Fists in Russia - who are they? - I want to know. Deposition of the peasants in the USSR: who are the kulaks? Fist of revolution
This conversation will focus on kulaks and such a phenomenon as the kulaks.
Where did the word "fist" come from? There are many versions. One of the most widespread versions today is a fist, a strong business executive who keeps his entire household in a fist. But at the beginning of the twentieth century, another version was more widespread.
One of the main ways of enriching the kulak is giving money or grain to grow. That is: the kulak gives money to its fellow villagers, or gives grain, the seed fund to the poor fellow villagers. Gives with pretty decent interest. Due to this, he ruins these fellow villagers, due to this he becomes richer.
How did this fist get its money or grain back? So he gave, let's say, grain for growth - this happens, for example, in the Soviet Union in the 1920s, that is, before dispossession of kulaks. According to the law, the kulak has no right to engage in such activities, that is, no usury for individuals, no credit practice was provided. It turns out that he was engaged in activities that, in fact, were illegal. It can be assumed, of course, that he applied to a Soviet court with a request that his debt be recovered from the debtor. But most likely, it happened differently, that is, there was a banal knocking out of what the debtor owes. It was the extremely tough policy of knocking out debts that gave the kulaks their name.
So who are the fists?
There is a widespread belief that these are the most hardworking peasants who, began to live more richly due to their heroic labor, due to greater skill and hard work. However, fists were not called those who are richer, who live more satisfyingly.
Fists were called those who used the labor of farm laborers, that is, hired labor, and those who engaged in usury in the countryside. That is, a kulak is a person who gives money for growth, buys up the land of his fellow villagers, and gradually depriving them of land, use them as hired labor.
Fists appeared long before the revolution, and in principle it was a fairly objective process. That is, with the improvement of the land cultivation system, the most normal objective phenomenon is the increase in land plots. A larger field is easier to process, it turns out to be cheaper to process. Large fields can be cultivated with machinery - processing of each individual tithe is cheaper, and, accordingly, such farms are more competitive.
All countries that passed from the agrarian to the industrial phase went through an increase in the size of land allotments. This is well illustrated by the example of American farmers, who are few in the United States today, but whose fields stretch far beyond the horizons. This refers to the fields of each individual farmer. Therefore, the consolidation of land plots is not only a natural fact, but even a necessary one. In Europe, this process was called pauperization: land-poor peasants were driven off the land, the land was bought up and passed into the possession of landlords or rich peasants.
What happened to the poor peasants? Usually they were driven into cities, where they either went to the army, to the navy, in the same England, or got a job at enterprises; or beggars, robbed, starved to death. To combat this phenomenon, laws against the poor were introduced in England.
And a similar process began in the Soviet Union. It began after the Civil War, when the land was redistributed according to the number of eaters, but at the same time the land was in full use of the peasants, that is, the peasant could sell, mortgage, donate the land. The kulaks took advantage of this. For the Soviet Union, the very situation with the transfer of land to the kulaks was not very acceptable, since it was associated exclusively with the exploitation of some peasants by other peasants.
There is an opinion that the kulaks were dispossessed according to the principle - if you have a horse, it means that a well-to-do person means a fist. This is not true.
The fact is that the availability of means of production also implies that someone must work for them. For example, if there are 1-2 horses on the farm, which are used as traction, it is clear that the peasant can work himself. If the farm has 5-10 horses as a traction force, it is clear that the peasant himself cannot work on this, that he must definitely hire someone who will use these horses.
There were only two criteria for defining a fist. As I have already said, this is an occupation of usurious activity and the use of hired labor.
Another thing is that by indirect signs - for example, the presence of a large number of horses or a large number of equipment - it was possible to determine that this fist was really used by hired labor.
And it became necessary to determine what the further path of development of the village would be. The fact that it was necessary to enlarge the farms was quite obvious. However, the path leading through pauperization (through the ruin of the poor peasants and their expulsion from the countryside, or their transformation into hired labor), it was in fact very painful, very long and promised really big sacrifices; example from England.
The second way that has been considered is to get rid of the kulaks and carry out the collectivization of agriculture. Although there were supporters of both options in the leadership of the Soviet Union, those who advocated collectivization won. Accordingly, the kulaks, which were precisely the competition for the collective farms, had to be eliminated. It was decided to dekulakize the kulaks, as socially alien elements, and to transfer their property to the newly created collective farms.
What was the scale of this dispossession?
Of course, many peasants were dispossessed. In total, more than 2 million people have been dispossessed of kulaks - this is almost half a million families. At the same time, dispossession of kulaks went in three categories: the first category is those who resisted the Soviet regime with weapons in their hands, that is, the organizers and participants of uprisings and terrorist acts. The second category is other kulak activists, that is, people who opposed Soviet power, fought against it, but passively, that is, without using weapons. And finally, the third category is just fists.
What was the difference between the categories?
The "OGPU troikas" were engaged in the fists of the first category, that is, some of these kulaks were shot, some of these kulaks were sent to the camps. The second category includes families of kulaks in the first category, and kulaks and their families in the second category. They were expelled to remote places in the Soviet Union. The third category - they were also subject to expulsion, but expulsion within the region where they lived. This is how, for example, in the Moscow region, to evict from the outskirts of Moscow to the outskirts of the region. All these three categories recruited more than 2 million people with family members.
Is it a lot or a little? In fact, statistically, this turns out to be about one kulak family per village, that is, one village - one kulak. In some villages, of course, several families of kulaks were evicted, but this only means that in other villages there were no kulaks at all, they were not there.
And now more than 2 million kulaks were evicted. Where were they evicted? There is an opinion that they were evicted to Siberia, thrown almost into the snow, without property, without food, without anything, to certain destruction. In fact, this is also not true. Most of the kulaks, indeed, who were evicted to other regions of the country, they were evicted to Siberia. But they were used as so-called labor settlers - they built new cities. For example, when we are talking about the heroic builders of Magnitka and we are talking about dispossessed people evicted to Siberia, we are often talking about the same people. And the best example of this is the family of the first president of the Russian Federation. The fact is that his father was just dispossessed, and his further career developed in Sverdlovsk, as a foreman.
What terrible repressions were used against the kulaks? But here it is quite obvious, since he became a foreman among the workers, then probably the repressions were not very cruel. Defeat in rights, too, how to say, given that the son of a kulak later became the First Secretary of the Sverdlovsk Regional Party Committee.
Of course, there were quite numerous distortions during dispossession of kulaks, that is, sometimes there really was a situation when they tried to declare the middle peasants as kulaks. There were moments when the envious neighbors managed to slander someone, but such cases were isolated. In fact, the villagers themselves determined who their fists were in their village and whom they needed to get rid of. It is clear that justice did not always prevail here, but the decision about who the kulaks were was not made from above, not by the Soviet government, it was made by the villagers themselves. It was determined according to the lists submitted by the commissars, that is, the inhabitants of this very village, and it was decided who exactly the fist and what to do with it next. The villagers also determined the category to which the fist would be assigned: it is a malicious fist or, let's say, simply a world eater.
Moreover, the problem of kulaks also existed in the Russian Empire, where rich peasants managed to crush the village under themselves. Although the rural community itself partly protected from the growth of kulak land tenure, and kulaks began to emerge mainly after the Stolypin reform, when some became rich, they actually bought up all the land of their fellow villagers, forced their fellow villagers to work for themselves, became large sellers of bread, in fact, they became already the bourgeoisie.
There was another picture, when the same fellow villagers, declaring the kulak a world eater, safely drowned him in a nearby pond, because in fact all the kulak's wealth is based on what he was able to take from his fellow villagers. The fact is that no matter how well people work in the countryside ... why shouldn't a hardworking middle peasant be allowed to become a fist? His wealth is limited by the size of his land holding. As long as he uses the land that his family received according to the principle of dividing according to the number of eaters, this peasant will not be able to get much wealth, because the yield in the fields is quite limited. It works well, it does not work well, a relatively small field leads to the fact that the peasant remains rather poor. In order for a peasant to become rich, he must take something from other peasants, that is, this is precisely the displacement and landlessness of his fellow villagers.
If we talk about the terrible repressions against the kulaks and their children, then there is a very good resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, which says: “Children of special settlers and exiles, upon reaching the age of sixteen, if they are not defamed by anything, should be issued passports on a general basis and not repaired their obstacles to leaving for study or work. " The date of this decree is October 22, 1938.
Collectivization turned out to be an alternative way of gradual enlargement of farms through pauperization. The peasants in those villages where there were no longer any kulaks, were gradually reduced to collective farms (by the way, more often than not, quite voluntarily for themselves) and it turned out that for one village there was a common field, quite extensive, for which the equipment was allocated with the help of which this field and processed. In fact, only the kulaks were the victims of collectivization. And the kulaks, no matter how numerous the victims were, accounted for less than 2% of the entire rural population of the Soviet Union. As I said earlier, this is about one family per one rather large village.
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[*] Grant from the Moscow Public Science Foundation (project No. 99-1996); grant from the Russian Humanitarian Science Foundation, No. 99-01-003516.
* For more details, see G.F. Dobronozhenko. The class opponent of the dictatorship of the proletariat: the peasant bourgeoisie or the petty-bourgeois peasantry (ideology and practice of Bolshevism 1917-1921) // Rubezh. Almanac of Social Research. 1997. N 10-11. S. 144-152.
* Peasant Committees of Public Mutual Assistance.
1 Great October Socialist Revolution. Encyclopedia. 3rd ed., Add. M., 1987.S. 262; A Brief Political Dictionary. 2nd ed., Add. M., 1980.S. 207; Trapeznikov S.P. Leninism and the agrarian-peasant question: In 2 volumes. M., 1967. V.2. "The historical experience of the CPSU in the implementation of the Leninist cooperative plan. P. 174.
2 Smirnov A.P. Our main tasks are to raise and organize the peasant economy. M., 1925.S. 22; Pershin A. Two main sources of stratification of the peasantry // Life of Siberia. 1925. No. 3 (31). P. 3.
3 Village under the NEP. Some were considered a fist, some a worker. What do the peasants say about this? M., 1924.S. 21, 29, 30.
4. Dal V.I. Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language: In 4 volumes. M., 1989. T. 2.P. 215.
5 Encyclopedic Dictionary Br. A. and I. Garnet and K0. 7th ed. M., 1991.T. 26.P. 165.
6 Sazonov G.P. Usury is the kulaks. Observations and Research. SPb., 1894.S. 86.
7 Engelgard A.N. Letters from the village. 1872-1887 M., 1987.S. 521 - 522.
8 Garin-Mikhailovsky N.G. Compositions. M., 1986.S. 17; N. Uspensky. From far and near. Fav. stories and stories. M., 1986.S. 14, 18; Zlotovratsky N.N. Rural everyday life. Essays on the peasant community // Letters from the village. Essays on the peasantry in Russia, second half. XIX century. M., 1987.S. 279, 355.
9 Sazonov G.P. Decree. op. P. 149.
10 Engelgard A.N .. Decree. op. S. 521.522.
11 Postnikov V.E. South Russian peasantry. M., 1891.S. XVII.
12 Ibid. Pp. 114, 117, 144.
13 Postnikov V.E. Decree. op. S. XVII.
14 Gvozdev R. Kulaks - usury and its social and economic significance. SPb., 1899.S. 148, 160.
15 Ibid. Pp. 147, 154, 157, 158.
16 Lenin V.I. Full collection Op. 3.P. 383.
17 Ibid. T. S. 178 - 179.
18 Ibid. T. 1.P. 507.
19 Ibid. T. 3.P. 179.
20 Ibid. T. 1.P. 110.
21 Ibid. T. 3.P. 178.
22 Ibid. T. 3.S. 169, 178; T. 17.P. 88 - 89, 93.
23 Ibid. T. 3.S. 69, 177; T. 4.P. 55.
24 Ibid. T. 3.P. 69 - 70.
25 Ibid. T. 3.P. 169.
26 Ibid. T. 16.P. 405, 424; T. 17.P. 124, 128, 130, etc.
27 Ibid. T. 34.P. 285.
28 Ibid. T. 35.S. 324, 326, 331.
29 Ibid. T. 36.S. 361 - 363; Vol. 37, p. 144.
30 Ibid. T. 36.S. 447, 501, 59.
32 Ibid. T. 36, S. 510; Vol. 37.P. 16, 416.
33 Decrees of the Soviet government. T. II. S. 262 - 265.
34 Ibid. T. II. S. 352 - 354.
35 Lenin V.I. Full collection op. T. 38.S. 146, 196, 200.
36 Ibid. T. 38.S. 236.
37 Ibid. T. 38.P. 256.
38 Ibid. T. 38.S. 14.
39 Directives of the CPSU on economic issues. T. 1.1917-1928. M. 1957.S. 130-131.
40 Lenin V.I. Full collection op. Vol. 41, p. 58.
41 Ibid. Vol. 37, p. 46.
42 Ibid. T. 31.S. 189-220.
43 Ibid. Vol. 37, p. 94.
44 Ibid. T. 39.S. 312, 315.
45 of the CPSU in resolutions and decisions of congresses, conferences and plenums of the Central Committee. 8th ed. M., 1970.T. 2.P. 472.
46 Thirteenth Congress of the CPSU (b): Stenogr. report. M., 1963.S. 442-443.
47 of the CPSU in resolutions and decisions of congresses, conferences and plenums of the Central Committee. T. 3.P. 341.
48 Trotsky L. On our tasks. Report at the citywide meeting of the party organization in Zaporozhye. September 1, 1925 M .; L., 1926.S. 4.
49 Ancelovich N. Workers 'and Peasants' Union and Farming (to the Formulation of the Question) // On the Agrarian Front. 1925. No. 5-6. P. 84.
50 SU of the RSFSR. 1926. No. 75. Art. 889.
51 Directives of the CPSU and the Soviet State on economic issues ... T. 1. P. 458; Lurie G.I. Cooperative legislation. 2nd ed. M., 1930.S. 22-23.
52 Land Code of the RSFSR. M., 1923.S. 118; SU of the RSFSR. 1922. No. 45. Art.426.
53 NW USSR. 1925. No. 26. Art. 183; SU of the RSFSR. 1925. No. 54. Art. 414.
54 NW USSR. 1927. No. 60. Art. 609.
55 Collection of documents on land legislation of the USSR and RSFSR 1917-1954. M., 1954.S. 300-302.
56 NW USSR. 1929. No. 14. Art. 117.
57 Documents testify: From the history of the village on the eve and during collectivization. 1927-1932 / Ed. V.P. Danilova, N.A. Ivnitsky. M., 1989.S. 211-212.
58 Chayanov A.V. Peasant farm. M., 1989.
59 Khryashcheva A.I. Groups and classes in the peasantry. 2nd ed. M., 1926.S. 109-112; Socialist economy. 1924. Book. II. S. 59 .; Conditions for the rise of the village and the differentiation of the peasantry // Bolshevik. 1925. No. 5-6 (21-22). S. 24-25.
60 Gorokhov V. On the question of stratification of the peasantry (from the experience of one survey) // Economic construction. Body of the Moscow Council of the Republic of Kazakhstan and CD. 1925. No. 9-10. P.54.
61 Smirnov A.P. Our main tasks ... S. 5.6.
62 Smirnov A.P. The policy of Soviet power in the countryside and the stratification of the peasantry (kulak, poor and middle peasant). M .; L., 1926.S. 33; He's the same. On the issue of differentiation of the peasantry. True. 1925.7 Apr; He's the same. About the strong working peasantry. True. 1925.31 Feb .; He's the same. Once again about the strong working peasantry. True. 1925.5 Apr; 1925.7 Apr.
64 Bogushevsky V. On the village kulak or the role of tradition in terminology // Bolshevik. 1925. No. 9-10. S. 59-64.
65 Ibid. S. 62, 63, 64.
66 Soskina A.N. History of Social Surveys of the Siberian Village in the 20s. Novosibirsk, 1976.S. 184-185.
67 How the village lives: Materials on a sample survey of the Yemetskaya volost. Arkhangelsk. 1925.S. 98.
68 Larin Yu. Agricultural proletariat of the USSR. M., 1927.S. 7.
69 Larin Y. Soviet village. M., 1925.S. 56.
Kulak is a popular name, the word was back in the 19th century, it is in the dictionaries of the Russian Empire. Means a really wealthy peasant, but is not defined by wealth.
HISTORY OF FUSES
In the period before collectivization, the land was landlord, peasant, and that which was bought by the kulaks.
Peasant land is the land of the community. Usually the peasants did not have enough land, so gradually the hayfields were plowed up for grain.
The peasants ate correspondingly meagerly. According to the calculations of the military department in 1905: 40% of the conscripts, and almost all of them came from the village, first tried meat in the army. Undernourished conscripts were fed to military condition.
Peasant land was not privately owned by peasants, which is why it was constantly divided. The earth was a community (of the world), hence most often the kulak received the title of "world eater", that is, he lived at the expense of the world.
Fists were those peasants who were engaged in usurious activities, that is, they gave grain, money at interest, rent a horse for a lot of money, and then all this was "squeezed" back by the methods that gave the name to this subclass of peasants.
The second thing the kulaks did was they used hired labor. They bought part of the land from the ruined landowners, and part, in fact, "squeezed" for debts from the community. If they got insolent and took too much, then the peasants could gather for a gathering, take a fist and drown in a nearby pond - which was always called lynching. After that, the gendarmes came to identify the criminals, but as a rule they did not find - the villagers did not betray anyone, and after the gendarmes' county, grace without a fist attacked the village.
The kulak himself could not “keep” the village subordinate, therefore assistants (podkulachniki) began to be used - people from the peasants who were allowed to part of the “pie” because they would carry out punitive orders to debtors.
The most important thing in usurious activity is not the availability of funds and the ability to lend them, but the ability to withdraw money, and preferably with its own interest.
That is, in fact, a kulak is the head of a village organized criminal group (organized criminal group), a fist is an accomplice and a fighter of the organization. The fists beat someone, rape someone, mutilate someone and keep the area in fear. At the same time, all Orthodox, go to church and everything is so godlessly organized.
Usually podkulachniki were not the most hardworking peasants, but with an impressive (frightening) appearance.
In part, the process of the emergence of the kulaks in Russia in the middle and at the end of the 19th century was economically justified - in order to mechanize agriculture, make it more marketable, it was necessary to enlarge rural land plots. The peasantry was land-poor, that is, it is possible to cultivate from morning to evening, sow, but figuratively, even if you crack, you cannot collect a ton of potatoes from 6 acres.
In this regard, no matter how hard the peasant worked hard, he could not become rich, because you cannot grow much from such a piece of land, you still need to pay taxes to the state - and all that remained was for food. Those who did not work very well could not even pay the ransom payments for the release from serfdom, which were abolished only after the 1905 revolution.
When they say that “the kulaks worked well, and therefore became prosperous,” it is not true, for the simple reason that there was not enough land, only for their own food.
Because the kulaks seemed to be economically profitable, because when Stolypin's reform was carried out, the emphasis was on the kulaks. That is, it is necessary to break up the community, to evict the people to settlements, to small farms, so that communal ties are severed, to send part of them as settlers to Siberia, so that the process of pauperization (impoverishment) takes place.
In this case, the impoverished peasants either became farm laborers or were forced out into the city (those who were lucky enough not to die of hunger), and those who were wealthy - they will already raise the profitability of agricultural products: buy winnowing machines, seeders in order to grow profit. The stake was on such capitalist development, but the peasantry did not accept it. Most of the peasants sent to settlements beyond the Urals returned back very embittered, because Stolypin was greatly hated in the village.
Further, the First World War, the Revolution and the Decree on the Land of the Bolsheviks. The decree on land partially solved the problem of the low land availability of the peasantry, because a quarter of all land at the time of the revolution belonged to the landowners. This land was taken from them and divided according to the number of eaters, that is, tied to the community.
Since then, all agricultural land has been given to the peasants by the Bolsheviks, as promised by them.
But at the same time, the land was not given to private ownership, but given for use. The land had to be divided according to the number of eaters, it could not be sold or bought. But the peasants did not live better over time, and here's why.
From the time of the tsarist regime, the kulaks and podkulaks remained and began again usurious activities, and in a short period of time, the land again began to belong to the kulaks, and some of the peasants again became farm laborers. The land began to belong to the kulaks completely illegally, even thanks to the selection for debts.
The exploitation of man by man was prohibited in the Soviet state - the use of farm laborers contradicted this. In addition, usurious activity to private individuals in the USSR in the 1920s was, again, prohibited, but here it is in full swing. Whatever one may say - the kulaks violated all the laws of the Soviet Union available to them.
When the question of collectivization arose, the main opponents were precisely the kulaks, because the kulak does not fit into the collective farm at all, he loses everything on the collective farm. The main resistance to collectivization was the kulaks, since the people are rich, they had a serious influence on the minds in their village, and podkulaks helped them in this. They formed public opinion and armed detachments killing policemen, collective farm chairmen, often with their families.
When the question of dispossession of kulaks arose, namely the liberation of the peasants from the kulaks, the government did not take anything from the kulaks and did not enrich itself, as is commonly believed in liberal circles.
FIST CATEGORIES
Category 1 - counterrevolutionary activists, organizers of terrorist acts and uprisings, the most dangerous enemies of Soviet power - armed, killing representatives of collective farms, police officers, inciting people to revolt against Soviet power.
Category 2 - the traditional asset of the rich kulaks and semi-landowners who “crushed” the entire village. This part of the counter-revolutionary activists of the uprising did not suit; it did not kill the policemen, but at the same time severely robbed the peasants.
3rd category - the rest of the kulaks, people engaged in usurious activities and used the labor of farm laborers.
An interesting point. Judging by the films and books, they begin to say: they came to our grandfather, he had only 5 horses and for this he was dispossessed ...
The fact is that 5 horses are not 5 pigs that are needed for food, while a horse is a means of cultivating the land, as well as a vehicle. No peasant will keep an extra horse, it needs to be fed and maintained, and a working peasant does not need more than 1 horse for farming.
Having several horses for a peasant meant that he was using hired labor. And if he uses it, then he obviously has not only his own land, but also illegal.
Accordingly, the question of dispossession of kulaks arises, and if there are no other indications, then the peasant was assigned to the 3rd category.
WHAT DID WITH EACH FIST CATEGORY
Favorite myth of the liberals: they were hanged, shot and sent to Siberia to certain death!
1st category - the kulaks themselves and their families were expelled, but those who were involved in the murder of government officials were shot, but the family was not touched. In the first category, the kulaks were subject to expulsion for the Urals, Kazakhstan (as under Stolypin). They were sent with their families.
The second category - the richest kulaks and semi-landowners, who did not offer direct resistance to Soviet power - the kulaks themselves were expelled without a family.
3rd category - kulaks with families were subject to deportation, but within their district. That is, they were expelled from the village itself to the neighboring one in order to break the connection between the kulak and the fist.
HOW MUCH HAVE BEEN EXPLODED
According to the dubious data of the writer of exclusively artistic words Solzhenitsyn, 15 million men were exiled to distant lands.
In total, according to the OGPU (a clear accounting of the costs of resettlement was kept) - in total 1 million 800 thousand people (with families) were dispossessed. The men themselves - 450-500 thousand.
For comparison, there were about 500 thousand settlements in the Soviet Union, that is, it turns out that a little less than 1 family per 1 village was dispossessed, which means that kulaks were not even found everywhere.
Falsification: there were no situations when the whole village was exiled, since according to the system it turned out that there was 1 fist per village.
Sometimes for especially grave crimes they could additionally punish the podkulachnikov, in such cases 2-3 families could suffer in the village.
There were 120 million peasants at that time, about 1/70 of them were dispossessed.
To the frequent opinion that dispossession was unfair, one can answer that there were those who were unjustly condemned, slandered, and settled scores, but these were very few.
By the way about the Soviet, and then the liberal myth - the famous Pavlik Morozov in the village. Gerasimovka was not the son of a kulak, there were no kulaks at all, there were only exiles.
BELT STATISTICS:
By order of the OGPU, it is noted that according to the head of the OGPU siblag, from the echelon of 10185 migrants from the North Caucasus to Novosibirsk, 341 people (3.3%) died on the way, including a significant number from exhaustion.
Then there was a trial due to a large percentage of mortality (this is a multiple excess of the norm), the results of which lay on the table of Yagoda (Yezhov's predecessor), in this case those who were guilty of high mortality were severely punished, up to execution.
Therefore, the myth that a significant part of the kulaks died on the way is untenable.
It should be noted that mainly old people and sick people died, that is, those categories of people who had health problems. They were the ones who perished from exhaustion.
After that, there was a separate order from Yagoda, stating that children under 10 should be left to relatives and not transported by those families of kulaks where there were no able-bodied men and elderly people who could not withstand the long-term transportation.
In our country, almost the entire population considers themselves to be the descendants of nobles and kulaks, who have endured terrible hardships, but for some reason their family continued.
Falsification: they threw their kulaks with their families into the bare steppe. In fact, only kulaks of the 1st category were taken to labor settlements.
There were special decrees saying that the children of kulaks, who are not involved in any crimes themselves, should not be prevented from obtaining a passport upon reaching the age of 16 and leaving the place of settlement for study or work (even among kulaks of the 1st category).
Interesting fact! A well-known figure from the kulaks is a certain Nikolai Yeltsin! Nikolai Yeltsin was dispossessed and as a punishment he was sent to Sverdlovsk, where he participated in the construction of an enterprise, where he later worked as a foreman. His son Boris Yeltsin became the head of the Sverdlovsk City Committee of the Communist Party, later becoming the President of the Russian Federation. That is, Nikolai Yeltsin worked as a leader despite the fact that he was dispossessed.
Over time, about 200 thousand kulaks fled from the places of forced evictions, many returned to their lands, where no one ever touched them.
RESULTS OF RELEASE
Of course, there were people to whom dispossession brought pain and grief, but those who received just social benefits from this were ten times more, therefore it is not objective to expose dispossession in an extremely negative light.
Dekulakization helped build a system of efficient collective farms, helped feed a hungry country and literally provided "food" for the industrialization of the state.
In fact, collectivization, in contrast to pauperization, which relied on the kulaks, made it possible to preserve what the decree on land gave - land to the peasants. If the land belongs to the kulaks, then the overwhelming majority of the peasants will never have it. The collective farms were the same peasants, but the land remained with the collective farms, that is, the collective farms owned the land in the same way on the basis of the rights of use and could not buy and sell land. No one on the land of the collective farm built summer cottages, did not grow non-agricultural crops.
That is, the land belonged to the peasants, only in the form of collective use under the legislation on the activities of the agricultural cooperative.
At the same time, the version is being actively promoted that collectivization and dispossession of kulaks is when land was taken from the peasants. Draw your own conclusions.
At the end of December 1929, Joseph Stalin announced that the kulaks should be eradicated as a class. We know the story of Pavlik Morozov's father and other cases of "dispossession", but how did the "kulak" differ from its neighbor?
Up to the seventh sweat
The peasant consciousness was based on a simple concept: you can only earn good by honest labor. And not just any work, but physically very hard. It was this kind of work that included work on the ground: plowing, haymaking, harvesting. But the trade, according to the conviction of the peasants, was not entirely honest labor, it is not for nothing that the people said “if you won’t cheat, you won’t sell”. The nickname "kulak" was received by those peasants who, in the opinion of the majority, had unearned income, that is, they acquired wealth by buying and usury. By the way, ofeni also called the usurers-dealers kulaks.
Strong master
A little later, they began to call fists the grasping and cunning people whom God rewarded with a cold and calculating mind. Perhaps these people were not very nice, but not absolute scoundrels - that's for sure. Many of them worked on their land no less, and, at times, more than hired workers. And the work on the fist allowed some farm laborers to simply survive. The reasons for poverty could be different: bad luck, illness, debt, but in any case it was an abyss from which it was almost impossible to get out. And also a sharp mind and business acumen helped the kulaks to adapt to the new rules of the game, which were proposed, for example, by the NEP. They said about such people: "Strong master!"
Miroed
Living as a community, "with the whole world" instilled in the peasants confidence in the future. Fellow villagers will not leave, if any trouble happens, relying on the general sense of collectivism: today I am for you, tomorrow you are for me. Those who tried to disrupt the usual order were called "kulaks" or "eaters". Vladimir Dal points to several meanings of the word "world eater": it is "a parasite, staggering around, living at the expense of the world, society", then it is a "hustler-rogue, an intercessor for peace, robbing peasants and constantly inciting them to various litigations."
Public Enemies
Another "destroyer" of the order established in the countryside was the Bolsheviks. The food appropriation system and the "struggle for bread" were supposed to solve not only the food problem, but also to destroy the old ties and foundations - to fulfill the propaganda, "educational" task. Kulaks, middle peasants and poor peasants were divided into two categories by the decree on the destruction of estates and civil officials in 1917: those who had rights, and the disenfranchised (the latter, by the way, were completely deprived of their civil rights). The disenfranchised category included those who resorted to hired labor for profit, including peasants who hired at least one person.
Decide!
Local Bolsheviks and their main "assistant" - the poor - assessed the "kulak" more practically: anyone who hides bread. Lenin's words served as a message to form such an assessment. The leader "turned" into a kulak, exploiter and speculator "every peasant who hides bread", even if collected by his own labor, without the use of hired labor. At the same time, Lenin himself later, trying to separate the kulak from the middle peasant, first writes that the middle peasant is not an exploiter, but a peasant who lives by his own labor, and then allows both the exploitation of labor power and the accumulation of capital. Not surprisingly, on the ground, the performers were “at a loss” and “diligently” tried not to miss.
Unreliable
Under the conditions of the NEP, every "rich man" turns into a kulak. The concept of "owner-farmer" does not take root; wealthy peasants continue to be called kulaks. The poor are finally getting an advantage: they are exempted from the tax in kind, they receive privileges when entering an educational institution or work, they have more chances to join the Komsomol or a party, to be elected to leadership positions in village councils. As contemporaries noted, “today it is not profitable to go into the wealthy. Everyone crawls into the poor. " Perfectly aware of their position, the well-to-do peasants tried with all their might to protect themselves from the "label" of the kulak, which confidently informed everyone about the unreliability of its owner.
Let's destroy the fist as a class!
In 1924, the newspaper "Bednota" conducted a poll in which it was proposed to determine the criteria for identifying a kulak. The problem was that many of the former kulaks lost their fortune, while the poor, on the contrary, became relatively wealthy. As a result, the respondents, with a general negative attitude towards the kulaks, agreed that the dispossessed kulak is more dangerous for the revolution than the bourgeois who has made good and is using it now. The kulaks failed to escape the "popular dislike". In 1929, signs of kulak farms were formulated: the systematic use of a little labor, the presence of a mill (oil mill, drying, etc.), the leasing of agricultural machinery (with a mechanical engine) and premises, as well as trade, usury, intermediation, the presence of unearned income (here was about the clergy).
In the course of collectivization, carried out in 1928-1930, a course was taken to "liquidate the kulaks as a class." Without trial or investigation, prosperous peasants using hired labor were dispossessed, deprived of land, property and all civil rights, and then either evicted to remote regions or shot.
The cousins \u200b\u200bof historians - physicists - begin any discussion with the words "let's agree on terms." Historians do fine without it. It's a pity. Sometimes it would be worth it. For example, who is a fist? Well, there is nothing to think about: this is a "fair", hardworking owner, ruthlessly ruined and destroyed by the machine of Stalin's collectivization. Yes, but why should the collectivization machine destroy its “fair” owner, who is not a competitor or an obstacle to it? He manages on his ten or twenty dessiatines outside the collective farm - and let him manage, but if he wants, he goes to the collective farm. Why ruin it?
Only out of infernal malice - for there is no economic answer here. It will never happen, because the directives of the USSR authorities constantly repeated: do not confuse kulaks and wealthy peasants! Therefore, there was a difference between them, moreover, visible to the naked eye.
So what did the naked eye of a semi-literate county secretary see that is not visible to today's graduate historian? Let's remember school Marxism - those who still managed to learn in the Soviet school. How is a class defined? And the memory on the machine gives out: the relation to the means of production. How does the attitude of the reference owner to the means of production differ from the attitude of the middle peasant? Yes, nothing! And the fist?
Well, since they were going to destroy him “as a class,” then he was a class, and this attitude was somehow different.
These townspeople will always confuse!
So who are the fists?
The Soviet leadership was also concerned about this issue. For example, Kamenev in 1925 argued that any farm with more than 10 acres of crops is a kulak farm. But 10 acres in the Pskov region and in Siberia are completely different areas. In addition, 10 dessiatines for a family of five and a family of fifteen are also two big differences.
Molotov, who was responsible for work in the countryside in the Central Committee, in 1927 referred to the kulaks as peasants who rent land and hire temporary (as opposed to seasonal) workers. But the middle peasant could also rent land and hire workers - especially the former.
Rykov, the head of the Council of People's Commissars, referred to the kulak as well-provided farms using hired labor and the owners of rural industrial establishments. This is closer, but somehow everything is vague. Why shouldn't a strong labor owner have, for example, a mill or an oil mill?
What unites Kamenev, Molotov and Rykov? Only one thing: all three are city-born. But the "All-Union headman" Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, a peasant by birth, gives a completely different definition. At a meeting of the Politburo devoted to cooperation, he said: “The fist is not the owner of property in general, but the one who uses this property as a kulak, that is. usuriously exploiting the local population, giving away capital for growth, using funds at usurious interest.
An unexpected twist, isn't it? And Kalinin is not alone in this approach. People's Commissar of Agriculture A.P. Smirnov wrote in Pravda in 1925, which served as the main practical, corrective guide for local leaders: “We must clearly distinguish between two types of farming in the well-to-do part of the village. The first type of well-to-do economy is purely usurious, engaged in the exploitation of low-power farms not only in the production process (farming), but mainly through all kinds of enslaving deals, through village petty trade and intermediation, all kinds of "friendly" credit with "divine" interest. The second type of well-to-do economy is a strong labor economy, striving to strengthen itself as much as possible in production terms ... "
Now that's a completely different matter! Not only and not so much an exploiter of farm laborers, but a village small trader, an intermediary in transactions and, most importantly, a usurer.
Rural usury is a very special phenomenon. They practically did not give money for growth in the countryside. There, a system of natural usury was adopted - the settlement of loans was done with bread, own labor or any services. (Looking ahead: that is why the so-called "podkulachniki" - the "group of influence" of the kulak - are mainly the poor.) And in any village, all residents knew perfectly well who was simply lending money (even at interest, if necessary), and who made it a trade in which he grows rich.
World eating technology
A vivid picture of such a craft is drawn in a letter to the Krasnaya Derevnya magazine by a certain peasant, Philip Ovseenko. He starts, however, in such a way that you will not dig in.
“... They shout about the kulak that he is so and so, but how not to twist, and the kulak always turns out to be thrifty and diligent, and pays taxes more than others. They shout that, they say, the peasants should not use other people's labor, hire a worker. But to this I must argue that this is completely wrong. Indeed, in order for our state to raise agriculture, to increase peasant goods, the sowing must be increased. And this can only be done by well-to-do owners ... And the fact that the peasant has a worker is only good for the state, and therefore it must first of all support such well-to-do people, because they are the support of the state. Yes, and the employee is also a pity, because if he is not given a job, it will not be found, and there are so many unemployed. And with the farm he is good. Who will give work to the unemployed in the village, or who will feed a neighbor with his family in the spring " .
Do you recognize the reasoning? The rhetoric of "social partnership" has hardly changed in 90 years. But this, however, is only a saying, and now the fairy tale began - about how exactly a kind person feeds a neighbor with a family ...
“There are many other bitter peasants: either there is no horse, or there is nothing to sow. And we also help them out, because it is said that you love your neighbors as brothers. You will give one horse a day, either to plow, or to go to the forest, you will pour the seeds to another. But you can't give for nothing, because good does not fall from heaven to us. It was acquired by their own labor. Another time I would be glad not to give, but he will come, he will directly lament: help out, they say, hope for you. Well, give me the seeds, and then you take off half of it - it's for your own seeds. Moreover, at the gathering they will be called a fist, or an exploiter (that's also a word). This is for doing a good Christian deed ... "
I use it for half the harvest. With a yield of 50 poods per tithe, it turns out that the "benefactor" lends his neighbor seeds at the rate of 100% for three months, 35 poods - 50%. Balzac's Gobsek would have strangled himself with envy. Incidentally, he has not yet mentioned what he takes for the horse. And for a horse, working off was supposed - sometimes three days, and sometimes a week in a day. Christ, if my memory serves me, seems to teach somehow differently ...
“It turns out differently: the other is beating, beating and will abandon the land, or lease it. Every year he does not process. He will eat the seeds, then there is no plow, then something else. He will come and ask for bread. Of course, you will take the land for yourself, your neighbors will cultivate it for your debts and you will take the harvest from it. And what about the old master? You reap what you sow. He who does not work does not eat. And moreover, he voluntarily leased the land in a sober state. After all, again, do not rent it, it would not have been developed, direct loss to the state. And so I again helped out - I sowed it, so I should be grateful for this. Yes, only where there! For such labors, they also defame me ... Let everyone know that the kulak lives by its labor, runs its farm, helps its neighbors, and on it, one might say, the state maintains itself. Let there be no name "kulak" in the village, because the kulak is the most hardworking peasant, from whom there is no harm but benefit, and both the district peasants and the state itself receive this benefit. "
From this sentimental letter it is clear why the peasants call the kulak a world eater. In it, as in a textbook, almost the entire scheme of intra-village exploitation is described. In the spring, when there is no grain left on the poor farms, the time of the usurer comes. For a sack of grain to feed a starving family, the poor will give two sacks in August. Seed bread - half of the harvest. Horse for a day - several days (up to a week) working off. In the spring, for debts or for a couple of sacks of grain, the kulak takes his allotment from a horseless neighbor, other neighbors cultivate this field for debts, and the whole harvest goes to the "good owner". Economic power over its neighbors is followed by political power: at a village gathering, the kulak can automatically count on the support of all its debtors, it goes to the village council itself or brings its people there, and this is how it becomes the true owner of the village, which now has no government.
Well, this is a completely different matter. This is already a class that uses its means of production in a completely different way from the middle peasant. And here is the question: will such a "benefactor" remain indifferent to the collective farm, which cooperates with the poor part of the village, thereby knocking out the food supply from under it?
Greed has ruined
Another "class" feature of the kulak is its specific participation in the grain trade. Accumulating large masses of grain, the kulaks did not release them on the market at all, deliberately inflating prices. In those conditions, it was actually work on organizing hunger, so the 107th article simply cried about such citizens.
... In January 1928, in the midst of the "grain war", the members of the Politburo dispersed across the country to manage grain procurements. On January 15, Stalin went to Siberia. This is what he said in his speeches to party and Soviet workers: “You say that the grain procurement plan is tense, that it is impossible to fulfill. Why is it impracticable, where did you get this from? Isn't it a fact that your harvest this year is really unprecedented? Isn't it a fact that the grain procurement plan for this year in Siberia is almost the same as last year? "
Note: Complaining about the unfeasibility of plans seems to be the theme of all grain procurement campaigns. The reason is clear: you will complain, maybe the plan will be knocked off.
“... You say that the kulaks do not want to hand over the grain, that they are waiting for price increases and prefer to conduct unbridled speculation. It's right. But the kulaks are not just expecting a rise in prices, they are demanding that prices rise three times in comparison with state prices. Do you think you can satisfy the kulaks? The poor and a significant part of the middle peasants have already handed over grain to the state at state prices. Can the state be allowed to pay three times more for bread to the kulaks than to the poor and middle peasants? "
Now such actions are punished in accordance with antitrust laws, and for some reason no one complains. Could it be an allergy to terms?
“… If the kulaks are conducting unbridled speculation on grain prices, why don't you attract them for speculation? Don't you know that there is a law against speculation - Article 107 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, by virtue of which those guilty of speculation are brought to justice, and the goods are confiscated in favor of the state? Why don't you apply this law against bread speculators? Are you really afraid to disturb the peace of the gentlemen of the kulaks?! ..
You say that your prosecutorial and judicial authorities are not ready for this case ... I saw several dozen representatives of your prosecutorial and judicial authorities. Almost all of them live with the kulaks, are freeloaders with the kulaks and, of course, try to live in peace with the kulaks. To my question, they answered that the kulaks' apartment was cleaner and better fed. It is clear that from such representatives of the prosecutor's and judicial authorities one cannot expect anything worthwhile and useful for the Soviet state ... "
So it seems to us, too, for some reason ...
“I suggest:
a) demand that the kulaks immediately surrender all surplus grain at state prices;
b) if the kulaks refuse to obey the law, bring them to justice under Article 107 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR and confiscate their grain surpluses in favor of the state so that 25% of the confiscated grain is distributed among the poor and low-powered middle peasants at low state prices or in long-term loan order ”.
Then, in January, the Siberian regional committee decided: cases under Art. 107 to investigate in an emergency, by visiting sessions of the people's courts in 24 hours, to pass sentences within three days without the participation of the defense. At the same meeting, it was decided to issue a circular of the regional court, the regional prosecutor and the OGPU plenipotentiary, which, in particular, prohibited judges from passing acquittals or conditional sentences under Article 107.
A certain "mitigating circumstance" for the authorities can only be the level of corruption - without the circular, the lured law enforcement officers would not have done anything at all. In addition, the 107th article began to be applied when the amount of surplus on the farm exceeded 2000 poods. It is somehow difficult to imagine the possibility of an investigative or judicial error if the owner has 32 tons of bread in the barn. What, did they put it grain by grain and did not notice how it accumulated? Even taking into account the fact that this size was subsequently reduced - on average, the seizures amounted to 886 poods (14.5 tons) - it is still difficult.
However, given the trifling term of imprisonment under Article 107 - up to one year (actually, up to three, but this is in the case of a conspiracy of merchants, and you just try to prove this conspiracy), the main punishment was just the confiscation of surplus. Didn't want to sell bread - give it away for nothing.
Where does so much bread come from?
As you can see, there is nothing unusual about this. In emergencies, even the most market-oriented of the market states step on the throat of their own song and enact laws against speculation - unless they want their populations to starve to death. In practice, the problem is solved simply: if the government loves bribes more than it fears hunger riots, laws are not introduced; if they give little or are scary, they are introduced. Even the Provisional Government, corrupted to the last limit, tried to implement the grain monopoly, but failed. And the Bolshevik Council of People's Commissars was able to - in fact, this is the whole difference and hence all the resentment against them "brothers-socialists" in terms of agrarian policy.
But back to our fists. Let's count a little. With a yield of 50 pounds, 800 pounds from a tithe is 18 acres. Plus, the owners' own consumption, the feeding of the farm laborers and livestock, the seed fund - which, in a large farm, will pull tithes, say, seven. Total - 25 dessiatines. In 1928, allotments of 25 acres and more had only 34 thousand farms - less than one per village. And about 3% of farms were considered kulak, i.e. 750 thousand And after all, many had not 800 poods, but thousands, or even tens of thousands. Where, I wonder, did Stalin get the figure he named in Siberia? “Look at the kulak farms: there are barns and sheds full of grain, bread is under sheds due to a lack of storage space, in kulak farms there are grain surpluses of 50-60 thousand poods per farm, not counting reserves for seeds, food, and livestock feed. .. "Where did he find farms with such reserves? On the Don, in the Tersk region, in the Kuban? Or is it a poetic exaggeration? But even if we reduce the figure he announced by an order of magnitude, it still turns out to be 5-6 thousand poods.
But here another question is more important. Even if we are talking about 800 poods - where does so much bread come from? From your own field? There was no such number of such fields in the USSR. So where?
The answer, in general, lies on the surface. Firstly, one should not forget about the natural usury in which the village was enmeshed. All these "gratuities", the repayment of debts to "use", the lease of land and working off for debts, bag after bag, lay in the barns in hundreds and thousands of poods. And secondly, let's think: how did the grain sale go in the village? It is good if the fair is located on the edge of the village, so that you can carry your few bags there on the hump. And if not? And there is no horse either, so there is nothing to take out? However, even if there is a sivka, is there any desire to drive her for tens of miles with ten poods? And meanwhile money is needed - to pay tax, and to buy at least something, but it is necessary.
Between the low-powered peasant and the market, there must exist a village grain buyer - one who, in turn, will deal with the urban wholesaler. Depending on the combination of greed and efficiency, he can give his fellow villagers either a little more, or a little less than the state price - so that this penny does not force the poor peasant to go to the market or to the delivery point.
The village kulak simply could not help being a buyer of bread - how could such an income be missed. However, he was. Let us quote again the report of the OGPU - the all-seeing eye of the Soviet government: « Lower Volga region. In the Lysogorsk District of the Saratov District, the kulaks and the well-to-do are systematically speculating in bread. Kulaki in the village. B.-Kopny buy grain from peasants and export it in large quantities to the city of Saratov. In order to grind bread out of turn, the kulaks solder the workers and the mill manager.
North Caucasian Territory. In a number of places in the Kushchevsky and Myasnikovsky districts (Donskoy district), mass grinding of grain into flour is noted. Some grain growers are engaged in the systematic export and sale of flour in the city market ... Wheat prices reach 3 rubles. for a pood. Wealthy and strong kulaks, buying up on the spot for 200-300 poods. bread, grind it into flour and take it on carts to other regions, where they sell it for 6-7 rubles. for a pood.
Ukraine . Fist hut. Novoselovki (Romensky District) buys up bread through three poor people who, under the guise of buying up bread for personal consumption, procure grain for him. The kulak grinds the purchased grain into flour and sells it at the bazaar.
Belotserkovsky district. In the Fastovsky and Mironovsky districts, the kulaks organized their own agents for the purchase of grain, which procure bread for them in the surrounding villages and nearby districts. "
As you can see, at the village level, a private wholesaler and a kulak are one and the same character, a natural mediator between the manufacturer and the market. In fact, the kulak and the Nepman are two links in the same chain, and their interests are completely the same: to pick up the market for themselves, not to let other players in there, and first of all, the state.
The trouble was not only that the kulaks themselves were playing to raise prices, but even more so that they were leading other peasants. Everyone who brought at least something to the market was interested in high bread prices, and the middle peasants joined the boycott of state supplies, who cannot be attracted under Article 107 - if it is applied to those who have not a thousand, but a hundred poods in the barn, then why would not immediately start a general requisition?
At the same time, almost half of the country's farms were so weak that they could not feed themselves on their own bread until the next harvest. The high prices of these peasants were completely ruined, and they hung on the neck of the state. Thus, in a free market, the state twice sponsored traders - first buying bread from them at high prices set by them, and then supplying the poor with cheap bread ruined by the same grain merchants. If there is a powerful trade lobby in a country that pays for politicians, this pumping can go on forever, but the NEPs were weak in buying Politburo members. Easier to kill ...
All these problems - both worldliness and price gouging - were solved economically in the course of the agrarian reform conceived by the Bolsheviks, and rather quickly. If we take into account the vector of development, it becomes clear that collective farms, provided with state benefits and state support, have every chance to turn into fairly cultural farms with quite decent marketability in a matter of years (already in the early 1930s, the grain procurement plan for them was set in the amount of approximately 30-35% of gross tax). And what follows from this? And it follows from this that if not 5%, but 50% of farms are collectivized, then private traders will simply lose the opportunity not only to play in the market, but to influence it in general - state supplies of collective farms will cover all the needs of the country. And taking into account the fact that in the USSR bread was sold to the population at very low prices, the meaning of engaging in grain trade will disappear completely.
The kulak, deprived, on the one hand, of what is siphoned from the poor peasants for debts of grain, and on the other, of the opportunity to influence prices, can trade the products of his economy as he wants and where he wants. Placed in the position of not a large, but a small farmer, he cannot define or decide anything from his economic niche, a closet.
A purely rhetorical question: will the Nepman and the kulak resign themselves to such plans of the authorities?
About this - in the next article ...
