I
Proceeding from the policy of eliminating the kulaks as a class, and in connection with this, from the need to carry out in the most organized way the continuous collectivization process of liquidation of kulak farms and resolutely suppress the attempts of counter-revolutionary opposition of the kulaks to the collective-farm movement of the peasant masses and recognizing the urgency of these measures in connection with the approaching agricultural. campaign, Central Committee decides:
In areas of complete collectivization, carry out immediately, and in the remaining areas, as collectivization is really massively deployed, the following measures:
1. In areas of complete collectivization, in relation to individual peasant farms, the effect of laws on the lease of land and the use of hired labor in agriculture (Sections 7 and 8 of the General Principles of Land Use and Land Management) should be abolished. Exceptions to this rule in relation to middle-peasant farms must be regulated by district executive committees under the direction and control of the district executive committee.
Vladimir Tolts: Vladimir Tolts is at the microphone in Prague, and Anna Ivanova is in the Moscow Freedom Studio.
In the Soviet past, the genre of our today's program was called " In the wake of our performances"or something like that.
Anna Ivanova: In transmission" Difference in time On April 10 of this year, dedicated to the position of the Russian Orthodox Church during the war, we, among other things, quoted the following words of Valery Alekseev, Doctor of Philosophy, lecturer at Moscow State University and President of the International Foundation for the Unity of Orthodox Peoples.
Valery Alekseev: And not so long ago I found a generally unique document - a top secret Politburo resolution of November 11, 1939. In the folder there are many other very important decisions, very important, yes, including this very simple question, it was called "Issues of Religion". There, it means that one of the Leninist documents was cancelled. There were special instructions from the NKVD to radically change the attitude, that is, it is written there: from now on, to stop the persecution of believers for religious reasons. Moreover, according to this decision, it was decided to release these priests from prison. And this is in 1939!
Anna Ivanova: So, Alekseev argues that the policy of the Soviet authorities towards the Orthodox Church did not change in 1943, when the patriarchate was restored and when Stalin met with church hierarchs, but even before the war. After the broadcast, we became interested in the discovery of Valery Alekseev and learned that Igor Kurlyandsky, an employee of the Institute of Russian History of the Academy of Sciences, wrote a long article in the journal Questions of History explaining that the document discovered by Alekseev was a fake.
Kurlyandsky argues that the 1939 Politburo resolution allegedly repealing Lenin's church policy and releasing arrested priests was fabricated in 1999 to create an image of an Orthodox Stalin. And then it appeared in the newspaper "For the Motherland, for Stalin!" and in the memoirs of former Soviet Defense Minister Yazov.
If the circulation of this document had been limited to Stalinist circles, this could have been ignored, but the document is referenced in scholarly literature. Not only Valery Alekseev, but also, for example, professors of the Faculty of History of Moscow State University Alexander Barsenkov and Alexander Vdovin. Moreover, the document was even included in textbooks and anthologies recommended by the Ministry of Education for university students. Therefore, today we decided to take a closer look at this issue.
In our studio we have Professor Valery Alekseev of Moscow State University and Igor Kurlyandsky, an employee of the Institute of Russian History of the Academy of Sciences.
Valery Arkadyevich, please tell us briefly what is the content of the document and its historical significance?
Valery Alekseev: At one time, back in 1989, I published in the central journal of the Central Committee of the Party an article about the so-called secret or "evening" meeting, as it was called, between Stalin and the clergy. And, in fact, the result of this meeting was, as it were, a kind of legalization of the Russian Orthodox Church, the election of a patriarch, and so on. But it turns out that this event had its own prehistory. In Ulyanovsk in 1942 the first Church Council was held. Yes, of course, it did not represent the fullness, it was an Episcopal Council, but it solved very important tasks. Both this and other facts, here in 1942, stubbornly led me, so to speak, to the idea that some kind of culmination of these events lies even earlier. And, as a matter of fact, the logic of these reflections, these searches, it led me to the fact that it was no coincidence that the document of November 11, 1939 was also discovered.
Anna Ivanova: Igor Aleksandrovich, some commentary on what Valery Arkadyevich said about the document too.
Igor Kurlyandsky: Yes, indeed, in connection with the war, the attitude of the state towards the church began to change, and indeed, in 1943 this decision did not fall from the sky, some preparatory work was carried out. But not in the pre-war years, but precisely in connection with the war, in connection with the factor of the patriotic upsurge of the people and the need to use some kind of church structures for the sake of victory. But here we are a little off the mark. We still have a conversation about whether this very document was a radical turning point before the war itself. If we take this document as a basis, then we must reconsider our old views, which exist in historiography, that it was the war that prompted Stalin to meet the needs of the church and believers.
For several years, I conducted painstaking research in this direction, and studied many archival documents, interviewed those publishers who published and propagandized this. And as a result, I came to the conclusion that neither Lenin's instruction of May 1, 1919, nor the resolution of the Politburo, which canceled it, existed as such. That is, it is such a fabricated fake like a puff pie.
Anna Ivanova: And what are the main, so briefly on the points, arguments that you have for the fact that this is a falsification?
Igor Kurlyandsky: First of all, these are ghost documents, invisible documents that do not exist in any known state and departmental archives, documents that do not fit into the office work of certain years, respectively, into the office work of the Council of People's Commissars of 1919 and do not fit into the office work of the Politburo of 1939 . Up to the point that all decisions of the Politburo for November 11, 1939, including those under the heading "Special folder", were thoroughly studied, this was office work that was carried out very strictly - and nothing like that even under some other name, with a different content , but it was precisely those who were going towards religion that did not come out.
There was no amnesty for church matters. That is, there was an amnesty, the so-called "Beria thaw", when, after the end of the great terror, in the spring and summer of 1939, a certain number of prisoners were released.
We sent an official request to the FSB Archive, whether they have documents that there were such purposeful releases, and there is an answer, respectively, from the archive that this was not the case. Another important thing is that church persecution continued in 1939, and in 1940, and in 1941. The arrests continued. Of course, not on such a scale as during the years of Yezhovshchina, but group church affairs continued to be fabricated.
Valery Alekseev: In general, so to speak, there are no arguments ...
Igor Kurlyandsky: How not?
Valery Alekseev: They are about the same as I expected. Well, the fact that you did not find this document or did not give it to you does not mean that it does not exist in nature. I think that you, too, will agree with me that our archival workers will not immediately give out everything, so to speak, archives, which, apparently, to some extent, represent state secrets, not for every request.
I would like to say that, indeed, this is also not an argument that, they say, after this decision there were arrests, albeit on a more limited scale, of clergy. But after all, they were even after this famous, as it were, official turn in relations in 1943, they continued until Stalin's death. But, nevertheless, in the church historical environment and among responsible historians there is a firm opinion that it was really a thaw, that it was a different nature of relations. He really was.
Vladimir Tolts: Valery Arkadyevich, here you are saying that a hunch has dawned on you, and that it is necessary to change the previous concept in our ideas about the relationship between church and state. Well, a guess is one thing, and another is its documentary confirmation. You say that perhaps Igor Alexandrovich is your opponent, because he does not have those documents at his disposal, with which we confirm our guess. Do you have this document? Can you specifically refer to the document, its number, its archival file, sheets, and so on?
Valery Alekseev: Thank you very much, Vladimir, for a very good question and, so to speak, for guiding our discussion in the right direction. I want to say something that is much more specific. I name the exact date, year ...
Igor Kurlyandsky: You don't name archive links. Where did you find it, where did you see it? Did someone bring it to you? Any photocopies from somewhere?
Valery Alekseev: Yes, I have seen this document.
Igor Kurlyandsky: Have you seen it in the archive?
Valery Alekseev: These documents are probably in the archive ...
Igor Kurlyandsky: Yes, there are none! They are not and cannot be. They literally contradict everything! They are ignorantly composed just...
Anna Ivanova: And let's, just to reduce the intensity a little, we will listen to one more of our experts. This is historian Nikita Petrov, deputy chairman of the "Memorial" society.
Nikita Petrov: Generally speaking, after the removal of Yezhov, Beria carried out some, so to speak, course correction, and about 150 thousand people received freedom at the beginning of 1939 and during 1939. But the reason here is not that it was a kind of amnesty. The reason is that they did not have time to be convicted earlier, with the help of emergency mechanisms that existed, on the "troikas", on the commissions of the NKVD and the prosecutor, the so-called "twos". And since all mass operations ceased in 1938 by decision, of course, of Stalin, the Politburo, and there was a special resolution of the Council of People's Commissars on this matter, that is, the "Great Terror" as such ended, Beria did not consider it possible to continue these affairs. I understand that there could have been clergy among those released, but not in such a large number. Thus, the change here in relation to repressions, it happened in general in November 1938, precisely with the end of the "Great Terror".
That is, [this] is a false document - it is, in fact, not only false in form, when we say that there are the same documents drawn up in such and such a way, but this one stands out from their ranks ... It stands out not only some clerical features, but also its content. Sometimes documents are paradoxical, but then they are confirmed in dozens of other documents.
Let's not forget the main thing: by 1943, when the decision was made to re-establish the patriarchate, and when Stalin received the hierarchs of the Orthodox Church in September 1943, the situation was such that in the Chelyabinsk region, for example, in general, in my opinion, there were no no functioning temple. If someone here thinks that the policy changed in 1939, who prevented the opening of churches? Temples did not open. Temples began to open only in the territory occupied by the Germans - this is a well-known fact. And only after that the Soviet government was forced - including Stalin - to somehow change their attitude to this problem. And the Germans themselves often participated in the divine services. And this was the very example for Stalin that something needs to be done about this if he wants not to lose the sympathy of the population in this area as well. Why did the turnaround happen?
Anna Ivanova: Valery Arkadyevich, here is a brief question: why didn’t they really begin to open churches after 1939?
Valery Alekseev: The fact is that after 1939 there was indeed no mass opening of churches in the European part of the country, but there were no closings either. Finally, the second question: what is 1939, the end of the year? This is the time when a political decision was made to annex Bessarabia, the Baltic States, and Western Belarus. We know that all these territories had a large number of temples and monasteries. In accordance with this directive, none of these monasteries and temples were closed.
Anna Ivanova: Let's listen to one more comment - this is the comment of the representative of the Russian Orthodox Church, teacher of the Moscow Theological Academy, Archpriest Vladislav Tsypin.
Vladislav Tsypin: I think that, according to the logic of things, there should not be such a document that would cancel and abolish the foundations of Lenin's policy - formally abolish and abolish. But this does not mean that the policy was not constantly reviewed on a variety of issues. She was reviewing. The ideological course changed. I must say, it began to change, especially in relation to the assessment of past history, since the mid-30s. In general, the pre-revolutionary history of Russia was rehabilitated, in particular, by the way, and with the approach to church topics. For example, some kind of party decision came out, resolutely condemning the play by Demyan Bedny, dedicated to the baptism of Russia.
And of course, the year 1939, when mass repressions ended, including among the clergy, marked a certain turn in church policy, in the religious policy of Stalin, the authorities of that time. It manifested itself, for example, in the fact that if a decisive reduction in the scale of repression in our internal regions can be simply explained by the fact that almost mass destruction was carried out, as if already and there was no one in particular, then in the territories that in 1939, and then in 1940 they were annexed to the Soviet Union, there was nothing of the kind there. There were dozens of repressed people, but despite the fact that there were, let's say, from 3 or 4 to 5 thousand, not just clergy, I mean psalmists, but priests and deacons in this territory, here, of course, these mass repressions are not occurred, just as the closure of churches did not. Of course, this is evidence of a policy revision.
Vladimir Tolts: Let me make a few remarks from my distance. My question was very simple: if Valery Arkadyevich saw this document in the archive, in which archive? Does he have the fund number there, as usual, the case number, the sheet number?.. If Valery Arkadyevich cannot give us this data, then I would like to hear an answer why. And in passing, if I may, a question for Igor Alexandrovich Kurlyandsky. He believes that the photocopy of this document, which is available on the Internet, is a fake - this is established by a number of formal signs. My question is this: firstly, by what signs, from which it is clear that this is a fake? And secondly, how can it be motivated, and by whom can it be created?
Valery Alekseev: Let me give you...
Igor Kurlyandsky: As for the question of signs of forgery, this document cancels the so-called Lenin's instruction "On the merciless struggle against priests and religion", and usually Lenin's instruction in all publications that we have is attached to this document. What actually got cancelled? Instruction number 13666/2, - with three sixes! This is a falsified form, there with some signatures, seals and so on. I want to tell you that there were no "instructions" in the office work of the Soviet Council of People's Commissars, such in the nomenclature of documents. There is a very good fundamental publication - "Decrees of the Soviet Power", and there you can read what the names of the documents were. There were resolutions, there were decrees, well, there was also the name of the documents as orders. As a rule, orders were issued by the Labor and Defense Council. There were never instructions.
Moreover, clerical serial numbers were not assigned to both decrees and decrees. Here is an indication with some fantastic number and with fantastic content. The instruction prescribes to destroy the priests everywhere and everywhere, wherever possible. Whereas we know that since 1919 there has been a consistent policy of splitting and disintegrating the Church, which naturally contradicts the idea of this instruction to destroy the clergy everywhere.
Valery Alekseev: Here, explain by what principles you immediately consider, by what signs, just name it. The signature is not the same, the date is not the same, something else is not right? ...
Igor Kurlyandsky: I told you that there is a specific historical side ...
Anna Ivanova: He also called: no more documents were found under the name "instruction".
Valery Alekseev: Well, what nonsense! With Lenin, this was a practice, he constantly gave instructions.
Igor Kurlyandsky: Lenin did not issue any instructions, and he does not have anywhere to do away with priests and religion everywhere. He had a more flexible policy! Moreover, I have no reverence for the figure of Lenin.
Valery Alekseev: Let me answer...
Vladimir Tolts: Answer my questions! So, I remind you, these are questions related to the location of this document, its archival search numbers. And if you can't answer a question for some reason, maybe you can tell us that reason...
Valery Alekseev: So, I wanted, firstly, to say that, unfortunately, I did not receive a good, intelligible, professional answer from my young colleague, as from a historian, from an archivist, that this document is a fake. So, Lenin wrote instructions, did not write - it's all true - fiction.
Igor Kurlyandsky: It doesn't matter…
Valery Alekseev: For the first time, when I published this famous, so to speak, note by Karpov, it did not have any archival number, it had an internal number of special, so to speak, storage of documents. When we found this document in 1989, it was not in any open storage. The logic was such that a meeting between Gorbachev and Patriarch Pimen was being prepared, and it seemed to everyone that this was such a revolutionary meeting. But smart people told us: you don’t fence the garden, such a meeting took place in 1943. Where can I get this document? We took it from that archive, because I was part of the group preparing this meeting.
Anna Ivanova: And in what archive?
Valery Alekseev: Well, in a "special" archive - that's what we'll call it. This document was then, so to speak, pulled out by us from there, and we were given special permission, and a year later, as we were given such permission, we published it. And only after that the document was introduced into scientific circulation, it was assigned a number, and you already got to know it. The same work is to be done with this document.
Anna Ivanova: For now, you can just tell, really, where did you see this document of 1939?
Valery Alekseev: I read it in the same way, so to speak, as I read this note by Karpov.
Anna Ivanova: And what?
Igor Kurlyandsky: Where did you read it?
Valery Alekseev: There, so to speak...
Anna Ivanova: And who brought it to you?
Igor Kurlyandsky: In what archive and where? In what archive, from whom?
Valery Alekseev: Well, is it enough for you that it is published?
Igor Kurlyandsky: It's not enough for me. I don't believe in fairy tales!
Anna Ivanova: So you can't tell us who brought the document to you?
Valery Alekseev: Well, I don't believe in fairy tales either, I believe in documents, so I published it. If I listened to a fairy tale, I would, of course, treat it like a fairy tale. But given that I was convinced of this ...
Igor Kurlyandsky: As long as you have not referred, until you have given the exact data where you saw him, you are acting as a storyteller.
Vladimir Tolts: I'll intervene again. Valery Arkadyevich, then it is clear to me: for some reason you cannot name in which archive you saw this. But can you explain why? You signed a non-disclosure agreement, what's the matter? ..
Valery Alekseev: Well, for one simple reason. Because this document, so to speak, has a number that cannot be verified in its open storage. How will I call...
Anna Ivanova: So you can't say where you saw it because we can't verify it.
Valery Alekseev: Absolutely correct.
Igor Kurlyandsky: So you think that Alexander Sergeevich Stepanov, head of the Department of the Presidential Archive, is lying when he writes that these documents were not found in the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation?
Valery Alekseev: Why? I don't know if he's lying or not...
Igor Kurlyandsky: Or is Khristoforov, the head of the FSB department, lying?
Valery Alekseev: I don't know where you all watched it.
Anna Ivanova: These are the official reviews from the archives.
Valery Alekseev: Well, great.
Anna Ivanova: Let's hear another expert's opinion. Here is what Doctor of Historical Sciences Mikhail Ivanovich Odintsov says, who published many archival documents on the history of relations between the church and Soviet power.
Mikhail Odintsov: I have been working in the archives for over 30 years, I know all these archives related to the war, and there are no documents confirming the existence of such a certificate, which is written and spoken about. If people find such a document, they must present it, I don't know, a copy, the original, indicate where it is kept, link it to the circumstances of its appearance. You never know what, in what folders it lies ... It could be a foreign body, laid later! So everything has to be connected.
Anna Ivanova: Igor Alexandrovich, do I understand correctly that regarding the resolution of 1939, that in this document, to which Valery Arkadievich refers, he has the number 88, and in the archive of the Politburo there is a resolution too ...
Igor Kurlyandsky: Yes there is. There is the numbering of “special folders”, and, in fact, this “special folder” is Politburo Protocol No. 9 of November 11, 1939. All solutions...
Anna Ivanova: That is, the number does not converge.
Igor Kurlyandsky: ...for this day they were declassified, all of them are available to researchers, both ordinary and based on the materials of the “special folder”, and there are completely different stories, and there is nothing like it.
Valery Alekseev: I think that people with experience, they will tell you that especially during the Stalinist period, Politburo decisions from one day were drawn up in two, three folders, and four.
Igor Kurlyandsky: It wasn't.
Valery Alekseev: Well, I'm telling you this.
Anna Ivanova: So, as I understand it, the arguments regarding falsity can be divided into two types - substantive and source study. Roughly speaking, the first is meaningful: the document has no confirmation in reality, that is, temples do not begin to open in 1939, repressions, if they are reduced, including among the clergy, this happens a year earlier, when the Great Terror ends, in 1938, and it can also be noted that after 1939, despite the decision, the repressions of the clergy still persist.
Igor Kurlyandsky: Of course.
Anna Ivanova: The second type is source study: that the document was not found in the archives, that it is not confirmed in other documents. And these are, as it were, substantive and source-oriented arguments.
Valery Alekseev: Of course, I don’t have such a selection of materials as my colleague has, but she inspired me very much. On the contrary, it convinced me that we are on the right track, that the whole logic of historical development and the logic of political decisions of the political leadership, she confirms, so to speak, this document, which I myself saw with my own eyes.
Igor Kurlyandsky: These documents did not exist. And it couldn't be. Because they contradict many, many, many realities. All this together gives a definite answer that we have fakes created for political purposes.
Vladimir Tolts: All! The transmission time is running out. I think that both the intensity of the discussion and the omissions that one of its participants resorts to will say quite a lot about the document that we discussed today. Including the fact that it deserves further study, and the results of this deserve the widest publicity.
Thanks to the organizer and author of this program, historian Anna Ivanova, who passionately defended each of his own, Doctor of Philosophy Valery Alekseev and Candidate of Historical Sciences Igor Kurlyandsky, who expressed their opinions to Archpriest Vladislav Tsypin, historians Nikita Petrov and Mikhail Odintsov!
Decree of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks "On measures to eliminate kulak farms in areas of complete collectivization"
I.On measures to liquidate kulak farms in areas of complete collectivization
Proceeding from the policy of liquidating the kulaks as a class, and in connection with this, from the need to carry out in the most organized way the process of liquidating kulak farms that began in areas of complete collectivization and resolutely suppress the attempts of the kulaks to counter-revolutionary opposition to the collective-farm movement of the peasant masses, and recognizing the urgency of these measures in connection with the approaching socialist crisis. X. campaign, the Central Committee decides:
In areas of complete collectivization, carry out immediately, and in the remaining areas, as collectivization is really massively deployed, the following measures:
1. In areas of complete collectivization, in relation to individual peasant farms, the effect of laws on the lease of land and the use of hired labor in agriculture (Sections 7 and 8 of the General Principles of Land Use and Land Management) should be abolished. Exceptions to this rule in relation to middle-peasant farms must be regulated by district executive committees under the direction and control of the district executive committee.
2. To confiscate from the kulaks of these regions the means of production, livestock, household and residential buildings, processing enterprises, fodder and seed stocks.
3. At the same time, in order to decisively undermine the influence of the kulaks on individual strata of the poor and middle peasantry and unconditionally suppress any attempts of counter-revolutionary opposition on the part of the kulaks to the measures taken by the Soviet government and collective farms, take the following measures against the kulaks:
a) the first category - counter-revolutionary kulak activists - immediately liquidate by imprisonment in concentration camps, without stopping in relation to the organizers of terrorist acts, counter-revolutionary actions and insurgent organizations before applying the highest measure of repression;
b) the second category should be made up of the remaining elements of the kulak asset, especially from the richest kulaks and semi-landlords, who are subject to deportation to remote areas of the USSR and within the boundaries of this region to remote areas of the region;
4. The number of kulak farms being liquidated for each of the three categories should be strictly differentiated by district, depending on the actual number of kulak farms in the district, so that the total number of liquidated farms in all the main districts averaged approximately 3-5%. The purpose of this directive (3-5%) is to focus the blow on the really kulak farms and unconditionally prevent the spread of these measures to any part of the middle peasant farms.
Families of Red Army soldiers and commanders of the Red Army are not subject to eviction and confiscation of property. In wearing kulaks, whose family members work for a long time in factories and plants, a particularly cautious approach should be taken to ascertain the position of the relevant persons not only in the village, but also with the relevant factory organizations.
Actions for the coming period include the following:
1. Propose to the OGPU that repressive measures against the first and second categories of kulaks be carried out over the next four months (February-May), based on an approximate calculation - to send 60,000 kulaks to concentration camps and 150,000 kulaks to be evicted to remote areas; take care to take all measures to ensure that by April 15 these measures are carried out in respect of at least not less than half of the indicated number. The carrying out of these measures should be made dependent on the rate of collectivization of certain regions of the USSR and coordinated with the regional committees of the CPSU (b).
2. Family members of kulaks expelled and imprisoned in concentration camps may, if they wish and with the consent of local district executive committees, temporarily or permanently stay in their former district (okrug).
3. Approximately, in accordance with the data of the places, establish the following distribution by regions of those imprisoned in camps and subject to deportation (in thousands):
In relation to other regions and republics, instruct the OGPU to make a similar outline in agreement with the relevant regional committees and the Central Committee of the CPSU (b)
4. Deportation to the districts of the Northern Territory - 70 thousand families, Siberia - 50 thousand families, the Urals - 20-25 thousand families, Kazakhstan - 20-25 thousand. agricultural work or crafts (forest, fish, etc.).
The exiled kulaks are to be resettled in these areas in small settlements, which are controlled by appointed commandants.
5. During the confiscation of their property, the exiled and resettled kulaks should be left with only the most necessary household items, some elementary means of production in accordance with the nature of their work in a new place, and the minimum food supplies necessary for the first time. The funds of the exiled kulaks are also confiscated, leaving, however, in the hands of the kulak a certain minimum amount (up to 500 rubles per family) necessary for travel and accommodation on the spot.
6. With regard to kulak farms left in place with the allotment of new plots outside the collective farm fields, be guided by the following:
a) okrug executive committees should indicate the places of resettlement so that settlement in the allotted areas is allowed only in small settlements, which are managed by special committees (troika) or authorized persons appointed by rayon executive committees and approved by okrug executive committees .;
b) the resettled kulaks of this category are left with the means of production in the amount that is minimally necessary for running an economy on the newly allotted plots;
c) the settlers are assigned certain production tasks in agriculture and obligations to deliver marketable products to state and cooperative bodies;
d) Okrug executive committees urgently work out the question of how to use the resettled kulaks as labor force in special labor squads and colonies for logging, road, land reclamation and other work;
e) in relation to kulak families resettled outside the districts, it is necessary, in particular, to bear in mind the possibility of their resettlement with the opposition, where possible, of individual elements of the youth to the rest of the kulaks. At the same time, methods such as collecting subscriptions to newspapers and literature, creating libraries, organizing common canteens and other cultural and community events should be used. To consider it possible in some cases to enlist certain groups of young people to volunteer work for local councils, to serve the poor, and so on, and also to create a special type of production artels and agricultural enterprises. associations, for example, in connection with construction and land reclamation work, as well as afforestation, forest uprooting, etc. All these activities must be carried out under the strict control of local authorities.
7. Lists of kulak farms (the second category) evicted to remote areas are established by district executive committees on the basis of decisions of meetings of collective farmers, laborers and poor peasants' meetings and approved by the district executive committees. The order of resettlement of the remaining kulak farms (third category) is established by the okrug executive committees.
III. On confiscation and disposal of confiscated property
1. The confiscation of the property of kulaks is carried out by specially authorized district executive committees with the obligatory participation of the c/council, chairmen of collective farms, groups of laborers and poor peasants, and laborers' committees.
2. During confiscation, an accurate inventory and assessment of the confiscated property is carried out, with the responsibility for the complete safety of the confiscated property being placed on the councils.
3. The means of production and property confiscated from the kulaks are transferred by the RECs to the collective farms as a contribution from the poor peasants and farm laborers with the confiscated credited to the indivisible fund of collective farms with full repayment from the confiscated property of the obligations (debts) due from the liquidated kulak economy to state and cooperative bodies.
4. Collective farms receiving land and confiscated property must ensure the complete sowing of the transferred land and the delivery of all marketable products to the state.
5. Confiscated residential kulak buildings are used for public needs from / councils and collective farms or for the hostel of laborers who join the collective farm and do not have their own housing.
6. Passbooks and bonds of government loans from the kulaks of all three categories are taken away and entered into the inventory with the issuance of a receipt for sending them for storage to the appropriate bodies of the Narkomfin. Any distribution to evicted kulak farms from contributions to savings banks, as well as the issuance of loans secured by bonds in areas of complete collectivization, is unconditionally stopped.
7. Shares and contributions of kulaks of all three categories in cooperative associations are transferred to the fund for the collectivization of the poor peasants and farm laborers, and their owners are excluded from all types of cooperation.
In adopting these decisions regarding the liquidation of kulak farms in areas of complete collectivization, the Central Committee categorically indicates that the implementation of these measures should be in organic connection with the truly massive collective-farm movement of the poor and middle peasants and be an inseparable component of the process of complete collectivization. The Central Committee resolutely warns against the facts existing in some regions of the substitution of work on mass collectivization by sheer dispossession of kulaks. Only in combination with the broadest organization of the poor peasantry and farm laborers, and with the rallying of the poor and middle peasant masses on the basis of collectivization, the necessary administrative measures for dispossession can lead to a successful solution of the tasks set by the Party in relation to the socialist reorganization of the countryside and the liquidation of the kulaks.
The Central Committee emphasizes that all these measures must be carried out on the basis of the maximum development of the initiative and activity of the broad masses of the collective farms, in the first place, the laborers and poor peasants, and with their support. Decisions on the confiscation of kulak property and the eviction of kulaks must be preceded by resolutions of the general meeting of the members of the collective farm and the meeting of the laborers and the poor. Warning against underestimating the difficulties associated with the implementation of these measures and demanding that local organizations take all measures for the most organized implementation of them, the Central Committee obliges the regional committee and the nat. The Central Committee should establish, not in words, but in deeds, permanent leadership for the implementation of these decisions.
IV. Special regulations
1. To help local party organizations carry out the above activities, the Central Committee decides to mobilize for 4 months from the industrial regions (Moscow, Leningrad, Ivanovo-Voznesenskaya, Nizhny Novgorod, Kharkov-Donbass, etc.) 2,500 party members not below the district scale. The mobilized must leave for the field no later than February 20.
2. Grant the OGPU the right, for the duration of this campaign, to entrust its powers for out-of-court consideration of cases to the OGPU PP in the regions. In these cases, cases are considered jointly with representatives of the regional committees of the CPSU (b) and the prosecutor's office.
3. For the current budget year 1929/30, increase the staff of the OGPU by 800 people. authorized with the release of the funds required for this to serve those administrative regions where there are no such authorized. These 800 comrades should be allowed to be mobilized by the OGPU, primarily at the expense of old Chekists from the reserve. In addition, to increase the composition of the OGPU troops by 1,000 bayonets and sabers (for the current budget year). RVSR to transfer to the OGPU the appropriate number of personnel.
4. To propose to the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, within three days, to consider an estimate of the necessary expenses associated with the implementation of these measures, estimates for the costs of evicting kulaks to remote areas and estimates for organizing new additional camps in the regions of Siberia and the Northern Territory. OGPU - to submit these estimates.
5. Instruct the NKPS and the OGPU within 5 days to develop a plan for the necessary rail transportation.
6. To entrust the CNT ore and the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions and, at the same time, the Supreme Economic Council and the People's Commissariat of Economy to take immediate measures to clean up industrial enterprises in cities from individual kulak elements (avoiding any general cleansing campaign at enterprises), and also to take tough measures to further prevent such elements for production.
7. To oblige the party committees (especially Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov and Kyiv), the OGPU and the People's Commissariat of Rosa of the union republics to take more decisive measures to combat counter-revolutionary youth groups associated with kulak elements in the countryside in universities and technical universities.
8. It is urgent to revise the legislation on religious associations in the spirit of completely eliminating any possibility of turning the governing bodies of these associations (church councils, sectarian communities, etc.) into strongholds of the kulaks, deprivation, and generally anti-Soviet elements.
To instruct the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee to issue a directive on the question of closing churches, prayer houses of sectarians, etc. And about the fight against the religious and sectarian movement, in order to remove the brakes in the Soviet apparatus that hinder the implementation of the decisions taken by the overwhelming mass of the peasantry to close churches, prayer houses of sectarians, etc. In this directive, also indicate the need for particularly careful implementation of these measures in backward national regions.
9. To entrust the legislative changes arising from this resolution to issue the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR within 5 days so that they are put into effect by the regional executive committees and governments of the national republics in areas of complete collectivization immediately, and in the rest, depending on the rate of development of complete collectivization in these areas.
10. Urgently (within 3 days) issue a decree not subject to publication on the universal (and not only in areas of complete collectivization):
a) the prohibition of the free relocation of kulaks from their places of residence without the permission of the district executive committees under the threat of immediate confiscation of all property;
b) the prohibition of the sale by kulaks of their property and inventory under the threat of confiscation and other reprisals.
Historical archive. 1994. No. 4. pp. 147-152
Decree of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks "On measures to eliminate kulak farms in areas of complete collectivization"
116 - On arrests, prosecutorial supervision and investigation. (Resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks).
Make the following decision (see appendix).
APPENDIX
People's Commissars of Internal Affairs of the Union and Autonomous Republics, heads of the UNKVD of territories and regions, heads of district, city and district branches of the NKVD
Prosecutors of the Union and Autonomous Republics, Territories and Regions, District, City and District Prosecutors.
To the secretaries of the Central Committee of the National Communist Parties, regional committees, regional committees, district committees, city committees and district committees of the CPSU (b)
ON ARRESTS, PROSECUTOR'S SUPERVISION AND INVESTIGATION
Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks note that in 1937-38, under the leadership of the party, the NKVD bodies did a great job of defeating the enemies of the people and clearing the USSR of numerous espionage, terrorist, sabotage and wrecking personnel from Trotskyists, Bukharinites, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, bourgeois nationalists, White Guards, fugitive kulaks and criminals, who were a serious support of foreign intelligence services in the USSR and, in particular, the intelligence agencies of Japan, Germany, Poland, England and France.
At the same time, the NKVD bodies also did a lot of work to defeat the espionage and sabotage agents of foreign intelligence services, transferred to the USSR in large numbers from behind the cordon under the guise of so-called political emigrants and defectors from Poles, Romanians, Finns, Germans, Latvians, Estonians, Harbin residents and so on. .
Clearing the country of sabotage insurgents and espionage personnel played a positive role in ensuring the further success of socialist construction.
However, one should not think that with this the task of clearing the USSR of spies, wreckers, terrorists and saboteurs is over.
The task now is to continue the merciless struggle against all the enemies of the USSR and to organize this struggle with the help of more perfect and reliable methods.
This is all the more necessary because the mass operations to defeat and uproot enemy elements carried out by the NKVD in 1937-1938, with a simplified investigation and trial, could not but lead to a number of major shortcomings and distortions in the work of the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office. Moreover, enemies of the people and spies of foreign intelligence services, who made their way into the NKVD bodies both in the center and in the localities, continuing to carry out their subversive work, tried in every possible way to confuse investigative and intelligence affairs, deliberately perverted Soviet laws, carried out mass and unreasonable arrests, while at the same time, saving his accomplices from defeat, especially those who had settled in the organs of the NKVD.
The main shortcomings recently revealed in the work of the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office are the following:
Firstly, the NKVD officers completely abandoned intelligence work, preferring to act in a more simplified way, through the practice of mass arrests, without caring about the completeness and high quality of the investigation.
The employees of the NKVD have become so unaccustomed to painstaking, systematic intelligence work and have become so addicted to a simplified procedure for the proceedings that, until very recently, questions have been raised about granting them so-called "limits" for mass arrests.
This led to the fact that the already weak undercover work fell even further behind and, worst of all, many people's commissars lost their taste for undercover activities, which play an extremely important role in Chekist work.
This, finally, led to the fact that, in the absence of properly organized undercover work, the investigation, as a rule, could not fully expose the arrested spies and saboteurs of foreign intelligence services and completely reveal all their criminal connections.
Such an underestimation of the importance of undercover work and an unacceptably frivolous attitude towards arrests are all the more intolerable since the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in their decisions of May 8, 1933, June 17, 1935 and, finally, March 3, 1937, gave categorical instructions on the need properly organize undercover work, limit arrests and improve the investigation.
Secondly, the biggest shortcoming of the work of the NKVD bodies is the deeply rooted simplified investigation procedure, in which, as a rule, the investigator is limited to obtaining a confession of guilt from the accused and does not at all care about supporting this confession with the necessary documentary data (testimony of witnesses, expert reports, physical evidence etc.).
Often the arrested person is not interrogated within a month after the arrest, sometimes more. During interrogations of arrested persons, interrogation protocols are not always kept. Often there are cases when the testimony of the arrested person is recorded by the investigator in the form of notes, and then, after a long time (a decade, a month or even more), a general protocol is drawn up, and the requirement of Article 138 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for verbatim, if possible, fixing the testimony of the arrested person is completely not met. . Very often, an interrogation protocol is not drawn up until the arrested person confesses to the crimes committed by him. It is not uncommon for the protocol of interrogation to fail to record the testimony of the accused, refuting one or another of these accusations.
Investigative files are drawn up sloppily, rough, unknown by whom, corrected and crossed out pencil notes of testimony are placed in the case, protocols of testimony not signed by the interrogated and not certified by the investigator are placed, unsigned and not approved indictments are included, etc.
The bodies of the Prosecutor's Office, for their part, do not take the necessary measures to eliminate these shortcomings, reducing, as a rule, their participation in the investigation to simple registration and stamping of investigative materials. Not only do the organs of the Procurator's Office fail to eliminate violations of revolutionary legality, but they actually legitimize these violations.
This kind of irresponsible attitude towards investigative arbitrariness and gross violations of the procedural rules established by law were often skillfully used by enemies of the people who made their way into the bodies of the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office - both in the center and in the localities. They deliberately perverted Soviet laws, committed forgeries, falsified investigative documents, prosecuted and arrested on trifling grounds and even without any grounds at all, created "cases" against innocent people for the provocative purpose, and at the same time took all measures to in order to shelter and save from defeat their accomplices in criminal anti-Soviet activities. Such facts took place both in the central apparatus of the NKVD and in the localities.
All these absolutely intolerable shortcomings noted in the work of the NKVD and the Procuracy organs were possible only because the enemies of the people who had made their way into the organs of the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office tried in every possible way to tear off the work of the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office organs from the party organs, to get away from the party control and leadership, and thereby make it easier for themselves and to his accomplices the opportunity to continue his anti-Soviet, subversive activities.
In order to decisively eliminate the above shortcomings and properly organize the investigative work of the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks decide:
1. To prohibit the bodies of the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office from carrying out any mass arrest and eviction operations.
In accordance with Art. 127 of the Constitution of the USSR, arrests can be made only by a court order or with the sanction of a prosecutor.
Eviction from the border zone is allowed in each individual case with the permission of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on a special proposal from the relevant regional committee, regional committee or Central Committee of the national communist parties, agreed with the NKVD of the USSR.
2. Eliminate judicial troikas created in accordance with special orders of the NKVD of the USSR, as well as troikas at regional, regional and republican police departments of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
From now on, all cases, in strict accordance with the current laws on jurisdiction, should be submitted for consideration by the courts or the Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR.
3. When making arrests, the bodies of the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office should be guided by the following:
a) approval for arrests to be carried out in strict accordance with the decision of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of June 17, 1935;
b) when requesting arrest warrants from prosecutors, the NKVD bodies are obliged to submit a reasoned decision and all materials substantiating the need for arrest;
c) the bodies of the Prosecutor's Office are obliged to carefully and essentially check the validity of the decisions of the NKVD bodies on arrests, demanding, if necessary, the performance of additional investigative actions or the submission of additional investigative materials;
d) the bodies of the Prosecutor's Office are obliged to prevent arrests without sufficient grounds.
Establish that for each incorrect arrest, along with the employees of the NKVD, the prosecutor who gave the sanction for the arrest is also responsible.
4. Oblige the bodies of the NKVD in the course of the investigation to strictly comply with all the requirements of the Criminal Procedure Codes.
In particular:
a) complete the investigation within the time limits established by law;
b) to interrogate the arrested no later than 24 hours after their arrest; after each interrogation, immediately draw up a protocol in accordance with the requirement of Article 138 of the Code of Criminal Procedure with an exact indication of the time of the beginning and end of the interrogation.
When familiarizing himself with the protocol of interrogation, the prosecutor is obliged to make an inscription on the protocol about familiarization with the designation of the hour, day, month and year;
c) documents, correspondence and other items taken during the search, be sealed immediately at the place of the search, in accordance with Art. 184 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, compiling a detailed inventory of everything sealed.
5. To oblige the bodies of the Prosecutor's Office to strictly comply with the requirements of the Code of Criminal Procedure for the exercise of prosecutorial supervision over the investigation carried out by the bodies of the NKVD.
In accordance with this, to oblige prosecutors to systematically check the implementation by the investigative bodies of all the rules of investigation established by law and immediately eliminate violations of these rules; take measures to secure the procedural rights granted to the accused by law, etc.
6. In connection with the growing role of prosecutorial supervision and the responsibility assigned to the bodies of the Prosecutor's Office for arrests and the investigation conducted by the NKVD bodies, it is necessary to recognize as necessary:
a) establish that all prosecutors supervising the investigation carried out by the NKVD bodies are approved by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on the proposal of the relevant regional committees, regional committees, the Central Committee of the National Communist Parties and the prosecutor of the USSR;
b) oblige the regional committees, regional committees and the Central Committee of the National Communist Parties to check and submit for approval to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks the candidacies of all prosecutors supervising the investigation in the NKVD bodies;
c) oblige the Prosecutor of the USSR Comrade. Vyshinsky to select politically verified qualified prosecutors from the staff of the central apparatus to supervise the investigation conducted by the central apparatus of the NKVD of the USSR, and submit them for approval to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks within two decades.
7. To approve the measures of the NKVD of the USSR to streamline investigative proceedings in the NKVD bodies, set out in the order of October 23, 1938. In particular, to approve the decision of the NKVD on the organization of special investigative units in the operational departments.
Attaching particular importance to the correct organization of the investigative work of the NKVD bodies, to oblige the NKVD of the USSR to ensure the appointment of the best, most politically tested and qualified party members who have proven themselves at work as investigators in the center and in the localities.
Establish that all investigators of the NKVD bodies in the center and in the localities are appointed only by order of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR.
8. To oblige the NKVD of the USSR and the Prosecutor of the USSR to give instructions to their local authorities on the exact execution of this resolution.
The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks draw the attention of all employees of the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office to the need to decisively eliminate the shortcomings noted above in the work of the organs of the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office and to the exceptional importance of organizing all investigative and prosecutorial work in a new way.
The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks warn all employees of the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office that for the slightest violation of Soviet laws and directives of the Party and Government, every employee of the NKVD and the Prosecutor's Office, regardless of persons, will be subject to severe judicial responsibility.
Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR V. MOLOTOV
Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) I. STALIN
33. - ABOUT THE OPERA "GREAT FRIENDSHIP" V. MURADELI
The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks believes that the opera "The Great Friendship" (music by V. Muradeli, libretto by G. Mdivani), staged by the Bolshoi Theater of the USSR on the days of the 30th anniversary of the October Revolution, is vicious both musically and in terms of plot , an anti-artistic work.
The main shortcomings of the opera are rooted primarily in the music of the opera. The music of the opera is inexpressive, poor. There is not a single memorable melody or aria in it. It is chaotic and disharmonious, built on continuous dissonances, on sound combinations that cut the ear. Separate lines and scenes that claim to be melodious are suddenly interrupted by a discordant noise, completely alien to normal human hearing and depressing to the listeners. There is no organic connection between the musical accompaniment and the development of the action on the stage. The vocal part of the opera - choral, solo and ensemble singing - makes a poor impression. Because of all this, the possibilities of the orchestra and singers remain unused.
The composer did not take advantage of the wealth of folk melodies, songs, tunes, dance and dance melodies, which are so rich in the work of the peoples of the USSR, and in particular the work of the peoples inhabiting the North Caucasus, where the actions depicted in the opera unfold.
In pursuit of the false "originality" of music, the composer Muradeli neglected the best traditions and experience of classical opera in general, Russian classical opera in particular, which is distinguished by its internal content, richness of melodies and breadth of range, nationality, elegant, beautiful, clear musical form, which made Russian opera the best opera. in the world, beloved and accessible to the general public as a genre of music.
Historically false and artificial is the plot of the opera, which claims to depict the struggle for the establishment of Soviet power and friendship of peoples in the North Caucasus in 1918-1920. From the opera, an incorrect idea is created that such Caucasian peoples as Georgians and Ossetians were at that time at enmity with the Russian people, which is historically false, since the Ingush and Chechens were an obstacle to establishing friendship between peoples at that time in the North Caucasus.
The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks considers that the failure of Muradeli's opera is the result of the formalistic path that Comrade Muradeli embarked on, false and ruinous for the work of the Soviet composer.
As the meeting of Soviet music figures held in the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks showed, the failure of Muradeli's opera is not a particular case, but is closely connected with the unfavorable state of modern Soviet music, with the spread of the formalist trend among Soviet composers.
Back in 1936, in connection with the appearance of D. Shostakovich’s opera “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District”, the organ of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “Pravda” sharply criticized the anti-people, formalist perversions in the work of D. Shostakovich and exposed the harm and danger of this trend for the fate of the development of Soviet music. Pravda, which appeared at that time at the direction of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, clearly formulated the demands that the Soviet people make of their composers.
Despite these warnings, and also contrary to the instructions given by the Central Committee of the CPSU(b) in its decisions on the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad3, on the film Bolshaya Zhizn4, on the repertoire of drama theaters and measures for its Improvement5, no restructuring was carried out in Soviet music. Individual successes of some Soviet composers in creating new songs that have found recognition and wide distribution among the people, in creating music for films, etc., do not change the overall picture of the situation. The situation is especially bad in the field of symphonic and operatic creativity. We are talking about composers who adhere to a formalistic, anti-people direction. This trend has found its fullest expression in the works of such composers as t.t. D. Shostakovich, S. Prokofiev, A. Khachaturian, V. Shebalin, G. Popov, N. Myaskovsky and others, in whose work formalist perversions, anti-democratic tendencies in music, alien to the Soviet people and their artistic tastes, are particularly clearly represented. The characteristic features of such music are the denial of the basic principles of classical music, the preaching of atonality, dissonance and disharmony, which are supposedly an expression of "progress" and "innovation" in the development of a musical form, the rejection of the most important foundations of a musical work, which is a melody, a passion for chaotic, neuropathic combinations, turning music into a cacophony, into a chaotic heap of sounds. This music strongly reeks of the spirit of contemporary modernist bourgeois music of Europe and America, reflecting the insanity of bourgeois culture, the complete denial of musical art, its dead end.
An essential feature of the formalist trend is also the rejection of polyphonic music and singing, based on the simultaneous combination and development of a number of independent melodic lines, and the passion for monophonic, unison music and singing, often without words, which represents a violation of the polyphonic musical and song system characteristic of our people, and leads to the impoverishment and decline of music.
Trampling on the best traditions of Russian and Western classical music, rejecting these traditions as supposedly "obsolete", "old-fashioned", "conservative", arrogantly bullying composers who are trying to conscientiously master and develop the techniques of classical music, as supporters of "primitive traditionalism" and "epigonism" , many Soviet composers, in pursuit of misunderstood innovation, broke away in their music from the demands and artistic taste of the Soviet people, closed themselves in a narrow circle of specialists and musical gourmets, reduced the high social role of music and narrowed its significance, limiting it to satisfying the perverted tastes of aesthetic individualists .
The formalist trend in Soviet music gave rise among some Soviet composers to a one-sided fascination with the complex forms of instrumental symphonic textless music and a disdainful attitude towards such musical genres as opera, choral music, popular music for small orchestras, for folk instruments, vocal ensembles, etc.
All this inevitably leads to the fact that the foundations of vocal culture and dramaturgy are being lost, and composers are unlearning how to write for the people, evidence of which is the fact that in recent years not a single Soviet opera has been created that stands at the level of Russian opera classics.
The separation of some figures of Soviet music from the people has reached the point where a rotten “theory” has spread among them, due to which the people’s misunderstanding of the music of many modern Soviet composers is explained by the fact that the people supposedly “have not matured” even before understanding their complex music, which he will understand it through the centuries and that one should not be embarrassed if some musical works do not find listeners. This thoroughly individualistic, fundamentally anti-popular theory helped some composers and musicologists to isolate themselves from the people, from criticism of the Soviet public, and to withdraw into their own shell.
The cultivation of all these and similar views does the greatest harm to Soviet musical art. A tolerant attitude towards these views means the spread among the figures of Soviet musical culture of tendencies alien to it, leading to a dead end in the development of music, to the liquidation of musical art.
The vicious, anti-people, formalist trend in Soviet music also has a detrimental effect on the training and education of young composers in our conservatories, and, first of all, in the Moscow Conservatory (director Comrade Shebalin), where the formalist trend is dominant. Students are not instilled with respect for the best traditions of Russian and Western classical music, they are not instilled in them with a love for folk art, for democratic musical forms. The work of many pupils of the conservatory is a blind imitation of the music of D. Shostakovich, S. Prokofiev and others.
The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks notes the completely intolerable state of Soviet musical criticism. The leading position among critics is occupied by opponents of Russian realistic music, supporters of decadent, formalistic music. Each new work by Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Myaskovsky, Shebalin, these critics declare "a new conquest of Soviet music" and glorify in this music subjectivism, constructivism, extreme individualism, professional complication of the language, i.e. exactly what should be criticized. Instead of smashing harmful views and theories alien to the principles of socialist realism, music criticism itself contributes to their dissemination by praising and declaring "advanced" those composers who share false creative attitudes in their work.
Musical criticism ceased to express the opinion of the Soviet public, the opinion of the people, and turned into the mouthpiece of individual composers. Some music critics, instead of principled objective criticism, because of friendly relations, began to please and servility to one or another musical leader, praising their work in every possible way.
All this means that among some Soviet composers the vestiges of bourgeois ideology, nourished by the influence of contemporary decadent Western European and American music, have not yet been outlived.
The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks considers that this unfavorable situation on the front of Soviet music was created as a result of the wrong line in the field of Soviet music, which was pursued by the Committee for Arts under the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Organizing Committee of the Union of Soviet Composers.
The Committee for Arts under the Council of Ministers of the USSR (comrade Khrapchenko) and the Organizing Committee of the Union of Soviet Composers (comrade Khachaturian) instead of developing a realistic trend in Soviet music, the foundations of which are the recognition of the enormous progressive role of the classical heritage, especially the traditions of the Russian musical school , the use of this heritage and its further development, the combination in music of high content with the artistic perfection of the musical form, the truthfulness and realism of music, its deep organic connection with the people and their musical and song creativity, high professional skills with the simultaneous simplicity and accessibility of musical works, In essence, they encouraged a formalist direction, alien to the Soviet people.
The Organizing Committee of the Union of Soviet Composers turned into an instrument of a group of formalist composers, became the main hotbed of formalist perversions. A musty atmosphere has been created in the Organizing Committee, there are no creative discussions. The leaders of the Organizing Committee and the musicologists grouped around them praise anti-realistic, modernist works that do not deserve support, and works that are distinguished by their realistic character, the desire to continue and develop the classical heritage, are declared secondary, go unnoticed and are treated. Composers, boasting of their "innovation", "arch-revolutionary" in the field of music, in their activities in the Organizing Committee act as champions of the most backward and musty conservatism, revealing an arrogant intolerance for the slightest manifestations of criticism.
The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks considers that such a situation and such an attitude towards the tasks of Soviet music, which have developed in the Committee for Arts under the Council of Ministers of the USSR and in the Organizing Committee of the Union of Soviet Composers, can no longer be tolerated, because they cause the greatest harm to the development of Soviet music . In recent years, the cultural demands and the level of artistic tastes of the Soviet people have increased unusually. The Soviet people expect from composers high-quality and ideological works in all genres - in the field of opera, symphonic music, songwriting, choral and dance music. In our country, composers are given unlimited creative opportunities and all the necessary conditions have been created for the true flourishing of musical culture. Soviet composers have an audience that no other composer has ever known in the past. It would be inexcusable not to use all these richest possibilities and not to direct one's creative efforts along the correct realistic path.
The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks decides:
1. Condemn the formalist trend in Soviet music as anti-people and leading in practice to the liquidation of music.
2. Propose to the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Central Committee and the Committee for the Arts to rectify the situation in Soviet music, eliminate the shortcomings indicated in this resolution of the Central Committee and ensure the development of Soviet music in a realistic direction.
3. To call on Soviet composers to become aware of the lofty demands that the Soviet people place on musical creativity, and, rejecting from their path everything that weakens our music and hinders its development, to ensure such an upsurge in creative work that will quickly advance Soviet musical culture and lead to to the creation in all areas of musical creativity of full-fledged, high-quality works worthy of the Soviet people.
4. Approve the organizational measures of the relevant party and Soviet bodies aimed at improving the art of music6.
RGASPI. F. 17. Op. 3. D. 1069. L. 42-49 (appendix). Certified copy. Typescript.
The initial draft of the document on the prohibition of the opera by V.I. Muradeli was embodied in the note of Agitprop of the Central Committee, sent by G.F. Aleksandrov A.A. Zhdanov (Power and artistic intelligentsia. Documents of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) - VKP (b), VChK - OGPU - NKVD on cultural policy. 1917-1953 M., 2002. S. 627-628).
From the memoirs of T.N. Khrennikova: “Subsequently, Shepilov told me that in the Central Committee in 1948 a very calm text of a decree on music was prepared in all details. Then he was straightened out personally by Stalin, and he also inscribed all the rudeness against specific names ”(So it was: Tikhon Khrennikov about time and about himself. M., 1994. P. 106). A.A. Zhdanov considered documents on music compiled in the Agitprop of the Central Committee to be “academic” (Shepilov D.T. Memoirs // Questions of History. 1998. No. 5. P. 19).
As noted in the decision of the Central Committee of the CPSU of May 28, 1958, the party resolution on the opera "The Great Friendship" contained separate unfair and unjustifiably harsh assessments of the work of a number of talented artists. At the same time, the resolution itself was said to have played a generally positive role in the development of Soviet musical art (Decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU of May 28, 1958 “On Correcting Mistakes in Evaluating the Operas Great Friendship”, “Bogdan Khmelnitsky” and “From with all my heart.” Materials of the discussion. M., 1958). See also: Maximenkov L. "The Party is our helmsman." Decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of February 10, 1948 on Vano Muradeli's opera "The Great Friendship" in the light of new archival documents // Musical Life. 1993. Nos. 13-16.
As for the reaction to the decision of the Central Committee of T.N. Khrennikov as General Secretary of the Union of Composers of the USSR, it was reflected in his article "On Music and Musical Criticism" (October. 1948. No. 4. P. 161-168). Forced to publicly support the party resolution, Khrennikov, in particular, wrote that “the anti-folk, formalist direction of Soviet music is closely connected with the bourgeois-decadent music of the modern West and the heritage of Russian pre-revolutionary, modernist music” (Ibid., p. 163).
Composer S.S. Prokofiev responded to the decision with a letter sent to P.I. Lebedev and T.N. Khrennikov February 16, 1949 (RGASPI. F. 17. Op. 125. D. 636. L. 137-140). The letter began as follows: “The Decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of February 10, 1948 separated rotten tissues from healthy ones in the work of composers. No matter how painful it is for a number of composers, including myself, I welcome the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, which creates conditions for the improvement of the entire organism of Soviet music. The resolution is especially valuable in that it revealed the foreignness of the formalist direction to the Soviet people, leading to the impoverishment and decline of music, and with the utmost clarity indicated to us the goals that we must achieve in order to best serve the Soviet people ”(Ibid. L. 137).
2 This refers to the editorial "Muddle instead of music", published in Pravda on January 28, 1936.
3 See Document No. 19.
4 See Document No. 17.
5 See Document No. 21.
6 In accordance with this paragraph, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted resolutions “On the leadership of the Union of Soviet Composers of the USSR” (May 12, 1948) and “On measures to improve the activities of the Bolshoi Theater” (May 17, 1948) (Power and artistic intelligentsia, pp. 634, 635). Even earlier, on January 26, 1948, when the commented resolution was being prepared, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution to change the leadership of the Committee for Arts under the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Organizing Committee of the Union of Soviet Composers of the USSR (see document No. 56).
The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks carefully monitored the reaction of the Soviet public to the Politburo's decision. The reports received by the party apparatus about the responses in the country to the resolution were used in compiling the relevant information addressed to the secretaries of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, prepared by the Agitprop of the Central Committee together with the Office for the Inspection of Party Organs of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (RGASPI. F. 17. Op. 125. D. 636. L. 141, 152).
See also the information of the Agitprop of the Central Committee and the Office for the Inspection of Party Organs of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On the responses of workers to the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On the opera“ Great Friendship ”” by V. Muradeli” dated February 16, 1948 in the collection of archival documents "Soviet life. 1945-1953” (M., 2003, pp. 423-427).
During the All-Union Congress of Soviet Composers, held in Moscow on April 19-26, 1948, and after it, D.T. Shepilov twice, on April 21 and 28, 1948, addressed the secretaries of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks A.A. Zhdanov, A.A. Kuznetsov, M.A. Suslov and G.M. Popov with information about the course and results of the congress (RGASPI. F. 17. Op. 125. D. 636. L. 229-232, 254-258).
