The Bolshevik policy providing for the introduction of surplus appropriation was called. Tsar's surplus appropriation system. You may be interested in knowing the lexical, literal or figurative meaning of these words

Having received the circular, the Voronezh provincial government convened a meeting of the chairmen of zemstvo councils on December 6-7, 1916, at which an allocation scheme was developed and orders were calculated for the districts. The council was instructed to develop schemes and volost allocations. At the same time, the question was raised about the impracticability of the order. According to a telegram from the Ministry of Agriculture, an allocation of 46.951 thousand poods was imposed on the province: rye 36.47 thousand, wheat 3.882 thousand, millet 2.43, oats 4.169 thousand. At the same time, the minister warned that additional allocation is not excluded in connection with the increase in the army, therefore

Calculations carried out by zemstvos showed that

However, it is difficult to say how realistic were the assurances of the zemstvos about the confiscation of “all grain without remainder” in the event of full implementation of the requisition. It was no secret to anyone that there was bread in the province. But its specific quantity was unknown - as a result, zemstvos were forced to derive figures from available agricultural census data, consumption and sowing rates, farm yields, etc. At the same time, bread from previous harvests was not taken into account, since, according to the authorities, it had already been consumed. Although this opinion seems controversial, given that many contemporaries mention the grain reserves of the peasants and the noticeably increased level of their well-being during the war, other facts confirm that there was clearly a shortage of bread in the village. The city shops of Voronezh were regularly besieged by poor peasants from the suburbs and even other volosts. In Korotoyaksky district, according to reports, peasants said: “

According to the plan, in January 1917 the province was supposed to deliver 13.45 million poods of grain: of which 10 million poods of rye, 1.25 of wheat, 1.4 of oats, 0.8 of millet; the same amount was supposed to be prepared in February. To collect grain, the provincial zemstvo organized 120 grain dumping points, 10 per county, located 50-60 miles from each other, and most of them were supposed to open in February. Already during the allocation, difficulties began: the Zadonsk district took over only part of the supply (instead of 2.5 million poods of rye - 0.7 million, and instead of 422 thousand poods of millet - 188), and of those allocated to the Biryuchensky district 1.76 million poods of bread to In February, only 0.5 million was allocated. The allocation of personnel to the volosts was released from the control of the administration due to the lack of reliable communication with the villages, so the matter there was greatly delayed.

The procurement campaign was not supported by real means of implementation. The government tried to overcome this through threats. On February 24, Rittich sent a telegram to Voronezh in which he was ordered to begin the requisition of grain first in the villages that most stubbornly did not want to carry out the requisition. Wherein

By the end of February 1917, the province not only failed to fulfill the plan, but also lacked 20 million pounds of grain. The collected grain, as was obvious from the very beginning, could not be taken out. As a result, 5.5 million poods of grain accumulated on the railway, which the district committee undertook to export no earlier than in two and a half months. Neither wagons for unloading nor fuel for locomotives were registered. It was not even possible to transport flour to dryers or grain for grinding, since the committee was not involved in domestic flights. And there was no fuel for the mills either, which is why many of them stood idle or were preparing to stop working. The last attempt of the autocracy to solve the food problem failed due to the inability and unwillingness to solve a complex of real economic problems in the country and the lack of state centralization of economic management necessary in war conditions.

This problem was also inherited by the Provisional Government, which followed the old path. After the revolution, at a meeting of the Voronezh Food Committee on May 12, Minister of Agriculture A.I. Shingarev said that the province had not delivered 17 out of 30 million poods of grain: “It is necessary to decide: how right is the central administration... and how successful will the execution of the order be, and can there be a significant excess of the order?” This time, the members of the council, clearly falling into the optimism of the first revolutionary months, assured the minister that “the mood of the population has already been determined in terms of the supply of grain” and “with the active participation” of the food authorities, the order will be fulfilled. In July 1917, orders were completed by 47%, in August - by 17%. There is no reason to suspect local leaders loyal to the revolution of lack of zeal. But the future showed that this time the promise of the Zemstvo people was not fulfilled. The objectively current situation in the country - the economy leaving control of the state and the inability to regulate processes in the countryside - put an end to the well-intentioned efforts of local authorities.
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Published on the website of the Russian newspaper.
Notes

The phenomenon of food appropriation, also known under the abbreviated name prodrazverstka, took place in Russia in the period from 1919 to 1921. At this time, the government decided to establish certain standards for bread and other products that peasants could store, and they had to sell all surplus to the state at minimum prices. Food detachments and regional councils participated in the food appropriation, which forced peasants to hand over their supplies.

Impact on the population

The introduction of surplus appropriation further aggravated the already difficult situation of the ordinary population. The norms for the delivery of grain, which were distributed or allocated as tribute, very often exceeded the actual reserves of the residents.

Many peasants made attempts to hide their food, but food detachments quickly found everything and even punished the malicious “concealers.”

Results of surplus appropriation

Already during the first year of food terror and the beginning of food appropriation, about 44.6 million poods of bread were purchased from the population. The second year marked a significant increase in indicators and brought the state 113.9 million poods. The sharp increase in numbers was provoked by the white invasion, since part of the common population agreed to support the communists in order to avoid victory by enemy forces. Therefore, in November 1917 alone, about 33.7 million poods were handed over, but this became possible solely thanks to the then functioning food reserve apparatus of the Provisional Government, with the help of which surplus appropriation was carried out.

This phenomenon, the purpose of which was to provide armed forces, also had a number of disadvantages. The main problem here was poor organization, due to which a considerable part of the collected supplies never reached their destinations on time, but simply deteriorated over time. For the needs of the army, 60% of meat and fish, 100% of tobacco and 40% of bread, which was collected through surplus appropriation, were used. Peasants and ordinary workers were forced to starve, while the food taken from them, which reached large cities, was very often stolen and divided into rations.

Why was surplus appropriation carried out?

Determining limits on the amount of food products for peasants made it possible to keep workers and employees at least in a semi-starved state. The soldiers were a little more lucky, and the government leadership was on the best terms, and they were provided with regular food. The surplus appropriation system became the reason for the peasants’ lack of desire to work, since their entire harvest was still taken away from them. This became one of the main factors that led to the complete ruin of agriculture by 1921. Massive uprisings of peasants began throughout the country, demanding the abolition of such procedures.

During this period, the surplus appropriation system was replaced by a tax in kind, which became the first and most important step for

Advantages and disadvantages

Despite the fact that this process was able to relatively stabilize the food situation in the country, it also brought many negative consequences. The surplus appropriation system was officially introduced on January 11, 1919, during a very difficult period for the Soviet government, when the country needed support.

According to the official version, peasants had to hand over their surplus products, which exceeded the standards established by the government, but was this how food appropriation took place? This is quite difficult to establish now, almost a century later, but some genuine information has still been preserved. Sometimes what should have been left for the personal needs of the population was taken away from ordinary peasants, and the money they should have received was replaced various kinds receipts for which nothing could be purchased. This led to bloodshed, arrests and uprisings. Therefore, from a historical point of view, this is a twofold process.

Data

• The first stages of surplus appropriation in a slowly collapsing Russian Empire began already in December 1916. But this, like many other government initiatives, only contributed to the rapid collapse of the state.
• which also resorted to food audits, was able to succeed in replenishing food supplies, collecting 280 million poods of grain out of the planned 650.

• The surplus appropriation system, officially introduced at the beginning of 1919, became part of the food terror of the Bolsheviks during the period of “war communism”.
• For the Bolsheviks, surplus appropriation (this has been officially proven) was quite difficult. Its implementation was initially impossible in some territories, so it was carried out only in the central region of the country.
• Initially, surplus appropriation applied exclusively to grain, but at the end of 1920, measures were applied to all existing agricultural products.
• Initially, the peasants were going to be paid for the collected products, but the delivery of goods turned out to be practically free of charge, because the money was devalued, and the industry was in complete decline - there was nothing to exchange for.

• Naturally, the peasants did not always agree to voluntarily part with what they had acquired, so there were special armed detachments, committees of the poor and Red Army units.
• When the peasants no longer had the desire or ability to resist government measures, they began to hide food and grow grain no more than the norm.
• Even taking into account that the food dictatorship led to deprivation of the peasants, there is no doubt that only the surplus appropriation system could feed the army. This phenomenon also helped the urban proletariat to escape.
• In the period from 1918 to 1920 the head of the Russian food detachment was a communist, who later became a member. It was Roland Freisler.

Bottom line

The phenomenon of food appropriation, like many other initiatives introduced by the Bolsheviks, had both a number of advantages and many disadvantages. Although this process helped provide the necessary goods to the armed forces, most of the goods simply disappeared, although they were taken from the people who needed them - this is how surplus appropriation was actually carried out. The year when it began marked the beginning of stability and the beginning of everything that would later lead to a serious crisis.

90 years ago one of the tragic events happened national history- surplus appropriation was introduced.
Sometimes they refer to the fact that, strictly speaking, the surplus appropriation system was proposed even earlier, in 1916. However, there are very important nuances that mean a significant difference....

In the Russian Empire, during the First World War, it was proposed to confiscate surplus food from the peasants to supply the army and defense industry workers. On November 29, 1916, the manager of the Ministry of Agriculture A.A. Rittich signed a decree on grain appropriation, and on December 7, the norms for provincial supplies were determined, followed by the calculation of food appropriation for counties and volosts. The surplus appropriation system came into force in January 1917.
A.A. Rittich spoke on February 17, 1917 in the State Duma with a detailed justification for surplus appropriation as a means of solving food problems, pointing out that as a result of political bargaining, fixed prices for the purchase of products by the state were set in September 1916 slightly lower than market prices, which immediately significantly reduced delivery of bread to transportation and milling centers. He also pointed out the need for voluntary surplus appropriation:
“I must say that where there were already cases of refusal or where there were shortcomings, now people from the field asked me what should be done next: should I act as required by the law, which indicates a certain way out when rural or volost Societies do not decide the sentence that is required of them to fulfill this or that duty or assignment - should this be done, or should, perhaps, resort to requisition, also provided for by the resolution of the Special Meeting, but I invariably and everywhere answered that here you need to wait with this, you need to wait: maybe the mood of the gathering will change; it is necessary to gather it again, show it the purpose for which this deployment is intended, that this is what the country and homeland need for defense, and depending on the mood of the gathering, I thought that these resolutions would change. In this direction, voluntary, I recognized the need to exhaust all means.”

Alas, for the sake of political intrigue, the deputies did not want to agree with Rittich. A.I. wrote about this with sadness. Solzhenitsyn: “Alexander Rittich, who fell out of the tradition of the last Russian governments - absent, impersonal, paralyzed, himself from the same educated stratum that liberalized and criticized for decades, Rittich, entirely focused on business, always ready to report and argue, as if he was deliberately sent by fate for the last week of the Russian State Duma to show what she was worth and what she wanted. All the time, her criticism was that there were no knowledgeable, active ministers in the government - and now a knowledgeable, active, and actually responsible one appeared - and all the more it was necessary to reject him!

A little about A.A. Rittich. He comes from a Livonian noble family. Father - Lieutenant General of the Russian Army Alexander Fedorovich Rittich.
He graduated from the Alexander Lyceum with a large gold medal (1888). Since 1888, he served in the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) as a clerk. Since 1898 - an official of special assignments at the Resettlement Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In 1898-1899 he was on a business trip to the Ussuri region, where he served as head of resettlement affairs. In 1901 and 1902, he repeatedly temporarily acted as assistant to the head of the Resettlement Department. In 1902-1903, at the same time, he was the clerk of the Special Meeting on the needs of the agricultural industry under the leadership of S. Yu. Witte. He supervised the compilation of a systematic set of works of local agricultural committees. The materials of the meeting later became one of the sources of Stolypin’s agrarian reform. Author of works on issues of peasant land use and the legal status of peasants. Since 1905 - Director of the Department of State Land Property of the Main Directorate of Land Management and Agriculture. One of the main developers and implementers of the Stolypin agrarian reform. Since 1915 - Comrade Minister of Agriculture. Since March 1916, at the same time, senator. From November 14, 1916 - temporary manager, from November 29, 1916 - manager of the Ministry of Agriculture, from January 12, 1917 - minister. According to his colleague, Minister of Finance P. L. Bark, “the new minister was unusually energetic, knew the affairs of his department very well... knew the country better than all other members of the cabinet.”
Officially introduced food appropriation - in a significantly softened form, compared to the subsequent practice of the Bolsheviks. Tried to collaborate with State Duma in the fight against the food crisis, but met with rejection from the opposition (which reacted negatively to his speech in the Duma in February 1917).
After the overthrow of the monarchy, he went into hiding, was arrested, but then released. In 1918 he lived in Odessa. In 1919 he emigrated. Lived in England, where he was director of a Russian bank in London. In 1920, A.V. Krivoshein offered him a post in his government operating in the Crimea under General P.N. Wrangel, but Rittich refused because he “lost faith in his own strength.”

When the Bolsheviks took power, it soon turned out that “freedom comes naked.” I mean naked. It became cold and hungry...
But the Bolsheviks did not have the same obstacles that the “dark tsarist regime” had. The Bolsheviks lacked a “chimera called conscience.” The Soviet government began to pursue a mobilization policy of war communism, part of which was the surplus appropriation system. First they took away bread and grain. Then potatoes, meat, and by the end of 1920 - almost all agricultural products. Food was confiscated from the peasants for free, since the banknotes offered as payment were almost completely devalued, and since the plants and factories were standing, no industrial goods were offered in return for the confiscated grain. When determining the size of the allocation, they did not proceed from the actual food surpluses of the peasants, but from the food needs of the army and the city. Not only the existing surpluses were confiscated, but also the entire seed fund and agricultural products necessary for the peasants and their families to feed themselves. Naturally, the robbed men began to grab axes, pitchforks and sawn-off shotguns. Peasant uprisings were mercilessly suppressed armed units committees of the poor, as well as special units of the Red Army (CHON).
These pages Soviet history were never advertised: the robbery of peasants with subsequent reprisals against them turned out to be too unsightly. The brutal mercilessness of the struggle is partly reflected in Sholokhov’s stories...

In Pronsky district Ryazan province 300 were shot.
Voronezh, Kostroma, Oryol provinces - thousands of people executed.
The uprising in the Ufa region was suppressed with fierce cruelty - more than 25 thousand dead. These are just a few examples of the huge number of executions and reprisals against thousands and thousands of peasants.
Rebellious villages were often wiped out by artillery fire, so it is almost impossible to take into account all the victims. The uprising in the Tambov province was suppressed with particular inhumanity. Armored cars and asphyxiating gases were used.
Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council E. Sklyansky, “kind grandfather” Lenin, sent a note with a proposal to use “armored trains, armored cars, airplanes” to fight the rebels (Lenin V.I. Complete collection of works. T.52.S.67) .
The most famous are the Kronstadt and Tambov uprisings, and in their shadow remained the West Siberian uprising, which covered the Tyumen, Omsk, Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg provinces...

In connection with the transition from war communism to the NEP on March 21, 1921, the surplus appropriation system was replaced by a tax in kind, but the situation of the peasantry remained difficult. And not only the peasantry. In 1920 the civil war is almost over. The population hoped for relief in their situation. But the policy of “war communism” did not soften. Its result was an unprecedented decline in production, increased mortality among workers, agriculture A severe crisis broke out, and social dependency grew. General dissatisfaction with “war communism” reached its limit by the winter of 1921. Food detachments continued to take away all the “surplus” grain from the peasants. The workers also received meager rations.
Until recently in historical research The role of the “turning point” in March 1921 was especially emphasized. However, the decision to replace the surplus appropriation system with a tax in kind, hastily adopted under the threat of a social explosion on the last day of the meetings of the Tenth Congress of the RCP(b), did not entail either the cessation of peasant uprisings and labor strikes, or the weakening of the punitive policy of the Soviets. The now accessible archives convincingly prove that civil peace did not reign throughout the country overnight in the spring of 1921. Tensions continued in many areas until the summer of 1922, and in some areas longer. Requisition teams continued to rage in the countryside, labor strikes were still severely suppressed, the last socialist activists remained behind bars, the “eradication of the bandit element” continued according to “all the rules” - with mass executions of hostages and the use of poison gases in rebellious villages.
In the end, the unprecedented famine of 1921-1922 took over, striking precisely those areas where resistance to food requisitions was especially strong, where peasants rebelled simply to survive. If we map all the areas affected by the famine, we will see that these are precisely the areas where, for several years before the famine, particularly devastating requisitions were carried out, as well as areas marked by powerful peasant uprisings. Having become an “objective” ally of the Bolsheviks, a reliable tool of pacification, the famine also served as a pretext for them to deal a decisive blow to the Orthodox Church and the intelligentsia who were trying to fight this disaster.
Of all the peasant uprisings that began in the summer of 1918 along with a broad campaign of requisitions, the uprising in the Tambov province was the longest, the most important and the most organized. Located five hundred kilometers southeast of Moscow, the Tambov province has been, since the beginning of the century, one of the bastions of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, the heirs of the Russian populists. In 1918-1920, despite all the repressions that befell this party, its supporters were numerous and active in the Tambov region. But besides this, the Tambov province was also the grain-producing region closest to Moscow, and since the fall of 1918, more than a hundred food detachments were rampant in this densely populated area. In 1919, dozens of riots broke out here, and all of them were ruthlessly suppressed. In 1920, the surplus appropriation rate was sharply increased.
And at the same time, a thousand kilometers to the east, a new center of peasant unrest emerged. Having pumped out everything they could from the rural areas of southern Russia and Ukraine, the Bolsheviks turned their attention in the fall of 1920 to Western Siberia, where surplus appropriation was arbitrarily determined in accordance with... grain exports from the region in 1913! But how can one compare a crop grown in the hope of getting a full gold ruble for it with one that the peasant has to give away under threat of violence? As elsewhere, Siberian peasants rose up to defend the fruits of their labor and for their own survival. In January-March 1921, the Bolsheviks lost control over the provinces of Tobolsk, Omsk, Orenburg, Yekaterinburg - that is, a territory larger than France. Trans-Siberian Railway, the only Railway, connecting the European part of Russia with Siberia, was cut off. On February 21, the People's Peasant Army captured Tobolsk and held this city until March 30.

Excerpts from order No. 171 of June 11, 1921, signed by Antonov-Ovseenko and Tukhachevsky:
"1. Citizens who refuse to give their name are shot on the spot, without trial.
2. For villages in which weapons are hidden, the authority of the political commission or regional political commission shall announce a verdict on the seizure of hostages and shoot them if they do not surrender their weapons.
3. If a hidden weapon is found, shoot on the spot without trial the senior worker in the family.
4. The family in whose house the bandit took refuge is subject to arrest and expulsion from the province, its property is confiscated, the senior worker in this family is shot without trial.
5. Families harboring family members or property of bandits will be treated as bandits, and the senior employee of this family will be shot on the spot without trial.
6. In the event of the escape of the bandit’s family, its property should be distributed among peasants loyal to Soviet power, and the houses left behind should be burned or dismantled.
7. This order must be implemented severely and mercilessly.”

The day after this order was announced, Commander Tukhachevsky ordered the use of gases against the rebels. “The remnants of broken gangs and individual bandits continue to gather in the forests.<...>Forests in which bandits hide must be cleared using asphyxiating gases. Everything must be calculated so that the gas curtain, penetrating into the forest, destroys all living things there. The chief of artillery and specialists competent in this type of operation must ensure a sufficient supply of gases.
By July 1921, the military authorities and the Cheka had already prepared seven concentration camps, where, according to as yet incomplete data, at least 50,000 people were housed, mainly old men, women and children, “hostages” and family members of peasant deserters . The situation in these camps was terrifying: typhus and cholera were rampant there, and half-dressed prisoners suffered from all possible ills. In the summer of 1921, hunger made itself felt. By the fall, the mortality rate had risen to 15-20% per month. By September 1, 1921, a number of scattered gangs remained, in which one could barely count up to a thousand armed people. Let us recall that in February the number of rebels reached 40 thousand. WITH peasant army Antonov was finished. Beginning in November 1921, many thousands of prisoners from among the most able-bodied were transported from “pacified” villages and villages to concentration camps to the north of Russia, to Arkhangelsk and Kholmogory.
Judging by the daily reports of the Cheka to the Bolshevik leadership, the “establishment of revolutionary order” in the countryside continued in many regions - in Ukraine, Western Siberia, Volga provinces, and the Caucasus - at least until the second half of 1922. The skills acquired in previous years were retained, and although the surplus appropriation system and associated requisitions were officially abolished in March 1921, the tax in kind that replaced it was often levied with the same ferocity.

From the report of the chairman of the plenipotentiary “five” on punitive measures against bandits of the Tambov region. 10.7.1921
“Operations to clear the villages of Kurdyukovskaya volost began on June 27 from the village of Osinovka, which was previously a frequent location for gangs. The mood of the peasants towards the detachments that arrived for the operation was one of incredulous wait-and-see: the gangs were not betrayed, and all questions asked were answered with ignorance.
40 hostages were taken, the village was declared under siege, orders were issued setting a 2-hour deadline for the handing over of bandits and weapons with a warning that hostages would be shot for failure to comply. At the general meeting, the peasants noticeably began to hesitate, but did not dare to take an active part in providing assistance in removing the bandits. Apparently they had little faith that execution orders would be carried out. After the deadline, 21 hostages were shot in the presence of a gathering of peasants. The public execution, arranged with all the formalities, in the presence of all members of the “five”, authorized representatives, unit commanders, etc., made a stunning impression on the peasants<...>.
As for the village of Kareevka, where, due to its convenient territorial location, there was comfortable spot for the permanent presence of bandits<...>, the “five” decided to destroy this village, evicting the entire population and confiscating their property, with the exception of the families of the Red Army soldiers, who were resettled in the village of Kurdyuki and placed in huts seized from bandit families. Strictly after the seizure of valuable materials - window frames, seeders, logs, etc. - the village was set on fire<...>.
On July 3, the operation began in the village. Theology. Rarely have we seen such a closed and organized peasantry. When talking with peasants, from the youngest to the old man with gray hair, everyone as one on the issue of bandits excused themselves with complete ignorance and even answered with questioning surprise: “We have no bandits”; “We once drove past, but we don’t even know very well whether they were bandits or someone else, we live peacefully, we don’t bother anyone and we don’t know anyone.”
The same techniques as in Osinovka were repeated, and 58 hostages were taken. On July 4, the first batch of 21 people was shot, on July 5 - 15 people, 60 gangster families - up to 200 people - were confiscated. In the end, a turning point was reached, the peasantry rushed to catch the bandits and look for hidden weapons<...>.
The final cleansing of the mentioned villages and villages was completed on July 6, the results of which affected not only the area of ​​​​the two volosts adjacent to them; the appearance of the bandit element continues.
Chairman of the Plenipotentiary Five
Uskonin."

To improve tax collection in Siberia, a region that was supposed to supply most agricultural products at a time when the Volga provinces were struck by famine, Felix Dzerzhinsky was sent to Siberia in December 1921 as an extraordinary commissioner. He introduced “flying revolutionary tribunals” that traveled around the villages and immediately, on the spot, sentenced peasants who had not paid their taxes in kind to prison or a camp. Like the requisition squads, these tribunals, with the support of the “tax squads,” committed so many abuses that the Chairman of the Supreme Tribunal Nikolai Krylenko himself was forced to send a special commission to investigate the actions of these bodies, which relied on the authority of the chief of the Cheka. From Omsk, one of the commission’s inspectors reported on February 14, 1922: “The abuses of the requisition detachments have reached an unimaginable level. It is a practice to systematically keep arrested peasants in unheated barns; floggings and threats of execution are used. Those who have not paid the full tax are driven bound and barefoot along the main street of the village and then locked in a cold barn. They beat women until they lose consciousness, they lower them naked into holes dug in the snow...”
Here are excerpts from the political police report for October 1922, a year and a half after the start of the NEP:
“In the Pskov province, more than 2/3 of the harvest will go to tax in kind. Four counties rebelled.<...>In the Novgorod province, the collection of tax in kind will not be possible, despite a 25 percent reduction in rates, due to crop failure. In the Ryazan and Tver provinces, fulfilling 100% of the tax in kind dooms the peasants to starvation.<...>In the city of Novonikolaevsk, Tomsk province, famine is developing, and peasants are preparing grass and roots for the winter for their food.<...>But all these facts pale next to reports from the Kyiv province about mass suicides of peasants due to the unsustainability of tax rates in kind and the confiscation of weapons. The famine that has befallen a number of regions is killing all hopes for the future among the peasants.”

In the fall of 1922, the worst happened. After a two-year famine, the survivors stocked up crops that would allow them to survive the winter, provided that the tax in kind was reduced. “This year’s grain harvest promises to be below the average of ten recent years“- with these words on July 2, 1921 in the newspaper “Pravda” for the first time on the last page, in a short note, the aggravation of the “food problem” on the “agricultural front” was mentioned. Ten days later, the appeal of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee dated July 12, “To all citizens of the RSFSR,” signed by the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Mikhail Kalinin, admitted that “in many areas this year’s drought has destroyed crops.” Next, the Central Committee of the RCP (b) adopted the appeal of the Party’s tasks in the fight against famine, which appeared in Pravda on July 21. “The disaster,” the address explained, “is not only the result of this year’s drought. It is prepared and conditioned by past history, the backwardness of our agriculture, disorganization, low level of agricultural knowledge, low technology, and backward forms of crop rotation. It is strengthened by the results of the war and the blockade, the ongoing struggle against us by the landowners, capitalists and their servants; it is still being aggravated by those carrying out the will of organizations hostile Soviet Russia and to its entire working population."

In the long enumeration of the causes of this disaster, which they had not yet dared to call by its true name, the most important factor was omitted: the policy of requisition and plunder that had been carried out for years on an already weakened agriculture. The leaders of the famine-affected provinces, gathered in Moscow in June 1921, unanimously accused the government and the all-powerful People's Commissariat of Food of provoking the famine.
From the reports of the Cheka and the military command, we can conclude that the first signs of famine appeared in many regions already in 1919. Throughout 1920 the situation steadily worsened.

Lenin's government was unable to feed the starving. The world community wanted to help the hungry - the American Relief Organization (ARA) fed up to 10 million people, allocating 140 million gold rubles. The public created the All-Russian Committee for Famine Relief, which included the most prominent representatives of the intelligentsia, including M. Gorky, E. Kuskova. How did Lenin react to this? “The directive today in the Politburo is to strictly neutralize Kuskova. You in the “cell of communists” do not yawn, watch strictly. From Kuskova we will take the name, signature, a couple of cars of those who sympathize with her (and others like that). Nothing else"(Lenin collection. T. XXXVI.C.287)

The sufferings of those dying of hunger hardly touched the Kremlin elite: party leaders ate well even in times of famine. The myth of “hungry drug addicts” is just a myth.

But the Orthodox Church responded to human suffering. Patriarch Tikhon spoke in August 1921 in the world press. He wrote soulfully: "Help! Help the country that has always helped others!.. Not only to your ears, but to the depths of your heart, let my voice carry the painful groan of those doomed to starvation millions of people and will place it on your conscience, and on the conscience of all mankind!”

On February 19, 1922, the Orthodox Church allowed the donation of “precious church decorations and objects that have no liturgical use” to the needs of the starving Volga region.
However, a few days later, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee issues a decree on the forcible removal of all valuables from churches, including attributes of worship. For a long time Lenin's letter was classified. Here are a few quotes (Quoted from: News of the Central Committee of the CPSU. 1990. N 4. P. 190-193):
“...It is now and only now, when people are being eaten in starved areas and hundreds if not thousands of corpses are lying on the roads, that we can (and therefore must) carry out confiscations of church valuables with the most furious and merciless energy and without stopping at suppression any kind of resistance."

What was the purpose of this action? Help for the hungry? No!
“We need to carry out the withdrawal at all costs” in order to “... provide ourselves with a fund of several hundred million gold rubles... Without this fund, there will be no government work in general, no economic construction in particular, and no defending one’s position in Genoa is completely unthinkable.”

Lenin demanded that a directive be given to the judicial authorities so that “the process was carried out with maximum speed and ended only with the execution of a very large number the most influential and dangerous Black Hundreds of the city of Shuya, and, if possible, also not only of this city, but also of Moscow and several other spiritual centers... The more representatives of the reactionary clergy and the reactionary bourgeoisie we manage to shoot on this occasion, the better.”

In place of the Committee, the government created the Famine Relief Commission (known as Pomgol), an unwieldy bureaucratic organization made up of functionaries from various people's commissariats, highly ineffective and corrupt. During the worst famine in the summer of 1922, which affected almost 30 million people, the Commission provided, rather irregularly, food aid to only 3 million people. As for the ARA, the Quakers, the Red Cross, they provided food for about 11 million a day.
(apparently, this is why we still scold the Americans - for the good they have done)

Despite international assistance, the 1921–1922 famine claimed at least 5 million lives, with a total of 29 million people starving. The last terrible famine in pre-revolutionary Russia, which hit the country in 1891 and covered approximately the same regions (Middle and Lower Volga and part of Kazakhstan), took away from 400 to 500 thousand people. But then the state and society competed with each other in providing assistance to the hungry. A young assistant to a sworn attorney, Vladimir Ulyanov, lived in the early nineties in Samara, the center of the province most affected by the famine in 1891. He turned out to be the only representative of the local intelligentsia who not only did not take any part in organizing famine relief, but also categorically objected to such assistance. As one of his friends recalled, “Vladimir Ilyich had the courage to openly declare that the consequences of famine - the birth of the industrial proletariat, this gravedigger of the bourgeois system - is a progressive phenomenon.<...>Hunger, destroying the peasant economy, moves us towards our ultimate goal, towards socialism through capitalism. Hunger simultaneously destroys faith not only in the king, but also in God.”

The surplus appropriation system entailed terrible human casualties from hunger, the despair of peasant uprisings drowned in blood by the Bolsheviks. And the famine served as a formal pretext for reprisals against the Russian Orthodox Church.
Meanwhile, A.A. Ritikh, whose proposals for voluntary food appropriation were subject to criticism by the State Duma, was part of the Russian society in England in 1921 to help the starving in Russia... The circle is closed.

Surplus appropriation in documents of the era

The pages of the century are louder

Separate truths and falsehoods.

We are the helmsmen of this book

Simple statutory font.

Boris Pasternak

The year 1919 did not bring relief to the peasants - however, it could not have brought it. It has not become easier for anyone in the country. The war flared up, the fronts became longer, the army grew larger. It was possible to take a certain number of people from the cities, but everything else - food, fodder, horses - could only be supplied by the village. Moreover, with virtually no return, since Soviet Russia, turned into a military camp, devoted all its meager resources to the front.

In January 1919, food allocation was introduced. It differed from previous grain procurements in that the People's Commissariat for Food, based on the general needs of the country, determined firm tasks for the provinces for all types of agricultural products, the provinces passed it on lower - and so on to the volosts: do it as you want. Theoretically, about 60% of peasants were still exempt from surplus appropriation, but in reality, on the one hand, rich peasants were looking for many ways to distribute supplies to the entire village, and on the other, local authorities, caught in a pincer movement, either failed to complete the task or shook everyone who has at least something - quite often they took away bread not only from the middle peasants, but even from the poor.

Soon the state declared a monopoly on all food. Mobilizations in the Red Army came one after another, and labor obligations increased. Horses were requisitioned for the army. The government protected the peasants as best it could - the 3rd and further horses on the farm were subject to mobilization. But in practice this instruction was not carried out, because each commander had his own economic policy, quite often different from the state one. In addition, he had the right to replace a horse unsuitable for combat service with a good one even in a one-horse yard, and as a result, the horse population in the village was rapidly deteriorating. But a horse in a peasant’s yard is not there for aesthetics, it needs to be worked on. But try to explain this to the said commander!

Whites had the same problems - however they controlled richer areas and received outside support. The Reds could only rely on internal resources.

In 1920, to other joys, there was added a crop failure that affected a number of Russian provinces. For example, in the richest Tambov province, the surplus appropriation task amounted to a third of the total grain collection, which, in turn, covered the internal needs of the province by only 50%. And you don’t need to go to a fortune-teller to understand that the more bread is exported through surplus appropriation, the more it will have to be imported to help the starving. And since the population of the province survived that winter, it follows that the wagons with bread were driven in both directions. But there was an aggravation of the permanent Tambov uprising, which had to be spent a lot of effort and money to eliminate it.

Fortunately, just at this time, rich provinces captured from the whites, in particular Siberia, joined Soviet Russia. The main burden of surplus appropriation fell on them. The local population, of course, did not like this - is it any wonder? So the winter of 1920–1921. It was also marked by a colossal West Siberian uprising. However, more on this a little later.

What was this constantly mentioned Bolshevik surplus appropriation system? Historical mythology believes it to be the complete requisition of all food from the peasants - survive as you want. In reality, of course, everything was completely different.

From the resolution of the Tyumen provincial executive committee and the board of the provincial food committee on the allocation of grain fodder and oilseeds on September 3, 1920.

"1. The entire amount of grain, grain fodder and oilseeds is subject, with the exception of the norm, to the state and is allocated for alienation from the population between the volosts according to the attached tables...

4. The entire amount of bread, grain fodder and oilseeds for the volost according to the allocation must be alienated from the population at established fixed prices and delivered by the population to the dump point within the time limits indicated below...

11. To those volosts that have surpluses and stubbornly do not hand them over, take repressive measures for entire volosts and individual villages in the form of arresting chairmen, secretaries of volost executive committees and village councils for their assistance and arresting all individuals who stubbornly do not hand over bread or are hiding it. and forward to the visiting session of the Food Revolutionary Tribunal.”

As you can see, everything is the same here - both norms and grain prices. The front line remained in the same place.

From the instructions of the Tyumen Provincial Food Committee on carrying out grain allocation. September 8, 1920

"4. The norm that must be left when calculating the grain allocation:

a) family members - 13 poods. 20 pounds, b) for sowing - 12 pounds, working horses - 19 pounds, d) foals - 5 pounds, e) cows - 5 pounds, f) calves - 5 pounds, etc. (Siberian norm even more than established in May 1918. - E.P.)

5. After determining the allocation for each village separately, members of the executive committee go to local communities and, based on household lists, make state and internal allocations for individuals.

Upon completion of the allotment, a list of names is drawn up indicating: what company, first name, surname, the amount of bread to be delivered, what the subscription is taken from, which determines the delivery date... The name list is submitted to the nearest dumping point, and a copy is left to the volost executive committee

6. When calculating for individuals, it is allowed to leave the norm for feeding livestock on the farm:

1) from one to 3 dessiatines - for one horse, from 4 to 6 dessiatines - for one horse and one foal, from 6 to 10 dessiatines. - for 2 horses and 2 foals, from 11 to 15 decades. - for 3 horses and 3 foals, etc.

2) the norm for livestock with one person is not left, with 2-3 people - for one calf, 4-5-6 and 7 - one cow and one calf, 8-9-10-11 people - for 2 cows and 2 calves, 12–13–14 and 15 people - 3 cows and 3 calves, etc.”

The percentage of poor people in the Tyumen province is unknown. But they were there, naturally, and they had to be fed. Therefore, in addition to state allocation, internal allocation was carried out.

From the instructions of the Tyumen Provincial Food Committee on carrying out internal grain allocation. October 12, 1920

Ҥ 2. According to the method of providing bread, the population is divided into groups: a) producers, provided by leaving them with products collected from their farms according to the norm of the People's Commissariat of Food... b) the population living in rural areas, but not engaged in agriculture, c) the population leading it in amounts that do not meet the annual food needs of farms.

§ 3. The rural population of the province, which does not have its own reserves or is provided with them for a period of less than one year, is supplied ... from the surplus remaining with producers in excess of the amount necessary to carry out state allocation and own consumption ...

§ 6. In parallel with the state appropriation, internal appropriation is carried out, i.e., the extraction of surpluses remaining with the kulaks, the middle peasants and the poor in excess of the amount after completing the appropriation and satisfying their needs according to the norm.

§ 7. All bread (wheat, rye, oats, barley, peas and cereals), which turns out to be in surplus during internal allocation, goes to the volost cooperative at the announced fixed price for bread...

§ 15. In order to receive rations, village councils draw up personal lists of farms that really need bread, indicating the number of eaters and the amount of missing bread - food and seed separately - and submit them to the volost executive committees...

§ 20. Until the organization of the card system in the county, each time food is issued, the wolf cooperative draws up a special personal list of those receiving rations, in which all those receiving food are signed...

§ 21. Products must be released strictly according to established standards - no more than 30 pounds per consumer per month - and at fixed prices established by the provincial food committee.”

This is what state policy towards peasants looked like in 1920. However, what kind of politics is there?! This is the practice of a besieged fortress: collect all the food and divide it among everyone in order to somehow survive until spring...

...So, first the state assignment, then the internal redistribution of grain to protect the local population from hunger. You can rent at fixed prices and buy at fixed prices. Surely, the surplus appropriation system was even beneficial for someone - if there was a shortfall in the task and after it was completed, there was more bread and other products left than normal. The opposite also happened - the task was overwhelming. Which is more common is unknown, because the peasants, naturally, always swore and swore that the grain was not harvested, was not threshed, there was nothing to hand over, and they themselves would certainly die of hunger. To understand the situation: this has always been stated by everyone, regardless of the actual amount of bread. Moreover, there was a direct reason for this: you don’t shout a lot, you quickly completed the task - and look no further, they’ll lay it out for those who didn’t pass. It’s easier for the provincial food director...

So the production workers had to solve the most complex economic and psychological puzzles. And they had twenty-five years of life behind them, of which from three to six were spent in war, parochial school and either revolutionary honesty, or criminal habits, or philistine selfishness. Which is worse is a philosophical question...

...Calling Siberian peasants to think about statesmanship and telling them about their starving compatriots was equally useless. Bread had to be taken away by force. The main acceptable punitive measures were a commodity blockade, fines, confiscation of property, and then hostage-taking was added.

A commodity blockade is an understandable thing. Villages that did not fulfill the food appropriation assignment were not supplied with industrial goods. The fourth measure is reflected in the following document.

Resolution No. 59 of the provincial control and inspection commission on carrying out food appropriation in Ishim district. Not earlier than December 21, 1920

“We, the undersigned, members of the provincial control and inspection commission for state appropriation in the Tyumen province ... have drawn up this resolution on the members of the Zhagrinsky village council: the chairman - Perezhogin Alexander Danilovich and members - Perezhogin Pavel Eremeevich, Lunev Fedor Fedotovich and Perezhogin Anton, that the above-named citizens, serving in The Zhagrinsky village council, until December 21, did not distribute the grain allocation to individual householders and refused to distribute it at the request of the provincial commission. The chairman of the village council currently had 7 ovins of unthreshed bread, 60 poods of grain, did not export a single pound to the state and refused to export it... Also, members of the Zhagrinsky village council categorically refused to carry out the allocation.

The provincial commission decided: members of the Zhagrinsky village council Perezhogin Alexander, Perezhogin Anton, Lunev Fedor to be arrested and sent to the Petukhovskaya food office to work as hostages until all state allocations for the Zhagrinsky society are fulfilled, then - council member Anton Perezhogin - to 14 days administratively with imprisonment "

Well, yes, we thought that if someone was taken hostage, then he would certainly be sent to a concentration camp and would certainly be shot. As we can see, it is not at all necessary. I wonder why Pavel was not touched, but Anton was given another two weeks of imprisonment? Maybe the first one decided to hand over the bread, and the second one got in the teeth of someone from the authorities?

For those who were particularly persistent and resistant, a measure such as confiscation was applied. By the way, what is its punitive meaning is still a big question. Here is what is written in the order of a member of the board of the provincial food committee, Myers:

“You must firmly remember that requisitions must be carried out without regard for the consequences, up to and including the confiscation of all the grain in the village, leaving the producers with a starvation standard.”

Well, how do you want to understand this? How does this measure differ from appropriation - everything except the norm is taken there, and here too. I have only one answer - money is paid for products taken according to allocation.

There were a wide variety of confiscations of property. Judging by the documents, the usual measure is confiscation of a quarter of the property, less often - half. If a person offered armed resistance or organized others, they could take everything, but also in a very unique way.

“2) All property of those who took part in the riot should be confiscated...

Note: Property should be subject to confiscation only that which personally belongs to the person who participated in the riot, but not to members of his family. If it is impossible to determine what property is the property of the family of a riot participant (for example, in relation to livestock or equipment) and is necessary for the family to maintain its economy, the determination of the part due to the family is made by the Volk Executive Committee or Volrevkom and is left to the family, and the rest is confiscated ... "

When I try to understand what it looked like in practice, my imagination simply fails me.

Where did the confiscated goods go? Food went to warehouses, as part of the allotment, but livestock and equipment were dealt with differently.

“The confiscation of property, according to Order No. 6, of 39 people arrested for opposing government appropriations and participating in counter-revolutionary actions on this basis, has been completed. Horses, sleighs and harnesses from the amount confiscated are distributed by the Aromashevsky Revolutionary Committee to the families of Red Army soldiers and the poor people of the volost.”

There is also the problem of illegal confiscations. If they were recognized as such (and this happened quite often), then the property was subject to return, and then the poor people who received it stood on their hind legs. Knots of accounts were being tied, which would begin to be cut as soon as the West Siberian uprising came to Tyumen.

Another problem is storage. Peasants throughout the country were outraged that the taken grain lay in heaps and rotted. Yes, it happened that it lay there and rotted, and the taken cattle died, and the potatoes froze. Not always - but each such incident echoed through the villages a thousand times. Of course, the evil Bolshevik authorities deliberately rotted food and experienced great and pure joy from every spoiled pood.

“If things go like this with the supply of wagons and containers, the grain risks remaining at the dumping points. Taking into account that the grain from the harvest of 20 is of very low quality and is covered with snow and ice, because threshing was not done on time (and maybe also to weigh more? - E.P.), with a further lack of containers during the first thaw, we are threatened with a terrible catastrophe. The bread may catch fire. And in this way, the possibility is not excluded that all the bread in the amount of up to 1.5 million poods will be spoiled... We cannot now say with confidence that the bread is no longer burning, since there is no way to check it with a probe, because it is impossible to push the probe further 3 arshins deep, because the bread below is frozen..."

But you can’t hide such a disgrace, and it’s not the peasants who bring the bread and ice themselves, but it’s not the food detachment workers who put it on them! - they immediately start shouting that the grain is burning and there is nothing to take, since you don’t know how to save it.

Two more documents about some of the nuances of development work at the interface between the detachment and the population.

From the report of A. Stepanov, a member of the provincial control and inspection commission for food appropriation. November 1920

“I would like to inform you that the allocation for the Suerskaya parish. were completely suspended due to the fact that the food detachment, which worked in the local volost under the leadership of Comrade. Babkin, had absolutely no work plans, but I was hiding my correct initiative. Wholesale searches were carried out, which could not yield any results. The people were recruited mostly from the philistine element, which brings complete disorganization to the villages. Drunkenness was noticed, and some members of the detachment were drunkenly tied to a table by citizens. The detachment stood for two months, and, despite the orders, the peasants’ grain was not threshed. The detachment had to be withdrawn due to lack of trust in him...”

“I... arrived in the Pinigino community with a detachment of 16 people and began energetically implementing state allocations... which have not yet been removed from the population. But after a few minutes, the Pinegin society grouped in the amount of 200 people, several of them on horseback, and approached us with the goal of prohibiting us from working, shouting counter-revolutionary words, refusing the orders of the Soviet government...

In addition, they categorically told us that we will not allow you to take out any bread. And they threatened us with various cases, unless you stop the work. In addition, I suggested several times to the assembled citizens that they should not interfere with their work. But after the proposal, the majority shouted that get out before it’s too late.”

In general, it’s both bad and not good. How good? And don’t pay taxes...

...And again, historical mythology says that the elimination of the surplus appropriation policy was a forced measure - either the Bolsheviks themselves realized its futility, or the peasant uprisings forced the Council of People's Commissars to do it. True, before its cancellation, one more event happened - a small, unnoticed one. And to say - ugh! - about nothing…

The war is over! But this, again, means absolutely nothing, because it is common knowledge that in its policy the Council of People’s Commissars was guided exclusively by communist ideas and visceral anger.

So, in the spring of 1921, almost immediately after the end of the main battles of the Civil War (but in no way as a result of this!) the surplus appropriation system was replaced by a tax in kind. Now, no longer for money, but for free, a fixed part of the harvest was taken from the peasant as a tax, while he could dispose of the rest at his own discretion.

Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the replacement of food and raw materials allocation with a tax in kind. March 21, 1921

"1. To ensure correct and calm management of the economy on the basis of freer disposal of the farmer with the products of his labor and his own economic means, to strengthen the peasant economy and increase its productivity, as well as to accurately establish state obligations falling on farmers, appropriation as a method of state procurement of food and raw materials and fodder is replaced by a tax in kind.

2. This tax should be less than that imposed hitherto through appropriation. The amount of the tax should be calculated so as to cover the most necessary needs of the army, urban workers and the non-agricultural population. The total amount of the tax should be constantly reduced as the restoration of transport and industry allows the Soviet government to receive agricultural products in exchange for factory and handicraft products.

3. The tax is levied in the form of a percentage or share of the products produced on the farm, based on the harvest, the number of eaters on the farm and the presence of livestock on it.

4. The tax must be progressive; the percentage of deductions for farms of middle peasants, low-income owners and for farms of urban workers should be reduced. The farms of the poorest peasants may be exempt from some, and in exceptional cases from all types of taxes in kind.

Diligent peasant owners who increase the sowing area on their farms, as well as increase the productivity of farms as a whole, receive benefits for the implementation of the tax in kind. (...)

7. Responsibility for fulfilling the tax is assigned to each individual owner, and the bodies of Soviet power are instructed to impose penalties on everyone who has not complied with the tax. Circular liability is abolished.

To control the application and implementation of the tax, organizations of local peasants are formed according to groups of payers of different tax amounts.

8. All supplies of food, raw materials and fodder remaining with farmers after they have fulfilled the tax are at their full disposal and can be used by them to improve and strengthen their economy, to increase personal consumption and for exchange for products of factory and handicraft industries and agricultural production. Exchange is allowed within the limits of local economic turnover, both through cooperative organizations and in markets and bazaars.

9. Those farmers who wish to hand over the surplus remaining to them after completing the tax to the state, in exchange for these voluntarily surrendered surpluses, should be provided with consumer goods and agricultural implements. For this purpose, a state permanent stock of agricultural implements and consumer goods is created, both from domestically produced products and from products purchased abroad. For the latter purpose, part of the state gold fund and part of the harvested raw materials are allocated.

10. Supply of the poorest rural population is carried out in the state order according to special rules. (...)"

The method of calculating the tax was determined in the decree on the tax in kind on bread, potatoes and oilseeds. Anyone who needs its exact text can refer to the Izvestia newspaper of April 21, 1921. And here, for variety and fun, we honor him in poetic form, in the form of captions for a series of posters. There have been such miracles in our art...