The agriculture of the Soviet Union, undermined by the First World War and the Civil War, was restored only by 1927. The rapid growth of industrial centers and, as a result of this process, an increase in the urban population required greater production of bread. I.V. Stalin believed that large industrial grain farms should solve this problem.

On August 1, 1928, the Decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR “On the organization of large grain farms” was adopted, and on November 7, 1929, Stalin’s article “The Year of the Great Break” was published in the Pravda newspaper, which became the starting point for collectivization in the Soviet Union.

In December 1929, Stalin proclaimed a transition from a policy of restricting the kulaks to a policy of liquidating them as a class. The main grain-producing regions of the country where collectivization was to be carried out were designated.

This event was carried out forcibly, and naturally, this could not but be opposed by the peasants. In 1929, the OGPU liquidated 7305 anti-Soviet organizations and arrested 95 208 people. 1190 mass demonstrations were recorded, mainly based on collectivization.Footnote 1

On January 30, 1930, the Central Committee of the All-Union Comm, pp.unist Party of Bolsheviks (AUCPB), by its resolution “On measures to eliminate kulak farms in areas of complete collectivization,” authorized the OGPU to carry out further repressions, which were to be carried out mainly before sowing the harvest in spring. Following up on this decree, OGPU order No. 44/21 of February 2, 1930 proposed that the task be carried out with the support of the poor and middle peasants. At the same time, the territorial security agencies were asked to take measures to eliminate kulak assets and evict kulaks and their families from settlements with the confiscation of their property.

Under the authorized representation of the OGPU, troikas were created, with representatives of the regional committees of the AUCPB and the prosecutor’s office, at which it was planned to quickly conduct an investigation and consider cases out of court. Collection points were created to arrange for the deportees to be sent to their new places of residence. The timing of the eviction operation for different regions was set individually. Thus for the SKK, SVK, and NVK, on February 10; in the Ukrainian SSRand in the Central Chernobyl region, on February 15; and in the BSSR on March 1, 1930. The number of deportees and places of deportation were also determined. First of all, 14 000 people were evicted to the Urals, to Kazakhstan, to the Northern Territory, and Siberia. In the second stage, it was planned to evict to the Norther Territory, from Leningrad region, 6000 people; Republic of Tatarstan, 4000; from the Republic of Belarus, 5000; and from the Crimea, 3000 to the Northern Territory. From Moscow oblast, 15 000 people to Siberia, etc.Footnote 2

In areas of continuous collectivization, almost all peasants were forcibly driven to collective farms. For those who did not want to join the collective farm, punishment was provided in the form of deprivation of voting rights and dispossession, which included confiscation of property and imprisonment. By such methods, in the first quarter of 1930, it was possible to almost triple the number of those who signed up for the collective farm, bringing the total percentage of these persons to 60 percent. During this period houses, small livestock, and even poultry were expropriated and became communal property.

It should be noted that mass deportations, arrests, and executions fell upon not only the relatively prosperous part of the village but also those peasants who opposed joining the collective farms. The number of dispossessed in many areas reached 10–15 percent of peasant households, and the number of dispossessed (deprived of voting rights) 15–20 percent.Footnote 3

According to Yu.S. Borisov, in 1929, kulaks accounted for approximately 3% of peasant households, and the number of dispossessed reached 15%. The number of disenfranchised, who lost their voting rights due to their refusal to join collective farms, rose to 20%.Footnote 4

These measures aroused the discontent of the peasants. A wave of armed uprisings swept across the country. In the first three months of 1930 alone, more than two thousand uprisings were recorded.

The mass resistance of the peasants against collectivization resulted in some adjustments to the plans of the Soviet leadership. On March 2, 1930, the newspapers published Stalin’s well-known letter “Dizziness from Success,” in which he accused local leaders of “excesses” in carrying out collectivization. In mid-March, the CC AUCPB published a resolution “On Combating Distortions in the Party Line in the Collective-Farm Movement.”

The excesses stopped and everyone who was enrolled in the collective farms against their will left them. However, these indulgences were temporary, the issued resolution set the goal of partially weakening anti-Soviet speeches in connection with the beginning of the sowing season. The forced involvement of the peasantry in collective farms continued.

Despite the measures taken by the AUCPB and the Soviet government to weaken the measures for the forced involvement of peasants in collective farms, the number of protests against collectivization increased. In March, mass peasant unrest continued throughout the country and reports on hostilities in rural areas of the country were regularly reported to the center. In total, in 1930, the OGPU recorded 13 754 mass demonstrations. Data on the number of participants of almost 2.5 million people were available in relation to 10 000 uprisings.Footnote 5

The government managed to keep the situation under control only with the help of state terror. Hundreds of thousands of peasants were sent to camps and labor settlements in Siberia and the North. In 1930, the OGPU arrested 222 570 people in the agricultural sector of the economy.Footnote 6

From February to September 1931, a new, and the most extensive wave of liquidation of kulak farms took place. The general management of this campaign was carried out by a special commission headed by Deputy Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR A.A. Andreev. The dispossession of kulaks continued even after the commission was liquidated in March 1932. This campaign took on the character of repressions for failure to fulfill grain procurement tasks, for the theft of collective farm products, for refusing to work, etc.Footnote 7

The severe drought that hit the country in 1931 and the mismanagement of the harvest led to a significant decrease in the gross grain harvest. Famine hit the Lower Volga region, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan.Footnote 8

The rural population of the country, affected by hunger, began to leave their “familiar places.” A mass departure of peasants in search “for bread” began in the Central Chernobyl region, the Volga, the Moscow region, the Western region, and Belarus. In relation to this, on January 22, 1933, V.M. Molotov and Stalin sent a cipher telegram to interested parties, in which it was noted that there was no doubt that this departure was organized by the enemies of the Soviet government with the aim of agitation in the northern regions of the Soviet Union against the collective farms. An order was given not to allow the mass exodus of peasants from Ukraine and the North Caucasus, to arrest the peasants who made their way to the North and, after filtering, to place them in their places of former residence.Footnote 9

After receiving the cipher telegram, the State Political Directorate (SPD) of Ukraine proceeded to seize the organizers and instigators of the flight. Over 500 people were initially arrested.Footnote 10

Then, the secretary of the Central Committee of the CP(b) U M.M. Khataevich, by his decree of January 23, 1933, stopped selling train tickets for traveling outside Ukraine to peasants who did not have permission to do so.Footnote 11

Approximately once a week, Stalin was informed about the situation regarding the capture of the fugitives.Footnote 12 According to the latest report dated March 13, 1933, a total of 219 460 people were detained during the operation. Of these, 186 588 were sent to their place of residence; 9385 were selected for prosecution; 2,823 were convicted and sent to the West Siberian Territory or to a concentration camp; 725 were selected and sent to the Kazakh SSR; 9282 were screened out; and 10 657 were filtered.Footnote 13

The emigration of peasants continued later. On October 20, 1933, Agranov informed Stalin about individual cases of individual farmers and collective farmers leaving the villages in certain regions of the Union. Thus, according to incomplete data, 24 000 owners of collective farms left 24 districts of the Middle Volga Territory in August and September. From the Western region up to 1000 owners of collective farms and individual farmers left, etc.Footnote 14

Realizing the growing crisis in the agrarian sector of the economy, the government made some concessions. In May 1932, a new grain procurement plan for 1932–1933 was announced, which was slightly lower than the previous year. It was envisaged to reduce the supply of manufactured products of collective farms through state farms. The Decree of May 20 allowed peasants and collective farms, after fulfilling state deliveries, to sell their products at prices that were formed on the market without fixing them. The purpose of these decisions is clear, remembering the years of the NEP, the Stalinist leadership tried to appeal to the personal interest of the peasants.

At the same time, they began to look for those responsible, the so-called wreckers, for disrupting the pace of collectivization. The documents show that the identification of sabotage in agriculture began with the central institutions of the People’s Commissariats for Agriculture of the Ukrainian SSR and the USSR.

On January 4, 1930 Chairman of the SPD Ukraine V.A. Balitsky sent a report to Stalin about the identified sabotage groups in the apparatus of the People’s Commissariat of the Ukrainian SSR, its peripheral organs, and scientific institutions.Footnote 15

A little later, on January 13, 1930, Deputy Chairman of the OGPU G.G. Yagoda informed Stalin about the discovery of a counterrevolutionary sabotage organization, striving to disorganize agriculture in the Soviet Union, which had extended its influence to all central and peripheral institutions and enterprises related to agriculture: Narkomzem, Selskosoyuz, Selkhozbank, Narkomtorg, etc.Footnote 16

It should be noted that the disclosure of large counterrevolutionary organizations, sometimes even with numerous branches in other cities, is highly doubtful. Examples of falsification of such organizations are the cases of the Labor Peasant Party, microbiologists, and veterinarians.

Workers’ and Peasants’ Party (WPP). On June 17, 1930 Deputy Chairman of the OGPU G.G. Yagoda informed Stalin on the activities of counterrevolutionary and sabotage organizations in agriculture. It was established that their political center was the Moscow Society of Agriculture, headed by N.D. Kondratiev, A.N. Makarov, A.V. Chayanov, and others.

A little later, the Secret Department, together with the Economic Directorate of the OGPU, reported to the leadership of the AUCPB(b) that they had uncovered a counterrevolutionary organization that allegedly set as its goal the overthrow of Soviet power, the restoration of capitalism, and the establishment of a bourgeois-democratic republic.

On August 23, 1930, a circular was sent to all plenipotentiaries and heads of the regional departments of the OGPU, stating that, based on the results of the investigation, the WPP was created in Moscow in 1925 and headed by the central committee. The organization had an extensive network of cells in the People’s Commissariat of the RSFSR, the People’s Commissariat of Finance of the USSR, the State Planning Committee of the USSR, the Central Statistical Administration, the Conjuncture Institute of Narkomfin, the Moscow Society of Agriculture, the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy, etc.

An open political process was being prepared for members of the WPP; however, Stalin doubted that the defendants would publicly admit their mistakes, in connection with which he changed his mind about taking this case to an open court. It was decided to refer the case to an extrajudicial body, the Collegium of the OGPU.

September 21, 1931 Menzhinsky approved the indictment in the case. Persons passing through it were found guilty of being members of the illegal WPP, which aimed to overthrow the Soviet power, carry out sabotage in various branches of agriculture, etc.

On January 26, 1932, the Collegium of the OGPU issued a resolution to imprison in a concentration camp the following people: N.D. Kondratiev, N.P. Makarov, and L.N. Yurovsky for 8 years; A.V. Chayanova, A.G. Doyarenko, and A.A. Rybnikov for 5 years; L.N. Litoshenko, S.K. Chayanov, and L.B. Kafengauz for 3 years commuted by expulsion for the same period; A.V. Teitel and I.N. Leontiev for 3 years commuted by restriction to his place of residence for the same period; A.O. Fabrikant for 3 years with the subsequent release from punishment.

In addition, another 1113 people were convicted in this case in the territories and regions of the USSR.

It is quite obvious that the process of the WPP, initiated by the Politburo of the CC AUCPB, aimed to neutralize the intelligentsia critical of collectivization plans in order to stabilize the situation in the countryside.

N.P. Makarov, who was convicted in this case later wrote that he was accused of being a member of a counterrevolutionary organization, which was invented during the investigation. Initially, the investigation was conducted in the direction of economic sabotage in the Economic Department of the OGPU, then it was transferred to the department where the cases of the Industrial Party and the “Union Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP(m)” were investigated. In his opinion, for the completeness of the scheme, “a peasant counterrevolutionary organization was also required. A large number of agricultural economists, as well as agronomists and cooperative workers, were accused of belonging to such organizations.”Footnote 17

In 1987, the case of the Central Committee of the WPP was reviewed, and the persons passing through it were rehabilitated. Later, rehabilitation followed in relation to persons passing through other branches of the so-called WPP.Footnote 18

The case of microbiologists. On November 11, 1930 V.R. Menzhinsky reported to Stalin the material received on the case of a counterrevolutionary organization among microbiologists, which included in its program of action the fight against the Soviet regime by terror and sabotage during the war, bearing in mind the inevitability of foreign intervention. The organization had its own all-Union center, represented by the illegally existing “National Committee,” as well as a number of branches scattered throughout the Union. It was headed by the director of the Mechnikov Institute in Moscow, Professor S.V. Korshun. The connection of this organization with reactionary circles in Germany was traced.

At the Saratov Bacteriological Institute, the organization allegedly had a military section headed by the director of the institute, S.M. Nikanorov. It worked on the practical application of bacteriology for sabotage purposes at the time of foreign intervention. It designed in wartime the creation of artificial foci of the epidemic, both in the rear of the Red Army and within the Union. It carried out sabotage, trying to deprive the Red Army and the country of the opportunity during the war to fight epidemics and infectious diseases, as well as to take protective measures against the use of bacteriological warfare by the enemy.Footnote 19

On August 13, 1930 Korshun was arrested. In total, 39 people were arrested with him, and additional arrests were expected.

According to the chairman of the SPD of the Ukrainian SSR V.A. Balitsky, a counterrevolutionary organization of veterinary bacteriologists was also uncovered in Ukraine, carrying out work on the destruction of livestock and preparing the infection of the population with infectious diseases in the case of intervention.Footnote 20

Another branch in the case of microbiologists was the case of the “All-Union Military Officer Counter-Revolutionary Organization” (“Spring”), in which thousands of servicemen were arrested. During the investigation of this case, it turned out that some of the officers of the old army were connected with the counterrevolutionary organization of microbiologists. From September 1930, former officers and veterinarians began to be arrested in mass in this and other cases. A total of 183 people were arrested, including 10 professors, 9 associate professors, 42 doctors, 73 former officers, 17 former white officers, and 32 others.Footnote 21

The investigation went on for a year. In March 1931, the Politburo of the Central Committee decided, without stopping the investigation, to single out a group of people from those arrested who could be used “to work for us.”Footnote 22 There is a version that they were offered to participate in the development of bacteriological weapons for the Red Army.

In the early 1920s, in the foreign press, the question of the possible use of infectious agents as an effective means of warfare was actively considered. In relation to this, in 1926, systematic work in this direction also began in the USSR.Footnote 23

Chairman of the Supreme Council of National Economy Kuibyshev and chairman of the OGPU Yagoda signed a circular on the use of specialists convicted of sabotage in production. Their work was to take place in the premises of the OGPU. Thus, the interests of different departments converged.Footnote 24

On January 16, 1932, the Politburo instructed the OGPU to prepare a question about the end of the case of a group of Saratov biologists and report at the next meeting of the Politburo of the CC AUCPB.Footnote 25 At the next meeting, the Politburo in relation to microbiologists accepted the proposal of the OGPU, the eight main defendants were sentenced to death commuted to imprisonment for 10 years, while the others received different terms of imprisonment.Footnote 26

Those who agreed to work on military issues were kept in the Butyrka prison until the beginning of 1932, after which they were sent to a specialized prison of the OGPU, not far from the Suzdal Pokrovsky Monastery, where laboratories were equipped in strict secrecy.Footnote 27

In 1959, the repressed microbiologists were rehabilitated.Footnote 28

The case of veterinarians. On November 26, 1932, the chairman of the OGPU V.R. Menzhinsky reported to the CC AUCPB that the OGPU, in the process of carefully monitoring the activities of the main cadres of veterinary medicine, had found an organization carrying out work to disrupt the plans of socialist animal husbandry. Occupying a leading position in the All-Union Institute of Experimental Veterinary Medicine in Moscow, it widely developed her activities not only in the center, but also in Leningrad, in the Middle Volga Territory, the Ivanovo Industrial Region, and in the East Siberian Territory.

It was found that Professor A.V. Belitser, associate professors V.A. Kosarev and P.V. Tavelsky, who were employees of the All-Union Institute of Experimental Veterinary Medicine, deliberately disrupted the fight against meningitis among the horse population. As a result, only in the RSFSR, 41 535 horses died from the disease in the past year, 1931.Footnote 29

On January 1, 1933, on behalf of Stalin, a note was sent to members and candidate members of the Politburo by the Plenipotentiary Representative of the OGPU for the Moscow Region, Ya.S. Agranov about a counterrevolutionary sabotage organization among veterinarians, which reported that a sabotage group of veterinarians had been uncovered at the Kashintsevo biofactory (Shchelkovsky district), which produced vaccination anti-plague drugs that caused a significant number of deaths of pigs, since they were made from low-quality biological products.Footnote 30

In the Middle Volga Territory, a counterrevolutionary sabotage organization was also uncovered in the system of animal husbandry. Its pest activity was expressed in the use of veterinary measures for the purpose of deliberately spreading epizootics, direct infection of livestock and soil in livestock farms, and the mass slaughter of healthy livestock under the guise of an infectious disease. As a result of the sabotage, about 95 000 heads were slaughtered and 28 500 horses died from the spread of meningitis epizootics, etc. Fourteen people were arrested in the case and 7 people were proposed to be sentenced to capital punishment.

On January 16, 1933, the Politburo of the CC AUCPB, having heard the message of the Commission on Judicial Affairs, decided on the case of pest breeders of the North-Eastern Territory to consider it appropriate to organize a court. At the same time, the deputy chairman of the OGPU G.G. Yagoda and People’s Commissar of Justice of the RSFSR N.I. Kry-lenko were instructed to submit to the next meeting of the Politburo a draft proposal on the organization of the court.Footnote 31

On January 22, Krylenko and Yagoda reported that, as of the state of the investigative proceedings, the cases of the Samara organization (North-Eastern Territory) and the Kashintsev biofactory were completed and could be heard with the formulation of the process no earlier than in a month. Unfinished cases of organizations in Leningrad, the East Siberian Territory, Ivanovo Region, Western Region, Ukraine, Urals, Central Black Earth Region, Transcaucasia, North Caucasus, and Lower Volga Territory were also under investigation. It took at least two months to complete them. The case of the central counterrevolutionary organization that directed the sabotage work of the periphery in all branches of animal husbandry was at the initial stage of investigation. This case was supposed to be completed within two months.

Two options were proposed for dealing with the above cases. The first was to conduct local processes within one or two months in the Middle Volga and the Kashintsevskaya biofactory, and the second was to conduct one general process with the emphasis on the pest center, including the Samara group, the Kashintsevskaya biofactory, and a number of other areas. In this case, it took at least two months to complete the investigation. It was proposed to opt for the second option, with the number of defendants set at about 20 people and with the case scheduled to be heard in two months in the Supreme Court. Cases on other groups were to be heard out of court. Considering the significant damage caused by the saboteurs, it was proposed that they be sentenced to death by firing squad.Footnote 32 On January 31, 1933, the Politburo agreed to these proposals.Footnote 33

Two months later, on April 22, the People’s Commissar of Justice of the RSFRS N.V. Krylenko reminded Stalin that the Politburo of the CC AUCPB had issued a decision on the preparation of a trial within two months on the organization of animal husbandry. During this time, the OGPU carried out the necessary investigative work. The most active members of the organization—there were ten participants in the process—were taken to Moscow from various parts of the Soviet Union. In addition, ten other leading members of the organization were brought to justice in Moscow and Moscow oblast. All those arrested were interrogated, face-to-face confrontations were made between the accused, an examination was carried out, and witnesses from the periphery were identified in the case.

By March 23, preparations for the process were completed; however, due to the process of saboteurs at power plants, the question of the duration of the process of the counterrevolutionary organization of livestock breeders remained open. With the end of the Metro-Vickers trial, Krylenko, while waiting for Stalin’s instructions, personally considered it inappropriate to consider this case in court and offered to put it for consideration out of court.

On April 23, 1933, the Politburo of the CC AUCPB (by questioning members of the PB) agreed with Krylenko’s proposal, taking a decision not to impose death sentences in this case.Footnote 34

Trial cases, as a rule, were concocted by order of the top party leadership, and the charges were based on the accusations against each other of the participants in the process. There was no evidence of an objective nature, and if there was, it was artificially tied to the materials of these cases.

However, there were other cases, in which there was no doubt about the objectivity of the charges.

Thus, on April 23, 1934, on Stalin’s instructions, members and candidate members of the Politburo were sent a note from the PR OGPU for the Gorky Krai on the quality of medicines stored in the warehouse of Vetsnabprom. It reported that in order to determine the quality of the medicines, they were tested, during which it was found that the powder called “marshmallow root,” intended for the treatment of livestock for stomach diseases, was contaminated with a large number of sharp metal fragments. When treating livestock, it was given in large doses, so the metal fragments, along with the powder, got inside the animal and killed them.

The metal fragments were found in two batches: the first batch was received in January 1933 (1200 kg), and the second batch, in January 1934 (700 kg).

On this issue, an inspection was organized about the possibility of the deliberate contamination of the powder and a criminal case was initiated.Footnote 35

The PR OGPU AChK in April 1934 reported to G.G. Yagoda that in the Kuban factory state stud farm, 22 pedigree thoroughbred producers, who served for the production of riding army horses had been destroyed. The damage was estimated at approximately 500 000 rubles.

The investigation established that at first three horses were deliberately infected with glanders by the rider P.V. Borisov, who had been previously dismissed from the stable. He gave three small balls of flour, previously infected from a sick horse with glanders to his relative the groom Afanasiev, who in turn gave them, along with water, to three breeders. Due to the fact that in the stable the three breeders shared a bucket, a situation was created in which all the horses of the stable were then infected.Footnote 36

On August 28, 1934, the Deputy People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs G.E. Prokofiev informed Stalin about the artificial removal of teats from the broodstock of pigs in the Veselovsky pig farm, Western Siberia. A special committee of experts established that out of 554 sows available at the state farm, born in the spring of 1933, 23 had a normal number of teats, 287 sows had no teats at all, and the remaining 244 had only part of the teats.

The investigation established that the perpetrators of this crime were former veterinarian D.N. Sokolov and the livestock specialist of the state farm, V.D. Po-lonsky. They cauterized the teats of the uterus of pigs with mercury ointment, which has toxic properties, and its use caused the degeneration and necrosis of tissues.Footnote 37

Political Departments of the MTS and state farms. On December 30, 1932, the commission of the Politburo of the CC AUCPB approved the draft resolution “On the goals and objectives of the political departments of the MTS and state farms” and submitted it for approval by the Plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission. The January Plenum of 1933, which took place against the backdrop of a deepening crisis in agriculture, approved this project.

Stalin believed that the created political departments of the MTS and state farms could become one of those decisive means by which it was possible to eliminate the identified shortcomings in the country’s agriculture.

On January 7, 1933, the People’s Commissar for Agriculture Ya.A. Yakovlev prepared a draft letter to his structural divisions on sabotage and the fight against its consequences. It drew the conclusion that connected the past mass struggle against sabotage in the industry of the Soviet Union. The hope was expressed that the fight against sabotage of grain procurements would play the same fertile role in organizing new Bolshevik cadres in the collective farms as the Shakhty process had played in industry.

Thus, if the Shakhty trial served as a turning point in strengthening the revolutionary vigilance of the communists and organizations of red specialists in the field of industry, then naturally there was no reason to doubt that the phenomena of sabotage in collective farms and state farms, which manifested themselves in 1931–1932, were to serve as a turning point in the development of the revolutionary vigilance of rural and regional communists and the organization of new Bolshevik cadres in collective farms and state farms.Footnote 38

The January Plenum served as the starting point when the fight against sabotage in agriculture became an organized campaign carried out under the leadership of the AUCPB. The political departments of the MTS and state farms were instructed to ensure the correct and timely application of government laws on administrative and punitive measures against organizers of theft of public property and sabotage of party and government events. They were supposed to ensure the transformation of the MTSs into centers not only of economic and technical but also of the political and organizational leadership of collective farmers. It was planned that the Political Departments should completely paralyze the performance of the saboteurs.

After the Plenum, state security agencies stepped up their work. On March 28, 1933 Deputy Chairman of the OGPU Ya.S. Agranov and the head of the SPD OGPU G.A. Molchanov reported to Stalin about the work of the deputy heads of the Political Departments of the MTSs on the work of the OGPU.

The direction and content of operational work for the second decade of March was characterized by the following data:

A total of 793 people were arrested in 57 MTSs.

Of these, 323 people were arrested for counterrevolutionary sabotage and disrupting the sowing of the harvest.

For the theft of the property of collective farms, MTSs, and MTWs, 286 people were arrested.

For organized sabotage, 180 people.

For terrorism and sabotage, 4 people.

In 46 MTSs, 2197 people were removed from the collective farms’ MTSs and MTWs.

According to the materials of the deputy heads of political departments, 35 people were removed from leadership positions. (11 directors and assistant directors of MTSs and MTWs. 24 people from the former collective farms.)

In addition, fraud was exposed on the part of a number of senior employees of the MTSs and MTWs, who gave false information about the preparation for sowing.Footnote 39

According to the memo of the deputy chairman of the OGPU Yagoda dated March 27, 1933, sent to Stalin on the results of operational work from December 1, 1932 to March 15, 1933, 340 856 people were arrested by the OGPU in the Soviet Union. They included 477 engineering and technical workers, 894 agronomists, and 285 veterinarians.

“Out of the total number of those arrested, 67 838 were sentenced to a concentration camp and exile, 15 814 were sent to places of detention, 74 082 were transferred to courts, mainly in cases of embezzlement and speculation, 22 761 people were released, and as of March 15, 151 950 people were under arrest.

During this time, the OGPU bodies shot 8365 people, including those listed below:

(a) 3324 people for theft of socialist property, including 1210 for theft of transport.

(b) 2747 for rebellion and terror.

(c) 1741 for sabotaging the MTSs, state farms, and collective farms.

(d) 143 for espionage.

(e) 34 for subversion.

(f) 105 for hooliganism in transport.

(g) 271 for banditry.

A total of 566 counterrevolutionary, rebel, insurgent, sabotage, socialist-revolutionary, predatory, and other organizations were uncovered and liquidated.

At the same time, 20 136 different counterrevoluionary groups, mainly kulak-insurgent, sabotage-diversionary, terrorist, and predatory groups, which were insurgent cadres and embryonic forms of counterrevolutionary organizations, were liquidated.

In the course of the operative liquidation of insurgent organizations and groups, 58 000 units of military weapons and 8 machine guns were seized.

From December 1, 1932 to March 15, 1933, 19 540 people were arrested for profiteering.

During the period from December 5, 1932 to March 15, 1933, the following people were deported to special kulak settlements:

– from SKK 6992 families and 31 145 people;

– from NVK 2773 families and 11 947 people;

– from the Ukrainian SSR 2218 families and 10 708 people;

A total of 11 983 families and 53 800 people.Footnote 40

On May 8, 1933, the CC AUCPB and the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR, in instructions to party and Soviet workers and bodies of the OGPU, the Court, and the Prosecutor’s Office, decided to stop the mass evictions of peasants. They were allowed only on an individual basis, while a list of areas was given from which peasants were allowed to be evicted in strictly limited quantities.

In total, another 12 000 peasant households could be evicted, but not more. It was forbidden to use pretrial detention as a preventive measure for minor crimes.

At the same time, the OGPU, the People’s Commissariat of Justice of the republics of the Soviet Union, and the USSR Prosecutor’s Office undertook to begin releasing prisoners and reduce the total number of prisoners from 800 000 to 400 000 within two months. An order was given to organize a review of prisoners’ cases so that the detention of all prisoners apart from the most dangerous ones could be replaced with another preventive measure.Footnote 41

Despite these relaxations, the fight against crime in agriculture continued. On April 17, 1935, the head of the ECO of the GUGB of the NKVD of the USSR L.G. Mironov informed Stalin about the counterrevolutionary groups in the grain and livestock farms that had been exposed.

Thus, in the Tambarsky Maslosovkhoz (West Siberian Territory), the head manager Zernov prepared 40 small pieces of bread, in which he placed arsenic and put this bread in the feed of high-yield cattle, which caused 37 of them to be poisoned.

In the Spayka pig farm (Omsk region), veterinarian Vandyshev poisoned milk intended for feeding piglets, which poisoned 4 milkmaids who tasted it before feeding.

In Maslosovkhoz No. 82 (Omsk region), a group of Cossacks was organized by the kulak Sadbekov, who destroyed the cattle of the state farm cattle, motivated by revenge for the liquidation of the kulaks. Members of the group introduced small birch sticks with a pointed end through the anus into the animals, which caused intestinal punctures and the death of the animals.

In the Stavropol-Caucasian pedigree cattle farm (North Caucasus Krai), a group of four people were arrested in a mechanical repair shop, who deliberately failed to prepare the workshop for repairs, did not provide it with the necessary tools, discarded obviously good parts, and manufactured substandard ones. As a result, none of the 20 tractors due to be repaired were repaired.

A group of five people were arrested in the Yegorlyk Inter-Union Workshop (Rostov Grain Trust). Its participants disrupted the repair of the tractor fleet. Of the 50 motors and 31 tractors to be repaired, not one was repaired. Foreign objects (bolts, rags, cotter pins) were found in the crankcase of one of the tractors. In the motor of another, sand and iron shavings were found. Members of the group discarded parts suitable for repair with waste metal.

In the Problema pig farm (Kuibyshev Krai), a group of people were arrested in a repair shop, calling themselves an “underground political department,” headed by A.V. Kapustin. This group included over 10 people, who set out to sabotage the repairs of tractors and break down the discipline among the workers. As a result, instead of 16 tractors, only 8 were repaired, none of which were accepted by the commission.

In the Krasnogvardeets pig farm (Saratov Krai), in a repair shop, a kulak group was arrested, which included 3 kulaks and two middle peasants. This group deliberately left a wrench in the gearbox in the repaired tractor. A wrench was also left in the clutch of another repaired tractor. In both cases, there were accidents. Unusable parts were deliberately installed in the repaired tractors, etc. others.Footnote 42

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Under the leadership of the AUCPB, the state security agencies took an active part in the collectivization of agriculture. At the same time, the most severe repressions were applied. Indiscriminate searches, mass arrests, torture, executions, and exiling wealthy peasants led to numerous casualties and the mass forced migration of the population.

This period is characterized by mass peasant uprisings and active opposition to Stalin’s policy in agriculture. In fact, the country was on the brink of civil war.

The campaign to combat sabotage through falsified show trials in the grain regions of the country, initiated by the Politburo of the CC AUCPB, pursued the same goal as the campaign pursued earlier in industry. The aim was to mobilize the efforts of others through fear by repressing some and in this way stimulate the development of agriculture in the Soviet Union.

Under the conditions of the catastrophic crisis in agriculture, the most effective measures were taken to direct the party leadership of collective farms and MTSs through the created political departments, where employees of the OGPU were also seconded to work. Through the agent-information apparatus, they established strict control over the economic activities of the serviced objects. In orders and directives sent to the territorial bodies of state security, the leadership of the OGPU demanded that all persons from a socially alien environment who worked on collective farms, state farms, and MTSs be taken for operational registration and undercover development in order to uncover organized sabotage activities.

Through repression, the OGPU managed to stabilize the situation in the countryside. The political departments were able to bring the country’s agriculture out of a deep crisis. The result of their activities was the organizational and economic strengthening of collective farms, from which officials hostile to the collective farm system were purged, while incompetent rank-and-file collective farmers and MTS workers guilty of negligence and a dishonest attitude to work, who also committed deliberate acts of sabotage, which had a negative impact on the state of collective farm production, were removed.

During the period under review, the AUCPB, with the help of state security agencies, was able to create an administrative-command system that began to cover all aspects of the activities of state farms and collective farms, where the party and Soviet bodies became the main owners in them.

However, the ongoing agricultural reforms, the allocation of large funds to heavy industry, and the mass export of food for export led to a sharp drop in the standard of living of the country’s population.