"… and revealed to him many miracles and showed the secrets of the times …"
Ezra 14: 5
History and documents. To begin with, the publication of the documents of the Penza OFOPO GAPO, as expected, caused an ambiguous reaction from the VO readership. Someone found acquaintance with the documents interesting. Well, someone, looking at the screen, blamed the author for all the shortcomings they saw there, of course. That is, the selection is “not that one” (one-sided), and the presentation of photographic material is hacky (and professional shooting costs money, unless someone wants to sponsor it for me?), In a word, “everything is not that”.
But here, by the way, you just have to say: there is nothing to blame on the mirror, if the face is crooked. We publish such documents as we have. Hidden from the public until now. The materials of the newspapers Pravda, Stalin's banner and others were not hidden … And these are like two faces of the two-faced god Janus: one for all, the other for the elite. And isn't it interesting to find out what, in fact, these chosen ones had to deal with for the benefit of the rest, removed from this impartial information? In any case, other visitors to "VO" are not eager to go to their local archives and, using specific examples from documents, show that everything was fine in their cities, that this negative is a purely local phenomenon since the era the town of Foolov Saltykov-Shchedrin.
True, some still admit that "no one argues, there were shortcomings, but …" 1991 year. So, for example, I would only be glad that without any difficulty, but only by opening the VO page on the Internet, it became possible to look into the holy of holies of one of the party archives. Well, just like a drop of water, you can think of the presence of seas and oceans, so it is quite possible to imagine the state of affairs throughout the country from these grains of information. Somewhere more, somewhere less … So, we continue our acquaintance with our history.
Among the documents of the party archive of the Penza region, a special place is occupied by the memoranda of the head of the city department of the NKVD, who informed the secretary of the city committee about all manifestations of anti-Soviet behavior of citizens. Who, what, whether about that, about this, when and in the presence of whom he spoke, what who was complaining about and why. It was reported about the facts of unacceptable behavior and about the cases of industrial defects revealed at the military enterprises of the city. That is, the party knew everything as well as the NKVD organs. Let's look at some of these notes from one of the most interesting periods in the history of our country - documents for 1937.
Reading such documents, you involuntarily come to the idea of how many people in our country were (and they have not been extinct now!) People in their own way, smart, honest, but … that's purely everyday very stupid. So these two … Well, what have they achieved with their statements? They put the party organizer in a puddle and got into the field of vision of the corresponding "bodies". That is, even in 1937 there were enough of those who “spoke not for, but against”, but there were even more, of course, those who thought the same, but were silent. And there were also very "smart people" who also thought that way, but who had enough intelligence and insight to say something completely different, including from the high rostrum! And there were those who saw them as sincere, so to speak, and devotees … and gave their votes for them. And then, finding themselves at the very top, these people quickly "morally decayed." That is, as one of the visitors to our site said in a commentary to the previous article, “there were a lot of bastards.” I just want to add - "And then!"
And now let's get acquainted with this document, which has been preserved very badly, but the contents can still be disassembled. This is a memorandum on food difficulties in collective farms in 1937.
And on it we see that, as the head of the Penza NKVD, on the basis of his "intelligence", he assesses the current situation: "… there is no doubt that the lack of bread for themselves and fodder for livestock - the families of collective farmers, especially in fodder - are experienced in a significant majority." And as a result: "These fodder and food difficulties create a decadent and unhealthy mood among the collective farmers." But what about "life has become better and more fun." And by the way, in the newspaper "Stalin's banner" about these difficulties with food in the countryside … wrote. They wrote that bread was being stolen, that grain was poured onto the ground from sacks of holes, that foal mares were thrown off from poor care. That's about the fact that the collective farmer Petrunina, with a family of 5 people, cannot feed her and her two children in the 10th year of Soviet power left school due to lack of clothes and shoes … there was nothing about this in the newspaper.
And here is a very curious document on the development of the Stakhanov movement. On "VO" my article about the Stakhanov movement has already been published: "The trend is the highest labor productivity …" (March 16, 2017), so it makes no sense to repeat myself. But what is interesting is that this information clearly shows that very many workers were not at all happy with the successes of the Stakhanovists and opposed this "movement" in every possible way. And not only workers, by the way. And again, marriage - 50%, however, now due to the fault of specific named pests.
P. S. I think it would be just wonderful if individual visitors to "VO" (well, not all of them work hard from morning until dark at night) would visit their archives of the former OK KPSS and see what they have there. Now it is not at all difficult, as well as working in a regular archive. There are so many people here looking for their pedigrees … Under the same sauce, it is quite possible to get into the OK archive or so directly in the application and write: "I want to collect material for an article about our bright past!" Why not? Any research work on the site would be most welcome!
Well, for those who are interested in these documents, I give a link to the document from which all this is taken: Fund 37. Op.1. Unit xp. 629. Case No. 965 of the NKVD department and the city prosecutor's office. Begun on January 3, 1937 and ended on November 7, 1937 (137 pages).
