Письмо секретаря Киргизского обкома в ЦК РКП о ситуации в Киргизии Secret letter from Secretary of the Kirgiz Oblast Committee of the RKP Cde. Korostelev for June 1928 on the situation in Kirgizia

Translation

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To Cde. Kaganovich

Copy.

Secret letter from Secretary of the Kirgiz Oblast Committee of the RKP Cde. Korostelev  for June 1928

Incoming No. TsK 5827/s of 17/7/23. Distributed 23/7

To the Secretary of the CC of the RKP(b)

On the political mood.

Since the 12th Party Congress and especially since the conference of high-level functionaries of the nationality-based oblasts and republics, the following attitudes have existed among the nationalities.

The Kirgiz party intelligentsia, which includes a number of cliques, is now seeking to eliminate them. This healthy tendency toward cohesion and unity has an unhealthy basis.

The main motivation for unifying these comrades is not to strengthen communist ranks and mostly the ranks of the proletariat in order to wage a struggle with both great-power Russian chauvinism and nationalist chauvinism in its ranks but a desire to get rid of proletarian influence and the more powerful and consistently Marxist Russian comrades.

Cde. Asylbekov, who attended the conference on the nationality question in Moscow, upon arriving here delivered a report at a closed meeting of high-level Kirgiz functionaries, after which they formulated a series of measures. Some of these items read: "Transfer of the capital to Aktiubinsk"… "The final deadline for organizing Kirgiz-language clerical work on the scale of a volost and uezd shall be 1 January 1924, and on a gubernia scale, 1 July 1924."… "Carry out both in the center and in the provinces a purge of government and party administrations," etc.

Regarding the first item, the transfer of the capital to Aktiubinsk, it was deemed necessary to ask the CC to separate Orenburg Gubernia from the Kirgiz Republic. The reason for the desire of Kirgiz functionaries to get rid of Orenburg Gubernia is that

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the Orenburg organization, as the strongest and consistently proletarian one, has a powerful influence on them, where they lose their distinctive make-up as functionaries.

If one looks at this issue abstractly, from the standpoint of preference, then it is possible to come to a mutual agreement, because the Orenburg organization too would be very glad to separate, since this would end the continuous extraction by the Kirgiz Oblast Committee of party functionaries for other weaker gubernias and for krai work. (As for Aktiubinsk Gubernia, it can be judged by the brief data from the inspection.)

The second item in the proposal is far from realistic in its deadline, not through anyone's fault, and does not need a resolution, which already exists in the law, but needs the Kirgiz comrades themselves, who have not yet been adequately trained.

As for the third item, it boils down for them mostly to getting rid, under one pretext or another, of the more consistent and Marxist-trained Russian comrades.

The members of the Kirgiz Oblast Committee who were sent to inspect the gubernias have not yet returned, but based on the message we have from them we can conclude that there are no major absences in relations between the Russian and Kirgiz comrades. What has been noted, however, is that the measures to draw Kirgiz functionaries into party and Soviet work are not being implemented intensively enough, either by the Russian comrades or by the Kirgiz themselves. In certain cases the Kirgiz Oblast Committee's directives to staff the administrations with Kirgiz functionaries have been carried out in a perfunctory manner. For example, at the Ekibastuz mines 40% of the workers are Kirgiz and the Pavlodar Uezd Committee was sure to send in Kirgiz comrades to be secretary of the cell, but in five months 5 people have been replaced. It is certainly understandable that such short-term assignments, and for untrained comrades to boot, could not yield positive results.

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There is no apparent animosity between the Russian and Kirgiz workers. This could not be found, some comrades report, either at general meetings during a discussion of the nationality question or in private conversations.

Some latent discontent, however, does exist. The reason for this is income inequality. For example, at the Emba oil fields the skilled workers--machine operators, lathe operators and mechanics--are Russians, while the unskilled workers are Kirgiz. And where an extra glass of fresh water has value, the administration of the fields, in order to retain skilled workers, pays them at relatively higher rates than unskilled workers.

At Ekibastuz, for example, while both kinds of workers work in the same conditions, the Russians have cleaner dwellings than the Kirgiz, and on this basis there is friction. This phenomenon, however, does not stem from anyone's malicious intent or from aiding one group and mistreating another, but is rooted in a different cultural level and everyday conditions, which take time to overcome.

Inspection of Aktiubinsk Gubernia.

Instructor Aleksandrov o the Kirgiz Oblast Committee has inspected Aktiubinsk Gubernia. This gubernia is a young one, populated by peasants, with a population of 456,149 and an area of 244,172 square versts, which amounts to 1.8% of inhabitants per square verst. <<Translator: probably should read "1.8 inhabitants">>

The population is predominantly Kirgiz, with the latter group numbering 334,824 and other nationalities 134,395. Towns and urban-type settlements have a population of 28,707, which is 4.5% of the total population of the gubernia. The party organization is weak, with 555 members.

Given such an enormous territory with such sparse population, the Gubernia Committee's communication with uezd committees is unsatisfactory. The weakness of party

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and Soviet work, besides its nonproletarian makeup, is also attributable to the lack of experienced party functionaries. The lengthy absence of Gubernia Committee secretary Pogodichev also affected the work, and the repeated recommendation by the CC proposing that he be assigned to it is not an incentive to strengthen the organization.

The Kirgiz Oblast Committee has taken a number of practical measures toward revitalization and several comrades will sent there for reinforcement.

The financial question.

The Kirgiz Oblast Committee has called attention to the financial bodies and pressure has been put on the provinces to strengthen this work. In the month of May the financial bodies throughout the Kirgiz Republic fulfilled the state assignment to 149.86%, and for the first half of June, to 107.53%,  but tax work is a long way from where it should be. Such taxable items as income, property and commerce did not receive enough attention and tax work was often scattered among trivial items.

Regarding this matter a number of measures have been taken to strengthen the financial bodies with party functionaries, and attention has been paid to the major tax items. Gubernia committees have been given an assignment to provide, within two weeks, the gubernia's financial bodies with one gubernia-level comrade each and nine people each with middle-level qualifications, and within the same time frame uezd committees must provide uezd financial departments with one uezd-level person each and one person each with middle-level qualifications.

The provinces have been instructed, to eliminate, within one month, the existing deficiencies in regard to taxes both in the towns and in rural areas, and if it is impossible to collect taxes due to poverty, then write them off.

In view of the lack of trained financial functionaries, the Kirgiz PC of Finance has been charged with arranging 5-month courses and ordered to include Kirgiz comrades as a portion of the students.

Conference of land-management bodies.

A krai conference of land-management agencies was held. It was ascertained at the conference

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that the forthcoming harvest in the Kirgiz Republic will be below average. Spring grain is burning from the heat and the lack of rain, and rye, due to the same weather, threatens to be unsatisfactory.

Representatives of the provinces complained about the large-scale sowing this year to a low-value crop; the reason for this phenomenon was the excessive transfer of seed grain out of the Kirgiz Republic, which amounted to 1,629,000 poods of wheat, and out of an order for 750 poods of grain for Kirgizia 400 poods of wheat was issued, while the remaining 350 was replaced with barley and mostly millet.

The preparation for the All-Russia Agricultural Exhibition proceeded relatively slowly in the provinces, but recently the pace has changed, lost time is being made up and there is confidence that the Kirgiz SSR will be represented quite satisfactorily at the All-Russia Exhibition.

Krai conference of sovnarkhozes [Councils of the National Economy]

A krai conference of representatives of industry and trade has been held. The Kirgiz Oblast Committee focused attention on the theses: "the tasks and methods of trade bodies in connection with industry." Attention was focused on this issue because a whole host of trade enterprises of gubernia trade bureaus are engaged not in supplying industry with raw materials but are deviating in the direction of all-around dealings, they sell grain, meat, perfume products, etc., to the detriment of procurements for industry.

In Orenburg alone there are 66 trade enterprises, each of which seeks to capture the market and, acting independently with small amounts of money and without coordinating their actions with other Soviet trade bodies, and as a result only private capital benefits.

In order to possess the enormous Kirgiz raw-materials market not only for local industry but also to exchange for products from the center, it was recommended that the conference discuss the issue of establishing a joint-stock trading company for this purpose. This issue was accepted in the preferred sense.

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The conference took note of the indisputable revitalization of the krai's economic life as a result of the transition of industry, for the most part, to economic accountability.

The percentage of fulfillment of the production program is being fulfilled more and more, and simultaneously the productivity of each worker is increasing.

On the activities of the Kirgiz PC of Justice.

The reorganization of the judicial bodies in merging Soviet people's courts with the Revolutionary Tribunal has been completed throughout the Kirgiz Republic.

The new regionalization of judicial and investigative precincts has been completed in the Orenburg, Uralsk and Aktiubinsk judicial bodies circuits, and the makeup of judicial functionaries has been revised. In other places this work is nearing an end.

The most serious obstacle in the way of the judicial bodies is the lack of trained functionaries and a lack of financial support. The latter factor is felt especially acutely and has a devastating effect on the work.

For example, for the month of May 270,130 rubles 7 80 kopeks was allocated for 933 full-time positions at all of the judicial bodies f the Kirgiz Republic, and for June, 312,660 rubles. If one does the arithmetic, it turns out that in May the Kirgiz PC of Justice gets 14,694 rubles 20 kopeks for 52 full-time positions, while the Orenburg Gubernia Committee Court gets 29,000 rubles for 120 positions, and for June the Kirgiz PC of Justice gets 20,000 rubles and the Orenburg Court, 42,600 rubles. In effect, therefore, the PC of Justice has enough funds to pay for only 5 high-level functionaries.

Because of the lack of financial support, reports are coming in from the provinces that are filled with a howl of despair. They describe a passive attitude toward the duties of the judicial bodies, where archival depositories of unprocessed cases are forming. They describe, by necessity, bribery and the use of illegal services from people under investigation. They also describe the flight of qualified functionaries from the judicial bodies who are going to work

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 for peasants for grain on a daywork basis.

In the Kustanai the Gubernia Court is almost idle. During the month of April, the 4 sections of the civil and criminal departments heard only 8 cases. The Gubernia Court explains this phenomenon this way: "the situation of the employees who have remained to work is desperate, since the latter have not received their full salaries since November 1922."

In Semipalatinsk Gubernia, out of the 36 judicial precincts information has been received from 21, which as of 1 January 1928 had 19,555 unprocessed criminal and civil cases, and 767 cases under investigation.

In calling the attention of the CC to the grave financial situation of the judicial bodies, which has a ruinous effect on their work, I ask that the necessary measures be taken for the appropriate release of loans that actually meet their real needs.

I remind you once again that to this day the CC has not sent anyone to replace Cde. Niliavsky, the prosecutor for the Kirgiz Republic who was taken away, which also has a tangible effect on the work.

With communist greetings (Korostelev).

Senior Secretary of the Kirgiz Oblast Committee of the RKP

True copy: stamp "Bureau of the Secretariat of the C.C. of the R.K.P. Proofreader No. 1."