REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

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Remembrance in Time
bread and all cattle he possesses”. Such mass requisitions were accompanied by
conflicts and riots, the peasants used the women and children as human shield against
the detachments. Military units likewise organized requisitions 20 .
On the 11 th of January 1920, A.M. Bolshakov showed in a report what happened to the
cereals confiscated from the county of Shatsk, province of Tambov: “To the extent of
necessity, detachments were called for to lift the surpluses; cases are sometimes met of
taking the last bread, not letting even the peasant’s ration. This system gives us no right to
hope that peasants will succeed next year in sowing the fields. Furthermore, in the
collection points, there are 250 thousand grain poods, waiting to be loaded and
transported to the Centre, however they do not give us wagons. Because of the improper
depositing spaces, the wheat begins to rot”. In these conditions, according to a report of
the Provincial Party Committee, until the 1 st of February 1920, in Tambov, 10 million
poods of grain were collected from the plan of 27 million poods. The abuses perpetrated
by the alimentary agents were known. The agitations intensify as, during the collection,
the requisition detachments resort to inadmissible repressions: the peasants are beaten,
locked in cold barns”. The answer of the abused village consisted in the mass
assassination of the communists involved in collection campaigns 21 .
We intentionally presented the requisition actions, the army or the paramilitary units
playing an important part in the alimentary and riot-repression campaigns. In the regions
wherein the “collection” was more ferocious, during the years 1921-1922, the famine has
made the largest ravages 22 . The peasants’ generalized resistance manifested not only
under passive forms, but also under the one of the armed revolts, on a local and regional
level. If, in the year 1918, there were assassinated 200 members of the “food brigades”, in
the year 1919, the figure rose to almost 5 000, and in 1920 – above 8.000. By the year
1920, Soviet Ukraine was crossed by anti-Bolshevik revolts 23 , and Central Russia by the
peasants upraised under Antonov’s leadership. In Belarus, the revolts forced the
evacuation of Minsk and Smolensk. The regions Voronej, Saratov, Samara, Simbirsk and
Penza were seething. In the mountains Caucasus, the insurgents’ number exceeded 30
000. In Siberia, the regions Tyumen, Omsk, Chelyabinsk, Tobolsk, Ekaterinburg and
Tomsk stood out. The industrial activity of the cities was blocked by the workers’ strikes.
The bread ration was reduced to 1/3 24 .
The consumption per capita diminished for some products by up to 95% as compared to
the pre-war years 25 . The topic of the food was discussed in all corners of Russia. At the
Metallurgic Workers’ Conference, from February 1921, Lenin qualified the internal
situation in the following terms: “This winter, the peasants are in a desperate situation.
The peasants must sow the entire area; otherwise we will perish – indisputably!” Lenin
admitted that rail transportation was no longer functional, which meant the impossibility
20 V.P. Danilov, L.G. Protasov etc., Antonovschina. The Peasants’ Revolt in the Tambov Gubernia.
1920-1921 (in Russian), State Archives Tambov, Tambov, 2007, pp. 103, 110-113.
21 Ibidem, pp. 114, 124, 134.
22 O. Figes, A people`s tragedy…, op. cit., pp. 752-753.
23 See the insurgence movement of the peasants in V.A. Smoli (coord.), The History of the
Ukrainian Peasantry (in Ukrainian), vol. II, Kyiv, Naukova Dumka Publishing, 2006, pp. 7-19.
24 O. Figes, A people`s tragedy…, op. cit., pp. 753, 758-759.
25 See comparative table in F.A. Golder, On the trial of the Russian Famine, California, Stanford
University Press, 1927, pp. 10-11.