ODESA PROVINCIAL COUNCIL ON THE FIGHT AGAINST BANDITRY: PRECONDITIONS OF CREATION AND MAIN ACTIVITIES

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ODESA PROVINCIAL COUNCIL ON THE FIGHT AGAINST BANDITRY: PRECONDITIONS OF CREATION AND MAIN ACTIVITIES

Journal Title: Записки історичного факультету - Year 2018, Vol 0, Issue 29

Abstract

The agrarian policy of the RCP (b) at the beginning of 1921 in Ukraine, in general, and in the Odesa province in particular, suffered almost complete collapse. The peasantry demonstrated its reluctance to move to collective forms of cultivating land, resisting the forced removal of its corn, while resorting to armed resistance. For its part, the communist government interpreted this position of the peasantry as «banditism» or «political banditism» and used a wide network of organizational, propaganda, military and punitive measures to «eliminate banditism». The main thesis of the article is that the resistence of the peasantry against the agrarian policy of the RCP (b) was so powerful, as to condition the creation the Odessa Provincial Council on the fight against banditry (OGNBB) in March 1921, which was called to coordinate the activities of the military and civilian authorities in suppressing the peasant insurgency movement. As of the beginning of January 1921, in Odesa province, the prodrazvyorstka (food apportionment) plan was executed at 37%. Such a result was achieved through the involvement of military forces, the use of punitive measures such as taking hostages, the work of visiting sessions of the provincial revolutionary tribunal, the activities of county emergency commissions and other numerous punitive bodies: «triplets», «fives», etc. Without using all this arsenal, the prodrazvyortska plan would have been executed at much smaller scke. In the beginning of 1921, the relations between the workers of Odessa and the communist government became increasingly tense and hostile due to the sharp deterioration of the food supply delivered to workers and the cessation of the work of many enterprises. Under such circumstances, the authorities were not able to re-engage workers in the activities of “food squads”. On this backdrop, in the beginning of 1921, the central government of Ukraine adopted a number of normative acts, which were intended to resolve issues of forms and means of combating “banditry”. Such means consisted of regular military units, punitive units of the Odessa Provincial Extraordinary Commission (OGRN), police detachments and committees of poor peasants, who together had to ensure «the elimination of banditism before the start of the sowing campaign». During the period between March and August of 1921, the Odesa Provincial Council on Combatting Banditism focused on the development and implementation of measures that were intended to curb peasant armed actions and ensure the implementation of a redistribution. Such measures included the creation of permanent garrisons in the most dangerous areas, the organization of troop detachments, increased work of intelligence and agents, etc. Taking hostages, keeping track of the families of insurgents, imposing the collective responsibility of villagers also remained in the arsenal of punitive measures. The activities of the OGNBB, which was called to coordinate the activities of military and civil authorities in order to suppress the peasant insergent movement, testified to how powerful the resistance of the peasantry to the agrarian policy of the RCP(b) was. In sum, the prosecution of peasantry and dire punitive measures, perpetuated against the agrarian population, testify to the fact, that peasants have become a significant danger to the communist authorities. As they did not corroborrate the agrarian policies of the Bolshevik state, peasants started to organize mass resistance movement, undermining food supplies for the city and the workers, a social class at the core of the supporters of the regime.

Authors and Affiliations

Oleksandr Shyshko

Keywords

EP ID EP626242
DOI 10.18524/2312-6825.2018.29.153354
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