Breaking Stereotypes - Fist

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

"Great is the God of the Russian land," says our common people, "and let's hope that the time will come when our village will get rid of the yoke of the kulaks.".. (Siberian Bulletin of Politics, Literature and Public Life "1889)

Against the background of the political discrediting of the Soviet regime, there was a colossal release of false disinformation that the word "kulak" and "dispossession" acquired the symptoms of a certain sacred, almost divine Something that has a hidden, secret meaning.

The first official name of the word "kulak", I met in the "Encyclopedic Dictionary" of the Academy of Sciences, published in 1794, where the wording of the word "kulak" meant: - reseller, reseller, (volume 3, p. 1060). If this word got into the encyclopedia, then it (the word) was in use among the people, and has an older and more stable definition of origin.

Dictionary of Vl. Dahl (published in 1865), gives a more detailed concept of the word "kulak": - A miser, a curmudgeon, a Jew, a flint, a stout fellow, and further: a reseller, a reseller, a maklak, a prasol, a broker, especially in the grain trade, in bazaars and marinas …

The desktop encyclopedic dictionary of 1897 defines: - A kulak, a reseller, a muncher, especially in the grain trade, in everyday speech means in general a person who tries to make big profits by all sorts of falsifications, from this meaning of the word kulak comes the word kulak or kulakism, that is, craft fist, outbid, barge. (volume IV, page 2495, published by the comrade "A. Granat and K0").

The literature of the middle of the 19th century was "enriched" by a new character in the Russian village: - with a village fist - these Razuvaevs, Derunovs penetrated the Russian village so much, they turned our peasant so much that it became "the talk of the town." Even by popular nicknames, the geography of the spread of this phenomenon can be traced: from the boulders - in the west of Russia, willows, lighthouses, bristle workers, butchers, prasols, tarhans, usurers, world eaters, live-eaters and to shiba - somewhere in the east of Russia.

In The Day we find a vivid picture of the diversity of the kulaks' estates:

“Among the kulaks there are peasants, burghers, merchants, and even people from educators of youth (who would have believed that this class also distinguishes kulaks from themselves!)”.

The usual method by which the kulaks are introduced into the peasant environment is the acquisition of the ownership of peasant land plots. Especially the weaning of peasant land pledged for a forced loan with seeds or agricultural implements and thousands of dessiatines of land passed into the hands of private individuals who did not belong to the peasant class, while real peasants, having lost their land plots, are either engaged in latrine trades, or live in farm laborers with new landowners, and then they just beggar. Begging, as a source of existence, is not an exceptional fact. The press notes that whole villages, volosts and even districts are already known that are engaged in begging. The nest of this peculiar and, moreover, a waste industry is the Vyatka province.

Almost the entire Nolinsky district, most of the Vyatsky and Glazovsky districts, some volosts of the Oryol and Yarinsky districts live exclusively in begging. These Vyatka beggars are well known throughout the Volga region. Usually in the fall, at the end of the field work, whole families leave for alms, in order to replenish what they have not collected from their meager, infertile fields. Witnesses confirm that when driving through the Vyatka, Kazan, Orenburg provinces, you will certainly meet beggars, sometimes walking in groups of several people. Often they stop in front of some dwelling and sing something "divine" in chorus, for example: - "Save, Lord, Thy people".

In the "Siberian Bulletin" No. 10 for 1891, g. Obolensky counts 3, 828, 600 beggars for the entire Russian population, but, incidentally, he finds it possible to reduce this figure, so as not to fall into a mistake, to 600, 000 people, the rest find seasonal work in a difficult time. And this is 116 million of the total population of Russia.

Once settled in the peasant environment, the kulak, thanks to the weakness of the law and the ability to circumvent it, thanks to the powerlessness and impersonality of the rural community, has a completely free and unhindered path to enslave the rural community on whose land he "settled", to suck out of the peasantry his vital juices, to complete exhaustion.

The Kavkaz newspaper writes about the town of Sighnagh that not only peasants, but also landowners and local princes are subjected to ruin, and they have drawn up a sentence to ignore all purchases and loans from the kulaks, forcing the eviction of the kulaks from this area.

Finally, the so-called conservative and so-called liberal press organs paint a picture of the development of the kulaks in our village in the same way, with the same colors, turning to society to protect the peasant. The strength of the kulak grows and grows, and the peasant becomes poorer and poorer. Only in 1892 was a decree introduced into Russian legislation by which the alienation of peasant holdings was prohibited. For the first time, the development of the predation of the kulaks reduced, but their appetites knew no bounds - and they managed to bypass this law: instead of selling, peasant allotments came to them on a long-term lease for a cheap price, and the predation of the Razuvaevs did not completely suppress this law …

Only in 1895, in the Code of Punishments, an article appeared under No. 180 stating: who is engaged in the purchase of grain from peasants for purchasing from them at a disproportionately low price of standing grain, sheaves or grain, if during the transaction the buyer knowingly took advantage of the extremely painful position of the seller, is exposed to the first time to arrest up to 3 months., the last time, times to imprisonment. up to 6 months and is obliged to pay the seller for the purchased bread at the actual price.

"Siberian Life" in 1903 writes:

“At the trial it was revealed that not all Russian proverbs expressing folk wisdom have a solid foundation.

There is a proverb that "two skins do not tear off one ox." But Mr. Grigoriev brilliantly refuted this proverb.

He charged his clients up to 700%. And this is no longer two skins, but seven skins from the same ox. And, this is at a time when our law allows as the highest limiting percentage - 12.

12 and 700!

This is no longer usury, but super-usury. This is no longer just a violation of the law, but trampling it in the mud."

This phenomenon with a terrible scythe came to the steppe: “in the city of K., the congress considered the claim of the usurer Valilulla, a well-known in the district, who demanded 600 rams from one Kyrgyz (2,400 rubles) for 60 rubles borrowed. And he shouted rudely that he would not throw off a penny, even if an angel asked him from heaven."

Semirechensk region: - “The rich Sarts, however, do not leave our land with their concerns. They produce merciless exploitation by giving money for sheep on terms worse than ordinary usury.

In the fall, the Kyrgyz are given 50 kopecks for a veselchuk lamb, in order to feed him in the winter, and in the spring they hand over these rams to the bays. It is clear that now a three-ruble ram will go for fifty rubles, that is, the buy takes 500% a year.

Of course, the buyer's success is guaranteed by a penalty that is no less profitable for him. Winter comes, snowstorms, jute, lack of fodder, the mass mortality of livestock leaves one out of five rams by the spring. Obligations are extended for a year and difficult conditions are added. It happened once (this was several years ago) that the next winter was even worse. However, it was time for the Kyrgyz to be responsible for their half. The district authorities with particular frenzy assisted the bays in collecting the debt.

The "ripping off" of the unfortunate Kirghiz began. They described all the livestock that remained, counting the heifer as a ram and estimating the heifer at a quarter of its value, etc.and thus sold everything by auction.

In a word, they robbed the Kirghiz around, leaving them completely hungry. A number of dramas, like the following, were the answer that characterizes the local usury.

Exhausted mothers have no milk for their nursing children. The cow was taken away for fifty dollars. The mother's trustees brought her children and immediately smashed their heads on the floor at the auction. And this is not an isolated case …

Our Kyrgyz are fleeing now for the Kashgar border. They write that hundreds of families have already migrated to the Kashgar borders. They are driven by need and bai."

When you read, you see, the debts of orphaned "supplicants" grow unusually, rapidly of all kinds of rye in the most fruitful years. Ah, this terrible "harvest", "harvest"!..

… And they learned for certain

That after all, from time immemorial

Drinks someone else's blood fist.

Which is not a lot and not a little -

And the task was straightforward:

To the fullest of the poor man

Protect from the fist.

Quantitatively, the fists were strong. The kulaks owned trading establishments and commercial and industrial enterprises. They were shopkeepers and tavern keepers, buyers of handicrafts and owners of handicraft workshops. They plundered the people with usurious operations.

They kept unloading points for grain and drainage points, with the help of which they not only separated the cream from the milk, but (as Lenin figuratively said) separated the milk from the children of the poor peasantry. They owned mills, grinders, cheese dairies and dairies. For a pittance they bought livestock, flax and hemp from the rural poor and middle peasants.

Stepnyak noted in 1895 that “each village always numbered three or four kulaks, as well as half a dozen people of the same sort, but smaller. They did not possess either skill or zeal - they were distinguished only by the agility of turning in their favor the needs, sorrows, sufferings and misfortunes of others”(Stepnyak,“Russian Peasantry”, 1895; cited in English ed. 1905, p. 54).

"The hallmark of this class," says Stepnyak, "is the firm, unyielding cruelty of a completely illiterate person who has fought his way from poverty to wealth and who believes that the only goal a rational creature should strive for is money."

“Kulak,” wrote an intelligent German observer in 1904, “is an interesting figure in the Russian countryside …

There is no doubt that the methods employed by this usurer and oppressor in a peasant blouse were not among the purest … The prominent position he currently occupies has developed over the past 20-30 years …

"Miroed" … is a natural product of a vicious system … Taking advantage of the predicament of their fellow villagers, (they) used their debtors along with their hired workers and appropriated the plots of these economically weak people for their individual use. " (Wolf von Schirband, "Russia, its strength and weakness", 1904, p. 120, (in German)).

In 1916, the tsarist government tries to set firm prices and makes the first attempts to curb the kulak, the press does not review the events, but simply informs: "The fining of speculators", "Butchers in prison", "Requisition of rye", etc. The fist is waiting, he feels his invincibility.

Dr. Dillon, an authoritative and indisputable witness, stated in 1918 that “this type of person is commonly referred to as a fist to symbolize his total insensitivity, inability to pity and compassion. And among all the human monsters that I have met on my travels, I cannot remember a single one as vicious and vile as the Russian kulak. In the horrors of the revolution of 1905 and 1917. the spirit of this incarnate Satan ruled. " (E. Dillon, "The Eclipse of Russia" 1918, p. 67.)

The peasant households of the revolution in Russia were poor - 65%, middle peasants - 20%, kulak - 15%. According to the 1910 census of all peasant households, there were: -

7, 8 million plows, 2, 2 million horse-drawn wooden plows, 4, 2 million metal plows, 17, 7 million wooden harrows. Seeders, reaper-loaders, threshers and other machines were mainly owned by landlord and kulak farms. In 1915 there were no more than 165 tractors of different systems and types in Russia.

In his pamphlet To the Village Poor, Lenin cites data that clearly illustrate the role and significance of the Kulak in the pre-revolutionary village: the kulaks have “one and a half million households, but they have seven and a half million horses” (Lenin, Soch., Vol. V, p. 279).

Comparing these incriminating figures, one can imagine the colossal dependence of any peasant, not only the poor, but also the middle peasant, on the world-eater - the kulak, and hence the hostility of the kulaks towards the noble landowners, with their humanism, "but his hostility towards the rural proletariat is even more indubitable."

Before World War I, there were 15-16 million small peasant households, of which: 30% were horseless, 34% were without inventory and 15% were seedless, which lost their land in the years of crop failure.

The most important task of the Bolsheviks and the Soviet government in developing the socialist revolution in the countryside was to rally the poor and organize them for a merciless struggle against the kulaks.

On May 9, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars adopted a decree "On granting the People's Commissar of Food with extraordinary powers to fight the village bourgeoisie, hiding grain reserves and speculating in them." This decree established a food dictatorship aimed at curbing the kulaks and speculators.

At the suggestion of V. I. Lenin, the kulaks, who did not surrender their surplus grain to the state, were declared enemies of the people. The struggle for bread is "a struggle to save socialism," said V. I. Lenin at the 5th All-Russian Congress of Soviets (ibid., Vol. 27, p. 481). Food detachments of armed workers were sent to the countryside, consisting of the most advanced workers, Ch. arr. communists in Moscow, Petrograd and other industrial centers. The food detachments played a decisive role in rallying the rural poor to fight against the kulaks, in suppressing the kulak revolts and in confiscating grain from the kulaks.

On June 11, 1918, at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, a decree was adopted “On the organization of the rural poor and supplying them with bread, basic necessities and agricultural products. tools.

Granting power over the distribution of land to the peasants themselves, the created Committees of the Poor Peasants (Kombedy), and led the last struggle with the kulaks, seizing the last 50 million dessiatines of surplus land. Inventory of land allotments, their distribution was carried out by the peasants themselves, participating in the meetings of the Combeds.

Subsequently, the Kombedy carried out a surplus appropriation system, the essence of which was that the working peasants received free land from the Soviet government for free use and protection from redistribution, and the state received food from the peasantry at fixed prices to supply the army and workers in the rear.

The general results of the surplus appropriation were characterized by the following data: in 1918-1919 the state procurements of grain and grain fodder amounted to 107.9 million poods, in 1919/20 they increased to 212.5 million poods, in 1920/21 they reached 367.0 million poods. Potato stocks increased from 42.3 million poods in 1919/20 to 70 million poods in 1920/21.

The introduction of P. helped the state to mobilize and correctly distribute grain and other products to supply the front, industrial regions, and the needy population of consuming provinces.

This is how the kulaks ended as a factor of exploitation.