They did not talk about this in history lessons in Soviet schools, but some of the most combat-ready Kolchak units were the regiments recruited from the workers of the Izhevsk and Ural arms factories. Indeed, a fraction of the state money from military orders went to them. The master could receive even one hundred rubles a month. So they did not need the Bolsheviks at all, and there was not even talk of any proletarian solidarity.
Riv (4)
Some time ago an interesting topic of “social lifts” surfaced on VO. Again, hackneyed cliches about the crunch of a French roll began to appear in the comments (well, how long can you repeat the same thing ?!), and everything, as a rule, boiled down to the personal experiences of those discussing. Sadly, the content analysis of the same “comments” clearly shows that VO visitors do not read not only the magazines Voprosy istorii, Istoriya gosudarstva i prava (well, apparently, considering them too serious), but also the Rodina magazine, where there are also links to archival files, and where very serious researchers write. Moreover, I would describe this magazine as "massive", "with pictures", that is, interesting in all respects and written by no means overly scientific language. And there is also a fairly popular (in terms of presentation) "Military Historical Journal" and the magazine "History in Details", interesting in that each of its issues is devoted to one specific historical topic. Unfortunately, there are no links to these publications in the comments.
Therefore, it makes sense, within the framework of this topic, to rely not on scientific works, which very few people read anyway, but on a purely personal, I would say, family experience that everyone has in this regard. This, of course, is not a completely scientific approach, because there are always exceptions, but, nevertheless, being documented, it also turns into a certain historical source. Today it has become fashionable to look for your own pedigrees. Our state Penza archive is overflowing with such "search engines", and many of them work for money. But in this regard, I was lucky with the sources. Many documents are kept at my home, and many of them are simply unique.
So, "social elevators" … What our ancestors could and could not, and when their work played a certain role in their fate, and where there is only "lady luck", always desired, but windy and not constant.
The second page, no, not a passport, but … "passport book" (as they called it then) of my great-grandfather Konstantin Petrov Taratynov - they wrote for some reason that way.
Well, I would like to start (since we are talking about the most ordinary level of reality) with the history of my great-grandfather: Peter Konstantinovich Taratynov, a bourgeoisie of the city of Morshansk, according to an Orthodox passport, which was important for Russia then. How he ended up in Penza, I cannot say. But I know that by 1882 he was already a foreman of the locomotive workshops of the Syzran-Vyazemskaya railway, but he did not become a foreman right away, he went all the way from an ordinary worker. But … I didn't drink! To everyone who suggested that he “pour out,” he said that he had given a pledge to God, and people lagged behind him. Up to 100 workers went under his supervision, and if someone brought his son to work in the workshops, he had to “bow with a quarter ticket”. And it was not a bribe, but "respect." A bribe would be "katenka" or "petr", because there was a queue in the workshops, everyone knew each other, and it was oh-oh, how hard it was to get through to a profitable place bypassing (they were watching!), And not "godly ". My grandfather, named after his father Peter, told me about this, and he was the last child in the family, and there were five sons and five daughters in total, but only many children died. There are three sons left, and there is only one girl.
One of the lifts upstairs in tsarist Russia was faith. That is, if you are Orthodox, then you had more chances. But if you were hardworking, did not drink, and worked diligently, then, living in the city, you could well have made a career, save up for a house, and educate children.
And in 1882 he built a house with the money he earned in Penza, on Aleksandrovskaya Street. And … that very night they burned down his house. Such was the time when people in Penza were kind and responsive to other people's success. True, not everything burned down. And from the burnt logs my great-grandfather built a large shed, and then I was very amazed, looking at it - why are the logs burnt? Then my great-grandfather went to the merchant Paramonov and took out a loan, and he insured the new house in the Salamander society. The plaque on the door remained until 1974, when our house was demolished and given an apartment nearby.
Continuing to work, Petr Konstantinovich gave education to all children. Vladimir graduated from high school, teacher's institute and taught mathematics all his life. As a child (and he died in 1961) I did not like him very much, and above all because he always addressed my grandfather with patronage and called him "Pierre". Sister Olga also completed some women's courses, learned to speak French and … married a colonel of the Russian imperial army! It seems to be how? After all, the daughter of a railway master … But somehow she got out (here he is, a social elevator!) And on the eve of the First World War went with him to Paris, where she “spouted” (a family legend!) A whole pot of sour cream (“pot”, huh?) gold coins! All your dowry! I saw such a pot at my grandmother's, I remember the family gold coin (“on the teeth”) with the profile of Nikolai, and I just could not believe my ears. After all, at school we were told that both workers and their children in tsarist Russia were all doomed to poverty and illiteracy. And the revolution of 1917 - isn't it a confirmation? But that means not all.
My grandfather, alas, turned out to be a "filthy sheep" in the flock (he told me so himself!). He was born last, in 1891, and at the age of 15 he went as a hammer in the same workshops. Hammer! Everyone in the family said: "Fu!" And for three years he waved with a hammer, until he acquired an inguinal hernia, and at the same time a "white ticket", so in 1914 he was not taken into the army. And as "the whole flapper came out," the grandfather took up his mind, graduated from the gymnasium as an external student, teacher's courses and became a teacher. And then the revolution! In the winter of 1918, my grandfather signed up for the party (!), And in the summer he was sent with a detachment to take bread from the kulaks. He shot, they shot at him, but he survived, although he was hiding from the Antonovites in a closet. But … in the same year he left the Bolshevik Party! Mother died, there is no one to bury, but it is necessary, and he is again with a detachment … "revolution in danger", or funeral, or "ticket to the table." He preferred the latter, buried his mother and … went. And no one told him anything. Such was the time during the revolution there were strange relations in the camp of revolutionaries.
Interestingly, in 1918 a decision was made to municipalize housing. That is, all housing from private to public. This ensured the possibility of compaction, that is, the attachment of some people to others. After all, if your house is no longer yours, then you can do whatever you want with it. But … in 1926 the houses were “demuniculturalized”. The authorities were unable to provide the housing with proper care and repair!
And his sister Olga moved with her husband to the Don, and there she rode a cart and fired from a machine gun. Where does the information come from? And who knows, heard at home, but heard that her husband abandoned her, “sailed to Constantinople,” and she and her child from Crimea walked to Penza. She came, stood under the window, where my grandfather and my grandmother were sitting, drinking tea and saying: "Pierre, look, I'm naked!" He unbuttons his robe, and there is nothing underneath. And my grandfather arranged for her to be a teacher in some village and gave her a sack of flour. And so he saved. And she had three children: both sons, like my grandfather, died in the war, and both her and my grandfather's daughters remained and grew up.
The agreement on "de-municipalization" provided for a "Subscription" that the owner of the returned housing was obliged to repair it within a year. And then, they say, again "municipalize"!
But the funny thing is that she was never grateful to him. According to the court, after the death of “Uncle Volodya” (brother Vladimir), she chopped off part of the house, and when a dispute arose over the stove and the relocation of the wall, she said: “I didn't heat my brother ?!” For which I received from my grandfather - "Bitch and the White Guard …" Such "touching family relations" I had to observe in childhood, and then I firmly decided (like one of the heroes of the film "Beware of the Car") that " an orphan. " As a result, the wall had to be moved 15 centimeters!
In 1940, my grandfather joined the CPSU (b) for the second time, graduated from the teaching institute as an external student, that is, received a higher education, and worked as the head of the city council throughout the war, so much so that he was awarded the Orders of Lenin and the Badge of Honor. But even though he was, as they said then, an "order bearer", his family lived in terrible cramped conditions. The house had a vestibule, a closet, two rooms and a kitchen. Here lived my grandfather and grandmother, his two sons and his daughter. Moreover, in 1959, my grandfather slept in the hallway by the door, grandmother was on the couch at the table, and my mother and I were in a small bedroom (door on the left). And only after the death of brother Vladimir we got the whole house, and my grandfather got a separate room. But near the windows in tubs stood palm trees: date and fan. But many on our street lived even worse, and even poorer - by an order of magnitude.
Such certificates of honor were given to students during the Great Patriotic War.
Immediately after the seventh grade, my mother went to a pedagogical school, and then in 1946 to a pedagogical institute, after which she worked first at school, and then she was invited to work at a university. The grandfather did not put any "hairy hands" on this. Then, of course, it was also, but it was not very accepted. Moreover, the grandfather was in such a position that the slightest mistake could cost him and his entire family very dearly. But … it was here that the "lift", apparently, worked. With all other things being equal, who would you hire to work in a higher education institution? Of course, a person … with a higher level of culture, who ensures, above all, … the position of parents. So no one canceled certain advantages of social status even then.
Well, as for my grandfather, his "elevator", on the contrary, gradually carried down. First, from the head of the city to a school director, then to a teacher of geography and labor, and then to a pension, however, a republican one. But he gave 52 years to pedagogical work, and it was strange for me, a boy, to observe how workers who were leaving the factory came up to him, who was sitting on a bench near the gate, and said: "But I studied with you."
This is how the school teachers of the Penza 47 school looked like together with their director (center) in 1959. Looking at this photo, I always think that I can only be glad that my head of hair is clearly not my grandfather.
(To be continued)
