Podilia Village in 1944: Social and Economic Situation

Formulation of the problem

The publications devoted to Vinnytsia region agriculture in 1944 reveal mostly the material and human losses of the rural population in the Vinnytsia region caused by the Second World War. Much less attention is paid to the social and economic processes that accompanied the restoration of communist Soviet rule in the Vinnytsia region, and the conditions in which this took place.

Analysis of sources and recent publications. The state of agriculture in the Vinnytsia region in 1944 has not been the subject of a comprehensive study yet, although some issues have been partially discussed in the scientific literature. Thus, the peculiarities of postwar Ukraine development are analyzed in the works of M. Koval [Koval, M., 1990], O. Bazhan [Bazhan, O., 2005], V. Baran and V. Danylenko [Baran, V. K. & Danilenko, V. M., 1999]. The researchers V. Kononenko [Kononenko, V., 2005a] and O. Koliastruk [Koliastruk, O., 2012] partly characterized everyday life of Ukrainian peasants in the postwar period. Some aspects of tax policy for the collective farm peasantry is considered in the article by B. Romaniuk [Romaniuk, B., 2016]. O. Melnychuk and T. Melnychuk offered a thorough study of Podilia peasantry's everyday life in the period of late Stalinism on the material of a separate village [Melnychuk, O. & Melnychuk, T., 2020]. This paper uses the data obtained in the Vinnytsia region State Archives as the base source for research.

The purpose of the article is to analyze new archival sources to examine social and economic conditions of the Podilia collective farm village in 1944.

Main research

The Ukrainian National Liberation Revolution of 1917-1921, the New Economic Policy and repressions against nationally conscious Ukrainians in the 1920s, collectivization, the Holodomor-Genocide, political repressions against the Ukrainian peasantry, World War II - all these events took place in a very short period in history, within the lifespan of one generation - from 1929 to 1945. It is in this context, in our opinion, that the situation in the Ukrainian / Podilia village in the early postwar years should be considered: these years saw the resumption of the colonial policy towards Ukraine, introduced after the liquidation of the Ukrainian Peoples' Republic and the occupation of this territory by the Red Army in 1920-1921. In 1941-1944, the Soviet occupation regime was substituted by the German-Romanian, that had actually the same goal as the previous one: to pump out as many resources as possible. However, the Ukrainian peasants felt that it was easier to survive “under the Germans and the Romanians” than “under Stalin.” The main reason for this was clear: private property. Though very limited, private property in 1941-1944 still gave more chances for peasants to survive by working much of their time for themseves, which was considered a crime and was punishable under the Stalin regime.

With the liberation of the Vinnytsia region from the German-Romanian occupiers, the situation of the peasantry didn't change much. The village, which even before the German-Soviet war in 1941 was in a state of poverty in all respects, had to return to the old Stalinist collective farm rules that became even harsher due to the ongoing war which still required enormous resources.

The situation in the Vinnytsia region villages after the return of the Soviet regime is to some extent reflected in the “Concise economic reference of the Vinnytsia region”, which contains general figures at the time of liberation and compares them with the pre-war years. Thus, the rural population of the region decreased by 478,483 thousand people compared to 1939. The number of state farms, in comparison with January 1, 1941, increased by 1 - from 43 to 44, and the number of collective farms decreased by 20 - from 1959 to 1939. The number of machine and tractor stations remained unchanged - 84. The number of collective farm households in the region increased slightly during the years of the German-Romanian occupation - from 463,766 to 490,629 [SAV&R, F. P-136. Op. 21. Ref. 76. Arc. 1].

The above-mentioned document makes it possible to characterize certain aspects of the agriculture management in 1944. Thus, there was a sharp decline in yields in 1944 compared to 1940 (Table 1) [SAV&R, F. P-136. Op. 21. Ref. 76. Arc. 1,2]:

Sowing areas were significantly reduced. If the 1940 harvest was grown on 1,816,887 hectares, in 1944 the figure was 1,397,147 hectares [SAV&R. F. P-136. Op. 21. Ref. 76. Arc. 1]. This created extraordinary conditions in the Vinnytsia region, which threatened it with a humanitarian catastrophe, especially in the conditions of the war.

Official statistics also show a significant decrease in the number of livestock (Table 2) [SAV&R, F. P-136. Op. 21. Ref. 76. Arc. 2]:

The number of various kinds of collective and state farms which bred cattle and poultry decreased sharply: out of their total number of 7,933 as of January 1, 1941, by the time of region liberation there remained only 3,125 [SAV&R, F. P-136. Op. 21. Ref. 76. Arc. 2].

Another important indicator for the agriculture characterization is the availability of machinery (Table 3) [SAV&R, F. P-136. Op. 21. Ref. 76. Arc. 2]:

Thus, even the small amount of equipment used by collective farmers before the German- Soviet war has decreased significantly, which, respectively, decreased labor productivity.

It is difficult to determine today the extent to which the official figures reflect the real situation in agriculture. For example, how did these indicators take into account or display the interests of the collective farms authorities, district and regional Soviet party leaders, individual services and departments?

In many cases, it is impossible to state with certainty the exact time this or that figure refers to, although the precise date is important for analyzing such situations. When was, for example, the number of rural population recorded - at the time of liberation from the German-Romanian occupation, or was the data collected later, after the mobilization of a significant number of men to the Red Army? The same applies to cattle, especially horses taken by the Red Army and, of course, cars and tractors. One way or another, the above data describe the very general state of agriculture in the Vinnytsia region in 1944.

As for the individual districts, the general conditions can be illustrated, in our opinion, on the example of Bar district, where the situation in April 1944 was as follows:

as of April 28, 1944, there were 64 collective farms in the district, with 46,763 residents. Of these, 18,017 were able-bodied, of which 2,440 were men, 13,094 - women, and 2,483 - adolescents. There were 2,953 horses in the collective farms, including 2,126 horses used for labor, and 283 cows, with 14 cows for labor. Other figures characterize the situation with the provision of machinery and agricultural equipment (Table 4) [SAV&R, F. R-5091. Op. 2. Ref. 3. Arc. 12]:

Of the total number of tractors, as is mentioned in the above document, only 20 were used for sowing, others were idle due to lack of fuel and oil.

The situation in other districts of the region was not better. Bratslav district, for example, showed the following indicators: there were 6,688 collective farms in the district. The population of 25,392 people included 12,038 able-bodied people: 2,419 men, 8,627 women, and 992 adolescents [SAV&R, F. R-1304. Op. 23. Ref. 7. Arc. 18].

On April 17 the machine-and-tractor stations (MTS) of the district comprised:

40 tractors, including 38 serviceable, 46 tractor plows, 17 cultivators, 21 tractor seeders, 6 combines, 29 threshers [SAV&R, F. R-1304. Op. 23. Ref. 7. Arc. 19].

At that time 38 collective farms of the district owned: serviceable horse plows - 400, cultivators - 121, iron harrows 217, wooden harrows - 506, grain seeders - 13, beet seeders - 6. There were 1224 working horses in collective farms, in population households - 225, oxen in collective farms - 86, in population households - 0, cows in collective farms - 0, population households - 1332 [SAV&R, F. R-1304. Op. 23. Ref. 7. Arc. 20].

Thus, in the spring of 1944, the material and technical support of collective farms was significantly worse than in the pre-war period, and the number of workers, especially men, decreased significantly.

Upon return, the Soviet authorities faced a serious problem: with the retreat of the Germans and the approach of the Red Army, in period without the authorities, the collective farmers plundered much of the property of the farm where they worked and used them in their households. The same happened in 1941, with the retreat of the Red Army. Then, the new German occupation authorities were compelled to use force to reclaim at least part of the “public” property. Everything repeated in 1944.

On April 13, 1944, the Executive Committee of the Bershad District Council stated that its resolution of March 22 “on the collection of looted inventory and property” was not carried out. In this regard, the head of the NKVD district department and the heads of village councils were obliged to organize the return of property by April 25, and for this purpose “to form village brigades that will check suspicious households and deliver the collected property to the District Executive Committee storehouses” [SAV&R, F. R-5073. Op. 2. Ref. 5. Arc. 16].

On April 5, 1944, the commandant of the town Bar and the head of the district military commissariat signed Order № 2. In particular, it said that the city's loyalists hid much trophy and domestic property in their households during the German occupation: “weapons, ammunition, medicines, uniforms, leather and leather goods, various spare parts for cars, implements, grain, flour, sugar, cereals, etc.”.

The order required all property to be handed over to the city commandant's office within three days. “In case of non-surrender, the perpetrators will be arrested and subjected to wartime court” [SAV&R, F. R-5091. Op. 2. Ref. 1. Arc. 8]. The very content of the document is contradictory: if citizens are loyal to the Soviet government, then why do they not want to voluntarily surrender the property they hid and have to be threatened by repressions?

On April 24, 1944, the Executive Committee of the Bar District Council passed a resolution obliging the director of the Yaltushkivsky Sugar Plant to take from the citizens of the district the cows that belonged to the state farms of the said plant before the war [SAV&R, F. R-5091. Op. 2. Ref. 1. Arc. 17]. The resolution was accompanied by a list of “livestock users” that included 54 people [SAV&R, F. R-5091. Op. 2. Ref. 1. Arc. 19]. And the decree of July 1, 1944 obliged the collective farmers who “used the collective farm property, implements, carts, plows, and other agricultural inventory and equipment that the collective farms urgently needed” to return them immediately for the community usage. Particular emphasis was placed on the return of horses, which, according to the Statute of the Agricultural Cooperative, collective farmers “had no right to use” [SAV&R, F. R-5091. Op. 2. Ref. 1. Arc. 42].

Such measures of the authorities, in our opinion, significantly reduced peasants' interest in work: they were forced to give away cattle and property which they cared for and used during the German-Romanian occupation. In addition, this later led to mass deaths of livestock in collective and state farms: like in the pre-war period, it was the result of the indifference to public “socialist” property.

Over time, the Soviet regime coped with the task, although the seizure of equipment or food from the peasants in favor of collective farms was sometimes accompanied by repressive measures due to resistance from their new owners.

A necessary condition for the successful implementation of the regime's policy was the personnel, staff of the collective farm village. This, in particular, concerned the posts of the collective farms heads. The war continued, majority of the men from the villages were at the front or in evacuation, from where they were just beginning to return. Those who stayed “in the temporarily occupied territory” were not appointed to leadering posts due to distrust of them. So, there was little choice, and in some cases there was no choice at all. Therefore, it is obvious that sometimes random people were appointed the heads of collective farms. Add to this the following requirements for a candidate: first of all, he had to answer to the Communist Party and the state for the implementation of their procurement plans which were extremely difficult to fulfill in the extreme conditions of war. For this reason, far not everyone wanted to take on the responsibility for performing unrealistic tasks, and therefore in many cases the appointment to the post of the head of a collective farm was forced. Of course, collective farmers' meetings were held to carry out the appointment, but they were formal and had only one right: to approve the choice done by the district committee of the Communist Party.

Official data on the heads of collective farms in 1944 - information from 14 districts of the Vinnytsia region, as of January 1945, shows that of the 611 heads of collective farms only 6 people had higher education, 55 people had secondary and incomplete secondary education, 550 people - primary. Regarding the total length of service, the division was as follows: length of service up to one year - 411 people, from 1 to 3 years - 96 people, more than three years - 87 people. Of the total number of 618 heads of collective farms in 1944, 270 people did not change their posts, 223 people were replaced once, 87 people - twice, 26 people - three or more times. Among the reasons for dismissal were: failure to carry out the work - 176 people, abuse and embezzlement - 42 people. Naturally, there were relatively many war invalids among the heads of collective farms - 88 people. Of the 618 heads, only 14 were women. There were 47 members of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (VKP(b)) and candidates to membership (calculated by the author of the article) [SAV&R, F. P-136. Op.21. Ref. 118. Arc. 2-42].

The frequent change of heads of collective farms was primarily due to their non-compliance with the orders of the highest party and Soviet bodies. This was required of them in the first place. Why was the head of the collective farm removed? In 1944, during the war, there were more than enough reasons. For example, the head of the Manuilsky collective farm in the village of Bilashok, Pohrebyshche district, “did not pay due attention to necessity to increase the yield of sugar beet and to pest control; the collective farm failed to remove local fertilizers collected by collective farmers, as well as to dig up areas for new and old beets, to create a network of shallow ditches, to export the hens, to repair equipment for pest control / goose traps, flea traps, sprayers, did not start layering sugar beets. By the decision of the Executive Committee of the district council and the district committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine he was brought to trial [SAV&R, F. R-2002. Op. 13. Ref. 2. Arc. 7].

Immediately after the restoration of the Soviet collective farm system, there became apparent a problem that the regime found extremely difficult to solve and that significantly affected the implementation of state plans. Just like in the pre-war years, collective farmers used various pretexts not go to work and did not earn even the labordays' minimum. As a result, collective farms, having very few workers, especially men, and with the almost complete absence of labor cattle and agricultural machinery, were unable to fulfill their tasks. The figures speak for themselves: in 1944, 252 thousand collective farmers, or 45 % of their total number, did not earn the minimum of labordays in the region [SAV&R, F. P-136. Op. 12. Ref. 169. Arc. 42]. In the Bratslav district, according to the resolution of the district council of workers' deputies of July 14, 1944, 11 out of 676 able-bodied men did not accomplish the minimum; the same is true about 980 out of 6552 women, and 131 out of 796 teenagers. In some collective farms the situation was worse: in the Dymytrov collective farm, 165 people, or 70 % of 235 able-bodied collective farmers did not earn the minimum of labordays; in the collective farm “Way of Ilyich”, out of 156 collective farmers - 136 people (87 %) did not work their minimum; in the Kirov collective farm - 212 out of 267, in Shevchenko collective farm - 131 out of 160. What, from the government's point of view, were the reasons for such low labor discipline? “This happened due to the insufficient mass and political work carried out among the collective farmers, and due to the lack of measures taken against those collective farmers who did not earn the minimum of labordays.” There was one more reason: the lack of nurseries. Local authorities were obliged to open them within 3 days... [SAV&R, F. R-1304. Op. 23. Ref. 4. Arc. 38].

In the village Malynka of Pohrebyshche district, the issue of labor discipline was discussed at a meeting of the collective farm board on October 2, 1944. The head of the collective farm in his speech noted the shortcomings of the sowing campaign and named the collective farmers' refusal to work as the main reason for the failure to fulfill the plans. Those who even came to work, came too late. On October 2, only 8 women showed up at work.

Collective farmer Fatkulin Horpina did not come to work and was fined by 5 labordays. The collective farmer Krasnoselska O. was fined 5 labordays “for failure to come to work with a cow in the harness.”

They discussed “crimes and sabotage” of the collective farmer Anna Shvaiko, who systematically missed work, so the collective farm board decided to expel her from the collective farm [SAV&R, F. R-4146. Op. 1. Ref. 7. Arc. 20].

The issue of saboteurs was discussed the same day at the general meeting of collective farmers. The head of the collective farm noted that a certain number of collective farmers “still did not understand the importance of sowing. They did not bring the cows to work in the harness and refused to work for the collective farm.” The head of the village council said that labor discipline helps the victories of the Red Army. He also stressed “the importance of the loan, the military tax, which the collective farmers did not want to understand. All taxes. had to be paid to the state as soon as possible” [SAV&R, F. R-4146. Op. 1. Ref. 7. Arc. 21].

Obviously the problems with labor discipline and not only these ones, were not solved in the above-mentioned collective farm. On December 25, 1944, the head of the collective farm said at the collective farmers meeting that “they were poorly prepared for the new year, namely: all spring wheat was still unthreshed lying in the field together with 2 stacks of winter crops. A number of collective farmers do not understand the importance of this issue and they do not thresh the wheat.” The head noted that the plans for state supplies of bread were fulfilled. Unthreshed bread was left “for sowing and as labordays pay. All that had to be done was to thresh it. But if the collective farmers were indifferent to this, they commited this crime agaist themselves” [SAV&R, F. R-4146. Op. 1. Ref. 7. Arc. 40]. An interesting situation: collective farmers do not want to receive bread for the laborday... Either they were sure that the bread would be taken away from them, or the laborday pay was so low that it made no sense to make an effort to thresh. The document does not answer this question. One thing is clear: the collective farmers were in no way interested in the results of their work on the collective farm.

In addition to the above mensioned problems, there was another one, which, in our opinion, also affected the social and economic situation in the villages of the Vinnytsia region and concerned Ukraine as a whole. The point is - the resumed mobilization of labor forces to go to Donbas in order to rebuild mines and work there, which evidenced the return of Stalin's pre-war rules in the full. Given the catastrophic shortage of labor on collective farms and young people's reluctance to go to Donbas, which was notorious for its high mortality rate among miners, it was extremely difficult to follow the orders of Soviet and communist party authorities. In fact, such forced mobilizations were little different from the forced deportation of Ukrainians to Germany during World War II. Except that the slogans under which it was done.

Following the government's decisions, on June 13, 1944, the Executive Committee of the Pohrebyshche District Council of Workers' Deputies passed a resolution on the recruitment of labor, which, in particular, spoke of “disruption the labor mobilization to the Donbas coal industry in the villages: Yunashki, Svytyntsi, Krupoderyntsi.” In the war circumstances, the conclusions were made appropriately: for the disruption of mobilization, the head of the village council of Yunashki was dismissed and brought to trial; the head of the collective farm in Svytynets village was brought to trial for refusing to send his daughter to Donbas, which resulted in failure of mobilization in the village of Svityntsi... "; the head of the Krupoderynets village council was severely reprimanded “for incomplete execution of mobilization orders”. The resolution warned all heads of village councils of the district about “severe measures of punishment in accordance with the laws of war” for the failure of mobilization plans [SAV&R, F. R-2002. Op. 13. Ref. 2. Arc. 14].

But the recruitment to Donbas mines in the villages of Pohrebyshche district didn't improve. On June 24, 1944, the Pohrebyshche District Council of Workers' Deputies responded with a new resolution. This time the defendants were the heads of collective farms of 6 villages of Pohrebyshche district who did not fulfill the mobilization plans, as a result of which “the wagons at Rzhev uska station were delayed for the total of 146 hours.” For the idle stay of wagons, the heads of collective farms were fined 230 rubles each [SAV&R, F. R-2002. Op. 13. Ref. 2. Arc. 34].

A similar situation with the Donbas labor mobilization developed in the Bar district. On August 15, the executive committee of the district council decided to mobilize 150 able-bodied people to work in the Dzerzhynsk-Coal Association: men aged 16-55 and women aged 16-50. The work had to be carried out within three days [SAV&R, F. R-5091. Op. 2. Ref. 2. Arc. 32].

Local authorities faced a dilemma: on the one hand, it was necessary to follow the orders of higher authorities. On the other hand, the collective farms lost their manpower, which was already scarce. This was stated in the Resolution of the Vinnytsia Regional Council of Workers' Deputies of September 10, 1944, which indicated extremely unsatisfactory implementation of party and government orders to mobilize labor for the reconstruction of mines in Donbas: by September 5, only 1,300 people were actually sent instead of 8,900 people as demanded [SAV&R, F. R-5091. Op. 2. Ref. 6. Arc. 29]. Due to the reluctance to lose the labor force, which was extremely necessary in agriculture, local authorities embarked on the path of “improper mobilization”: they included in the lists those persons who could not be sent to Donbas due to physical problems, age and family reasons. These were underage boys and girls, the disabled, people who supported disabled mothers or young children... [SAV&R, F. R-5091. Op. 2. Ref. 6. Arc. 29]. There was another problem: few people wanted to go to Donbas voluntarily, and the mobilization to the mines often resembled being sent to work in Germany during World War II. Therefore, the mentioned resolution obliged the heads of executive committees of district councils and mobilization officials to “strictly ensure that materials on the persons who evaded mobilization were processed timely and were handed over to district prosecutors for bringing them to justice” [SAV&R, F. R-5091. Op. 2. Ref. 6. Arc. 30].

Stalin's national policy of genocide against the Crimean Tatar population in May 1944 caused one more problem - the new settlements on the peninsula. The Vinnytsia region also took part in this process, despite a significant reduction in the region's population as a result of the war.

In pursuance of the State Defense Committee resolution of August 12, 1944 and the resolution of the Central Committee and All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee of August 19, 1944 on the relocation of collective farmers to the Crimea, Vinnytsia region Council of deputees and workers and the bureau of the regional committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine issued resolution № 59 under the seal “Top Secret” on August 22, 1944. It provided for the relocation of 600 farms (1,800 collective farmers) from the Vinnytsia region to the Kuibyshev district of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic by October 1, 1944. Among the relocated: heads of collective farms - 8 people, heads of village councils - 7 people, teachers - 7 people, combine harvesters - 3 people, tractor drivers - 9 people, 2 agronomists and 1 zootechnician. The resolution stated that it was necessary to relocate “.conscientious and hard-working collective farmers, especially those familiar with gardening, viticulture and tobacco growing”. There had to be at least 1 able-bodied person in each relocated family [SAV&R, F. R-5091. Op. 2. Ref. 6. Arc. 12].

To encourage the relocation of collective farmers who agreed to move to the Crimea, all their debts were written off from state procurement, and in the new settlements they were exempted from all taxes and mandatory state procurement in 1944/1945 [SAV&R, F. R-5091. Op. 2. Ref. 6. Arc. 14]. In addition, in order to prevent or complicate the flight of migrants from the Crimea, paragraph 17 of the Resolution stated: “The houses and yard buildings received by the collective farmers-migrants cannot be sold or let on rent. They become their personal property only after 5 years of continuous work on the collective farm” [SAV&R, F. R-5091. Op. 2. Ref. 6. Arc. 15].

Paragraph 15 of the decree recalls the orders of the Bolshevik regime during the dekulakization and the Nazi policy on the property of the Jewish population during World War II: “Families of the collective farmers-migrants receive houses with the yard buildings and households. They are given . agricultural implements and household items that previously belonged to specially relocated individuals” [SAV&R, F. R-5091. Op. 2. Ref. 6. Arc. 15]. Now it concerned the property of the Crimean Tatar people, who were declared “enemies of the people” and who now suffered of genocide.

The relocation plan was announced in every district which was to provide the appropriate number of collective farmers. From the Bar district, for example, it was necessary to relocate 25 families of collective farmers to the Crimea by September 17, 1944 consisting of 75 people, one head of the collective farm, tractor driver and agronomist [SAV&R, F. R-5091. Op. 2. Ref. 1. Arc. 74; Ref. 3. Arc. 22]. By September 9, 1944, 25 farms were relocated in the number of 83 people, including: ablebodied - 56 people, children under 14-25 people, the elderly - 2 people [SAV&R,that the board of collective farms sent honest collective farmers to the Crimea. At least from the point of view of common sense and the interests of the collective farm, the very loss of even a small part of the workers was highly undesirable.

The Vinnytsia region also lost its working population as a result of the implementation of the state policy on labor resources. Thus, the Resolution of the Executive Committee of Vinnytsia Regional Council of September 18, 1944 obliged to “carry out the conscription / mobilization of the youth” into craft, railway schools and factory training schools in the amount of 4555 people. The document provided for the mobilization of primarily urban youth, not employed in production and training, aged 15-18. In case the plan was not be accomplished, it was considered appropriate to mobalize some categories of pupils [SAV&R, F. R-5091. Op. 2. Ref. 6. Arc. 31].

Stalin regime's policy on liberated territories was largely dictated by the war, which required large resources and, according to the authorities, the Vinnytsia region had and could offer them to the state.

The first settlements of the Vinnytsia region were liberated from the German occupants in late

1943, and on February 7, 1944 the Soviet People's Commissar of the USSR approved a plan for provision and purchasing of bread harvested in 1943 in 6 districts of the region, whose names are not specified in the document: the plan required to collect 765 thousand poods of bread into the bread fund of the Red Army, and 250 thousand poods - to public procurement [SAV&R, F. P-136. Op. 13. Ref. 1. Arc. 1].

It is difficult to say how reasonable and realistic such tasks were. The experience of state procurement plans in the 1930s shows that in many cases the planned figures were not economically justified, but pursued political interests or were generated by the Stalin government's own considerations about the availability of bread in collective farms or individuals. On the other hand, it is unlikely that the returning communist authorities knew about the amount of grain harvested in 1943 during the German-Romanian occupation and the scale of their procurement. Let us assume that it was not less than in the 1930s, under the Stalin regime, and therefore the Podilia peasants probably had a minimum that allowed them to live to a new harvest at best. Thus, the situation after the liberation by the Red Army was critical for the villagers in terms of physical survival. It is unlikely that the Stalin regime assumed that the German-Romanian occupiers did not plunder the population of the Vinnytsia region, and that the peasants had enough bread to share with the Soviet state. The issue needs further study for a more detailed reconstruction of the situation, although the documents found to date suggest that at the time of liberation at least some villages had some grain stocks.

In our opinion, it's interesting to look at the official statistics of collective farms in the Pohrebyshche district, which was liberated in late 1943 and early 1944. It shows that in the first days after the arrival of the Red Army a significant number of farms had oats, peas, barley, millet, buckwheat. Moreover, it was about tens or even hundreds of centners of grain left over from the harvest of 1943. Yes, the village Popivtsi had: potatoes - 520 centners, oats - 102 centners, peas - 189 centners, barley - 280 centners, millet - 198 centners, buckwheat - 84 centners. [SAV&R, F. R- 2002. Op. 13. Ref. 4. Arc. 21]. In the barn of Kuryanka village in early January 1944 there were stored 102 centners of oats, 121 centners of peas, 207 centners of barley, 15 centners of millet, 42 centners of buckwheat. In addition, in their procurement point there was grain of other collective farms: oats - 150 centners, millet - 230 centners, buckwheat - 85 centners, peas - 226 centners. [SAV&R, R. 2002. Op. 13. Ref. 4. Arc. 17]. The situation was similar in other farms. For some reason, there are no reports of wheat or rye in the reports. Probably, the bread was taken away by the German occupiers.

According to the documents, there was a certain amount of cattle in all collective farms of Pohrebyshche district. In the already mentioned Popivtsi they had 70 horses, of which - 13 young animals, 24 oxen, 6 sows [SAV&R, F. R-2002. Op. 13. Ref. 4. Arc. 20]. The village of Borshchahivka reported 65 horses, 12 of them - young animals, 33 oxen, 29 sows. In addition, the collective farm had 20 carts and grabbers [SAV&R, F. R-2002. Op. 13. Ref. 4. Arc. 22]. The collective farm in the village of Kuryantsi had 98 horses at its disposal, 21 of them were young animals, 16 oxen, 18 sows, 20 carts and grabbers [SAV&R, F. R-2002. Op. 13. Ref. 4. Arc. 23]. Thus, in general, the villages of the district at the time of liberation from the German occupiers had certain stocks of grain for food and seeds, livestock and implements of various qualities for management and sowing and harvesting campaigns.

In response to the already mentioned order of the USSR People's Commissar of February 7,1944 the Pohrebyshche District Council of Workers' Deputies on February 27, 1944 adopted a resolution “On the plan of bread procurement and purchase from the 1943 harvest in Pogrebyshche district.” The decision provided for the delivery of 3,600 tons of grain to the Red Army Fund and 1,195 tons - to public procurement [SAV&R, F. R-2002. Op. 13. Ref. 2. Arc. 3].

On April 18, 1944, the Soviet People's Commissar of the USSR adopted another resolution on the plan for the purchase and procurement of bread, which also applied to the Vinnytsia region. The state was to procure and purchase 3,972,000 poods of bread in the newly liberated districts of the

Vinnytsia region. In total, the plan for the purchase and procurement of bread from the harvest of 1943 reached the figure of 4,987 thousand poods [SAV&R, F. P-136. Op. 13. Ref. 1. Arc. 4].

Thus, the agriculture of the Vinnytsia region immediately after the liberation began to implement state procurement plans, which, in our opinion, were not justified in terms of the reality of their implementation. This is confirmed by numerous documents of the time about the failure to fulfill the grain harvesting plans. The problem was complicated by the fact that together with the harvesting campaign, people had to collect seed material for sowing. In both cases, the plans were implemented at the expense of the harvest of individual farms of collective farmers, who, in addition to being physically unable to perform the tasks assigned to them, did not want to give grain to the state.

The task of our study is not a detailed analysis of the sowing campaign. In general, despite the catastrophic lack of machinery, seed, people, the Vinnytsia region managed the sowing.

When the harvest time came, the collective farms faced the shortage of manpower. This initiated the appearance of such resolutions as “On the mobilization of urban, rural population for agricultural work in collective and state farms” which was adopted on July 18, 1944 by the Executive Committee of the Bar District Council of Workers' Deputies. It required the mobilization of all men aged 14-55 and women aged 14-50 for agricultural work. Exceptions were women with infants and those who had children under the age of 8 [SAV&R, F. R-5091. Op. 2. Ref. 1. Arc. 55]. Without the involvement of additional labor under the conditions prevailing in 1944, it was impossible to gather crops. Let's note, that harvesting is a process that takes almost six months: from July to October- November. From the point of view of the physical strength of the people and cattle employed in this work, in the complete absence of technology, the harvesting was much delayed.

The result of untimely harvesting was the loss of its significant part: overripe grain fell from spikelets to the ground and rotted, sugar beets lost their sugar content as a result of frosts, and some of them was left in the field unharvested. In general, Soviet-era agriculture suffered heavy losses in harvesting and storage due to poor quality of work and lack of interest in a result.

The unsatisfactory state of harvesting in the Vinnytsia region worried the top Soviet leadership of Ukraine. In early August 1944, the head of the Council of People's Commissars M. Khrushchev sent a telegram to the leaders of the region about the shortcomings identified during the inspection during the harvest. In particular, the head of the Council of People's Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR noted that some collective farms showed significant losses of bread: in the collective farm named after 8 March of Tulchynsky district, in the harvesting areas up to 25 spikelets of crops were found per square meter [SAV&R, F. P-136. Op. 13. Ref. 5. Arc. 11]. In some cases, the accounting of grain threshing by combine harvesters and threshers and its protection were poorly organized. A lot of grain remained in the chaff and straw. “This shows that some Soviet and party leaders and employees of land institutions and machine-tractor station lost their sense of responsibility for combating crop losses” [SAV&R, F. P-136. Op. 13. Ref. 5. Arc. 11].

Then the head of the Council of People's Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR gave recommendations on what local party and Soviet leaders should do to ensure that the collective farmers gather the harvest properly: 1. Within five days, check the condition of the areas where the harvest was gathered and re-harvest the spikelets. Establish control over the quality of the work done; 2. “Organize the manual mowing of the areas missed by mowing machines, raking of the spikelets in all areas with a horse and hand rake, manual collection of spikelets, involving pupils in this work”; 3. Prepare places for threshing in all collective farms “and to tamp them down well so that every day after the end of the threshing machine work it would be possible to sweep and collect grain residues, to organize accurate weighing and accounting of grain near threshers and combines”; 4. “To ensure field brigades foremen's obligatory daily reception of the collected plots from the collective farmers and the reception of these areas by the heads of the collective farms from the foremen" [SAV&R, F. P-136. Op. 13. Ref. 5. Arc. 11].

This is what the head of the Ukrainean government was doing: he was teaching the peasants how to harvest in order to save every kilogram, every spikelet. How could collective farmers know how to work on the land? The help of the party and the Soviet state in this respect, as in all the others, was not only necessary - it kind of saved the state from incompetent peasants...

N. Khrushchev was a few days ahead of Stalin. On August 24, 1944, a telegram was sent to D. Korotchenko and N. Khrushchev, signed by the Chairman of the USSR People's Commissar I. Stalin and G. Malenkov (he headed the Committee at the USSR Council of People's Commissars for the Restoration of the National Economy in the Areas Liberated from Fascist Occupation) which determined the policy of harvesting in 1944 in Ukraine. In particular, it said that “all talks and requests to reduce the plan should be stopped immediately, all anti-procurement sentiments should be restrained, because they disrupt grain supplies and thus undermine the country's defense capabilities. [...] We cannot tolerate such rotten considerations.” The text of the telegram spoke about the personal responsibility of the first secretaries of regional committees, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, chairmen of regional executive committees and the People's Commissar of the

Republic “for the full implementation of the state plan of grain procurement.” The last phrase of the telegram was very specific: “The Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Soviet People's Commissar of the USSR warn that leaders who do not fulfill the grain procurement plan and indulge the saboteurs will be blacklisted publicly in press, dismissed from their posts and severely punished by being brought to justice in court in accordance with the laws of war” [SAV&R, F. P-136. Op. 13. Ref. 5. Arc. 21]. The tone of the telegram showed no doubt: the leader even remembered the black boards, infamous in 1932-1933.

It is noteworthy that, as before, the party Soviet document did not say a word about those who actually grew bread: what did they get from the harvest?

The above-mentioned documents called for a natural reaction from the Vinnytsia region leadership. On September 8, 1944, a letter was sent to the districts of the region, signed by the leaders of the regional party organization and the regional executive committee. The preamble to the letter stated that the collective and state farms of the region hand over the bread to the state very slowly, “and the district committees of the CP(b)U, the district executive committees do not pay enough attention to this anti-state practice.” Bread threshing is extremely slow. By September 5, only

42.2 % of bread was threshed in the region, and in some districts this figure was even lower: in Plyskiv district - 26.4 %, in Monastyryshchensk district - 24.3 %, in Teplyk district - 25 %, in Bershad -

29.3 %. Large losses of grain occur during threshing and export of grain. There takes place “squandering and theft.”

Delays in receiving grain at procurement points. There are facts when collective farms violate the law on grain supplies, spending more than 15 % of the harvest on their needs. Some heads of collective farms spend bread “on household needs” and fail to fulfill of bread delivery plans. The regional committee of the Communist Party (of bolsheviks) explained this disgraceful situation “only by the fact that the secretaries of the district committees of the party, the chairmen of the district executive committees, follow and agree with the saboteurs, instead of bringing them to the strictest responsibility.” The regional party committee regarded the situation as “direct sabotage” and warned the district leadership about taking the most serious responsibility for failure to perform “important state tasks” [SAV&R, F. P-136. Op. 13. Ref. 5. Arc. 28].

Did the situation with grain supplies change for the better after such a stern warning from the district party and Soviet authorities? Here's information of the authorized regional committee official of the CP(b)U in Tulchyn district dated October 7, 1944. According to this official, on October 7 the plan of delivery of grain to the state was fulfilled by the district by 70 %. The Commissioner saw the main reason for non-compliance in the “lack of unity in the leadership of the Council of CP(b)U”. What did it mean? “The so-called bush commissioners appointed in collective farms, such as secretaries of the district committee, chairman of the executive committee, head of the NKGB, district military committee and others, instead of practical help in the organization of labor discipline in collective farms were engaged in small raids to the collective farms and from early spring and till now seldom visited the collective farms, restricted their work to giving correct political instructions but did not organize collective farmers to solve the main task [-] of grain delivery to the state” [SAV&R, F. P-136. Op. 13. Ref. 5. Arc. 49]. One of the negative results - a significant part of collective farms had grain that wasn't accounted, which, therefore, did not fall under the state's supply of grain.

Another significant shortcoming, according to the commissioner, is the lack of educational work with the of collective farms' and village councils' authorities: “no work to improve the ideological and political level of management by the district committee was ever carried out”. Therefore, it is not surprising that the organization of labor in the vast majority of collective farms “is at a very low level.” Evidence of this is, for example, the fact that in the collective farm named after 8 March, 50 % of collective farmers earned after the liberation from Romanian occupation only up to 30 labordays. Besides, in almost half of the collective farms of the district “traction force was not in common property yet, and even if it was, the bolshevik order wasn't established in the use of this force yet” [SAV&R, F. P-136. Op. 13. Ref. 5. Arc. 50]. In our opinion, the establishment of the “bolshevik order” soon led to a sharp decline in the number of horses on collective farms: if the farmers (during the Romanian occupation) owned horses as private property and took care of them, with the return of socialist management principles they returned to the indifference to public property.

The letter also stated that the heads of collective farms are reluctant to start harvesting corn, and the district committee of the party and the district executive committee did not break this negative trend. The district also lags behind in winter sowing, “solely due to poor organization of work among collective farmers and poor work of machine-tractor station.” However, it is said that to improve work of Tulchyn machine-tractor station they must be provided with “spare parts” and measures should be taken “to establish labor discipline among tractor drivers" [SAV&R, F. P-136. Op. 13. Ref. 5. Arc. 50].

The author of the report also stated that “the prospects of the district for the spring of 1945 are very sad as most collective farms will not have sowing material in the full...”

How to fix the situation? The commissioner of the regional committee of the CP(b)U offered to take part of the grain for sowing from collective farmers who grew bread on their homesteads. It is obvious that the harvest was considerable, because during the Romanian occupation some peasants significantly expanded their sowing areas, thus violating the Statute of the Agricultural Artel, and now the state had the right to take away this grain... [SAV&R, F. P-136. Op. 13. Ref. 5. Arc. 50]. This is what the government would soon do.