Figure 1.--A Russian reader has provided this family photograph taken in 1932. The family was from the Ukraine. The photographwas taken in Vastok. I'm not sure tet where Vastok is. I do not have the details, but we suspect that the family may have been Kulaks who managed to survive deportation from their farm in the Ukraine. They look like a farm family.

A Russian reader has provided this family photograph taken in 1932. The family was from the Ukraine. They look to b a farm family. The photograph was taken in Vastok. I'm not sure just where Vastok is. I do not have the details, but we suspect that the family may have been Kulaks who managed to survive deportation from their farm in the Ukraine. The Russian reader who sent the image, however, tells us that that they were not Kulaks, but rather landless pasants who moved east.

Ukrnian Famine

The family here look like a farm family. And given the man's beard we are giessin they were a conservative family not all that in keeping with the new Soviet Man. Stalin decided to end individual peasant propritorship (1929-31). When the peasants like the family here resisted, he engineered a terrible famine in which countless Ukranian peasants perished.

Mobility in Soviet Russia

I was unsure just to what extent Soviets citizens could move about in the country. A reader tells us, "I believe migration was possible, but it was not something people could decide on for themselves. Even in the late Soviet era people had to have a residency permit to live in popular areas such as Moscow and I would imagine things were tightly controlled at this time and that most people would probably not want to draw official attention to themselves by making such a request. Some migration at this time was also encouraged and sponsored by the state--in some cases this was genuine encouragement, in others it was the sending of undesirables to internal exile or labour camps. Such state sponsored migration was invariably to regions with harsh climates and resources that the state wanted to exploit.

Action Against Ukranian Peasants

NKVD actions in the Ukraine were very brutal. Two gols were persued. One was to eliminate any resistance to collectivization and two to destroy Ukranianian nationalism. In some cases people were turned out of their homes in the middle of the winter with just the clothes on their back. No one was allowed to take them in. Others were put on cattle cars and then forced off the trains in wilderness areas where no provision was made for them. A readr writes, "This was the experience of a lot of people in the "internal exile" category. The most charitable thing one might say of Soviet policy at this time is that it was criminally incompetent. The Soviet Union was not actively trying to kill these people in most instances; it wanted their work output. But it failed to provide the shelter and equipment necessary for such groups to survive. Complaints were made about the treatment of exiles at the highest level (one senses less out of concern for their welfare than out of concern for lost productivity) but action on these complaints was only taken at the highest levels and never seemed to filter down to the people actually responsible for transporting and organising the exiles. It is probable that more people died from this neglect than in actual labour camps. An excellent book on the subject is titled simply "GULAG", but I forget the name of the writer and I am out of the country at the moment and cannot check it. GULAG, incidentally, is not a place, as some might imagine from the way the word is used, but an acronym standing for "State Administration of Camps" (Gosudarstvenoye Upravleniye Lageryey)." I am not entirely sure that the Stalin's goal was not to kill a large number of people. During the purges of the 1930s, for example, a very substntial number of people arrested was sumarily executed and not sent to the Gulag. Of course it is difficult to know just what was on Stalin's mind. This is hardly the sort of thing that Stalin wrote down. And he had a habit of periodically doing away with his secret police chiefs, thus destroying the institutional memory of the full extent of his participation.

Migration East

A Russian reader provides some background information on Soviet migration policies.

Russian text

На фотографии 1932 года не кулаки. В начале 30-х годов СССр потрясли несколько неурожайных годов, был сильный голод в Поволжье и на Украине. К тому же европейские территории бывшего Советского Союза были заселены густо, а области и районы Дальнего Востока сильно нуждались в людях для своего развития. Поэтому было несколько правительственных кампаний по добровольному переселению людей в районы Дальнего Востока. Добровольно переселявшиеся в те края семьи получали помощь от государства на обзаведение хозяйством и развитие его. Таких переселенцев было много и они много сделали для развития этих районов страны, начиная от Забайкалья и кончая Владивостоком. Свободное перемещение населения в пределах страны в довоенные годы практически не ограничивалось. Городского населения это ограничение не касалось вообще никогда. Для сельского населения были введены определенные ограничения в послевоенный период. Основывалось это на том, что рабочих рук в сельском хозяйстве по окончании войны не хватало. Практически весь урожай забирался государством. Люди, выращивавшие хлеб и другие продукты сельского хозяйства сами жили голодными, что заставляло их уходить из сел и деревень и искать лучшего в городах. Проблему эту решили просто - не стали выдавать сельским жителям паспорт. А без паспорта куда-нибудь уехать было очень сложно. Еще можно было получить в администрации села справку и с ней перемещаться по территории страны, но справки эти давали не всем. Продолжалось это до второй половины 60-х годов, когда все эти ограничения были отменены. А как Вы пишите, бывших кулаков во время коллективизации выселяли в основном в северные районы страны и в районы казахстана и мало кто добирался в новые места всей семьей - очень многие умирали в пути. Для кулака существовал еще один путь сохранить свою семью и часть хозяйства - добровольно переселиться в другие местности и начать там новую жизнь, но воспользовались этим шансом немногие. Но, в принципе, возможно что эта семья как раз использовала свой шанс. Но наверное это простые переселенцы.

English text

The family in the 1932 photograph are not kulaks. In the beginning of the 1930s the USSR was shaken by several lean years; there was a bad famine in the Volga Region and in Ukraine. Moreover the European territories of the former Soviet Union were populated densely, while the Far Eastern regions desperately needed people for development. As a result, there were several government campaigns to promote voluntary migration into the Far Eastern regions. Voluntarily migrants into the East received aid from the state for the provision and development of farming. Many people migrated and they made a valuable contribution to the development of these regions of the country, from Transbaykal to Vladivostok. The free movement of the population within the country in the pre-war years was practically unlimited. There were no restrictions on movements of the urban population. For the rural population, some restrictions were introduced in the post-war period. This was because there was insufficient agricultural labour. Practically the entire harvest was taken away by the state. The people that raised grain and other farm produce went hungry, which forced them to leave their villages and look for better in the cities. This problem was solved simply - rural inhabitants were not issued passports. It was very difficult to go anywhere without a passport. It was possible to obtain a certificate in the administration of village and use it to move about the country, but these certificates were not given to everyone. This continued until the second half of the 60's, when all these restrictions were abolished. But as you write, the former kulaks, during collectivization, were mostly settled in the northern regions of the country and in the regions of Kazakhstan, and almost no family reached its destination without loss - very many died on the way. There was one way for the kulak to preserve his family and part of his business - voluntary resettlement to other localities to begin a new life, but only a few took this chance. But, in principle, it is possible that this family used such a chance. But probably these are simple migrants."

Reader Comments

A HBC reader writes, "I find the comments very interesting, having spent 2 years living in Vladivostok in the far eastern regions. For a long time, this area was viewed by Russians in much the same way as Americans viewed the "wild" west. The provincial capitals of the far east have origins directly related to the Soviet Gulag. Magadan grew out of the forced labour camps exploiting the gold reserves of Kolyma. Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk was recaptured from Japan at the end of World War II and was largely populated by the descendants of exiles (and Korean slave labourers, left behind by the occupation force). Even Vladivostok owed some of its growth to acting as a staging area for prisoners being sent to Magadan. While I agree that there was much voluntary, state sponsored migration, much of it was also forced, and many of those convicted and sent into exile or to a camp had done nothing. NKVD staff were under pressure to meet targets for arrests and convictions and could face arrest themselves if they failed to meet their targets.

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Created: 6:32 PM 4/8/2006
Last updated: 5:53 PM 4/16/2006