Passport system in the USSR. What was on the spread of the Soviet passport in different eras of the USSR
SOVIET PASSPORT SYSTEM BEFORE 1932
A few days after October coup passport system Russian Empire was essentially declared invalid. On November 11 (24), 1917, the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) and the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) "On the destruction of estates and civil ranks" was promulgated:
"St. 1. All estates and class divisions of citizens that existed in Russia until now, class privileges and restrictions, class organizations and institutions, as well as all civil ranks, are abolished.
Art. 2. All titles (nobleman, merchant, tradesman, peasant, etc.), titles (princely, county, etc.) and names of civil ranks (secret, state and other advisers) are destroyed, and one common for the entire population of Russia is established , name of citizens of the Russian Republic”.
Since the passport system was based on class division (for different classes there were different rules registration and various “residence permits”), the decree that abolished it practically destroyed the previous passport system. Moreover, its destruction occurred precisely when the dynamics of population movements (due to war and revolutionary upheavals) was the highest, that is, when the second principle (a person’s attachment to a certain place) stopped working. As a result, the former passport system (that is, the system of accounting and control of the population of the empire) collapsed. Having successfully destroyed the internal passport system, the new government first of all took care of erecting barriers between Soviet Russia and the rest of the world. Already on December 2, 1917, Trotsky issued an order to "visa passports" at the entrance to the RSFSR. From now on the entrance to the limits Soviet Russia was allowed only to persons who had passports certified by the only Soviet representative abroad in those days, Vaclav Vorovsky, who was in Stockholm. Three days later, "until further orders," the People's Commissar of the NKVD, Grigory Petrovsky, ordered that citizens of states that were at war with Russia not leave the RSFSR without the permission of local councils.
With the end of the civil war, the fight against "labour desertion" somewhat subsided. The transition to the NEP required a different strategy in relation to the "labor reserves". The principle of rigid attachment of the labor force to enterprises became a brake on the implementation of plans for economic recovery. This, apparently, can explain the sharp change in the attitude of the authorities towards the system of control and registration of the population (and, above all, the working-age population). The law of January 24, 1922 granted all citizens the right to free movement throughout the entire territory of the RSFSR. This right was also confirmed in Article 5 of the Civil Code of the RSFSR. Moreover, the Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of July 20, 1923, "On Identification", which was issued soon, opened with a unique article:
“Government bodies are prohibited from demanding from citizens R.S.F.S.R. obligatory presentation of passports and other residence permits that hinder their right to move and settle in the territory of the R.S.F.S.R. […]
Started short and completely unique in modern Russian history the so-called legitimation period, when, in fact, people were spared both the need to have a passport and the link to their place of residence. This order corresponded to the principles of the new economic policy, providing freedom for the development of market relations. In the legitimation system, a passport becomes a mandatory document only when a citizen travels abroad.
The years 1928-1929 turned out to be a turning point. At this time, the NEP was put an end to and a course towards industrialization and complete collectivization was announced. The country was plunged into a severe food crisis. Hunger has begun. Huge masses of rural residents sought salvation from starvation in the cities. Only a new enslavement of the rural population could stop this movement. It was introduced in 1932 in the form of a Soviet passport system. Of course, its introduction was not dictated solely by the fact that in the famine of 1931-1932, the authorities sought to cut off the rural population from the cities. The transition to a planned economy presupposed the existence of a well-established system of accounting and control of the labor force. And of course, passportization has become the most important tool for “cleansing” the population. major cities and more broadly - "regime zones".
A.K. Bayburin. Backstory Soviet passport (1917--1932)
INTRODUCTION OF PASSPORTS
In order to better account for the population of cities, workers' settlements and new buildings and unload these populated areas from persons not connected with production and work in institutions or schools and not engaged in socially useful work (with the exception of disabled people and pensioners), as well as in order to clean these populated areas from hiding kulak, criminal and other anti-social elements, the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR decide:
1. Establish a unified passport system for the USSR on the basis of the Regulations on Passports.
2. Introduce a unified passport system with mandatory registration throughout the USSR during 1933, covering primarily the population of Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov, Kyiv, Odessa, Minsk, Rostov-on-Don and Vladivostok.
3. To instruct the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR to establish the dates and sequence for the introduction of the passport system in all other regions of the USSR.
4. Instruct the governments of the Union republics to bring their legislation into line with this Decree and the Regulations on Passports.
Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR
M. KALININ
Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR
V. MOLOTOV (SCRYABIN)
Secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR
A. ENUKIDZE
Decree of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of December 27, 1932 "On the establishment of a unified passport system for the USSR and the mandatory registration of passports"
LOOK POET
as if
twisted
mister.
mister official
red passport.
like a bomb
like a razor
double-edged
like an explosive
two meters tall.
meaningfully
bearer eye,
at least things
will take it down for you.
inquiringly
looks at the detective
to the gendarme.
With what pleasure
gendarme caste
whipped and crucified
what is in my hands
hammerhead,
sickle
Soviet passport.
I would be a wolf
bureaucracy.
To mandates
there is no respect.
to hell with mothers
any piece of paper.
from wide trousers
duplicate
priceless cargo.
envy
citizen
Soviet Union.
V.V. Mayakovsky. Poems about the Soviet passport.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE SOVIET PASSPORT
Introduced in 1932, the unified passport system was changed and improved in subsequent years in the interests of strengthening the state and improving public services.
A notable stage in the history of the formation and activities of the passport and visa service was the decision of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of October 4, 1935 "On the transfer of foreign departments and tables of executive committees to the jurisdiction of the NKVD and its local bodies", which until that time were subordinate to the OGPU.
On the basis of the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of October 4, 1935, departments, departments and groups of visas and registration of foreigners (OViR) were created in the Main Police Department, the police departments of the republics, territories and regions.
These structures worked independently during the 30s and 40s. In the future, they repeatedly merged with the passport apparatus of the police into a single structural units and stand out from them.
To improve the identification of a citizen of the USSR, since October 1937, a photographic card began to be pasted into passports, the second copy of which was kept by the police at the place of issue of the document.
In order to avoid fakes, GUM has introduced special ink for filling out passport forms and special documents. mastic for seals, stamps for fastening photographs.
In addition, it periodically sent out operational and methodological orientations to all police departments on how to recognize fake documents.
In those cases when birth certificates from other regions and republics were presented upon receipt of passports, the police were obliged to first request certificate issuance points so that the latter would confirm the authenticity of the documents.
From August 8, 1936, in the passports of former prisoners "disenfranchised" and "defectors" (who crossed the border of the USSR "arbitrarily"), the following note was made: "Issued on the basis of paragraph 11 of the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR No. 861 of April 28, 1933."
By the decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of June 27, 1936, as one of the measures to combat the frivolous attitude to the family and family responsibilities, it was established that upon marriage and divorce, a corresponding mark was made in the passports by the registry office.
By 1937, the passportization of the population in certain localities was completed everywhere by the government, the passport machines completed the tasks that were assigned to them.
In December 1936, the passport department of the Main Directorate of the RKM of the NKVD of the USSR was transferred to the external service department. In July 1937, local passport machines also became part of the departments and departments of the worker-peasant police departments. Their employees were charged with the daily maintenance of the passport regime.
At the end of the 1930s, significant changes were made to the passport system. The administrative and criminal liability for violation of the rules of the passport regime became tougher.
On September 1, 1939, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted the Law "On General military service", and on June 5, 1940, by order of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR, guidelines were announced that determined the tasks of the police in the field of military registration ...
In the military registration tables of police departments (in rural areas and towns in the relevant executive committees of the Soviets), a primary account was kept of all those liable for military service and conscripts, personal (qualitative) registration of ordinary and junior commanding staff of the reserve.
Military accounting tables carried out their work in close contact with the district military commissariats. This work continued until the beginning of the Great Patriotic War(June 22, 1941).
The development of the passport system in the context of strengthening the administrative-command system in the USSR and during the period of perestroika in Russia
“NEW SELF-HOUSE” IN THE VILLAGE
The villagers were subjected to especially humiliating enslavement, since, according to the above-mentioned resolutions of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR No. 57/1917 of December 27, 1932 and No. 861 of April 28, 1933, in rural areas, passports were issued only in state farms and in territories declared “regime”. The rest of the villagers did not receive passports. Both regulations established a long, arduous procedure for obtaining passports for those seeking to leave the village. Formally, the law determined that “in cases where persons living in rural areas leave for a long-term or permanent residence in an area where the passport system has been introduced, they receive passports in the district or city departments of the workers' and peasants' militia at the place of their former residence for a period of for one year. After a one-year period, persons who have arrived for permanent residence receive passports at their new place of residence on a general basis” (paragraph 3 of the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR No. 861 of April 28, 1933). In fact, everything was different. On March 17, 1933, the decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR “On the procedure for otkhodnichestvo from collective farms” obliged the boards of collective farms “to exclude from the collective farm those collective farmers who arbitrarily, without an agreement registered with the collective farm board with economic agencies (this was the name of representatives of the administration who, on behalf of Soviet enterprises, traveled to villages and concluded agreements with collective farmers - V.P.) are abandoning their collective farms” 10 . The need to have a contract in hand before leaving the village is the first serious barrier for otkhodniks. The exclusion from the collective farm could not greatly frighten or stop the peasants, who had time to learn the hardship of collective farm work, grain procurement, wages for workdays, hunger in their own skin. The obstacle lay elsewhere. On September 19, 1934, a closed resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR No. 2193 “On registration of passports of otkhodnik collective farmers entering enterprises without contracts with economic agencies” was adopted. The traditional term “otkhodniks” camouflaged the mass exodus of peasants from collective farm “reservations”.
The Decree of September 19, 1934 determined that in passportized areas, enterprises could hire collective farmers who had gone into retirement without an agreement with economic agencies registered with the collective farm board, “only if these collective farmers had passports obtained at their former place of residence, and a certificate from the collective farm board about his consent to the withdrawal of the collective farmer. Dozens of years passed, instructions and regulations on passport work changed, people's commissars, and then ministers of internal affairs, dictators, bureaucrats, but this decision - the basis for attaching peasants to collective farm work - retained its practical force.
V. Popov. The passport system of the Soviet serfdom
“I take out a duplicate of a priceless cargo from wide trousers.
Read, envy, I am a citizen of the Soviet Union!”
A small note for those who speculate on the topic of collective farmers without passports - they all had passports, but they weren’t given them on purpose, wanting “enslavement”. We have repeatedly considered the issue of freedom of movement for collective farmers*. Another touch to the passport system Soviet state your attention.
***
An identity document and announcing the place of permanent registration, our compatriots regularly take out of their wide trousers. But the attitude towards the passport system was and remains ambiguous, despite the fact that the decision to introduce a unified passport system in the Soviet Union and compulsory registration of the CEC and the Council of People's Commissars was made on December 27, 1932. Some consider this system a guarantee of order in the country, while others consider it a barrier that restricts the freedom of movement of a citizen.
So, at one time perestroika historians, journalists and human rights activists called this decision Soviet power anti-democratic and inhumane. Like, this is a new enslavement of peasants in collective farms, binding the urban population to the main place of residence, restricting entry into capital cities. In fairness, it must be said that these "fighters for the truth" and other decisions and actions of the Soviet government have always seen only in black.
Let's start with the fact that until that time in our country there was no single internal passport system at all, passports before the revolution were foreign, and were also required for living in the capitals, St. Petersburg and Moscow, and in the border areas.
During the First World War, almost all European countries acquired internal passports. For 15 years, the Soviet government gathered its strength to introduce passports. The chaos of the first post-war years, the virtual absence of people traveling abroad did not make this problem a top priority.
The decree of 1932 very logically explained why this system was being introduced. First of all, they talked about improving the accounting of the population of cities, workers' settlements and new buildings and unloading these places from people not connected with production, as well as clearing these places from hiding kulak and criminal elements.
It is foolish to condemn the Bolsheviks for wanting to prevent an uncontrolled flow of migration; one can also criticize the pre-revolutionary European passport system, which had the same tasks. The Soviet government did not invent anything "inhumane".
It must also be remembered that the introduction of passports in rural areas was not considered at all by the decree of 1932. No passports - no migration to the city.
At the same time, the new government, while limiting simple relocation to the city, did not prevent young villagers from entering city universities and technical schools, doing military career. If you want to study or become an officer, you apply to the collective farm board, get a passport - and go ahead, towards your dream ...
It is important to note that there were no special punitive measures for those who “illegally” left the village. AT post-war years the outflow of rural youth to the city especially intensified, but the official date for issuing passports to the rural population was 1974.
Continuing the theme of humanity and inhumanity, we can turn to the processes that have swept Europe in last years. There is a choice: rigidity of registration or uncontrolled migration? Punishment for violation of the passport regime or arbitrariness of a migrant free from all conventions? Law and order in the city or areas where law enforcement officers do not even go? Choose…
Since 1933, secretly (in special police records), and since August 8, 1936, secretly and openly (in police records and in the passport), a record of a criminal record was made. Find Good work in the USSR, it was difficult for a person whom the Soviet authorities classified as a “socially alien element” or forcibly turned into a “criminal element”. For millions of people, the way home, to their families, was closed. For the rest of their lives they were forced to wander home country, every day they could be fired from their jobs without any explanation.
The fact that the true essence of the passport system in the USSR and its hidden meaning was not always understood by representatives of the highest state-party apparatus is evidenced by many facts. Let's bring some. As noted, the passport system directly contributed to the attachment of peasants to collective farm work. For collective farmers, a mandatory minimum of workdays was established, which they had to work out.
In April 1942, this minimum was increased for all collective farmers and extended to members of their adolescent families aged 12 to 16 years. For not producing "without good reasons» of the mandatory minimum, all perpetrators were subject to criminal liability: corrective labor work on collective farms with deduction from payment of workdays up to 25% in favor of the collective farm. The Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of May 31, 1947 left the said law in force. The deterioration of village life after the war led to increased flight from the countryside, 8
which passport restrictions could not stop. In this regard, government officials proposed to intensify repression against the fugitives. “Some courts think,” reported Minister of Justice of the USSR K.P. Gorshenin December 25, 1950 Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks G.M. Malenkov, - that under the current legislation, the unauthorized departure of collective farmers to waste is not punishable under criminal procedure and in such cases acquittals are passed.
Others pronounce guilty verdicts in these cases. The Ministry of Justice of the USSR considers that collective farmers who have not worked out the obligatory minimum of workdays in connection with unauthorized, without the permission of the collective farm, going into retirement, should be liable according to the decree of April 15, 1942 for the period during which they left the collective farm, from Serving the sentence at the place of work”36.
The minister proposed exactly the same severe measures in relation to the children of collective farmers who have reached the age of 16, even "in cases where their membership in the collective farm is not formalized." The Soviet order in relation to the enslavement of the peasants by its cruelty surpassed the legislation of "serf Russia" of the XVIII-first half of XIX centuries In order to streamline judicial practice and rid his department of unnecessary, from his point of view, red tape and delays in such an important matter, the minister made the following proposal: age, however, so that it does not involve any complex procedure. The offer was not accepted. The same system was preserved - outwardly contradictory, but integral in content, which supported the illusion of possible freedom in the country and in no way gave it.
Another fact testifies to this. On March 3, 1949, the Bureau of the Council of Ministers of the USSR considered the issue of introducing a new passport and a draft of a new regulation on the passport system in the USSR. The development was carried out by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR on the personal instructions and initiative of the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks L.P. Beria37. The proposal was motivated by the fact that “during the war, a significant part of the blanks of valid passports and instructions for applying the provision on passports fell into the hands of the enemy and the criminal element, which largely deciphered the technique of passport work in the USSR.”
It was argued that the current passport was "not sufficiently protected against forgery" and this "makes it easier for the criminal element to hide from persecution." The most important difference of the proposed project was that the regulation on the passport system in the USSR provided for "issuing passports not only to the urban, but also to the rural population." This attempt should not be regarded as a real liberalization of the Soviet regime. Rather the opposite.
Passportization of the entire population of the country aged 16 years and older in those conditions meant absolutely complete control over the life of everyone: after all, possession of a passport created only the appearance of human rights - a citizen of the USSR, because. the main thing in determining his fate would still be the "compromising data" that was stored in the cluster and the Central Address Bureau. The transition to full passportization of the country's population promised considerable benefits to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and personally to its curator L.Ts. Beria, since the importance of the ministry would increase, which would give additional chances in the struggle for power.
From the point of view of the state - complete control over the life of every member of society - there was every reason to accept the proposal. But it was rejected with the following wording, which did not explain the reasons for the refusal: "It was proposed that the Ministry of Internal Affairs be finalized based on the opinions of the Bureau." More to the issue of giving passports to the entire rural population (including collective farmers) did not return until 1974, although after the death of I.V. Stalin, a new regulation on passports was adopted in October 1953.
The rejection of the Beria project is puzzling, because it took a long time to prepare and was agreed upon in all relevant ministries. Back in January 1948, by order of the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR S.N. Kruglov, an authoritative commission was created to consider the draft regulation on the passport system in the USSR. It included: the heads of the main departments of the police and border troops, the department of troops for the protection of especially important industrial facilities and railways, the Gulag, the prison administration, special departments that were in charge of special registration of the population, the department for combating child homelessness and neglect, the department for special settlements.
The project was agreed with the Minister of Justice and the Prosecutor General of the USSR. And yet he did not pass. And this is despite the direct support of L.P., Beria, who was considered omnipotent in those years.
So, two high-ranking government officials tried to unify the law: one - the procedure for registering membership in the collective farm of adult children of collective farmers and judicial practice, which determines the responsibility for non-working out the minimum workdays, and the other is the passport regime in the country.
In this case, high professional quality served only as a hindrance: there could be no uniformity where the application of the law, according to the intention of its true creators, was not subject to a single judicial interpretation. After all, it was this ambiguous and uncertain situation that created a trap for people. What can we say about performers with a lower rank, local workers?
Some courts judged the collective farmers more harshly, because the performers were completely Soviet, who had gone through a harsh school of selection and were taken from the same masses - they were especially zealous, evil and dangerous. Others, who had a drop of conscience and compassion left, tried to be softer. Such people were strictly watched and roughly punished, so that others would be discouraged. An educational moment worked - all the performers persistently and daily introduced the idea into their consciousness - it is better to go too far than not to bend it.
The only thing JI.P. Beria during the peak of his career, when in March 1953 he was appointed First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and regained the post of Minister of the Interior, to have time to push through the draft resolution "On the reduction of sensitive areas and passport restrictions" to the government before his arrest and execution addressed to the new chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR G.M. Malenkov signed by L.P. Beria was sent on May 13, 1953. Corresponding copies of the report were sent to all members of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU - V.M. Molotov, K.E. Voroshilov, N.S. Khrushchev, N.A. Bulganin, JI.M. Kaganovich, A.I. Mikoyan, M.Z. Saburov, M.G. Pervukhin38. On May 21, 1953, the submitted project was approved as a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 1305515 ss.
The main changes were reduced to the exclusion from the regime of about 150 cities and localities, all railway junctions and stations (regime restrictions remained in Moscow and 24 districts of the Moscow region, in Leningrad and five districts Leningrad region, in Vladivostok, Sevastopol and Kronstadt); reducing the size of the forbidden border strip (with the exception of the strip on the border with Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, the Karelian Isthmus); reduction of the list of crimes, a conviction for which entailed a ban on living in sensitive areas (all “counter-revolutionary crimes”, banditry, hooliganism, premeditated murder, repeated thefts and robbery remained). But the reform of the passport system conceived by L.P. Beria, as noted, had more deep meaning. This is confirmed by numerous reference materials (including those on the passport system of the Russian Empire) prepared by the apparatus of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in April 1953.
The order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs No. 00375 ss dated June 16, 1953, signed by L.P. Beria, which abolished passport restrictions, issued in development of the government decree, breathes directly with paternal concern for the needs of former prisoners and their families: “Under the current situation, citizens who have served punishment in places of detention or exile and thus atoning for their guilt before society, continue to experience deprivation (...)
The presence of wide passport restrictions in the country creates difficulties in finding a job not only for citizens who have served their sentences, but also for their family members, who also find themselves in a difficult situation in connection with this”39. It was further noted that “the regime and passport restrictions imposed in these areas (a regime zone that extends hundreds of kilometers inland. - V.P.) slow them down economic development". It was these grounds that were set out in the order to explain the easing of the passport regime in the country.
After the elimination of L.P. Beria from the leadership of the country, by decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 26661124 dated October 21, 1953, a new provision on passports was introduced, which was valid until 1974 without any fundamental changes.
It introduced one change of great importance. From the first point, which determines the citizens of which territories of the country are required to have passports, “disappeared”, i.e. were not mentioned, in contrast to the situation in 1940, citizens of the USSR living in settlements, where the MTS were located, and working in state farms40. This did not in any way affect those state farm workers and employees, residents of the settlements of machine and tractor stations who already had passports, but it seriously limited the opportunities of the younger generation.
What did this “withdrawal” lead to in practice, if we turn to subsequent events in the countryside? From the second half of the 50s and into the 60s, the state farm system grew: state farms were formed en masse on the basis of the so-called economically weak collective farms or were created again in the areas of development of virgin and fallow lands. Former collective farmers, who became state farm workers as a result of the reorganization, did not gain anything in terms of obtaining passports.
In 1958, MTS was reorganized in the country, whose workers, according to the authors of the "reform", were supposed to go to work on collective farms that bought the equipment of machine and tractor stations. But in this case, the children of former MTS employees, upon reaching the age of 16, also could not obtain passports. Therefore, the reorganization of the MTS led to a new round of people fleeing the countryside. It turns out that the named passport innovation did not so much restrict freedom of movement around the country as it contributed to the intensification of spontaneous migration.
However, the government rejected the request of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs to provide rural residents with passports, filed by Minister S.N. Kruglov in October 1953 A.I. Mikoyan and N.A. Bulganin41. The proposal came from the head of the passport and registration department of the Main Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR Poduzov, who took an active part in the preparation of the draft passport regulations under L.P. Beria. In a secret memorandum of September 24, 1953
Poduzov wrote to the minister: “The developed draft regulation on passports (approved by the Council of Ministers of the USSR on October 21, 1953 - V.P.) provides that residents of rural areas of the country are not required to have passports ... In connection with the decisions arising from the decisions of the September Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU tasks of the MTS and state farms, in particular, the replacement of seasonal personnel with permanent ones - should it not be added to the draft provision that the permanent locals rural areas, working in the MTS and state farms in full-time positions, are required to have passports. Thus, the permanent cadres of workers of the MTS and sokhozes in relation to documenting the identity will be equated with the workers of urban enterprises.
In addition, this eliminates the existing situation, in which permanent cadre workers who arrived at the MTS and state farms from cities have passports, while local permanent workers do not have passports”42. It is difficult to say exactly what true motives Poduzov was guided by, most likely he sought to use the chance for a career career, guessing from the decisions of the September (1953) plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU that the winds of the "thaw" blew.
Marks on the document indicate that Poduzov's note was first sent to A.I. Mikoyan as early as September 25, 1953. We do not have documents from which it would be possible to establish which of the members of the government responsible for preparing a new regulation on passports vetoed the proposal of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and what were the reasons for the ban. But life situation testified that the Soviet government continued to keep its main enemy - the Russian peasant - on the passport "hook".
And, according to the regulations on passports of October 21, 1953, they continued to live in rural areas (with the exception of sensitive areas) without passports. If they were temporarily involved for a period of not more than one month for agricultural work, logging, peat extraction within their region, territory, republic (without regional division), they were issued a certificate from the village council proving their identity and the purpose of the departure.
The same order was maintained for rural residents of non-certified areas, if they went to sanatoriums, rest houses, to meetings, congresses, on business trips. If they traveled outside their district to other areas of the country for a period of more than 30 days, they were required to obtain passports “from the police authorities at their place of residence”43. Thus, the procedure for obtaining a passport for the rural population of non-passportized areas has not changed compared to the 30s.
After the death of I.V. Stalin seemed to make life easier for the peasant: in 1953, the procedure for imposing agricultural tax on peasant farms was changed, since 1958, mandatory deliveries of all agricultural products from collective farms were abolished, the March (1953) amnesty stopped the execution of all sentences without exception; according to which collective farmers were sentenced to corrective labor for failure to complete the mandatory minimum workdays44. For those who constantly worked on the collective farm, the amnesty was a significant relief of life. Collective farmers who went into the “withdrawal” without the permission of the collective farm boards, in connection with the amnesty, felt free. It was self-deception, because. in legal status There were no significant changes to the collective farmer: the exemplary charter of the agricultural artel continued to operate, in the annual report of the collective farm, “otkhodniks” continued to be counted by the state as a labor force registered with the collective farms. Consequently,
According to the law, at any time, everyone who arbitrarily went into the “waste” could be forcibly returned by the government to the collective farms. The sword was raised over their heads, but did not cut, it was as if they “forgot” to lower it. canceling judgment about the persecution of collective farmers for violating the decree on the mandatory minimum workdays, the Soviet regime sought to create hope in society for possible changes for the better and psychologically prepare people for the Khrushchev “thaw”: the peasantry was again “pushed” into the cities.
Along with the above relaxations, there were still restrictions on passport rights for rural residents, their “second-class” status, although it became less noticeable, was deliberately maintained by the authorities, continued to stung people's soul. So, in secret circular No. 42 from February 27, 1958, the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR Dudorov, addressed to the ministers of the Union republics, it was prescribed: work on the certificates of village councils or collective farms, ensuring the issuance of short-term passports for this category of citizens for the duration of the contracts they have concluded (highlighted by me. - V.P.)”45. Thus, legally passport restrictions for collective farmers of the 50s did not differ from those in the 30s. It is possible that the above circular, combined with the practice of issuing short-term passports, served as the basis for creating a persistent myth that the "emancipation" of collective farmers began even under N.S. Khrushchev.
So great is the power public opinion, implicated in prejudices about ignorance important facts national history. There is also a psychological implication - for those who managed to escape from the village to the city during the years of the "thaw" and get a passport, this issue lost all sharpness and ceased to be seen as one of the main ones in rural life. In fact, it was only on August 28, 1974, that the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR “On measures to further improve the passport system in the USSR” made a decision to introduce a new passport of a citizen of the USSR in 197646.
The new regulation on the passport system of 1976 established that "all Soviet citizens who have reached the age of 16 must have a passport of a citizen of the USSR." The issuance and exchange of new passports were to be carried out from 1976 to 1981. Why were the peasants equalized in rights with the rest of the country's citizens more than forty years after the introduction of the passport system in the USSR? Because just such a period was needed to remake the Russian people into the Soviet one.
This historical fact and oyl is fixed in the preamble to the Constitution of the USSR (adopted on October 7, 1977): “A developed socialist society has been built in the USSR ... This is a society of mature socialist social relations, in which, on the basis of the convergence of all classes and social strata, the legal and de facto equality of all nations and nationalities, their fraternal cooperation, a new historical community has developed - the Soviet people"47. While the villages of Russia were destroyed, the cities grew and developed until they began to resemble ancient Babylon in their size and confusion of languages. The bulk of the people moved to the cities and became prisoners of these stone bags with their inherent "civilization". National Russian culture, nourished by the juices of village life, has been preserved mainly in literature. Opportunities to control the lives, minds and souls of people, unprecedented under any gulags, appeared.
Vasily Popov, Candidate of Historical Sciences
NOTES
36 GARF. F.5446. Op. 60. D. 6990. L. 21-27.
37 GARF. F. 5446. Op. 53. D. 5020. L. 1-28.
38 GARF. F. 9401. Op. 1. D. 4155. L. 170-181.
39 GARF. F. 9401. Op. 12. D. 233. T. 3. B.n.
40Ibid. D. 233. T. 3. B.n.
41 GARF. F. 9415. Op. 3. D. 1440. L. 227-236.
There. D. 1440. L. 227-227v. As in previous years, for the majority of rural residents, obtaining a passport during the Khrushchev “thaw” still depended on the arbitrariness of local authorities. So. order of the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR S.N. Kruglov No. 0240 dated April 24, 1954, announced an instruction on the procedure for applying the provision on passports of 1953, which contained the following paragraph: “As an exception, it is allowed to issue passports at the place of residence also to persons, although they are permanent residents of a rural area, but working in institutions, enterprises, MTS and state farms (highlighted by me. - V.P.)”. See: GARF. F. 9401. Op. 12. D. 233. T. 3. B.n.
43 GARF. F. 9401. Op. 12. D. 233. T. 3. B.n.
44 GARF. F. 9492. Op. 1. D. 284. L. 5.
45 GARF. F. 9401. Op. 12. D. 233. T. 2. B.n.
46 SP USSR. 1974. No. 19 Art. 109.
47 Kukushkin YUS, Chistyakov OM. Essay on the history of the Soviet Constitution. 2nd ed. M., 1987. S. 316. In the 70s, many books, brochures, articles by Soviet historians, philosophers, and sociologists were published, which proved the real existence of the “Soviet people” on a large amount of factual material.
One of the means to monitor suspicious persons, in the form of state security protection. By monitoring their own subjects and arriving foreigners, the authorities may require them to provide identification, as well as proof that they are not a danger to the peace of the state. These requirements, easily fulfilled in the place of permanent residence of a person, become difficult for travelers, as well as for foreigners. To give them the opportunity to prove their identity, states introduce passports that indicate occupation, age, place of residence, facial features, as well as the duration, purpose and place of travel. At the same time, a passport is also a permission to leave a person; a prohibition is established to travel without taking a passport, as well as the obligation to register a passport at places of stay; strict police measures are introduced against travelers without valid passports. The collection of such regulations is called passport system.
The origin of the first links of accounting and documenting the population in Russia dates back to 945. And for the first time, the requirement of an identity card was legally fixed Cathedral Code 1649: “And if someone goes to another State without a passing letter, arbitrariness for treason or some other bad thing, then look for him hard and execute him by death.” “And if it is announced in the investigation that someone who traveled to another State without a travel document, not for bad, but for trade, and punish him for that - beat him with a whip, so that it would be disrespectful to do so.”
May 28, 1717
It turns out that the system for issuing foreign passports was thought out and developed in our country almost 350 years ago. As for internal passports, their need was not felt for almost a whole century.
Under Peter I, the state's strict control over the movement of the population led to the creation of a passport system, i.e. as soon as they cut through the port window to Europe, they introduced passports in the meaning of documents for the right to pass through the gate, outpost, port (port).
Since 1719, by decree of Peter I, in connection with the introduction of recruitment duty and poll tax, the so-called "traveling letters" became mandatory, which since the beginning of the 17th century. used for domestic travel.
In 1724, in order to prevent peasants from evading the poll tax, special rules were established for them when they were absent from their place of residence (in fact, such special rules were in effect for peasants in Russia until the mid-1970s). It turned out to be a very revealing curiosity: the first passports in Russia were issued to the most disenfranchised members of society - serfs. In 1724, the tsar's "Poster on Poll and Protchem Collection" came out, which ordered everyone who wanted to leave their native village to work to receive a "feeding letter". It is no coincidence that this decree was issued at the very end of the reign of Peter I: the great reforms that affected society to the very bottom led to a sharp increase in mobility - the construction of factories, the growth of domestic trade required workers.
The passport system was supposed to ensure order and tranquility in the state, guarantee control over the payment of taxes, the fulfillment of military duty and, above all, over the movement of the population. Along with the police and tax functions, the passport from 1763 until the end of the 19th century. also had fiscal significance, i.e. was a means of collecting passport fees.
From the end of the 19th century Until 1917, the passport system in Russia was regulated by the law of 1897, according to which a passport was not required at the place of permanent residence. However, there were exceptions: for example, it was required to have passports in the capitals and border towns, in a number of areas workers of factories and plants were required to have passports. It was not necessary to have a passport when absent from the place of permanent residence within the county and beyond for no more than 50 miles and no more than 6 months, as well as for persons employed in rural work. A wife was recorded in a man's passport, and married women could receive separate passports only with the consent of their husbands. Unseparated members of peasant families, including adults, were issued a passport only with the consent of the owner of the peasant household.
As for the situation with foreign passports before 1917, the police kept it under constant control. So, in the first half of the XIX century. it was difficult to go abroad. Nevertheless, the nobles were allowed to leave for several years, representatives of other classes - for shorter periods. Foreign passports were expensive. An announcement about each person leaving was published three times in official newspapers, passports were issued only to those who had no "claims" from private individuals and official bodies.
Passport book 1902
After the victory of the Soviet power, the passport system was abolished, but the first attempt to restore it was soon made. In June 1919, mandatory "work books" were introduced, which, without being called that, were in fact passports. Metrics and various "mandates" were also used as identity documents:
The Far Eastern Republic (1920-1922) issued its own passports. For example, this passport is issued for only one year:
An identity card issued in Moscow in 1925, a place for a photograph is already provided, but it is not yet mandatory, which is expressly stated:
The certificate is valid for only three years:
as can be seen from the number of stamps and records in those days, personal documents were treated more simply. Here is the "registration certificate" at the place of residence and the mark "sent to work", about retraining, etc.:
Passport issued in 1941, valid for 5 years
A real uniform passport system was introduced in the USSR by a resolution of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars on December 27, 1932, since industrialization required administrative accounting, control and regulation of the movement of the country's population from rural to industrial areas and back (the villagers did not have passports !). In addition, the introduction of the passport system was directly conditioned by the intensification of the class struggle, the need to protect large industrial and political centers, including socialist new buildings, from criminal elements. It should be noted that the famous "Poems about the Soviet Passport" by V. Mayakovsky, written in 1929, are dedicated to the international passport and have nothing to do with the passport system established in the early 1930s.
Photocards appeared in passports, more precisely, a place was provided for them, but in reality, photographs were pasted only if technically possible.
Passport 1940s pay attention to the entry in the column "social status" at the top right - "Slave":
Since that time, all citizens who have reached the age of 16 and permanently reside in cities, workers' settlements, urban-type settlements, new buildings, state farms, locations of machine and tractor stations (MTS), in certain areas of the Leningrad Region, throughout the Moscow area and other specially designated areas. Passports were issued with a mandatory registration at the place of residence (when changing the place of residence, one had to obtain a temporary residence permit within 24 hours). In addition to registration, the social status of a citizen and his place of work were recorded in passports.
An indefinite passport of 1947 issued by L.I. Brezhnev:
Passport 1950s in the column of social status - "dependent" there was such an official term:
Here it should be specially noted that initially "prescribe", i.e. to register, it was the passport itself that had to be registered, and only then did the people's everyday sense of justice connect the concept of propiska exclusively with the personality of a person, although the "propiska" as before was carried out in the passport and, according to the law, belonged exclusively to this document, and the primary right to use living space was established by another document - warrant.
Military personnel did not receive passports (for them, these functions were performed at different times by Red Army books, military tickets, identity cards), as well as collective farmers, whose records were kept according to settled lists (for them, the functions of a passport were performed by one-time certificates signed by the chairman of the village council, collective farm, indicating the reasons and directions of movement - almost an exact copy of the ancient road charter). There were also numerous categories of "disenfranchised": exiled and "unreliable" and, as they said then, "disenfranchised" people. By various reasons many were denied registration in "regime" and border towns.
An example of a certificate from the village council - "collective farmer's passport" 1944
Collective farmers began to slowly receive passports only during the "thaw", in the late 1950s. This process was completed only after the approval of the new "Regulations on the Passport" in 1972. At the same time, passports, whose alphanumeric codes meant that a person was in camps or was in captivity, in occupation, also became a thing of the past. Thus, in the mid-1970s, there was complete equation in the passport rights of all residents of the country. It was then that everyone, without exception, was allowed to have exactly the same passports.
During the period 1973-75. For the first time, passports were issued to all citizens of the country.
From 1997 to 2003, Russia carried out a general exchange of Soviet passports of the 1974 model for new, Russian ones. The passport is the main document proving the identity of a citizen on the territory of the Russian Federation, and is issued by the internal affairs authorities at the place of residence. Today, all citizens of Russia are required to have passports from the age of 14, when a citizen reaches 20 and 45 years old, the passport must be replaced. (The previous, Soviet, passport, as already mentioned, was issued at the age of 16 and was indefinite: new photographs of the passport holder were pasted into it when they reached 25 and 45 years old). Information about the identity of a citizen is entered in the passport: last name, first name, patronymic, gender, date and place of birth; marks are made on registration at the place of residence, attitude to military service, on registration and divorce, on children, on the issuance of a foreign passport (general civil, diplomatic, service or sailor's passport), as well as on blood type and Rh factor (optional) . It should be noted that in the Russian passport there is no column "nationality", which was in the passport of a citizen of the USSR. Passports are made and issued according to a single model for the whole country in Russian. However, the republics that are part of Russian Federation, can make inserts for the passport with the text on state languages these republics.