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PREFACE

Documents of Soviet History attempts to meet the needs of researchers, be they scholars, students, journalists, government employees, or others who prefer a single source for documentary materials on the history of the Soviet Union. Previously researchers hunted through a large number of diverse works, usually specialized by time period, topic, or the organization which produced them. Success in this endeavor often requires considerable prior knowledge of the subject matter of the research conducted and about the particular document(s) needed. Even if researchers possess such knowledge, they may not have access to sources usually found only in the largest and most specialized libraries. If found, many of the documents are incomplete, while others lack the contextual information needed by most readers today. Some important documents, of course, are available only in Russian.

Documents of Soviet History brings together major documents of Soviet history in a multivolume set which eventually will cover the period from 1917 to 1986. Thereafter USSR Documents Annual and Russia and Eurasia Documents Annual, also published by Academic International Press, carry on the task of collecting and publishing primary source documents by and about the Soviet Union, Russia and Eurasian states. Documents of Soviet History seeks to select the most important documents, which best explain the development and policies of the Soviet Union. It includes not only those documents pertaining to politics, but those concerning culture and the arts, education, religion, the family, international relations, economics, military affairs, and other aspects of Soviet society and history. A distinct effort is made to include more than government and party pronouncements, which all too often represent the sole content of document collections. At the same time, such materials are recognizably an exceptionally important part of the documentary record and must be represented heavily. Given the nature of the Soviet system, certain leaders loom especially large and authoritative in some periods and their writings and statements are therefore heavily represented in the respective volumes. Both opposition and unofficial voices play a role at times, and they too are represented.

Only contemporary documents are used, that is, those originating at the time. Memoirs and other retrospective writings, including "diaries" which were rewritten, are not included. As editor of Documents of Soviet History I have continued the approach used by my predecessor, Rex A. Wade, and endeavored to select documents that (1) have lasting significance for understanding the Soviet Union in that they set forth fundamental policies and principles, (2) mark important events of Soviet development and history, (3) illustrate the debates on major issues, or (4) suggest the temper of the times. I acknowledge that no two people would make exactly the same selection from literally thousands of documents available, but I believe that the majority would agree on the inclusion of most of those found in this collection and hope that readers will find the selection reasonable as well as valuable.

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Each volume in Documents of Soviet History covers a differing number of years. Some years and periods produced a larger number of important debates, decisions and documents than did others, and therefore the time span of each volume depends on the number and length of important documents in given years. This seems preferable to forcing the documents artificially into a uniform number of years for each volume. There are practical limitations on the size of such a collection and space imposes its own restraints on selection; "importance" is defined at least in part by the amount of space available. This collection will exceed the initially projected twelve volumes. Several future volumes will represent supplements to previous series of volumes, in order to include new sources as well as materials originally omitted because of the constraints of space. In any case, a compromise will be made between the effort to include a larger number and wider range of important documents than any general collection has done hitherto, and the exhaustion of both editor and users. For the sake of clarity and consistency, I have rendered the explanation and description of the presentation of documents that were used by my predecessor in the previous volumes.

The documents in this collection are arranged chronologically rather than grouping them by topic. While each method has advantages, the chronological approach is preferred here. It gives a better sense of historical development and in many instances clarifies how events and issues crowded in upon one another, influenced each other, and how the leaders grappled with many pressing problems simultaneously. Moreover, a single document often relates to several topics. For readers wanting material on a specific topic, the subject index will direct them to all documents on that subject as well as to shorter references within other documents. A listing of documents by main topics is also included for quick reference.

A headnote is provided for each document or series of documents for the purpose of placing the document in its historical framework, to indicate its significance and the more important issues it raises, and to make the necessary clarifications for readers. These headnotes are rather more extensive than in most document collections, on the assumption that most readers will have little knowledge of the historical context of the document.

One of the important principles guiding this collection is to publish each document in its entirety whenever possible. Deletion by editing for space can cause unintended shifts in meaning, and possibly exclude exactly those portions which a given reader needs. In some cases documents which simply are too long to be included in full, yet are too important to leave out, are edited in order to include them. Such instances are noted in the headnote to each document and marked in the text by standard ellipses (...). Readers should note some Soviet writers had a fondness for using ellipses for effect in their writings and so, in order to avoid confusing those with editor's omissions, the abridgment of a document is always noted in the headnote. Some peripheral matter, such as the names of signatories of formal decrees, laws and treaties, are not included unless there is a special reason to do so. These were generally a formality and take up a great deal of space better

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used for additional documents. When the signature of a particular official is of importance, it either is included or indicated in the headnote.

All parenthetical references in the documents are those of the original author. The few editorial clarifications I have made within texts are marked with my initials [AGC] in brackets. All notes at the foot of the page are ones appearing in the original document. Many documents have passages in italics or bold print, and these are given as per the original. These were usually included in translations. I have attempted to reinstate them where they were dropped by the translator from the Russian original, keeping in mind that in some instances there are different Russian versions.

Within documents, the spelling and usage of the original translators generally were retained. There was little to gain in trying to force general stylistic uniformity on the translated documents. Some especially archaic or confusing usages, such as commissionary for commissar, workmen's for workers', etc., were replaced by the more common term. British and American spelling were retained according to the respective translators, except where the cold logic of the modern computer has homogenized them beyond the intent of the editor. Minor correctionsobvious grammatical and spelling errors, archaic or confusing terminology, a word or two of retranslation, etc.were made "silently", that is to say, without noting it in every instance. All substantial modifications of translations are noted.

Russian names and words in the headnotes are given in the slightly simplified Library of Congress transliteration style familiar to readers of English, with diacritical marks and hard and soft sign usually omitted, and the sky rather than skii ending for family names (Trotsky, Lunacharsky). Within the documents they are given generally according to the translators' usage except in instances where names were transliterated in an unusual manner. To alleviate possible confusion, variant name spellings are listed in the index with cross­reference to the standard spelling.

For the benefit of those unfamiliar with Russian and the variations possible when it is transliterated into the Latin alphabet, introduction to the more common ones may help. One set of variations comes from two Russian letters, one of which is transliterated as iu, yu, or ju, and the other as ia, ya, or ja. Another common variation comes from the insertion of the letter y, most often before e to make ye or instead of i in connection with another vowel. Another common insertion is the letter t in front of ch. The apostrophe mark (') may be used to indicate the Russian soft sign or it may be omitted. Most readers are familiar with the three main sets of variations of name ending: the ­sky, ­skii or ­ski; the ­ov (ev), ­of (ef) or ­off (eff); the use of ­a or ­aya in some family names to indicate a woman (Stepanov/Stepanova, Krupskii/Krupskaia), which translators may or may not use. There are other variations, but these are the most common ones and the ones most likely to bother a reader of this volume.

The various party and government names used by different Russian authors and translators deserve special attention. The government formed in October 1917 was called the Council of People's Commissars, but is often referred to by the Russian

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acronym Sovnarkom. It was approved by the Second All­Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, which also created an executive body to act for the Congress between its meetingsthe Central Executive Committee, which is often referred to in documents by its initials, CEC (English) or TsIK (Russian). It is also important to keep these initials distinct from the initials sometimes used for the Central Committee of the Communist Party (C.C. or CC in English and TsK in Russian). The term "soviet" means in Russian "council"; many authors retain the Russian word soviet, now familiar to English readers, but some use council in the title of institutions containing that term. The Glossary will help readers unfamiliar with these and other Russian terms of the period, as will the headnote to documents containing them.

Sometimes there are variant dates for documents, among them the date when a resolution was introduced and when it was passed, the sending and receiving dates of a document, or the date when a law was passed by the Council of People's Commissars, when it was published in the newspapers, and when it was published in the official collection of laws. Thus readers may find a given document dated differently in different sources. In most cases the earliest verifiable date when action was taken or a document was created was used.

Soviet officials used the slash (/) between dates to refer to economic year, beginning on 1 October and ending on 30 September. For example, 1926/27 represented the economic year 1 October 192630 September 1927. The dash () refers to the calendar year.

Many of the documents given herein are being published for the first time in their complete form in English, and some for the first time in English at all, and yet others for the first time in a readily available source. The source for each document is given immediately following the document. A short form reference is used, and the reader who wishes can find the full citation in the list of sources cited. For some documents, both an English and a Russian language source are given. For a single document this means that an English translation existed but with some deletions and that the missing passages were added by the editor from the Russian source in order to make the document complete. In a few instances where two documents are given under one heading the two source references (of whatever language) refer to the different sources used for the respective documents.

Alex G. Cummins

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INTRODUCTION

The disagreements between Stalin and Bukharin that receded by late 1928 reemerged in the early months of 1929. Stalin and his followers were intent on accelerating the Five Year Plan at the expense of the peasantry, by focusing on means to extract grain and other products from the peasants and to eliminate the social and economic influence of the so-called kulaks in the countryside. They espoused the reintroduction of the "emergency measures," specifically the Urals-Siberian method, which proved relatively successful the preceding year. These measures consisted of sending government and party personnel into the countryside to seize grain and products, in many cases forcibly, from peasant holdings and storage bins. The Stalinists also wanted to accelerate the formation of state and collective farms as the basis of the marketable grain supply, thereby replacing reliance on market forces to acquire grain and other agricultural products to feed the cities and Red Army, and for export in exchange for the necessary equipment for industrialization.

Bukharin, Tomsky, Rykov, and their adherents, whom the Stalinists labeled the Right Opposition, Right Deviation, or Bukharin Group, preferred a gradual approach toward socialism. They believed the grain crisis of the previous year was temporal due to natural conditions and could be resolved by agricultural imports. They also believed the industrialization goals were too high for the country to support and would lead to a disastrous break in the alliance with the peasantry and the end of the New Economic Policy. Bukharin wrote an article, published in February 1929 on the eve of the anniversary of Lenin's death, in which he defended NEP and indirectly criticized Stalin's policies. Using excerpts from Lenin's later writings, he emphasized retaining ties with the peasantry so as to avoid a third revolution. The Bukharinites were not alone in their concern for the consequences of rapid and forced collectivization. Moderates, such as Lenin's wife, Nadezhda Krupskaia, urged caution. Krupskaia wrote that Lenin thought it would be foolish to establish and thrust collectivization from above.

The disagreements between Stalin and Bukharin turned acrimonious in late January and early February 1929 during the sessions of the Joint Plenum of the Politburo and Central Control Commission. Stalin accused Bukharin of forming a secret bloc with Kamenev and other Trotskyists to remove Politburo members and reverse the party line. He learned recently of the secret meeting in July 1928 between Bukharin and Kamenev. He criticized Bukharin, Rykov, and Tomsky for threatening to resign their posts if their policies were not adopted. He called for a censure of the Bukharinites and expulsion from their posts. Bukharin, in turn, accused Stalin of the military-feudal exploitation of the peasantry and bureaucratism. A censure resolution against the Bukharinites was drafted but delayed until the meeting of a future full plenum. The full plenum convened in April and ratified the censure resolution against Bukharin, Rykov, and Tomsky, removed them from their posts, and threatened expulsion from the Politburo upon violation of the

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Party's Central Committee resolutions. With the Bukharinites cowed, the Stalinists were free to proceed with reintroducing the "emergency measures" in full force and devising measures to expand collectivization and attack the kulaks.

During the ensuing 18 months, the Stalinists introduced one improvised measure after another that literally transformed Soviet society, particularly the countryside, all to overfulfill the ambitious goals of the Five Year Plan. Rationing was introduced to prevent hoarding and to control the distribution of goods. Thousands of workers from the major urban areas, the so-called "25,000-ers", volunteered to go to the countryside to assist in the "emergency measures" and collectivization drive. Early in November 1929, Stalin proclaimed the collectivization drive successful and a significant breakthrough, signaling a year of great change, because collective and state farms, in his view, had achieved more than fifty percent of the agricultural output. By the end of the year, he called for rapid collectivization and liquidation of the kulaks as a class. In the interim, the Central Committee created a special commission to develop a resolution for general collectivization. After several revisions, originated by Stalin, a resolution finally was published on 5 January 1930 that called for the collectivization of the majority of peasant farms; however, it stopped short of providing specific guidance to party, government, and security officials concerning the formation and organization of kolkhozes, and especially how to deal with the kulaks in the process.

By late February the countryside was in turmoil. Public speeches by party leaders, including Stalin, decrees issued by local party and government officials and implementation of the policy and decrees by workers, and Red Army and security units raised tensions in the countryside and led to the forceful formation of kolkhozes and the arrest and deportation of thousands of peasants who were correctly or incorrectly identified as kulaks. Abuse, vendettas, and opportunities for sordid gain were prevalent. Peasants resisted in many ways, from demonstrations to the killing of livestock. The Stalinists believed that a civil war was imminent in the countryside.

The Politburo instructed Stalin to draft a resolution to stop the collectivization drive. Instead, Stalin went over the heads of the Politburo and published an article in Pravda, entitled "Dizzy with Success," in which he declared collectivization a success and claimed there were many mistakes made by overzealous officials. He announced that these local officials, drunk with previous successes in overcoming obstacles, did not adhere to the voluntary principle of forming kolkhozes, and that peasants could leave the kolkhozes if they chose to do so. Peasants left kolkhozes en masse. The total number of collectivized farms went from more than fifty to less than twenty-five percent. Stalin suddenly became a hero to the peasants and most likely saved his political power by this cynical maneuver of blaming local officials for the chaos in the countryside. His amassing of personal and political power was laying the basis for the Stalin cult.

For all intents and purposes, the old Russian village was destroyed. By late July 1930 it was replaced by the kolkhoz and village soviet, becoming the eco

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nomic and political link between the State and countryside. The Soviet government formed associations to unify kolkhozes and cooperatives, and centralized all agricultural affairs in the newly created People's Commissariat for Agriculture. It established Machine Tractor Stations to provide kolkhozes with tractors and machine and farm implements. Party and State gradually organized their forces to reinstitute the collectivization drive. It was not lost on the Stalinists that the kolkhozes provided about forty percent of the marketable grain supply. The Central Committee declared in August 1931 that collectivization was basically completed, depending on the goals for each region, and predicted total collectivization by 1933.

Party and State instituted measures to maximize resources and improve efficiency and labor productivity. The main administrations, the Glavki, were abolished and replaced by associations of enterprises, which became the basic unit of industry. These organizations were held accountable by the so-called economic accounting, called khozraschet. Long plagued by confusion and diffusion of managerial responsibility in the factory, the manager was given sole responsibility for the performance of the factory; the party leader and trade union official were now tasked with advisory, motivational, and monitoring responsibilities. The continuous work week was introduced to sustain production as well as to reduce the influence of religion by eliminating workbreaks for worship on Sundays. Unemployment insurance was abolished to move more workers into industry to meet the increasing labor shortage. Thousands of displaced peasants and deported kulaks worked in remote industrial and mining regions, particularly in the building of gigantic construction projects such as the Magnitogorsk iron and steel complex. Corrective labor camps were organized and expanded in the remotest areas to harness the labor of counterrevolutionaries, exiled kulaks, and criminals. Party and State encouraged and supported the formation of shock brigades and socialist competition within and among factories and plants. The need to motivate and expand the technical workforce led to the differentiation of wages, which was anathema to Marxists.

Propaganda was used to promote the ambitious goals of the Five Year Plan. Slogans were an important ingredient in the propaganda campaigns. For example, Stalin called for the Five Year Plan in three years and catching up with the capitalist powers. Maxim Gorky called for a civil war against all domestic capitalist elements. Artists and writers were induced to conform to party policies. Vladimir Maiakovsky's suicide in April 1930 symbolized the knell of avant-garde culture ushered in by the October Revolution. The censorship statute of 1921 was updated and extended to all media.

The resignation of A.V. Lunacharsky as People's Commissar for Education paved the way for major educational reforms. Compulsory education was introduced. Primary and secondary schools were ordered to eliminate progressive education and introduce traditional subject and methodology. Factories and plants assumed greater responsibility for preparing and training the technical workforce.

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The Academy of Sciences, long a bastion of independence, was expanded and brought in line with party policies.

Party and State pursued a policy of eliminating opposition. Trotsky was exiled to Turkey in January 1929. The party initiated a purge in April 1929, the second such purge since 1921, aimed at eliminating those who supported Bukharinist policies. The famous show trials of the "Industrial Party" and "Menshevik Party" were intended to cower the technical intelligentsia the Soviets inherited from the Tsarist period. The party uncovered the "Syrtsov-Lominadze Plot" to demonstrate to party officials that any criticism of the party line bore grave consequences.

The Soviet government pursued a nonrevolutionary foreign policy to support the Five Year Plan. It sought contacts with Western powers to support industrialization through trade and credits, and downplayed international revolution. Maxim Litvinov's appointment in 1930 as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs symbolized the shift toward a nonrevolutionary foreign policy. Anglo-Soviet relations were restored after the Labor Party defeated the Conservatives in parliamentary elections. In Germany, the German Communist Party and the rise of the Nazis created political instability at the expense of the ruling Social Democrats. Soviet and German diplomats continued to find ways to continue the spirit of Rapallo and reaffirmed the 1926 Treaty of Berlin. They also supported each other at international organizations sponsored by the League of Nations. In the Far East, Chinese forces of the Mukden Government seized sections of the Chinese Eastern Railway in May 1929. Threats, protracted negotiations and delays, and the counterattack of Soviet military troops against Chinese forces on the Soviet-Chinese border in Manchuria resulted in the restoration of the joint Soviet and Chinese management of the railway. When Japanese troops occupied Manchuria in 1931 the Soviet Government maintained strict neutrality and did not object to the occupation, hoping for reaction by the world community and anticipating a Sino-Japanese conflict. The party believed the Red Army was making progress toward modernization. The new Far Eastern Army proved successful in Manchuria. The Red Army published the first formal Soviet view of modern warfare in its Field Service Regulations of 1929.

The Communist International underwent a change in policy following its congress of 1928, from collaboration with foreign socialist parties to activities aimed at attacking and undermining them. The Stalinists believed the stabilization of world capitalism was coming to a close. Bukharinist supporters of the previous policy were ousted from the foreign communist parties. At the onset of the Great Depression, many foreign communist parties, especially the German Communist Party, became more militant.

Although the ambitious goals of industrialization in the Five Year Plan went unmet, economic growth was phenomenal. This growth contrasted sharply with the decline in economic growth among the capitalist nations because of the depression. Unemployment, a major feature of the depression, was also nonexistent in the Soviet Union. Soviet propaganda exploited the phenomenal growth and low

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unemployment in contrasting the benefits of socialism versus capitalism. The depression nevertheless affected the fulfillment of the Five Year Plan. The Five Year Plan did not predict the drastic fall in the world price for grain, the export of which the Soviets needed to pay for rapid industrialization. Increased Soviet exports at low prices led to accusations of selling below cost.

The Stalinists expanded the State's involvement in Soviet society. The expansion represented a transformation of society emanating from the hierarchical centers of party and Government, a revolution from above. The mixed market and socialist economy of NEP came to an ignominious end. The tolerant NEP ground under the Stalinists' need for rapid, massive industrialization and to retain their line and power through ruthless elimination of entrenched, and potential, opposition.