Document 108

Report of land management expert P. P. Anisimov to Narkomzem on wrecking in Arkhangel'sk Oblast, 1938

RGAE, f. 396, op. 10, d. 13, ll. 44-45ob. Original manuscript.

Soviet land-management techniques have made big strides in recent years. Our government annually appropriates enormous funds to the establishment of a Bolshevik order on kolkhoz soil. Thousands of members of the intelligentsia and toilers in the land of socialism have emerged from the milieu of the people. Our party and government surround land-management personnel with concern and create all the conditions for fruitful work. But the thrice-cursed enemies of the people, the Trotskyite-Bukharinite scum and other vermin who have been operating in our Arkhangel'sk Oblast have been wrecking agriculture and land management. The enemies of the people did everything they could to make the people angry at Soviet rule. But the enemies miscalculated. Under Stalin's leadership the glorious organs of the NKVD under the leadership of Stalin's people's commissar N. I. Yezhov smashed and destroyed the main nests of wasps. Tarasovsky, an exposed enemy of the people, former raion agriculture chief and head of a land-management detachment in Pinega Raion, did a lot of filthy things. Tarasovsky never regarded producers who issued state certificates as people. He gave them the nicknames "Fascist," "Hitler," "Big Nose" and so forth. This guy would not pay wages for three or four months at a time, he didn't create any working conditions, and he would take half a year to approve advance-payment reports. State certificates would be turned in unsigned by the raion executive committee, with muddled data, for example to these kolkhozes: the Leunovo, the New Life, the Zavrazhsky, the Red October, the Sovpol'e, Kar'epol'e and others. The Zavrazhsky, Vonsky, Trufanogorsky and Val'tegorsky village soviets have gotten entangled with alternating strip holdings. The Kar'epol'e Kolkhoz was issued a state certificate for an area six thousand hectares less than it actually had allocated to it. The Red October received fifty hectares more than it did in actuality. It must also be mentioned that the state certificate on that kolkhoz burned up and to this day none of the leaders of the raion organizations in Pinega knows about it. The senior technician on that kolkhoz, Mariukhin, established the boundaries of the kolkhoz, eliminated the alternation, and then Tarasovsky arrived and restored the alternation again. He gave the kolkhoz eighteen hectares of hayfields eighteen km out, and snipped off another eighteen hectares from the kolkhoz boundaries. The presidium of the raion executive committee treated this matter in a short-sighted manner, approving Tarasovsky's plan while violating the plan of land-management expert Mariukhin, which had been drawn up properly. The presidium also violated the statutes of the agricultural artel. Two hundred kilometers of tracts, rivers and streams within the boundaries of kolkhozes in this raion have not been surveyed with instruments, and were recorded in state certificates based on rough estimates. Three thousand hectares of hayfields along remote streams were attached for long-term use, and the areas were derived by polling people.

P. P. Anisimov twice sounded the alarm about Tarasovsky's machinations to the krai newspaper Pravda Severa, but the letters got lost somewhere, and he never received a reply. Tarasovsky is now under arrest. But the situation in the system of the land-management department has not changed. Technician Anisimov has been working for more than four years, and during this time he has not attended a single meeting or conference where producers have shared their experience. He wanted to go for schooling, but his hopes were in vain. Nothing happened. Now he has submitted two letters of resignation, and he hasn't gotten a reply to them, either. Personnel turnover at the land-management department is very high. A young man promoted from the rank and file, Aleksandr Ivanovich Karel'sky, is now the raion land-management chief in Pinega. He knows little about the work. No suitable conditions were set up [for him]. He submitted a letter of resignation--no reaction. Nobody is helping him. Instead of help he received a reprimand. Senior technician Nemirov is now the raion land-management chief in Karpogory Raion, and nobody helps there either. None of the land managers are studying anywhere. The oblast land-management department (the chief is Kyz'iurov, his deputy Maklakov) plans and writes up stacks of directives, but they do nothing to help specialists. There was a parceling out of personal garden plots. They did not start this task until 21 March. They were supposed to finish it by 1 April, but the oblast land-management department didn't deign to send out instructions on this work until 10 April. They weren't able to do the job, of course--they messed it up. There were tons of irregularities in this matter [A section of the letter is omitted that describes how hayfields were allotted to kolkhozes and reports that, because of bureaucratic ineptitude, land managers themselves had to do this without pay instead of foremen.]

The people in Pinega are not guiding the subdivision of kolkhozes, either. The subdivision process has been dragging on for two years and to this day nothing has been done in this matter. The leaders (the head of the raion land-management department is Kalinin) are violating the kolkhoz farmers' democracy. The New Countryside Kolkhoz under the Leunovo Village Soviet was subdivided by Tarasovsky in May 1937. There are documents on the subdivision. Another kolkhoz that was separated out received more land than the New Countryside (especially hayfields). The Second Five-Year Plan Kolkhoz under the Chapol'e Village Soviet was subdivided by Tarasovsky. Alternating strip holdings resulted. Now the kolkhoz farmers are writing to the raion executive committee and the raion land-management department on this matter, but there is still no one coming to them to subdivide.