https://doi.org/10.53656/his2021-6-4-bul

2021/6, стр. 609 - 620

BULGARIAN BLAGOEV COMMUNE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE FORMATION OF THE SOVIET TOTALITARIAN SYSTEM (1920S – 1930S)

Резюме: Based on the analysis of the sources and academic literature, the article comprehensively presents a critical analysis of the activities of the Bulgarian Blagoev Commune. The article covers the details of the organisation and functioning of the collective, the tasks set by the Bolshevik authorities. The article characterises the process of adaptation to a different country, the relations of the members of the commune with the local population and ties to Ukrainian associations. The results and consequences of the economic and financial activities of the international commune on the territory of Ukraine are generalised. The authors draw attention to the fact that the conscientious work of the members of the commune was used by the political regime under the slogans of building a bright future for the sake of an unrealistic socialist goal. Special focus is put on the party and public activities of the members of the commune. The contradictory nature of the position of the Soviet government regarding the newly created collective, the evolution of its party and state policy and the tragic fate of the leadership of the commune in the 1930s are discussed. The article outlines the recommendations on the practical application of the historical experience of the international collective in the context of international cooperation.

Ключови думи: political emigrants; commune; Bolshevik regime; production cooperation; collectivisation; repressions

Introduction

The beginning of the XXI century is notable for a change in historiographical directions; global formalised patterns have clearly given way to social history, the history of everyday life and the history of settlements. The focus of researchers was shifted to the issue of foreign groups located on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR at the beginning of the 1920s. The Blagoev Commune, founded by Bulgarian political emigrants in the village of Paraskoviyivka (now the village of Kulikovka) in Runovshchyna district in Poltava province, was one of such collectives.

The issues of coverage of the actual economic situation of a foreign collective, the mechanism of its functioning and relations with the local population were not researched comprehensively. The collective attracted the attention of researchers of the Soviet period who, based on the idea of proletarian internationalism, concealed negative aspects that did not fit into the generally accepted stance (resettlement was seen as a prototype of mutual assistance and economic cooperation of the socialist countries), and the conclusions were backed by the same quotes of the sources (Reshetnikov 1970).

M. D. Dykhan, who attempted to show the strengthening of ties between the USSR and Bulgaria in his monograph, made a significant contribution to the development of the issue of Bulgarian immigrants. Although the research is based on gathering unique and valuable factual data from Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian archives, the issues related to the shortcomings of this collective and internal issues remain out of consideration (Dykhan 1973). Researcher P. Sokhan studied the participation of Bulgarian political emigrants in the implementation of communist transformations in the Ukrainian SSR. (Sokhan 1976). Researcher and local history expert V. N. Zhuk presents the history of the Blagoev Commune, yet her work in its significance does not go beyond local, regional history literature (Zhuk 1973, 1975). V. Pavlenko placed special emphasis on the involvement of political emigrants in the implementation of socialist transformations in agriculture. It provides an overview of the history of the Bulgarian Blagoev Commune, giving a special role in its creation to the Central Committee of the International Red Aid (also commonly known by its Russian acronym MOPR) (Pavlenko 1977). Another paper by V. Pavlenko, published in 1995, departs from established stereotypes (Pavlenko 1995). O. Yermak covered the actions of the Stalinist regime and its repressive and punitive bodies against Bulgarian emigrants. In his monograph, the researcher cited a number of previously unknown archival facts about the repressions of the leadership of the collective (Yermak 1994). Some aspects of the topic are covered in the monographs by L. Yakubova (Yakubova 2011) and Yu. Hryshchenko (Yu. Hryshchenko 2018) and an article by N. Samoilenko (Samoilenko 2015).

Comprehensive materials on the Bulgarian commune are collected in the Central State Archives of Supreme Bodies of Power and Government of Ukraine (TsDAVO of Ukraine) in the People’s Commissariat for Education fund1). It has the information on the founding of the collective, its composition, provision with means of production, economic achievements, labour management, manner of the income distribution, activities of the council and commissions of the commune, relations with individual farms. Fragmentary information about the commune can be found in the State Archives of Poltava Governorate in the minutes of the Poltava Governorate Executive Committee2) and in the case titled Materials of Soviet and Bulgarian Friendship in 1963 of the Kalinin Agricultural Artel (collective farm) fund3). Memoirs of some members of the commune are stored in the funds of the Research Archive of the Poltava Local Lore Museum4).

Based on archival materials, this article will cover the organisation and activities of the international collective on the territory of Ukraine in the context of the attitude of the Bolshevik authorities; we will trace the results of economic activities of the collective, resources and living conditions, social and political and cultural and educational activities of the collective.

Methods.The authors were guided by a comprehensive methodological approach based on the fundamental principles of objectivity, historicism, multifactoriality, and consistency. These principles have been implemented using general scientific and special historical methods, including the problem-oriented chronological method (to consider the phenomena in chronological order and split the extensive topic into separate relatively narrow topics), the comparative historical method (for a comprehensive analysis of historiography and sources related to the subject, piecing together the actual logistics of the collective, defining characteristics and features of results of economic activity of the commune), the analytical critical method (to study, systematise and process information in order to identify reliable specific historical facts) as well as the statistical analysis (to determine the number of the members of the collective, its land resources in different years of its existence).

Theory. In the early 1920s, the Soviet government faced the task of restoring the economy and, above all, the agricultural sector, which was undergoing a crisis. The idea of the creation of exemplary farms was developed by V. I. Lenin in his agrarian program (Lenin 1973, 120 – 121). On the basis of large country estates, V. Lenin proposed to create large, technically equipped collective government-owned farms. Instructions on the need to organise large government-owned farms in agriculture were embodied in the first land laws of the Soviet government. The Regulations on Socialist Land Management and Measures for the Transition to Socialist Agriculture dated 14 February 1919 defined the main task of organising Soviet farms, which involved culturally exemplary, exhibitive nature of the farms, which had to stimulate the involvement of the surrounding peasantry in socialist farming by their own examples (Agrarian Policy of the Soviet Authorities 1954, 420). The expediency of the creation of collectives was emphasised at the 2nd World Congress of the Comintern (Communist International in Documents1933, 136).

The decision of the 4th World Congress of the Comintern laid the foundations for economic assistance to foreign workers in Bolshevik Russia. The Comintern’s network of national committees was to attract foreign workers willing to help the Bolsheviks. The ideological slogan “The Soviet Union is the homeland for workers from all over the world” was constantly repeated by the Communist officials. Under the influence of propaganda, many workers in Western countries, who had no real idea of the methods of building a socialist society in the USSR, had the impression of the regime’s great successes. Therefore, many foreigners, including Bulgarians, sought to get to the Soviet Union and join the “great cause of building communism”. With the help of a number of government decrees and rulings, the communist leadership sought to use resettlement collectives as one of the vectors to achieve the replacement of individual farming by collective enterprises. The party leadership regarded international collectives as a way to connect the latter with the surrounding population and to involve the communes in the work on cooperation and collectivisation of local economies. Yet, neither significant investments nor great moral support could make a commune into a perfect economy worthy of imitation.

Results and discussion

1.1. Economic situation. On 26 May 1924, the Blagoev Commune was founded by the efforts of 26 Bulgarian emigrants, mostly of peasant origin. The governorate land administration allocated 148 acres of land with buildings in need of repair, 6 pairs of horses and some equipment for the needs of the commune5 . However, the land allotment consisted of several plots distant from each other, which complicated and slowed down the technical cultivation of land: 96 dessiatins of arable land out of 148 were located 8.5 km away from the commune (Movetskyi 1926, 16). In 1925, after the Stepanivka Society of Joint Land Cultivation joined the commune, the arable land increased to 373 dessiatins.

Machinery provision was one of the strengths of the commune. By 1928 it owned 4 Fordson tractors, 2 steam tackles, 4 sheaf binding machines, 2 harvesters, 4 haymakers, 8 single-furrow ploughs, 5 row seeders, 6 bookers, 6 cultivators, 2 horsedrawn rakes, 32 harrows, 1 disc harrow, 2 ring rollers, 11 hand weeding machines, 1 sizer, 1 spiral separator, 2 corn threshers, 2 corn shredders6). It seems there was plenty of equipment. Yet, compared with other farms in the Poltava region where 12.7 ploughs, 4.1 sowing machines, 2.3 harvesters accounted for 100 dessiatins of arable land (Collectivisation of Agriculture 1997, 7), the Blagoev Commune was an average collective.

The situation changed in 1929 with the arrival of the second group of Bulgarians from the United States and Canada, when due to investment from abroad, the machinery and equipment of the collective started outweighing the collective farms of Soviet Ukraine7).

In an attempt to popularise collective forms of labour, researchers have created a stereotype of the exemplary nature of the Bulgarian commune. However, the exemplary nature of the commune was achieved by constant financial infusions from the Poltava Governorate branch of the MOPR and the chiefs of the collective8). With the assistance of the MOPR, a mill and a smithy were built, and the workers of the Poltava Locomotive Repair Plant built a power plant, equipped a machine shop, a carpenter’s shop, and a metalwork workshop 9). The mill at the commune served the entire district. At an affordable price, the quality of grinding was high, which popularised it among the peasants. Auxiliary facilities of the commune (smithy, carpentry workshop) received orders from the local population.

Animal husbandry was the weak point of the collective at the initial stage. The situation gradually improved and in 1929 the Blagoev Commune already had 20 cows, 233 pigs of the Yorkshire Bacon breed, 402 hens, 54 ducks10). The quality of the breed increased simultaneously with the growth of the cattle population. This was facilitated by growing highly productive breeding cattle. In 1928 – 1929, 4 breeding farms were established in the Blagoev Commune, which provided several regions with cattle and poultry. In 1934, it was most effective among breeding pig farms throughout Ukraine11). Innovative methods were also used in poultry farming. The poultry farm with its 7 incubators attracted the attention of farmers with its approach to the intensive development of poultry farming12). In 1930 – 1935, the Soviet press wrote about the successes of the commune. Collective farmers and zootechnicians from different regions of Ukraine came to the members of the commune to exchange best practices13).

Thus, the advantages of the international team were based on material and technical improvements, which the Soviet leadership saw as a way to promote the achievements of collective farm work. The help of the commune was provided mainly to poor farms, which were to become competitors of local individuals and oust them from the market.

1.2. Resources and living conditions. The commune was headed by the Council, which was elected by adult members of the collective for a period of six months. It consisted of 7 people who headed the sanitary, cultural, financial and food committees, were in charge of establishing nurseries and took care of the committee’s inventory14). The internal system was regulated by resolutions of the general meeting, which was convened by the commune council at least once a month (Vlasov 1927, 14).

Health care was relatively poor. There was no hospital in the commune, with the nearest one being only in the village of Runovshchyna 13 km away, and the nearest outpatient clinic being 10 km away in the village of Vasylivka. Early stages of disease were treated at a medical centre, which tried to help the members of the commune, which also served residents of the local villages free of charge, which raised the authority of the commune in their eyes15). Free assistance was provided only in cases of injuries directly while working in the commune. For the duration of the illness, wages were not accrued.

The commune was plagued by a housing crisis. 2 – 3 families lived in one room in disrepair. The buildings received by the commune were dilapidated. Of 9 residential buildings, 10% were not used due to their dangerous condition. 42,000 rubles were needed for the repair of buildings, the construction of a dining room, a club and an administrative office16). There were no such funds in the reserve fund of the commune.

The members of the commune were paid salaries for their work. Yet, after deducting the cost of food (57%) and the industrial goods given on credit (33.6%), they were left only with 9.4% of their earnings17).

Lack of financial incentives led to conflicts, low productivity and mismanagement. In 1929, the commune was even in danger of disintegration (signatures were being collected for its liquidation)18). The average salary of a member of the commune in 1929 was only 47 kopecks per working day. The members of the commune were gripped by apathy. Even in winter, they sat in unheated rooms only because no one wanted to go for the straw to the steppe (Collectivisation of Agriculture 1997, 9).

Since 1928, the local poor peasants from the village of Paraskoviyivka started joining the Blagoev Commune. During 1928, 50 applications for admission were received19). At the end of 1929, the commune had 33 Bulgarians, 109 Ukrainians, 6 Russians, 3 Belarusians, 1 Croat, and 1 Latvian20). Admission to the members of the collective was held by the general meeting on a written application addressed to the Commune Council. The application was accompanied by a certificate of health from a doctor and a reference from the village secretary21). The application of every prospective member of the commune was considered for 3 months. Such a long probationary period was not in line with the official course of intensified collectivisation, and in 1929 it was reduced to one month.

Thus, most emigrants were unable to adapt to the new conditions, which was reflected in the process of leaving the commune. For its part, the top party leadership feared the debunking of the myth of the Soviet system’s “first proletariat state in the world” and therefore tried to prevent the circulation of unwanted information abroad.

1.3. Cultural and educational activities. The international collective was to become a cultural centre, a breeding ground for communist ideas serving the surrounding population, according to the plan of the Bolshevik government.

In 1923, the cultural and educational activities of the communes in Ukraine were at a fairly low level: 26.4% of communes had schools for children, 36.3% had libraries, 57% subscribed to newspapers22). Given these statistics, undoubtedly a positive aspect of the activities of the collective in the cultural context was the establishment of the library and subscription to periodicals. The library received magazines and newspapers. Those included some Bulgarian newspapers: Sovetskoe Selo, Rabochee Selo, Yedinstvo, Maksenskoe Delo and Rabotnik23). Immediately after the opening of the library, the members of the commune were lending books out to the peasants, but due to the low percentage of returned books, this practice later came to an end. In general, the library enjoyed little popularity among the members of the commune: on average, they took 5 books a day, and sometimes no one visited it for weeks24). For the most part, books were not catalogued in libraries. The number of readers and demand for literature were not recorded anywhere.

Another direction of the propaganda activities of the collective was the distribution of its own wall newspapers, brigade newspapers to neighbouring collective farms, as well as a newspaper of general circulation among collective farmers and individuals. Such measures were to increase the level of collectivisation in the area. The Blagoev Commune published its own newspaper, Dumka Komunara, which was published three times a month, and in May 1933 a plan was drawn up to publish it every five days25). The circulation of the newspaper was up to 500 copies, which were printed in Poltava26). However, their format and content attracted neither the members of the commune themselves nor the surrounding peasants.

At the Blagoev Commune, there were nurseries for 30-35 children27), but it had no school of its own. The children went to primary schools in the village of Stepanivka, a quarter of a kilometre away, and in the village of Paraskoviyivka, a quarter of a kilometre away. They went to a seven-year school in the village of Vasylivka. In total, in 1929, 5 boys studied in these schools28). The commune had an orphanage with about 150 children, most of whom were homeless. The staff of the orphanage was selected by the Poltava district Komsomol Committee29).

The collective tried to improve the skills of their workers with specialised training. 28 members of the Blagoev Commune were sent to get an education: 3 members studied at the Moscow Timiryazev Agricultural Academy; 12 members, at the Communist University of National Minorities of the West; 3 members, at the Military Academy in Moscow; 6 members, at the Party School in Odesa; 2 members, at the Agricultural Institute in Kharkiv; and 2 members studied at the Workers’ Faculty in Merefa30). Most graduates did not return to the commune after graduation.

Part of the profit of the commune was directed to the organisation of cultural events and recreation of the members of the commune. Expenditures on cultural and household services amounted to 1.5% of the total budget31). These funds were used to maintain the library, amateur art and hobby club work. At the commune, there were 9 hobby clubs, including general education club, sports and fitness club, dressmaking for peasant girls and women, agricultural club, military and sports club, health education club, drama club, amateur radio club and music and choir club32) . The analysis of archival materials showed that the clubs worked only on paper and had the same number of participants. The nights of amateur art were prepared and conducted by Penyo Penev and Oleksa Antonov33).

Thus, educational activities of the international team were diverse: from setting up a library to holding concerts of artistic groups. The outlined measures required significant expenditures, which the commune lacked. The government did not provide effective assistance either. It mainly financed specific propaganda activities.

1.4. Social and political activities. The party cell in the Blagoev Commune united 18 people. It was headed by Ivan Bakalov, then (until 1926) by Tsvyatko Radoynov, followed by Boris Chekhlarov. The number of its members was constantly growing. In 1927, there were 30 party members (History of towns and villages of the Ukrainian SSR. Poltava region, 1967, 827). As of June 1931, there were 46 members of and applicants for the membership in the party (25% of the total number of members of the commune), and 62 members of and applicants for the membership in the Komsomol (100% of young people), 91 members of the Committees of Poor Peasants (49%)34).

In its first years, the party cell was almost inactive for rather trivial reasons: not knowing the Ukrainian language and fieldwork. The responsibilities of the cell included conducting “educational” work among new members of the collective, although in practice, it did not have a strong impact on the assets of the commune35). The young activists arranged only the reading of newspapers and their discussion36).

Soviet historians claimed that cultural campaigns in the villages were held with the participation of Komsomol party activists; reports were made about the next tasks of the party and the government as well as the victories of the collective farm system. Members of the commune were involved in grain procurement brigades, organisation of loans and lotteries37).

Members of the commune were elected to village councils, acted as jurors and were delegates to congresses of “udarnik” collective farmers (super-productive strike workers). The head of the Blagoev Commune, B. Chekhlarov, was elected as a delegate to the first Poltava district congress of collective farms, which took place on 28 – 29 January 1925. Ts. Radoynov was part of the Monitoring Commission at the Poltava Governorate Party Committee, and also was a member of local public organisations38).

In the second half of the 1930s, the authorities’ attitude towards the commune deteriorated sharply. On 31 March 1938, a decision was made to conduct “national operations” against ethnic communities and emigrants. On 15 April 1938, Soviet special services began preparations for an operation to arrest Bulgarians and Macedonians. In fact, this document arguably initiated the official start of repressions against the Bulgarian community in Ukraine. The repressions also affected the Blagoev Commune. Ivan Peev, Head of the CPBF, Ivan Siarov, the forwarder of the commune, and Pavel Bonev, Head of the Kirov Collective Farm, Tsvetan Georgiev, a former mechanic of the commune, Toma Kenzov, a mechanic of the commune, and others were arrested39). The identities of the arrested show that the authorities were only interested in the members of the commune from the second wave of emigration.

The speech of Kh. L. Pizanti, Head of the Blagoev Commune, at the meeting of the Paraskoviyivka Village Council on 23 September 1937, in which the speaker painted an objective picture of the degrading collective farms, was reported three days later by a member of the Party, Comrade Malinko to the Party Committee40). On 24 March 1938 he was arrested despite the fact that the party members did not find any compromising materials. According to the decision of the Special Troika in the Poltava region dated 27 September 1938, Kh. Pizanti was to be executed with the confiscation of property41).

The affairs of the Bulgarian Communards were handled by Junior Lieutenant of State Security Yu. Dontsov-Kuskov. The indictments claimed that in the early 1930s in the village of Paraskoviyivka and the village of Stepanivka, there were operational spy insurgent organisations of the foreign centre of the United Brotherhood of Slavs, which collected information about the military units of the Poltava garrison and fortifications. The clumsily put together cases of Bulgarian Communards were considered out of court, without judges, prosecutors, lawyers or even the accused. On 27 September 1938, the Special Troika ruled on the execution of H. M. Artsukovych, V. H. Atanasov, P. P. Bonev, T. D. Kinzov, I. I. Peev, Kh. L. Pizanti, T. T. Stoichev, and I. T. Syarov. On 1 October 1938, the sentence was executed (Yermak 2009, 135).

Thus, the Bulgarian emigrants, sincerely committed to communist ideas in the creation of the commune, were betrayed by the Bolshevik government. Systematic cleansing has become an instrument of reprisals against dissidents. They became especially widespread during the years of Stalin’s cult of personality and mass repressions (1936 – 1938), when over-active members of the commune were unjustifiably accused of their connection with foreign intelligence, etc.

Conclusions. The resettlement of Bulgarian emigrants coincided with the Soviet government’s policy of socialist transformation of agriculture and attempts to break the one-man peasant system. The Blagoev Commune was popularised as an exemplary farm, so it constantly received material assistance from the government and the public. Yet, the “greenhouse” conditions did not ensure the collective’s prosperity. Getting dilapidated buildings, bureaucratic approaches to handling affairs, hostility from the local population, language barrier, indifferent attitude of the local and government authorities to the needs and problems of emigrants, internal conflicts against the background of unsatisfactory living conditions and a range of other objective reasons gradually dispelled the illusion of a “society of equality”. Based on individualistic psychology, the fact of collective life was difficult in itself for the members of the commune. Contrary to the attempts of the commune to set an example for local collectives, the time showed that it was not authoritative for strong individual farms but served only as a kind of a point of unfailing assistance. There were fewer successes than expected in the cultural work of the commune. There was no in-depth cultural and educational work; much more attention was paid to communist education.

The reality of the village in the 1920s and 1930s, especially the forced collectivisation, dekulakisation and manufactured famine of 1932 – 1933, opened the eyes of the members of the commune to “socialist transformations”. They had to experience the full extent of the brutality of the Stalinist regime in 1937 – 1938, when mass repressions against hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens reached their peak.

Despite the turbulent 1930s, the ties between the Ukrainian and Bulgarian peoples have withstood numerous trials and tests not only of time but also of the political regime and have not lost their humanistic meaning. In the light of global transformations in the agricultural sector of modern Ukraine, it is necessary to take into account the historical experience of the international collective in the context of international cooperation.

NOTES

1. f. 166, descr. 8, file 290 and file 326. At: TsDAVO of Ukraine.

2. f.r-1503, descr.1, file 242, sheet 4. At: State Archive of the Poltava Region (SAPR).

3. f.r-8733, descr.1, file 198. At: SAPR.

4. files 05-172, sheets 25-29. At: RA of the PLLM (Research Archive of the Poltava Local Lore Museum).

5. Poltava Region Komsomolets. – 1986. – July 3.

6. f. 166, descr.8, file 290, sheet 17. At: TsDAVO of Ukraine.

7. f. 8,733, descr. 1, file 198, sheet 7. At: SAPO (State Archive of the Poltava Region).

8. Poltava Region Bolshevik. – 1986. – July 5.

9. Ibid.

10. f. 166, descr. 8, file 290, sheet 19. At: TsDAVO of Ukraine.

11. Poltava Region Bolshevik, 1934, November 14.

12. RA of the PLLM 05-172, sheet 25.

13. Ibid., sheet 27.

14. f. 166, descr. 9, file 290, sheets 4-10. At:TsDAVO.

15. f. 166, descr. 8, file 326, sheet 57. At: TsDAVO of Ukraine.

16 f. 166, descr. 8., file 326, sheet 50. At: TsDAVO of Ukraine.

17. f. 559, descr.1, file 997, sheet 89. At: TsDAVO.

18. Poltava Region Bolshevik, 1930, October 21.

19. Zorya Poltavshchyny, 1964, October 6, p. 4.

20. Poltava Region Bolshevik. – 1929. – June 24, 25.

21. file 166, descr. 8, file 326, sheet 50. At: TsDAVO of Ukraine.

22 f. 27, descr. 5, file 177, sheet 43. At: TsDAVO of Ukraine.

23. file 166, descr. 8, file 290, sheet 30. At: TsDAVO of Ukraine.

24. f. 166, descr. 8, file 326, sheet 59. At:TsDAVO of Ukraine.

25. Poltava Region Bolshevik, 5 May 1933.

26. f. 559, descr. 1, file 997, sheet 90. At: TsDAVO of Ukraine.

27. f. 8,733, descr. 1, file 198, sheet 9. At: DAPO.

28. f. 1, descr. 2, file 1,716, sheet 63. At: TsDAVO of Ukraine.

29. files 05-172, sheet 27. RA of the PLLM.

30. f. 559, descr. 1, file 997, sheet 90. At: TsDAVO of Ukraine.

31. f. 166, descr. 8, file 326, sheet 28. At: TsDAVO of Ukraine.

32. f. 166, descr. 8, file 326, sheet 61. At: TsDAVO of Ukraine.

33. files 05-172, sheet 26. At:RA of the PLLM.

34. f. 559, descr. 1, file 997, sheet 81. At: TsDAVO.

35. f. 1, descr. 20, file 5,100, sheet 24. At: TsDAGO Ukraine.

36. f. 166, descr. 8, file 326, sheet 55. At: TsDAGO Ukraine.

37. Poltava Region Bolshevik, 1931, October 13.

38. Zoria Poltavshchyny, 30 September 1973.

39. f. 8733, descr.1, file 198, sheet 11. At: SAPO.

40. f. 15, descr. 39, file 148, sheet 1. At: SAPO.

41. f. 15, descr. 39, file 148, sheets 12, 19. At: SAPO.

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