REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

236
Remembrance in Time
was very clear. The reply of a village from the region of Samara to the food robbery and
to the brief execution of a few peasants consisted in beheading the 12 members of the
food brigade, as well as in exposing the murdered activists’ heads at the entrance in the
village, in guise of warning for other brigades. Three weeks later, the village was
bombarded by the army and subsequently burnt down. Another means used by the
Bolshevik authorities consisted in organizing “blocking detachments” – they controlled
and seized the products of those attempting to reach the cities. Beside cereals, pecuniary
means, clothes and alcoholic drinks were seized 13 .
Another method for “collecting” the grains, which vitiated the rural society, consisted in
artificially dividing the peasants into “wealthy” and “poor”, in using the latter as poorpeasant
committees. The respective committees were organized on a local level under the
leadership of the Agricultural Commissioner and of the Soviets’ Executive Central
Committee. According to the decree VTsK from the 11 th of June 1918, signed by Lenin as
president of the Council of the People’s Commissars, combedy were authorized to
distribute the bread, to support the local supply organs in the activity of seizing the
“surplus from the hands of the koulaks” and benefited from privileges in distributing the
seized products and from discounts in buying the bread seized from the so-called koulaks.
In the localities wherefrom the “surplus” was thoroughly seized, the committees benefited
from a discount of 50% in buying the essentials of living and the agricultural machinery;
and in those that “energetically helped the alimentary organs” they were remunerated
with free of charge use of the more sophisticated agricultural machinery 14 .
Another normative act, with destructive effect on the agricultural producers, signed by
Lenin, on the 11 th of January 1919, was the Decree as regards razverstka 15 between the
provinces producing grain and fodder to be placed at the State’s disposal. To the purpose
of ensuring the urgent bread supply of the Red Army and of the “breadless districts”,
strict rules were set for alienating the “grain and fodder surplus to the State’s benefit”.
Razverstka was applied to the cereals meant for trading, but also to those meant for the
agricultural campaign; and meant the taking over of the grain and the fodder from the
population at State-fixed prices (derisory) in very short timelines – 1 st of March,
respectively, 15 th of June. The peasants who did not observe the share-delivery timelines
were confiscated the reserves discovered by the food agents and those who hid the
reserves or opposed the delivery were to be sanctioned, including by wealth confiscation
or prison. This way, the entire agriculture was subordinated to the State interests or, better
said, to the huge administrative apparatus, police and army 16 .
As a matter of fact, by the year 1919, the peasant could only retain from his own
production what was strictly necessary to his family – the rest had to be delivered to the
State, so as to receive in exchange industrial goods. This is where there intervened, on
one hand, the peasants’ resistance, hiding the agricultural surplus and, on the other hand,
the requisition measures. The villagers answered in many regions with “bloody and
permanent” uprisings 17 . In Siberia, in the meadow of the river Uda, the revolution had
13 O. Figes, A people`s tragedy…, op. cit., pp. 618-620, 622-623.
14 I.M. Volkov et. all., Documents and Materials…, op. cit., pp. 83-85.
15 The obligation to deliver towards the State the surplus of alimentary products.
16 I.M. Volkov et. all., Documents and Materials…, op. cit., pp. 112-113.
17 E. Bufnea, Cruciaders, Tirants and Thieves, vol. II “In Kolceak’s Siberia” (in Romanian), Baia
Mare, Marist Publishing, 2008, p. 25.