Письмо (за декабрь) секретаря Киробкома в ЦК о ситуации в Киргизии, Казахстане Secret letter from secretary of the Kirgiz Oblast Committee Cde. Korostelev for December and January on the situation in Kirgizia and Kazakhstan

Translation

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Copy.

To the Secretary of the C.C. of the R.C.P.(b)

Secret letter from secretary of the Kirgiz Oblast Committee Cde. Korostelev for December and January.

Inspection of the gubernias.

During the above period four gubernias were inspected: Semipalatinsk, Akmolinsk, Uralsk and Bukeevsk. The first two gubernias were inspected by Cde. Pirozhkov, an instructor for the Kirgiz Oblast Committee, together with Cde. Avdeev, an instructor for the CC who arrived simultaneously, while the other two were inspected by Cde. Polozov, Mgr. of the Org. Dept. of the Oblast Committee.

The state of the Semipalatinsk organization:

Judging from the delivered material it is far from comforting. The apparatus of the Gubernia Committee, which is not strong enough, was disorganized even more during the food tax campaign by the self-mobilization for food work, then becoming transformed into an auxiliary body of the Gubernia Food Committee. In view of this situation, there was no planned systematic party work done. Taking into account the guerrillalike style of work of some Gubernia Committees, the Oblast Committee gave detailed assignments to the localities, and starting on October 1 it convened a conference of secretaries of the Gubernia Committees, which adopted a further plan for work. After the Conference thee Kirgiz Oblast Committee took measures to induce Gubernia Committees to implement the resolutions of Secretaries and not until December 22 did the Semipalatinsk Gubernia Committee get around to address this matter. With this kind of attitude toward work, it is clear that there is no consideration of work experience, no consideration of members of the organization and no satisfied leadership. The measures taken against laxity should yield positive results, but it is necessary to dispatch someone urgently from the C.C. to replace Gubernia Committee Secretary Yegorov, to dispatch immediately an equivalent deputy to replace Cde. Bruk, the Chairman of the Gubernia Council of Trade Unions, whom you left in the CC, and to provide for the Agitprop from the C.C. a Manager for that department. It is imperative to create a firm leadership nucleus there whose ability to work depends entirely on the selection and speed with which you send someone. For our part, we have designated some comrades for transfer from Orenburg to Semipalatinsk and back, but we have absolutely no one for the aforementioned positions, and therefore

<<In the margins are notes: “for Svir,” “S-t…”>>

<<Note over the text: “to Cde. Syrtsov”>>

<<In the upper right corner is a stamp: “Incoming No. … Received 2/15/23 Distributed 2/22”>>

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we request that you send such people.

The Akmolinsk organization.

It is not in as dismal a state as the Semipalatinsk organization, but here too there is a tendency toward excessive leadership by the Gubernia Committee of soviet work, which regardless of that is not systematically planned, but haphazard. There is likewise not a sufficiently attentive attitude toward work among the Kirgiz, toward the nonparty masses and a proper consideration of party forces. This shortcoming is partly attributable to the fact that party work is managed there by the Gubernia Committee secretary, Cde. Cherniadiev - - an economic manager who previously worked on cooperatives and on food work.

<<The paragraph is highlighted on the left with a line. Note: “[garble] Cherniadiev”>>

The Uralsk organization.

This is a weaker organization than the first two. This weakness is based on economic factors, on the amount of population and mostly on the fact that in the Uralsk Gubernia the civil war was more violent and prolonged, and last year’s famine and also the grave situation /from the summer drought/ at present do not make it possible to begin normal work in a better-planned manner. Another minus is the lack of unity in the Bureau of the Gubernia Committee, especially between the Russians and the Kirgiz. Proper attention was not devoted to the raions and certain localities with a proletarian makeup. The material received from the provinces was not reviewed and not studied, and the proper attention was not devoted to party-cell work and work among nonparty members. One can sense a general weakness here, produced by the aforementioned factors and a shortage of party functionaries, as well as throughout the Krai.

<<The passage “especially between … proletarian makeup” has been highlighted with brackets and the note: “Emb. Oil”>>

The Bukeevsk organization.

Primarily Kirgiz, with a low cultural level, with a peasant mentality, with a seminomadic population. The gubernia committee here is very weak and poorly prepared. It is possible, however, to develop work here among Kirgiz workers, who work at

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the salt lakes of Baskunchak and at the fisheries. The difficulty here is that this work is seasonal and takes place in the Astrakhan Gubernia, where neither the Astrakhan Gubernia serves Kirgiz workers nor have we been able to do work with them. We cannot rely on local functionaries in party work because of their poor training, and it doesn’t seem possible to send strong functionaries there, first because larger organizations need them, and second, no one wants to go to Bukeevsk. The comrades with a medium amount of training who end up there either go under the influence of the overall philistine milieu, or they flee from there at the first opportunity. After the inspection already, Cde. Paperny moved there as secretary of the Gubernia Committee, and it is essential to send more comrades, which, unfortunately, we do not have at present.

The clergy.

In the Orenburg Gubernia the renovationist movement has split the clergy into two groups: the Living Church group, with 85 members, and Antonin’s Rebirth group, with 9 members. In the former the majority consists of clergy who did not receive a specialized education – acolytes, deacons and priests – while the latter consists solely of educated clergy.

The rank-and-file clergy is joining the L.C. because of their arrogant and disdainful treatment by the educated clergy and their intense competition and influence on certain, especially influential laymen. Most laymen don’t care about the church dissension. The L.C. group is successful among the rural clergy, where Diocesan Administrations have already been opened in the uezds. In my view, one should not firmly rely on a deep schism among the clergy, since many of them follow the prevailing winds and the overt supporters of Tikhon back the Rebirth group and the L.C.

In the Semipalatinsk Gubernia.

The attitude toward the renovationist movement on the part of the clergy and parishioners is hostile. The reasons for this are the skillful

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counterrevolutionary leadership of the Bishop, previously a prominent member of the Union of the Russian People, and the incompetent approach to this question by our authorities. While the Bishop was conspiratorially doing work and unifying he reactionary clergy and the counterrevolutionary element of citizens, our authorities were overlooking this work, and when they began to counter it, they made a whole host of errors with arrests and searches, as well as incoherent propaganda in the press.

In the Uralsk Gubernia.

The Diocesan Administration was elected and a majority of it consists of supporters of Tikhon. Tikhon’s supporters took this occasion to wage a campaign in favor of hastening the convocation of a local church council. While recognizing the S.C.A. [Supreme Church Administration] as the temporary highest administrative center, they deny canonical functions for it.

In the Kustanai Gubernia.

The clergy has not yet been affected by the renovationist movement.

In the Akmolinsk Gubernia.

When the Diocesan Council was being elected there was opposition to the L.C. among the clergy and believers, but individuals loyal to that trend got into the Administration.

In the Aktiubinsk Gubernia.

The population is indifferent toward the church, there is no overt split among the clergy.

Results of the food-tax campaign.

There is no complete exhaustive data on the food-tax campaign to this point, due to the territorial dispersion of the gubernias and the poor communications with them. According to available information, 245 party members, professional and soviet functionaries on a gubernia and uezd level, not counting rank and file, were mobilized to all of the gubernias. By individual gubernias they went as follows: Orenburg 49, Aktiubinsk 69, Kustanai 0 <<A. Shatova: a handwritten “?” is above the “0”>>, Uralsk 27, Semipalatinsk 40, Akmolinsk 61, and in addition krai-level functionaries – 11 people from the Kirgiz PC of Food – went out to the provinces to strengthen the work. 

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According to incomplete data, excluding the Orenburg Gubernia, the following numbers of administrative and judicial penalties were imposed:

Typically, wherever the preparatory work for the food-tax campaign was done better, fewer repressive measures were imposed, and vice versa.

In the western famine-stricken gubernias, seeds were received from various gubernias and from abroad, which substantially reduced the harvest, and the existing drought in the Uralsk, Aktiubinsk and Orenburg gubernias yielded 170963 desiatinas of perished crops.

A total of 11,301,796 poods of the food tax was collected in all gubernias of the Kaz. S.S.R.; the fixed assignment of the federation’s PC of Food was 8,200,000 poods, so 138% of the fixed assignment was fulfilled.

The fixed assignment for collection of food tax for meat was overfulfilled by 18.6% from the nomadic and seminomadic population, here especially in serious conditions it is necessary to work with the nomadic population that is constantly moving around and it is almost impossible to record the taxpayers’ taxable items.

Stamp.

In view of the excessively reduced estimate of the OBLAST COMMITTEE by the finance

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commission of the C.C., under which it was absolutely impossible to continue publishing the party journal in the Kirgiz language. <<sic; should be comma?>>, the Kirgiz Oblast Committee had to impose a levy through the Kirgiz Council for Labor and Defense on economic managers for the publication of the journal; so far the journal has enough funds for three months, thereafter the same measure will have to be used again. The question of the Kirgiz journal is not merely a technical question, which should not be mentioned in a secret letter, but it is closely linked to the mood of key Kirgiz functionaries, who attach a great deal of importance to it, and because of the suspension we have had strained relations with them.

Executive secretary of the KIRGIZ OBLAST COMMITTEE OF THE RCP(B)

/Korostelev/

True