A unified passport system in the USSR was formed. Passportization of the whole country. In addition, in the part related to its competence, it implements legislative acts in the field of ensuring human rights and freedoms.

So, the first Soviet passportization was carried out not in 1933, but ten years earlier?
- That's not entirely true. The columns in the certificate resembled those that later appeared in the passport: "Last name", "First name", "Patronymic", "Date of birth", "Place of residence", "Profession", "Having children", "Attitude to military service". But still it was not a passport. The photo in the certificate was pasted at the request of the owner. And it was not necessary to receive it.

Why was it brought in?
- Apparently, to prepare for the restoration of the residence permit that existed before the revolution. To be called it, however, became a residence permit.

To stop the uncontrolled migration of the population across the country?
- Apparently so. Maybe also in order to stop the influx of people into the cities. After all, registration in 1925 was introduced only for residents of cities.

Why is the passport reform of 1932-1933 considered the most important?
- Then the passport was introduced as the only identity document.

But passportization was by no means universal ...
- At the first stage, passports were issued to residents of large industrial centers, primarily in Moscow and Leningrad and the 100-kilometer zone around them, which was declared restricted. Then passports with obligatory registration of citizens were issued in Kharkov, Kiev, Odessa, Minsk, Rostov-on-Don, Vladivostok and other large cities, as well as in restricted areas around some of them and along the western border of the USSR.

Judging by the documents, the main purpose of passportization was the expulsion of all anti-social elements from the regime zones.
- Yes, regime zones were cleared of beggars, former convicts and those who fell under the definition of a parasite, as well as everyone who was considered an enemy Soviet power. Regime zones became more and more over time. Territories along all borders and railways became regime. In some places, entire regions were regime. But still, I believe that the main goal of the reform was to bind the peasants to the collective farms. In the countryside, if the area was not included in the regime zone, passports were not issued. Without a passport, they were not hired to work in the city, and there was no way to get a passport. If I am not mistaken, until 1935, unpassported peasants were still allowed to move to another non-regime area. But then this practice was canceled. So the collective farmers were tightly tied to their collective farm.

“But it wasn’t just collective farmers that were treated this way. I heard that in some enterprises, when applying for a job, passports were taken to the personnel departments and issued identity cards instead. With the same goal - so that workers do not leave heavy production.
- And it was like that too.

But how did people live without a passport?
- I myself was born in a village, in a non-regime zone, where no one had a passport. And before the army he lived without a passport. It is necessary to go somewhere - the village council gave a certificate that such and such lives there. No photo. It was possible to escape only by joining the army. After the service, on Komsomol vouchers, they went to construction sites or went to the police. That's when they became free people.

How about recruiting for a job in the North?
- Only a few of those recruited managed to get a full-fledged passport with great problems. In 1953, another passport reform was carried out. Then they began to issue unlimited passports to those over forty, for ten years - to those who were from twenty to forty, and for five years - to those who were from sixteen to twenty. And there were also passports for six months. For collective farmers who have recruited somewhere to work. The term is over - if you please, hand over your passport and live as before.

And what was the formal reason for the reform of 1953?
- As our veterans said, the reason for the replacement was primarily that the passports of most citizens were dilapidated. At the same time, as usual, a detailed population count was carried out. And they found a lot of people who were wanted. But this happened during every reform.

I read that when preparing the change of passports, there was a project by Beria, which provided for the issuance of passports to peasants ...
- Peasants began to receive passports only in 1974, when the last Soviet passport reform began.

And what was the point of this reform?
- Apparently, it is in the passportization of the village. In addition, as everyone knows, there were pages for photos at 25 and 45 years of age. But mostly it was a political action. At the same time, a draft of the new Constitution was being prepared. They talked a lot about a single community - the Soviet people. And of course, all the people had to be equalized in rights. The new provision on the passport system introduced the obligatory receipt of a passport for everyone upon reaching 16 years of age.

- Is it true that some data of the passport holder was encrypted in the passport numbers, for example, a criminal record?
- These are all fairy tales. Before the revolution, a corresponding entry was made in the passports of persons who had served their sentences. In the years 1930-1950, it was written in the passport that it was issued on the basis of an article of such and such a provision on passports. And to anyone knowing person it was clear that he was dealing with a person who had a criminal record. By the series of the passport, you can determine in which region it was issued. Although there is no special meaning in this: where and when the passport was issued, it is already written in it. And the data on the criminal record was always contained in the form number one, which is filled out when issuing a passport. This document moves throughout the country after the owner of the passport. A person moved to a new place - the form is sent to the police department at a new address. And there is the column "On the basis of what the passport was issued." Those who have served their sentences always have one reason - a certificate from a correctional labor institution, which is recorded in the form number one. No special encryption is needed.
http://www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=359662

Passport system in the USSR (1932-1976): passport as a stamp
The fact that the true essence of the passport system in the USSR and its hidden meaning was not always understood by representatives of the highest state-party apparatus is evidenced by many facts. Let's bring some. As noted, the passport system directly contributed to the attachment of peasants to collective farm work. For collective farmers, a mandatory minimum of workdays was established, which they had to work out.

In April 1942, this minimum was increased for all collective farmers and extended to members of their adolescent families aged 12 to 16 years. For not developing the mandatory minimum "without good reason" all the perpetrators were subject to criminal liability: corrective labor work on collective farms with deduction from payment of workdays up to 25% in favor of the collective farm. The Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of May 31, 1947 left the said law in force. The deterioration of village life after the war led to increased flight from the countryside,

which passport restrictions could not stop. In this regard, government officials proposed to intensify repression against the fugitives. “Some courts think,” reported Minister of Justice of the USSR K.P. Gorshenin December 25, 1950 Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks G.M. Malenkov, - that under the current legislation, the unauthorized departure of collective farmers to waste is not punishable under criminal procedure and in such cases acquittals are passed.

Others pronounce guilty verdicts in these cases. The Ministry of Justice of the USSR considers that collective farmers who have not worked out the obligatory minimum of workdays in connection with unauthorized, without the permission of the collective farm, going into retirement, should be liable according to the decree of April 15, 1942 for the period during which they left the collective farm, from Serving the sentence at the place of work”36.

The minister proposed exactly the same severe measures in relation to the children of collective farmers who have reached the age of 16, even "in cases where their membership in the collective farm is not formalized." The Soviet order in relation to the enslavement of the peasants by its cruelty surpassed the legislation of "serf Russia" of the XVIII-first half of XIX centuries In order to streamline judicial practice and rid his department of unnecessary, from his point of view, red tape and delays in such an important matter, the minister made the following proposal: age, however, so that it does not involve any complex procedure. The offer was not accepted. The same system was preserved - outwardly contradictory, but integral in content, which supported the illusion of possible freedom in the country and in no way gave it.

Another fact testifies to this. On March 3, 1949, the Bureau of the Council of Ministers of the USSR considered the issue of introducing a new passport and a draft of a new regulation on the passport system in the USSR. The development was carried out by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR on the personal instructions and initiative of the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks L.P. Beria37. The proposal was motivated by the fact that “during the war, a significant part of the blanks of valid passports and instructions for applying the provision on passports fell into the hands of the enemy and the criminal element, which largely deciphered the technique of passport work in the USSR.”

It was argued that the current passport was "not sufficiently protected against forgery" and this "makes it easier for the criminal element to hide from persecution." The most important difference of the proposed project was that the regulation on the passport system in the USSR provided for "issuing passports not only to the urban, but also to the rural population." This attempt should not be regarded as a real liberalization of the Soviet regime. Rather the opposite.

Passportization of the entire population of the country aged 16 years and older in those conditions meant absolutely complete control over the life of everyone: after all, possession of a passport created only the appearance of human rights - a citizen of the USSR, because. the main thing in determining his fate would still be the "compromising data" that was stored in the cluster and the Central Address Bureau. The transition to full passportization of the country's population promised considerable benefits to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and personally to its curator L.Ts. Beria, since the importance of the ministry would increase, which would give additional chances in the struggle for power.

From the point of view of the state - complete control over the life of every member of society - there was every reason to accept the proposal. But it was rejected with the following wording, which did not explain the reasons for the refusal: "It was proposed that the Ministry of Internal Affairs be finalized based on the opinions of the Bureau." More to the issue of giving passports to the entire rural population (including collective farmers) did not return until 1974, although after the death of I.V. Stalin, a new regulation on passports was adopted in October 1953.

The rejection of the Beria project is puzzling, because it took a long time to prepare and was agreed upon in all relevant ministries. Back in January 1948, by order of the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR S.N. Kruglov, an authoritative commission was created to consider the draft regulation on the passport system in the USSR. It included: the heads of the main departments of the police and border troops, the department of troops for the protection of especially important industrial facilities and railways, the Gulag, the prison department, special departments that were in charge of special accounting of the population, the department for combating child homelessness and neglect, the department of special settlements.

The project was agreed with the Minister of Justice and the Prosecutor General of the USSR. And yet he did not pass. And this is despite the direct support of L.P., Beria, who was considered omnipotent in those years.
So, two high-ranking government officials tried to unify the law: one - the procedure for registration of membership in the collective farm of adult children of collective farmers and judicial practice, which determines responsibility for not working out the minimum workdays, and the other - the passport regime in the country.

In this case, high professional qualities only served as a hindrance: there could be no uniformity where the application of the law, according to the intention of its true creators, was not subject to a single judicial interpretation. After all, it was this ambiguous and uncertain situation that created a trap for people. What can we say about performers with a lower rank, local workers?

Some courts judged the collective farmers more harshly, because the performers were completely Soviet, who had gone through a harsh school of selection and were taken from the same masses - they were especially zealous, evil and dangerous. Others, who had a drop of conscience and compassion left, tried to be softer. Such people were strictly watched and roughly punished, so that others would be discouraged. An educational moment worked - all the performers persistently and daily introduced the idea into their consciousness - it is better to go too far than not to bend it.

The only thing JI.P. Beria during the peak of his career, when in March 1953 he was appointed First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and regained the post of Minister of the Interior, to have time to push through the draft resolution "On the reduction of sensitive areas and passport restrictions" to the government before his arrest and execution addressed to the new chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR G.M. Malenkov signed by L.P. Beria was sent on May 13, 1953. Corresponding copies of the report were sent to all members of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU - V.M. Molotov, K.E. Voroshilov, N.S. Khrushchev, N.A. Bulganin, JI.M. Kaganovich, A.I. Mikoyan, M.Z. Saburov, M.G. Pervukhin38. On May 21, 1953, the submitted project was approved as a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 1305515 ss.

The main changes were to exclude about 150 cities and localities, all railway junctions and stations from the number of sensitive ones (regime restrictions remained in Moscow and 24 districts of the Moscow region, in Leningrad and five districts of the Leningrad region, in Vladivostok, Sevastopol and Kronstadt); reducing the size of the forbidden border strip (with the exception of the strip on the border with Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, the Karelian Isthmus); reduction of the list of crimes, a conviction for which entailed a ban on living in sensitive areas (all “counter-revolutionary crimes”, banditry, hooliganism, premeditated murder, repeated thefts and robbery remained). But the reform of the passport system conceived by L.P. Beria, as noted, had more deep meaning. This is confirmed by numerous reference materials (including the passport system Russian Empire), prepared by the apparatus of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in April 1953.

The order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs No. 00375 ss dated June 16, 1953, signed by L.P. Beria, which abolished passport restrictions, issued in development of the government decree, breathes directly with paternal concern for the needs of former prisoners and their families: “Under the current situation, citizens who have served punishment in places of detention or exile and thus atoning for their guilt before society, continue to experience deprivation (...)

The presence of wide passport restrictions in the country creates difficulties in finding a job not only for citizens who have served their sentences, but also for their family members, who also find themselves in a difficult situation in connection with this”39. It was further noted that "the regime and passport restrictions imposed in these areas (a regime zone that extends hundreds of kilometers inland. - V.P.) hinder their economic development." It was these grounds that were set out in the order to explain the mitigation passport regime in the country.
After the elimination of L.P. Beria from the leadership of the country, by decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 26661124 dated October 21, 1953, a new provision on passports was introduced, which was valid until 1974 without any fundamental changes.

It introduced one change of great importance. From the first point, which determines the citizens of which territories of the country are required to have passports, “disappeared”, i.e. not mentioned, in contrast to the situation in 1940, were citizens of the USSR living in the settlements where the MTS were located and working in state farms40. This did not in any way affect those state farm workers and employees, residents of the settlements of machine and tractor stations who already had passports, but it seriously limited the opportunities of the younger generation.

What did this “withdrawal” lead to in practice, if we turn to subsequent events in the countryside? From the second half of the 50s and into the 60s, the state farm system grew: state farms were formed en masse on the basis of the so-called economically weak collective farms or were created again in the areas of development of virgin and fallow lands. Former collective farmers, who became state farm workers as a result of the reorganization, did not gain anything in terms of obtaining passports.

In 1958, MTS was reorganized in the country, whose workers, according to the authors of the "reform", were supposed to go to work on collective farms that bought the equipment of machine and tractor stations. But in this case, the children of former MTS employees, upon reaching the age of 16, also could not obtain passports. Therefore, the reorganization of the MTS led to a new round of people fleeing the countryside. It turns out that the named passport innovation did not so much restrict freedom of movement around the country as it contributed to the intensification of spontaneous migration.

However, the government rejected the request of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs to provide rural residents with passports, filed by Minister S.N. Kruglov in October 1953 A.I. Mikoyan and N.A. Bulganin41. The proposal came from the head of the passport and registration department of the Main Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR Poduzov, who took an active part in the preparation of the draft passport regulations under L.P. Beria. In a secret memorandum of September 24, 1953

Poduzov wrote to the minister: “The developed draft regulation on passports (approved by the Council of Ministers of the USSR on October 21, 1953 - V.P.) provides that residents of rural areas of the country are not required to have passports ... In connection with the decisions arising from the decisions of the September Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU tasks of the MTS and state farms, in particular, the replacement of seasonal personnel with permanent ones - should not an addition be made to the draft provision that permanent local residents of rural areas working in MTS and state farms in full-time positions are required to have passports. Thus, the permanent cadres of workers of the MTS and sokhozes in relation to documenting the identity will be equated with the workers of urban enterprises.

In addition, this eliminates the existing situation, in which permanent cadre workers who arrived at the MTS and state farms from cities have passports, while local permanent workers do not have passports”42. It is difficult to say exactly what true motives Poduzov was guided by, most likely he sought to use the chance for a career career, guessing from the decisions of the September (1953) plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU that the winds of the "thaw" blew.

Marks on the document indicate that Poduzov's note was first sent to A.I. Mikoyan as early as September 25, 1953. We do not have documents from which it would be possible to establish which of the members of the government responsible for preparing a new regulation on passports vetoed the proposal of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and what were the reasons for the ban. But the life situation testified that the Soviet government continued to keep its main enemy - the Russian peasant - on the passport "hook".

And, according to the regulations on passports of October 21, 1953, they continued to live in rural areas (with the exception of sensitive areas) without passports. If they were temporarily involved for a period of not more than one month for agricultural work, logging, peat extraction within their region, territory, republic (without regional division), they were issued a certificate from the village council proving their identity and the purpose of the departure.

The same order was maintained for rural residents of non-certified areas, if they went to sanatoriums, rest homes, to meetings, congresses, on business trips. If they traveled outside their district to other areas of the country for a period of more than 30 days, they were required to obtain passports “from the police authorities at their place of residence”43. Thus, the procedure for obtaining a passport for the rural population of non-passportized areas has not changed compared to the 30s.

After the death of I.V. Stalin seemed to make life easier for the peasant: in 1953, the procedure for imposing agricultural tax on peasant farms was changed, since 1958, mandatory deliveries of all agricultural products from collective farms were abolished, the March (1953) amnesty stopped the execution of all sentences without exception; according to which collective farmers were sentenced to corrective labor for failure to complete the mandatory minimum workdays44. For those who constantly worked on the collective farm, the amnesty was a significant relief of life. Collective farmers who went into the “withdrawal” without the permission of the collective farm boards, in connection with the amnesty, felt free. It was self-deception, because. there were no significant changes in the legal status of the collective farmer: the exemplary charter of the agricultural artel continued to operate; Hence,

According to the law, at any time, everyone who arbitrarily went into the “waste” could be forcibly returned by the government to the collective farms. The sword was raised over their heads, but did not cut, it was as if they “forgot” to lower it. By canceling the court decision on the persecution of collective farmers for violating the decree on the mandatory minimum workdays, the Soviet regime sought to create hope in society for possible changes for the better and psychologically prepare people for the Khrushchev “thaw”: the peasantry was again “pushed” into the cities.

Why did the Bolsheviks take away the passports from the peasants?
http://users.livejournal.com/_lord_/1102044.html

only 35 years ago (1974!) collective farmers were issued passports (but they still required certificates from the collective farm) - a selection of links

Here, out of necessity, I found a birth certificate for my parents and noticed that they were issued passports (based on church records) in 1933, despite the age difference of three years, that is, the issuance of a passport was not tied to age. Why?!
The issue of passports arose in 1932 not by chance. After the complete collectivization of agriculture, a mass exodus of peasants to the cities began, which aggravated the food difficulties that were growing from year to year. And it was precisely to clear the cities, primarily Moscow and Leningrad, of this alien element that the new passport system was intended. A single identity document was introduced in cities declared sensitive, and passportization served at the same time as a way to clear them of fugitive peasants. Passports, however, were not issued not only to them, but also to enemies of the Soviet regime, disenfranchised, repeatedly convicted criminals, as well as to all suspicious and socially alien elements. Refusal to issue a passport meant automatic eviction from a sensitive city, and for the first four months of 1933 when the passportization of the two capitals took place, in Moscow, the population decline was 214,700 people, and in Leningrad, 476,182.

During the campaign, as usual, there were numerous mistakes and excesses. Thus, the Politburo pointed out to the police that old people whose children received passports should also be given them, even though they belonged to the propertied and ruling classes before the revolution. And to support anti-religious work, they were allowed to passport former clergymen who voluntarily renounced their rank.

Three largest cities countries, including the then capital of Ukraine Kharkiv, after passportization, not only the criminal situation improved, but there were also fewer eaters. And the supply of the passportized population, albeit not too significantly, has improved. What the heads of other large cities of the country, as well as the regions and districts surrounding them, could not help but pay attention to. Following Moscow passportization was carried out in a hundred-verst zone around the capital. And already in February 1933 to the list of cities, where priority certification was carried out, included, for example, the Magnitogorsk.

As the list of regime towns and localities expanded, so did the opposition of the population. Citizens of the USSR, left without passports, acquired fake certificates, changed their biographies and surnames and moved to places where passportization was just ahead and it was possible to try their luck again. And many came to regime cities, lived there illegally and earned their livelihood by working at home on orders from various artels. So even after the end of passportization, the cleaning of sensitive cities did not stop. In 1935, the head of the NKVD Genrikh Yagoda and the USSR prosecutor Andrei Vyshinsky reported to the Central Committee and the Council of People's Commissars on the creation of extrajudicial "troikas" for violators of the passport regime:

"In order to quickly clear the cities that fall under Article 10 of the law on passports from criminal and declassed elements, as well as malicious violators of the Regulations on Passports, the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor's Office of the USSR Union on January 10, 1935 ordered the formation of special troikas on the ground for resolution of cases of this category. This measure was dictated by the fact that the number of detainees in these cases was very significant, and the consideration of these cases in Moscow at the Special Conference led to an excessive delay in the consideration of these cases and to an overload of places of pre-trial detention.

On the document, Stalin wrote a resolution: "The 'quickest' purge is dangerous. It must be purged gradually and thoroughly, without jolts and excessive administrative enthusiasm. It would be necessary to set a one-year deadline for the end of the purges."

By 1937, the NKVD considered the comprehensive cleansing of cities completed and reported to the Council of People's Commissars:

"1. In the USSR, passports were issued to the population of cities, workers' settlements, regional centers, new buildings, MTS locations, as well as all settlements within a 100-kilometer strip around the cities. Moscow, Leningrad, a 50-kilometer strip around Kyiv and Kharkov; 100-kilometer Western European, Eastern (Eastern Siberia) and Far Eastern border strip; esplanade zone of the DVK and Sakhalin Island and workers and employees (with their families) of water and rail transport.

2. In other rural non-certified areas, passports are issued only to the population leaving for otkhodnichestvo, for study, for treatment, and for other reasons.

Actually, this was the second in order, but the main purpose of certification. The rural population, left without documents, could not leave their native places, since violators of the passport regime were expected by "troikas" and imprisonment. And it was absolutely impossible to get a certificate to leave for work in the city without the consent of the collective farm board. So the peasants, as in the days of serfdom, were tightly tied to their homes and had to fill the bins of their homeland for the miserable distribution of grain for workdays or even for free, since they simply had no other choice left.

Passports were given only to peasants in the border forbidden zones (these peasants in 1937 included collective farmers from the Transcaucasian and Central Asian republics), as well as to residents of rural areas of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia annexed to the USSR.

Introduction

The main function of the passport is to legitimize, i.e. owner's ID. However, since the appearance of passports, they have been used as a means of controlling the movement of the population, the potential of the passport system has made it possible to address issues of strengthening defense capability, state security, combating crime, ensuring public safety (for example, during epidemics, disasters, etc.), under certain conditions - solve economic problems, ensure the fiscal interests of the state.

A passport is a document, the possession of which means a certificate of a special connection between a person and the state, evidence of endowing him with an appropriate set of rights.

Therefore, the totality (and correlation) of the tasks solved with the help of the passport system, the conditions and procedure for issuing passports and their registration quite fully reflect the existing political regime, the guarantee of declared rights and freedoms.

From this point of view, the study of the legal foundations of the passport system and the actually implemented passport regime in the 30s of the XX century. seems to be very relevant, since it makes it possible to obtain additional arguments for characterizing the emerging administrative-command system of governance and the totalitarian political regime.

Goals and objectives. The main goal is to explore the formation and development of the passport system of the Soviet state in the 30s on the basis of historical and legal analysis. last century.

To achieve the goal, the following tasks are supposed to be solved:

to study the history of the development of the population registration system and control over its movement in pre-revolutionary Russia and the Soviet state during the functioning of a single passport system;

analyze the legal acts regulating the passport system;

study the established passport regime;

Creation of the passport system in the USSR

December 27, 1932 in Moscow, the chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR M.I. Kalinin, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR V.M. Molotov and Secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR A.S. Yenukidze signed Decree No. 57/1917 "On the establishment of a unified passport system for the USSR and the mandatory registration of passports." Korzan V.F. Soviet passport system. Minsk, 2005

In all passportized areas, the passport becomes the only document "providing the identity of the owner." In paragraph 10, it was prescribed: Passport books and forms should be made according to a single model for the entire USSR. The text of passport books and forms for citizens of various Union and Autonomous Republics should be printed in two languages; in Russian and in the language commonly used in the given Union or Autonomous Republic.

The following information was indicated in the passports of the 1932 model: first name, patronymic, last name, time and place of birth, nationality, social status, permanent residence and place of work, compulsory military service and the documents on the basis of which the passport was issued.

Simultaneously with the resolution of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (On the Establishment of a Unified Passport System for the USSR and the Obligatory Registration of Passports), on December 27, 1932, a resolution "On the Formation of the Main Directorate of the Workers' and Peasants' Militia under the OGPU of the USSR" was issued. This body was created for the general management of the work of the directorate of the worker-peasant militia of the Union republics, as well as for the introduction of Soviet Union unified passport system, registration of passports and for the direct management of this matter. Ryabov Yu.S. Soviet passport system. M., 2008.

passportization soviet passport system

In the regional and city departments of the RCM, passport departments were formed, and in the police departments - passport offices. The address and reference bureaus were also reorganized.

December 27, 1932 Decree of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR No. 1917 "On the establishment of a unified passport system for the USSR and the mandatory registration of passports."

The internal Soviet passport was invented in the 16th year of Soviet power with deliberately criminal goals.

Few people remember this today.

At the end of December 1932, the USSR government issued a decree "On the establishment of a unified passport system for the USSR and the mandatory registration of passports." In January 1933, the passportization of the population and the measures arising from it began. And the events were serious. The country was divided into two parts - in some territories the passport system was introduced, in others it was not. The population was divided accordingly. Passports were received by "citizens of the USSR permanently residing in cities, workers' settlements, working in transport, in state farms and new buildings." Those who received passports were required to register within 24 hours.

In the first six months - from January to June 1933 - passportization was carried out with the obligatory registration of passports of Moscow, Leningrad (including a hundred-kilometer zone around them) and Kharkov (with a fifty-kilometer zone). These territories were declared regime. All other certificates and residence permits that existed before that lost their validity in the regime territories.

The year 1932, which ended with the introduction of passports, was terrible. The first five-year plan ended with catastrophic results for the population. The standard of living fell sharply. There is famine all over the country, not only in Ukraine, where millions die of starvation. Bread at an affordable price can only be obtained by cards, and only those who work have cards. Agriculture is deliberately destroyed by collectivization. Some peasants - dispossessed - are forcibly transported to the construction sites of the five-year plan. Others flee to the cities themselves, fleeing hunger. At the same time, the government sells grain abroad to finance the construction and purchase of equipment for military plants (one Stalingrad tractor, that is, tank, plant cost 40 million dollars paid to the Americans). The experiment on the use of prisoners in the construction of the Belomor Canal was successfully completed. The scale of the economic use of prisoners is growing, and their number is growing accordingly, but this method cannot solve all problems.

The government is faced with the task of stopping unplanned movements around the country of the population, which is considered solely as a labor force. First, it is necessary to secure in the countryside that part of the peasantry which is necessary for the production of foodstuffs. Secondly, to ensure the possibility of freely transferring surplus labor from the countryside and from the cities to the five-year plan construction sites located in remote places, where few people of their own free will wanted to go. Thirdly, the central cities should be cleared of socially unfavorable and useless elements. In general, it was necessary to provide the planning authorities with the opportunity to manipulate large masses of the population in order to solve economic problems. And for this it was necessary to divide the population into groups convenient for manipulation. This problem was solved by the introduction of the passport system.
***
The meaning of the internal passport went far beyond a simple identity card. Here is what was said about this in the strictly secret minutes of the meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks dated November 15, 1932:

"... About the passport system and unloading cities from unnecessary elements.
In terms of unloading Moscow and Leningrad and other large urban centers of the USSR from superfluous institutions not connected with production and work, as well as from kulak, criminal and other antisocial elements hiding in the cities, it is necessary to recognize as necessary:

1. Introduce a unified passport system for the USSR with the abolition of all other types of certificates issued by this or that organization and which until now gave the right to registration in cities.
2. Organize, primarily in Moscow and Leningrad, an apparatus for recording and registering the population and regulating entry and exit.

At the same meeting of the Politburo, it was decided to organize a special commission, which was called just that - the PB Commission on the passport system and unloading cities from unnecessary elements. Chairman - V.A. Balitsky.

The passport indicated the social origin of the owner, for which a complex classification was developed - "worker", "collective farmer", "single-owner peasant", "employee", "student", "writer", "artist", "artist", "sculptor" ", "handicraftsman", "pensioner", "dependent", "without certain occupations". The passport was also marked with a job offer. Thus, representatives of the authorities had the opportunity to determine from the passport how to treat its owner.

The "nationality" column looked relatively innocent and rather meaningless in comparison with the "social status" column, especially since it was filled in from the words of the passport holder. But if the fate that the ethnic deportations that overwhelmed the USSR in the next few years were planned by Stalin even then, it is clear that its only meaning is repressive.

In January 1933, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR approved the "Instruction on the issuance of passports." In the secret section of the Instruction, restrictions were established on the issuance of passports and residence permits in sensitive areas for the following groups: "not engaged in socially useful labor at work" (with the exception of disabled people and pensioners), "kulaks" and "dispossessed" "escaped" from the villages, even if they worked in enterprises or institutions, "defectors from abroad" who arrived from other places after January 1, 1931 "without an invitation to work", if they do not have certain occupations or often change jobs (are "flyers" ) or "were fired for disorganizing production." The last point covered those who fled the village before the start of "complete collectivization." In addition, “disenfranchised people” (people deprived of voting rights, in particular “kulaks” and nobles), private merchants, clergymen, former prisoners and exiles, as well as family members of all the listed groups of citizens, did not receive passports, and therefore registration.

The violinist of the Vakhtangov Theater Yuri Elagin recalls this time in this way: “Our family was ranked among alien and class-hostile elements for two reasons - as a family of former factory owners, i.e. capitalists and exploiters, and, secondly, because my father was an engineer with a pre-revolutionary education, i.e. belonged to a part of the Russian intelligentsia, in the highest degree suspicious and unreliable from the Soviet point of view. The first result of all this was that in the summer of 1929 we were disenfranchised. We have become "dispossessed". The category of "disenfranchised" among Soviet citizens is the category of inferior citizens of the lowest rank. Their position in Soviet society ... was reminiscent of the position of the Jews in Nazi Germany. The civil service and the professions of intelligent labor were closed to them. ABOUT higher education didn't have to dream. The disenfranchised were the first candidates for concentration camps and prisons. Moreover, in many details Everyday life they constantly felt the humiliation of their social position. I remember what a heavy impression it made on me that shortly after we were deprived of voting rights, a fitter came to our apartment ... and took away our telephone set. “The disenfranchised are not supposed to have a telephone,” he said briefly and expressively ...
Yuri Yelagin himself was lucky. As an "artist", he was included in the Soviet elite, received a passport and retained his Moscow residence permit. But his father did not receive a passport in 1933, was expelled from Moscow, arrested and died in the camp two years later. According to Yelagin, about a million people were then deported from Moscow.

And here is the data from the secret certificate of the Office of the Workers 'and Peasants' Militia under the OGPU to the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Molotov dated August 27, 1933 "On the results of passportization of the cities of Moscow and Leningrad." From January 1, 1932 to January 1, 1933 The population of Moscow increased by 528,300 people. and reached 3,663,300 people. The population of Leningrad increased during this time by 124,262 people (reached 2,360,777 people).

As a result of passportization, in the first 8 months of 1933 the population of Moscow decreased by 214,000 people, and that of Leningrad by 476,182 people. In Moscow, 65,904 people were denied passports. In Leningrad - 79,261 people. The reference clarifies that the given figures "do not take into account the declassed local and newcomer element and the kulaks who escaped from the village, who lived in an illegal position ..."

Among those who were refused - 41% arrived without an invitation to work and lived in Moscow for more than 2 years. "Dispossessed" - 20%. The rest are convicted, "disenfranchised", etc.

But not all Muscovites applied for a passport. The certificate states: “Citizens who received a notice of refusal to issue passports after the expiration of the 10-day period established by law were mainly removed from Moscow and Leningrad. However, this does not resolve the issue of removing passportless ones. When passportization was announced, they, knowing that they would definitely be denied a passport, did not appear at all at the passport checkpoints and took refuge in attics, basements, sheds, gardens, etc.

In order to successfully maintain the passport regime .... special passport offices have been organized, which have their own inspection and secret information in the houses. Passport offices carry out rounds, round-ups, inspections of house administrations, barracks for seasonal workers, places of accumulation of suspicious elements, illegal shelters...

These operational measures detained unpassported:
in Moscow - 85,937 people.
in Leningrad - 4,766 people,
sent by way of extrajudicial repression to camps and labor settlements. The bulk of the detainees were fugitives from the Central Chernozem Region and Ukraine, who were engaged in theft and begging in Moscow.
It was only the beginning of the most terrible decade in the history of the USSR.

SOVIET PASSPORT SYSTEM BEFORE 1932

A few days after the October coup, the passport system of the Russian Empire was, in fact, declared invalid. On November 11 (24), 1917, the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) and the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) "On the destruction of estates and civil ranks" was promulgated:

"St. 1. All estates and class divisions of citizens that existed in Russia until now, class privileges and restrictions, class organizations and institutions, as well as all civil ranks, are abolished.

Art. 2. All titles (nobleman, merchant, tradesman, peasant, etc.), titles (princely, county, etc.) and names of civil ranks (secret, state and other advisers) are destroyed, and one common for the entire population of Russia is established , name of citizens of the Russian Republic”.

Since the passport system was based on class division (for different classes there were different accounting rules and different “residence permits”), the decree that abolished him practically destroyed the previous passport system. Moreover, its destruction occurred precisely when the dynamics of population movements (due to war and revolutionary upheavals) was the highest, that is, when the second principle (a person’s attachment to a certain place) stopped working. As a result, the former passport system (that is, the system of accounting and control of the population of the empire) collapsed. Having successfully destroyed the internal passport system, the new government first of all took care of erecting barriers between Soviet Russia and the rest of the world. Already on December 2, 1917, Trotsky issued an order to "visa passports" at the entrance to the RSFSR. From now on, entry into the borders of Soviet Russia was allowed only to persons who had passports certified by the only Soviet representative abroad in those days, Vaclav Vorovsky, who was in Stockholm. Three days later, "until further orders," the People's Commissar of the NKVD, Grigory Petrovsky, ordered that citizens of states that were at war with Russia not leave the RSFSR without the permission of local councils.

With the end of the civil war, the fight against "labour desertion" somewhat subsided. The transition to the NEP required a different strategy in relation to the "labor reserves". The principle of rigid attachment of the labor force to enterprises became a brake on the implementation of plans for economic recovery. This, apparently, can explain the sharp change in the attitude of the authorities towards the system of control and registration of the population (and, above all, the working-age population). The law of January 24, 1922 granted all citizens the right to free movement throughout the entire territory of the RSFSR. This right was also confirmed in Article 5 of the Civil Code of the RSFSR. Moreover, the Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of July 20, 1923, "On Identification", which was issued soon, opened with a unique article:

“Government bodies are prohibited from demanding from citizens R.S.F.S.R. obligatory presentation of passports and other residence permits that hinder their right to move and settle in the territory of the R.S.F.S.R. […]

Started short and completely unique in modern Russian history the so-called legitimation period, when, in fact, people were spared both the need to have a passport and the link to their place of residence. This order corresponded to the principles of the new economic policy, providing freedom for the development of market relations. In the legitimation system, a passport becomes a mandatory document only when a citizen travels abroad.

The years 1928-1929 turned out to be a turning point. At this time, the NEP was put an end to and a course towards industrialization and complete collectivization was announced. The country was plunged into a severe food crisis. Hunger has begun. Huge masses of rural residents sought salvation from starvation in the cities. Only a new enslavement of the rural population could stop this movement. It was introduced in 1932 in the form of the Soviet passport system. Of course, its introduction was not dictated solely by the fact that in the famine of 1931-1932, the authorities sought to cut off the rural population from the cities. The transition to a planned economy presupposed the existence of a well-established system of accounting and control of the labor force. And of course, passportization has become the most important tool for “cleansing” the population of large cities and, more broadly, “regime zones”.

A.K. Bayburin. To the prehistory of the Soviet passport (1917--1932)

INTRODUCTION OF PASSPORTS

In order to better account for the population of cities, workers' settlements and new buildings and unload these populated areas from persons not connected with production and work in institutions or schools and not engaged in socially useful work (with the exception of disabled people and pensioners), as well as in order to clean these populated areas from hiding kulak, criminal and other anti-social elements, the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR decide:

1. Establish a unified passport system for the USSR on the basis of the Regulations on Passports.

2. Introduce a unified passport system with mandatory registration throughout the USSR during 1933, covering primarily the population of Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov, Kiev, Odessa, Minsk, Rostov-on-Don and Vladivostok.

3. To instruct the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR to establish the dates and sequence for the introduction of the passport system in all other regions of the USSR.

4. Instruct the governments of the Union republics to bring their legislation into line with this Decree and the Regulations on Passports.

Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR

M. KALININ

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR

V. MOLOTOV (SCRYABIN)

Secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR

A. ENUKIDZE

Decree of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of December 27, 1932 "On the establishment of a unified passport system for the USSR and the mandatory registration of passports"

LOOK POET

as if

twisted

mister.

mister official

red passport.

like a bomb

like a razor

double-edged

like an explosive

two meters tall.

meaningfully

bearer eye,

at least things

will take it down for you.

inquiringly

looks at the detective

to the gendarme.

With what pleasure

gendarme caste

whipped and crucified

what is in my hands

hammerhead,

sickle

Soviet passport.

I would be a wolf

bureaucracy.

To mandates

there is no respect.

to hell with mothers

any piece of paper.

from wide trousers

duplicate

priceless cargo.

envy

citizen

Soviet Union.

V.V. Mayakovsky. Poems about the Soviet passport.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE SOVIET PASSPORT

Introduced in 1932, the unified passport system was changed and improved in subsequent years in the interests of strengthening the state and improving public services.

A notable stage in the history of the formation and activities of the passport and visa service was the decision of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of October 4, 1935 "On the transfer to the jurisdiction of the NKVD and its local authorities foreign departments and tables of executive committees, which until that time were subordinate to the organs of the OGPU.

On the basis of the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of October 4, 1935, departments, departments and groups of visas and registration of foreigners (OViR) were created in the Main Police Department, the police departments of the republics, territories and regions.

These structures worked independently during the 30s and 40s. In the future, they were repeatedly merged with the passport apparatus of the police into single structural units and separated from them.

To improve the identification of a citizen of the USSR, since October 1937, a photographic card began to be pasted into passports, the second copy of which was kept by the police at the place of issue of the document.

In order to avoid fakes, GUM has introduced special ink for filling out passport forms and special documents. mastic for seals, stamps for fastening photographs.

In addition, it periodically sent out operational and methodological orientations to all police departments on how to recognize fake documents.

In those cases when birth certificates from other regions and republics were presented upon receipt of passports, the police were obliged to first request certificate issuance points so that the latter would confirm the authenticity of the documents.

From August 8, 1936, in the passports of former prisoners "disenfranchised" and "defectors" (who crossed the border of the USSR "arbitrarily"), the following note was made: "Issued on the basis of paragraph 11 of the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR No. 861 of April 28, 1933."

Decree of the Central Executive Committee and Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of June 27, 1936 as one of the measures to combat the frivolous attitude towards the family and family responsibilities it was established that upon marriage and divorce, the corresponding mark was made in the passports by the registry office.

By 1937, the passportization of the population in certain localities was completed everywhere by the government, the passport machines completed the tasks that were assigned to them.

In December 1936, the passport department of the Main Directorate of the RKM of the NKVD of the USSR was transferred to the external service department. In July 1937, local passport machines also became part of the departments and departments of the worker-peasant police departments. Their employees were charged with the daily maintenance of the passport regime.

At the end of the 1930s, significant changes were made to the passport system. The administrative and criminal liability for violation of the rules of the passport regime became tougher.

On September 1, 1939, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted the Law "On universal military duty", and on June 5, 1940, by order of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR, guidelines were announced that determined the tasks of the police in the field of military registration ...

In the military registration tables of police departments (in rural areas and towns in the relevant executive committees of the Soviets), a primary account was kept of all those liable for military service and conscripts, personal (qualitative) registration of ordinary and junior commanding staff of the reserve.

Military accounting tables carried out their work in close contact with the district military commissariats. This work continued until the beginning of the Great Patriotic War(June 22, 1941).

The development of the passport system in the context of strengthening the administrative-command system in the USSR and during the period of perestroika in Russia

“NEW SELF-HOUSE” IN THE VILLAGE

The villagers were subjected to especially humiliating enslavement, since, according to the above-mentioned resolutions of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR No. 57/1917 of December 27, 1932 and No. 861 of April 28, 1933, in rural areas, passports were issued only in state farms and in territories declared “regime”. The rest of the villagers did not receive passports. Both regulations established a long, arduous procedure for obtaining passports for those seeking to leave the village. Formally, the law determined that “in cases where persons living in rural areas leave for a long-term or permanent residence in an area where the passport system has been introduced, they receive passports in the district or city departments of the workers' and peasants' militia at the place of their former residence for a period of for one year. After a one-year period, persons who have arrived for permanent residence receive passports at their new place of residence on a general basis” (paragraph 3 of the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR No. 861 of April 28, 1933). In fact, everything was different. On March 17, 1933, the decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR “On the procedure for otkhodnichestvo from collective farms” obliged the boards of collective farms “to exclude from the collective farm those collective farmers who arbitrarily, without an agreement registered with the collective farm board with economic agencies (this was the name of representatives of the administration who, on behalf of Soviet enterprises, traveled to villages and concluded agreements with collective farmers - V.P.) are abandoning their collective farms” 10 . The need to have a contract in hand before leaving the village is the first serious barrier for otkhodniks. The exclusion from the collective farm could not greatly frighten or stop the peasants, who had time to learn the hardship of collective farm work, grain procurement, wages for workdays, hunger in their own skin. The obstacle lay elsewhere. On September 19, 1934, a closed resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR No. 2193 “On registration of passports of otkhodnik collective farmers entering enterprises without contracts with economic agencies” was adopted. The traditional term “otkhodniks” camouflaged the mass exodus of peasants from collective farm “reservations”.

The Decree of September 19, 1934 determined that in passportized areas, enterprises could hire collective farmers who had gone into retirement without an agreement with economic agencies registered with the collective farm board, “only if these collective farmers had passports obtained at their former place of residence, and a certificate from the collective farm board about his consent to the withdrawal of the collective farmer. Dozens of years passed, instructions and regulations on passport work changed, people's commissars, and then ministers of internal affairs, dictators, bureaucrats, but this decision - the basis for attaching peasants to collective farm work - retained its practical force.

V. Popov. The passport system of the Soviet serfdom