The Russian Revolution полностью

To make matters worse, even that 4 percent would not cooperate. Much as the peasants bickered among themselves, when threatened from the outside, whether by the authorities or by peasants from other areas, they closed ranks. On such occasions, rich, middle, and poor became as one family. In the words of a Left SR: “When the food detachments show up in a village, they obtain no food, of course. What do they accomplish? They create a united front from the kulaks to your landless peasants who fight the virtual war which the city has declared on the village.”¹⁰⁶ A peasant foolhardy enough to turn informer against his fellow villagers, in the hope of securing the rewards promised him by the regime, signed his social and even physical death warrant: the moment the supply detachment withdrew, he would be chased out of the commune, if not killed. Under these conditions, the whole concept of pitting the “poor” against the “rich” in a “merciless” class war proved utterly unrealistic.

Lenin either did not know these facts or chose to ignore them because of overriding political considerations. As Sverdlov had conceded in May, the Bolshevik Government was weak in the countryside and it could insinuate itself there only by “inflaming civil war.” The soviets, which had originated in the cities, were not popular among the peasants because they duplicated the village assembly, the traditional rural form of self-government. In the summer of 1918, most rural localities had no soviets; where they existed, they functioned rather perfunctorily under the leadership of the more outspoken peasants or the village intelligentsia, adherents of the SR Party. This situation Lenin was determined to change.

The ostensible purpose of the Committees of the Poor was to help the supply detachments and Red Army units uncover hoards of grain. But their true mission was to serve as nuclei of new rural soviets directed by reliable urban Communists and acting in strict conformity with the directives of Moscow.

The Ispolkom discussed the creation of these committees, or kombedy, on May 20 and decreed their establishment throughout Russia on June 11.¹⁰⁷ When it came up for discussion at the Ispolkom, there was vigorous criticism from the Mensheviks and the Left SRs,¹⁰⁸ which the Bolshevik majority overruled. The regime issued a “Decree concerning the organization and provisioning” of the village poor, which provided for the establishment in every volost’ and large village (selo), alongside existing soviets and under their supervision, of Committees of the Poor made up of both local peasants and new settlers, with the exclusion of “notorious kulaks and rich men,” heads of households disposing of a surplus of grain and other produce, those who owned commercial and industrial establishments, and those who employed hired labor. The task of the committees was to help Red Army units and supply detachments locate and confiscate food hoards. To secure their cooperation, members of kombedy were promised a share of the confiscated hoard, free of charge until June 15 and at a token cost after that date. To make membership in the kombedy still more attractive, the committees were also authorized to confiscate from the “village bourgeoisie” and divide among themselves its equipment and inventory. Thus, one part of the rural population was encouraged to denounce and despoil the other.

Although the consequences for those to whom it applied were certain to be immense, the provisions of the decree were vague. Who were the “notorious kulaks and rich men” and how were they to be distinguished from other peasants who had surplus grain? In what sense were the kombedy subordinated to the local soviets, which had charge of local government and responsibility for food distribution?

As it turned out, the poor peasants were as unwilling to enroll in the kombedy as the industrial workers were to join the supply detachments. Despite immense pressure, as of September 1918, three months after they had been decreed, only one village in six was reported to have a Committee of the Poor. Many provinces, among them Moscow, Pskov, Samara, and Simbirsk—major agricultural regions—had none.¹⁰⁹ The government kept on allocating large sums of money for this purpose, without much success. Where rural soviets did not exist, the order was ignored. Where they did exist, they usually declared kombedy to be redundant, and instead created their own “supply commissions,” which defeated the whole purpose of the undertaking.

Undaunted, the Bolsheviks pressed the campaign. Thousands of Bolsheviks and Bolshevik sympathizers were sent to the countryside to agitate, organize, and overcome the resistance of rural soviets. The following incident illustrates how such methods worked:

From the protocols of the Saransk district conference of volost’ and village soviets and the representatives of the Committees of the Poor held on July 26, 1918: