Document 101

Letter from independent farmer Grebenev to Krest'ianskaia Gazeta on harassment by local officials, 22 September 1938

RGAE, f. 396, op. 10, d. 57. ll. 231-233ob. Original manuscript.

Moscow

To the editors of Krest'ianskaia Gazeta

From Citizen independent owner Afanasy Fyodorovich Grebenev, village of Loboshan under the Shalegovsky Village Soviet in Orichi Raion, Kirov Oblast

Statement

I request that you print a reply to my written statement in your highly esteemed newspaper. I am a natural laborer a peasant born in 1879, I have worked in farming since childhood, all I knew is how to fertilize and work the land with my own hands, a middle-level peasant and I didn't have an extra-hard assignment imposed on me. I have a family of six, my wife was born in 1881, I have a son sixteen years old and two daughters both nineteen, all three attend a school for adults, and I have a sister seventy one years old. In 1932 my farm had back-breaking taxes levied on it that we could barely handle. In 1935 the local authority increased the taxes [on me] as an independent peasant, and I could not handle them so they distrained all of my property: the horse, the cow, the young animals, the ewe with its lambs, all the farming implements, the harness, the furniture and the stockpile of timber for repairing structures and other items and they sold them for the taxes. For 1936 they sold all of the buildings: the storehouse, the granary, the stable, the farmstead and the fencing with the small outbuildings. Our kolkhoz bought them for a stable, which still exists for fourteen horses. For 1937 there were two adjoining izbas under one roof, it [evidently the roof] was sold and taken to another village soviet for five hundred rubles. The entranceway was not distrained or sold, but was taken away. Our Loboshan Kolkhoz took all this without authorization. My family still has to make its way into the izba with a stepladder. There is no place to fix yourself up. On 1 July 1936 I was forced to abandon my land and get a regular job, leaving my house to the mercies of fate, since I had to give the state my grain procurement and there was nothing left for seeds, no farming implements and no horse. Since then I have been working at the raion hospital as a watchman for ninety rubles a month. My farm has fallen into decay, I have no money or workers to raise it again. It would be nice to teach the children, but now two years have passed with no money for studies, I have to make money for bread. I have a farmstead. This year I am tax exempt as a service worker.

In March 1937, for [nonpayment of] tax they took my second izba, which was attached under one roof to the izba we live in, demolished it and hauled it away. Now there is a danger that everything could collapse. The buildings are decrepit, dating to 1874. That one was not a izba for habitation, it had a small stove, was built with plaster, covered with planks, the interior was painted and it was solid, but what is left to me is decrepit and rotting. I appealed to the Kirov Oblast Financial Department to stop the transfer of the izba, and it issued an order to stop the demolition and transfer and to investigate the matter. The raion executive committee jointly resolved with the village soviet that the demolition and transfer were to be stopped, since not all of the izba was removed. On 12 June 1937 the Presidium of the Raion Executive Committee resolved that I was to be issued 1,096 rubles based on an insurance appraisal and the remnants were to be hauled away. I did not agree to this, although I did receive the money. I petitioned the raion and the oblast about the izba, to the effect that the removal of the izba was wrong, which is supported by the 8th all-Russian party congress on 25 November 1936 [The intended reference is to the Eighth All-Union Congress of Soviets.].

Comrade Stalin is for middle-level peasant farms and the inviolability of dwellings in his constitution, yet here the authorities completely violated this article.

In June 1937, after collecting all of the documents, Comrade Valev, a defense attorney with the People's Court, wrote a complaint for me and collected seventy rubles [from me] at the People's Commissariat of Finance. My second complaint got an answer: "Your case has been sent to Kirov and there will be a response by 20 September." A response did in fact come at the end of September: "All calculations were correct, you are not exempted from the tax, but for the improper seizure of the izba you will receive an insurance indemnity of 1,096 rubles." I asked for five thousand rubles in my complaint. Refusing to accept this response, I wrote my second appeal of the year in June [1937] and pointed out the resolution of the eighth all-union congress and the violation of Stalin's constitution, and sent a confirmation and certificate from my neighbors that the izba's value was five thousand rubles. The People's Commissariat of Finance replies: "As the enclosed copy of Paragraph 40, which was in effect in 1936, indicates,["] but my izba was hauled away in June 1937: "Your demand for the replacement cost concerning seizure of the izba cannot be met."

So I request that the editors answer me, was everything done fairly and who broke the law against bringing middle-level peasant farms to ruin: the local authorities or the supreme authorities? And where, if it is a higher level, should I appeal to recover my property? That is the first point.

Second. In February of this year the raion financial department granted the right to purchase structures that our kolkhoz has used since October 1935, which it bought at auction for 870 rubles. In February I paid the kolkhoz five hundred rubles, and the rest with a markdown of forty one rubles the markdowns were for destroyed ceilings and interior walls and other objects. I think thirty percent of all the buildings are destroyed. But I decided to make the purchase with the money received for the seized izba, only I have not been able to pay the remaining 329 rubles for seven months already, and the kolkhoz farmers are not leaving my farmstead, since they have not finished building their stable. Am I entitled to ask them to leave my farmstead while withholding the remaining payment for seven months from the date of purchase, since I have no opportunity to manage my household.

22 September 1938

I have another question, how do I get the central cammishin to investigate my farm, bringing it to ruin and replacing it, why was it done and who did it?