The exotic character of bygone days
A rather extraordinary document was delivered to the editorial staff: the copy of shorthand notes taken down during the first district party conference, which took place in Dudinka in January 1932 – almost six centuries ago. A bulky tome covered by y vinyle wrapper, the typewritten letters all blurred. Nowadays this document is of great historical value. But, as we all know, history is like an incalculable lady. And here we have a good example confirming this statement: in 1932 the town of Norilsk was considered … a town with no prospects, no future at all!
35 delegates (among them 3 women) met for the conference. Due to their social position most of them were workers or employees (15 people), civil servants, pour peasants and simple farm workers. Among the delegates were five individuals, who were hardly able to read and write, as well as four entirely illiterate persons. Some delegees were even accompanied by interpreters, since they did not have a good command of the Russian language.
The National Region of Taymyr (its administrative organs were still situated in Turukhansk at that time) did not cover a very large territory – it just comprised four newly created districts, 20 native Soviets, two settlement Soviets and one village Soviet. The region numbered 7650 inhabitants, most of them (5734) being “natives” (as they would call the representatives of the aboriginal population even in official documents): Yuraks, Dolganes, Samoyeds, Yakuts, Tungus and tundra farmers. There were 1444 Russians, whose vast majority was made up by newcomers (workers) and Soviet party workers (447 representatives of the working peasantry).
Which were the annoying subjects discussed on the conference that very year (among the delegates were a number of representatives from Norilsk)? There were a lot of things to worry about, as, for example, the fight against some stilol existing traces of the Russian upper middle class with all its capricious ideas, or those intricacies, those confusions in national policy (a current problem of the Taimyr peninsula) – as a result of which two Communists had lost their party membership books. They had fought against some parasitic element: during a purge 12 individuals were “kicked” out of the party (8 of them accompanied by the additional remark: “…for being unable to fulfill the directives”.
The fight against the kulaks was characterized by special activities: at that time their herds comprised more than 42000 reindeers. The large farmers did not want to surrender them to the kolkhos farms – under no circumstances – and therefore decided to let them run away into the wilderness, into the tundra, where their members of the same species lived. Early in the 1930s the economy of the Taymyr Region was characterized by feudal tendencies – most of the very first kolkhoz farms even arose on the basis of stock-breeding farms, which did not make any sense ata all. For in the third year of collectivization merely 16% of the farmsteads in Taymyr Region had been “nationalized”.
The party activists discussed this problem quite often. How, as to give just an example, were they to put in order and reliably carry out the registration of red partisans in the region? Or how to treat particularities in national policy when working with party members, who came from among the aboriginal population? There were simply too many offences against party customs: it would happen that one of the native Communists was not in possession of any registration cards, or he did not leave “his” tundra area for one-and-a-half years, so that his membership fee remained unpaid for a long time. Another big problem was the awful, widespread famine. All over Taymyr Region there were three schools, six teachers, as well as 75 aboriginees in all, who were able to read and write. This is why the Communists on Taymyr peninsula considered it their priority task to organize four-month courses in Soviet party work and discipline.
You are asking – and what about Norilsk? One obviously has the impression that Norilsk did not exist at that time at all. It very rarely happens that someone from among the delegees recalls its existence. Reports only casually mention that there were copper, nickel and coal deposits in the region, which had been discovered by a geologist called Vorontsov, and that some industrial enterprise was run there – the Norilsk mine (with raw material ressources several thousand millions worth). However, the main investment, as we would say today, concentrated on entirely different sectors. The reindeer sovkhoz, for example, was granted a credit of 1 million rubels. One third of the money, as it was stressed out during the conference, was spent on the repairing of various technical equipment. Although Turukhansk promised to assign ten tractors, they were once again not sent to Norilsk, but used for the construction of the winter road, instead, because the winter road was urgently needed for the transportation of fish.
The main pillars of the Taymyrsk economy, as before, were fishing and hunting for fur-bearing animals. The State trading company and the Russian Furs Organisation were steadily increasing their planned quota, and the management even intended to erect a number of tinning factories (fish) disposing of an annual capacity of 3,5 millions of tins. Apart from this, they placed their hopes in the industrial trading posts situated along the rivers Dudypta, Khatanga, Piasino and Kheta. In Norilsk District, however, they even succeeded in catching up to one hundred whitefish at once by using one single fishing net only. Nor did the hunters fall into oblivion: polar foxes, partridges (the plan for 1932 was based on the assumption that 100000 partridges would eb killed). But nobody was talking about Norilsk coal, copper, nickel, cobalt, including their alloying components. In 1932 Norilsk numbered among the places with only little prospects for a good future. Six million rubels had been spent on geological exploitations in Norilks District; thex ahd already been carried out in 1922. This, however, did not make much too much sense:valuable tractors, which had been left behind on the winter road, were washed away when the river was flooding in the following spring. Having practiced such an unbelievable uneconomicalness, the Taymyrsk Communists, of course, did not want to listen to any proposals to invest any money on construction projects in Norilsk – it was much easier to close the whole place down. The question of a temporary close-down of Norilsk was even discussed on a special session of the Planning Committee. And unless this Kuibyshev had taken drastic action in this matter, the exploitation of Norilsk would have been postponed for years, if not for decades …
Extract from the speech of the leader of the Norilsk construction project, comrade ZAREMBO (party member since 1920):
“It became apparent that the development of the Norilsk construction project is getting on very slowly. The work results of the Geological Committee are not satisfactory at all. They did their job unconcerned and without showing the slightest enthusiasm. Maybe, the reason for their indifference is the existence of elements unknown to us. Even the Norilsk construction administration made three times as much as before, and our prospectors found rich ore deposits. Now we must start to categorically request the building of the town of Norilsk … . Until today Norilsk was veiled by an unknown darkness. It seems as if they could not do without any acts of sabotage on the administrative sector of the non-ferrous metal and gold ore industries, from which came the first initiative and which now persistently remind the responsible persons of the necessity to develop Norilsk. A railroad line has to be built from Norilsk to Dudinka as soon as possible … by als o considering the cultural development of the aboriginal population … Someone commented on the Norilsk party cell that it assumed a rather opportunistic attitude towards this problem. But if this was true, they would have chased us away since long – this is my opinion. The housing situation in Norilsk is really awful. Construction activities are moderate to slow, and we are not in a position to extricate ourselves from such a crisis at once. Another sore point in this connection is the posts and telecommunications. In January I received by mail a number of administrative instructions, which were from the months of Juky and August, and in which we were requested to carry out the decisions of the Central Committee. These decisions were published in the press, but we have never ever seen these newspapers …
Extracts from speeches of some of the delegates, who attended the conference:
“The workers must be assigned suitable apartments; otherwise they have to cope with worse living conditions than capitalists”.
“Let’s take the problem of the construction of the kolkhoz within the Norilsk National Sovkhoz as an example. There they have people like Albei and Yerotskiy, who tried to oppose the kolkhoz system by all means. They number Yerotskiy among the peasants of average means, but I think you just have to examine him a little closer – and you will look upon him as one of the typical representatives of the large farmers”.
“ … For this reason theparty organization principally requests the completion of the road leading from the trading post to Dudinka and forget about the railroad line from Norilsk to Dudinka for the time being. On one of the conferences of the District Planning Committee Vedernikov said: “You better give us ten tractors, but to build this road means wasting millions of rubels. The more since 80 kms away from Dudinka six thousand puds of fish are getting spoiled, and there is no possibility to transportthem off. It is a matter of utmost necessity and urgency to reduce the number of fishermen living along the banks of the Yenisey, by reducing living space in an appropriate way at the same time”.
“Only one Communist is said to be addicted to drink – I don’t believe that. This estimate is by far too low!”
“ … In Avama there is a kolkhoz farm, which is being messed up by the rich reindeer owner and shaman Suzdalev (600 head of reindeers)”.
“ … We have to criticize you for merely practicing such an extensive administrative work, but for leaving everythjing to chance in a very opportunistic way”.
“ … In the tinning factory in Uport they discovered individuals, who had been deprived of the right to vote and of other civil rights, because they belong to the working class and, in addition to this, were carried away by leftist inclinations”.
“ … Smetskoi left the place. He took along some alcohol and his bedstead. It turned out that he hired a certain Zabelin, who had run away from Tversk Region, where he had embezzled a large sum of public funds. He talked his way out of the situation by putting the blame on another Communist (and this man hung himself in an act of despair)”.
“ … This kind of an attitude is beyond me. The chairman of the Committee of the Arctic Ocean Sea Route Organization – Smetskoi -, for example, calles Dudinka an “operetta”; he says that it doesnot arouse any bigger interest than the queen of hearts in a card game, that life there is boring and dull”.
“ … They disregard the due application of the funds as directed: there are 120 reindeers, but only four herdsmen were assigned to mind them. Thus, they only managed to make up one span a day. The herdsmen did not pay their way.
“ … It’s true, your workers live under miserable conditions, but from the psychologic point of view you must understand that this will not be the case for a long time; it is only temporary.
“ … The completion of the Sovkhoz reindeer herd os one of the drawbacks of the system – 47 percent! And all the rest are nothing but indocile bulls”.
Vi. Tolstov, “Zapolnarnaia Pravda” No. 121 (12359) of 14.08.2000
(Newspaper published in Norilsk)