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Repressive Policy of the Soviet Union during the Period of Economic Modernization of the late 1920s and early 1930s of the Last Century
Zhanbosinova Albina Sovetovna, East-Kazakhstan state University im. With Amanzholova, St. 30 Guards.Division, 34, Ust-Kamenogorsk, 070020, Kazakhstan. E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract. The article moots the questions of the repressive policy of the Soviet state in a period of forcible modernization of Kazakhstan economy and abolishment of traditional collective farming structure. The authors describe the realization of a forcible collectivization policy and peasant opposition. The authors explain the determination of repressive Soviet government's actions produced by the necessity of quicker building of the new industrial projects of the soviet country. The authors demonstrate an algorithm of repressive policy realization and its consequences based on archival resources and documents of the State repository of East Kazakhstan region and the Repository after the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The analysis of legislative base that authorized forcible actions of power sources is presented.
Keywords: collectivization; economic modernization; Kolkhoz; policy; repressions; the Soviet Union; United State Political Administration.
©ткен гасырдын 1920-шы жылдардын аягы-1930-шы жылдардын басындагы экономикалык жангырту кезеншдеп кенес мемлекетшщ кугын-сурпн саясаты
Жанбосинова Альбина Советовна, С. Аманжолов атындагы Шыгыс Казакстан мемлекетпк университету Казахстан Республикасы, тарих гылымдарыньщ докторы, профессор. E-mail: [email protected]
Тушн. Макалада Кецес мемлекетшщ Казахстан экономикасын ^штеп жацгырту, казак халкыныц шаруашылык жYрriзуiнщ дэстYрлi курылымын жою кезецшдеп ^гын^рпн саясатыныц мэселелерi кврiнiс тапкан, автор ужымдастырудыц кYштеу саясаты мен шаруалардыц карсыласуыныц жYзеге асуын кврсетедi.
Автор Кецес мемлекетшщ индустриялык нысандарды тездетт салумен шарттастырылган Кецес Yкiметiнщ ^угын^рпн акцияларыныц негiзделуiн кврсеттi. Автор мурагат дерекквздершщ жэне Шыгыс Казахстан облысы Мемлекеттiк мурагатыныц, Казахстан Республикасы Президент Мурагатыныц кужаттары негiзiнде ^ын^рпн саясатыныц жYргiзiлу алгоритмiн жэне оныц салдарын кврсетедi, кYштеу курылымдарыныц жазалаушы акцияларын зацдасты^ан зацнамалык-кукыктык базаFа талдау жасайды.
ТYЙiн сездер: ^ын^рпн; саясат; ЕМСБ; кецестк мемлекет; экономикалык жа^ырту; колхоздар жэне ужымдастыру.
Репрессивная политика советского государства периода экономической модернизации страны конец 1920-х - начало 1930-х годов прошлого столетия
Жанбосинова Альбина Советовна, Восточно-Казахстанский госуниверситет им. С. Аманжолова, Республика Казахстан, доктор исторических наук, профессор. E-mail: [email protected]
Аннотация. Статья освещает вопросы репрессивной политики советского государства периода насильственной модернизации экономики Казахстана, уничтожения традиционной структуры хозяйствования казахского народа, автор показывает реализацию насильственной политики коллективизации и крестьянского сопротивления. Автор показал детерминированность репрессивных акций советского правительства, вызванных необходимостью скорейшего возведения индустриальных объектов советской страны. Автор на базе архивных источников и документов Государственного архива Восточно-Казахстанской области, Архива Президента Республики Казахстан демонстрирует алгоритм реализации репрессивной политики и ее последствия, дает анализ законодательно-правовой базы, узаконившей карательные акции силовых структур.
Ключевые слова: репрессии; политика; ОГПУ; советское государство; экономическая модернизация; колхозы и коллективизация.
yflK/60W 94(574)
Repressive Policy of the Soviet Union during the Period of Economic Modernization of the late 1920s and early 1930s of the Last Century
Zhanbosinova A.S.
Repressive policy of the Soviet state is one of the most important research topics, the relevance of which is explained in the introduction to the scientific revolution of new sources and archival documents with the revaluation of certain events and with the need for a comprehensive and objective study of the problem, which has a multifaceted structure.
The Soviet state repressive policy is violence perpetrated against its own people, the constant search for a permanent internal enemy, the culprit for all the troubles and failures of the country on the economic and political arena. Repressive policy in the broadest sense is the political violence, punishment and the system measures used by the public authorities to suppress all dissent. It was typical for a totalitarian state.
Foreign authors made an indubious historical contribution of political repressions study. Some of them became the pioneers in a pointed topic theme search as far back as the Soviet period. Their scientific works were published during the Perestroika epoch. They were the first who started talking about mass repressions, mechanism and technology of Socialistic modernization. As an example, Central Asia expert Martha Brill Ollcott's tractates: «The Kazakhs' describes the evidence that the Bolshevists' Party interests and the ideas of national periphery representatives were different resulting sore socially economic consequences and repressions and hiding real originators of Kazakhstan tragedy» (Ollcott 1987). Such researchers as Arendt (Arendt 1996), R. Aron (Aron 1993), F. Hajek (Hajek 1990) envisaged the penal policy as a principle part of the whole Soviet political system paying attention to the theoretical aspects. R. Konkvest made a considerable contribution in repressive policy research (Konkvest 1991). In his tractate he mentioned the periods of repressive policy, analyzed its directions. The represented factual material considers a real interest.
The historians from Russia, Kirgizia, Uzbekistan, Tatarstan, Belorussia and Ukraine actively discussed this topic in the post-Soviet period. At the beginning of 1990s of last century, there was a transition from conjuncture in publicity to scientific research analysis of the repression policy. In the frames of an annalistic overview, it is impossible to mention the research activity of the scientists from Russian History Museum, who publish the archive documents in a set of publications as «Social History of Russia of the Twentieth Century». The most interesting are «Society and Authority: the 1930s» (Society and Authority 1998), «Voice of Nation» (Voice of nation 1997), «Behind the front of Stalin' wealth» (Osokina 1998). The genre «Documents narration», chosen by the authors, perfectly describes historical events of that time. You can meet there letters interpolation, newspapers comments, information bulletins of the OGPU of the NKVD given in a particular historical context, that help to understand the various aspects of the life of ordinary Soviet philistine, who turned into a cog of the repression mechanism.
Russian historians begin critical analysis of the violent methods of the Collectivization, repressive forms of expropriation and peasants' families' deportation, the legislative base that was the deepest and versatile study of the ambitious directions of the repressive state policy in the villages.
Determinant of the repressive policy in the village were food complications in the country, because the created Soviet state economic mechanism did not provide with a minimum of grain needs. In the second half of the 1920s, there was a sharp reduction in food supply from the villages. The economic situation in the country indicated clearly a complete violation of market relations, and an acute shortage of bread allowed the Government to announce the sabotage in the village by the kulak farms.
The forced industrialization was accompanied by the activation of kolkhoz construction. Mass kolkhoz movement was to destroy peasant individualistic overview, eliminate the so-called carrier of the Bourgeois ideology, to uproot such categories as «kulak» and «individual farmer» and to build a new Socialist village. There could not be different attitude toward the peasantry as the repressive policy was a deterministic creation of industrialized countries, independent of the external environment, and the predominance of the agricultural sector with the individualistic thinking only of the source of income prevented the use of Industrialization in full.
Complications arisen in the country of Soviets, especially in the areas of food showed the inappropriate market links. The increase of grain deficit gave the authorities the grounds to announce about the availability of grain sabotage made by kulak farms. As a result, it gave the reason to take the emergency measures against the holders of grain resources. At the request of Stalin, the order to launch retaliatory actions in grain-growing regions was made.
The period of the Cannibalization is the beginning of a new policy and formation of a new normative base in plans realization in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The main enemy of the agriculture modernization of that time was economically prosperous peasantry that was determined as the rank of kulaks and was liquidated. Judicial agencies with their methods of confiscation, departure and denouncement became the main executive instrument of the repressive policy. The system of punishment included the articles from the Penal ^de of 1922 with amendments. Judicial pressure and persecution of peasants were executed according to Articles 58-8, 59-9 (assassination preparation), Article 58-10 (agitation leading to the frustration of kolkhoz operations), Article 61 (1-3) of the RSFSR Penal Code (denouncement in a non-fulfilment), Article 73-1 (denunciation in respect of the Soviet and social officers), Article 16 and 79 (investigation of confiscated assets, property damage that should be passed to the collective farm), Article 79 -1 (abetment or slaughter), Article 107 ( abroachment charge).
It was especially hard for peasantry to apply Article 58 of the RSFSR Penal Code, which allowed qualifying peasants' individual actions as a treason. This article, consisting of 14 paragraphs, implied the condemnation of acts directed against the existing political system and its institutions. Of course, no state can tolerate it. However, these crimes are not the rule of public life, and, on the contrary, an excerpt of them.
Wordings of Article 58 were so expanded that allowed to offend practically any person according to the content. Regulatory documentation of the OGPU of the NKVD determined terror including murder, beatings, call for resistance, arson, assault, spreading rumors, slander etc. as a public crime.
Therefore, Article 58 contained 18 paragraphs in the Penal Code edited in 1936, whereas 14 paragraphs in 1937. Directions of the Prosecutor of the USSR dated 23 January 1935 factually allowed to present materials to the penal boards for the further criminal repressions in spite of lack of evidence in crime commitment. Particularly, it is said that group cases with an ample evidence should be passed to the special jurisdiction committees «but individual cases charged in terroristic
propaganda and terroristic replies and group cases without ample documentary for judgment consideration should be considered in the special committee (osoboie soveshchanie)...» an extrajudicial board in other words (History of the soviet boards 1967).
Government «headache» was concluded in traditional economic structure of the traditional Kazakh village (aul)1, where bays and clan rulers ran. The government needed to eliminate them as an obstacle of the Soviet aul construction. In order to liquidate such clans, the Politburo of Kazakhstan offered the Kazakh Regional Committee (the Kazraicom) to audit all the cattle-breeders from local citizens, who influenced the opinion of the peasants and prevented the process of the Collectivization of the auls for their own purposes on 1 September 1928. It was planned to work on the grounds of the Resolution of the Central Committee of the RSPB (Russian Communist Party [Bolsheviks]) made on 9 August 1928. According to the principles of this Resolution, the Kazraicom had to select the most uncharitable ones and send out later the lists of those to be confiscated or departed. Central and district committees were organized as an executive authority for bays' migration. The ultimate expulsion was dated for 1 November 1928. Mass migrations of the Kazakh families to China was the answer to the governmental campaign. Two hundred and sixty yurts2 wandered from Tarbagatay region of East-Kazakhstan oblast only during the first ten days of August.
On 20 January 1928, it was decided to establish the operational groups of three (troikas) in order to enhance the State grain procurement campaign and sales targets3. The policy of confiscation of prosperous bays' and kulaks' property was held in Semipalatinsk region, as well as throughout the country, with the use of the extraordinary measures. Afterwards F. Goloshchekin stated: «The use of emergency measures was practiced everywhere. In Semipalatinsk krai it was used wider and further than it had been dictated by economic and political expediency...»4 Between 1 January and 1 June 1928 over 4,419 people were convicted according to the Article 60 of the Penal Code of the RSFSR at Semipalatinsk krai.5 Since 5 November 1929, the total quantity of all repressed kulaks according to the Article 588-10 of the Penal Code of the RSFSR amounted 46 people in the city, 1,394 people in the village, including 20 people from the city and 250 bays from the city of Semipalatinsk. Moreover, considering repressed kulaks of all categories, on the same date there were 300 people from the city and 2,174 from the village, including 62 city kulaks and 309 village ones from Semipalatinsk krai6.
In spring 1928, the policy of self-taxation was pursued in Semipalatinsk province of Kazakhstan. Government authorities stated that instead of the correct realization, this process turned into the unspeakable perversion of authorities' directives and 'led cattle-breeding regions to the complete economic ruin and decline'. Despite the murrain, the local authorities forced the population to liquidate their cattle for a pittance. At the same time, local authorities created artificial accusations and judged in public with the aim to uncover sabotage and anti-government actions.
The government actively used the adoption of various laws or regulations in its repressive policy, such regulations when any peasant could automatically make a state criminal. Peasantry got a severe blow, after which it could not recover for a
1 Aul - is the traditional Kazakh name of the village.
2 Achieve of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, F.141, Op.1, D.2067, 229-1,40.
3 Achieve of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, F.141, Art.1, F.1857. 549-19.
4 Achieve of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, F.141, Op.1, D.1675, 149-3-7.
5 Ibid., 53.
6 Achieve of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, F.141, Op.1, D.1675, 149-265.
long time. The farmers realized one thing: the Soviet authorities did not like the individual prosperous farms in the village.
In March 1929, the Politburo made a decision about the measures to strengthen the grain procurement campaign, according to which the commitments made by the poor resolution of the meeting performance targets laid down on top of the village kulaks. The main goal was not seen in the seizure of grain resources but in the strangling economic independence of kulak farms. Then in spring 1929, the so-called «pyatikratka» was introduced. «Pyatikratka» was a fine, within five times cost taxation of malicious saboteurs, expulsion and confiscation of their property. To implement repressive policy in the villages, there were the constant representatives of the OGPU, which were to ensure the continuity of activities of the punitive mechanism. The late 1920s are characterized by the practice of conviction on charges of counterrevolutionary sabotage acts. Geography of this practice proved itself in Katonkaragay, Markokol and Zyryanovsk regions. It should be mentioned that such active interference of powerful boards to the country economy and relations between town and village did not only disturb Lenin's solidarity between these objects and abolished market relations mechanism but became the evidence of powerful boards becoming the repressive policy instrument in the village.
Grain procurement campaign, which was carried out on the territory of Eastern Kazakhstan, could not cause the protests from the local population. In special reports of the OGPU dated 8 December 1929, it was noted that «kulak counterrevolutionary group» was revealed in the village of Bolshaya river of Shemonaikha region. That group agitated for peasants not to pass grain and strongly opposed the implementation of the plan. In the village Alexeevka kulak group led a vicious anti-Soviet agitation, frustrating meetings about plan acceptance and, appealing to the population not to follow the plan. As a result, eight kulaks were prosecuted. In Marinogorsk village of Samarskiy region, the armed kulaks with sticks prevented the grain confiscation when the village authority tried to withdraw the grain. The kulaks who organized this operation were arrested'. Members of the OGPU believed that all the actions of the peasantry - was the result of «the rabid anti-Soviet propaganda».
They also noted that there was a recent increase in cases of illegal migrations to China on the border regions of East Kazakhstan oblast. Particularly since August until October, there had been 82 migrations to Bakhtin and Zaysan regions, including five armed migrations, nine group migrations and 68 individual ones7. Seeing the increase of migrations the Chairman of the OGPU proposed to legalize the following list of activities:
1. To organize the expulsion of all bays and kulaks detained at the time of illegal migrations to China or convicted in such intents, outwards 100 kilometers of the borderland.
2. An immediate expulsion of bays, their families and property who had already been shipped outwards 100 kilometers of the borderland.
3. Expulsion of bays' families outwards 100 kilometers if the head of the family had already migrated to China.
4. To provide the local regional executive committees (RIKs) with the right on expulsion8.
The result of the local RIKs' work were crippled and broken destinies, separated families. The rates of State grain procurements campaigns did not suit the authorities. The Party believed that the reason of unacceptably weak blanks was
7 Achieve of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, F.141, Op.1, D.2433, 318.
8 Achieve of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, F.141, Op.1, D.2433, 357-329.
underestimation and misunderstanding of the values of grain procurements by a number of executives. Superior agencies demanded and threatened to tighten the «knots» in respect of each regional committee on its work under the Party's directives. In the kolkhozes, which delayed the grain procurement, were used such measures as the cessation of credit issues, farm machinery renting and the most extreme measure - prosecution of unfit leaders.
The letter of peasant Alekseev from Semipalatinsk province of Kazakhstan to the «Peasant Newspaper» dated 7 November 1929 was the evidence of what methods had been used in repressive policy execution in the country. The letter said: «Our district (Burasinsky) has suffered from drought. Population within 4000 people are to give 60,000 poods of grain, according to the village grain procurement plan... but there is no grain, the responsibility was given to kulaks. The problem is: the quantity of kulaks is not so high whereas peasants can do nothing. The peasants could thresh only 100-200 poods, but they were obliged to pass 300-700 poods. Of course, the peasant of average means (serednyaks) cannot pass such quantity of grain and they are boycotted, obliged with an individual income agricultural tax, and declared to pay back within four hours. Then the local authority comes out of the village council, confiscate the grain ... the family remains homeless and without breadwinner... Nearly 50 serednyaks stayed without grain without trial and free of charge. Seven people have already been convicted... In Semipalatinsk, there are moans and cries, curses against the Soviet power ... At the meeting, the Chairman dictates, secretary writes, but the audience is silent. People cannot talk avoiding to be blamed as a kulak or a lackey...» 9
On 5 January 1930, there was a decree of the Politburo «On the Rates of Collectivization and State Aid Measures in Kolkhoz Development», which was supposed to speed up the all-round Collectivization in the grain-growing regions. It was accepted as a large-scale attack of the kulaks. Since January 1930, the arrest dynamics of individual farmers only increased.
In early January 1930, the officials of the OGPU central agency got the task to develop the repressive administrative measures for the kulaks' elimination. Deputy Chairman of the OGPU G. Yagoda assumed that during the all-round Collectivization kulaks would provide a fierce resistance to the Party policy. In order to prevent a mass peasant resistance, the OGPU offered especially malicious instigators, i.e. to send the kulaks to the camps, and the others - to the new settlements. The Party took into consideration the development plan of the OGPU. On 30 January 1930 there was made a resolution of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) «On Measures for the Liquidation of Kulak Farms in Regions of Wholesale Collectivization». The main task was seen in the suppression of kulaks' counterrevolutionary movement by eliminating the kulaks and bais' farms. The following measures were offered:
- to abolish the law on the rent and use of waged labor in the region of the all-round Collectivization;
- to establish the confiscation of the kulaks' production means.
It divided the kulaks into three categories. The kulaks of the first group - «the counterrevolutionary kulak active elements» - were to be sent to «concentration camps». Those who resisted were liable to capital punishment. The second category comprised the «remaining elements of kulak activ»: together with their families and the wives and children of the first category, they were to be resettled in the distant regions of the USSR. The last category, the «less dangerous» kulaks were resettled
9 Achieve of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, F.141, Op.1, D.2952, 474-97, 98.
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within their respective regions, along with their families. The number of the affected kulak farms varied according to the total number of kulak farms in the individual districts. The Politburo recommended 3 per cent to 5 per cent of all farms as a referential number. The orders to the regional OGPU-units conducting the operation implied that not only kulaks were targeted, but also real and imagined anti-Soviet elements in the countryside, including church activists, members of religious sects, former landowners, former White officers and their families. The act content pushed local leaders to cannibalization of the serednyaks. In the four-month period between February and 19 May 1930 the OGPU units were to send sixty million people to the concentration camps and to evacuate 150,000 kulaks. Nearly five or six thousand people were directed to the concentration camp of Kazakhstan and ten or fifteen thousand people to other settlements (Ivnitskiy 1996).
The OGPU was granted to pass its authority in judicial review cases of the Deputy Chairman of the OGPU for joint consideration of cases with the representatives of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) and the prosecutors for the period of the OGPU campaign. The OGPU staff increased by 800 people and 1000 troops because of the extension of the activities, i.e. the government presupposed the possibility of peasants' disaffection. The OGPU was tasked to identify kulaks' farms of the first category, whereas the executive regional committees determined the second and third one.
On 2 February 1930, there was the Executive Order №4/21 of the OGPU «On measures for liquidation of the kulaks as a class»10. It said to organize the process of the kulaks' liquidation as a class and repress of any attempts of the kulaks' activities of the Soviet power by the Socialist reconstruction of agriculture. Kulak's opposition should be, and would be strongly broken. The Order recommended developing the work in two directions:
- immediate dissolution of the counterrevolutionary kulak's asset, especially the existing staff of counter-revolutionary and guerrilla organizations, groups, and the most vicious, terry singles (the first category).
- mass expulsion (primarily from the regions of solid collectivization and frontier) of the richest kulaks (former landowners, semi landowners, local kulak's authorities and all kulaks which formed a counter-revolutionary activity) and their families to the further northern regions of the USSR with their property confiscation (the second category).
The Order divided the first category more clearly, selecting from it:
- the kulaks, who were terry and more active, and frustrated the opposing party and government activities in the Socialist reconstruction of the economy. The kulaks who ran from the regions of the permanent residence and went underground, especially with the active White Officers and bandits;
- the kulaks - White Officers, rebels, former bandits, former White officers, returnees, former active punitives and others who had shown a counterrevolutionary activity, especially in the organized manner;
- the kulaks - active members of church councils, all sorts of religious, sectarian communities and groups who actively manifested themselves;
- the kulaks - the richest, usurers, profiteers, destroying their farms, former landowners and large landowners.
As for the families of the arrested and prisoned in the concentration camps or sentenced to the supreme penalty, they should have been sent to the northern regions of the Union, along with the mass eviction campaign of the kulaks and their
10 Operative Order № 44/21 of the OGPU dated 2 February, 1930
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families, taking into account the presence of the employable and without danger family members. The local asset was responsible for the expulsion and delivering people to the assembly points. Each deportee was registered with a personal card with the surname, name, patronymic name, birth place, nationality, detailed information about the family, occupation before 1917 and after, as well as whether the person was disfranchised, i.e. deprived of electoral rights, prosecuted, and characteristic of the poor and agricultural laborers' asset to the deportee was applied. Since that moment the evictee was under control of the special agency, later he was registered again with further records about his next steps.
To accomplish all these tasks the OGPU Chairmen ordered:
1) to complete the process of elimination of all existing counter-revolutionary organizations, groups and active counterrevolutionary individuals and acting gangs as soon as possible. To ensure a prompt investigation of holding all such cases and urgent consideration of cases out of the court - in troykas. To eliminate all such cases and arising categories during the campaign to evict the kulaks without the slightest delay.
2) to deal with cases on persons having participated in these cases (the first category), to create immediately the OGPU troykas with the representatives from the Kraikom of the RCP (b) and the Prosecutor's Office. The staff of troykas must have been approved by the Collegium of the OGPU.
3) to evict the kulaks and their families (second category) - in its entirety; for concentrations of all materials on the operation and organization of constant communication with the center and the periphery - the disposal of operational triple.
4) to organize the operative troykas to lead the operation of kulak's and their families' expulsion (the second category) for the concentration of the operation materials and steady connection with the center and frontier11.
The Order № 44/21 intensified the process of cannibalization, arrests and kulak's family expulsion. It identified the mechanism of repressive measures used to the dispossess element. Collectively, the Order dated 30 January and the Executive Order dated 2 February marked the beginning of the mass OGPU operation against peasants; operational reports reported about the amount of liquidated «counter-revolutionary, rebel groups and organizations». The main purpose of the Order 44/21 was complete general cleaning of all regions of the country from the kulak elements. Implementation of the Order can be compared with the military campaign, where a key role belonged to the special groups of troykas of the OGPU.
The OGPU units arrested 283,717 people of the first category from January to October 1930. The troykas sentenced 19,000 people to death, 100,000 people to different terms of imprisonment and 47,000 people to deportation. According to the second category, 332,000 people were sent to the further regions of the USSR and 163,000 people - within the region. According to the third category, about fifty thousand families were resettled within the district and the region by August 1930 (Miheyev 2005).
Therefore, that 19 percent from the total population were arrested and repressed in the frames of these orders during 1930 in East Kazakhstan oblast. The reports said about the defeat of groups engaged in anti-Soviet agitation aimed to the kolkhoz system expansion, grain procurement disrupt and government activities. As a result, all the control figures that were determined by the USSR authority executed and exceeded. Nevertheless, arrests of all categories of kulaks, including clergy, continued. The kulak dispossession campaign, pursued by the Government,
11 Ibid.
resembled an amphibious attack of the village by the OGPU units. It was a legally planned robbery, looting and force psychological violence. «Trends of repressing the kulaks in East Kazakhstan oblast», shows perfectly the statistics, the repression peak falls to 34 per cent in March.
On 4 February 1930, the Central Election Commission (the CEC) sent the secret instructions to all local executive committees at the national and regional levels, including the OGPU. The instructions stated that in addition to the Decree and the Resolution dated 2 February, to complete the Collectivization immediately the following mass activities should have been established:
- to prevent any opposition from the kulak ongoing activities of the Soviet authorities to evict kulak asset to the further regions of the USSR, the OGPU units were responsible for the organization of the eviction process;
- to differentiate strictly the amount of the evicted kulak farms within 3-5 per cents, without affecting in any serednyaks' farms;
- the lists of the deported kulaks were determined at general farmers' meetings and approved by the supreme boards.
The secret instructions defined the rules of kulaks' property confiscation and its assignation to the kolkhoz fund, as well as the required minimum of funds and property, which remained as kulaks' farms during the confiscation. The instructions regulated the rules of kulaks' settlement and their subsequent labor use.
On 5 February 1930 a closed meeting of Semipalatinsk Regional Committee of the RCP (b) on the resolution realization and further management of the OGPUs in kulak elimination. The Bureau decided «...to oblige the GPU to accelerate the identification and removal from all parts of the region especially from the regions of all-round Collectivization of the kulaks and bays, who were the leaders of the organization of the Party's actions frustration. According to the first paragraph, «On implementation of the Regional Committee's resolution» dated on 2 February, and the instructions of the Central Committee dated 30 January 1930, the GPU should have provided the emergency expulsion of the kulaks and bays with the property confiscation.
To support the Party policy it was necessary to guide the advocacy talks among the population on «the issues of the kolkhoz construction, of the counterrevolutionary essence of the kulaks' agitation against the kolkhozes, mobilizing the poor laborers' opinion on the issues of the kulaks and bays eliminating».
«Mobilizing the party organization forces and managing the hired poor peasants and serednyaks in the regions with all-round collectivization to provide the liquidation of kulaks and bays as a class for the shortest period of time (before the sowing process) by the following actions:
- rendering of the decision about kulaks' and bays' exile outwards the region made by the hired poor peasants and serednyaks at the village and aul meetings;
- land ownership loss in exchange for the worst allotments;
- confiscation of all means of production and property, and recovering of gold, silver, cash and securities with the transfer of the selected property into the indivisible capital of the kolkhozes as a contribution for the hired poor peasants of the village»12.
The content of the OGPU activities gave us the opportunity to mention a limit congestion in the initiation and fabrication of the cases of the counterrevolutionary, anti-Soviet and kulaks' groups. From ten to one hundred people were the figurants
12 State archive of East Kazakhstan region (GAVKO), F.139, Op.1, D.22, 248-32.
196
of each case. Activation of the repressive policy in the village using the intimidating radical measures led to the destruction of the most active part of the rural population.
The «Pre-Irtysh Truth» №7 dated 8 January 1930 stated: «there is a turn for the better in the Kolkhoz Party policy. It means transition from the policy of the exploiting tendencies restricting to the policy of the kulaks' eliminating as a class». The issue was about the local authorities grappled with the problem. They did not know which districts of the region should have been classified as the districts of all-round collectivization. As a result it was reflected in № 14 meeting of a closed session of Semipalatinsk Regional Committee of the RCP (b) dated 13 February 1930: «now ... we should answer the question when and what region should be the region of the all-round Collectivization. Obviously, when the majority of the population of the given region will be collectivized, at least not less than 70-80 percent of the peasant's farms. Having the index of 30-40 percent many regions want to be the regions of all-round Collectivization without paying attention to the quality of kolkhoz maintenance. E.g., the Belagachsky region wants to be the region of all-round Collectivization but seeds socialization is only 17, 8 percent today. Besides the authorities did not know «...what policy to lead in the regions of not all-round Collectivization?» Local authorities called «Shemonaiha, Razinsky and Zhanasemeiskiy regions as the regions of all-round Collectivization ... where Collectivization covered about 70 percent of the farms. The aim of the Party departments is to carry out the Party's policy in the elimination of bays-and-kulaks as a class...»
The resolution banned the free movement of kulaks from one region to another one, and sale of the paraphernalia under the threat of the repressive measures use. That decree was an attempt to limit the migration outwards the country and movement within the country. On 22 February 1930, all secretaries of the Border Regional Committees of the RCP (b) and the chairpersons of the border posts received a secret message, which stated that «there were the facts of massive cattle sell organized by bays and kulaks. There is an influx of bay-kulaks elements to the border regions.
In order to prevent such process we should:
- transmit the new comers and their families, especially aggressive and malicious kulaks, to the OGPU units and border posts.
- send all arrived kulaks outwards 50 kilometers of the border zone. Those who do not have enough evidence to initiate a criminal case should be listed and sent to the chiefs of the nearest frontier posts for the further expulsion outwards the border.
- arrest and delegate all migrating kulaks to the nearest boards of the OGPU and border posts.
- oblige all village councils not to give identity cards to the kulaks without the permission of the Regional Executive Committees»13.
Local authorities audited kulaks and bays' property, organizing the process of control over the accounted confiscated property by Aul-and-Village Community. Members of this community were responsible for the safety of the property and incase of stealing or loss.
The policy of «liquidation of the kulaks as a class» had several interrelated purposes. The official one (social) concerned the elimination of the village bourgeoisie. The second purpose (psychological) referred to the creating an atmosphere of fear in the village, demonstrating the peasants that the Cannibalization, arrest and deportation were the only alternative entry into the
13 Ibid., 50.
kolkhoz. Policy of the kulaks' eliminating turned into the main method of stimulating the collectivization process. Economic purpose applied to the creation of the minimum material base of the future kolkhozes through the confiscation of kulaks' farms. Intentions of using forced labor of the repressed peasants in problems solvation of the country economic system modernization had an implicit and ulterior motive (Dobronozhenko 2007, P.321-323).
Strengthening of the repressions' scales during the forced Collectivization could not cause mass dissatisfaction of the peasants. The flow of peasants arrested in the Eastern Kazakhstan (Ziryanovski, Markakolsky, Katonkaragay and other regions) increased since March 1930. Arrested peasants were accused under Article 58-2 -armed rebellion or armed gangs' intrusion into the Soviet territory with the counterrevolutionary purposes; Article 58-7 - sabotage; Article 58-10 -counterrevolutionary propaganda or agitation; Article 58-14 - counterrevolutionary sabotage. These penalties applied from three years to shooting. The OGPU reports indicated that the peasant protest was expressed: in the conscious destruction of the cattle before joining the kolkhoz; running from the residence regions, sometimes abroad; writing the request addressed to the leaders of the country. Peasants' uprisings became the extreme form of the protest of that time. The newsletter from 15 April to 1 May, 1930 reported that 'recently there are cases of more active and open kulaks' rebellions. The reason is the use of repression measures against kulaks' households ... The hotbeds of the strikes are Beloye village, Katonkaragay region, Shemonaiha region, Ubinskoye village, Razinskiy region, Mitrofanovskoye village ... Peasants encroach on the lives of the public employees, and set fire to cause damage, beat the authorities, etc. There are cases of public meetings of all ranks priests and religious sects in Razinskiy region14. The peasants were not only against a forced Collectivization and against dispossession of the kulaks, but also the persecution of ministers of worship and indiscriminated closing churches that would be discussed in more detail in later section.
It is possible to select some directions and struggle, developed in the village, which was the result of government actions under military pressure. The first one is forced collectivization, military pressure on the peasant masses. Later studying Stalin's article «On the Excesses of Kolkhozes Foundation», according to the directive received from the center, and then, executing the decree of the Politburo on 10-14 March 1930 «On Combating Distortions of the Party line in the kolkhoz division», the local Party offices were admitted in the Collectivization process. These excesses were expressed as follows: the question construction at the general meetings (in five village councils). It sounded; «The one who is against the Collectivization is against us» or «That one who is against the Collectivization is against the Soviet authority», «Those who do not join the kolkhoz, will get the land on the rocks».
There was a case when the commissioner carried out «a socialist competition between the villages in the fastest entry the kolkhoz. That village, which didn't enter on time, should pay a fine of 1,000 rubles». «All cows and premises were socialized in four collective farms, but chickens, ducks and others were socialized in two collective farms». For example, at the same time, justifying itself Katonkaragay district reported that it had 50% of collectivized households by 15-20 March 1930. The party committee explained that 'this rapid growth is mainly due to collectivization by working with the poor and agricultural laborers and the kulaks' elimination made a
14 GAVKO, F.139, Op.1, D.22. 248-67.
great desire to join the kolkhoz. The third reason included the wish of the peasants of average means to join the community because of the fear being wounded»15.
It should be noted that the decree of the Politburo dated 10 March, was a secret one. Its content can be estimated in two ways: statement of achievements and successes facts from one hand, and the order to continue a relentless struggle against the Party's faults in the kolkhoz movement from the other one. Nevertheless, Regional Committees shifted the blame of the excesses on the local party activists.
The second fact is the struggle of the poor and day laborers with the kulaks as a class expelling them from kolkhoz as an unnecessary element of the Socialist construction. The important fact is that the poor and day laborers' activists really acted out of the best intentions of the class. The Soviet ideological machine created targeted directions, showing the reasons of grain lack and the results in the kolkhozes, etc. «...Here is the enemy and the cause of all your troubles -'Throw it out neck and crop». The country's leadership artificially fueled natural psychological antagonism between the former exploiting and exploited classes.
Since 1930-2, there were charges under Article 58-2 - indicating «gangster squad member», «member of the armed rebel organization», «member of an armed insurrection», etc. in the cases of arrested people. Tolstouhovsky rebellion was the largest one. In the OGPU reports, it was called as «sally of the kulak gangs». Dates from 19 to 20 February can be called a rebellion reference point, when the OGPU reported that the village Krestovka, Proletarka, Pihtoviy kluch villages were swept by the «kulak» revolt led by Tolstouhov - the follower of Bukharin's theory of «kulak's growing into the socialism».
The interesting fact is that, in 1929-2, the Party branch of Pihtoviy kluch village said: «We, the Party activists of Pihtoviy kluch village stop our political work, as we disagree with the general idea of the Party. The Party leads to the ruin of the peasantry, and therefore consider ourselves as independent people, followed by the Revolutionary Conscience».
Party documents of that time noted that the anti-Soviet and CounterRevolutionary unit «under Tolstouhov's strong leadership developed its mass work and carried the poor and day laborers into the kulak armed uprising against the Soviet rule system»16. The unit of Pihtoviy kluch village, headed by the Secretary Bochkov, three members of the Komsomol, 2 party members and demobilized Red Army men together with the Party members of Krestovka village, took an active part in the armed kulak meeting. The term «kulak» is hardly applicable to this meeting. Later Zyryanovskiy district was called as the place of the grossest and the most disgraceful misinterpretations of the Party's policy towards the peasants and Collectivization issues and quite tolerant bends towards the middle peasant, which escalated into the open forms of criminal abuse and nightmarish shootings. Under the nightmarish shooting, the Soviet authority implied the arbitrariness of local workers in Kutiha village, who had shot two serednyaks on 12 March 1930. The abstract of minutes of the Bureau session of Semipalatinsk Region Committee of the RCP (b) stated that «the fact of the peasants» execution in Kutiha village is the evidence of penetration of alien kulak criminal gang members into the district17.
Party leadership of the region did not discuss the issues of the local authority's arbitrariness. It argued about the corrupting influence of the counterrevolutionary element, accused Tolstouhov of completely «decomposing the Party unit».
15 Ibid., 111.
16 Achieve of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, F.141, Op.1, D.3292, 146-131,132.
17 Ibid., 64-66.
Fyodor Tolstouhov born 1887 in Orlov province, an interesting eccentric personality, turned out to be in Buhtarminsky district by chance: he was exiled as a socialist-revolutionary (S.R.) in 1909. During the years of the Soviet system he became a communist, a member of the Revolutionary Committee of the county, participated in the partisan movement to protect the Soviet system, was a commissioner of the partisan unit «Red Eagles of the Altai Mountains». Fyodor Tolstouhov lived in Pihtoviy kluch village. The above data do not coincide with the information of one of the researchers of the peasant rebellions in the East Kazakhstan, Luhtanov Alexander. He reports that Fyodor Tolstouhov left his first wife because of his great love to another woman. What was Tolstouhov Fyodor then? A. Lukhtanov writes: «Was he a farmer, an intellectual, a teacher, a politician or a local scale? I guess you could call him a national hero, defender of the injured people and a fighter for justice. He was like «Bukhtarma» sort of Robin Hood of the twentieth century. Moreover, it again suggests that people from the street «ohlos» and romantics participated in the revolution of 1917».
Semipalatinsk regional department of the OGPU in its reports in February 1930 noted the activity of the counterrevolutionary organization in Ust-Kamenogorsk, Zyryanovsky, Buhtarminsky, Samarskiy and other districts of the Eastern Kazakhstan oblast. The report of the Criminal Investigation Department noted that the organization was headed by a former village teacher, a former member of the RCP (b), excluded from the Party for disagreement with its policy in the village, a former Red partisan F. Tolstouhov.
Activities of the organization was held under the slogan «Down with the Communists, long live free labor», «Down with the Collectivization», «Down with the five-year plan», «We are not against the Government and against violence», «Long live Soviet power cleaning». Slogans used in the rebellions of the 1930s called for the Soviet Government without the Communists, reflecting the peasants' thoughts and aspirations, they clearly expressed the mood caught by F. Tolstouhov. F. Tolstouhov' active assistants were former white officers Klinovitskiy, Zenkovsky and S.R. Pautov. The main objective of the said «counterrevolutionary organization» was to overthrow the Soviet system, the dictatorship of the proletariat and the Communists, restoration of the peasants' system. In early February 1930 during the first operations on the territory of Zyryanovsky region against the Tolstouhov's gang, 92 people were arrested and 19 pieces of various weapons were found during searches, including 8 rifled pieces and 200 pieces of three-way ammunition, etc. The rebellion should have been started simultaneously in all districts on 16 February, but the actions of the OGPU frustrated the plans of the organized action. As a result, the subsequent armed clashes made F. Tolstouhov flee to China, and on 28 September 1930, he was ambushed and killed by the OGPU. According to the unconfirmed reports of the OGPU, about 900 people were the members of Tolstouhov's gang. As a result, 160 of them were killed, 70 were wounded, three of them committed suicide and 597 people were captured18.
The rising was crushed in March 1930, and its echoes continued to manifest themselves on the territory of East Kazakhstan oblast. According to the archival materials those were on trial who had, according to the opinion of the enforcement agencies, the attitude to the armed risings on the region territory, including Tolstouhov's rebellion. Fyodor Tolstouhov always maintained the contact with the anti-Soviet elements, in the Eastern Kazakhstan and Siberia.
18 Achieve of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, F.141, Op.17, D.455, 216-43-60.
200
On 3 April 1930, the SNK of the Kazakh ASSR adopted the resolution to evict all bays, kulaks and their family members from the border territory in order to prevent the peasantry's migration. The resolution stated the following:
«To evict outwards 100 kilometers of the borderland:
a) all bays and kulaks, deferred at the time of charges for illegal migrations to China or convicted to organize migrations;
b) all bays and kulaks, whose family members or property had already immigrated abroad;
c) all family members of bays and kulaks, if the head of the family had already immigrated abroad»19.
Eviction was carried out by the order of the district and executive committees by the presentation and materials of the boundary guard, with the approval of those regulations by the relevant district executive committees.
Zaysan № 50-border party in its special reports declared: «The criminal element from our border regions hoping to escape the responsibility for his criminal acts, finds the adherents among the Kazakh population of the Chinese border zones. This criminal element attacks and commits outrages against our border population, robbing people and agitating them to immigrate to China». The head of the 50-border party reported that 2720 families with 47,200 cattle quantity had immigrated to China. There was a whole list of immigrated people in the report but the head of the 50-border party dissembled, saying that the nomads obeyed the force of the Chinese attacking side and left with the bandits. Only in September 1931, forty-five people were sentenced for organizing a carting to China20.
Katonkaragay Regional Committee of the OGPU reported that according to the report dated 5 June 1931 there was an unknown gang of 60 men armed with five three-way rifles, ten four-way-rifles in Chingistausk outpost near the place of Kalguty. On 4 June, being under the lee 500 farms together with the cattle immigrated in the direction of China21.
On 19 October 1930, there was a closed meeting of the Regional Committee of the Party, where a report about the political situation in the region and the liquidation of Tolstouhov's division was heard. The Bureau noted the main causes of the rebellion in the operative part of its report. They were the opposition of the kulaks and Counterrevolutionary elements from the Socialist construction; the presence of tribal relations and broad economic base of the kulaks in the region; the presence of re-immigrated «bays» and repressed kulaks in the region from other parts of the republic. The law enforcement bodies were suggested strengthening the repressions against the kulak elements who had raised their Counterrevolutionary activities. While deciding the repression issues it was very important to think cautiously about the use of repressions against the poor and «serednyaks» and even the members of the Counter-revolutionary units, punishing only the leaders of those units and to increase the OGPU units at the account of the local budget22.
The fourth fact is the opposition of agricultural households classified as the kulaks' ones, the opposition of kulaks' category to the policy concerning them. The letters sent from the Center to the Regional Party units, only forced and stated, «The characteristic feature of the present period is the change of the class enemy in its
19 GAVKO, F.788, Op.1, D.38a, 143-13.
20 Information of Zaysan № 50-border party abot 'Gangs strikes in the boder zone of China', GAVKO, F.788, Op.1, D.35, 178-107-116.
21 GAVKO, F.139, Op.1, D.78, 52-26.
22 GAVKO, F.139, Op.1, D.22, 248-217.
familiar terrorist acts during the grain procurement into the organized armed struggle by gangs' formation and some villages' occupation»23.
Regional Committees repeated over and over again about the weak struggle against the kulaks, the need for their eviction and the active participation in this public matter. The instructions had the examples: «There was a meeting on the case about the kulaks' eviction' (well, if to evict, let us evict and raise the hands for the eviction. If not to raise the hands, it will mean you are for the kulaks ...) and of course, there is a question, where the policy is, where the class struggle is, and where the evidence of the importance of kulaks' evidence is for the poor». Regional Committees explained that the Party policy could not be carried out such way... The question about the kulaks' eviction should have been put to the whole community, so that the very poor and peonage guessed who had prevented them to build kolkhozes and prosperity based on the Collectivization process...The authority suggested also the formulated forms of the questionnaires how to register the data related to the kulaks. For example, «we have listened about the implementation of the grain procurement or re-election campaign or running the cattle-stocks, etc. It was resolved that the plan about the kulaks had not been satisfied; the kulaks sabotage and ignore the disposal of the authorities. Let us answer the kulaks' attacks with the plan implementation, etc. We insist the Regional Executive Committee to expel the kulaks immediately (name, surname) from the village and the region, as they hinder the restructuring of our agriculture based on the Socialist principles». The village was divided into those who were evicted, and those who evicted. The sympathizers were in both groups, as they had been evidenced by the leaders of the villages. The letters of the Party activists noted: «I need your instructions what to do with the families of the repressed kulaks and bays. We have removed the cattle, grain, and agricultural machinery and now they go to their relatives in the search of regret. As a result, serednyaks and even the poor change their opinion about the process of collectivization. We should hasten kulaks' eviction»24.
Of course, the OGPU intensified its work, especially because dispossession of the kulaks at this stage was used as a means to accelerate collectivization process and as a means of pressure on the peasantry. However, the leaders of the region forgot that the resolution of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) dated 30 January concerned mostly grain districts. Since the kulaks' elimination was held in the districts of the all-round collectivization, and Kazakhstan was the region of the all-round collectivization, the leaders could not help executing and even exceeding the center's directions. N. Ivnitskii wrote that 3123 bay-and-kulaks' households had been liquidated in 60 grain and cotton growing areas in 1930 in Kazakhstan (Ivnickiy 1996).
In February 1930, the OGPU of Ziryanovsk became the leader having arrested 43 people by the second category. That were 23 percent of the total number of the arrested ones that month. The OGPU of Semipalatinsk arrested by the first category where 27 of 37 arrested people were sentenced to death. That was 14 percent of the total number of the arrested ones in February. From February to March 1930, Semipalatinsk district department of the OGPU arrested 79 people, accusing them according to the Articles 58-2, 58-8, and 58-10 that meant participation in the armed insurrection, acts of terrorism and anti-Soviet agitation. Twenty four percent of people were sentenced to death; the others were prisoned from one to ten years' works in the correctional labor camp (the CLC). The main judicial repressions of the period of grain procurement campaign were the repressions against «economic
23 Ibid., 110.
24 Ibid., 112.
saboteurs». The number of convictions on terror is considerably inferior in the convicted for undelivered grain25.
Government agencies used any forms in the struggle against the kulaks. In particular, in August 1930 a full-scale operation against the kulaks, churchwardens and traders was conducted on the territory of East Kazakhstan oblast. The task of the operation led to the exemption of the hidden bargaining silver. The stocked silver to the amount of 15 rubles should have been exchanged to paper currency. The kulaks, churchwardens and traders having more than 30 silver rubles should have been arrested immediately. Together with the evidence, they were sent to the Commissioner of the Department for Combating Counter-Revolution of the OGPU of Caton Karagay bringing according to the Article 58-7 of the Penal Code - as sabotage. All non-Party activists and Communists were involved in the identification of persons who had silver in their private use. Secretary of the Party unit submitted the representative of the OGPU and the police (Militcia) to search the kulaks, merchants and church leaders at the center26.
The issue of the activity of the OGPU representative was heard at the meeting of Kazakhstan Regional Committee of the RCP (b) dated 27 September 1930. The question was not only about weak activities of the OGPU, but also about the results of the confiscation of the semi feudal lords and bays in 1928, which was held in the border zones. There was an available close relationship with higher ranks of bays with the extremely weak and often clogged alien element of the Party and Government apparatus. Those districts, by the authority's opinion, became extremely disadvantaged politically. «It is the constant emergence of gangs, armed migrations, and strong resistance to all Soviet activities. Probably due to the recent events, Kazakhstan Regional Committee has decided to hold a withdrawal of the active bay-kulak elite and to exile them to out of Zaysan, Chingistaysk, Tarbagatay, Makanchi, Urjar, Katonkaragay and Markakol districts. To expel these people with the property confiscation, except household goods and cattle within the labor standards...» Kazakhstan Regional Committee offered the local organizations of the listed districts to evict unauthorized kulaks from Siberia border areas. While the plenipotentiary government of the OGPU instructed to arrest Kazakhstan apical ranks of the kulaks and send them to the Aral Sea fisheries. The others had an opportunity to settle in other areas with a mandatory registration in the relevant Regional Executive Committees27.
On 22 December 1931, the OGPU made an Operative Order № 71/417 on «Determination of the Social Situation and Social Background of Individuals Engaged by the OGPU Offices», which defined the categories of the division of the accused persons in various counterrevolutionary crimes according to their social status. The main key in their identification was the term «former» - former officers, former members of the privileged classes, former members of the imperial administration. The graphs «occupation until 1917» or «mention the line of business until 1917», etc. were used in all questionnaires and registration forms of that time28.
Resolution of the All-Russian Emergency Commission and the Sovnarkom dated 26 March 1928 changed the content of Article 28 of the Penal Code increasing the terms of punishment sentences. Articles 60 and 61 of the Penal Code were used with the peasants, criminating the dodgers for the breach of state tasks. Since 1930, the situation changed gradually. The terms of punishment for the most commonly
25 Data, given by the authors are based on the legal cases of the repressed persons GAVKO.
26 GAVKO, F.139, Op. 1, D. 22, 248-179.
27 GAVKO, F. 135, Op. 1, D. 59, 159.
28 Operative Order of the OGPU No. 71/417 from 22 December 1930
used articles of the Penal Code defined by the courts, increased sharply. According to the secret instructions of the Supreme Court, Courts began to apply maximum sentences provided by the articles of the Penal Code, particularly Article 58. Penalty toughening and new repressive laws appearance sequenced tension of economic and social difficulties related to the Industrialization and Collectivization, the food crisis and other social deprivation of the Soviet economy forced the government to take legislative measures. The law of 1932 was the next step in the repressive policy of the Soviet state in relation to the peasants.
The law «About the Property Protection of the State Enterprises, Kolkhozes, Cooperatives and Public (Socialist) Property Strengthening», known as the infamous statute «about three cones» was published on 7 August 1932. According to that law, a normal theft was not punishable by a fine or a short-term imprisonment. Usually the court could give ten years under the mitigating circumstances but that moment they were sentenced to death, and the criminal offense turned into a political one.
In September 1932, the Central Committee of the RCP (b) approved the secret instructions of the statute implementation of the CEC and the Sovnarkom dated 7 August 1932 on the protection of public property. The Central Committee pointed all Party units to the instruction importance and the importance of the assistance to the judiciary prosecutors and authorities for the OGPU.
Transport and Economic Departments of the GPU of Kazakhstan were joined immediately in resolution execution. To implement the resolutions connected, the statute about «three cones» became one of the most brutal repressive statutes of Stalin era, which gave impetus to the creation of new legislative projects. In turns, it gave an opportunity to understand the characteristics of the repressive policy better. On August 22 of the same year economic difficulties encouraged the government to issue another resolution «On the Fight Against Speculation» with tightened penalties from five to 10 years against the speculators and middlemen. A famine was one of the results of the «sustainable modernization in agriculture». A specified document was actively used during the starvation of 1932-1933.
A wide range of sentences was used in the enforcement of the law dated 7 August 1932. The most common form of punishment was a sentence to 10 years in the correctional labor camp. The scope of the law dated 7 August allowed interpreting the economic collapse of kolkhozes with a Counter-revolutionary act. Such as the exposure of «counter-revolutionary group» in Chubartausskiy region, headed by the Secretary of the District Committee Kulebaev and the head of the Organizational Department Takarin. This group plundered actively the «Soviet kolkhoz property», contributed to the economic collapse of the kolkhoz. The headquarters was in «Madeniet» kolkhoz. The reduction of livestock inventory was the result of the group activity. There were 473,181 beasts in 1930, 93,249 beasts in 1931 and 27,765 ones in 1932. The OGPU leaders reported that 22 people, including nine members of the RCP (b) were arrested29.
The office of the OGPU in East Kazakhstan oblast reported that 130 people were arrested and 39 cases in Beryozovka, Krasny Yar, Praporshikovo villages were sentenced by «troykas» since the beginning of the grain procurement campaign dated 7 August. Sixteen people were arrested for stealing grain in Irtysh region while 42 people in Kokpekti and 12 in Zharminsky regin30.
Hunger was inciting people to commit illegal actions. You can see the notes of some repression commutations in relation to the certain categories of people convicted in grain stealing in the OGPU reports sent to L. Mirzoyan. The OGPU
29 Achieve of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, F.141, Op.1, D.5207, 77-53.
30 Achieve of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, F.141, Op.1, D.5208, 396-313.
apparatus offered the repressive policy against the embezzlers according to the following directions:
- to arrest the socially alien kulak-and-bay element convicted of the embezzlement according to the law dated 7 August 1932;
- to punish only leaders, participating in group embezzlement organized by the return nomads and migrants, kolkhozniks, individual farmers and the poor;
- to punish the instigators in the case of grain embezzlement incriminated by women or children31.
The range of repressions against the peasantry was gaining strength, and then weakened slightly. Fighting with saboteurs, counterrevolutionaries and trimming the population allowed the Government to cultivate the fear of security agencies and maintain the fear of a sudden arrest. It made it possible to maintain a certain balance, and direct people's anger against the Socialism enemies. Search of the enemies in the villages was constant. According to the special report of the representative of the OGPU, Tarbagatay 'counterrevolutionary organization» called «Onshil-Ultshil-Uyum» was founded in Augist 1931. As indicated in the report, the purpose of their activity was opposition to the economic and political campaigns and mass district immigration to the West of China. «Counter-revolutionary right-nationalist organization» involved regional auls creating SR units on the OGPU's doorstep. Immigration of 696 farms (3663 persons) was the result of its «counterrevolutionary activity». However, for all that the Chairman of the OGPU did not try to find an explanation for the immigration reasons. While conducting this case during 1932-1932, 92 people were arrested. It was 52.1 percent of bays, 22.9 percent of them were candidates and members of the RCP (b), 25 percent belonged to the poor and serednyaks32. If we analyze the data about the social ranks issued by the OGPU, one can say that Tarbagatay region policy on dispossession of the kulaks had no different efficiency.
In 1932, the Government implemented passport system directed against the dispossessed kulaks and bays and the special settlers, who could not have a passport. Passport system implementation of the Soviet people supposed to counter the exodus of peasants from the villages. Article 192-a, two years imprisonment for the passport lack, was added to the Penal Code of 1926.
Since mid-1935, the Government took a series of secret decrees dated 17 June and 19 December, which condemned the practice of unwarranted arrests. On 29 June 1935, kolkhozniks who had been sentenced to no more than 5 years in prison were granted an amnesty. The amnesty process was associated with a shortage of workers in the kolkhozes. Repressions «at the village front» culminated the first months of 1933. The secret instructions dated 8 May 1933, signed by Molotov and Stalin, said: «Kolkhoz Chairmen and Kolkhoz Members have the right to arrest. Village Council Chairmen and Party units' Secretaries have the right to arrest. Regional and Boundary Commissioners have the right to arrest, too. Everybody who could arrest arrested... » These raging arrests led to the overcrowdings of the places of confinement, as more than 800,000 people were in the places of confinement of People's Commissariat for Justice (Narkomiust), the OGPU, Central Administrative Police Board, designed only for 200,000 places! (History of Stalin's Gulag 2004).
Katon-Karagay Regional Party Committee reported that Kabinskiy region remained without blacksmiths specialists for the spring sowing campaign, due to arrests and sentencing of eviction. Having surveyed the prison cells in the center,
31 Achieve of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, F.141, Op.1, D.5827, 280-123-133.
32 GAVKO, F.1, Op.2, D.4981, 305-79-80.
Regional Prosecutor revealed that there were 173 arrested people in the prison. Being horrified by what he had seen, he wrote to the Regional Committee that there had been 104 people listed by the OGPU, 44 people by the police (militia), three by the court and six by the investigator. Such a conglomeration of detainees was unacceptable, especially in the border zones, as well as the support of the arrested persons in the improper places and conditions (barns and bathhouses), which was bordered by crime persons conducting the inquiry33.
Experiencing Violence used in the Socialist transformation of the village virtually eliminated the legal order of the declared Soviet law. The prerogative of the punitive measures of the repressive policies formerly belonged to only one department, that time it belonged to the whole set of the Soviet organizations, including not only the security forces, but also the Party organizations and Village Councils. On 8 May 1933, Molotov and Stalin signed a secret 'Instruction to all Party and Soviet Workers and All Organs of the OGPU, the Court and the Prosecutor's Office». It was clearly stated: «...Central Committee and the CPC says that there is a moment when the Soviet Union does not need mass repressions any more. This is the result of our success». «In the newspaper «PriIrtyshskiy Kommunar» it was written that 1933 had been a year of decisive deployment of the Bolshevik self-criticism and a significant revitalization of the inner work ... fight against the kulak-bay agents in the kolkhozes»34.
The Government decided finally that the kolkhozes had become the dominant form in the agricultural economy. The category of the «former», socially alien elements had disappeared, and there was no need for the very repressive policy, but nobody had cancelled a search of sporadic cases of the enemy tricks. Earlier there were a few dozen people sentenced on case, then people were sentenced individually. Statistical review allows estimating the extent of the repressive policy in the village during the kolkhoz construction. The active use of repressive measures against the peasantry even during winning kolkhoz system was the main feature of administrative penal system in the village.
Thus,
- force modernization of agriculture and the elimination of peasant individualistic thinking through the policy of kulaks' dispossession led to real war, which the government announced a peasant village. According to the policy, it concerned a simple expropriation or seizure of a small amount of the kulaks, which led to a radical change in culture, lifestyle and psychology of the peasantry.
- the state used a wide range of measures of the repressive policy in the village to achieve results in the construction of the kolkhoz system. Administrative penal system consisted of arrests, exile, deportation, confiscation, psychological violence, prosecution, penalties, etc.
- the use of specific ways of repressive policy realization depended on the process of the Collectivization in the region, which led to the proposed periodization of the repressive policy in the villages of East Kazakhstan oblast. The first phase (1928-1929) was associated with the liquidation of the kulaks and bays. The second phase (1930-1931) was associated with the suppression of uprisings and repression against the participants and sympathizers. Whereas the third phase (1932 year) reflected the implementation of the draconian law on ears. The fourth phase (19331934) was associated with the activities of the Politotdels of the MTSs. The fifth one (1937) was related to the era of «the Great Terror».
33 GAVKO, F.139, Op.1, D.78. 52-11,18.
34 15th anniversary of Kazakh ASSR', PriIrtyshskiy Communar. - 1935. - N 109(739).
- in its repressive policy, the state used actively the adoption of various laws or regulations, instructions and decrees when any peasant could automatically become a state criminal. However, the main aim of the adoption of all legislative acts was to complete general cleaning of all areas of the country from the kulak elements. Peasants received a severe blow, after which they could not recover for a long time. The peasants realized one thing: «The Soviet Government does not like the wealthy farming in the village».
At the beginning of the kolkhoz construction, the use of the repressive measures in the village became the main instrument in the implementation of the tasks of the socialized collective economy building and social reconstruction of the village. Massive agricultural campaigns, established during the Collectivization, allowed interpreting criminal law forcibly and using all the power structures actively as an instrument of repressive policy starting directly with the power structures of the OGPU and ending with Village Councils.
Repressive policy in the country was characterized by an undulating permanent cleansing that was manifested through the mass prosecutions. Those were raids of the OGPU against prosperous population, which had the opportunity to provide moral and financial pressure on the various segments of the population of the village and the aul.
Эдебиеттер Ti3iMi/ Список литературы
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