Letter from Stalin to Kaganovich on the situation in Ukraine
August 10, 1932
Hello, Comrade Kaganovich!
I received a letter dated August 9th.
1) The Decree on the Protection of Public Property [1], of course, is good and will soon take effect. Also good and timely is the decree against speculators (soon to be issued). But all this is not enough. It is also necessary to give a special letter-directive from the Central Committee to the party and judicial punitive organizations about the meaning of these decrees and the methods of carrying them out. This is absolutely necessary. Tell who should prepare a draft of such a letter. I'll be in Moscow soon and take a look.
2) On questions about the plenum of the ECCI [2] , the use of grain forage crops and diesel locomotives, we will talk upon arrival in Moscow.
3) The most important issue is now Ukraine. Matters in Ukraine are currently extremely bad. Bad from the standpoint of the Party line. It is said that in two regions of Ukraine (Kyiv and Dnipropetrovsk, I believe), about 50 district Party committees have spoken out against the grain procurement plan recognizing it as unrealistic. They say the matter is no better in other district committees. What does it look like? This is not a Party, but a parliament, a caricature of a parliament. Instead of directing the districts, Kosior is always maneuvering between CC AUCP directives and the demands of district committees, and now he reached to the end. Lenin correctly said that a person who does not have the courage to go against the current at the right moment cannot be a real Bolshevik leader. Bad on the Soviet line. Chubar is not a leader. Bad on the line of the GPU. Redens is not up to leading the fight against the counter-revolution in such a large and unique republic as the Ukraine.
If we do not correct the situation in Ukraine immediately, we may lose Ukraine.
Also keep in mind that within the Ukrainian Communist Party (500,000 members, ha, ha) has quite a few (yes, not a few!) of rotten elements, conscious and unconscious Petliurists [3] and finally, direct agents of Pilsudski [4] Once things get worse, these elements won’t hesitate to open a front within (and outside) the Party, against the Party. Worst of all, the Ukrainian leadership does not see these dangers.
Things cannot go on like this.
It is necessary:
a) to remove Kosior from Ukraine and replace him with you [Kaganovich]; you will retain the post of secretary of the CC of AUCP(b);
b) following this, transfer Balitsky to Ukraine as chairman of the Ukrainian GPU (or PP [authorized representative] to Ukraine, as it seems the GPU chairman position in Ukraine does not exist) and leave him as deputy chairman of the [All-Union] OGPU; make Redens a deputy to Balitsky in Ukraine.
c) in a few months after that, replace Chubar with another comrade, say, Grynko or someone else, and appoint Chubar as Molotov’s deputy in Moscow (Kosior can be made one of the secretaries of the CC AUCP(b));
d) Set yourself the goal of turning Ukraine into a fortress of the USSR, a real model republic, within the shortest possible time. Don’t spare money for this purpose.(5)
Without these and similar measures (economic and political strengthening of Ukraine starting with the regions along the border, etc.), I repeat once again: we will lose Ukraine.
What do you think on this matter?
This matter requires attention as soon as possible, immediately after [your] arrival in Moscow.
Regards!
J. Stalin
Р. S. PS As for Balitsky and Redens, I have already spoken with Menzhinsky. He agrees and strongly welcomes this case.
RGASPI, fond 81, list 3, file 99, sheets 146-151;
Stalin and Kaganovich. Correspondence. 1931-1936 (Moscow, 2001, 798 pp) Stalin i Kaganovich. Perepyska. 1931-1936 pp.273-274.
[1] We are talking about the resolution of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR "On the protection of property of state enterprises, collective farms and cooperation and the strengthening of public (socialist) property", adopted on August 7, 1932. The law, authored by Stalin, provided "as a measure of judicial repression "for theft of socialist property" the highest measure of social protection "- execution with confiscation of all property and with replacement under extenuating circumstances with imprisonment for a term of at least 10 years with confiscation of property" (Tragedy of the Soviet village. T. 3. S. 453-454) .
[2] We are talking about the XII Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI), the opening of which was scheduled for September 1932 (See: Comintern and the Idea of the World Revolution: Documents. M., 1998. S. 777-780).
[3] Petliurists - participants in the Civil War in Ukraine in 1919-1920. as part of the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR Directorate), the head of which (the Chief Ataman of the Army and Navy) was S.V. Petliura
[4] We are talking about Jozef Pilsudski, a Polish statesman and politician, the first head of the revived Polish state. In the second half of the 1920s - the first half of the 1930s. The Polish government, headed by Pilsudski, took a clearly hostile position towards the USSR. In the early 1930s the problem of normalizing relations with Poland was in the center of attention of the Stalinist leadership. Only on July 25, 1932, Poland agreed to sign a non-aggression pact with the USSR .
[5] It was Stalin who took the initiative to reduce the grain procurement plan for Ukraine, which was recorded in the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of August 17, 1932 (P. 47/4 “On grain procurements in Ukraine”) (RGASPI. F. 17. Op. 162 D. 13. L. 76).
On August 19, 1932, in a cipher telegram to Kaganovich, raising the question of the progress of grain procurements in individual regions, Stalin indicated: “As can be seen from the materials, not only Ukrainians, but also North Caucasians, the Middle Volga, Western Siberia, will talk about reducing the plan with the Central Committee, Kazakhstan and Bashkiria. For the time being, I advise you to satisfy only the Ukrainians, reducing their plan by 30 million, and only in extreme cases by 35-40 million. As for the rest, postpone the conversation with them until the very end of August ”(Stalin and Kaganovich. Correspondence. 1931-1936, p. 287). This instruction of the leader was carried out, as evidenced by the cipher telegram of Kaganovich, Kuibyshev to Stalin and Molotov dated August 24, 1932, in which it was proposed “to recognize as inexpedient the publication of a reduction in the grain procurement plan for Ukraine”, “based on the fact that this may cause appeals from other regions, regions with the requirement to reduce plans” (Ibid., p. 297). The leader agreed with these proposals and on August 28, 1932, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Ukraine adopted a corresponding resolution on reducing the plan for grain procurements in Ukraine (RGASPI. F. 17. Op. 162. D. 85).
In all Ukrainian editions, the first two paragraphs of the letter (for example, the Holodomor of 1932-1933 poKie in Ukrash: Documents and materials / Sort. R.Ya. flupiz; NAS Decorate. 1n-t icmopii Decorate. K .: Type. Academy”, 2007, pp. 285-286) are omitted. As a result, it turns out that in this letter, the most important thing for Stalin was the situation in Ukraine. But a more careful reading of the letter shows that in reality the leader was most concerned about the situation on the border with Poland, hostile to the USSR, and not about the organization of the “holodomor genocide”. And he directly pointed out this at the end of the letter: the main thing was “the economic and political strengthening of Ukraine, in the first place, its border regions.” If we were talking about repression,
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