Document 89

Letter from M. I, Apen'ko to Kalinin on kolkhoz market in Rostov Oblast, 1938

GARF, f. 7523, op. 23, d. 209, l. 70. Typewritten original.

A kolkhoz fair was held in the village of Belaia Kalitva in Rostov Oblast on 26 and 27 November this year, and several thousand kolkhoz farmers and factory workers gathered there to buy consumer goods, since the local newspaper Stalinsky Klich [Stalin's Call] announced that a sufficient quantity of consumer goods had been delivered to the kolkhoz market.

A red cloth over the shopping stalls bore the slogans, in enormous lettering, AFor a High Standard of Soviet Trade in the City and Countryside!@ But in reality I witnessed unprecedented abuse against citizens, to wit: lines to the dry-goods stalls began to form during the night. They began to bring in dry goods at 10 a.m. The horse-drawn cart broke up the line, and whoever was first wound up last, and the ones at the end wound up first. So profiteering elements and people using their connections were able to buy the fabrics, since many individuals passed themselves off as members of police-support teams. There was no price list for the goods, so shoppers were inevitably overcharged.

When people began to buy the fabrics and the merchandise was tossed over their heads, the lines broke up completely and the result was total chaos and a solid mass of human bodies, which gave people a chance to crawl over other people's heads in dirty boots and dirty clothing. Specifically, on 26 November Roman Leonov and Nikolai Chernikov crawled over people's heads.

Marfa Belousova was pulled out unconscious, with her clothes tattered, and citizen Aksyonov (from the Krutinsky settlement) had his nose smashed, causing a lot of bleeding, since the lid of the bin was not fastened.

On the morning of 27 November citizen Mazolevsky, dressed in a railroad worker's uniform, [also crawled] over people's heads and especially cynical abuse was inflicted on a fifteen-year-old citizen named Natal'ia Kakicheva from the Forshtad settlement. She was tossed onto people's heads and rolled over them (her legs were exposed).

The raion organizations knew about all this, but nobody reacted.

I consider that this is the work of the class enemy, specific counterrevolutionary agitation was done in practice, which I wrote about to Comrade Molotov, the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars. Comrade Molotov's Secretariat sent it to the oblast procurator for investigation, and it is still stuck there. I also reported to the Oblispolkom, and the latter required the Oblast Internal Trade Administration and the Oblast Consumer Union to develop proper Soviet trade in Belaia Kalitva Raion. But none of this was carried out. I request that you let me know of your next directive.