The general purge of rural communists in the Borisoglebsky district of the Central Black-Earth region (1929)

The article examines the general purge of rural communists in the Borisoglebsky district in 1929. The original archival documents helped to expose the targets of the purge, show the preparatory work before it, examine the procedure for conducting the purge, indicate the peasants’ political attitudes, and recapitulate the results of the inspection and purge of the Bolshevik party members in the rural area. In the course of the purge the checking was made as to the contribution of the party members in the implementation of the party policy in the rural area, their political literacy, and their moral and everyday life image. During the purge the local party authorities regarded it as “a distortion of the party line” and “a right-wing deviation” whenever the communists were found to provide credits to middle peasants, to put down taxes for kulaks, to fail to deny salesmen the voting right, to refuse to carry out grain procurement, to underestimate the collective-farm (kolkhoz) construction, to fail to join the collective farm or to leave it to develop their own individual household. Alongside with that, the local party bureaucrats considered the party purge as a method to improve the work of grass-root party organizations. The author arrives at the conclusion that, in relation to the internal party life, the purge was aimed at the rigid centralization of party work, the complete control of the superior party authorities over the grass-root party organizations. In the conditions of the preparation for forced collectivization, the increased peasants’ outcry and, consequently, more complicated tasks to be tackled by the party leadership in the rural area, the party purge of 1929 was targeted to ensure the unity of rural communists and higher efficiency of the work of rural party organizations.