The authorities’ attitude towards the wealthy peasants of Volhynia during the NEP years in the context of the judicial land commissions’activities

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to analyze the activities of the judicial land commissions in Volhynia during the NEP period regarding wealthy peasant farms and the corresponding policy of the Bolsheviks’ government.

The research methodology is based on the important principles of the author's objectivity, as well as historicism and scientificity. The methods of analysis, synthesis, generalization, as well ascomparative (for analyzing statistics of peasant farms), historical, and systemic (for analyzing the relations of the authorities towards different groups of the peasantry) methods were used in the research process.

The scientific novelty lies in the fact that a comprehensive analysis of the activities of judicial land commissions in the Volyn province region, which have been little studied in historical science, in particular regarding the restriction of land use by wealthy peasant farms, has been carried out; the influence of the Bolsheviks’ government on these processes has been characterized. The activities of judicial land commissions in the region and in the Ukrainian SSR have not previously been the subject of separate studies.

The theoretical significance of the article lies in an attempt to conduct a deeper study of the relations between the Soviet authorities and wealthy peasants of Volyn during the NEP years, and the research of the authorities’ influence on the individual judicial bodies’ activities in order to implement their ideological principles.

Results. The functions, composition and dynamics of the activities of the judicial land commissions of Volyn during the NEP years have been analyzed. The attitude of the Bolsheviks’government towards wealthy peasants in the context of these commissions’ decisions has been characterized.

Based on the archival sources and literature used, an attempt has been made to study the judicial land commissions’ activities in the region during the mentioned period regarding the restriction of land use by wealthy peasants.

Conclusions. The attitude of the Bolshevik’s authorities towards the wealthy peasants of Volhynia was determined primarily by its ideological principles, which were formed during the first years of the communist regime. The authorities relied on the poor peasants, contrasting them with the wealthy, who were seen as a class enemy and opposition to the ruling regime. Poor peasants were involved in the process of seizing surplus land from wealthy peasant farms, working as a part of judicial land commissions.

The organization and activities of judicial land commissions in the region during the NEP years revealed a number of problems. One of the main ones was the lack of qualified personnel to work in the judicial system of this direction, which was difficult to solve. The so-called fours, created from the authorities’ representatives and the poor peasantry, were intended to accelerate the economic limitation of the wealthy peasantry role in Volhynia, to activate peasants who did not have enough land to testify against those who were wealthy farmers.

The authorities rushed the deadlines for making decisions by the judicial land commissions, giving them instructions on the priority consideration of cases regarding the seizure of surplus land from the "kulaks". In such conditions, the judicial land commissions had a significant number of other cases on land disputes that had not been considered on time, which caused dissatisfaction among the peasantry with their work.

Further research is required to study the problems of peasant land use in the Ukrainian SSR in the 1920s in the context of the judicial land commissions’ activities.