Who is a fist definition. What was the scale of this dispossession? There were only two criteria for determining a fist

FIST - WORLD-EATER

The conversation will be about fists and such a phenomenon as kulaks. Where does the word “fist” come from? There are many versions. One of the most common versions today is a fist, this is a strong business executive who holds his entire household in his fist. But at the beginning of the twentieth century, another version was more widespread.

One of the main ways to enrich a kulak is to give money or grain at interest. That is: the kulak gives money to his fellow villagers, or gives grain, seed fund to poor fellow villagers. Gives with interest, quite decent. Due to this, he ruins these fellow villagers, due to this he becomes richer.

How did this fist get his money or grain back? So he gave, for example, grain in growth - this happens, for example, in the Soviet Union in the 20s, that is, before dispossession. According to the law, the kulak does not have the right to engage in such activities, that is, no usury for individuals, no credit practices were envisaged. It turns out that he was engaged in activities that, in fact, were illegal. One can, of course, assume that he contacted Soviet court, with a request to collect his debt from the debtor. But most likely, it happened differently, that is, there was a banal knocking out of what the debtor owed. It was the extremely tough policy of collecting debts that gave the kulaks their name.

So, who are the kulaks?

A common belief is 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, those who are richer and who live more satisfyingly are not called kulaks. Kulaks were those who used the labor of farm laborers, that is, hired labor, and those who were engaged in usury in the village. That is, a kulak is a person who gives money in interest, buys up the lands of his fellow villagers, and gradually dispossesses them of land, using them as hired labor.

The kulaks 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 an increase land plots. A larger field is easier to process and is cheaper to process. Large fields can be processed using machinery - processing each individual dessiatine is cheaper, and accordingly such farms are more competitive.

All countries that moved from the agricultural to the industrial phase went through an increase in the size of land plots. This is clearly seen in the example of American farmers, who are few in the United States today, but whose fields extend far beyond the horizons. This refers to the fields of each individual farmer. Therefore, the consolidation of land plots is not only natural, but even necessary. In Europe, this process was called pauperization: peasants with little land were driven off the land, land was bought up and passed into the possession of landlords or rich peasants.

What happened to the poor peasants? Usually they were forced out to cities, where they either joined the army, the navy, in the same England, or got a job in enterprises; or they begged, robbed, or starved. To combat this phenomenon, laws against the poor were introduced in England at one time.

And a similar process began in the Soviet Union. It started after civil war, when the land was redistributed according to the number of consumers, but at the same time the land was in full use of the peasants, that is, the peasant could sell the land, mortgage it, or donate it. The kulaks took advantage of this. For Soviet Union the very situation with the transfer of land to the kulaks was hardly acceptable, since it was associated exclusively with the exploitation of some peasants by other peasants.

There is an opinion that kulaks were dispossessed according to the principle: if you have a horse, then you are prosperous, so you are a kulak. This is wrong. The fact is that the presence of means of production also implies that someone must work for them. Let’s say if there are 1-2 horses on the farm, which are used as traction power, 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 hire someone who will use these horses.

There were only two criteria for determining a fist. As I already said, this is the practice of usury 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 amount of equipment - it was possible to determine that this fist actually used hired labor.

And the need arose to determine what the future path of development of the village would be. It was absolutely obvious that it was necessary to consolidate farms. However, the path going through pauperization (through the ruin of poor peasants and pushing them out of the village, or turning them into hired labor), it was actually very painful and very long and really promised great sacrifices; example from England.

The second way that was considered was to get rid of the kulaks and collectivize 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 competition to the collective farms, had to be eliminated. It was decided to dispossess the kulaks, as socially alien elements, and transfer their property to the newly created collective farms.

What was the scale of this dispossession? Of course, a lot of peasants were dispossessed. In total, more than 2 million people were subjected to dispossession – that’s almost half a million families. At the same time, dispossession took place in three categories: the first category were those who resisted Soviet power with weapons in their hands, that is, organizers and participants in 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 were the differences between the categories? The kulaks belonging to the first category were dealt with by the “OGPU troikas,” that is, some of these kulaks were shot, some of these kulaks were sent to camps. The second category is the families of kulaks of the first category, and kulaks and their families of the second category. They were deported to remote places Soviet Union. The third category was also subject to deportation, but deportation within the region where they lived. This is how, for example, in the Moscow region, people are evicted from the outskirts of Moscow to the outskirts of the region. All these three categories included more than 2 million people and family members.

Is it a lot or a little? In fact, statistically, this amounts to 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, there were none.

And now more than 2 million kulaks were evicted. Where were they evicted? There is an opinion that they were deported to Siberia, thrown out almost into the snow, without property, without food, without anything, to certain death. In fact, this is also not true. Indeed, most of the kulaks who were deported to other regions of the country were deported to Siberia. But they were used as so-called labor settlers - they built new cities. For example, when we talk about the heroic builders of Magnitogorsk and we talk about dispossessed kulaks evicted to Siberia, we are often talking about the same people. AND best example the family of the first president serves this purpose Russian Federation. The fact is that his father was dispossessed, and his further career took shape 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 can I say, considering that the son of a kulak later became the First Secretary of the Sverdlovsk Regional Party Committee.

Of course, during dispossession there were quite a lot of distortions, that is, sometimes there really was a situation where they tried to declare the middle peasants to be kulaks. There were times when envious neighbors managed to slander someone, but such cases were isolated. Actually, the villagers themselves determined who was the kulak in their village and who needed to be gotten rid of.

It is clear that justice did not always triumph here, but the decision about who the kulaks were was not made from above, not by the Soviet authorities, it was made by the fellow villagers themselves. It was determined from the lists submitted by the committees of the poor, that is, the residents of this very village, and it was decided who exactly the kulak was and what to do with him next. The villagers also determined the category to which the fist would be classified: a malicious fist or, let’s just say, a world-eater.

Moreover, the problem of kulaks also existed in 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 ownership, and kulaks began to emerge mainly after the Stolypin reform, when some became rich, actually bought up all the lands of their fellow villagers, forced their fellow villagers to work for themselves, became large sellers of grain, in fact, became already the bourgeoisie.

There was another picture when the same fellow villagers, having declared the kulak a world eater, safely drowned him in the nearest pond, because in fact, all the wealth of the kulak was built on what he was able to take from his fellow villagers. The point is that no matter how well the people in the countryside work... why can’t we allow the hardworking middle peasant to become a kulak? His wealth is limited by the size of his land holding. While he uses the land that his family received according to the principle of division 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 works poorly, a relatively small field leads to the fact that the peasant remains quite poor. In order for a peasant to become rich, he must take something from other peasants, that is, this is precisely the displacement and dispossession of his fellow villagers.

If we talk about terrible repressions against 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, when they reach the age of sixteen, if they have not been discredited in any way, will be issued passports on a general basis and no obstacles will be created for them to go to study or work.”

In fact, collectivization turned out to be an alternative way to the gradual consolidation of farms through pauperization. The peasants in those villages where there were no longer any kulaks left were gradually brought together into collective farms (by the way, most often, quite voluntarily) and it turned out that for one village there was a common field, quite extensive, to which the equipment with the help of which it was allocated was allocated. the field was processed. In fact, The victims of collectivization were only kulaks. And the kulaks, no matter how numerous the victims were, made up less than 2% of the entire rural population of the Soviet Union. As I said earlier, this is about one family in one fairly large village.

The Bolsheviks' struggle against the kulaks and the formation of Soviet power are shown in film Nakhalyonok. THE USSR.

About the terrible ulcer of the Russian peasantry. The Tsar's Minister about fists and kulaks -“The harmful influence of the development of usury and kulaks in rural life.”

The Tsar's Minister about the kulaks

The text below was published in 1892. Its author, Alexey Sergeevich Ermolov, is by no means a revolutionary; two years later he will become the Minister of Agriculture and State Property.

The harmful influence of the development of usury and kulaks in rural life

In close connection with the issue of collecting state, zemstvo and public taxes falling on the peasant population and, one might say, mainly on the basis of these penalties, a terrible ulcer of ours developed. rural life, which ultimately corrupts and takes away the people's well-being, is the so-called kulaks and usury. With the urgent need for money that the peasants have - to pay duties, to acquire housing after a fire, to buy a horse after it has been stolen, or cattle after death, these ulcers find the widest field for their development. With existing ones installed with the most better goals and, perhaps, quite necessary restrictions regarding the sale for government and private collection of the basic necessities of the peasant economy, as well as allotment land, there is no proper credit available to peasants at all.

Only the rural moneylender, who provides himself with enormous interest, rewarding him for the frequent loss of capital itself, comes to his aid in cases of such extreme need, but this help, of course, comes at a high cost to those who once turn to it. Once having owed such a moneylender, the peasant can almost never get out of the noose with which he entangles him and which for the most part leads to complete ruin. Often the peasant already plows, sows, and collects grain only for his fist.

It is known that when collecting from peasants, according to writs of execution, for unauthorized departure from work, for failure to fulfill obligations assumed, etc., in the vast majority of cases, it turns out to be completely impossible for the landowner to get anything from them - many consider it even unnecessary contact similar cases to court. But a rural moneylender, even without trial, will always get back what he has with interest, not in one way or another, not in money, but in kind, grain, livestock, land, work, etc.

However, rural moneylenders know how to arrange their operations in such a way that the court, at least the former civil magistrate court, which stood on the basis of formal evidence, usually came to the aid of the rural moneylender in his predatory activities of ruining the peasantry. It is quite natural that a peasant, unfamiliar with the ritual side of legal proceedings, becomes confused various kinds, for the most part, obligations that he himself did not understand, in court he turned out to be powerless to prove his, if not formal, then factual rightness, and the court often awarded him a penalty that was 5-10 times greater than the amount actually owed to them.

Acting with bills carelessly issued to him and armed with writs of execution, which very often the court has no right not to extradite, the rural moneylender at the same time corrupts, solders the weak members of wealthy families, entangles them with fictitious debt obligations issued in an amount 10-20 times larger than the actual debt, and ruins the masses of peasants in the very in every sense this word. It is difficult to believe how high the interest rates are that are charged to the peasants for the money lent to them and which depend mainly on the degree of the people's need. So, in the summer, especially in view of a favorable harvest, a loan is given no more than 45-50% per annum; in the fall, the same lenders demand no less than 120%, and sometimes up to 240%, and very often the collateral is the peasant’s pledge shower plots, which the owners themselves then rent from their own lenders. Sometimes land taken by the lender for a debt of 3-4 rubles. for a tithe, it is rented back to its owner for 10-12 rubles.

However, even such interest in most cases is still considered insufficient, since in addition various works, services, payments in kind are negotiated, in addition to cash, etc. When borrowing grain - for a pound in winter or spring, in the fall two are returned. It is very difficult to value all this in terms of money, especially since the debtor’s accounts with his creditor are usually so confused - (mostly they are deliberately confused by the latter) - that it is almost impossible to understand them.

IN last years Loans secured by property are especially widespread, and the moneylender does not disdain anything - agricultural tools, clothing, standing grain, and even workhorses and cattle are used. When the time of reckoning comes and the peasant has nothing to pay off the debt with, then all this is put on sale, and more often it is ceded to the same creditor, and he also sets the price at which he accepts the pledged thing in payment of the debt, so that often, having given the pledge, the peasant remains in debt, sometimes in an amount no less than the original debt figure. In some places, the compulsory work of peasant debtors for the kulak-creditor takes on the character of a complete corvee, even much more difficult than the previous master's, because in the past the landowners were interested in preserving the well-being of their peasants, but the current kulak-creditor does not care about them.

Typically, these rural moneylenders begin their activities by engaging in the wine trade, which provides so many convenient ways to make money at the expense of the peasants. Here, of course, also from the side of the law there are restrictions that are quite reasonable, in thought - it is forbidden to sell wine on credit, on the security of bread or things, for future work, - it is forbidden to pay with wine for work performed, etc. But it hardly needs to be said that all these beneficial restrictions remain a dead letter, since it is very difficult to monitor their implementation, and there is no one. Moreover, the court very often recovers the money that the peasants owe to the innkeeper - in reality for wine, but on paper, for various goods or products supposedly purchased from him.

It is known that, for the most part, the innkeeper is at the same time a shopkeeper, a tenant of land, a scooper of bread, and a purveyor, i.e. a buyer of livestock and various other peasant goods - since the wine trade alone, especially the correct one, without all these, so to speak, supporting branches of it, is far from sufficient to satisfy his aspirations for profit. It is also known that many large fortunes now owe their origin to precisely this kind of tavern trade, and some later eminent merchants began by being sitters or so-called bearers in a tavern or tavern. In district towns and large villages, almost all best houses now belong to wine merchants, or persons who laid the foundation for their wine trade in connection with the kulaks. For a person who stops at no means, not a lot of money is needed to start his activity, but, of course, he needs famous family cunning, dexterity, resourcefulness, especially at first, while the situation is still precarious and the fist has not yet gained strength, has not gained strength, has not secured the necessary connections. These connections are most easily established and these forces are most strengthened when such a fist finds it possible to take power into its hands. Because of this, many of them, especially from among the beginners, strive in every possible way to get to a place that would give them power and influence, for example, to achieve election to the volost elders, which sometimes, especially in the past, before the introduction of zemstvo chiefs, they succeeded. And once power fell into the hands, the wings were untied and it was possible to go far, the field ahead opened wide.

There is hardly any need to dwell on what a corrupting influence the appearance of such a figure in the position of chief had on rural life and what results could have resulted from this. If it is impossible to become an elder, you can make peace with another position, even one not associated with actual power, such as the position of a church warden, or the so-called ktitor, just to get out of general level and stand in a more visible place, from where it is easier to do all sorts of things. And we must give justice to some of these businessmen - sometimes they turned out to be very good, caring elders, who took care of the church and contributed to its splendor to the best of their ability, not stopping even at quite large donations from their own funds. Perhaps this was partly influenced by the desire to at least a little pray before the Lord for those sins that were involuntarily felt in the soul, and, however, these donations and these prayers sometimes did not stop further worldly activities such a guardian in the same direction, but this was usually explained by them by the fact that the enemy of the human race is strong...

The same rural kulaks, as has been said, are for the most part local merchants; they buy up or take from the peasants for debt their bread, tobacco, wool, flax, hemp and other products. The nature of their activities in this regard is also quite well known. Not to mention the low prices at which they accept their products from peasants, here all the usual tricks of such buyers are used - measuring, weighing, luring into yards, with then incorrect calculations, buying on the road, at the entrance to the city, at a roadside inn, with appropriate refreshments, etc.

Often, peasants who come to the market with their products are given a price that is significantly lower than the existing one - with the usual strikes between buyers in such cases; - then at the reception, - in addition to the frequent establishment of a completely arbitrary unit of measure, such as a quarter of nine measures, a berkovets of 14 pounds or a pound of fifty pounds, - the measurement itself is carried out with incorrect measures, false weights, etc. It is known that often even branded scales and measures are incorrect. In cities where measures are verified, you can order special measures for purchase and special measures for sale and submit them to the city government for stamping. And since there is an established mark on a measure or weight, it is almost impossible to prove its incorrectness and, of course, not a single peasant would even think about it, only wondering why, when pouring in grain, it turned out so a big difference, against his own dimension, home, and often, in the simplicity of his soul, attributes this difference to his own mistake. These methods of deceiving peasants when buying bread from them are largely supported by the custom that still exists in many places in Russia of buying bread not by weight, but by measure. This custom is probably preserved by grain bulkers, especially when buying from peasants, because when buying by measure it is much easier to measure the seller so that he will not notice it.

It is known that here they are of great importance various techniques heaps - in one and the same measure you can put more or less bread, depending on how you pour it, besides, sometimes they pour it not under the row, but with the top, a mountain, as much as can be held, and even when raking, you can row press in a known amount of bread. The measure, for the most part, for ease of pouring, is suspended on a rope and here, using a certain type of tapping technique, you can make the bread lie down more tightly. Many grain merchants have special clerks for pouring grain from the peasants - real virtuosos in this area. It is remarkable that the methods of activity of village grain buyers are extremely diverse and very often vary, so as to further confuse and lure the peasant.

So, there are cases when buyers buy peasant bread expensive existing prices - more expensive than they buy it from landowners, - more expensive than they sell it themselves later. The calculation in this case turns out to be different - sometimes this is done in order to attract a lot of sellers and then, when many peasants arrive with bread, the price is halved at once; sometimes the goal is to use the method of measuring even more widely, counting on the fact that the peasant, delighted at the high price, will monitor the acceptance less closely. In a word, there are a lot of different methods, but all of them, of course, are to the obvious disadvantage of the peasant and to the greater profit of the dumper, who, having bought peasant grain, then bypasses the landowner parties, sometimes directly declaring that although the landowners’ grain is of better quality, to him not handy buy it.

The same methods of measuring and deceiving peasants on a large scale are practiced in mills when grinding peasant bread. In addition to assigning a completely arbitrary reward for grinding, which is usually obtained in kind - grain or flour, the bread that goes into grinding is very often not measured at all, but is directly put under the millstone, and then the peasant is given as much flour as the owner of the mill wishes, yes and from this additional amount the grinding fee is withheld.

To eliminate such artificial and almost imperceptible methods of deceiving the peasants, it would be highly desirable to introduce everywhere the compulsory sale and purchase of grain, as well as its acceptance into mills, not otherwise than by weight, and, at the same time, to prohibit all other arbitrary units weight, except established by law. This would also be useful in the sense of eliminating the customs that currently exist in this regard in different places, which only obscure the matter in the eyes of not only the peasants, but even the landowners, for whom, thanks to this, the terminology of different markets is incomprehensible . It is known that even in St. Petersburg, on the stock exchange, bread is still sold and quoted either by measure or by weight, which seems extremely inconvenient.

At the same time, it is urgently necessary to streamline the matter of checking weights and measures, taking this matter out of the hands of the City Administrations, which cannot decisively cope with this purely technical task that requires attention and accuracy. In government departments, as you know, the verification and branding of weights and measures is usually carried out by some watchman, often illiterate, who will brand anything.

It is known that since the liberation of the peasants and as the old noble element weakened and became impoverished, the mass of landowners' estates and lands passed into the hands of merchants, townspeople and all sorts of commoners in general. Without at all raising the issue on the basis of class and without denying that among these new landowners there are people who have seriously taken up farming, who have substantial capital and therefore can put the matter on the most correct basis, one cannot, however, hide from oneself the fact that Such persons are, unfortunately, a relatively rare exception.

In most cases, the buyers or tenants of the landowners, or the tenants of state lands are the same, already more or less rich, kulaks - with nothing more in mind than the same goals of speculation or further profit at the expense, first of all, of the natural wealth of the purchased or rented land. estate, and then at the expense of the surrounding rural population, which at the same time even more quickly and even more surely comes to them into bondage. Such a landowner or tenant begins, unless he is bound by too strict a contract and is not closely watched, with the ruin of the estate, which is sold for demolition, cutting down the garden and the arch of forests, and in this way the entire amount paid for the estate is often covered and The land goes to the new owner - for free.

At the same time, livestock and farm tools are sold, because the new owner usually either does not intend to run the farm at all, or intends to hire plowing and harvesting at a cheaper price, counting on the forced labor of his former debtor peasants. If there is virgin steppe or centuries-old fallow land on the estate, it is plowed up; the same is done with the land from under a cut down forest or garden; if there are ponds, they go down to sow hemp or millet in their place. But this is only, so to speak, a start to business, the beginning of work - this is skimming off the foam from the acquired estate, which is sometimes so profitable, especially if it concerns a rented estate, that then it can be abandoned or returned to the owner, supposedly due to the unprofitability of the lease , at least even with the payment of the penalty agreed upon under the contract, if the owner was so careful that he introduced it as a condition when concluding the contract. But if the land remains with the new owner, if the rental price itself is not high, then for the most part the tithe distribution of land to the peasants begins, and the prices are, of course, the higher, the more the peasants need the land.

Thus, the most profitable estates in this regard are considered to be those that are located in an area where most of the peasants sit on free plots and where they sometimes have nowhere to drive out a cow or release a chicken without it ending up on someone else’s land. Under such conditions, all the ability to “manage” lies in the ability to exploit the need and poverty of the surrounding population. It is not for nothing that a cynical proverb has developed between such kulak masters, which well characterizes their view of the matter and their mode of action. Praising to each other the field of their activity and depicting the benefits of the possessions they acquired - “our side is rich,” they say, “that’s why the people around us are poor”...

Along with the tenth delivery of land to the peasants - of course, with the payment of money “to the sheaf”, i.e. before the grain is transported from the fields, and if without deposits, then sometimes with a deposit from the peasant tenants - at least in the form of winter sheepskin coats, which are stored in the deliverer's barn until the fall - sometimes a literal struggle begins with neighbors over poisoning, -for peasant livestock, a struggle that sometimes takes on the character of real persecution. Hiring for work, if not all the land is taken up by the peasants, is carried out, of course, from the winter, and the issuance of deposits - and sometimes, it must be said truthfully - and all the money in advance, is usually adjusted to the time when taxes are collected from the peasants and when, therefore, you can hire cheaper.

When the peasants go out in the summer to work, which for the most part are paid piecemeal, from tithes, special, arbitrary measures of tithes are invented, which are sometimes deliberately cut into such bizarre forms, such “Babylons” that the peasants absolutely cannot understand exactly how much land is allocated to them for work. When hiring peasants for work with payment from a tithe, the tithe is usually considered the fortieth, economic tithe; when renting out the same land to the same peasants, a tithe of the government measure, thirty, is accepted.

In many places, this is already a custom that is known to everyone and in which, at least, there is no deception, because the matter is conducted honestly. But here’s what’s not good, and what many people don’t disdain: to measure land, they usually use either measuring chains, or more often fathoms. One chain, or sazhen, for economic purposes, is ordered to be longer - so that it captures more land - this is when the land is measured out to the peasants for work. Another chain, or fathom, which is shorter, is used when land is allocated to peasants who rent it for plowing and sowing. In both cases, the benefits of the “owner” are thus fully respected, but the peasant, of course, is unaware, and even if he guesses that something is wrong, then for the most part he will not argue, because “you can’t keep up with every little thing, It’s known that it’s the owner’s business.”

But it can be worse. It also happens, for example, that when it’s hot work time, especially when God sends the harvest, and there are few people and prices for harvesting are rising, some such owner suddenly announces, when hiring at the market, where there are a lot of all sorts of newcomers, a price so incongruously high and tempting for the peasants that people come to him will fall like a wave. Following this, everyone else is forced to increase the price of the work so as not to be left completely without workers, despite the fact that the price is sometimes completely impossible in terms of its height. When the time comes for payment, the first owner to raise the price, who, of course, has harvested and brought the grain before everyone else, asks to wait, to wait with the calculation, since he has no money now. The workers make a little noise at first, and then inevitably agree. A week passes, then another - they come for money, but there is still no money, they ask to wait until the bread is sold.

Finally, the grain is sold, but there is still no payment - and so time goes by until the workers are offered - it’s a sin in half, take half the money and knock off the rest - and the owner would be glad to give everything, but there is no money, times are hard , bread is cheap, there is a hitch in trade. The workers will make some noise here again and remind them of God, but in the end they agree to this too, except sometimes they negotiate some other increase from the owner, and with that they leave, until next year, when they fall into the same trap again. The neighbors of such a master-kulak, conducting business according to God, hired workers at a price raised as a result of the described trick to an impossible amount, and having paid them as agreed, they reduced the business year to a deficit, because the low selling prices for bread really do not pay for the increased prices for work.

These are the methods and these are the results of the economic activities of the kulak landowners or tenants who replaced the former landowners, who are often accused of becoming impoverished because they were unable to adapt to the “new conditions of land ownership.” On the other hand, where the noble element has remained stronger, where there are fewer estates that have passed into the hands of merchants and kulaks, life is easier for the peasant, there is less scope for the predation of moneylenders, there are correct, humane and normal relations between landowners and peasants, between employers and workers, there is still a firmly held belief that the wealth and strength of the country lies in the wealth and strength of the people, and not the other way around. With the ruin and disappearance of the indigenous noble element, the peasant population weakens and is depleted, finding neither support nor protection in the motley elements replacing it. This is a fact confirmed by many researchers of our rural life, even among those who might like to see the matter in a different light.

This is another one dark side our modern rural life, in which, along with the growing poverty of the peasants, the greedy aspirations of the predators described above are gaining more and more scope, most of whom, it must be said truthfully, came from among the same peasants, but who, as their former fellow villagers say, “ forgot God." The above facts are enough to show how important it would be to regulate this aspect of the matter, to put an end to the harmful activities of rural usurers, kulaks and buyers, although this task is extremely difficult, especially given the ignorance of the rural population and the complete economic insecurity that has been so successfully These most dangerous elements are now used as leeches, sucking out the last juices of the people's well-being and finding themselves more freedom and wealth the poorer and more destitute the peasants are.

Ermolov A.S. Crop failure and national disaster. St. Petersburg, 1892. P.179–190

Russian history has known many historical events associated with various class phenomena. One of these was the kulaks - this is the rural bourgeoisie. Class division in the Soviet Union was a hot-button issue. Attitudes towards kulaks changed in accordance with the course of history and the course of the ruling power. But in the end everything came to such a process as dispossession and the liquidation of the kulaks as a class. Let's take a look at the pages of history.

What is kulaks? And who is this fist?

Before the revolution of 1917, successful merchants were considered kulaks. A different semantic connotation was given to this term after the 1917 revolution. At a certain moment, when the All-Union Bolshevik Communist Party changed the direction of its political course, the meaning of the kulaks also changed. Sometimes it approached the middle class, taking the position of the farming class - transitional phenomenon post-capitalism, or to the agricultural elite, playing the role of exploiters who used the labor of hired workers.

The legislation regarding the kulaks also did not give an unambiguous assessment. Terms adopted at the Plenums of the Central Committee of the All-Union communist party Bolsheviks differed from the terms used by individual historical leaders of the RSFSR. The Soviet government changed its policy several times - initially the course of dispossession was chosen, then the coming thaw chose the “course against the kulaks” and the most harsh course towards eliminating the kulaks. Next we will look at the background, causes and other features of these historical events. The final attitude in the end: the kulaks are a class enemy and adversary.

Terminology before the 1917 revolution

In the very first sense, the word “fist” had only a negative meaning. This was later used in Soviet propaganda against representatives of this class. The idea that the only honest source of income was physical and hard labor was strengthened in the minds of peasant people. And those people who made profit in other ways were considered dishonest (this included moneylenders, buyers and traders). In part, we can say that the interpretation is as follows: kulaks are not an economic status, but more psychological traits or a professional occupation.

Russian Marxism and the concept of kulaks

The theory and practice of Russian Marxism divided all peasants into three large main categories:

Fists. This included wealthy peasants who used hired labor, and the bourgeoisie of the countryside. On the one hand, there was negative attitude to such peasants, and on the other hand, it was fair to say that there is no official concept of “kulaks.” Even during the liquidation of its representatives, clear criteria were never formulated according to which a citizen was or was not classified in this class.
Village poor. This group included primarily hired workers of the kulaks, also known as farm laborers.
Middle peasants. Drawing an analogy with our time, we can say that this is a kind of modern middle class in the peasantry. By economic situation they were between the first two groups mentioned.

However, even with the existence of such a classification, there were still many contradictions in the definition of the terms “middle peasant” and “kulak”. These concepts were often found in the works of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who long years determined the ideologies of power. But he himself did not fully differentiate these terms, indicating only one distinctive feature - the use of hired labor.

Dispossession or dispossession

Although not everyone agrees with the statement that dispossession is political repression, it is so. It was applied administratively; measures to eliminate the kulaks as a class were carried out local authorities executive power, guided by the political and social characteristics specified in the resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Bolshevik Communist Party, issued on January 30, 1930.

Beginning of dispossession: 1917-1923

The first measures to combat the kulaks began in 1917, after the revolution. June 1918 was marked by the creation of committees of the poor. They played an important role in determining the Soviet policy of the kulaks. The committees performed redistributive functions locally. It was they who decided what to do with what was confiscated from the kulaks. They, in turn, became more and more convinced every day that the Soviet government would not simply leave them alone.

In the same year, on November 8, at a meeting of delegates of the committees of the poor, V.I. Lenin made a statement that it was necessary to develop a decisive course to eliminate the kulaks as a class. He definitely needs to be defeated. Otherwise, thanks to him, capitalism will appear. In other words, kulaks -

Preparation for administrative dispossession

On February 15, 1928, the Pravda newspaper published materials discrediting the kulaks for the first time. There were reports of a difficult and depressing rural situation, and a dangerous increase in the number of wealthy peasants. It was also said that kulaks create a threat not only in the countryside, but also in the Communist Party itself, controlling a certain number of cells.

Reports that the kulaks did not allow representatives of the poor and farm laborers into local party branches regularly filled the pages of the newspaper. Bread and various available supplies were forcibly confiscated from rich peasants. And this led to the fact that they reduced crops and reduced personal farming. This, in turn, affected the employment of the poor. They were losing jobs. This was all positioned as temporary measures in view of state of emergency in the village.

But in the end, a transition was made to the policy of eliminating the kulaks. Due to the fact that poorer peasants began to suffer from dispossession, attempts were made to support certain segments of the population. But they did not lead to anything good. In villages and villages, hunger and poverty levels are gradually beginning to rise. People began to doubt whether it was a good decision to liquidate the kulaks as a class.

Carrying out mass repression

1928-1932 became a time of collectivization and dispossession. How did this happen? To carry out dispossession, the kulaks were divided into 3 main groups:

"Terrorists". This included kulaks who constituted a counter-revolutionary activist and organized uprisings and Act of terrorism, the most active participants.
This included less active participants in counter-revolutionary processes.
All other representatives of the kulaks.

The arrest of representatives of the first category was the most serious. Such cases were transferred to the prosecutor's office, regional and regional party committees. The kulaks belonging to the second group were evicted to distant places of the USSR or remote regions. The third category was settled in specially designated areas outside the collective farms.

The first group of kulaks received the strictest measures. They were sent to concentration camps because they posed a threat to the safety of society and Soviet power. In addition, they could organize terrorist attacks and uprisings. IN in general terms dispossession measures assumed the immediate liquidation of kulaks in the form of exile and mass relocations, and confiscation of property.

The second category was characterized by mass escapes from resettlement areas, since they often had a harsh climate in which it was not easy to live. The Komsomol members who carried out dispossession of kulaks were often cruel and could easily carry out unauthorized executions of kulaks.

Number of victims

The decision to eliminate the kulaks as a class led to great social upheaval. According to available data, almost 4 million people were subject to repression over the entire period. Of this number, 60% (2.5 million people) were sent into kulak exile. Of this number, almost 600 thousand people died, and the highest mortality rate was in 1930-1933. These figures were almost 40 times higher than the birth rate.

According to one investigation by journalist A. Krechetnikov, in 1934 there was a secret certificate from the OGPU department, according to which 90 thousand kulaks died en route to the exile point and another 300 thousand died from malnutrition and diseases that reigned in places of exile.

Policy is softening

In 1932, the process of mass dispossession was officially suspended. But it turned out to be more difficult to almost completely stop a running car due to the resistance that arose from below.

In July 1931, a decree was issued on the transition from mass dispossession to individual dispossession, and instructions were also given on what constitutes an excess in the process and how to deal with the uncontrollability of dispossession. At the same time, the idea was propagated that softening the policy towards representatives of this class does not mean weakening class struggle in the village. On the contrary, it will only gain strength. IN post-war period liberation from “kulak exile” began. People began to return home en masse. In 1954, by decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the last kulaks-migrants received freedom and rights.

Bread is not from fists

Separately, it is worth considering a point related to the limitation of the kulaks as a class - bread production. In 1927, with the help of this population, 9.78 million tons were produced, while collective farms produced only 1.3 million tons, of which only half (0.57 million tons) ultimately reached the market. In 1929, thanks to processes such as collectivization and dispossession, collective farms produced 6.52 million tons.

The government encouraged the transition of poor peasants to collective farms and thus planned to quickly destroy the kulaks, who previously were in fact the only producers of bread. But it was forbidden to admit into collective farms persons recognized as representatives of this class. The ban on leasing land plots and hiring private labor resulted in a sharp decline in agriculture, which was more or less stopped only in 1937.

Rehabilitation and afterword

Victims of repression are rehabilitated in the Russian Federation in accordance with Federal law“On the rehabilitation of victims of political repression” dated 10/18/1991. According to the same law, the rehabilitation of persons subjected to the process of dispossession and members of their families is carried out. The judicial practice of the Russian Federation considers such persecution as an action within the framework of political repression. Peculiarity Russian legislation is that it is necessary to establish the fact of the use of dispossession. During rehabilitation, all property or its value was returned to the family, of course, if this property was not nationalized during the Great Patriotic War. Patriotic War, and also if there are no other obstacles.

Historians’ cousins, physicists, begin any discussion with the words “let’s agree on terms.” Historians get along just fine without this. It's a pity. Sometimes it would be worth it. For example, who is a kulak? Well, there’s nothing to think about here: this is a “helpful”, hardworking owner, mercilessly ruined and destroyed by the Stalinist collectivization machine. Yes, but why would the collectivization machine want to destroy a “good” owner who is neither a competitor nor a hindrance to it? He manages his ten to twenty dessiatines on the side of the collective farm - and let him farm for himself, but if he wants, he goes to the collective farm. Why ruin it?

Nothing other than out of infernal malice - for there is no economic answer here. It won’t happen, because in the directives the USSR authorities constantly repeated: do not confuse kulaks and wealthy peasants! Therefore, there was a difference between them, visible to the naked eye.

So what did the naked eye of a semi-literate district secretary see that is not visible to the modern historian? Let's remember school Marxism - those who still managed to study at Soviet school. How is a class determined? And the memory automatically says: attitude to the means of production. How does the attitude of a good owner towards the means of production differ from that of the average peasant? Nothing! And the fist?

Well, since they were going to destroy him “as a class,” it follows that he was a class, and this attitude was somehow different.

These townspeople are always making a mess!

So who are the kulaks?

This issue was also of concern to the Soviet leadership. For example, Kamenev in 1925 argued that any farm with more than 10 acres of crops is kulak. But 10 acres in the Pskov region and in Siberia are completely different areas. In addition, 10 tithes for a family of five and for a family of fifteen are also two big differences.

Molotov, who was responsible for work in the countryside in the Central Committee, in 1927 classified peasants who rent land and hire temporary (as opposed to seasonal) workers as kulaks. But even the middle peasant could rent land and hire workers - especially the first.

Pre-Soviet People's Commissar Rykov classified well-to-do farms that use hired labor and owners of rural industrial establishments as kulak. It's getting closer, but somehow everything is vague. Why shouldn’t a strong working owner have, for example, a mill or an oil mill?

What unites Kamenev, Molotov and Rykov? Only one thing: all three are born city dwellers. But the “all-Union elder” Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, a peasant by origin, gives a completely different definition. At a Politburo meeting on cooperation, he said: “A kulak is not the owner of property in general, but the one who uses this property kulically, i.e. usuriously exploiting the local population, giving away capital for growth, using funds at usurious interest rates.”

An unexpected turn, isn't it? And Kalinin is not alone in this approach. People's Commissar of Agriculture A.P. Smirnov wrote in Pravda back in 1925, which served as the main practical, corrective guide for local leaders: “We must clearly distinguish between two types of farming in the wealthy part of the village. The first type of prosperous economy is purely usurious, engaged in the exploitation of low-power farms not only in the production process (farm labor), but mainly through all kinds of enslaving transactions, through village petty trade and mediation, all types of “friendly” credit with “divine” interest. The second type of prosperous economy is a strong labor economy, striving to strengthen itself as much as possible in production terms...”

Now this is 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 moneylender.

Rural usury is a completely special phenomenon. There was practically no money for growth in the countryside. A system of natural usury was adopted there - payments for loans were made with bread, one’s own labor or any services. (Looking ahead: this is why the so-called “sub-kulak members” - the “influence group” of the kulak - are mainly the poor.) And in any village, all the residents knew very well who was simply lending money (even at interest, if necessary), and whoever made it a trade in which he gets rich.

World-eating technology

A vivid picture of such a trade is painted in a letter to the magazine “Red Village” by a certain peasant Philip Ovseenko. He begins, however, in such a way that you can’t undermine him.

“...They shout about the kulak that he is this and that, but no matter how you turn around, the kulak always turns out to be thrifty and diligent, and pays taxes more than others. They shout that peasants should not use other people's labor or hire workers. But to this I must object that this is completely wrong. After all, in order to improve agriculture in our state, to increase peasant wealth, we need to increase sowings. And only wealthy owners can do this... And the fact that the peasant has a worker is only of benefit to the state, and therefore it must first of all support such wealthy people, because they are the support of the state. And I also feel sorry for the worker, because if you don’t give him a job, he won’t be able to find one, and there are already so many unemployed. And he feels good about farming. Who will give work to the unemployed in the village, or who will feed a neighbor and 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, but the fairy tale has begun - about how exactly a kind man feeds his neighbor and his family...

“There are many other unfortunate peasants: either there is no horse, or there is nothing to sow. And we help them out too, because it is said that love your neighbors as brothers. You will give one a horse for a day, either to plow or go to the forest, and to the other you will pour seeds. But you can’t give for free, because good things don’t fall from heaven for us. It was acquired by one's own labor. Another time I would be glad not to give it, but he will come and just wail: help me out, they say, there is hope for you. Well, you give the seeds, and then you take off half of them - this is for your own seeds. Moreover, at the meeting they will call you a kulak or an exploiter (that’s also a word). This is for doing a good Christian deed...”

Ispolu is for half the harvest. With a yield of 50 poods per tithe, it turns out that the “benefactor” lends seeds to his neighbor at the rate of 100% for three months, for 35 poods - 50%. Balzac's Gobsek would have strangled himself with envy. By the way, he has not yet mentioned what he charges for the horse. And for the horse, work was due - sometimes for three days, sometimes for a week in a day. Christ, if my memory serves me right, seemed to teach differently...

“It turns out differently: the other one fights, fights and gives up the land, or rents it out. It can't be processed every year. Either he eats the seeds, then there is no plow, or something else. He comes and asks for bread. Of course, you will take the land for yourself, your neighbors will work it for your debts and you will reap the harvest from it. And what about the old owner? What you sow is what you reap. He who does not work does not eat. And, moreover, he voluntarily leased the land in a sober state. After all, if you hadn’t rented it again, it wouldn’t have been developed and it would be a direct loss to the state. And so I helped out again - I sowed it, so they should be grateful to me for this. Yes, just where is it! For such work they also defame me... Let everyone know that the kulak lives by his labor, runs his own farm, helps out his neighbors and, one might say, the state rests on him. Let there not be the name “kulak” in the village, because a kulak is the most hardworking peasant, from whom there is no harm but benefit, and this benefit is received by both the district peasants and the state itself.”

From this heartbreaking letter it is clear why the peasants call the kulak a world-eater. It, like a textbook, describes almost the entire scheme of intra-village exploitation. In the spring, when there is no bread left in poor households, the time of the moneylender comes. For a bag of grain to feed a starving family, a poor man will give two bags in August. For seed grain - half the harvest. A horse for a day - several days (up to a week) of work. In the spring, in exchange for debts or for a couple of bags of grain, the kulak takes his allotment from a horseless neighbor, other neighbors cultivate this field for debts, and the entire harvest goes to the “good owner.” Economic power over neighbors is followed by political power: at a village meeting, a kulak can automatically count on the support of all his debtors, he goes to the village council himself or leads his people there, and so he becomes the true owner of the village, over whom there is no longer any government.

Well, this is a completely different matter. This is already a class that uses its means of production completely differently from the middle peasant. And here’s 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 ruined

Another “class” sign of a kulak is its specific participation in the grain trade. Accumulating at home large masses bread, the kulaks did not release them to the market at all, deliberately inflating prices. In those conditions, it was actually work to organize hunger, so Article 107 simply cried for such citizens.

...In January 1928, at the height of the “grain war,” members of the Politburo scattered around the country to manage grain procurements. On January 15, Stalin went to Siberia. This is what he said in speeches to party and Soviet workers: “You say that the grain procurement plan is tense, that it is impossible to implement. Why is it impossible, where did you get this from? Isn’t it a fact that your harvest this year is truly unprecedented? Isn’t it a fact that this year’s grain procurement plan for Siberia is almost the same as last year?”

Please note: the complaint about the impracticability of plans seems to be the leitmotif of all grain procurement campaigns. The reason is clear: if you complain, maybe the plan will be ruined.

“...You say that the kulaks do not want to hand over grain, that they are waiting for prices to rise and prefer to conduct unbridled speculation. It's right. But the kulaks are not just expecting a price increase, but are demanding a price increase three times higher than government prices. Do you think it is possible to satisfy the kulaks? The poor and a significant part of the middle peasants have already handed over grain to the state at state prices. Is it possible to allow the state to pay three times more for bread to the kulaks than to the poor and middle peasants?”

Now such actions are punishable in accordance with antimonopoly legislation, and for some reason no one complains. Maybe it's an allergy to terms?

“...If the kulaks are conducting unbridled speculation on grain prices, why don’t you charge them for speculation? Don’t you know that there is a law against profiteering - Article 107 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, by virtue of which those guilty of profiteering are brought to justice, and the goods are confiscated in favor of the state? Why don't you enforce this law against grain speculators? Are you really afraid of disturbing the peace of the master kulaks?!..

You say that your prosecutorial and judicial authorities are not ready for this matter... I have seen several dozen representatives of your prosecutorial and judicial authorities. Almost all of them live with the kulaks, are parasites of 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 the food was better. It is clear that one cannot expect anything worthwhile and useful for the Soviet state from such representatives of the prosecutorial and judicial authorities...”

For some reason it seems so to us too...

“I propose:

a) demand from the kulaks the immediate surrender of 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 weak middle peasants at low state prices or procedure for long-term credit."

Then, in January, the Siberian Regional Committee decided: cases under Art. 107 to investigate on an emergency basis, by mobile sessions of people's courts within 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 regional court, regional prosecutor and plenipotentiary representative of the OGPU, who, in particular, prohibited judges from passing acquittals or suspended sentences under Article 107.

Only the level of corruption can serve as a certain “mitigating circumstance” for the authorities - without the circular, well-fed law enforcement officers would not have done anything at all. In addition, Article 107 began to apply when the size of the commodity surplus on the farm exceeded 2,000 poods. It is somehow difficult to imagine the possibility of an investigative or judicial error if the owner has 32 tons of bread in his barn. What, they piled it up grain by grain and didn’t notice how much it accumulated? Even taking into account the fact that this amount was subsequently reduced - the average confiscation amounted to 886 poods (14.5 tons) - it is still difficult.

However, taking into account the trivial term of imprisonment under Article 107 - up to one year (actually up to three, but this is in the case of an agreement between traders, and try to prove this agreement), the main measure of punishment was precisely the confiscation of surpluses. If you didn't want to sell bread, give it away for free.

Where does so much bread come from?

As you can see, there is nothing unusual about this. IN emergency situations even the most market-oriented of market states step on the throat own song and introduce laws against profiteering - if they do not want their population to starve en masse. In practice, the problem is solved simply: if the government loves bribes more than it is afraid of food riots, laws are not introduced, if they give little or are afraid, they are introduced. Even the Provisional Government, corrupt to the last limit, tried to implement a grain monopoly - however, it failed. But the Bolshevik Council of People's Commissars succeeded - in fact, this is the whole difference and hence all the resentment of the “socialist brothers” against them regarding agrarian policy.

But let's return to our fists. Let's do some math. With a yield of 50 poods per dessiatine, 800 poods is 18 dessiatinas. Plus, the owners’ own consumption, feeding farm laborers and livestock, the seed fund - which, on a large-scale farm, would amount to, say, seven dessiatines. Total - 25 dessiatines. In 1928, only 34 thousand farms had plots of 25 acres or more - less than one per village. And about 3% of farms were recognized as kulak, i.e. 750 thousand. And after all, many had not 800 pounds, but thousands, or even tens of thousands. Where, I wonder, did Stalin get the figure he mentioned in Siberia? “Look at the kulak farms: there the barns and sheds are full of grain, the grain lies under sheds due to a lack of storage space, the kulak farms have a grain surplus of 50-60 thousand poods for each farm, not counting reserves for seeds, food, and livestock feed. ..”Where did he find farms with such reserves? On the Don, in the Terek region, in the Kuban? Or is this a poetic exaggeration? But even if you reduce the figure he announced by an order of magnitude, you still get 5-6 thousand poods each.

But another question is more important here. Even if we are talking about 800 pounds, where does so much bread come from? From your own field? There were not so many such fields in the USSR. So where?

The answer, in general, lies on the surface. Firstly, do not forget about natural usury, which was entangled in the village. All these “gratitudes,” paying off debts “on share,” renting land and working off debts, sack after sack, went into barns in the hundreds and thousands of poods. And secondly, let's think about it: how did grain sales take place in the village? It’s good if the fair is located on the edge of the village, so you can carry your few bags there on your hump. And if not? And there’s no horse either, so there’s nothing to take it out with? However, even if there is a sivka, is there any desire to drive it tens of miles and ten pounds? Meanwhile, money is needed - to pay taxes, and to buy at least something, but it is necessary.

Between the weak peasant and the market there must be a village grain buyer - one who, in turn, will deal with the city wholesaler. Depending on the combination of greed and efficiency, he can give 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 dumping station.

The village kulak simply could not help but be a buyer of bread - how could one miss such income? However, that's what he was. Let us quote again the report of the OGPU - the all-seeing eye of the Soviet government: « Lower Volga region. In the Lysogorsky district of the Saratov district, the kulaks and the wealthy are engaged in systematic speculation in grain. Fists in the village B.-Kopny buys grain from peasants and exports 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 Caucasus region. In a number of places in the Kushchevsky and Myasnikovsky districts ( Don District) there is a massive grinding of grain into flour. Some grain growers are engaged in the systematic export and sale of flour at the city market... Prices for wheat reach 3 rubles. per pood. Prosperous and strong kulaks, buying up 200-300 pounds on the spot. bread, grind it into flour and take it away on carts to other areas, where they sell it for 6–7 rubles. per pood.

Ukraine . Hoot fist. Novoselovki (Romensky district) buys bread through three poor people, who, under the guise of buying bread for personal consumption, prepare grain for him. Kulak grinds the purchased grain into flour and sells it at the market.

Belotserkovsky district. In the Fastovsky and Mironovsky districts, the kulaks organized their own grain buying agents, which procure grain for them in the surrounding villages and nearby areas.”

As we see, at the village level, the private wholesaler and the kulak are one and the same character, a natural intermediary between the manufacturer and the market. In fact, the kulak and the nepman are two links in the same chain, and their interests are exactly the same: to grab the market for themselves, not to let other players in, and first of all, the state.

The trouble was not only that the kulaks themselves played to increase prices, but even more that they led other peasants with them. Everyone who brought anything to the market was interested in high grain 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 their barn, then why Why not immediately start a wholesale requisition?

At the same time, almost half of the farms in the country were so weak that they could not feed themselves with their own grain until the new harvest. High prices these peasants were completely ruined, and they hung on the neck of the state. Thus, in a free market, the state sponsored traders twice - first buying bread from them at high prices set by them, and then supplying cheap bread to the poor people ruined by these same grain merchants. If there is a powerful trade lobby in the country that pays politicians, this pumping can continue forever, but the Nepmen were hard pressed to buy Politburo members. It's easier to kill...

All these problems - both worldism and price gouging - were solved economically in the course of the agrarian reform conceived by the Bolsheviks, and quite 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 in a matter of years to turn into fairly cultivated farms with quite decent marketability (already in the early 30s, the grain procurement plan for them was set at approximately 30-35% of gross collection). And what follows from this? What follows from this is that if not 5%, but 50% of farms are collectivized, then private owners will simply lose the opportunity not only to play in the market, but to influence it in general - state supplies to collective farms will cover all the needs of the country. And given the fact that in the USSR bread was sold to the population at very low prices, the point of engaging in grain trading would be completely lost.

The kulak, deprived, on the one hand, of the bread siphoned from the poor for debts, and, on the other, of the opportunity to influence prices, can trade the products of his farm as he wants and where he wants. Placed in the position of not a large, but a small rural owner, he will not be able to determine or decide anything from his economic niche.

A purely rhetorical question: will the NEPman and the kulak meekly resign themselves to such plans of the authorities?

History of the kulaks

In the period before collectivization, land was owned by landowners, peasants, and was bought up by kulaks.

Peasant land- This is community land. Typically, peasants did not have enough land, so gradually the hayfields were plowed under grain.

The peasants ate accordingly meagerly. According to the calculations of the military department in 1905: 40% of conscripts, and almost all of them came from the countryside, tried meat for the first time in the army. Underfed conscripts were fed to military condition.

Peasant land was not in private property peasants, which is why it was constantly divided. The earth was a community (peace), from here the kulak most often received the title “ world eater", that is, living at the expense of the world.

Those peasants who were engaged in usurious activities were called kulaks, that is, they gave grain, money at interest, rented a horse for a lot of money, and then they “squeezed” it all back using methods that gave the name to this subclass of peasants.

The second thing the kulaks did was use hired labor. They bought part of the land from bankrupt landowners, and part, in fact, “squeezed out” for debts from the community. If they got impudent and took too much, then the peasants could gather for a meeting, take a fist and drown him in the nearest pond - which has always been called lynching. After this, the gendarmes came to identify the criminals, but as a rule they did not find them - the villagers did not hand over anyone, and after the departure of the gendarmes, grace came to the village without a fist.

The kulak himself could not “keep” the village subordinate, so assistants began to be used ( kulakists) - people from peasant backgrounds who were allowed to have a piece 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, preferably with interest.

That is, in fact fist- head of a village organized crime group (organized criminal group), subkulak - accomplice and fighter of the organization. The kulak members beat someone, rape someone, maim someone and keep the neighborhood in fear. At the same time, everyone is Orthodox, goes to church, and everything is so godlessly organized.

Usually the kulak-kulak men were not the most hardworking peasants, but they had an impressive (frightening) appearance.

In part, the process of the emergence of the kulaks in Rus' in the middle and at the end of the 19th century was economically justified - in order to mechanize agriculture and make it more marketable, it was necessary to enlarge rural land plots. The peasantry was land-poor, that is, you can 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, 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 was left was for food. Those who did not work very well could not even pay redemption payments for liberation from serfdom, which were abolished only after the 1905 revolution.

When they say that " the kulaks worked well, and therefore became prosperous“- does not correspond to the truth, for the simple reason that there was little land, only for one’s own food.

Therefore, the kulaks seemed to be economically profitable, because when Stolypin’s reform was carried out, the emphasis was placed on the kulaks. That is, it is necessary to break up the community, deport the people to settlements, to farmsteads, so that communal ties are severed, some are sent as settlers to Siberia, so that the process takes place pauperization (impoverishment).

In this case, the impoverished peasants either became farm laborers or were squeezed out into the city (those who were lucky enough not to die of hunger), and those who were wealthy - they would already increase the profitability of agricultural goods: buy winnowing machines, seeders in order to grow profit. The bet 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 villages.

Next World War I, revolution and Decree on land Bolsheviks. The Decree on Land partly solved the problem of the peasantry's lack of land, because at the time of the revolution a quarter of all land belonged to landowners. This land was taken from them and divided according to the number of eaters, that is, they were tied to the community.

From then on, all agricultural land was given to the peasants by the Bolsheviks, as promised by them.

But at the same time, the land was not given into private ownership, but given for use. The land had to be divided according to the number of eaters; it could not be bought or sold. But the peasants did not live better over time, and here’s why.

Since the time of the tsarist regime, the kulaks and sub-kulaks remained and began usurious activities again, 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 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 by private individuals in the USSR in the 20s was, again, prohibited, but here it is in full force. Anyway - kulaks violated all laws available to them Soviet Union.

When the question of collectivization arose, the main opponents were the kulaks, because the kulaks do not fit into the collective farm at all; they lose everything on the collective farm. The main resistance to collectivization was the kulaks, since people were rich, they had serious influence on the minds of their village, and the kulaks helped them in this. They formed public opinion and armed detachments that killed police officers and collective farm chairmen, often together with their families.

When the question of dispossession arose, namely the liberation of the peasants from the kulaks, the government did not take anything away from the kulaks and did not enrich itself, as is commonly believed in liberal circles.

Categories of fists

1 category- counter-revolutionary activists, organizers of terrorist acts and uprisings, the most dangerous enemies of Soviet power - armed, killed representatives of collective farms, police officers, incited people to revolt against Soviet power.

2nd category- a traditional asset of rich kulaks and semi-landowners who “crushed” the entire village. This part of the counter-revolutionary activists did not organize an uprising, did not kill policemen, but at the same time severely robbed the peasants.

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 they dispossessed him...

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 vehicle. No peasant will keep an extra horse; it needs to be fed and maintained, but a working peasant does not need more than 1 horse to run a farm.

Having several horses for a peasant meant that he uses hired labor. And if he uses it, it means that he clearly not only has his own land, but also illegal one.

Accordingly, the question of dispossession arises, and if there are no other indications, then the peasant is assigned to the 3rd category.

What was done with each category of fists

Favorite myth of liberals: they were hanged, shot and sent to Siberia to certain death!

1st category- the kulaks themselves and their families were deported, but those who were involved in the murder of government officials were shot, but the family was not touched. In the first category, kulaks were subject to deportation to the Urals, Kazakhstan (as under Stolypin). They were deported with their families.
2nd category- the richest kulaks and semi-landowners who did not offer direct resistance to Soviet power - the kulaks themselves without families were subject to deportation.
3rd category- kulaks and their families were subject to deportation, but within their district. That is, they were sent from the village itself to the neighboring one so that break the connection between the kulak and the subkulak members.

How many were evicted?

According to the dubious data of the exclusively literary writer Solzhenitsyn, 15 million men were exiled to distant lands.

In total, according to the OGPU (clear accounting records of resettlement expenses were kept) - the total amount subjected to dispossession 1 million 800 thousand people(with families). The men themselves - 450-500 thousand

For comparison, settlements in the Soviet Union there were about 500 thousand, that is, it turns out that slightly 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 entire village was exiled, since according to the system it turned out that there was 1 fist per village.

Sometimes, for particularly serious crimes, kulak members could be punished additionally; in such cases, 2-3 families could suffer in the village.

There were 120 million peasants at that time, approximately 1/70 of them were dispossessed.

To the frequent opinion that dispossession occurred unfairly, one can answer that there were those who were unfairly convicted, slandered, and settled scores, but these were only a few.

Speaking of the Soviet and then liberal myth, the famous Pavlik Morozov in the village. Gerasimovka was not the son of a kulak, there were no kulaks there at all, there were only exiles.

Dispossession statistics:

By order of the OGPU, it is noted that, according to the head of the siblag of the OGPU, from the train of migrants who arrived from the North Caucasus to Novosibirsk numbering 10,185 people, 341 people (3.3%) died on the way, including significant amount from exhaustion.

Then there was a trial due to the high percentage of mortality (this was a multiple excess of the norm), the results of which were laid on the table of Yagoda (Yezhov’s predecessor), in this case those guilty of high mortality were severely punished, even by execution.

Therefore, the myth that a significant part of the kulaks died on the way is not true.

It should be noted that it was mainly the elderly and the sick who died, that is, those categories of people who had health problems. They were the ones who died from exhaustion.

After this, there was a separate order from Yagoda, stating that children under 10 years of age should be left with relatives and not transported by those kulak families where there were no able-bodied men and elderly people left who could not withstand long-term transportation.

Almost our entire population considers themselves descendants of nobles and kulaks who endured terrible hardships, but for some reason their lineage continued.

Falsification: they threw the kulaks and their families into the bare steppe. In fact, only 1st category kulaks were taken to labor settlements.

There were special decrees saying that children of kulaks who were not themselves involved in any crimes should not be prevented from obtaining a passport upon reaching the age of 16 and leaving their place of settlement to study or work (even for kulaks of the 1st category).

Interesting fact! Famous person from the fists - someone Nikolai Yeltsin! Nikolai Yeltsin was dispossessed and, as a measure of 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.

About 200 thousand kulaks eventually fled from the places of forced evictions, many returned to their lands, where no one had ever touched them.

Results of dispossession

Of course, there were people to whom dispossession brought pain and grief, but those who received fair social benefits from it were tens of times greater, therefore it is not objective to present dispossession in an extremely negative light.

Dispossession contributed to the construction of a system of effective collective farms, helped feed a hungry country and provided literally“food” for the industrialization of the state.

In fact, collectivization made it possible, in contrast to pauperization, which relied on kulaks, to preserve what the decree on land gave - land to the peasants. If the land belongs to the kulaks, then the vast majority of peasants will never have it. The collective farms were made up of the same peasants, but the land remained with the collective farms, that is, the collective farms also owned the land on the right of use and could not buy and sell land. No one built dachas on the collective farm land or grew non-agricultural crops.

That is, the land belonged to the peasants, only in the form of collective use according to the legislation on the activities of the agricultural artel.

At the same time, the version that collectivization and dispossession was actively promoted was when the land was taken away from the peasants. Draw your own conclusions.

Prepared based on materials from historian Boris Yulin and publicist Dmitry Puchkov.