Kitabı oku: «Zero Point Ukraine», sayfa 5

Restrictions on Movement

Along with control over working hours, there were sanctions regarding restrictions on movement for certain groups of workers during the 1930s.

One of the most efficient mechanisms was the establishment of a unified passport system in December 27, 1932. The passport became one of the forms of compulsory regulation of the workforce. People without passports could not find employment in the city, city dwellers could not get propiska (a residence permit, another restrictive security measure)39 if they were not employed. “In this way a forced tacit connection between the place of work and the place of residence was established,”40 one which “attached” workers to certain facilities.

The authorities undertook more direct actions, explained as necessary to maintain secrecy in important sectors of the defense industry. Bans and restrictions on movement outside the factory or plant increased significantly after the start of World War II; still, they were not something radically new, as, for instance, railway workers had had their passports seized and changed for employee identification cards back in 1937.41

On July 5, 1940 the NKVD and the People’s Commissariat of Finance of the USSR issued a joint decree adopting an order, according to which the passports of employees involved in storing, collecting, and securing cash and other valuables in the savings banks were to be seized and kept by the management of these institutions and exchanged for special employee identification cards.42 In May of the same year, similar measures were applied to the miners.

Another control measure (aimed at “assigning” workers to their enterprise) was the implementation of employment record books. According to a government decree, they should have been completed by January 15, 1939. At first, as Vladyslav Hrynevych noted, this step was presented as a positive propaganda campaign aimed to “acknowledge the special reverential treatment of the working man … However, it soon became obvious to many that Stalin’s employment record book was not so much an honorable tribute to the worker as a heavy chain tying a man to his place of work; any entry in it could easily become almost a life sentence.”43

On June 26, 1940 the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued the Decree “On the transition to an eight hour work day, a seven day work week, and the prohibition of voluntary departures of workers from enterprises and institutions.”44 The legislation set out the following disciplinary and general working standards: lengthening the workday for industrial and office workers at all state, cooperative, and public enterprises and institutions; transition to a seven-day work week; increased control over work discipline through increased penalties for its violation; de facto criminalization of disciplinary faults; increased control over work discipline through increased accountability of the managers of enterprises and institutions in case of non-compliance with the standards contained in the decree. According to the new rules, industrial and office workers who voluntarily left state, cooperative, and public enterprises and institutions, or voluntarily transferred from one enterprise to another, were subject to trial: they faced two to four months’ imprisonment. For absence without a valid reason, industrial and office workers had to submit to corrective labor of up to six months at their places of work, with up to 25 percent of their wages withheld. The managers of the enterprises and institutions, for hiring workers who voluntarily quit their previous employment, also faced quiet harsh penalties. By the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of July 17, 1940, similar punitive sanctions were introduced to the “working class” in the villages—tractor drivers and combine operators of the machine tractor stations (MTS).45

The Resolution of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of October 19, 1940 set a criminal liability for refusal by engineers, technicians, foremen, and qualified industrial workers to submit to the administration’s decision to transfer them to another enterprise.46 The resolution of December 28, 1940 “attached” the students of schools of factory and plant apprenticeship (FZU) and students of vocational and railway schools to their educational institutions. In the case of voluntary dropping out, one faced imprisonment in a labor colony of up to one year.47

As previously mentioned, the passport system, introduced in late 1932, among other things, legitimized an undeclared state of emergency. It imposed restrictions on movement and contributed to the prolongation of the terms of expulsion of “unreliable elements” to special settlements.

In the new Decree “On the establishment of the Unified Passport System” of 194048 (in force till August 1953), there was added a stipulation assigning workers to certain enterprises for an unlimited term with a ban on leaving the areas where they were situated. Provision 20 of the decree specified them as industrial and office workers of the defense, mining, and railway industries, and also of the State Bank of the USSR and of savings banks involved in the collection, transport, and storage of valuables.49

It should be noted that while introducing obligatory labor not only as a form of forced labor, but also as a permanent element of the state of emergency, the Bolshevik state selected certain categories of citizens for whom forced labor became the main form, namely, the social strata and communities designated as “enemies” by the state. Those who were not “lucky” enough to be executed, ended up in labor camps, colonies, and prisons. Convict labor was included in the economic plan of the country.

The camp sector of the socialist economy became a special branch of the “people’s economy.” Some of those convicted without imprisonment were conveyed by the Bureau of Correctional Labor to forced labor in the villages, on roadworks, in the production of fuel, etc. Another source of force was labor of so-called “special settlers,” the constant flow of whom was forcibly sustained by tens of thousands of Ukrainian peasants (deported, exiled, forcibly resettled).50

Closed Territories

A logical sequence in constructing the stage of permanent war was the implementation of the concept of closed/restricted access/high-security territories and then their rapid geographical expansion.

Such a “special regime” emerged and eventually took hold in Soviet space as a result of two concepts. The first was the pragmatic one of securing the Soviet frontier areas by creating restricted access border zones. The second concept was rooted in the logic of “class war” and in the image of the enemy; according to the Soviet press, enemies constantly conspired to assassinate the leaders of the state and plotted acts of sabotage targeting industry and transport, created clandestine “cells,” organized espionage and belonged to the spy networks of foreign imperialists and fascists. (As Nikolai Yezhov put it, appointing the new head of the NKVD at Vinnytsia Oblast in 1938, “There are entire anti-Soviet underground nationalist divisions running rampant in Ukraine”.)51 The concept of restricted access territories (not only in the frontier areas but in quiet internal ones) became a social protection measure and was interpreted as “purging” the state of hostile elements. It should be noted that the security of the border areas was implemented by the forcible removal of “questionable” categories of people, including “dubious” nationalities. It was done without trial.

Therefore, during the 1920s and 1930s, long before the official declaration of martial law, Soviet authorities had resorted to the practices of banning free movement52 and creating “territories with a special regime,” with their number steadily growing. Those who underwent court-mandated or administrative eviction and former GULAG prisoners (with eviction as an additional punishment) were forbidden to reside in a number of large cities. This number grew from “free residence in … minus 6 areas” in 1923 to “minus 15” in 1935. In Cheka jargon, and colloquially, the term “minusnyk” (Russian “munusnik”) was used to refer to the people who received such a punishment.53

During the 1930s not only the territories and cities but also enterprises (mainly belonging to the military–industry complex) were deemed “closed.” As of March 1934, there were 12 such plants and factories in Ukraine (with 38,857 workers); railways also were on the list.54 On April 5, 1934, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) adopted the list of the “specialized” plants of military industry consisting of 68 enterprises.55 With restricted access imposed, they were thus called the “68 plants and factories of highly restricted access” or the “military objects from the ‘68’ list.”56 In early 1935, the decree of the NKVD of the USSR no. 004 specified the “categories of persons banned from working at the 68 plants and factories of highly restricted access.”57

The politics and practices of the Soviet state in Western Ukraine, incorporated in 1939, were de facto those of martial law (though actual martial law was declared only on June 22, 1941). The people, born and raised there, suddenly became “questionable,” “anti-Soviet elements” and/or “enemies” of Soviet society; and the entire territory became one of “restricted access.” During 1940–1941, the Soviet regime organized four mass deportations: in February 1940—of the families of osadniks (veterans of the Polish Army and civilians who settled in Western Ukraine during the interwar period) and lisnyky (forest rangers); in April 1940—of the families of the purged; in June 1940— of refugees; in May–June 1941—of “anti-Soviet elements.” These repressive measures were implemented administratively, most even without the ruling of the extrajuridical body—the Special Council of the USSR NKVD. According to Volodymyr Baran and Vasyl Tokarskyi, a total of 190,100 people were deported from the six Western oblasts of Ukraine (Volyn, Drohobych, Lviv, Rivne, Stanislav, and Ternopil Oblasts).58

The specified territories were not the only ones put under restricted access; the spaces of private life, including private apartments, were heavily controlled and observed. It should be noted that Bolshevik housing policy during the 1920s and 1930s was an effective method of control and discipline. It was used to tie a person to the place of work, to improve the quality of work, to fight any—real or imagined—resistance to the regime, to ensure loyalty by sowing fear of losing one’s home, to suppress the “socially alien” and support “our people.”59

Housing, especially communal type or that belonging to industrial enterprises, was never a safe haven for the dwellers of apartments and dormitories. The external control by the state (the system of checks, references, registration) and internal control (supervision by neighbors, apartment rules and regulations, complaints, denunciations) left almost no place for privacy and made the home a restricted space as well. Moreover, dwellings were closely watched by the public security authorities.

As Myroslav Borysenko remarks, before 1936 house management had broad powers and duties regarding state security. The officially authorized persons from the house management authorities (Ukr. kerbud, Russ. upravdom, a building superintendent) were meant to supervise the movement of citizens liable for military service, to announce the decrees of military commissariats, check the documents of the citizens in the military registry, identify those evading military service. They could also participate in searches and arrests, in conducting investigations. Borysenko observes that “in the system of the cooperative housing union, there were special units, or a special sector, whose workers … had the specific task to make sure that every citizen … regardless of his place of residence could not evade the watchful eye of the secret police.”60 In 1936, the housing cooperatives union in Ukraine (Ukrzhytlospilka, All-Ukraine Union of Housing Cooperatives) was liquidated and the functions of house management were transferred to upravdom (the building superintendent) and kvartupovnovazhenyi (Russ. kvartupolnomochennyi, the appointed apartment supervisor).61 Despite the fact that the officially authorized responsibilities and functions of superintendents and supervisors did not include watching citizens, inertia and the traditions of managing space in a repressive manner were still there and manifested themselves in subsequent years as well.

Citizens were watched everywhere: at work, at home, while standing in lines, in their leisure time. Ukrainian Konstantin Shteppa wrote in his diary, “Our entire system from the top down is based on snitches.”62 As Serhiy Bilokin rightly points out, secret agents (Russ. sekretnyi sotrudnik, secsot) were an element in the management of the Soviet state machinery. In the early 1930s the snitch network of the USSR totaled hundreds of thousands of informants (Russ. osvedomiteli); they operated in military units, in the enterprises, in educational facilities, in scientific and cultural institutions; during the 1930s the number of informants also rose in rural areas.63 Disgraceful and cynical methods of recruitment,64 increasing the number of people who were willing or coerced to spy on their friends, colleagues, neighbors, and relatives was also a part of the internal war, related to the search for and punishment of “enemies,” to the mobilization strategy aimed at citizens’ participation in exposing spies and spy rings. Generally, the efforts of the repressive bodies resulted not only in the desired mobilization, but also in the distinct atomization of society. The atmosphere of mutual distrust and suspicion, fear, secret hatred between citizens, based on the formula “one of three is a snitch,” in Mikhail Sokolov’s opinion, “erected invisible obstacles to people’s unity, stimulated disunion, the detachment of some active element of the public.”65

Expropriation of Property and Requisitions

As previously mentioned, one of the elements of the state of emergency/martial law, secured in legislation, was requisitioning as a form of expropriation. Ideally, fair value was paid for any requisitioned goods.

However, in reality it rather looked like plundering, with no intention of reimbursement or restoration to the previous owners. After declaring the struggle against “exploiter classes” as one of the goals of their revolution, Bolsheviks turned to the practice they called requisitioning as early as late 1910s.

Eventually, this pillage was legalized with the introduction of the “nationalization” of property: land, enterprises, buildings, etc. Executors of the Bolshevik slogan “Loot the looters!” did not see any significant legal distinction between nationalization, requisitioning and confiscation. The logic behind seizing property from the “class alien”—”former people,” “NEPmen,” “enemies of the people”—supported the requisition paradigm of Soviet power. It was rooted in a systematic compulsion to finance state projects at the expense of ordinary citizens. As previously mentioned, “food requisitions”—which were a de facto element of the war against the Ukrainian peasantry and resulted in the holodomors of 1921–1922 and 1932–1933—had the most significant and tragic implications of the implementations of this paradigm.

The system of Torgsin (Russ. Torgovlia s inostrantsami, Trade with Foreigners), established in the early 1930s, became one of the mechanisms that “mobilized” personal ceremonial objects of gold and silver, diamonds, antiques, imperial Russian gold coins, etc. Vasyl Marochko remarks that “the state, having forcibly deprived the peasants of grain, offered it for sale for hard currency and gold through the Torgsin system.”66 Starving peasants had brought their cross necklaces, wedding bands, etc., receiving special receipts, vouchers, coupons that, after standing in long lines, could be exchanged for flour.

Gold was “seized” not only from the peasants. Elena Osokina observes that since the early 1930s the OGPU and the NKVD carried out a so-called “gold campaign”—a long-term effort to seize gold and foreign currency accumulated during the years of the NEP from the former NEPmen.67 It was implemented, among other methods, through the Torgsin system: both those who brought in their valuables and the buyers were arrested.68

The net revenue of the valuables “seized” from the peasantry and “former people” in Ukraine through the Torgsin system is estimated at over 40 million rubles in gold (as of February 1, 1934). That equaled the cost of the construction of the facilities of Dniprobud (state construction company) and the Kharkiv Tractor Plant combined.69

The actual “gold campaign” of 1930–1933 was no less cynical regarding its aims and methods. On May 15, 1930 the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), considering a question “On foreign currency,” mandated the OGPU to “obtain” from 1 to 2 million rubles within a period of ten days. Responding to this cynical and unscrupulous appeal to “obtain” valuables, the State Political Directorate (DPU) of the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic in a period of several months seized from the population: the equivalent of 46,370 rubles in US dollars (calculated according to the official, not the market, exchange rate); 840 rubles in British pounds; 246,920 rubles in gold coins, gold bars, and diamonds. The total value of foreign currency, gold, and valuables, confiscated in such a short period of time was 294,130 rubles in gold.70 It was the start of the “gold campaign,” when the system of pressure and intimidation—arrests, searches, confiscations, blackmail, torture, “asking nicely” when family members were detained—was used against the people of Ukraine in order to seize/requisition foreign currency, gold, and other valuables saved for a rainy day. Svitlana Liaskovska provides convincing evidence that not only NEPmen fell victim to the “golde campaign”: “the repressive machine crushed members of various social strata, of different professions and nationalities.”71 The campaign went on for four years and according to Liaskovska’s calculations, “only at the official rate, the estimated value of foreign currency, securities, precious metals and diamond items was 15.5 million rubles.”72

The most common and frequent form of money requisitions were government bonds. By purchasing government bonds, workers and peasants, clergy and the “intelligentsia of workers and peasants” should fund another breakthrough—both all-Union and local—in the “battlefield of industrialization” and “socialist construction.” Propaganda constraints and coercion were practiced by party structures and the management of enterprises, by special brigades that “encouraged” kolkhoz members, as well as by the employees of Ukrzhytlospika (house management offices)—the purchase of government bonds was “beaten out” from people not only at their place of work but also at their place of residence.73 These efforts, obviously, significantly exceeded people’s willingness to voluntarily hand over money; yet even voluntary purchases did not change the fact that this “credit” policy of the state still had the character of a requisition.

Over the course of two five-year plans, the workers of Soviet Ukraine lent 4.5 billion rubles to the state.74 On July 1, 1940 the government of the USSR adopted the Resolution “On issuing government bonds for the third five-year plan.”75 Intensification of money requisitions—in the form of quasi-competitions between the management of enterprises, departments, institutions, kolkhoz activists—resulted in quite a record: as of July 12, 1940 the total revenue of the government bonds sold reached 1,766,663,000 rubles, equal to 39 percent of the money “borrowed” by the state for the period of the two five-year plans.76