Mass repressions

In the winter of 1932/33, a terrible famine swept the Volga region, Ukraine, Belarus, Kuban, the North Caucasus, and Kazakhstan. They also starved in Siberia. In starving areas, mortality has reached enormous proportions. They ate horse meat, meat of dogs, cats, moles. There were cases of cannibalism and human meat trafficking everywhere.

From the memoirs of K.V. Filippov (Saratov region): "Shells from Khopr were eaten, the forest was stripped, rotten potatoes were eaten, mice, cats, dogs. Dead horse meat soaked in carbolic acid was soaked and eaten. People fell like incubator chickens. Once my father and I bought a jelly, and it turned out to be made of human meat…"

A report to the Uralobkom of the CPSU (b) of the regional prosecutor Vinogradov on April 2, 1933: "Two coffins with the dead lie on the surface, and upon examination it was found that one corpse had its head and legs cut off, and the trunk was stolen, the soft part of the buttock was cut off from the second corpse. Special settlers kidnapped the corpse, cut it into pieces for the purpose of eating. On March 12, a group of special settlers stole a human corpse from a cemetery at night, chopped it into pieces and ate it."

"In the Petropavlovsk forestry enterprise, an old man hacked down the second and ordered his wife to cook soup from a "ram" - recalled P.A. Chernov (Sverdlovsk region) — "For what reason, it is difficult to remember, the mother went into the neighboring yard, where a widow, a migrant from Belarus, was huddled. It was in the spring of 1933, when the villages were already dying and widowed. The hostess was not at home, but in the corner Tatyana Chernova saw a wooden barrel with children’s legs sticking out of it. The child’s body was butchered and part of it was eaten."

A report to the Prosecutor of the RSFSR, the regional Committee of the CPSU (b) on July 10, 1933: "On June 13, in the village of Ust-Turk, the murder of a four-year-old boy was discovered for the purpose of eating by his father. In the afternoon, the father sent his wife to the field to get grass for soup and said that he would cook stolen sheep. In the absence of his wife, he stabbed his son with a penknife, cut off his head and limbs, put the rest of his body in a cauldron and cooked…"

The total losses from starvation have not yet been established. They call the numbers from 3 to 7 million people. Currently, nationalists in Ukraine call this disaster the "Holodomor", as if it was directed only against Ukrainians.

At the end of December 1929 Stalin called for "the elimination of the Kulaks as a class", "to strike at the Kulaks… so that they could no longer rise to their feet…" In the middle of 1930, a special commission was established under the chairmanship of Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov to combat the Kulaks. She was tasked with eliminating Kulak farms in areas of continuous collectivization, canceling land leases and prohibiting the use of wage labor, confiscating houses, livestock, tools, stocks of seeds and agricultural products from the Kulaks.

Confiscation should be carried out by commissioners from district executive committees with the participation of village councils and representatives of the poor. It was necessary to carry out an accurate inventory of the property. Houses confiscated from the Kulaks should be transferred to the needs of village councils.

The Kulaks, as organizers of terrorist acts and anti-Soviet activities, had to be subjected to repression. All kulaks were divided into three categories:

1. The expulsion of political criminals to the northern and remote areas of the country.
2. The expulsion to the northern and remote regions of the country of large kulaks and former half-timers who actively oppose collectivization.
3. Settlement of former kulaks after dispossession within collective farm areas.

According to statistics, in 1929, 2.5−3% of peasants were Kulaks, but in many areas 10−15% of peasant farms suffered. In 1930−1931, about 400 thousand families, about 2 million people, were sent to remote areas of Siberia and the Far North. In total, more than 3 million peasants suffered from collectivization. About 150 settlements of special settlers were created in the North. Dispossessed peasants worked in logging, built Ostyako-Vogulsk (now Khanty-Mansiysk), Berezovoye, Salekhard.

Tobolsk, along with the cities of Solikamsk and Nadezhdinsky, played an important role on the route of the dispossessed peasants to Siberia. In March 1930, 8 thousand carts arrived in Tobolsk from Tyumen, carrying 22 thousand people. There were not enough prison facilities for the dispossessed. They were placed in the St. Sophia Assumption Cathedral, which was closed in February 1930.

The repression against the peasants provoked their open resistance. In January-March 1930, at least 2,200 peasant demonstrations (almost 800 thousand people) took place. Especially large-scale performances were in the North Caucasus, Central Asia, the Lower Volga, and the Center.

The main place of exile for the dispossessed peasants was the Tobolsk District, which in the 1920s and 30s included the territory of the Yamalo-Nenets and Khanty-Mansiysk districts, as well as the territories of the Tobolsk, Uvatsky, Vagaysky and Yarkovsky districts. From 1929 to 1940, more than 55 thousand peasants from Ukraine, Belarus, the Volga region, the Caucasus, and the Kuban were exiled here. The exiles were housed in 150 settlements isolated from the local population and under the control of the NKVD. Forced labor of special settlers was used in logging, fish extraction and processing, construction, and water transport.

The special settlers were the bearers of economic traditions and ways of cultivating the land, which they willingly shared with the locals. Difficult living conditions forced exiles even in remote areas (Samarovsky, Surgut, Berezovsky) to engage in gardening. In the late 1930s, special settlers accounted for up to 70% of agricultural workers in the North.

Through the selfless work of special settlers, 5 forestry enterprises, 9 large fish factories, two fish canneries — Salekhard and Khanty-Mansiysk, dozens of livestock and fur farms were put into operation.

The main task of the authorities was to "re-educate the kulak." Cultural and educational work was carried out in the villages. Schools were built. There were literacy courses for adults. In the early 1940s, the children of the exiles had the opportunity to study at secondary vocational schools in Omsk, Salekhard, Tobolsk, Tyumen and Khanty-Mansiysk.