Proving the cruelty and bloodiness of the Soviet regime, publicists used the law "on three spikelets" as an argument. According to a number of authors, this normative act was directly aimed at the destruction of the peasantry. However, in the works of researchers there is a different view of the situation.
Features of punishments
During the years of Stalinist repressions, the Criminal Code of the RSFSR operated. It established different punishments for different crimes. Responsibility for the theft, meanwhile, was rather small, one might even say that it was symbolic. For example, for theft of property without the use of technical means and without collusion with other persons, forced labor or prison for up to 3 months was provided for the first time. If the act is committed repeatedly or the material assets that are necessary for the victim are the subject of the encroachment, a punishment in the form of imprisonment for a period of up to six months was applied. For repeated theft or carried out using technical means, as well as by prior agreementsentenced to imprisonment for up to a year. The same punishment threatened the subject who committed theft without the specified conditions at the piers, stations, hotels, ships and wagons. For theft from a public or state warehouse, other storage using technical means or in collusion with other persons, or repeatedly, forced labor for up to a year or imprisonment for up to 2 years was imposed. A similar punishment was intended for subjects who committed an act without the specified conditions if they had special access to objects or guarded them, as well as during a flood, fire or other natural disaster. For especially large-scale theft from public / state warehouses and storage facilities, as well as with special access to them, using technical means or in collusion with other criminals, up to 5 years in prison were supposed. As you can see, the punishments were quite lenient even in the presence of serious circumstances. Of course, such sanctions did not stop the attackers. The problem was aggravated by the fact that as a result of collectivization a new type of property appeared - public. In fact, she was left without any legal protection.
Decree 7-8
The problem of theft is acute in the country. JV Stalin, in a letter to Kaganovich, substantiated the need to approve a new normative act. In particular, he wrote that recently the theft of goods on railway transport has become too frequent. The damage was estimated at tens of millions of rubles. Increasing cases of theftcollective farm and cooperative property. The thefts, as indicated in the letter, were organized mainly by kulaks and other elements who sought to undermine the state system. According to the Criminal Code, these subjects were considered as ordinary thieves, received 2-3 years of "formal" prison. In practice, after 6-8 months. they were successfully amnestied. JV Stalin pointed out the need for tougher responsibility. He said that further connivance could lead to the most serious consequences. As a result, a resolution of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of August 7, 1932 was adopted. Punishments for theft became significantly tougher. According to the normative act, for the theft of collective farm and cooperative property, up to 10 years in prison were provided for in the presence of extenuating circumstances. If the latter were absent, the highest measure was appointed. For such theft, execution with confiscation was supposed. The need to issue a normative act was determined by the instability in the state. Many people who are greedy for money tried to take advantage of the situation in every way and get as much benefit as possible.
Court practice
It is worth noting that the law "on three spikelets" (as it was called by the people) began to be rather fanatically applied by the authorities. From the moment of its approval to January 1, 1933, it was sentenced:
- To the highest measure - 3.5%.
- By 10 years - 60.3%.
- 36.2% received a less severe punishment.
It is necessary, however, to say that not all sentences to highermeasure were executed in the USSR. 1932 was, to a certain extent, a trial period for the use of the new normative act. General instances issued 2686 sentences to capital punishment. A large number of decisions were made by linear transport courts (812) and military tribunals (208). Nevertheless, the RSFSR Supreme Court revised almost half of the sentences. The Presidium of the CEC issued even more acquittals. According to the records of Krylenko, People's Commissar of Justice, the total number of people executed did not exceed 1,000.
Case review
A quite logical question arises: why did the Supreme Court begin to review the decisions of lower instances? This happened because the latter, applying the law "on three spikelets", sometimes reached the point of absurdity. For example, a serious punishment was imposed on three peasants who were characterized by the accusation as kulaks, and by the certificates presented by them themselves as middle peasants. They were convicted for taking a boat that belonged to a collective farm and going fishing. A serious sentence was also passed on the whole family. People were convicted for fishing in the river that flowed next to the collective farm. Another absurd decision was made against a young man. He "played with the girls in the barn, thereby causing concern to the piglet that belonged to the collective farm." Since collective property was inviolable and sacred, the judge sentenced the young man to 10 years in prison "for disturbing". As Vyshinsky, the famous prosecutor of that time, points out in his pamphlet, all these cases were consideredjudges as an encroachment on public material values, although in fact they were not. At the same time, the author adds that such decisions are constantly canceled, and the judges themselves are removed from their posts. Nevertheless, as Vyshinsky noted, all this reality is characterized by an insufficient level of understanding, a limited outlook of people capable of passing such sentences.
Examples of solutions
The accountant of one of the collective farms was sentenced to 10 prisons for negligent attitude to agricultural equipment, which was expressed in partial leaving it in the open. At the same time, the court did not establish whether the instruments were partially or completely unusable. A bag handler from one of the collective farms released bulls into the street during harvesting. One animal slipped and broke its leg. By order of the board, the ox was slaughtered. Narsud sentenced the volker to 10 years in prison. One of the ministers also fell under the law of "three spikelets." Having climbed the bell tower to remove the snow from it, he found there corn in 2 bags. The minister immediately reported this to the village council. People who found the third bag of corn were sent to check. The minister was sentenced to 10 years. The head of the barns was sentenced to ten years for allegedly hanging people. The audit revealed 375 kg of excess grain in one of the storage facilities. When considering the case, the people's court did not take into account the statement of the manager about checking the rest of the barns. The defendant argued that due to the incorrect description of the statements in anotherstorage should be lack of grain in the same amount. After the verdict was passed, the manager's statement was confirmed. One of the collective farmers was sentenced to 2 years in prison because he took a handful of grain into his palm and ate it, because he wanted to eat and was exhausted, not having the strength to work. All these facts can act as evidence of the cruelty of the then existing regime. However, illegal and meaningless in their essence, the sentences were canceled almost immediately after the adoption.
Government instructions
Sentences "for spikelets" were a manifestation of arbitrariness and lawlessness. The state demanded from justice workers not to allow the use of a normative act when this would lead to its discrediting. In particular, the law "on three spikelets" could not be applied in cases of theft in extremely small amounts or in the exceptionally difficult financial situation of the perpetrator. The local judiciary was extremely unskilled. Together with excessive zeal, this led to massive "excesses". However, at the state level, an active struggle was waged against them. In particular, authorized persons were required to apply Art. 162 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, which provided for more lenient punishments. The higher authorities pointed out to the lower ones the need to correctly qualify the acts. In addition, it was said about the unlawful non-application of the provision on mitigation of sanctions in a difficult life situation.
Famine in the USSR in 1932-1933
The situation in the country was extremely difficult. The plight was noted in the RSFSR, the BSSR, the North Caucasus, the Volga region, the South Urals, Western Siberia, and Northern Kazakhstan. In the Ukrainian SSR, official sources indicate the name "Holodomor". In Ukraine, in 2006, the Verkhovna Rada recognized it as an act of genocide of the people. The leadership of the former republic accused the Soviet government of deliberate extermination of the population. The sources indicate that this "artificial famine" led to huge multi-million casu alties. Later, after the collapse of the Union, this situation was widely covered in the media and various official documents. The Holodomor in Ukraine was regarded by many leaders as one of the manifestations of the aggressive policy of the Soviet government. However, as mentioned above, the plight also took place in other republics, including the RSFSR.
Bread Procurement
According to the results of research conducted by Doctor of Historical Sciences Kondrashin, the famine in the USSR in 1932-1933 was the result of not widespread collectivization. In some regions, for example, in the Volga region, the situation was due to forced grain procurement. This opinion is confirmed by a number of eyewitnesses of those events. The famine arose from the fact that the peasants had to hand over all the harvested grain. The countryside suffered greatly from collectivization and dispossession. In the Volga region, the commission on grain procurement under the leadership of the secretary of the Central Committee of the party Postyshev issued a resolution on the seizure of stocks from individual farmers -grain growers, as well as grain earned by collective farmers. Under fear of criminal punishment, the chairmen and heads of administrations were forced to transfer almost the entire crop to the state. All this deprived the region of the food supply, which provoked mass famine. The same measures were taken by Kaganovich and Molotov. Their decrees concerned the territories of the North Caucasus and Ukraine. As a result, a mass death of the population began in the country. At the same time, it must be said that the grain procurement plan for 1932 and the volume of grain actually harvested were significantly lower than in previous and subsequent years. The total amount of grain alienated from villages through all channels (markets, purchases, procurement) decreased by 20%. The volume of exports decreased from 5.2 million tons in 1931 to 1.73 in 1932. The next year it decreased even more - to 1.68 million tons. For the main grain-producing regions (Northern Caucasus and Ukraine), quotas for the number of harvestings were repeatedly reduced. For example, the Ukrainian SSR accounted for a quarter of the delivered grain, while in 1930 the volume was 35%. According to Zhuravlev, the famine was provoked by a sharp drop in crops as a result of collectivization.
Results of the application of the regulation
A note from the Deputy Chairman of the OGPU Prokofiev and the head of the economic department of the OGPU Mironov addressed to Stalin that from the cases of thefts solved in two weeks, special attention was paid to major crimes that occurred in Rostov-on-Don. Theft spread throughoutthroughout the local bakery system. Thefts were at mills, at the plant itself, in two bakeries, 33 stores where products were sold to the public. As a result of the inspections, the theft of more than 6 thousand poods of bread, 1,000 poods of sugar, 500 poods of bran, etc. was established. Such lawlessness took place due to the lack of clear reporting and control, as well as due to the criminal nepotism of employees. The workers' supervision, which was attached to the trading network, did not justify its purpose. In all cases, the inspectors acted as accomplices in crimes, putting their signatures on deliberately fictitious acts on the lack of delivery of bread, write-off of shrinkage, etc. As a result of the investigation, 54 people were arrested, of which five were members of the CPSU (b). In the branch of Soyuztrans in Taganrog, an organization of 62 people was liquidated. Among them were port employees, porters, drivers, most of whom were former kulaks, merchants, and criminal elements. As part of the organization, they stole goods transported from the port. The volumes of the stolen goods directly indicate that the participants in the crimes were clearly not peasants.
Conclusion
As a result of the application of the regulatory act, embezzlement on railway transport and theft of state farm property, material assets from artels and cooperatives began to decline. In January 1936, the mass rehabilitation of convicted people began. A resolution was adopted on January 16, according to which the relevant cases were checked. As a result, some of the convicts whose actions did not contain corpus delicti were released from prisons.
