Читать книгу The Soviet Passport - Albert Baiburin - Страница 29

As early as 1903, when living in London, Vladimir Ilich Lenin made clear his view on the existing passport system in Russia. His pamphlet, ‘To the Rural Poor’, contends:

The Social-Democrats demand that the people shall have complete freedom of movement and occupation. What does freedom of movement mean? It means that the peasant should be free to go wherever he pleases, to move to whatever place he wants to, to live in any village or town he chooses without having to ask for permission from anyone. It means that passports should be abolished in Russia too (in other countries passports were abolished long ago), that no local police officer or rural superintendent should dare to hinder any peasant from settling or working wherever he pleases. The Russian peasant is still so much the serf of the officials that he is not free to move to a town, or to settle in a new district. The minister issues orders that the governors should not allow unauthorized settlement! A governor knows better than the peasant what place is good for the peasant! The peasant is a little child and must not move without permission of the authorities! Is that not feudal dependence? Is it not an insult to the people when any profligate nobleman is allowed to lord it over grown-up farmers?¹

These words of the future leader of the revolutionary proletariat are always quoted whenever there is a discussion about the first stage of drawing up the new legislation.

Just a few days after the October coup in 1917, on 11 November,² the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) and the Council of People’s Commissars (SNK) jointly issued the decree, ‘On the Abolition of Class Distinctions and Civil Ranks’:

1. All classes and class distinctions, class privileges and class limitations, class organizations and institutions, as well as all civil ranks which have hitherto existed in Russia, are abolished.

2. All estates (noble, merchant, commoner, peasant, etc.), titles (prince, count, etc.), and designations of civil ranks (privy councillor, state councillor, etc.) are abolished, and in their places the inhabitants of Russia are to have one name common to all: citizens of the Russian Republic.³

Given that the passport system was based on class distinctions (there were different rules for registration for each class, as well as different residence permits), a decree doing away with social classes automatically precipitated the dismantling of the previous passport system. What was more, this was taking place at the very moment when movement of the population was at its greatest, because of the war and the shock of the Revolution, and when the second principle behind the passport system – tying the person down to a particular place – had ceased to operate. With the demise of the old passport system, the Empire’s whole system of registration and control of the population also vanished. Nevertheless, passports and other documents issued previously would continue to function for a long time in the new circumstances.⁴

Having effectively declared the internal passport system no longer valid, the new authorities set about erecting barriers between Soviet Russia and the outside world. As early as 2 December 1917, the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs (NKID) published a resolution stating that anyone wishing to enter the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR) would need a visa in their passport.⁵ From now on, the only foreigners allowed to cross into Soviet Russia were those whose passports had been approved by the sole Soviet representative abroad: Vatslav Vorovsky, who was based in Stockholm. Three days later, the People’s Commissar of the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD RSFSR),⁶ Grigory Petrovsky, issued an order forbidding ‘until further notice’ exit from the RSFSR without the permission of the local Soviets (Councils) for any citizen of a country that had been fighting against Russia.⁷

In his study of isolationism in the Soviet state, Yury Felshtinsky wrote:

This was a timid and cautious step by the inexperienced Soviet authorities. Towards the end of December 1917, they devised such positions on entry to and exit from the country as had never been known, neither in Russia, nor in Europe. Here, all at once, there were passports with photographs, and the appropriate stamps, and special permits with special signatures, special representatives of both the NKVD (internal affairs) and the NKID (foreign affairs); here provision was made to carry out searches and personal examinations of everyone, including women, old people and children. At least they followed international norms and made an exception for diplomats.⁸

In the first few years after the Revolution, the displacement of a huge mass of the population, through those wanting to resettle, refugees and emigrants, led to a complete collapse of control over migration. Many of these people had no documents at all that could confirm their identity. The Main Directorate of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Militia even had to issue a special circular, ‘What to Do With People Held for Not Having Papers’. It was addressed to all the heads of the militia’s regional directorates:

Under the tsarist regime, passports served only as a residence permit (Article 1 of the ‘Regulation on Passports’). Because of this there were various constraints on the population in terms of freedom of movement when searching for employment etc. At the present time, under the freedom of movement for citizens which has been recognized by the Soviet authorities, a passport or other residence permit (such as an employment book) can suffice as an identity document. And no-one should suffer repression or arrest for not having papers, as long as they do not belong to counter-revolutionary elements and if they do not have unserved criminal sentences or if there is no evidence of them avoiding military service. On the other hand, the militia should, without hindrance, provide written proof of identity to people who do not have it if they can show some appropriate evidence of their identity, including witness statements.¹⁰

Figure 2: Warrant for Stepan Arkhipovich Bolotov to inspect the activity of the Special Department of the VeCheKa⁹ attached to the 3rd Army of the Eastern Front in 1919, during the Civil War.

(Source: http://stopgulag.org.)

A wide variety of organizations had to issue all sorts of certificates for ‘working elements’. They divided into two types: ‘permanent’ and ‘special’. The permanent ones were meant to be the equivalent of identity documents. The special ones, or warrants (see figure 2), were issued by Party, government or military organizations to senior officials who had to travel from one place to another. They had a dual task: to confirm both the identity of the bearer and their authority. These warrants did not have a standard form, but as a rule they included the name, patronymic and surname of the bearer; their position in whichever organization had issued the warrant; the purpose of their mission; and their authority.

The first step towards the re-establishment of a means of registering the population was the Decree of the Council of People’s Commissars [Russ: Sovnarkom or SNK] of the RSFSR of 5 October 1918, ‘On Employment Books for Non-Working People’.¹¹ The publication of this Decree had been preceded in July of that year by the passing of the first Soviet Constitution. In paragraph ‘f’ of Article 3 of the Constitution, it states: ‘Universal obligation to work is introduced for the purpose of eliminating the parasitic strata of society and organizing the economic life of the country’. Article 18 of the Constitution declares: ‘The Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic considers work the duty of every citizen of the Republic, and proclaims as its motto: “He shall not eat who does not work.”’¹² In this context, the document, which showed a citizen had fulfilled their work obligation, had every chance of becoming the basic document for the Soviet person. This was exactly what was planned for the employment book. In the ‘Decree on Employment Books’ it is stated that since labour is the duty of every citizen of the republic, employment records will be used in place of passports and other identity documents (‘Article 1: To introduce employment books in place of the previous identity documents, passports and so forth’).¹³

It may seem strange that the first employment books were intended not for working people, but specifically for ‘non-working elements’. This was because first and foremost the Soviet authorities were concerned to observe the principle of the universal obligation to work. It was assumed that the victorious proletariat would observe this principle, but that the ‘non-working people’ would need to be put under special control. According to the Decree, this included the following categories:

1 those who lived on money not earned from labour, such as rental income or interest from capital;

2 people engaging in hired labour in order to make a profit;

3 members of the boards of corporations, companies or any kind of association, as well as the directors of such companies;

4 private traders, stockbrokers or any trading or commercial agents;

5 freelancers, if they are not performing any function deemed useful for society;

6 all those who do not have a clearly defined occupation, such as former army officers, cadets from military schools and colleges, former barristers and their assistants, private lawyers and other people in this category.14

All of the above categories were obliged to have an employment book, in which at least once a month details were entered about how they had carried out the ‘social work and obligations’ they had been given (this might be clearing the streets of snow, chopping wood or such like). Those who were not engaged in socially useful work had to report to the militia every week, where a mark would be made in the allotted place in the employment record.

Because the employment book had the status of the basic document for ‘non-working people’, if someone did not have one it was not possible to move about the country nor, more importantly, receive ration cards. In the prevailing conditions, this threatened them with starvation.¹⁵ In Article 5 of the Decree, it states, ‘Only on production of an employment book … do the non-working elements have the right to move or to travel, both on the territory of the Soviet Republic and within the confines of each settlement; and the right to receive ration cards.’¹⁶ In Article 8 it underlines once more that the employment book is their basic, and indeed only, legitimate personal document: ‘The employment book must be shown whenever an identity document is demanded.’ The Decree ends with an indication of the punishment that will follow should a non-valid identity document be produced: ‘People who fall into the category outlined in Article 1 and who are not entitled by the terms of this Decree to receive an employment book in exchange for a passport, or who produce false information about themselves or their activities, are liable to a fine of up to 10,000 roubles or a prison term of up to six months.’¹⁷ Paradoxically, ‘reliable evidence’ could be supported only by the old documents, which had been declared to be no longer valid.

‘The temporary work certificate for the bourgeoisie’ (as the employment book for non-working people was described on the form) included the following details about the bearer:

1 Name, patronymic, surname

2 Occupation before the Revolution

3 Title or rank before the Revolution

4 Property status

5 Age or date of birth

6 Place of birth

7 Place of permanent residence

8 Marital status

9 People listed in the employment certificate

10 Liability for compulsory service in the Red Army

11 On the basis of which documents the employment certificate was issued

12 By whom it was issued

13 Type of work assigned to the person.

Furthermore, there was a place on the form for registration of place of residence, monthly comments on how the work was carried out, and weekly observations about work attendance. It is not difficult to see that the collection of details in this unique document were meant to satisfy all the essential demands: not only to confirm the person’s identity and serve as a particular type of employment book, but also to guarantee that the regime could keep the holder under close observation. It is indicative that top of the list are those details that make up the ‘social status’ of the holder (occupation before the Revolution; title or rank before the Revolution; property status).

In December 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) passed the ‘Code of Labour Laws’, under which ‘every worker is obliged to have an employment book, in which will be entered observations about the work they have done and any awards or grants they have received’.¹⁸ The ‘Rules on employment books’ were added as an appendix to Article 80 of the Code. This referred to ‘normal’ employment books for genuine workers. They showed: surname, name and patronymic; date of birth; name and address of the trade union to which the worker belonged; and the category under which the trade union was placed for the payment of dues. The employment book was issued from the age of sixteen years, and if the worker left the job, they retained it.¹⁹ The type of information requested indicates that the draft was prepared without the participation of the NKVD. It is significantly different from what was demanded of the non-workers, most notably because of the lack of any information about their social status. There is also nothing in the Rules to say that the employment record replaces the passport and becomes the identity document.

Nonetheless, the idea that the employment book should act also as an identity document remained in force. This was supposed to happen with the introduction of the employment book in Moscow and Petrograd.²⁰ The first point in the Decree of 25 June 1919 declared:

All citizens of the RSFSR who have reached sixteen years of age must have an employment book, which confirms the holder’s participation in the process of production, serves as an identity document within the boundaries of the RSFSR, and gives the right to receive ration cards and the right to social benefits in the event of the loss of the ability to work or unemployment.

Note 1: Soldiers and sailors of the Red Army and Navy must have the same employment books as everyone else.

Note 2: Children who, according to the birth certificate or document issued by the registry office, are under sixteen years of age are entered into their mother’s employment book. If they have no mother, they are entered into the father’s book. If they have neither parent, they will be entered into the book of whoever is their guardian.

Note 3: In the event of the bearer moving to a place where employment books have yet to be issued, the book will serve solely as an identity document.²¹

Judging by Article 14 of the Decree, it should have been followed up by the instruction, ‘on the order of introducing employment books to take the place of passports and other identity documents’. However, even in Moscow and Petrograd the introduction of the employment book as an identity document came up against organizational difficulties and was not fully implemented. What was more, implementing the idea of the universal obligation to work was impossible without registration of all those who came under this obligation, and the authorities found themselves having to do battle with so-called ‘labour desertion’.

In a Resolution of the IX Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (RCP(B)), which took place in March–April 1920, the situation was summed up thus:

In view of the fact that a significant number of workers, in search of better food provisions … are leaving their workplace and travelling from one place to another … the Congress sees as one of the urgent tasks of the Soviet authorities … to carry out a planned, systematic, thorough and strict battle against labour desertion, in particular by publishing lists of deserters who have been punished; by creating teams of deserters for penal work; and finally, imprisoning them in a concentration camp.²²

This shows that the authorities were prepared to take brutal measures to bring the desired order into registering and controlling the workforce. However, the switch to the New Economic Policy demanded a different strategy in relation to the ‘labour reserves’. The idea of forcing people to remain at their workplace became a serious impediment to attempts to carry out plans to improve the economy. The plan to exchange the passport (or identity document) for the employment book was abandoned. From now on these two documents, which were so vital in Soviet life, were to develop separately.²³

Like the employment book, attempts to make the passport ‘the main document’ also saw some false starts. This is hardly surprising, given that this was tried against the background of the Civil War which was raging across Russia. The ‘Instruction on the Order for Distributing Passports and Temporary Certificates’ can be considered as the first attempt to do this. This was issued by the Main Directorate of the Soviet Workers’ and Peasants’ Militia of the NKVD in 1919. Passport booklets were designed on the basis of this Instruction, and they were then distributed by the various district police directorates in towns and the countryside. The passport had to contain the following details: (1) date of birth or age; (2) type of employment; (3) marital status; (4) children under the age of sixteen years; (5) liability for compulsory military service; (6) attitude to Article 65 of the Constitution (see below); (7) signature of the passport holder. Should the holder so wish, their photograph could be included.

Article 65 of the Constitution concerned people who had been denied voting rights.²⁴ These people were supposed to receive a passport with a special note under point six above. Only those for whom it was essential to have a passport were issued with one. However, this project, too, was not fulfilled, although a few individual passports were issued.²⁵

Throughout the country, people continued to use a wide variety of documents as proofs of identity: old residence permits; passport booklets; birth and marriage certificates; work passes; and all sorts of certificates and warrants issued by different departments of the new authorities. In January 1923, this was how the People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs, Alexander Beloborodov, described the situation in a note addressed to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP(B):

Since the start of 1922, the NKVD has been faced with the problem of the need to change the existing order on residence permits. The Decree of VTsIK and SNK of 28 June 1919 allowed for the introduction of employment books only in Petrograd and Moscow, whilst making no provision for any kind of documents anywhere else in the Republic, apart from a vague reference in Article 3 to the existence of the passport, on production of which an employment book would be issued. With the introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP) there was no point in issuing employment books in Moscow or Petrograd; furthermore, the decision to allow private trade and private production made it essential to have a much more exact registration of the urban population, and, consequently, the need to establish order, so that this registration could be carried out fully. On top of this, the practice of de-centralizing the issuing of documents led to the emergence of a wide variety of documents, both in appearance and contents; also, the certificates that were issued were so simple that it was very easy to forge them. This, in turn, greatly hampered the work of the investigating authorities and the militia. Taking all this into account, the NKVD drew up a draft document which, having been agreed with the relevant authorities on 23 February 1922, was passed to the SNK for approval. In the SNK Committee [Russ: Maly Sovnarkom] at its session on 26 May 1922, it was decided that it was pointless to introduce a single residence permit for the RSFSR…. Finally, on 14 September 1922 the question was brought once again before the Presidium of the VTsIK, and on this occasion the issue of the introduction of a single residence permit was put to one side and no directive was issued on this question. As a result, this matter has dragged on for the whole of 1922, yet no decision has been reached. The demand for a standardized document which can be used for identification is so great that in some places they have already begun to come up with their own solutions. Drafts have been drawn up in Petrograd, Moscow, the Turk-Republic, Ukraine, the Karelian Commune, the Republic of Crimea and a whole list of districts. Allowing a variety of identity documents for different districts and areas makes the work of administrative departments much more difficult and creates all sorts of problems for the local population.²⁶

Figure 3: Employment List, issued to Dina Isayevna Zakharina.

(Source: author’s personal archive.)

Apparently, the authorities were not ready to take decisive action to bring order to the system of documentation, especially as a year earlier (by the Law of 24 January 1922) all citizens of the Russian Federation were given the right of unrestricted travel across the whole territory of the RSFSR. This right was enshrined in Article 5 of the Civil Code of the RSFSR.²⁷ Nonetheless, a decree was prepared on the introduction of a single identity document for the whole country (known as the RSFSR VTsIK and SNK Decree of 20 July 1923). The previous decree on the introduction of employment books in Moscow and Petrograd was annulled. The new decree opened with an unusual article:

Government bodies are forbidden to demand that citizens of the RSFSR produce passports or other residence permits which might hinder their right to move or settle within the RSFSR. Note: Passports and other residence permits for Russian citizens within the RSFSR, as well as employment books, which were introduced by the decree of 25 June 1919 of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee and the Soviet of People’s Commissars are annulled from 1 January 1924.²⁸

In case of necessity, citizens could still receive an identity document, but this had become their right, not their obligation. In order to obtain the certificate, a citizen had to produce one out of a number of possible documents: in cities and smaller towns this could be a stamped or just an old birth certificate, house-management certificate, or proof of residence, work or service; in rural areas it was sufficient to show a birth certificate or certificate from the local soviet proving residence. If it were not possible to produce any documentation, the militia would give out a certificate which was valid for enough time for a replacement document to be issued. Article 21 stated that this should be no longer than three months, but in certain circumstances this could be extended by a further three months. Should all documents have been lost and if it were impossible to obtain a copy, an identity document could be issued on the strength of a court resolution, confirming surname, name, patronymic, date of birth and family status.²⁹

The identity document was issued either with no end date or for three years, and contained the following details: surname, name, patronymic of the holder; date of birth; place of permanent residence; occupation (main employment); liability for compulsory military service; marital status; and list of children under the age of sixteen who appeared in the parents’ documents. If the recipient so wished, their photograph could be inserted.

Figure 4: Student’s Certificate from 1918, issued to Ivan Ivanovich Yankovsky by Petrograd University.

(Source: State Museum of Political History.)

It is not difficult to see that the details in the certificate reflected almost exactly the same ones as were in the pre-revolutionary passport. All that is missing is ‘rank or title’ (social standing); but this is simply because these identity documents were issued only to ‘workers’. ‘Non-working elements’ were put into a particular category labelled ‘the disenfranchised’ [Russ: lishentsy]: people who had no political or civil rights. The ‘non-working elements’ included former landowners and merchants; NEPmen;³⁰ petty traders; former police officers, security guards or prison warders; and also former members of the clergy. They were registered on a special list until 1932, and it was only in the Constitution of 1936 that they were recognized as having equal rights.

The lack of an identity document did not lead to any legal consequences. What was more, because it was not compulsory to have such a document, its value as a document confirming identity was questionable, if only because it did not usually contain a photograph of the holder, nor the kind of written ‘portrait’ that was found in pre-revolutionary passports.³¹

Thus began a short period when citizens were effectively freed from the necessity to own a passport and they were not tied down to a particular place of residence. Such a situation was suitable for the ideas of the New Economic Policy and helped create the freedom essential for the development of market relations. A passport was needed only if a citizen were travelling abroad. The situation could not even be obstructed by the Resolution of the SNK RSFSR which was published two years later, on 27 April 1925, with the frightening title, ‘On the Registration [Russ: propiska] of Citizens to Live in Urban Settlements’.³² In line with this Resolution, the propiska could be issued on the basis of almost any document (from a trade union card to an employment book), which made it a mere formality. This did not exactly mean that the authorities could not use it to force a person to live in a particular place, but it made doing so very difficult.

Only now was it possible to say that the former passport system was dead. What Lenin had written about in 1903 had been achieved. The passport – which Lenin had described as ‘an outrage against the people’ – had become a thing of the past.³³ This was how Nikolai Vladimirovich Timofeyev-Resovsky summarized this period in his memoirs:

There was a time in the 1920s, it seems to have been Lenin’s influence [Lenin died in January 1924 – Tr.] … when we began to establish normal relations with other countries. A Soviet citizen could buy a passport for foreign travel for thirty-five roubles and travel and even receive healthcare wherever they wanted. From the winter of 1922–3 until the winter of 1928–9 we had virtually free access to foreign travel … Within the country, the employment book fulfilled the legal role of the internal passport. But for a few years, effectively the period of a five-year plan, we had freedom, more or less.³⁴

Yet only a short time would pass and the passport system would go from being ‘an outrage against the people’ to an essential ‘order of administrative registration, control and regulation of the movement of the population by means of the introduction of the latest passports’.³⁵

Figure 5: Identity document with no end date, issued to Antonina Ivanovna Savelyeva.³⁶ A stamp has been added at a later date stating that a passport was issued to the holder in 1933.