain from us for 1 ruble 20 kopecks, and we, members of our cooperation, hand over for 1 ruble, 5000 poods immediately remain in place, which we can turn this bread wherever we want and by 100,000 rubles. buy goods. We must arrange the correct land use ourselves by our peasant union, all the land should be our great peasant union; citizens in another union should not use the land. Did our great teacher V.I. Lenin say this badly, that the land to the one who cultivates it, and we now do it like this: our former chairman is in the Union of employees and receives a decent salary there and immediately receives land, which he does not works, and many such citizens. Since you are in the Union whatever, you should not use the land, because you don’t work, and if you don’t work, then don’t take it, otherwise it turns out that you get from the Union for your labor, you put a foot on your peasant comrade, so that he would work for you for the land that you did not create it. And if anyone wants to receive and cultivate the land, then we ask to our peasant union, no one will contradict. We have to arrange so that we do not have horseless peasants in our peasant union, and we must give them great help to our fellow peasants, former grain growers ruined by war, revolution and hunger. We must arrange so that in two years all the poor peasants will work on their own horses, both with their own labor and in their fields. How can this be done? Thatʹs how. We will declare our union the lease of land for one year, and if possible, then for two years, no more, and put the price of 3 rubles. for a tithe, and reach the surrender of land as much as anyone needs up to those limits, if only according to the census there were no obstacles to anyone. The poor can be given land for free for the same period of up to two years, and given how much he can work with his labor. For example, we leased the land for two years and dismantled 20,000 dess. Here we already got 120,000 rubles, now we still have a profit to put 1 ruble. per horse, 1 rub. [for a cow], for a bull 50 kopecks, the same sheep; If you take it right into account, then there will be many shares, and we must distribute this money among the poor peasants for the purchase of horses, bulls, cows, etc. and give them either irrevocably or for 10 years without interest. I think ‐ in this way we will arrange a bright life for the people. Now, comrades peasants, we must give a part of the fleet, etc. And I think that this would have ended all those taxes in kind that have been borne by us to this day. If we arrange this, give ourselves great help to our fellow peasants, then I think our government will allow us to do those bright deeds for the lives of all citizens, and if we don’t do this, then we will not see anything good. Finishing my thought, although not soon, my desire will be fulfilled.
Long live the great alliance of the multimillion peasantry.
Long live the great alliance of the workers and peasants of all countries.
Peasant Mikhail K. Ponomarenko (Stavropol District, Vinodelensky District, Vinodelnoe village) ʺ.
Tendencies towards the organization of peasant unions were noted in all districts of the district, except for the Moscow and Turkmen regions. Volga region. Penza lips. In Lomovskaya parish. N. Lomovsky In a conversation with a group of peasants, the secretary of the SeroPlyuchinsky village council, Podboronov, said: “The Soviet government, which had promised a lot to the people, as a result did not give anything, but oppressed by unbearable taxes; but look at the worker ‐ he is united in his Unions, which firmly stand for the workers, give an organized rebuff in case of any violence, but the peasant is scattered and he needs to demand the organization of an alliance for liberation from the yoke of rapists ”; the peasants present fully supported Podboronov.
In Luninskaya Vol. Penza u. The peasantry, faced with the question of not hiring them as not members of the trade union, is extremely angry against the workers and alarmed by the anti‐Soviet element, at meetings they demand the immediate organization of peasant unions.
In with. Kamenka Nizhne‐Lomovskiy u. the peasant Makeev (a carpenter by profession) said among the peasants: ʺThe Soviet government did nothing for the peasant, the peasant is dying of hunger, and she does not even scratch, and all this is because the peasants are not organized into unions, and the Soviet government uses this.ʺ ...
Ural. Chelyabinsk District. At the Etkul regional conference, three kulaks submitted a note to the presidium, proposing in current affairs to raise the question of ʺan all‐Russian peasant union and the difference between workers and peasants.ʺ The chairman of the conference asked what they mean by union, to which the kulak Lesser replied: ʺThe workers have a trade union, the peasants do not, I wanted the peasants to unite in unions to protect their interests.ʺ
Siberia. Novonikolaevskaya lips. In the village. N. Coen, after a report on May 1, a local peasant said in his speech: “May 1 is a holiday of workers organized in their organizations, we peasants, following their example, need to organize into peasant unions in order, like workers, to defend our interests. The life of the peasants will not improve until they become an organized unit. The peasantry has little land, and at present it is taken away for state farms and collectives. ʺ In response to a speech by a member of the RCP, who pointed out that state farms and collectives are poor organizations, the peasant said: ʺFirst we get organized, and then we will move towards collectivity.ʺ
DVO. Transbaikal lips. At the Tataurovskaya regional conference of the Chita u. delegate c. Ulety said in his speech: ʺOur government is not a workersʹ government, the government is not ours, it does not protect the interests of the peasantry, not a single instructor traveling through the villages said that the peasants should organize a cross union to protect their interests.ʺ
2. Terror of the kulaks
Centre. Moscow province. Bogorodsky u. May 10 in the village of Petrovsky, Ivanovskaya parish. the newly elected secretary of the RLKSM cell, Zhukov, approached a group of peasants who were playing cards for money on the street and began to watch the game. At this time, the peasant Piganov, without saying a word, hit Zhukov on the head and when asked by the latter ‐ for which, without ceasing, he continued to beat. From the group of peasants who were sitting, no one interceded, and they said: ʺGive him more,ʺ threatening here and a member of the village council Shikhanov (a member of the RCP) for the fact that the latter was involved once for a similar case of beating. There were no personal accounts between Zhukov and Piganov. There is a developed hatred of the communists in the village, who do not do any work for fear of beating. There was a case of poisoning of a cow at the secretary of the RLKSM cell, Akindinov, and a barn was burned. Communists are not allowed to speak at meetings. Leaders, leading terror to the population are: Khitrov, Mishin, Dushkov, Klimov, Ryzhenkov, Legkov, Fufaev, Pegin and Yakshin. Most of the poor say: ʺIf only they would send this bastard where the Soviet power is only watching, these bandits have completely disbanded.ʺ Once, who was driving from the village of Mishnova on cell business, he was met by a peasant from. Petrovsky, asking what business he was going to Petrovskoye, and receiving the answer that he was going on the affairs of the cell and KKOV, said that ʺeverything is fine in our village, but for now, go back.ʺ The one who was driving, fearing to be beaten, came back. The district militia is also afraid to visit the village. Petrovsky.
Bogorodsky u. In Ivanovskaya Vol. in with. Kormilino from arson by moonshiners a fire broke out in the estate of the RLKSM cell secretary. The entire building with equipment and cattle burned down. The cell secretary himself was beaten during the fire. While extinguishing the fire, deliberate damage to the fire engine was discovered. Threats were heard to set fire to the houses of other party members.
Western edge. Gomel province. In the village Vysokopole near [f.] Korma Dobrush parish. Gomel district former policeman Shevchenko lives, who terrorizes the population with the help of his relatives. Lacking the right to vote and wanting to manage the village, Shevchenko is trying to get rid of the village chairman of the village council Troyanov, insisting that Troyanov leave the village council allegedly due to illness. On April 15, Shevchenko and her son attacked Troyanov and would have killed him if he had not promised that he would leave the village council and would not interfere in any business. Shevchenko, scolding Troyanov, said that if Troyanov served in the Red Army, it means a bandit. At meetings, no one speaks out against Shevchenko, and if there is such a daredevil, then he is ʺexpelledʺ from the meeting. In addition to the estate land, Shevchenko also seized field land. The peasants sued him, which awarded, so that he would return the land, but Shevchenko declares that the first person who wants to take the land away from him, he will chop off his head. Insisting on the departure of Troyanov, Shevchenko told him that when leaving the village council, he should motivate his departure so as not to arouse any suspicion of the real reason for leaving. From the peasants of the village, fearing Shevchenko, no one wants to take on the duties of the chairman of the village council, and after Troyanov leaves, all power in the village will pass into the hands of Shevchenko.
Ukraine. Kharkiv province. Peasants‐kulaks Hut. Bochkovo and sl. Bolokhovki of the Kharkiv district systematically cut down forests. On April 20, forester Tega shot at one of the woodcutters, after which the latter immediately gathered in the village council and demanded a forester. After negotiations with the forester who appeared, a group of kulaks gathered under the leadership of a local hooligan and the organizer of the felling of the forest Pogrebnyakov carried out lynching against the forester here in the village council building.
Poltava province. In with. In Petrivtsi, a woman was killed and a man (Ivashchenkoʹs husband and wife) was wounded because they were active participants in land management. It was established that Ivashchenko was elected village correspondent at the meeting, after which he gave notes to the newspaper ʺChervona Lubenshchinaʺ, passing them through the village council. In one of these notes, he pointed to the appropriation by the chairman of the village council of winnowing machines, threshers and seeders selected during dispossession of kulaks, and also informed about the harboring of land by the chairman and secretary of the village council from taxation. Of these notes, only one got into the newspaper, on which the investigation was conducted. In addition to these notes, Ivashchenko filed allegations of abuse with the REC, but there the complaint was not given a move, allegedly for lack of corpus delicti. During the land management, Ivaschenko, together with 1/7 of the village, stood out in a wedge, but when the village remained dissatisfied with such a division, Ivashchenko came out of the wedge and began work with the unearthed part of the village for the general land management. On this basis, the village administration accused him of clandestine lawyer work, forgeries, etc., and then the chairman of the KNS and the secretary of the RLKSM called Ivashchenko into a separate room and threatened to kill him if he did not quit his land management job. The murderers were three Komsomol members, and behind them, as a participant who supplied weapons, is the chairman of the KNS Finenko (party member). The murder was preceded by a drinking binge, in which the killers and the chairman of the CND took part. The killers shot at Ivashchenko twice at point‐blank range, the first bullet wounded him in the chest, the second hit the forehead bone, made a ricochet, and Ivashchenko survived. The participants in the murder, without suspecting it, killed his wife with two shots, to hide the traces of the crime. It has been established that the peasants of the village are strongly terrorized.
Siberia. Novonikolaevskaya lips. In with. Burlak (Novonikolaevsky u.) Drunk peasants attacked the Komsomol member, who received a knife wound in the side and a blow to the head. The relationship between the Komsomol members and the well‐to‐do is strained. In the same village, a drunken company headed by a peasant Gavrilenko attacked a meeting member of the RLKSM Skudnin, but the latter managed to escape. They beat the peasant Monastyrev, while Gavrilenko asked: ʺWho are you, a communist or a Komsomol member?ʺ ‐ and to the answer: ʺNot a communist, but a sympathizer of the Communist Party,ʺ he said: ʺOne bastard, that the Communists, that sympathizer.ʺ
3. The mood of the poor and former partisans
Ukraine. Kharkiv province. In with. Novaya Vodolaga On May 1, a leaflet was found in the form of an order, signed by ʺdemobilized Red Army men‐Mensheviksʺ, with the following content:
ʺOrder No. 7
§ 1. Here, comrades Bolsheviks, you crushed the peasants with a stone, you put them on a train ... so that they cannot stand up with all their feet and they can no longer live.
§ 2. You demobilized the Red Army, you let them out of the Red Army naked and you don’t give any help. What do you think, if a worldwide revolution breaks out, then you do not exist, then we take rifles and go against you, we have to go because you deceived us at every step? What do you think, whom are you fooling, you exist through us, when we stood guard and looked vigilantly towards the enemy, but it did not work out that way ‐ it is not the enemy whom you call enemies, the enemy is the one who took us away from the plow and from their own mothers who were left without a piece of bread and the authorities do not pay attention to it?
§ 3. We, the Red Army men of 1901, confirm that if you don’t check our farms and don’t give help, we will go against you and crush that leper dog that did all this. During this holiday we will issue 40 leaflets against the authorities.
§ 4. The demobilized Red Army men join the Mensheviks and all the peasants.
§ 5. Whoever finds it, read it and pass it on to another comrade, and we also ask you ‐ raise an uprising, we are with you, and we will help you.
Help us and join us, we are with you, waiting for you.
Demobilized Red Army soldiers. ʺ
Altai lips. On the night of April 20‐21 in the village. Ust‐Talmak Soloneshensky district, Biysk u. a grenade was thrown into the house of the Old Believer priest Cherepanov, where the prayer was taking place, from the rupture of which one of those present was killed, the other four were wounded, two were seriously and two were light.
Discussing what had happened, the peasants unanimously accused the local cell of the RCP (b), pointing out that the latter did it on the basis of a struggle against religiosity. Proceeding from this, the peasants demanded the arrest of all members of the cell and part of the poor who were marching with the cell. The chairman of the village council summoned the secretary of the RCP cell, Bulygin, to the village council, who was told the opinion of the peasants that the cell was a participant in the murder and that the peasants wanted to arrest all the members of the cell and part of the poor who followed the cell before the police arrived.
Bulygin rejected participation in the murder of the cell and said that he would not let the cell members be arrested. At this time, those who arrived from the scene reported that they found traces leading from the window into which a grenade was thrown to the apartment of Sysoev Peter, a candidate for party membership. Upon receipt of this news, the village council organized a commission consisting of the chairman of the village council Zinoviev, local citizens Efimov, Sysoev Isak, Makariev Kalistrat (all wealthy, of the Old Believersʹ faith), Bulygin (cell secretary) and Makariev Antip (party member), which, following traces, reached houses of Sysoev Peter. The peasants accompanying the commission began to demand the arrest of all members of the cell, indicating that the murder was committed by the latter, and if not arrested, then they (members of the RCP) would cover the traces of the crime.
Bulyginʹs assertion that the cell was not to blame, and it is not known whether Sysoev was guilty, did not help, the peasants insisted on their own. Bulygin then agreed to isolate the members of the cell. The village council decided to search the members of the cell and part of the poor and arrest all members of the cell, except for those who participated in the commission Bulygin and Makariev. Some of the members of the cell and the poor were detained in the village council, some were subjected to house arrest under the supervision of peasants‐Old Believers.
On the third day of the investigation, Sysoev confessed that he had thrown a grenade into the prayer room without the participation of anyone. Sysoev explained the reason that prompted the crime with revenge for suspecting the Old Believers of counter‐revolutionary activities.
In fact, Sysoevʹs anger against the Old Believers, according to him and the testimony of the peasants, lies in the fact that the local Old Believers, since 1920, have been constantly persecuting and mocking him as an outcast of their environment. So, in 1920, local Old Believers Sysoev was suspected of stealing a bridle, hung on the gate and beaten; after the death of Sysoevʹs father, his uncle Cherepanov Nazar (an Old Believer) seized part of Sysoevʹs fatherʹs property ‐ 16 beehives, books for 3000 rubles. and so on. In the same 1920 in the village. Ust‐Kalmak, with the participation of Sysoev, searches were carried out in order to identify weapons and military uniforms, which later served to increase the hated attitude towards him. Peasants‐Old Believers considered it humiliating to talk to him, meetings of Old Believers with him were always accompanied by ridicule and abuse at his address. All this, Sysoev pointed out, and that,
Sysoev ‐ a peasant with. Ust‐Talmak, 21 years old, the son of a local Old Believer priest (self‐baptized) 172, Sysoevʹs father was killed in 1919 by partisans on suspicion of him being connected with the Kolchak authorities. After the death of his father, Sysoev began to visit the family of his sister, who married a communist, and gradually succumbed to the influence of her husband in the sense of a gradual departure from the ideology of the Old Believer environment. After the overthrow of the Kolchak region, Sysoev joined the party in 1920, entered the service in the food detachment in 1921, and three months later transferred from the food detachment to the troops of ChON 173, where he took part in suppressing the bandit movement in the Soloneshensky region.
In 1922, after the liquidation of the gangs, Sysoev returned home and was engaged in peasant farming; in view of the fact that he lost his membership card, he, at the suggestion of a newcomer to the village. Ust‐Talmak instructor of the party committee, it was necessary to re‐join the party; however, Sysoev did not do this, and thus was considered mechanically to have dropped out of the party. In Leninʹs week 153, which was held by the Biysk Ukom at the beginning of 1925, Sysoev joined the party as a candidate, approved by the district committee, but the Ukom had not yet been approved by the Ukom before the crime was committed.
S. Ust‐Talmak consists of two land societies ‐ Talminka and Markarovka. Talminka has up to 300 inhabitants, most of them are immigrants of various religions, the poor, while the population of Makarovka up to 270 people consists entirely of old‐timers, oldbelievers (chapel‐style), wealthy, and a small number of middle peasants. Before the revolution, these societies were independent in the sense of administrative social life; after the revolution they were united into one administrative unit called Ust‐Talmak.
From the moment of unification, an economic struggle began between the two societies, fueled by discord of religious beliefs. The struggle went along the line of a dispute over land, since the Makarovites possessed a large amount and better quality of land, over pastures for grazing cattle, because of the distribution of allotments within the village, taxation, volsboros and other self‐taxation. The struggle between the Talminians and the Makarovites was especially acute during the last campaign of re‐elections to the Soviets; at the preelection meeting, the well‐to‐do element managed to seize the meeting, then the communists, Komsomol members and a significant part of the poor peasants, Talmin residents, left the meeting. The well‐to‐do, using this opportunity, closed the meeting, recording the minutes that the meeting was disrupted by the cell.
At the re‐elections themselves, which took place on November 22, there were no Makarov leaders Zinoviev (now the chairman of the village council), Sysoev Isak (a member of the village council commission who initially investigated the crime), Tupyakov Savva (a former party member who came out in 1920, middle peasant, old believer, in 1920 was the chairman of the village council) and several others who drank in a neighboring village on the occasion of a wedding with an old believer. Thanks to their absence at the re‐election meeting, the Talminites won the victory and brought four Talminians and one Makarovite, a party member Antip Makariev, to the village council. Among the Talmin residents, Bulygin (secretary of the cell), Belyaev Mercury (party candidate), Bulygin Savva (non‐party middle peasant) and Burykhin Ermolai (non‐party middle peasant) were elected to the village council.
When the head of the Makarovites returned after drinking and learned that the Communists and Talminians had won the elections to the village council, they began to campaign among the Makarovites that the village council was elected incorrectly, that less than 75% of the total population participated in the elections. As a result of the agitation, an application was submitted to the regional executive committee, signed by 130 people, exclusively from Makarovites, demanding to declare the elections illegal and appoint new elections to the village council. The regional executive committee satisfied this demand. The cell, dissatisfied with the decision of the district executive committee, decided to boycott the new elections, and at the re‐election meeting the cell not only did not put up its list, but even the whole, together with the Komsomol organization and part of the poor people of Talmin residents at the re‐election meeting, refused to participate in the reelection, explaining its refusal to vote by, that at this meeting the number of those gathered was no more than at the previous one. The village council was elected exclusively from the Makarovites ‐ well‐todo, non‐party, Old Believers, and only a member of the party Makariev Antip, a Makarovite, nominated by the Makarovites themselves, was elected as a candidate for membership in the Village Council.
The newly elected village council immediately took the line of orientation towards the Makarovites, the village council itself, which had previously been in the Talminsky building, was transferred to Makarovka, and the newly elected chairman of the village council Zinoviev gave his house for free for the village council building. Contrary to the order of the regional executive committee on the allotment of land to the visiting peasants, which previously belonged to the Makarov settlement, the village council did not carry out this order. In connection with the onset of the moment of pasturing livestock for pasture and the need to fence off arable fields from pastures, the village council tried to shift a significant part of the work
on the garden to Talmin residents, and in this case it met stubborn resistance of the latter. The poor old believers from Talminka, who blocked at the re‐election meeting with the Makarovites, assessing the work of the new village council, said: “Here we have chosen the kulak council, flayers, you are on our neck and go. Communists correctly told us that the village council should be elected from among the poor. ʺ
The rural cell of the RCP and the Komsomol organization consist, in addition to one member of the party Makariev‐Makarovtsa, from Talʹmina. The cell and the Komsomol, releasing the middle peasant part of the village from their influence, pushing it onto a bloc with a prosperous element, became the leaders of the poor peasants, as a result of which the Talminians always prevailed at village gatherings before the re‐elections of the village council when resolving issues. At the same time, the cell struck at the cultivation of the peasantry, attributing the label ʺkulakʺ indiscriminately to all, even the diligent peasants.
The aggravation of relations between the cell and the middle peasant and well‐to‐do part of the village was further deepened by the wrong organization of the anti‐religious work of the cell: constant ridicule by the cell members about the religiosity of the Old Believers, frequent instructions to the Old Believers that they could not pray without permission from the police, and there were cases when, for example, in 1923, a member of the cell, the chairman of the village council Kazazayev summoned an old believer priest to the village council and took away his signature that he would not hold prayer meetings without the permission of the police; in 1925, shortly before Easter, a member of the cell, Sindyakin, came to the prayer house of the Old Believers in order to check the audience.
The latest re‐elections to the village council, which ended in the defeat of the cell and knocked the cell out of the ʺcommand heightʺ along the Soviet line, especially pushed the cell to anti‐religious work.
Under the influence of such a general mood, Sysoev Peter, who linked the defeat of the cell with his personal grievances from wealthy Old Believers, decided to commit a crime, and it is possible that the moment that formalized in the mind of Sysoev [the decision] to throw a grenade was a conversation in the apartment of Vasily Belyaev (candidate for membership RCP), albeit with a humorous content, as Sysoev puts it, about a bomb, where Belyaev expressed in a conversation that Easter is coming up now, Kerzhaks (Old Believers) will gather to pray and it would be nice to throw a bomb. Participation in the crime of the cell as a whole or of its individual members, except for Sysoev, has not been established, but that the members of the cell generally sympathize with this act, it follows from the fact that one of the cell members, when the peasants evaluated Sysoevʹs act as hooliganism, answered that it was not hooliganism,
On the night of the first day of Easter, i.e., from 19 to 20 April 1924, in the village. Borovlyanki, Baschelaksky district, Biysk u. two local peasants Pavletsov and Buinov (the first middle peasant, the second farm laborer) were killed.
The commission that went to the scene of the incident found that the following were involved in the murder: 1) Korchagin Fedor, secretary of the RCP cell, party member since 1920, 2) Shestakov, party member since 1920, former partisan, 3) Astana Ivan, member party since 1920, former partisan, 4) Lubyagin Pavel, party member since 1920, former partisan, 5) Usov Anton, party member since 1920, former partisan and Chonovets, 6) Usov Procopiy, non‐partisan, former partisan , poor man, 7) Egor Usov, 18 years old, non‐partisan, the son of a middle peasant, lives with his father, 8) Grigory Lubyagin, 23 years old, non‐partisan, poor peasant, 9) Alexey Terentyev, 18 years old, non‐partisan, poor peasant, 10) Afanasy Lubyagin, non‐partisan , a poor man, on mobilization he served with Kolchak, under Soviet power he served in the militia.
The very fact of the murder took place under the following circumstances: on the first day of Easter, the murdered Pavletsov was invited to visit the peasant Lubyagin Afanasy, in addition to Lubyagin, Pavletsov was visiting Pastukhov Vasily, Butakov and other local peasants, who, getting drunk, beat Lubyagin out of revenge for the Christmas fight and took off his boots. Having escaped, Lubyagin ran to the village council and announced what had happened to the chairman of the village council, Subbotin (a poor man, a former partisan), who was there, the latter immediately gave the order to the village executive Baikalov (a non‐partisan, poor man) to help out and bring the horse left by Lubyagin in the fence of Pavletsovʹs house. Fulfilling order, Baikalov, accompanied by Lubyagin, went to Pavletsovʹs house, but on the way he was met by the above company, consisting of Pastukhov, Butakov and others, and with the words: ʺAnd we are looking for youʺ, was thrown from his horse and beaten unconscious. The chairman of the village council and member of the party Zhestyakov, who learned about this, gathered the abovementioned participants in the murder, the latter armed themselves with all the weapons they had and went to look for the participants in the beating. Approaching Pavletsovʹs house, they fired a preliminary shot into the air, after which they offered to open the door. The door was opened by a farm laborer Buinov, who had accidentally spent the night at Pavletsovʹs passage from another village, who was immediately killed by a rifle shot from a rifle; Having finished with Buinov, the company entered the house and, finding the owner Pavletsov lying on the bed, killed him with the second shot from the rifle. Hearing the shots, Pastukhov, Butakov and others who were at that time in another house, fearing to be killed, fled.
From the conversations of the peasants, the commission found out that there are 147 householders in the village, of which 20 are middle peasants, the rest are poor. Under Kolchak, almost all those capable of carrying weapons participated in partisan detachments, and later in Chonovski detachments to eliminate gangs. The village, due to the distance, is almost completely cut off from the district center, abandoned and remained by itself all the time. Not only the peasants, but also the cell as a whole, have absolutely no idea in the village about the existing revolutionary legality. In the village, moonshine, revelry, disgrace and fights were firmly established in the village, in which the cell itself takes part. Members of the latter are engaged in forcing moonshine, drunkenness and fights on a par with non‐party peasants. And due to the fact that individual members in each such case used weapons,
S. Borovlyanka even before the revolution was famous for his hooliganism and especially fist fights. On this basis, the village was divided into two camps ‐ ʺupʺ (residents living in the upper part of the village) and ʺdownʺ (living in the lower part), and Vasily Pastukhov (a poor man, a former partisan, serves as the leaders and leaders of the upper part) in Chonʹs detachments, was a party member, but left the party in 1921) and Butakov (middle peasant, partisan, serves in Chonʹs detachments, was in the party, but left in 1921). From the testimony of the peasants, it is clear that everyone was afraid of Pastukhov and Butakov: if they are drunk, then, according to the peasants, do not get caught ‐ they will definitely beat them. To characterize them, you can add the fact that they were twice convicted by popular court on charges of hooliganism and fights. There is a society decree to evict them from the village as vicious, undesirable and generally harmful element. The leader of the lower part of the village is Shestakov (a party member since 1920, a partisan, participated in the liquidation of gangs in Gorny Altai). The peasants speak of him in the same way as of Pastukhov and Butakov.
Before the revolution, fistfights often took place, but during the revolution, due to the fact that almost the entire village was drawn into partisan detachments, reconciliation occurred between the two warring camps. From the moment Pastukhov and Butakov left the party, clashes between “top” and “bottom” begin again, for example, if Pastukhov or someone from his company in a drunken state meets someone from the lower part, then he is immediately beaten, and vice versa. It is characteristic to note that Pastukhovʹs company included almost the majority of the middle peasants, and due to the fact that the cell consisted of residents of the lower part, the middle peasants living below, thanks to their hostility to the cell, for a number of reasons supported the “top”.
The first serious skirmish took place on Christmas Day 1924. On this holiday, a company headed by Pastukhov gathered for a drink at Grigory Korobeinikov, who lives in the lower part of the middle peasant, and Pavletsov, now killed and his relative Sosnin Serapion, who was adjacent to this block, also came here on horseback. After drinking, Pavletsov and Sosnin, leaving the fence of Korobeinikovʹs house, met several young guys on the street, offered the latter to go for a drive with them, the youth agreed. But as soon as they got into the sleigh, Sosnin drove the horse, and Pavletsov, by striking them in the face, began to throw them out of the sleigh. To protest against this, a noise arose on the part of the youth, the Pastukhovs with a company came out of the house of Korobeinikov to shout, and, having learned what was the matter, began to beat up the youth, among whom there was a part of Komsomol the latter immediately reported the incident to the cell. The latter reacted to this in the following way: quickly gathering its members and members of the youth union, as well as part of the non‐party poor peasants who stood on the side of the cell, among the latter was Baikalov (beaten by Pastukhov and his company on Easter), and armed with rifles, with pitchforks, and some of them simply by hassles, they came to the place of the fight, where, due to their relative numbers and superiority in weapons, they easily coped with the company led by Pastukhov, which, due to the small number, was thoroughly beaten and forced to hastily retreat and take refuge in Korobeinikovʹs house. Further events and the siege of the house of the latter is depicted as follows: the communists quickly organized a headquarters next to the besieged house. Nikolai Usov, a party member since 1920, was appointed chief of staff.174 against the gangs of Kaigarodov, posts were set up on all roads and written passes were installed. According to Usovʹs testimony, at the same time the messenger was brought to the notice of the incident to the head of the district police in the village. Bashelake that there is a riot in the village of the well‐to‐do, who beat party members and Komsomol members. The courier who returned said that the head of the district police was absent, his deputy senior policeman Artamonov (now arrested for a crime ex officio), refused to go to the scene, and sent a note in which he suggested that the rioters should not be arrested, but shot on the spot. Having received the note, the opinion of the party members split into two parts, one part was against executions, the other for executions, the latter indicated that since the police wrote, we must comply, since the police are responsible for this, but in view of the fact that that the chief of staff Usov was also against the shootings, who even threatened that if the shootings took place, he would resign from his powers given to him as chief of staff; it was decided not to carry out executions, but to confine themselves only to shots in the air. The next morning Pastukhov with a company of 8 people surrendered, after which they were sent to the district police station (Bashelak village), but the latter were soon released and returned back. After that, there were still several small fights. but the latter were soon released and returned. After that, there were still several small fights.
As a result, the commission came to the conclusion that the combination of all the above reasons led to the event that took place on the night of April 19‐20. g.
From a survey of a number of peasants by the commission, it was also established that the village is currently experiencing the same situation as it was during the gangster movement; peasants, fearing each other, sleep in the hills and baths. When asked by the commission to one peasant (middle peasant) why he does not sleep at home, but somewhere in the mountains, he replied: “If Pavletsov had not slept at home, he would have been alive.”
Such a situation in the village, equipped with moonshine and hooliganism, with the presence of party and Komsomol organizations in the village, could have survived since the time of War Communism 175 only because both the party cell and the Komsomol organization were doing their work incorrectly, far behind the general party life.
The village is 12 versts distant from the regional center (now the regional center, previously the volost). However, over the past two years, none of the higher bodies (even the district committee) has been to the cell, the cell has not received and does not receive a single newspaper, naturally, in such conditions of abandonment and the absence of leadership of the Party organs, the cell was drifting with the flow, driven by the breeze of war communism.
The cell was engaged in administration, command, the cell was a monopoly on official posts in Soviet and public work, the cell was power and, maneuvering with tax rebates, it escaped the tax itself and led some of the poor peasants of the lumpen‐proletarian coloring, which irritated the rest of the peasantry.
The atmosphere of fights and hooliganism forced the cell to be constantly under martial law, such vigilance allowed the cell to instantly create, in the full sense of the word, an ʺactive military organizationʺ in a Christmas fight.
In such a situation, the cell, of course, broke away from the peasant masses, closed within itself, went to closed meetings, about which the local peasants say something like this: “Who knows what they (the
communists) talk about at their meetings, maybe they decide, who should be killed. ʺ
The cell is drinking, driving moonshine, taking part in fights. It is characteristic that when in March with. Mr. the secretary of the cell was in the district committee, then the instructor of the district committee talked with him the whole night about the new course of the party in the work of the village; the next morning, leaving the district committee, the secretary of the cell said that he did not agree with the partyʹs course and believed that with this course the party would give the kulaks and counter‐revolutionaries an opportunity to seize power and deal with the communists.
DVO. Transbaikal lips. In the city of Sretensk on May 10, two proclamations were removed from the telegraph poles with the following content: 1. “Down with the commune and down with the Komsomol, long live the old partisans, partisan detachments, thatʹs enough, we have suffered, down with”. 2. ʺTime has passed, down with slavery, long live freedom, beat the communists, save yourself from the yoke of the commune.ʺ
On May 11, a letter (Sretensk) addressed to the workers of Steinʹs printing house was seized with the following content.
May Day responses.
ʺFinally, the memory of Pogo daev (the commander of the partisan division) was honored, joy burns in our hearts, when the banners are bowed, they sing over the one who honestly fell.ʺ
“Comrades.
From the rostrum on May 1 belated praises of the partisan were heard, they remembered his exploits, his heroic victories. Yes, the partisan won his freedom with his blood. Lacking a rifle in his hands, with his courage he fought off carts, procured weapons and food. But what did the partisan get? He was basely deceived, thrown overboard, ruined, thrown into prison, many were shot ‐ this is the reward the partisan received. A crowd of bandits, who came to the ready, settled on a hundred‐ruble salary and drinks the labor blood of a peasant. Some confiscate his property and sell it robbed in the middle of the day without a price, while they themselves shout, we will destroy the poor, strengthen agriculture. From the words of the speaker (at the rally on May 1) it is clear that the struggle is close, that it is inevitable, capital is advancing. The partisan, if the hour of struggle strikes, will again leave the plow, leave the family and rush to fight with fierce force. He will beat those who outraged him, they ruined him, threw him into prison, he does not wish for the best from the victories to come ‐ he has already experienced another freedom. But for the desecrated native land, everyone has a thirst for merciless revenge, from the rostrum, in clubs, corners everywhere you can hear ʺLenin, Lenin, Leninism.ʺ What is Lenin? A figurehead, a Jew hireling, a fugitive convict who smashed the power of Russia, made libertines and libertines out of young men and wives, out of children ‐ at the corners of the dying homeless ‐ these are the exploits of Lenin.
Long live the coming struggle, long live the red partisans” (no signature).
Correct: Secretary of INFO OGPU Soloviev
APPENDIX 4
LAND MANAGEMENT
1. The struggle of the peasantry for land
Ryazan lips. In the village. Pavilions of Potapievskaya vol. Sasovsky u. the society refused to give land to the missing Red Army soldiers, on this basis land disputes arise. In the village. Toropovo Novoselsky parish during the redistribution of land during the transition to broadband, at the suggestion of the local kulak Kuznetsov, all absent peasants (who were engaged in seasonal trades and Red Army men who had disappeared) were deprived of their land allotment. The same was noted in the village. M.‐Likhovo.
Kursk lips. At the Rakitin non‐partisan conference of Borisov u. it was decided by a majority of votes to take away the land from the sugar factories and distribute it to the peasants. A member of the Tomarovsky village council, the Lesnichy, actively campaigned for this proposal. The decision was recorded in the protocol, and the peasants are waiting for the results.
Belarus. In March, the foreman of the Peat Plant of the Minsk City Power Plant Leibman measured the swamp adjacent to the swamp of peat factories on the banks of the river. Tsny in the Minsk district, which, according to the available permission, was to go into development. To meet them from the village. A crowd of peasants came out of the swamp, which did not allow the swamp to be measured, tore up the exposed pickets and milestones, declaring that they would not give swamps until they were given land in return.
Poltava province. In the Priluksky district, land hijackers ‐ kulaks use, in order to disrupt land management, the method of intimidating peasants with anonymous notes, which is especially developed in the Turov district. Most often, they threaten to ʺlet the red roosterʺ, murder, etc. In some places, the kulaks scare them with a “power coup,” stating that after the coup, those who divided the land will pay the price.
Podolsk lips. In with. For the tribusovka of the Tulchinsky district, the kulaks, fearing that the land was being hidden, have grouped together and are waging a stubborn struggle against land management. There was a case when fists on the field knocked out an eye of a nonchewer. Nezamozhniki tied up the leader of this group of kulaks and brought him to the village council. At the meeting of the KNS, there was talked to arm themselves with scythes and to step on the kulaks.
Kiev province. In with. Due to land confusion, many wives of the Red Army men and widows were left without land in the stupichnom of the Shevchensky district. In the fields, the non‐chewers quarrel with their fists every day, and sometimes it comes to mutilation, and at night they expect the possibility of arson. In early April, the non‐chewers (who exactly has not yet been established) set fire to the kulak economy.
Kharkiv province. In the Sumy Okrug, in the villages of Belikovka, Ternakh, Tokaryakh and M.‐Chernetschyn, land management is hampered by kulaks who operate in an organized way; so, in with. Ternach organized a group of 100 kulaks, who self‐taxed to hire a lawyer; in the village. Belikovka organized a group of well‐to‐do people from 50 families, which petition for the return of the land taken away during dispossession. This group also self‐taxed to hire a lawyer. In the villages of Luchikovka, Markovka, Golubovka and
Khut. Serobabin elected well‐to‐do peasants as commissioners for land management, who hired a lawyer to conduct a case on leaving their land (since they are multi‐land). The lawyer they hired took a deposit of 800 rubles from them. and supposedly left for Kharkov.
Kiev province. In the Shevchensky Okrug, the issue with the selection of surpluses is becoming more and more acute, this is especially noticeable in Malo‐Kaligorsky, Medvinsky and partly Kishensky districts. The reason for the aggravation was that the organization of the KNS, when transferring dispossessed land to the non‐spawners, did it without the approval of the court commission and did not draw up any acts. By virtue of the last resolution of the center, a certain period is set for the selected surpluses, and if by the end of this period the kulaks will use the surplus land, then those are assigned to them. In this regard, the organizations of the CNS have recently begun to submit applications in large numbers for securing surpluses, but the decisions of the OkrSudzemkomiss are often in favor of the kulaks. Non‐selfemployed people then transfer these cases to the cassation authorities, and in the meantime, anarchy of land use reigns in the localities. So, in the villages of Sukhaya Kaligorka, Stupichnoye, Krasny Brod and on the hut. In Petrovka, land‐use relations between non‐chews and kulaks are so hostile that an insignificant reason is enough for this atmosphere to be discharged into carnage. Members of the KNS declare that if the kulaks do not give up their surpluses in the future and the authorities do not pay attention to this, they will cut out all the kulaks, burn their property, without waiting for the case to be examined by the court commission. They also declare that the Soviet government supports the kulaks and does not allow the surplus to be taken away from them.
Don district. In with. Kamenovsky, the new composition of the village council, chaired by a Cossack, a former military official, created a new land commission, which decided to reduce the allotment allocated to the poor by four times. At the meeting, the kulaks shouted: ʺWhat is the land for a poor man, let it go and work.ʺ
In the hut. Zadonovsky, a secret group was created among the nonresident with the aim of setting fire to buildings and killing livestock belonging to the indigenous people.
In with. In Novo‐Minsk, nonresident Cossacks said to the Cossacks: “You don’t want to settle down, don’t need to, we’ll recruit an artel of grain growers, we will take the land where we need it, and drive you out of your farms.” In response, one of the Cossacks shouted: ʺYou are afraid for the landlord and landlord, so take it, and do not meddle with us, you damned bastards, otherwise we will kill you with a pitchfork.ʺ In response, there were threats from nonresidents to set fire to the farm. The dispute almost ended in carnage.
In with. Kanatovsky of the Staro‐Minsk region, the Cossacks are opposed to the allotment of land to nonresident, saying: “Oh, I would give them land, as we gave in 1905, so that only heads were lying everywhere; what kind of power, disposes of foreign land, dividing it to townships 176. Enough to endure. Our right has come, we will be what we want in a general meeting”.
Chechnya. In the Novo‐Chechensky district, the chairman of the Council of Hut. Toshtemir‐Yurt with the attorneys of the society and the land surveyor of the Chech Land Administration left for preliminary work in the direction of the villages. Zakan‐Yurt to establish milestones on the border between Zakan‐Yurt and the farm in order to allocate a plot of land to farmers according to the definition of the region. On the way, they were met by an armed crowd of 100 people from Zakan‐Yurt, headed by the chairman of the Council with. ZakanYurt, who said that they would not allow any work to be done. Hut authorities. Toshtemir‐Yurt and the surveyor were forced to return, but before they had time to move 20 fathoms away from the crowd, the Zakan‐Yurt people rushed after them shouting: ʺHit the surveyorʺ and drove them all the way to the farm.
Novonikolaevskaya lips. In the village. Chulym Kainekogo u. antagonism develops between settlers and old‐timers on the basis of land management. The settlers use the land exclusively through lease, at their request, the Zemorgans gave a number of orders for the allotment of land, but the population of the village protests. At the last meeting, a group of wealthy peasants said: ʺWe will not obey any decisions and orders, because we ourselves are the owners and no one can tell us.ʺ The question of the allotment remained open.
2. Seizure of land with fists
Odessa lips. In the Pervomaisky district in the village. Tauzhnoy, 200 kulaks forcibly seized their former land, in connection with this, 70 court land cases arose in the village. The kulaks threaten to kill the members of the KNU if they take measures to get the dispossessed land back.
In with. Mieczyslawka of the same district, 45 court land cases arose in connection with the seizure of land by kulaks. The number of court cases is increasing every day.
Poltava province. The fists of the dacha of the Poddubny Land Society seize the land dispossessed from them and sow it. The non‐freemen sent a walker to Kharkov with a complaint, bypassing all instances. In conversations about this, the non‐cheaters say that now the kulaks have taken over and nothing can be done with them.
Kiev province. In the Kiev district in the village. Makarovka, the land was taken from two kulaks and given to the non‐chewers, but the kulaks nevertheless began to cultivate their land, and when the chairman of the KNS appeared on the field, demanding an explanation from them, one of them grabbed an ax, trying to kill him, but the latter managed to take the ax away. after which the kulak called for help his two sons and two peasants, who, attacking the chairman of the KNU, hacked him to death. The half‐dead chairman of the CNS was rescued by the non‐chews who arrived in time.
On the hut. Staraya Buda of the Kiev district, the kulaks sowed the surplus land taken from them, the non‐chewers turned to the police for assistance.
In the Uman district in the village. Potter kulak Posulich seized the surplus land taken from him, which was given to the hut‐reading room and one widow. When the bailiff came to summon him to the village council, he, threatening with a hunting rifle, categorically refused to appear in the village council.
Kharkiv province. In the Sumy district of the Lebedinsky district in a number of places, such as: in the Ryabushkinsky and Kamenovsky village councils, kulaks seize the land previously dispossessed from them, referring to the decree of the VIII All‐Ukrainian Congress of
Soviets on the actual land use.
3. Abnormalities and red tape in zemorgan
Moscow province. There are a number of abnormalities in the work of the Sergievsky UZU. The conditions for leasing arable land and mowing have not yet been worked out. The applications remain idle for 5‐6 months. There is no accounting for state property. Church and private lands, being nationalized, are used by clergymen and former servants of the landlords without any rent. There is no accounting for subsurface resources. The land management meeting took place 2‐3 times in six months. Fictitious meeting minutes are often drawn up.
Voronezh province. Land management in the village. Losevo Bobrovsky u., Produced by land surveyor Smirnov, was the subject of squabbles in land societies due to incorrect delimitation. Individual societies are deprived of the new boundaries of livestock driving and watering during land use. Despite the approval of the plan for the delimitation of the province, the whole society, with the exception of the Hut citizens. Nameless and 6th hundred, categorically refuse to enter the new borders and insist on the use of land according to the old demarcation.
Vyatka lips. The peasants of the villages of Kosogor and Ilyinskaya Sochnevskaya vol. Yaransky u. the amount was paid for the measurement of the land three years ago, but land surveying work was not carried out and land allocation records were not issued to them. The same was noted in the villages of Palnik and Shalkov of the same volost. Settlements of Yaransky u. ‐ V. Beloe, Malkovo, Shopory and Rasputinskoe renegotiated contracts twice due to the increase in the cost of land management work and now they are summoned to the county for the third time for the same, although they paid the first two times 30% of the cost of the work, and with the third call lost hope not only for the measurement of the land, but also for getting their money.
Smolensk lips. Land disorder in Demidov district among the peasants it grows and often comes almost to open clashes, which is caused by the abuses of land managers and the red tape of the land authorities. On this basis, in the villages of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Kotovshchina Demidovo‐Prigorodnaya Vol. the peasants have not sowed the entire area for a number of years, since the surveyor, dividing the land, draws up a plan for six months; in the uzem department this plan with queues is considered for five months, after which it is sent to the gubernia, but the kulaks, buying time for sowing, file complaints, again six months pass. GubZU returns the case with a complaint back to the UZU for revision, where the queues are again looked through for three months, and as a result, it is resolved on the basis of Art. 218. Land Code 177... This article became a scourge for the majority of the peasantry. Thanks to this, the second Kotovschina did not sow a winter wedge last year, and also a spring wedge during the current sowing campaign. Land surveyor of Demidov UZU Lifets, performing land surveying work in the villages of Ivashnevo, Gorodnya, Panovo and Skugarevo Troitskaya Vol. Last autumn, received money from peasants for work without a receipt, did not finish the work, did not hand over the money to the UZU. Peasants condemn UZU, demanding either the completion of work, or the return of money.
Belarus. The Borisov district land commission approved the land management in the Gornovsky village council in the fall of 1924, but until now the peasants definitely do not know where their plot is.
Donetsk province. In the Artyomovskiy Okrug in the Novo‐Economic Region, due to the land chaos, 150 peasant farms were left without land, at the same time, the UZU okr surrendered large allotments of peasant land to a mine for grazing cattle.
Armavir district. On the hut. Gorkaya Balka, land surveyor Chervyakov arranged real drunken orgies. Once he made a widow who turned to him for help to dance naked in front of him, promising to give a better land for this. The peasants of the farm filed 64 applications against him addressed to the prosecutor. Chervyakov is still free, and no measures are being taken.
Correct: Secretary of INFO OGPU Soloviev
APPENDIX 5
CONDITION OF AREAS OF NON‐NATURAL
Centre. Tambov province. In the villages of Rasskazovskaya parish. The consequences of the hunger strike are extremely strong, in the villages of Picher, Verkhne‐Spasskoe, Grachevka, Podosklyay, Gurovo, Alekseevka, Staraya Lyada and Nizhne‐Spasskoe. In the villages mentioned above, 5‐6 people die every day, especially children. In with. NizhneSpasskoe May 23 p. Mr. D. Ya. Balabaev suffocated from hunger. By Rasskazovskaya Vol. a commission for the examination of the starving was organized, which included a doctor, but as a result of an examination in the village. Gurovo starving people account for 60%, of which 15% are sick and will not recover.
Middle peasants and kulaks all over the Dobrinskaya Volost. they mercilessly treat the poor, remove winter crops, spring crops and fallow at the lowest price, approximately rye is rented for 30‐50 kopecks. fathoms, in the contract the renting puts 90 kopecks. ‐ 1 rub. Sometimes they rent land not for themselves, but for relatives from another village, and a contract is written on them in order to get rid of the payment of the agricultural tax.
In with. Yellow Sands of Butyrskaya Vol. with a population of 1856 people go hungry 75%; fleeing the hunger they are experiencing, there is a tendency to move to Siberia. So, for example, on May 9, the peasants of the Zatonskikh, Styuflyaev, Chalykh with their families left for Siberia, having sold their property: for example, a brick hut was sold for 40 rubles, land for 7 eaters for two years for 80 rubles.
In with. Ternovka Ternovskaya parish Borisoglebsky u. at the general meeting of peasants held on May 6 of this year. the peasants who made speeches expressed their dissatisfaction with the Soviet government and the Communist Party, saying: “If the local government does not petition to send us bread, why are the communists, our defenders, silent, not informing the center of our hunger situation? We couldnʹt stand the strength, we ask you to give us bread, or else it will be autocratic to the State Bank, let them shoot us then, it is easier for us to die from a bullet than starving. ʺ The peasants greeted the message of the authorities that no grain would be dispensed in the next two days: “Letʹs go with black posters to the state grain elevators for grain; when we had bread, several representatives came to us almost every day, explaining the state of the state, we believed them, went to meet,
It is noted that peasants gather in a crowd to rich kulaks in order to select grain from the latter without permission; so, for example, in with. Gladyshevo peasants, together with SKKOV, went to the priest of the Gladyshev Society, from whom they took about 30 poods. bread with the words: ʺWhen we have it, then we will give it back,ʺ along the way with the bread they carried away a ham from the ceiling. In with. Volkhonshchina, Kamensk parish. on the cuts of a rich old man, the peasants unloaded about 100 poods. rye. In Yasnevyi Kusty, the peasants took about 30 poods of rye from the prosperous peasant Semiletov, in the village. Bolshaya Danilovka Mordovian parish. bread was unloaded in six yards.
Hunger is increasing in all counties. The starving people feed exclusively on talkers. At Tokarevsky VIK Tambovsky district. among the assembled starving people, up to 1000 people were shouting: ʺWe will come to Gostorg and to the cooperatives, we will take the managers out of the barns, take the keys from them and divide the bread among ourselves.ʺ In with. Pichaevo Borisoglebskiy u. The wolf of the RCP was given an appeal found in the village. Kalinovka, the appeal says: ʺThe starving peasantry turns to the Soviet government, and if it does not give us help, then we will rise up against, we will smash, burn, beat, plunder, as the sloganʺ facing the village ʺremains unfulfilled.ʺ Signed under the appeal: starving peasants. Fires have become more frequent due to hunger. Wealthy peasants are sent anonymous letters in which it is proposed to put 10 poods. rye to certain places with threats to burn their farm. In with. Mordov Mordovian parish 62 courtyards burned down.
In Lipetsk u. due to famine, 290 fires have recently been recorded. Up to 100 heads of cattle, 2 old men, one woman were burnt; especially frequent fires in the village. New in Gryazinsky par.
In Borisoglebsk u. agitation is underway for the poor with a red flag to rob the well‐to‐do, hiding grain reserves and not lending bread (village Gubarai). In with. Sukmanovka peasant woman, who was denied bread, came to the VIK and began to shout: ʺGive us a king.ʺ Such cases were noted in Uvarovskaya, Bolshe‐Alabukhskaya, Muchkapskaya volosts. Arson is becoming more frequent in many volosts. In with. Mordove Tokarevskoy par. burnt down 70 houses in the village. Potrebovke Fedorovskaya Vol. 8 houses burned down, the first to catch fire was the house of the candle elder, from whom the peasants asked for bread.
Voronezh province. Widow with children s. Glory to Usmansky u. feeds exclusively on carrion of a horse that has died of hunger from a fellow villager. In addition to consumption, the population of the villages of Veselovka and Novo‐Cherkutinsky of the same Usmansky district fell. he also feeds on bard from the Pushkin winery, which is obtained with great difficulty; an employee of the winery lost a cow from anthrax, the crowd, waiting to receive the bard, did not allow the body to be buried and took the carrion home. In with. Pushkino, one woman who ate carrion died.
In the villages of Nekrylovo and Tyumenevka V. Karachansk parish. Novokhopersky u. the peasantry is experiencing acute hunger. Up to 30% of the total population does not have surrogates, it feeds exclusively on boiled grass. There are families who feed on the talker (1 pound flour and a few potatoes for one bucket of water).
According to the Usmansky PEC for March, of the total population in the district in need of food aid, there are 16,467 households with 72,065 eaters, which was 24% of households and 21% of the total population. Of the indicated number of farms, 7188 have no livestock, 6096 farms (including those with livestock) do not have any income.
In the village. Glotovo Nizhne‐Matrenskaya parish Usmansky u. citizen Barabasheva, forced by hunger, sold from her hut an iron roof with a pipe and a heifer to Mr IS Malikov for 8 poods. rye. The actual cost of the sold is not less than 80 rubles.
During the transaction in the village council, citizens complained about Malikov because he bought too cheaply, and Mrs. Barabasheva was afraid that the transaction would not be upset.
Citizen s. Plates of the same volost Belyaev M.T. handed over grasslands (meadows) for 7 eaters about 8 sazhens for 20 for the price of 3 poods. rye to Mr. Malikov I.S.
In the area of Dobrinskaya and Talitskaya volosts, 25% of the population is sowing on the basis of an onerous deal with prosperous farms. So, 15% are sowed by renting it out and 10% are renting half of their land, and the rented rest of the land undertakes to plow, sow, and the harvesting back falls on the shoulders of the rented poor.
Oryol lips. In the Ladiesʹ parish. Eletsky u. difficult situation in 7 districts, people swell, and in Kamenskaya Vol. 85% go hungry, there are cases of swelling in 3 villages [and] 6 starvation deaths. The people are so angry that they will commit any crimes. In addition, in Dolgorukovskaya vol. the hungry eat uncooked pulp from the treacle plant, the pulp is disassembled from the pits, where up to 800 people accumulate, everyone immediately climbs into the pits, and there was a case when some could not get out with buckets. Assisted at 14 pounds, eaten. Citizens go to village councils demanding bread.
In the Cossack parish. the population feeds on the wastes of the starchtreacle plant, in other volosts chaff, tree bark, leaves, rot, greens, and quinoa are consumed. There were 23 deaths and 396 diseases. In the Lama parish. 25% of the population is swollen and emaciated. 3 cases of eating dead cattle were noticed, the existing cattle are being sold intensively, in a short period of time the number of young animals has decreased by 55%, adult cattle by 20‐25%.
In the village. Olki of the city of Chernykh for 3 measures of potatoes removed 25 fathoms of the land of the spring wedge, the same in the Cossacks, and the village councils do not know about this and the negotiators themselves also hide.
The peasantry complains about the rise in prices for grain: “They took from us 50‐60 kopecks, but they sell it 5 times more expensive, before the merchants took 10 kopecks. per pood, and the state takes 2 rubles. 40 kopecks, expressing their dissatisfaction with the allegedly inept policy of the authorities, as in the delivery of bread from provinces that are more prosperous in terms of harvest.
In Odnolutskaya parish. Volkhovsky u. peasants compare life [with life] of the tsarist system: “Under the tsar, the order was much better, if there was a famine, then they gave everyone enough, you could buy it with money, or take a pledge from a merchant, you can take anything from them, but now at least die, all the authorities are to blame. ʺ
In three volosts of Volkhovsky district. how the population is looking for a way out of a difficult situation to earn money, some of those who left the road return (coal mines), pointing out unemployment: ʺOnly party members work, non‐party people are thrown outʺ; returning home in rags, they advise others not to go. These rumors lead the peasants to think: ʺIt is true that the factories are idle when there is no work, and therefore unemployment, in the old days there was enough work for everyoneʺ; returnees say that the workers are satisfied with their situation, only low earnings. The peasantry, comparing his life with the workers, [says that] ʺthe worker lives much better, a month has passed ‐ he has received a salary, and the peasant has nowhere to take, they sell cattle for tax, wherever he goes ‐ itʹs cool to the peasant.ʺ
In the Cossack parish. from 5000 poods the potatoes being worked on by the starch scraps plant are not enough to satisfy the hungry.
There is a crowd near the plant, like in a fair, they come on horseback and even spend the night waiting for the pulp. Pulp is released for a fee. “The Soviet government takes money for the garbage, and earlier this bastard was driven into the field,” the peasants say. The angry rush into pits up to the waist in water with small children.
In the village. Luzhna Pokrovskaya Vol. the house of the chairman of the village council Zhelyaev was burned down, arson is supposed to be due to the non‐delivery of seeds to wealthy citizens, an inquiry is underway.
In Dolgorukovskaya vol. Eletsky u. at midnight the house of Sadilin, a member of the Chebotarevsky partnership, was burned down. Revenge is assumed for the failure to issue a spring loan. In with. Nikolsky Eletsky u. the citizen burned Riga 178 in order to obtain insurance, and in the Berezovsky district, the number of fires increased for unknown reasons. Reported in the State Insurance.
In with. Plosskiy Eletskiy u. There were two attempts to set fire to Faustovʹs fist, the fire was stopped in a timely manner, the cause of the fire was the revenge of the poor for refusing to issue aid, and according to other sources, an attempt to use the fire to arrange a robbery.
In with. Taldino Dmitrovsky u. 65 courtyards burned down, with. Up to mahi ‐ 116 houses, with. Borodino Volkonskaya parish ‐ 3 houses, s. Gnezdilovo Lubyanka parish ‐ 3 houses, s. Bratsalovo ‐ 2 houses; citizens partly set fire to themselves to obtain insurance, or mostly to settle personal accounts for various reasons.
In the village. Aleksandrovka Military Vol. Orlovsky u. the house of a wealthy peasant was poured with kerosene and a grain barn was set on fire, which contained 200 poods. bread, an investigation is underway.
In the village. Bumakovo Krasnikovskaya par. Volkhovsky u. the arson burned down two sheds. The next night, during the general meeting, a secondary fire broke out, up to five more barns burned down, panic among the population. All things are loaded on carts, adults do not sleep at night, [as] ʺthey will have to burn againʺ; arson is expected in order to receive a premium, since the buildings are insured.
In the village. Grekova Lenin parish. Livensky u. at night, by means of arson, two well‐to‐do households with bread were burned down, revenge for not giving out bread is expected. Together with them, four yards of the poor were burnt down.
In Dolbenkinskaya parish. Dmitrovsky u. 46 yards burned down. In Lubyanskaya Vol. by means of arson, the mill burned down at the village. Chuvarino, belonging to the Volost Executive Committee, together with the house, also owned by the VIC. The house asked the society for the school, the VIC did not give it. Revenge is supposed.
In with. Lavrovo Orlovsky u. the building of the wealthy Bulgakov burned down, and in the village. Ananyevo house of the pre‐village council, they suggest arson and revenge [for] the failure to issue a loan.
In the Military Vol. Orlovsky u. the loan was given with the consent of the society, but there was one case when the chairman of the commission, a member of the VIK, Volobuev, issued a special order to the former landowner Protopopova (Bashkatovskiy district) 13 poods. oats and a portion of buckwheat. The loan was given without the knowledge of society, and the population is outraged.
In Dolgorukovskaya vol. Eletsky u. in Bratovschinsky district, a member of the commission Kirillov (well‐to‐do) took peas and oats for himself. Himself a member of the village council Ryazantsev received 4 poods. oats, 30 lb., peas. In agriculture, he received 3 poods. millet took 2 poods in the cross committee. buckwheat, feeds ducks with millet, with a land rate of 3 souls. The same Ryazantsev added himself to the list of those in need with flour, except for members of the Volkomissia Pavlov gave buckwheat and millet to the local sexton, despite the protests of the Volkomissia. The sexton has two cows, two horses and a side income. The population is outraged.
In many counties, starving people are burning the buildings of the wealthy. In the village. Grekova from arson burned down two well‐todo farms with bread, along with them burned down two yards of the poor. In with. Lavrovo Orlovsky u. 46 yards burned down. In with. Kirovo Orlovsky u. 39 yards were burned down. The poor threaten the wealthy with arson because they do not mutually provide bread.
Numerous fires are reported due to hunger. The starving people set fire to the kulak farms. In the village. Aleksandrovka Voinskoy Vol. Orlovsky u. the house of a wealthy peasant was poured with kerosene and a grain barn was set on fire, which contained 200 poods. of bread. In the village. ʺ3rd warriorʺ Orlovsky u. the house of the well‐to‐do was set on fire; the door was tied with wire before the arson. In with. Chernave Eletskiy u. fires start in several places at once. In Kudinovskaya vol. Livensky u. three farms of wealthy peasants were set on fire in a week.
Kursk lips. Due to crop failure, as previously reported, many peasants of Shchigrovsky u. sent to the Donbass and to other places that have a sufficient number of factories and plants available, but most of them return home due to their refusal to accept them for service, as not members of the Union. Peasant der. Krivtsovo Nizhne‐Terbuzhskaya vol. Davydin said: “The position of our poor brother at this time is devilish, since the fact that there is no bread, and here the prices of bread have soared so much that you involuntarily say: where does the government look ‐ after all, a pood of bread costs more than 3 rubles, but perhaps for such the price is affordable for the poor to buy bread. ʺ
Due to the acute need for bakery products in the area of Borisov parish. Borisovsky u. there is discontent on the part of all strata of the peasantry, which blames the authorities for bringing the peasant‐grain grower to poverty, hunger strike and final ruin. The peasantry says: “They have taken all the time from us, taken it and brought it to a hunger strike, and now, when we have no bread, no crops and cattle are dying, now no one will help us and will not give us how much they gave us seeds for sowing, how much we were given bread at a cheap price. Flour for 3 rubles. 50 kopecks for a pood, and even then you have to stand in queues for a long time. They beat my boots to go to Borisovka for bread. ʺ The poor peasant of the provincial town of Khatmyzhsk Kutsin said: ʺNo, they killed Nikolka and there is no sense.ʺ To the rural authorities he said: “When you torment and torment, you will stop sucking the last blood from us. Hunger tortured. There is nothing to buy bread, there is only one outcome ‐ to steal from the rich, but the main evil is that there is no work. So, I personally went to the mine in Donbass, and what: I passed two months and did not find a job anywhere, and not because there is no job, but was not hired just because I am not a member of the trade union; there were 5 people with me, and no one entered. Is this order, I am also a professional grain grower, I also give help to the state, but due to poverty and lack of bread now I have to go to look for work on the side. In the Red Army, we were told: ʺYou, comrades of the Red Army, as soon as you come home, you will see that everything will be available to you,ʺ and now I see that all this is nonsense, two months passed, but there was no sense, and came home on foot. Two citizens came to the village council of this village to ask for bread; in conversation they said who are citizens of the Voronezh province, went to find work in Donbass, but they did not find one, because they are not members of the trade union. Thanks to this order, hunger and cold await us at home and nothing else, and our commune is to blame for it, that it distinguishes between peasants and workers, their eyes are all turned to different workersʹ unions, but she does not notice our brother, a peasant, but everyone says that the power ours, what the hell is ours ‐ she is the one who has the chervonets. ʺ
Ukraine. Poltava province. In with. Komarovka two farm women, not finding work, one hanged herself, and the other said that she would also hang herself if she did not find work. The farm laborers go to any conditions, just not to starve. For example, in the village. Vasilyevka, farm laborers are hired for 15 rubles. in year.
Kiev province. In the Uman district in the village. The princes of about
100 poor farms, unable to seed the land, leased it to the middle peasants and kulaks, in the village. About 20 farms of the poor have been guarded and leased their land to the kulaks and middle peasants. Podolsk lips. In the Tulchinsky district of the Tulchinsky district, where 70% of the peasants are starving, the latter express their dissatisfaction with the Soviet power because of the high tax, since, in their opinion, this was the reason for the difficult material situation of the peasants. At the same time, some peasants declare that the Soviet government is more worried about the workers and that they live better than the peasants.
Correct: Secretary of the OGPU Inform Department
Soloviev