Письмо секретаря ЦК КПТуркестана Эпштейна в ЦК о нацотношениях, басмачестве и пр. Secret letter No. 4 from Secretary of the CC of the Communist Party of Turkestan Cde. Epshtein on national relations, the basmachi movement

Translation

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To Cde. Syrtsov

<<Stamp: Bureau of the Secretariat of the C.C. of the R.K.P. Incoming No. 20197/s Received 18/1/23 Distributed 22/1>>

Copy.

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

cc: Central Asian Bureau of the CC of the RKP(b).

Secret letter No. 4 from Secretary of the CC of the CPT [Communist Party of Turkestan] Cde. Epshtein for December 1922.

Dear Comrades.

During the reporting month there were symptoms of a certain revival of the basmachi. During the first few days of December Khalbuta's gangs, which were wintering in the Mastchoh district and were driven from there by famine, broke through and, managed with a surprise attack to inflict significant losses on our troops (as many as 50 Red Army soldiers were killed or wounded, and three machineguns were captured). True, now the gangs have returned to their initial position in a somewhat battered condition, but have not been smashed. Information has also begun to come in from Fergana about the increased activity of basmach groups in Andizhan Raion. Cases have been reported in which dzhigits [skilled horsemen] who had been demobilized returned to basmach detachments. Since these actions have no political coloration and get no support from the population (in Fergana, when basmachi appear, there have been cases when the population, young and old, left their localities and came over to us), we could have viewed them as a random phenomenon that is not cause for serious concern. But the latest information from Bukhara make one react extremely sensitively to the slightest movements occurring in the basmach camp. What is apparently happening there, not without successful backing from Afghanistan, is the grouping of large forces (especially in Eastern Bukhara) and by spring serious basmach pressure is highly likely there. There is no question that this will affect the Turkestan basmachi as well, who have often taken their ideological juices from Bukhara. This is especially true of the Samarkand basmachi, where during a recent raid the basmachi showed that they were relatively well organized (armed with rifles, they reformed during battle, and a Russian detachment). The situation is further complicated by the fact that our army is shrinking quantitatively, and

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the rest consist entirely of young soldiers and is now going through a period of intensified "training." In particular, the revival of the basmachi in Fergana has been aided by the withdrawal from there of a cavalry brigade. 

All this confronts us with the necessity of taking a number of preventive measures now already, primary among which are: the strengthen of the Soviet administration in the basmach raions, the preparation of military pressure and the strengthening of our punitive and intelligence bodies. Along with the increasingly clear importance of the assistance received by the basmachi from outside, the question arises of protecting our international borders. This work is in horrible shape. A border 4,838 versts long is protected by not more than 900 Red Army soldiers. In some places the border stations are completely wrecked. Under these conditions there is, in effect, no border protection. We are informed from Turkmenia that a 500-verst stretch of border with Persia is completely bare. Unpunished attacks on our territory, where thousands of head of livestock are taken from the population, are a routine occurrence. It is no better on the Afghan border. This condition of the borders cannot help but lower our prestige in the eyes of the population and creates, especially among the tribes roaming the borders, a sense of impunity for criminal acts within the Soviet republics. In addition, the lack of an organized customs network brings us big financial losses. Trade links are growing with contiguous countries, but this trade is primarily contraband. For example: a representative of our trade delegation whose entry into Kashgar was recently barred by Chinese authorities reports that the main reason for the refusal was the fact that the Chinese border authorities, profiting from the contraband that freely crosses our border is doing all it can to hinder the effort to establish normal, legal trade relations. Questions of protecting the border, like the customs question, have been centralized and we are powerless here to change anything on our own.

The basic facts characterizing our economic situation: an increase in monetary tax receipts, completion of the food-tax campaign, an ongoing decline in the exchange rate of the ruble and, finally,

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irrigation work and matters of aiding agriculture (the seed stock, supply of implements, agricultural loans)that are in serious condition.

The increase in monetary tax receipts (in December we are receiving twice as much as in November, 4 times as much as in October and 5 1/2 times as much as in September) has made it possible in certain oblasts to significantly reduce the deficits in the local budgets and thereby somewhat strengthen our government work.

The condition of our financial activities, which remains grave all the same, makes it impossible to engage in irrigation work and to seriously raise the issue of agricultural loans, which is the only basis on which development of Turkestan's economy is possible. The absence of the significant resources with which we could develop these credit operations and promote agricultural cooperatives affects, above all, the economic consolidation of land reform. There is a common cry from the provinces that unless the state provides aid in seeds and implements for the nomad who has been set up with land, the working land plot that he has acquired has no real value for him. We initiated a petition through our delegation to the All-Russia Congress of Soviets to fortify us with the means for these purposes from the overall federal funds. Apparently we are receiving up to 6 1/2 million rubles in gold for irrigation. This amount, as long as it will actually be received, will significantly revive our economic activity.

We are finishing up with the food tax. Although oblasts remain that have not reached the full 100% (Syr-Daria, Samarkand), it will probably not be possible to get the remainder from them. The remaining taxpayers are indeed not able to pay the amount of food tax due from them and only a very small percentage of them are hard-core kulaks. Because of the deficient state apparatus at the local level, crop yield was very often determined incorrectly, a number of natural disasters were not taken into account, and taxable items were exaggerated, which placed the poor peasant in the position

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of a nonpayer by necessity. Even so, instead of the fixed figure of 6,200,000 poods assigned by the RSFSR PC of Food, we gathered more than 8 1/2 million poods of wheat units.

Next is the task of learning the lessons of the food-tax campaign. Well-founded complaints are coming from the provinces about the fact that the food tax is contributing, as effectively as NEP, to the transformation of poor peasant farmers into hired farmhands, while having little impact on the kulak. In  light of the reviving capitalist relations in settlements (the development of usurers' capital and one-sided transactions, hired labor, the growth of leasing) it is becoming necessary to revise the entire structure of the food-tax system, to revise it by expanding the number of farms exempted at least temporarily from the food tax, reducing rates for middle-peasant farmers and increasing rates for kulaks.

We have had cases on a mass scale here where a poor dehkan delivered his share of food tax and thereby tied himself in bondage to a bai.

There have been no noticeable changes in the condition of state industry.

The exchange rate of the rule continues to fall and the situation of workers and office employees is becoming increasingly worse. Because our rates lag far behind Moscow rates and lag for no valid reason, and what is already a grave situation is deteriorating even further. The real value of the state minimum in prewar rubles as of 1 October was 2 rubles 59 kopeks, and as of 15 December it had fallen to 1 ruble 05 kopeks. The most skilled active segment of workers and office employees is dispersing, going off to private entrepreneurs, to engage in profiteering or leaving Turkestan. Thefts and bribes, despite all the stringent measures, have become more frequent. This is especially noticeable in transport. The rate policy is astonishing in its senselessness. While a pood of flour in Tashkent as of 2 December cost 312 rubles more than as of that date in Moscow, our state minimum is 1470 rubles lower than the state minimum in Moscow. It becomes necessary, under the pressure of workers and office employees, as well as the trade-union bodies themselves, to increase rates through collective agreements, but the loans appropriated according to the estimates are not enough to pay them. It is no surprise that this results in an increase in the general laxity of the Soviet apparatus

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and, although a number of measures are now being taken to reduce it by eliminating deadwood, until an improvement is achieved in the situation of office employees, there will be no revitalization to speak of. Moreover, the question of sources for paying off the wage arrears that have accumulated during the previous period (approximately as much as 5,000 rubles). The PCs and oblast centers are continuously pushing for payment, and the entire situation significantly paralyzes the possibility of creative work.

There has been a noticeable revival in party life. This is based on such positive factors as:

1. The completed formal creation of the Samarkand, Fergana and Turkmen oblast organizations. They have merged communist cells on a regional basis; staffed party committees; established a network of party organizers attached to communist cells on a raion-by-raion basis; set up record keeping down to uezd committees inclusive; and organized oblast party schools.

2. The purge of the Dzhetysu organization, where according to preliminary data about 50% of the previous membership will be left (5381), is concluding.

3. A number of meetings of oblast committee department heads and conferences of secretaries of communist cells along with party organizers have been held in Samarkand and Fergana. All these meetings now, it is true, create a certain "bustle" in the party, but regard them as absolutely essential, since they stir up the "stagnant" party environment.

4. Party conferences have begun to be held, beginning with the uezds, in an atmosphere of a wide-scale mass campaign, in order to convene the Turkestan Party Congress by 20 February. We are placing on the agenda of the conferences and the congress almost exclusively party matters, bearing in mind the necessity of furthering the turn "Toward the Party."

5. A gravitation toward knowledge has been noted among indigenous young people even in the most remote corners. We are seeking to take control of this cultural movement by the party, through the creation of "support centers," to which our young party members and teachers are drawn (party schools, workers' schools).

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For example, one such center in Tashkent is the Communist University, which publishes a Komsomol newspaper in the local language and organizes general lectures, club study sessions for other educational institutions, in particular for institutes of education.

Negative factors include:

1. The party's weak influence on the nonparty masses. The latter, incidentally, has also been reflected in the reporting campaign for the Congresses of Soviets. A nonparty dehkan conference was only held in Samarkand.

2. The instructional work that has not had a chance to develop yet. Yet there are raions where half of the party is illiterate and consists of believers.

3. The assimilation of party members into the philistine and bai-manap [Kirgiz tribal leader] environment that surrounds them. The latter is manifested in drunkenness, in "economic acquisitiveness," and in workers' areas, in the fact that high-level party members often lead disorganized, anarchic offensives by nonparty workers. Besides the usual methods of combating these negative phenomena (instructional work, party penalties), I would consider it necessary on a partywide scale to strictly ensure that party members in their own individual farming strictly adhere to the provisions of the decree on land use for labor purposes, to prohibit, without the permission of party committees, providing or receiving land under a lease and, finally, to gradually reduce the number of secretaries of communist cells managing individual peasant farms while supporting them, as party professionals, at the party's expense.

4. The increasing influence of "authoritative" and wealthy persons, about which I wrote in the last month letter often puts communists in the settlements in a difficult situation. There are many examples: I will only list the most prominent of them. According to the report of the secretary of the Fergana Oblast Committee, based on the demands of the Mahkemah Sharia [Sharia tribunal], the militia participates in punishing people who do not go to prayers by throwing them in a pond. The secretary of the Dmitrov cell reports that kulaks regularly beat up party members. The kulaks in the village of Namaiagan (in Dzhetysu) throw the library of the KSMT [Communist Youth League of Turkestan] out of a building and move a priest into it, etc.

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Naturally, such facts, which put a settlement or village communist who is already unsteady virtually in the position of an "underground" functionary, alienate him from the party.

With communist greetings: Secretary of the CC of the CPT M. Epshtein.

8/1/1923.

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