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Rural Russia on the Edges of Authority: Bezvlastie in Wartime Riazan´, November-December 1941

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Seth Bernstein
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Abstract

Central Russia’s Riazan´ province was on the front lines of World War II for two weeks in late 1941. Placed between German and Soviet forces, the province was on the edges of authorities’ ability to exert full control over the region. In that time, Soviet power dissolved in the countryside. Peasants raided warehouses and dismantled collective farms while enterprising local notables aided the embryonic occupation regime. Documents created during the two weeks and their immediate aft ermath show that rural Russians, even collaborators, defied simple classification as anti-Soviet. Instead, they exhibited survivalist instincts and a traditional antipathy toward central authority rather than a preference for either German or Soviet power. As Soviet power returned to Riazan´ authorities grappled with the mass upheaval that the power vacuum had enabled. Unlike later interpretations, which would stress the role of German atrocities in occupation regimes, Riazan´ authorities blamed “anti-Soviet elements” among the province’s population.

Type
World War II: Occupation and Liberation
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 75 , Issue 3 , Fall 2016 , pp. 560 - 582
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 2016

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References

I would like to express my gratitude to Michael David-Fox, Tracy McDonald, Lynne Viola and the anonymous Slavic Review peer reviewers for their insightful comments on draft s of this paper. The study has been funded by the Russian Academic Excellence Project ‘5–100’.

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8 Small percentages of Ukrainians and Tatars were the next largest ethnic groups in the province. “Demoscope Weekly, Vsesoiuznaia perepis’ naseleniia 1939 g. Natsional’nyi sostav naseleniia po regionam Rossii,” available online at http://www.demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/rus_nac_39.php?reg=50 (last accessed May 31, 2016).

9 The documents used in this paper are largely from the State Archive of Riazan΄ Province (Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Riazanskoi oblasti, hereafter GARO). For the sake of transparency, I have included the title of each document or a brief description upon first citation.

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14 “Demoscope Weekly, Vsesoiuznaia perepis’ naseleniia 1939 g. Chislennost’ nalichnogo naseleniia SSSR po raionam i gorodam,” available online at http://www.demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/rus_pop_39_2.php (last accessed March 30, 2016).

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17 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, ll. 29–31.

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21 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 199, l. 22.

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24 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 73, l. 6 (Report from S.N. Tarasov to A.A. Andreev, January 1942).

25 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 74.

26 Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Voennyi Arkhiv (Russian State Military Archive), hereafter RGVA, f. 4, op. 12, d. 98, l. 617–622. (Published in Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal no. 9 (1988): 26–28.)

27 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 72, l. 31 (Report from Starostin to Riazan΄ Party Committee, November 29, 1941); Golikov, V Moskovskoi bitve, 14.

28 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 89, 131–32 (Petition of Anna Riabikina to Mikhailov Party Committee).

29 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 73, ll. 20–21 (Report from Miloslavskoe District Secretary Ustinov to Tarasov).

30 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 72, ll. 1, 6, 9 (Reports of District Committees to the Riazan΄ Party Committee); Golikov, V Moskovskoi bitve, 37. Another source of information was militarized workers battalions that worked as scouts, whose records are available at GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 128; d. 129.

31 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 73, ll. 2, 9;GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 87, l. 93 (Telegram from Tarasov to Andreev).

32 “Vystuplenie po radio Predsedatelia Gosudarstvennogo Komiteta Oborony I.V. Stalina,” Pravda, July 3, 1941.

33 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 73, l. 73–74 (Report about the consequences of the occupation of Chernavskii district by German aggressors).

34 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 72, l. 2 (Summary of district reports about enemy formations).

35 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 72, l. 26 (Iudkov to Riazan΄ Party Committee).

36 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 72, l. 24 (Zhuravlev to Riazan΄ Party Committee).

37 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 71, ll. 58–62 (Special Report from Riazan΄ Procuracy to Tarasov).

38 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 71, l. 39 (Procurator Vlasov to Tarasov).

39 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 107, l. 99–100 (Report from NKVD Head Iur’ev to Tarasov).

40 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 73, l. 56 (Report about the state of aff airs in B. Korovino district).

41 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 73, ll. 52–53.

42 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 71, ll. 35–37; d. 73, l. 56.

43 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 73, l. 141; GARO, f. p-3, op. 2, d. 92, 114 (Report about the state of the [Chapaev] district).

44 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 73, ll. 47–48 (Report about the consequences after the Germans’ attack and measures taken for the restoration of normal life to Skopin district).

45 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 72, l. 27 (Dispatch from Skopin Secretary Starostin to Riazan΄ Party Committee).

46 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 92, l. 114; GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 73, ll. 88, 94 (Report on the Occupation of Gorlovka District).

47 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 73, ll. 14–15 (Special Report about the theft of socialist property in a number of kolkhozes in Pronsk district).

48 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 71, ll. 41, 42–43 (Special reports from NKVD police heads to Tarasov).

49 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 73, ll. 2, 9.

50 Orlando, Figes, Peasant Russia, Civil War: The Volga Countryside in Revolution 1917–1921 (Oxford, 1989)Google Scholar; Aaron, Retish, Russia’s Peasants in Revolution and Civil War Google Scholar; Michael, Hickey, “Peasant Autonomy, Soviet Power and Land Redistribution in Smolensk Province, November 1917–May 1918,” Revolutionary Russia 9, no. 1 (June 1996): 19–32 Google Scholar.

51 “Golovakruzhenie ot uspekhov,” Pravda, 2 March 1930.

52 Viola, Peasant Rebels under Stalin; Sheila, Fitzpatrick, Stalin’s Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the Russian Village After Collectivization (Oxford, 1994)Google Scholar; Auri, Berg, “Reform in the Time of Stalin: Nikita Khrushchev and the Fate of the Russian Peasantry” (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 2012)Google Scholar.

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54 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 73, l. 56.

55 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 92, l. 115.

56 Ermolov, Russkoe gosudarstvo v nemetskom tylu, 30–32 Google Scholar.

57 See Lynne, Viola, “Bab’i bunty and Peasant Women’s Protest during Collectivization,” Russian Review 45, no. 1 (January 1986): 23–42 Google Scholar.

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59 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, l. 81 (Interrogation of Rufina Savel΄eva).

60 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, ll. 71–72 (Interrogation of Aleksandr Savel΄ev).

61 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, ll. 72–73.

62 For information on the anti-shirking law, see Peter H. Solomon Jr., Soviet Criminal Justice under Stalin (Cambridge, Eng., 1996), 299–322.

63 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, l. 69 (Interrogation of Petr Tiuneev).

64 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, ll. 59–62 (Interrogation of Petr Ezhokin).

65 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, ll. 42–43 (Interrogation of Konstantin Poletaev).

66 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, ll. 44–46.

67 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, ll. 40–41.

68 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, ll. 44–46, 52–53, 54.

69 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, l. 47–48, 55.

70 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, l. 75.

71 Interrogation of Adel’ Engel’s, GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, ll. 88–89. Engel’s, a deportee from Moscow who had been arrested in 1935, was one of just 3,501 Germans in the entire province. Engel’s mentioned just three other ethnic Germans in her interrogation. “Demoscope Weekly, Vsesoiuznaia perepis’ naseleniia 1939 g. Natsional’nyi sostav naseleniia po regionam Rossii.”

72 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, l. 66.

73 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, l. 76.

74 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, l. 81.

75 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, l. 74.

76 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, l. 82.

77 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, ll. 48–49.

78 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 89, ll. 131–35.

79 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, ll. 48–49.

80 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, l. 57.

81 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, l. 50.

82 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, l. 56.

83 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, ll. 50–51.

84 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, l. 76.

85 Golikov, V Moskovskoi bitve, 53–61.

86 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 71, ll. 49–50.

87 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, l. 78.

88 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, ll. 79–80.

89 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 73, ll. 19, 47.

90 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 73, ll. 17, 27, 47, 49–50, 99.

91 The Soviet reaction fits with the theory of selective violence found in Stathis N. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge, Mass., 2006), 195–207, where violence increases when one power enjoys prevailing but not total control in an area. In the case of Riazan΄ province, the weakness of German control in the area following the counter-offensive made the use of mass violence unnecessary.

92 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 73, ll. 4–6.

93 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 255, l. 11.

94 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 107, l. 99.

95 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 73, l. 60.

96 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 73, ll. 65–66 (Report about the consequences of the fascist occupation of Mikhailov district and the measures to liquidate them).

97 f. p-3, op. 2, d. 73, l. 146 (Report about the state of affairs in Chapaev district after the temporary occupation of a number of settlements by German fascists) .

98 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 135, l. 60 (Stenographic Record of January 1942 Riazan΄ Party Plenum).

99 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 73, l. 3.

100 McDonald, Face to the Village, 201–02.

101 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 73, l. 53.

102 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 71, ll. 35–37 (Vlasov to Tarasov).

103 Figes, Peasant Russia, Civil War; Retish, Russia’s Peasants in Revolution and Civil War.

104 On the goals of the Extraordinary State Commission, see Marina, Sorokina, “People and Procedures: Toward a History of the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in the USSR,” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 6, no. 4 (Fall 2005): 797–831 Google Scholar.

105 GARF (Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii) f. 7021, op. 41, d. 43 (Extraordinary Commission Records for Riazan΄ Province); also d. 44–49.

106 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 73, l. 3.

107 GARO f. p-3, op. 2, d. 66, ll. 50–51.

108 GARF f. 7021, op. 41, d. 46, ll. 16–18.

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