USSR Council of Ministers and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Against Violations of the Kolkhoz Charter. September 19, 1946
Original Source: Sistematicheskoe sobranie deistvuiushchikh zakonov Soiuza sovetskikh sotsialisticheskikh respublik (Moscow, 1946), text 254.
On the basis of the material received and the check-up’ made in several regions, the USSR Council of Ministers and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) have established the fact that the Charter of an Agricultural Artel is seriously violated by the collective farms.
These violations consist of improper waste of “labor days”, dissipation of the collectively held fields of the collective farms, spoilage of the property of the collective farms, abuses of power by the district and other party and soviet officials, violation of the democratic basis of management of the affairs of the collective farms, such as the principle that the managers and chairmen of the collective farms must be elected by and present the accounts to the general meetings of the collective farmers.
Improper Crediting of Labor Days
Improper crediting of labor days in the collective farms occurs along the line of undue increase of the executive and service personnel in the collective farms and exceedingly high waste of labor days and money for the cost of administration and management.
Improper utilization of labor, caused by unfounded and extravagant increase of administrative and managerial jobs, has resulted in many collective farms in the shortage of able-bodied collective farmers for the work in the fields and animal husbandry units, while many men employed for various services do nothing but receive a higher pay than those employed on productive jobs.
Grafters and parasites frequently hide themselves on useless, artificially invented jobs, avoiding productive work and thereby eating up the savings of the collective farms and live at the expense of the labor of those collective farmers who work in the fields and tend the cattle.
In consequence of improper settling of accounts of the collective farmers, the Charter of an Agricultural Artel is violated in many collective farms where one part of the members do not receive in full the products and money due to them in accordance with the labor days they have earned, while the other part receive more than is due to them in accordance with the labor days earned.
A harmful practice is widely spread in collective farms of issuing to individual collective farmers products, irrespective of the number of labor days earned, on simple written notes of the chairman.
Along with these irregularities, in many collective farms persons who have no relations to the farms whatsoever, such as officers of the day, watchmen and messengers of the village soviets, chiefs of fire departments, various kinds of extra workers of the village soviets and district organizations, are kept at the expense of the collective farms and are credited with labor days at the request of the local government agencies.
Moreover, barbers, shoemakers, tailors, and other workers, who render personal services to the collective farmers and must be, therefore, paid by these personally, are, nevertheless, very often credited in the collective farms with labor days.
The harmful practice also takes place of crediting labor days for work done for various village and district organizations and offices (erection and repair of buildings, procurement of firewood and building material, loading of cargoes and the like).
These facts of dissipation of labor days result in the depreciation of labor days and the diminution of income distributed for each labor day, and consequently they minimize the interest of the collective farmers in the collective work.
Dissipation of Collectively Held Fields of the Collective Farms
It is the duty of the soviet and party agencies and the land offices to protect the fields collectively held by the collective farms from dissipation, as the USSR Council of People’s Commissars and the Central Committee of the Communist Party have warned in the Resolution of May 27, 1939 (USSR Laws 1939, text 235). However, the facts and the checkup on the spot show that this resolution was in fact forgotten by many officials and the facts of dissipation of collectively held fields of the collective farms have again acquired a mass character.
This squandering of collective fields occurs along the line of enlargement of the house-and-garden plots of collective farmers by means of unauthorized seizures or illegal additions made by the management and the chairmen of collective farms to advance personal farming to the detriment of collective farming.
The squandering of the collective fields occurs also by means of illegal assignment by the local government and land authorities, and even by unauthorized seizure of the collectively held fields of the collective farms by all kinds of organizations and persons under the disguise of creating upon the collective fields various auxiliary businesses and individual vegetable gardens of wage earning and salaried employees. Such seizure of collective land frequently occurs through undue tolerance on the part of the management of the collective farms, presidents of the village soviets and the district soviets. It is understood that illegal seizure of collective land of collective farms for all kinds of auxiliary businesses diminishes the land fund of collective farms, undermines the collective farming and encourages seizure of collective lands in collective farms by various grafting elements.
Squandering of collectively held lands, as was stated in the above-mentioned Resolution of May 27, 1939, leads to the situation where “the interests of the collective farming, the basis of which is the fields held by the collective farm, are sacrificed to the elements of private ownership and avarice, which abuse the collective farms for the purpose of speculation and personal profit”.
Spoilage of Property of Collective Farms
Facts of abuses were established, consisting of spoilage of property by district and other party and government officials. Spoilage of such property occurs in the form of taking from the collective farms, free of charge or at a low price, collective cattle, grain, seed, fodder, meat, milk, butter, honey, vegetables, fruits and the like. Some district officials of the party and government and land offices, instead of strictly protecting the public property as the basis of collective farming, commit gross infractions of soviet law, and by abuse of their official status, dispose illegally of the property and income in produce and in money of the collective farms by forcing the management and the chairmen of the collective farms to issue them, free of charge or at a low price, property, cattle, and produce belonging to the collective farms.
These facts evidence that some officials holding responsible jobs have entered the path of arbitrary administration and lawlessness toward the collective farms and have begun shamelessly to dig into the property of collective farms as into their own pockets.
It is easy to realize that such abuses undermine the basis of the welfare of the collective farms, disintegrate the leading core of the collective farms, and prompt them to all sorts of illegal acts.
In addition, an irresponsible attitude toward the settling of accounts with the collective farms takes place on the part of a number of governmental and other organizations which do not pay the collective farms money due on time for produce delivered or work done, which shakes the economy of the collective farms.
Violation of Democratic Basis of the Management of the Collective Farms
The Council of Ministers and the Central Committee of the Communist Party have established the presence of serious violations in the collective farms of the Charter of an Agricultural Artel regarding the election of the leading agencies of these farms–the boards of managers, chairmen of the collective farms, auditing committees–and regarding regular convocation of general meetings, and the submission of accounts to the general meeting of the members by the chairmen and board of managers of the collective farms.
These violations are manifested in the fact that, in many collective farms, they have discontinued calling general meetings of members, who were thereby deprived of participation in the business of the collective farms; in fact, the whole business of the agricultural artel, including the distribution of income, business planning, and disposition of all material resources, is decided only by the board of managers and the chairmen of the collective farms, and these do not submit any accounts on their activities to the general meeting.
As a result of such violation of democratic principles, general meetings to elect the boards of managers, chairmen, and auditing committee have not been called for several years, and the terms of office and conditions for election of chairmen and board of managers provided for in the Charter have not been observed. The matter has reached such a point of outrage that the chairmen are appointed and dismissed by the district Party and government organizations without any knowledge of the collective farmers. All this leads to a situation where the chairmen of the collective farms cease to feel themselves independent of the collective farmers, and lose their connections with the collective farmers, which is a distortion of the fundamentals of the Charter of an Agricultural Artel and a violation of democratic relations between the leadership of the collective farms and the collective farmers that inflicts thereby serious damage to the cause of the strengthening of the collective farms.
The USSR Council of Ministers and the Central Committee of the Communist Party consider the abovementioned abuses and offenses extremely harmful for the cause of collective farming and extremely dangerous for the entire cause of building up socialism in our country.
The USSR Council of Ministers and the Central Committee of the Communist Party consider that an end must be put resolutely and irrevocably to the harmful practices of the distortion of the policy of the Party and the government, which practices are alien to Leninism.
The USSR Council of Ministers and the Central Committee of the Communist Party have resolved:
1. The distortions of the policy of the Party and the government in organization of collective farms and violations of the Charter of an Agricultural Artel mentioned in the present resolution are hereby condemned as anti-collective farming and anti-government and those guilty of such distortions shall be prosecuted in courts as felonious criminals.
2. The leaders of the Party and government organizations in the constituent republics as well as the leaders of the regional and provincial organizations must liquidate in a short time the violations of the Charter of an Agricultural Artel, restore the full effect of the Charter, and ensure the collective farms against trespasses on their property.
3. An end shall be put to the practice of waste of labor days in the collective farms and improper distribution of income of such farms.
Within two months in all collective farms, the appropriations for administrative and service personnel in the collective farms and spending of labor days for their remunerations must be revised, and the artificially boosted appropriations must be cut, while the expenses for the business management must be brought into accord with the Charter of an Agricultural Artel.
4. It shall be the duty of the leaders of the Party and soviet organizations, as well as of the leaders of the regional and provincial organizations, to restore the full effect of the Resolution of May 27, 1939 (USSR Laws 1939, text 235).
Prior to November 15, 1946, in each collective farm, the size of the collectively held fields and house-and-garden plots must be checked up on the spot, and the data collated with the entries in the land record certified books; the land illegally seized by individual collective farmers or by organizations and offices for auxiliary business shall be taken away and restored to the collective farms.
Within the same period of time, complete documentation of the recording of the land of the collective farms (acts, record books, and the like) shall be restored.
Section 2 of the Resolution of the USSR Council of People’s Commissars and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of April 7, 1942, which was in effect during the war and permitted the councils of people’s commissars of the constituent republics to allow various agencies to till the waste fields of collective farms is hereby repealed, and all land so used shall be restored to the collective farms prior to November 15, 1946.
5. Be it enacted that the officials of the soviets, the Party, and the land offices and the chairmen of the collective farms who are guilty of dissipation or unlawful disposition of the property of collective farms, collectively held fields, and money, shall be dismissed and indicted for prosecution in court as transgressors of law and enemies of collective farming.
It shall be the duty of the councils of ministers of the republics, regional and provincial executive committees, central committees of the Communist Party in the soviet republics, and regional and provincial committees of the Party to secure within a period of two months the restoration to the collective farms of property, cattle, and money taken unlawfully and to report within a one month’s period to the Council of Ministers and the Central Committee of the Communist Party concerning steps taken against those guilty of dissipation of the property of collective farms.
6. The district and other organizations and officials are hereby forbidden under penalty of law to ask from collective farms grain, produce, or money for the needs of all sorts of organizations, for conducting conventions, conferences, celebrations, and financing of district works.
7. It shall be the duty of the leaders of the party and soviet organizations of the republics as well as of the leaders of the regional and provincial organizations within a three months, period to put in order the settling of accounts of various organizations with the collective farms and to liquidate within a three months’ period all debts of various organizations and offices to the collective farms and to establish for the future a method of timely and honest payment to the collective farms for produce and work done.
8. The democratic procedure provided for in the Charter and requiring the calling of general meetings for discussion and decision of the matters of the collective farms, election of the board of managers and chairmen, submission of accounts to the general meeting by the management, chairmen and auditing committees, which procedures have been violated in many collective farms, shall be restored.
The district soviets and land offices are hereby forbidden to appoint and dismiss chairmen of the collective farms independently of the general meetings of such farms, and the district party committees shall be responsible for the carrying out of this directive.
Prior to February 15, 1947, in all collective farms general meetings of members shall be held for the hearing of the reports of the economic activities for the year 1946 and to conduct at these meetings the elections of the board of managers, chairmen, and auditing committees in all instances where the term of their office has expired or the general meeting resolves to do so prematurely.
9. It shall be the duty of the councils of ministers of the republics, regional and provincial executive committees, the central committees of the republics, and the regional and provincial party committees to submit before January 1, 1947, to the USSR Council of Ministers and the Central Committee of the Communist Party a report on the execution of the present regulation.
10. In order to establish strict supervision of the observance of the Charter of an Agricultural Artel, protection of collective farmers from attempts to violate the Charter, as well as for the decision of questions pertaining to the organization of collective farming, a Council on Affairs Pertaining to Collective Farming shall be created.
Source: Vladimir Gsovski, Soviet Civil Law (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Law School, 1948), Vol. II, pp. 487-497.