Repression against Individual Peasants in 1937-1938 (on the Example of the Solton District of the Altai Region)

Abstract

The article, based on the microhistorical approach, investigates the reasons and scope of repressions carried out during the Great Terror against individual peasants, determines the mechanism for selecting victims from this group of rural population. As an example of the Solton district of the Altai Region shows, the main object of repressions against this category of population were local groups of individual farmers and representatives of the individual sector of rural economy who were in arrears in tax payments and supplies to the state and resisted the authorities when confiscating property to pay tax arrears. They showed the most stable and active rejection of the collective farm system, on various grounds including religious ones. The greatest scale of repression was acquired in areas with a low level of collectivization, like Soltonsky. Although the main role in the elimination of the individual sector was played by a significant increase tax collections from individual farms in the second half of the 1930s. Repressions of 1937-1938 were also an important factor in eliminating the individual sector of the rural economy and solving the tasks of socialist modernization related to the strengthening of collective farming.