There cannot be any citizenship
without economic independence
P.A. Stolypin
In the autumn of 1996 my aunties and I visited Bolshaya Nichka which can be called a large village today. They hardly recognized their house – the shutters and window frames were pulled down, kitchen and porch completely destroyed, nothing was left of the enclosure or of the former farm buildings. Everything had been ransacked. One half of the house was entirely deserted, the other was occupied by some temporary inmates.
Maria Semyonovna was totally confused and did not dind the words to describe the indig-nation she felt at the sight of this barbaric destruction.
I turned my steps to my parents’ house. Having recerived the permission of the master I visited the yard and then entered the house. I felt myself in familiar surroundings: this very izba (log hut), its interior, the farm buildings, all this had remained in unchanged condition, for through all these years the farmstead had been lead by private owners. When they learned who I was, they asked me about when the house was built.
Afterwards we went to see the eldest villager, Natalya Ivanovna Reshetnikova, who lived in one half of a former kulak farm in this street. Then we conversed with the landlady for a short time. Evening was already drawing and a long-lasting, cold rain set in. We hurried up to get home.
And then, in Abakan, just this very same fate brought me together with the old D.T. Gubin, who came from this village and who I had already earlier been acqainted with. Once when we were waiting in a long queue in front of a special shop for front-line soldiers to get some food against ration cards, we purely accidentally stood beside each other and where overjoyed in finding out in the course of our conversation that we were both born in Bolshaya Nichka.
Danil Timofeyevich first saw the light of say in 1911, he knows all our village relatives, the rememberances of the collectivization and dekulakization of the farmers are engraved on his mind. From time to time we still meet each other and then like to talk as people who come from the same part of the country would usually do.
In one of her accounts Maria Semyonovna mentioned the very last re-allotment of land in the village, whereby I was particularly interested in the fact that the members of the village community did not divide the area of arable land between themselves in the traditional way, but according to new, unhabitual rules. When did this happen?
“The last time the plowland was divided one year before the formation of the kolkhoz”, explains Maria Semyonovna. They did not give each family allotments in different places as they had done in former times, but rural commune land. Some farmer went away to a khutor (solitary farm) and we came to a couple of dessiatinas near the Sakharov mountains.
Exactly the same was reported by D. T. Gubin. His family was alloted tillable soil not far from Mala Nichka. According to his words and to what the aunts reported that year represented the brightest moment in their grain-grower lives with regard to a sucessful cultivation. I do not understand how the members of the rural commune were able to divide the land in accordance with Stolypin’s land reform during the Soviet times. But maybe he proceeded in the same way with farmers of other large villages, as well? No, this we would not be able to believe.
And only in the summer of 1997 I learned from the archives of the Bolshenichinsk village Soviet that this was probably a unique event of its kind upon the allotment of communal land under the Soviet power.
The time of the allotment was to be in the middle of the 1920s. At this time the rural way of life started to change considerably. But one thing remained unchanging for ever. Both under the Tsarism and the Soviet power grain was the most important and main product – and farmland the field of activity the farmers put most of their efforts in. The soil was an integral part of their lives.
Within four years after the introduction of the tax in kind, the grain-growers increased the gross yield of their fields due to the extension of the sown area, an improved quality of the seeds and better possibilities of tillage. A wondrous stimulation and upswing of the agriculture prevailed all over the district and even beyond.
Already late in 1925 farming in the Yenisseysk government had not only been completely restored, but even excelled the best results of the pre-war period. The extention of the sown areas amounted to 755.580 dessiatinis, the gross crop yield 59,1 million puds – 22,9 million puds from it representing the surplus (History of the Krasnoyarsk region, 1967, page 179). A big part of this overflow fell to the grain-growers living in the Minusinsk district, the breadbasket of the government.
Under the conditions of the market economy the members of the Bolshaya Nichka rural commune aimed at the increase of the crop yield. And every spring the farmers started reflecting once again on the next crop, on the long-hoped-for grain. What would it turn out to be this year? Would they succeed to bring in the harvest without any losses?
But by itself the soil cannot be more productive than the plowmen wished it to be. What hindered them from spreading out full speed ahead?
The common order of landed property tied the grain-growers hand and feet. For this reason Semyon Konstantinovich and his son Stepan, who jointly cultivated their soil, as did the other members of the commune, had to face enormous problems and suffered great losses.
First of all the allotments were spread into three or four plots: some lay quite near the village, the others in opposite directions and 8 or 12 kms away from each other. During the very exhausting seasonal work the plowman, in addition, had to run from one plot to the other; the plows and harrows had to be drawn from one place to the other by huge carriages, and practi-cally the complete farming utensils and machines had to be moved there and back.
Under such added difficulties some of the farmers did not always succeed in cultivating the soil with the necessary care; they missed the best time for sowing or harvesting. Upon this unproductive waste of force, means and time the cost price for each pud of grain went up. The cereals got lost somewhere on the allotment or on the uneven lanes, where the sheaves were transported away to the treshing floor.
But there also was one good thing about all this: it never happened that the whole seeded land was exposed to hail showers in the summer, so that the undamaged fields would always help the farmer out of this difficulty – he would always be provided with the necessary grain at least from one plot.
Secondly, the manifoldness of cultivating the allotments caught one’s eye. Any member of the commune could happen to get into the situation that, during the re-allotment,, his well-kept plots fell to the neighbour, while he himself received some badly cultivated plowland, which someone else had left as a fallow field. One could come by such a neglected piece of land, where an idle owner had sewn rye, but the results were orache only. Due to to the carelessness and slovenliness of someone else you are forced to incur damages.
Thus it happened that some were very happy after the re-allotment, while others felt displeasure. A part of the farmers lost all enthusiasm for cultivating their farmland on the basis of better methods and by this means increase the crop yield. And as a consequence, richness and fertility went down, now on this plot, then on the other.
But that is not yet all. All farmers had to pay taxes to the commune. And, once again, this was very convenient to the sluggards.
During the period of the NEP (New Economic Policy) the farmers lacked all drive. It was now important for them to, firstly, own land and, secondly, dispose of it completely at their own discretion – be one’s own master and an independent commodity producer. Each commune settled the landed property matters in its own way. There was a decree in the village of Klyuchi, passed in March 1925, concerning the “Sentence of the Klyuchinsk land association about the re-allotment of plowland”: “Based on an article of the Land Code the whole commune is obliged to change from the fallow land system to the four-field system, whereby each house-holder is going to receive not more than two strips of each type of field. The allot-ment comprises plowland only. It will be carried through in accordance with the number of eaters within the family, for a period of 12 years at the time, whereby an equalization among the farm-steads will take place every four years, then taking into consideration alterations by births, deaths and the removal of members of the farm household.
In Bolshaya Nichka many members of the commune declared themselves for the setting-up of the new order of land utilization. Thus, on the 7th of March 1926 the question on “the allotment of plowland and its utilization” was discussed in a public meeting, under the chairmanship of Zhilkin (his first name is not mentioned). What kind of utilization did they talk about? We know from the accounts rendered by the village Soviet for the 3rd quarter of the year 1926 that the land association decided to allot land owned by the commune for own use and to change to the four-field system (crop rotation), i.e. to carry out a land reform according to the habitual economic way of life. On the 27th of January 1927 the village of Bolshaya Nichka elected Stepan Zhilkin, son of a farmer, chairman of the village Soviet. At that time my father was 26 years old. Until then he had often presided over public meetings, had been at the head of leading commissions and elected member of the village Soviet.
The executive power undertook active efforts to set all preparations for the realization of the kand reform going. On the 23rd of February of the same year there was a meeting of all members of the land association under the chairmanship of Pavel Pavlovich Zhilkin. The people crowded in the club, until no more participants would fit in – 168 persons, among them 130 representatives of the farmers; the remaining were land utilizers with equal rights.
And this is intelligible to everyone: on the meeting they discussed the general principles of the new allotment system, which affected the interests of each crop farmer’s family. Upon careful consideration the land association dropped a collective decision, not leaving any unsettled points. No rights were restricted at all; the wishes and proposals of all farmers were taken into consideration.
On the 23rd of May there was an additional meeting of the land association, on which was decided the following: “The land of the rural commune will all be alloted in the same place; the allotment will be carried through by assessing the soil”. These plots were to serve for the farmers’ own land utilization, however they did not become their private property. Nonetheless the farmers hoped to be able to acquire some plowland and become its fully entitled owners, thus having the guarantee that their work was not done in vain and that this plot would later pass over to their children and grand-children by hereditary succession. During the meeting they also elected authorized representatives of the association for the protection of the interests of the soil utilizers.
In July, on the occasion of an extended meeting, on which representatives of the neighbouring public took part as well, I.I. Sheverduk, the land organizer, explained the main rules of the new allotment system.
In the summer of 1927 the village Soviet decided “to stop plowing the stubble field until the spring of 1928, i.e. until the planned re-allotment of communal land for own utilization”.
And in Moscow the Bolsheviks solemnly celebrate the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution and will call this subversion the Great Socialist October Revolution in the future.
But even Lenin always pointed out that an event like a socialist revolution cannot be carried out in one country only, that the socialist alterations would start from backward Russia, as soon as the revolution had gained the victory in the most important European countries.
Leaders, incapable of thinking and considering reasonably, will give cause that the basic ideology of their teacher will fall into oblivion, and all the phrases yet mentioned in the 2nd and 3rd editions of his work will be taken out of the 4th and 5th, although they are called his collected works.
The Bolsheviks eagerly began to build up socialism in one country. They did not take the past as a standard, but the future socialsit society. The party is going to educate the new man in the spirit of its full preparedness to make any sacrifices in the name of this brilliant future. And
V. Mayakovskiy, the poet, immediately reacted with the following watchword lines: “I praise my fatherland such as it is, but I will praise it three times as much, such as it will be in the future”. Thus began the glossing over ov Soviet activities.
In December 1927, on the occasion of its XVth party conference, the All-Russian Communist Party of the Bolsheviks announced the policy for the collectivization of agriculture. In no archival protocol or document have I ever seen a single word about the month of October 1917 or about any decisions dropped on the party meeting.
On their meeting held to hear reports and elect new officials the villagers of Bolshaya Nichka once again nominated Stepan Zhilkin as head of the village Soviet. The chairman had already been elected for a period of one year.
The council was facing unpostponable matters of rural life. In March 1928, for example, they had decided to “transport wood for the construction of the teacher’s house (69 switches) to the place free of charge”. And one week later they heard an extensive report of the regional expert about a radio installation, including explanations on “what one would need such an equipment for, what practical advantage it had for the farmers and how much it cost. The fact was that even the realization of radio sets, as well as any other innovation, was considered by the village Soviet from a pragmatic point of view.
In the spring of 1928 the chairman himself, the members of the village Soviet, the depart-ments of agriculture and the authorized members of the land association took part in the surveying of the plowland, the determination of solitary farm plots and the allotment of ground belonging to the village commune for own utilization, specified in groups in accordance with how many people lived in the household.
In Bolshaya Nichka a solemn event took place – each farmer was now sowing grain on a single piece of land. This meant that the rural commune dissolved and became part of the past. The grain prower himself became the lord of the land, which the local executive power had alloted to him as own property.
The eager farmers began to work with an all-out effort, trying to avoid high costs and to get as many high-quality products out of every single dessiatina of land as possible; they showed initiative and enterprise in agricultural things. Just in doing this way the farmers hoped to strengthen theier material situation.
And fate decreed that Zhilkin’s land was just situated on the same ground near the Sakharov mountains, where our ancestor Grigoriy broke new land, too.
The Zhilkins, like all the other eager grain growers, tried hard to put their pieve of land in good order by economic means. In a place well-suited for a field-camp he built some kind of shed with a thatched roof and a comfortable booth.
They plowed the the fallow-land, twice cut furrows by means of a ciltivator, then cultivated the field by a harrow three times. Each strip of land plowed in the spring was prepared according to its determination- with wheat, rye, oats and millet.
Semyon Konstantinovich, however, was not in a hurry at all to sow his plot on the off-chance. This local resident, who had been born not far from this place, had a fine flair for nature; he figured out the best moments for sowing, depending on the weather and wind conditions. He compared some characteristic features with those of the past years: the arrival of the birds, the bursting open of the buds, the behaviour of the animals and others. He furthermore considered the existence of wetness in the ground, the change of the moon, the change of atmospheric appearances. One could always rely on the unique methods of this racy meteorologist. They started sowing at sunrise. Step by step Semyon Konstantinovich strode through the field, alternately scattering to the right and to the left a handful of seeds, which he took from a linen bag hanging with a rope around his shoulder. Ivan brough his father the seeds and as soon as he had left the field again, Masha, sitting on a horse, arrived with the harrow. Semyon Konstantinovich was an experienced and successful sower. Not without reason the relatives called for him to have him sewn their fields, as well.
That very year they expected to bring in not a bad harvest. And, in fact, in July the Red Summer rolled up, pushing the farmers to leave for the hay-harvest. The haymaking season was a long and hard time; every single wasted hour would cost the grain-grower a great deal. Adults and children took part in the field work, and even Nikolay Zhilkin arrived from Minusinsk.
On the old fallow land, where they had been alloted plowland, they mowed two cart-loads of grain, which in the winter, when all the animals were kept in the stables, was exclusively fed to the horses, sheep and calves. The two milk cows were fed on straw from the summer wheat with some extra turnips. Thus, the cows were well-fed and fattened – at least the milk produce did not decrease.
The grain stood in full ear – the wheat and rye fields stood there like a wall. The crop yield itself and the procedure of bringing in the harvest were quite different this time, particularly as scythe and sickle had become a relict od the past. They were replaced by the harvester. And the grain grower’s family was overjoyed about the new machine on the field, with a team of horses in front; a machine that cut off the halms and lay them together on the stubble field in even heaps. Those under age sheaved them and took them over to the sheaf collectors, who swiftly arranged them into stooks. During this hard harvest time the grain growers’ families spent day and night in the field, going home only once a week to wash themselves in the bath-house.
Taking full advantage of the best period for harvesting, the farmers increased the effectivity by separate working processes. Now the milky, waxen-looking ears did not remain rooted in the ground for such a long time any more and did not fall off either. Now they let the ears fully ripen on the sunny field in the shieves, in the barns and in the threshings – since this would keep the many nutrients in the halms. Possible losses in the harvest had been reduced to a minimum.
From the field to the barn it was only a stone’s throw, three versts, always straight ahead. On one of the huge rack waggons drawn by horse Sokol, the transported the sheaves home. And the eleven year old Masha driving the carriage sat there with the reins in her hands, ruling like a true coachwoman. The father had charged his daughter with this task without having any objections, since he was very well aware of the fact that Sokol would bring the freight to the barn without force or compulsion. And there the adults would unload the rack waggon and store the sheaves in the haystack. On the same well-known lane the clever horse took Masha and the empty carriage back to the field in a slight trot.
The grain-growers were given back a hundredfold of what they had done to their plowland – compared to the previous years there was a multiple increase of grinded grain. The ears almost bore double as much.
At first sight things kept going well in the village council. Among the villagers they carried through a successful collection of signatures obliging the farmers to pay the second govern-ment bond for industrialization. Among the 13 active subscribers also were the three Zhilkins: Mikhail Andreyevich – 50 rubels, Stepan Semyonovich – 20 rubels, Innokentiy Pavlovich – 35 rubels. The village Soviet opened a school to eliminate illiteracy among the adult population in the age group of 16-35 years. Then my mum, too, began to read and write complete sentences.
The chief of the village Soviet increased the number of activists and called in the two Komsomol leaders Filipp Kuzevanov and Ivan Burtsev to help with the work of the autonomy organs. The least was from a family of post-war settlers and had also grown up without his father, who had yet succeeded to build a simple, remote log hut, but soonafter died from typhus.
In that very year 1928, on the occasion of a meeting of the village counsil and other public gatherings, they did not leave out the question of how to supply grain in view of the many serious problems that had occurred. For many farmsteads, again and again, underfulfilled their work quota in connexion with the State grain deliveries to a considerable extent. And some farmers even completely ceased to sell grain to the State. And this just happened in a time, when the farmsteads had heaped up quite a lot of it.
What are the reasons of the rise of such a situation? The farmers refused to sell their grain surplus at a loss. The village Soviet requested and obliged them not to put up resistence, but did not use any force or compulsory measures.
Nevertheless the failure of grain deliveries continued. And then, as per directives from above, a higher taxation of the farmers was introduced.
From V. Zhilkin’s book “The last re-allotment of land.
Narration of a descendent of farmers affected by this situation.
Abakan, 2000