Directive in Connection With Mass Departure

23 January 1933. Directive of the CC AUCP(b) and the SNK USSR in connection with the mass departure of peasants beyond the confines of Ukraine.

1. Send the following directive (see enclosure) to all oblast (provincial) committees and oblast (provincial) executive committees.

2. Order the plenipotentiary people's commissar of railway transport (comrade Lavrishchev) and the IUZhOKTO GPU [Southern District Transport Division of the GPU] to issue immediate instructions to all railway stations concerning the suspension of sales oftickets beyond the confines of Ukraine to peasants who do not have a certificate from the RIKs [Raion Executive Committees of Councils of Workers, Peasants, and Red Army Deputies] for the right to depart from state industrial and construction organizations stating that they have been recruited for one kind of work or another beyond the confines of Ukraine. M. Khataievich, Secretary of the CC CP(b)D.

Enclosure

To oblast (province) committees, oblast (province) executive committees Following last year's example, mass departures of peasants "for bread" have begun from some regions of Ukraine to Moscow, Western oblasts (provinces), Central-Chernozem oblasts (provinces), Belarus; there are cases where villages are being abandoned by nearly all individual farmers and some collective farm members. There are no doubts that such mass departures are being organized by the enemies of Soviet rule, SRs, and agents of Poland with the goal of agitating "via the peasants" in the northern regions of the USSR against the collective farms, against Soviet rule. Last year the party, Soviet, and Chekist organs of Ukraine failed to spot this counter-revolutionary plan of the enemies of Soviet rule. This year the repetition of such a mistake cannot be permitted.

The CC CP(b)U and the Radnarkom of the Ukrainian SSR propose:

1. To adopt immediate decisive measures in each region concerning the prevention of a mass departure of individual collective farmers, issuing from Balitsky's GPU directive.

2. To carry out work with all kinds of recruiters of a workforce for deportation beyond the limits of Ukraine, to take them under strict control, and in necessary instances to isolate them from this work and exclude all counter-revolutionary elements.

3. To launch widespread explanatory work among collective farmers and individual farmers concerning unauthorized departures and abandonment of farms, and to warn them that in the event of a departure to other regions, they will be arrested.

4. To adopt measures to halt the sale of tickets beyond the confines of Ukraine to peasants who do not have a certificate from RIKs for the right to leave state industrial and construction organizations due to the fact that they have been recruited for one kind of job or another beyond the limits of Ukraine.

5. Provide a brief factual report about the state of affairs connected to the mass departure of peasants in your oblast no later than 6:00 p.m. on 24 January.

Khataievich, Secretary of the CC CP(b)U
v. Chubar, Head ofthe SNK of the Ukrainian SSR (RGASPI, fonds 17, list 42, file 80, fols. 9-11)