After the revolution of 1917, the life of the country was led by the Bolshevik Party, which won its power in the Civil War. Later, the Bolsheviks began to be called communists. The Soviets became the main link in the administration of the state. Therefore, the new government began to be called Soviet.
Examine the map of the USSR (c). Find the republics that were part of the Soviet Union.
RUSSIAN SOVIET FEDERAL SOCIALIST REPUBLIC (RSFSR) Estonian SSR Latvian SSR Lithuanian SSR Byelorussian SSR Ukrainian SSR Moldavian SSR Georgian SSR Armenian SSR Azerbaijan SSR Turkmen SSR Uzbek SSR Kazakh SSR Tajik SSR Kirghiz SSR
In the early 90s, a large-scale campaign began to restore the Cathedral of Christ the Savior on a historical site. Currently, we see a much "improved" copy of the former temple.
1. What state was formed on the territory of the former Russian Empire? 2. In what year was the Soviet Union formed? 3.How has people's lives changed? 1. What state was formed on the territory of the former Russian Empire? 2. In what year was the Soviet Union formed? 3.How has people's lives changed? 17 Panova Oksana Vladimirovna, primary school teacher, MAOU "Gymnasium 4", Veliky Novgorod Personal website:
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Once upon a time, the revolution radically changed the course of Russian history and largely influenced the history of the world, marking the beginning of a new era. For a hundred years, opponents and supporters of the revolution have been arguing about how the fate of our country would have developed if not for the significant events of February 1917. However, a revolution is not always a political phenomenon: sometimes we are faced with cardinal changes, breaking the foundations in everyday life. How the global “shake-ups” are experienced and how our respondents, participants of the XIV All-Russian Championship in business games for schoolchildren and students, relate to revolutions in history and life, was analyzed by “Monday”. |
| Text: Dina Okhtina, Anastasia Tuchkova |
- How do you feel about the revolution as a phenomenon? Do you think that revolutions are an integral part and engine of history?
- Do you like dramatic changes in anything? Do you consider yourself a revolutionary at heart? Could you stand at the head of a social movement, for example?
- Can you mark especially significant, revolutionary events in your life? Do you think it is events like these that shape our character and help us grow as individuals?
- Do you think the future belongs to revolutions? Or are they becoming less relevant nowadays?
Mikhail Simanin,
29 years old, English teacher:
I don't feel as good about revolutions as I do about reforms. This is too categorical method to change anything. I think that gradual transformations are possible, if everything is done thoughtfully and not flogged with a fever.
I treat cardinal changes with apprehension and distrust, my experience shows that they often have negative consequences. I myself am more of a reformer. I could lead the movement, but it is still important what it is.
There were no revolutionary changes in my life, but these changes were still more often spontaneous than conceived by me. Of course, such events change a person and help to grow.
I think small revolutions will always take place, they have not lost their relevance. And someone in the future will certainly have to lead some kind of revolution.
Marina Tovmasyan,
22:
- I believe that there should be revolutions, because after them something changes in society. And this prevents stagnation, even if something changes for the worse. However, I do not believe that revolutions should be destructive, resulting in casualties. Accordingly, I do not want that during the period of my existence there will be a revolution in the world, bearing an armed character. It turns out that such revolutions are not an integral part of any period in history. I do not consider myself a revolutionary, but I could stand at the head of the movement. I do not like changes, but I consider myself to be a person with a changeable opinion. For me, a significant event is moving to St. Petersburg and entering a university in this city. The future belongs to revolutions, because many institutions of society are not without flaws, something needs to be changed all the time. And sometimes - radically!
Boris Stolyarov,
14 years old, student of the school "Vash":
- Revolution as a phenomenon is an effective way to radically change power. Legalized actions, rallies and the like lead to nothing, because they are still held within the framework of existing procedures. In any period of history, only a revolution can truly change something. And at this moment and in any other period.
In general, I don't think anyone likes change. Especially if everything is good: in order to want to change something, it must become bad. Personally, I am not a revolutionary and, probably, I could not lead a movement - there are no necessary qualities.
Have there been any revolutionary events in my life? Maybe yes. Transition to the school "Sway". Gathered and done. And now everything is fine. Such events greatly change both life and personality. I changed. In my opinion, revolutions are both the past and the future.
Ivan Usachov,
21 years:
- Revolution as a phenomenon is a natural process in the development of society, thought, creativity. You can treat it differently, it's stupid to deny it. The revolution brings cardinal changes in any of the areas - and not always positive ones. If we talk about a political, social revolution, then this is a colossal destabilization of society. A revolution, even in the minds of its creators, does not always have a single goal, since revolutions with one iconic figure are the fate of the 20th century. Now the revolution is carried by the mass media and the Internet. Of course, there are bright personalities, but this is not the work of one person. A revolution is neither good nor bad, because if it happened, then monstrous mistakes were made in management, which means that the old way of life turned out to be unviable.
In any period of history there are, have been and will be revolutions. The question remains only how it will be called in the future. The overthrow of power is a revolution. New technology is a revolution. The new administration is a revolution. There are many options for the name of this process, but the essence of this is unlikely to change much.
Inertia is inherent in any person to one degree or another. The question is again in the idea. I don't think it's worth making small changes and wasting your life on them. If you do make changes, then they should be colossal - relatively speaking, dividing your life into “before” and “after”. Extreme measures, drastic changes, whatever you want. “They stopped throwing garbage on the streets all over the country” or “began to comply with traffic rules”, “laws began to work” (the consciousness of all the people of this country has changed) is a good change. And half-hearted measures of the level “you don’t litter, and everyone won’t”, “you don’t violate, and everyone won’t” in the end, except for your personal changes, will not lead to anything - these are bad changes.
I don't consider myself a revolutionary. Social movements are a waste of time. If you want to change something, in any case, you will need the authorities, or at least cooperation with them. With power comes the power to change something.
For me, significant events are what happened for the first time. Plus, I would add here the factor of success in any first business. What kind of change is the future depends on the scope of the revolution. A child can become a revolution for a person, a new system for the state, a new direction for art, it all depends on the situation. But in the future, of course, there will be more and more innovators, not revolutionaries. And so far, apparently, these people will only be in the West.
Julia:
- The revolution can affect both the country and the individual, both good and bad. On the one hand, it brings some innovations, on the other hand, it can lead to destruction and even death. I have a mixed feeling, but the revolution is an integral process, without it there would be no history that we have now.
My attitude towards change depends on the changes themselves - whether they are positive or negative. But I believe that even if it seems that something happens by chance, it is no coincidence. I am a revolutionary at heart. I want to change the world. Of course, I can’t say that at the moment of my life I could become the leader of any movement, but I would like to do it. Of course, there is a certain fear of overestimating one's strengths. It's hard to be a leader. This is a great responsibility.
There were important events in my life, but they can hardly be called revolutionary. For example, I go in for equestrian sports and have recently discovered new directions for myself. For me it was a kind of rethinking of the equestrian world, and he means a lot to me. I believe that revolutionary events in our lives shape character and personality. I think the revolutions have not become less relevant, but I would not say that the future belongs to the revolution. History can be changed by smooth reforms.
Ruslan Bekkuzin,
student:
— I'm more of a supporter of gradual reforms. Yes, revolution is an integral part of the historical process. Without it, the movement in history takes place, but not so dynamically. Dramatic changes ... A difficult question. I am ambivalent about everything. Subjectively, I don't like it when, for example, I am evicted from my home. But objectively I understand that it teaches independence. I am not a revolutionary myself. Revolution suggests that you must be able to suppress others. What does it mean to lead a movement? Set an example, be above others and be responsible for the people you lead. It's complicated. Significant changes often occur in my life. For example, I left the university after six months of study, worked in unexpected positions for myself and was recently evicted from my home. Subjectively, I don't like it, but on the other hand, it's an invaluable experience. There is nothing unambiguous in the world, in my opinion. Theoretically, one can do without a revolution, but in practice, I think, more than one revolution will happen on our Earth.
Aigul Dresvyanina,
20 years:
- I have a negative attitude towards the revolution as a phenomenon. In my opinion, this is a kind of war, rebellion. And it doesn't end well for some people. But the revolution is part of the historical process. Thanks to her, we once were able to change the country and the world.
I usually change something because I really want to. And sometimes very cool! But when I don't do it, I feel uncomfortable. I can’t say that I am a revolutionary at heart, but at the same time I have a habit of flying to another country just like that, without planning, and I can cut my hair without any prerequisites. And yes, I probably could lead a riot or a social movement if something touches me to the core.
In my opinion, if we talk about the country as a whole, then we live in peace and at a time when there are few wars. I believe that it is not necessary to resort to revolutions, because there are more humane ways. Why subject people to such torment? Although, in order to radically change something, perhaps sometimes a revolution can be considered justified.
Shamima Nurmamadova,
23 years:
- I treat revolutions as a certain period in any developing society. It seems to me that the revolution creates history, therefore it is an integral part of it. Regarding changes, I can say that I love them if they are really needed. But at the same time, I could not lead any movement, because I am not as brave as I should be for this. Revolution means turn, upheaval, transformation, conversion. My arrival in St. Petersburg and studying here is a revolutionary event in my life.
In my opinion, the future lies with revolutions or not, depends on the direction in which the actions of potential revolutionaries are directed and for the sake of what this is all happening. If for the good of the country, the world, then, of course, they will always be relevant.
Venus,
55 years old, theater director:
- On the one hand, a revolution is very good, because it carries a strong energy charge, on the other hand, it can destroy everything in its path. But without her, nowhere. Everything must develop, and when it happens that energy accumulates, but there are obstacles to its implementation, a revolution occurs. Reform requires wise rulers, but they are often unwilling to make concessions.
I treat changes differently, depending on what kind they are. I'm probably a revolutionary at heart and could lead some movement. I tend to do this.
There was such a thing in my life that I could break everything and start doing something completely new. Events like these shape a person and change a life. But I would like everything to go smoothly, although sometimes a revolution is simply necessary. I hope that the future belongs to human wisdom, and not to revolutions.
Elizabeth:
- Any process without sharp jumps, such as a revolution, cannot have progress. Without ups and downs, the development of the state is impossible.
I do not like constancy and immutability, but I am afraid of cardinal changes. The fear is that you have to adapt to something new, and this is not always easy. I am a bit of a revolutionary, but I could not lead a movement, because it is a big responsibility. I would rather stand behind someone's back and help. A social movement can lead to the decline of the state and society, and I am not ready for this.
Significant events took place in my life, but they are connected with spiritual and psychological development. After adolescence, there is a kind of revolution inside, and you change. I agree that such events form the character. If a person does not make any changes within himself, then he will not be able to develop further, learn about the world and create something new.
Revolution is the future, that's for sure! Now there is a certain illusion of freedom, which in fact is not. When a revolutionary is found who can change everything, a new future will begin.
Artem Sorokov:
“Unfortunately, I am not bad at the revolution. Previous revolutions have changed a lot in history. They are part of the historical development, because it makes the society stir, leads to changes. I am not a revolutionary at heart. I could lead the movement, find the right people, but in fact, it's hard to get people to do something like that now.
There have been no events in my life that I could call revolutionary. But in general, I think such events make you live on. And learn to live differently!
The revolution is an integral part of history, I believe that significant steps in the future will be made in this way. But in our country, I hope, changes will occur through innovation, that is, the partial introduction of something new.
Anna Patrakova,
literature teacher:
- Revolutions are good to study, to look at them from the outside, but to live during revolutions is bad. Therefore, I treat them ambivalently. As a historian I am interested in the revolution, but as a person I am afraid of it. Unfortunately, throughout its history, humanity has proved that it is impossible to educate or train it. It can only rebel and begin to live in a new way.
I love change and in my heart I can call myself a revolutionary. But to lead the movement ... I'm more of a follower than a leader and a reformer. But I really like to go to rallies and recharge with the energy of people from the podium. I had a favorite revolution - the French, and I knew a lot about it. But that was in youth, and in youth we all love revolutions.
Going to Swing School was one of the most revolutionary experiences of my life. It changed me a lot, I became more free and liberated.
I think that the future belongs to the revolution, it is already predicted in our country. Unfortunately, peacefully it is impossible to change something fundamentally. It is necessary to change only sharply and radically.
Anastasia Tarasova:
- I am very ambivalent about revolutions, they have both good and bad sides. A revolution is first and foremost about change. They arise when people are not satisfied with something. I think revolutions can occur in almost any period of history. Sooner or later, any system fails or reaches a dead end - and then the time for revolutions comes.
Whether I like changes or not depends on their nature. I am not a revolutionary at heart, it seems to me that I would not be able to fundamentally change even my way of life, not to mention changing society as a whole. I would not be able to lead the movement - I do not see leadership qualities in myself.
There have been no revolutionary events in my life yet. Revolutions are part of history, and therefore they are the future. I really would not want a revolution to happen, but it is very possible that it will, and maybe even in our country.
Ilya Ochkovsky,
15 years:
Revolution is a twofold phenomenon, it all depends on the position from which you consider it. If you are a revolutionary, then it is good, if you are a ruler, it is bad. Another revolution is always sacrifices, but without this one cannot achieve victory.
Changes in the life of society do not concern me yet, so I am neutral about them. Whether I am a revolutionary or not depends on the circumstances. Right now, while everything is fine, no. But I could lead a social movement. Leadership skills, influence, oratory, ability to win, trust - that's what a leader needs, and I have it all.
I think that revolutions will never lose their relevance, because there will always be discontent and conflicts in society. Of course, it is possible to make changes through reforms, but those who are in power will not want to change the regime that is comfortable for them, so only revolution remains.
Yuri Radaev,
head teacher of the school "Vash":
- I recognize and consider lawful only one kind of revolution - a revolution in the mind of man. I hope everyone has experienced a moment when it becomes obvious what you were wrong about before. The transition from incomprehension to understanding is a revolution. Any other kind of revolution that takes place outside the person, as a rule, is associated with victims, but do they justify the result? Therefore, I am for a revolution in knowledge. I wish more for myself and those around me such revolutions in myself. If such changes occur in each of us, then the world around us will also be better. Long live the worldwide revolution within us!
The historical process, like any other, is impossible without revolution. It is always a transition from quantity to quality. New signs accumulate, and when there are a lot of them, there is a sharp transition - that is, a revolution. On the other hand, signs should accumulate in an evolutionary way, that is, gradually, naturally, without outside influence.
If a person undergoes such internal revolutionary changes, this is reflected in his way of life. Yes, I am a revolutionary, I love to change, but of course, this does not always work out. Social movement... I already had all this, and I consider it a delusion. All social upheavals happen not because people want to unite, but because they want to be like someone, and this changes these people. I would not want to lead such a movement.
There have been many revolutionary events in my life, both external and internal. They always accompanied each other. It is always a rethinking of something, a transition to something new. I do not regret anything. Nothing but growth, such events do not carry.
Ethnographic notes about the life of the Russian peasantry in the late XIX - early XX century show the existence of some white blacks in the country. People defecate in their huts right on the straw on the floor, they wash the dishes once or twice a year, and everything around the dwelling is teeming with bedbugs and cockroaches. The life of the Russian peasants is very similar to the situation of the Negroes in southern Africa.
The apologists of tsarism are very fond of citing the achievements of the upper classes of Russia as an example: theaters, literature, universities, inter-European cultural exchange and social events. That's right. But at most 4-5 million people belonged to the higher and educated classes of the Russian Empire. Another 7-8 million are various kinds of raznochintsy and city workers (the latter by the time of the 1917 revolution were 2.5 million people). The rest of the mass - and this is about 80% of the population of Russia - was the peasantry, in fact, a native mass without rights, oppressed by the colonialists - representatives of European culture. Those. de facto and de jure Russia consisted of two nations.
Exactly the same thing happened, for example, in South Africa. On the one hand, 10% of a well-educated and civilized minority of white Europeans, about the same number of their approximate servants from Indians and mulattos, and at the bottom - 80% of the natives, many of whom were even in the Stone Age. However, modern blacks in South Africa, who threw off the power of "terrible oppressors" in 1994, do not yet think of saying that they are also involved in the success of the white minority in building a "little Europe". On the contrary, blacks in South Africa are now trying in every possible way to get rid of the "legacy" of the colonialists - they are destroying their material civilization (houses, water pipes, agricultural estates), introducing their own dialects instead of the Afrikaans language, replacing Christianity with shamanism, and also killing and raping members of the white minority.
The same thing happened in the USSR: the civilization of the white world was deliberately destroyed, its representatives were killed or expelled from the country, in the ecstasy of revenge, the previously oppressed majority of the natives cannot stop until now.
It seems strange to the Interpreter's Blog that some of the educated people in Russia have begun to divide the country's population into "Russians" and "Soviet". After all, it would be more correct to call the first “Europeans”, and the second “Russians” (especially since the nationality was not indicated in the passports of the Russian Empire, but only religion was affixed; i.e. there was no concept of “nationality” in the country). Well, or as a last resort, tolerant "Russian-1" and "Russian-2".
According to the 1917 census, the peasants represented the largest estate (85% of the population). There were significantly fewer workers - 15 million. people, which is about 10% of the total population. But, the overwhelming majority of Russian workers were workers in the first generation and remained peasants in their type of thinking. Quite shortly before 1917 (in 1905) half of the male workers had land, and these workers returned to the village for the time of the harvest. A very large part of the workers lived a bachelor's life in the barracks, while their families remained in the countryside. In the city, they felt like "working".
Those. talking separately about the working class in Russia does not make sense - it simply did not exist in the sense in which we speak of it in our time.
The same can be said about the soldiers - they were formed primarily from the peasantry, they remained peasants in their souls.
Thus, 95% of the population of Russia were either peasants or those who led a "semi-peasant" way of life. It is their standard of living that is estimated at 27.5 years.
Why? After all, as you rightly note, the environment was beautiful - clean air and water.
But the only thing missing was food. The peasants had nothing to eat.
Let me quote A.N. Engelgardt's "Letters from the Village", who lived in the village at that time: "... you just can't believe how people live without eating. They didn't eat at all, but they are malnourished, they live from hand to mouth, they eat all sorts of rubbish... We send wheat, good pure rye abroad, to the Germans, who will not eat any rubbish ... But not only does the peasant eat the worst bread, he also malnourished."
“The American sells the surplus, and we sell the necessary daily bread. The American farmer himself eats excellent wheat bread, fatty ham and lamb, drinks tea, seizes his dinner with sweet apple pie or papusha with molasses. Our peasant farmer eats the worst rye bread with he slurps empty gray cabbage soup, considers buckwheat porridge with hemp oil to be a luxury, has no idea about apple pies, and he will even laugh that there are countries where sissy men eat apple pies, and farm laborers are the same Our muzhik farmer does not have enough wheat bread for a baby's nipple, the woman will chew the rye crust that she eats herself, put it in a rag - suck it.
And here is what Leo Tolstoy wrote, who sometimes said that famine sets in in Russia not when bread is not born, but when quinoa is not born: - black bread, inky black, heavy and bitter; everyone eats this bread - both children, and pregnant women, and nursing women, and the sick ... The farther into the depths of the Bogoroditsky district and closer to Efremov, the situation gets worse and worse .. "Almost everyone has bread with quinoa. The quinoa here is unripe, green. That white nucleolus that usually happens in it is completely absent, and therefore it is inedible. Bread with quinoa cannot be eaten alone. If you eat one bread on an empty stomach, you will vomit. From kvass but those made with flour and quinoa make people go crazy. Here the poor yards have eaten their last meal in September. But these are not the worst villages either."
It should be noted that reliable information about the real life of the peasants at that time reached society from the military. Roughly speaking, from the military registration and enlistment offices of that time. They were the first to sound the alarm due to the fact that the onset of capitalism led to a sharp deterioration in nutrition, and then the health of peasant conscripts into the army. They were the first to point out one of the reasons for this - it turned out that 40% of peasant boys taste meat for the first time in their lives in the army.
It may surprise you, but the peasantry and capitalism are two ANTAGONISTS, they cannot exist together. We are now seeing this in our country (the incredible impoverishment of the countryside), but the same thing happened in Russia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, moreover, it was the same in other countries. Private property and capitalism mean the rapid and direct destruction of the peasantry, with massive suffering and inevitable cruelties.
Here is what the historian of the peasantry V.P. Danilov writes when he recalls the experience of capitalism during the privatization of land in England: a gallows, or a block of wood with an ax, where they chopped off the heads of those who did not agree with the fencing.
After the abolition of serfdom in 1861, the peasants were left almost without land. A "temporarily liable" state was approved - the peasants were obliged to continue corvée or quitrent until the land was redeemed. For some reason, they decided that it would last 9 years, and during this time the peasants would save up money for the ransom. In fact, this dragged on until 1881, and a law on compulsory redemption had to be issued.
What does this really mean? This means that the peasant gave half of the harvest immediately as rent for the land, and from the second half he had to pay taxes and set aside the money needed to buy the land. Redemption payments were very large, for example, in 1903 redemption payments for land amounted to 89 million rubles. - almost half of what Russian agriculture received for the export of bread.
But, even despite this, after the reform of 1861, the situation of the peasants improved somewhat, their economy, in general, went uphill, productivity increased, all this also affected nutrition.
But then more and more peasants began to feel the onset of capitalism. Railways began to "suck out" agricultural products through taxes. The peasantry was the main source of resources for capitalist industrialization, and the marketability of their economy was artificially increased by monetary taxes and taxes. Those. Roughly speaking, taxes and rents were so huge that the peasant was forced to sell almost the entire crop so that he would not be driven off the land. A unique situation arose in Russia - food producers did not have the opportunity to consume it themselves. A massive famine began to arise, which the peasants DID NOT KNOW BEFORE (as, however, they did not know the famine before capitalism either in Europe, or in India, or in the Aztec empire).
Here is what the historian V.V. Kondrashin said at an international seminar in 1995: “The impoverishment of the peasantry as a result of exorbitant state payments, a sharp increase in land rental prices in the late 90s of the XIX century .. - all this put the mass of peasants before a real threat of poverty. "State policy towards the countryside ... had the most direct impact on the financial situation of the peasantry and the onset of starvation disasters."
Until 1917, the entire crop was mercilessly confiscated from the village. All more or less developed countries that produced less than 500 kg of grain per capita imported grain. Russia in the record-breaking 1913 had 471 kg of grain per capita and still exported grain. Even in 1911, in the year of an extremely severe famine, 53.4% of all grain was exported.
Even in the "normal" years, the situation was difficult. This is evidenced by the very low level of the officially established "physiological minimum" - 12 pounds of bread with potatoes per year. In a normal year, 1906, this level of consumption was recorded in 235 counties with a population of 44.4 million.
LOOK AT THIS number!
Only 12 pounds (192 kg) of food per person per year! This is 0.5 kg per day. If anyone does not remember, a serving of mashed potatoes in the student canteen weighs 0.2 kg, and a slice of bread - 0.1 kg. So imagine that you eat two such portions a day throughout the year. What if within a few years?
And, I emphasize, it was a normal year, without famine, with a good harvest.
It becomes clear that clean water and a healthy environment will not help much here. Health will inevitably be undermined.
The indignation of the peasants was no longer the fact that they had to eat bread with quinoa and fur bread (with chaff, from unweathed grain), but the fact that "there was no white bread on the nipple" - a baby. In scientific terms, the entire surplus and a significant part of the necessary product was withdrawn from the village.
That is why in 1902 a period of uprisings passed through the entire black earth zone of Ukraine and the Center. In fact, a peasant revolution began, against the background of which 1905 came.
It was a purely peasant revolution, a revolution of the hungry. Now little is known about this revolutionary movement of 1905-1907. But at that time, hundreds of peasant Soviet (because they were ruled by the Soviets of Peasants' Deputies) republics arose, which for half a year had full power in vast zones. The history of Soviet Russia began in the countryside in 1905.
Under these conditions, in 1906, Prime Minister Stolypin began his harsh reform to destroy the community. He just went for broke. After all, the reform was supposed to create "strong masters" - but at the same time a mass of ruined people. And it was immediately clear that if the reform was not crowned with success, its result would be an even more powerful action by the peasantry. What actually happened in 1917, when the Soviets of Soldiers' and Workers' Deputies (that is, read - peasants with weapons in their hands, because in the 3rd year of the war, almost all young villagers were either shaved into soldiers, or leaned on earnings in the city), took power into their own hands.
In general, that peasant revolution - and it was one revolution of 1905 - 1917, and not two, as we were taught at school - it was the beginning of a world wave of peasant wars, caused precisely by the resistance of the peasant traditional society against the destructive impact of capitalism (against "peasantization").
Alexander Faleev
"Life has become a continuous adventure on a desert island, a continuous struggle for existence, caring for clothes, food and a firebox."
This is how she described life after the revolution in her diary for 1919–1921. graduate of the Higher Women's Courses, daughter of a Voronezh teacher Zinaida Denisievskaya. The same motif of isolation, sudden isolation from the usual life sounds in the memoirs of Nina Berberova, whose father was a major ministerial official from St. Petersburg: “I was quite clearly aware that shreds remained of me, and of Russia - that small piece where we now lived, without the possibility of a date or correspondence with those who lived on the other side of the civil war front”.
Nina was sixteen years old when a revolutionary wave washed her overboard of her former existence and threw her onto an unknown shore. Many of those whom the Soviet authorities gave the designation "former people" ended up on the same shore. Aristocrats, nobles, officers of the White Army, clergy, merchants, industrialists, officials of the monarchical apparatus and a number of other social groups fell into this category. All these people were waiting for a cold, cruel terra incognita - an inhospitable darkness in which they had to grope and get food with their own hands. The old knowledge, the old skills suddenly became useless baggage, which had to be got rid of as soon as possible - in order to survive.
“What have I been taught? I was not taught how to get my own food, how to elbow my way in lines for rations and a spoon, for which I had to give a deposit; they didn’t teach me anything useful: I didn’t know how to sew felt boots, or comb out lice from children’s heads, or bake pies from potato peels ”. And Nina, and Zinaida, and thousands of other girls, girls and women overnight turned out to be "former" and daughters of "former" fathers - "former" landowners, teachers, doctors, writers, lawyers, merchants, actors, patrons, officials, many of whom the new life made "perfectly transparent, with deeply sunken eyes and a heavy smell."
Nina Berberova
What was this island inhabited by the "former"? How did the revolutionary events, the civil war and the change of power change (more precisely, distorted) the living conditions of women of “undesirable” origin? How and where did they live (more precisely, survive) in the new “kingdom of hungry, chilly, sick and dying people”, which replaced the previous monarchy? How did they feel in a world where there was no longer a place for them - and, most importantly, what did they themselves say about it?
The revolution brought with it total chaos, in which cities more and more plunged. Telephone communication was cut off, problems with transport began: rare trams were overcrowded, a cab could only be obtained for a lot of money. Pharmacies, shops and shops, factories and enterprises were closed or empty. Zinaida Gippius called Petersburg a grave, the process of decomposition in which inevitably goes further and further. Many eyewitnesses wrote about life after the revolution in similar words: as a decaying, sick other world filled with shadow people wandering aimlessly in the cold hell of the unknown.
Zinaida Gippius Nina Berberova, 1917:
“It is difficult and sad to tear oneself away in these years (sixteen years) from what one has become accustomed to: cut off friendship, leave books, leave the city, the beauty and grandeur of which in recent months have begun to darken from broken windows, boarded up shops, toppled monuments, removed doors and long sullen lines.
Sophia Clark, a relative of Savva Mamontov, 1917:
“The silence in the city was deathly. All closed. No banks, no shops, and no money to buy anything. The future was completely unknown. Sometimes it seemed that “the worse, the better,” that the Bolsheviks would not last long in power. The bourgeois newspapers ran out: Russkoe Slovo, Russkiye Vedomosti. Only the news of the Soviet of Workers' Deputies came out. But there was little news. There was hunger and cold, there was no heating. We, fortunately, had firewood stacked in the yard, but they could not be enough for a large house for a long time. It was scary to go out at night. In the dark they stopped, took off their coats.
Elena Dulova, daughter of Prince G.N. Dulov, violinist and professor at the Moscow Conservatory, about February 1919:
“Moscow was drowned in snowdrifts… In the middle of the streets, thin, emaciated people were quietly wandering… The trams weren’t running.”
Zinaida Denisievskaya, March 1922:
“I'm tired. And it is strange for me to return from Death to life. I don't really know if it's worth going back to. There is something unbearably ugly, ugly in the general atmosphere of life, specifically Russian today, - in these thin, hungry people who lose their human appearance, in these rampant passions - profit, revelry and debauchery of the minority, in this swamp of illiteracy, ignorance, wild egoism , the stupidity of theft, etc.”
One of the main problems was the cold. When the supply of firewood ran out, every log, every chip became worth its weight in gold. The temperature in the apartments reached minus. Hospitals were not heated. It was extremely difficult to warm up the icy rooms: it took a lot of work to kindle a stove or a cast-iron. Furniture was sawn for firewood, books were burned. Heat has become a luxury available to few.
"Hunger and coldness of mind and body."
"Cold and cold. Fear of internecine war, before the loss of loved ones ... "
“Life - has become the firebox of stoves, cooking and mending clothes ... Fighting the cold ...”
“I already understood that the cold is heavier than hunger. Hunger and cold together are nothing before spiritual suffering.”
“There is an uncertain mood in the city. Everyone is absorbed in the thought of the firebox and the food.”
In this situation, it was extremely difficult to observe the simplest rules of personal hygiene. Nadezhda Mandelstam recalls what efforts had to be made in order to “to wash in a huge city, where the first thing they did was destroy all the bathrooms. We bathed standing on one leg and putting the other under the cold water faucet.” Public baths closed due to lack of fuel. “... Water supply and sewerage froze in the frozen apartments. The latrines were terrible cesspools. It was proposed to all citizens to spill them with boiling water. In the end, it turned out that the garbage dumps turned into public latrines..
The poetess Vera Inber recalled:
“In those years, I felt very bad: I completely ceased to understand why I live, and what will happen next. In addition, there was still nothing to live on. Things flowed out of the house uncontrollably, like water, we ate at first curtains, tablecloths, and finally a piano.
In the new - but not marvelous - world, trade has become one of the main ways of subsistence. Extreme need forced to sell everything to the skin. “There is something you need”, “there was nothing to live on”, “there is almost nothing”. Everything flowed to the market: jewelry, clothes and shoes, books and paintings, furniture and curtains, carpets and violins, silverware and sets. Carefully kept family jewels in difficult conditions of existence became just things that could be sold or exchanged for food. In the face of hunger, objects from a past life lost their meaning and their former significance. Books and beautiful expensive furniture turned into firewood for heating an apartment, gold and silver into millet and potatoes. Lyubov Mendeleev, in the struggle "for their daily bread" and in order to feed Alexander Blok, who was engaged in the service of the revolution, did not spare five chests of her acting wardrobe, nor "a carefully selected collection of old scarves and shawls", nor the "adored" string of pearls. “Today I was selling a grandmother’s bracelet (from my mother’s side) at the Smolensk market - the only little thing that survived for me ... I didn’t feel sorry for her, just as I don’t feel sorry for any of our philistine belongings. But mortally tired of constantly needing,- writes Maria Belotsvetova, wife of the poet and anthroposophist N.N. Belotsvetova, who in exile led the Russian anthroposophical group in Berlin.
Barricades near Leontievsky Lane T.M. Kardinalovskaya recalls how, after the revolution, she had to exchange for bread and milk the order of her father, an officer who had already died at the front by that time, including the Order of the White Eagle, "the highest order in the tsarist army." Belotsvetova talks about the theater artist Korsha Martynova: “The poor old woman is forced to sell, exchange for potatoes and bread the ribbons brought to her with flowers and gifts ... In what state did something like this happen?! ..”.
“Grandma had unique things, silver, family. Some are gold. Family jewelry, necklaces, bracelets. Silverware and table glass made in Italy God knows what century. The thinnest. You blow - it will fly apart. You touch him - he sings. It passed from generation to generation. All this was stored in long large boxes lined with velvet inside. Grandmother would curtain the windows so that nothing could be seen from the outside, and then she would only open these boxes, ”- Marina Durnovo, the granddaughter of Prince Golitsin, writes about her childhood. All these things - everything that remained "beautiful or expensive" - her grandmother gradually sold in foreign embassies. “And with the money I earned, I brought home food, food, because we had nothing to live on.”
Sukharevsky Market in Moscow during the Civil War Here is what Raisa Monas, who came from a Jewish merchant family (her father owned a hotel in Minsk), recalls about the situation in post-revolutionary Odessa, where she ended up after fleeing her native city:
“With the advent of the Bolsheviks, the food situation deteriorated sharply, I remember one period when we ate only corn and tomatoes. The financial situation was extremely difficult: the Kerenki, which were still in use under the Whites, immediately disappeared, the black market flourished, and because Soviet rubles were worth nothing, everyone was selling the foreign currency they still had in order to be able to buy food every day. The manufactory also disappeared: in the spring of 1921, when I was graduating from high school, they sewed a dress for me from a sheet ... ".
By the way, the sheet was not the most exotic material from which clothes had to be sewn at that time. Dresses were even made from gauze for dressings, underwear was made from pharmacy tracing paper, father's trousers were reshaped into skirts. In total poverty, in a situation where the entire wardrobe to the skin - in the literal sense - was sold, women were left with only cast-offs and dreams of such luxury as stockings and good shoes. “If a rag fell into our hands, an unbridled imagination immediately played out, as if from it, longed for, to make something beautiful and suitable for all occasions”,- recalls Nadezhda Mandelstam. “I had only two dresses with me, one of them was called a dress dress, since I rarely wore it and only on formal occasions, and the second consisted of a blouse and a black velvet skirt, exactly the one that Katya the cow stole from me in the first days of the revolution, and then returned. From long and constant wear, the fabric on the knees began to rub, and in these places the velvet turned red.- writes Matilda Kshesinskaya, prima ballerina of the Imperial Theaters, in the past - the owner of two dressing rooms.
It was necessary to trade constantly - it was usually not possible to live on the proceeds with the rapidly rising prices for a short time. “My legs are swollen and tomorrow, if something unexpectedly successful doesn’t happen, I’ll have to go to Smolensky to trade ...”,- Maria Belotsvetova complains to her diary. As A.A. Salnikova, "trade and exchange of things at the flea market is gaining a special place in the lives of girls in this terrible time." In the memory of Elena Dulova, 1918-1919 remained as "the most nightmarish period in the four-year famine." A little girl ran every day to visit her mother in the hospital - barefoot. Winter things had to be sold to a neighbor in order to buy apples, semolina and milk for a sick mother at the Smolensk market.
Consequences of fighting in Moscow Zinaida Gippius, a brilliant and extravagant poetess, the queen of St. Petersburg literary salons, who posed for Bakst and Repin, was forced to sell everything, even old shoes: “They don’t give one and a half thousand, they are small. Gave it cheap. There is something to be done." But trade was bad for Zinaida Nikolaevna, like for many of the “former” ones: “I don’t know how, sales are going badly.” It is difficult to join commerce for those who were brought up differently and for another. However, often there was simply no other way to get money. Skills acquired in a past life that could come in handy (for example, proofreading) brought a negligible income: “I spent 14 nights over some French novel, translated by a hungry young lady. This penny (for 14 nights I received about a thousand leninok, half a day of life) will not unravel. It is more profitable to sell old pants.
In addition, the situation was complicated by periodic bans on free trade, roundups, shootings and murders in the markets. These circumstances contributed to the flourishing of illegal trade and speculation. Here is how Zinaida Gippius describes these events:
“Terrorist raids on markets, with shooting and killing, ended up simply looting food for the benefit of the detachment that made the raid. Food, first of all, but since there is no thing that cannot be found on the market, the rest was also taken - old onuchi, door handles, tattered trousers, bronze candlesticks, an ancient velvet gospel stolen from some book depository, ladies' shirts , furniture upholstery ... Furniture was also considered the property of the state, and since it was impossible to drag a sofa under the hollow, people tore off the upholstery and strove to sell it at least for half a pound of straw bread ... ”.
In a situation of extreme need, even art objects were parted, paintings, manuscripts and old book editions, Chinese porcelain, vases and enamels, which had a colossal value, were given away for next to nothing. Sofya Clark, who came from a very wealthy family, writes in her memoirs that during the hungry revolutionary years, they had to sell portraits of her aunt Masha and mother, painted by Serov, who lived as a child with their uncle, Savva Mamontov. In addition, the family of Maria Clarke owned the works of other famous masters: Surikov's study (beggar for the painting "Boyar Morozova"), Roerich's northern landscape. These paintings remained in the dacha mansion, which, after the flight of the owners, was occupied by the orphanage, which after a short time burned to the ground. Lilya Brik sold her "huge, larger than life-size" portrait by Boris Grigoriev, one of the most expensive Russian avant-garde artists, during the "hungry days". "Lilya in flood" - this is how Vladimir Mayakovsky called this portrait. Brik also recalls how in 1919 she hand-wrote "Flute-spine", Mayakovsky's poem; he drew a cover for it and sold it in some store. Thanks to this, they dined for two whole days.
"Flute of the spine. Op. Mayakovsky. Dedicated to L.Yu. Brik. Rewritten by L.Yu. Brik. Painted by Mayakovsky. 1919 In addition, property could be requisitioned, taken during a search, or simply stolen. Countess V.N. Bobrinskaya, who was in the city government of Pyatigorsk, describes the behavior of the new government in January 1919:
“A gang of these robbers, under the pretext of searches, breaks into houses, and seizes everything that comes into their eyes - sometimes it is extortion in money, sometimes gold and jewelry, sometimes linen and a wearable dress, utensils - even furniture. Robbery is often accompanied by violence; there were up to 7-8 intrusions of these gangs into the same apartment on the same day.
Monas recalls the requisition:
“Several times a month, security officers came and searched the apartment: they were looking for gold, jewelry, foreign currency. One day they broke in in broad daylight: on the dining table was prepared currency for sale; the aunt had good reflexes, she threw a fur coat over the money and they did not think to pick it up. Another time, they searched for almost the whole night, gutted everything, and at that time kittens were born to the cat, and everything was hidden under her pillow - they also left with nothing.
Broken apartment. 1917 Gippius describes the searches in her house:
“A lot of women in headscarves (new communist detectives) were more interested in the contents of my closets. We whispered. At that time, we had just started selling, and the women were clearly unhappy that the closet was not empty.
“When I entered my house, I was immediately seized with horror at what they managed to turn it into: a wonderful marble staircase leading to the lobby and covered with a red carpet was littered with books, among which some women were swarming. When I began to rise, these women pounced on me that I was walking through their books.<…>I was then offered to go up to my bedroom, but it was simply terrible what I saw: a wonderful carpet, specially ordered by me in Paris, was all covered in ink, all the furniture was taken out to the lower floor, a door with hinges was torn out of a wonderful closet, everything the shelves were taken out, and there were guns, I hurried out, it was too hard to look at this barbarism. In my bathroom, the pool tub was filled with cigarette butts.”- in this form was the Kshesinskaya mansion in the Art Nouveau style, which was captured by the Bolsheviks shortly after the February Revolution. Sofya Clark describes her dacha in Naro-Fominskoye, which she saw many years after the revolution, in 1961: “In the place of the white house there were vegetable gardens. But the outbuilding, the kitchen, the houses of the coachmen, the gardener, the laundresses and other services are still standing. The whole park was cut down, probably during the war (now the trees have grown again), the old paths are still visible. The Nara River became shallow, the chapels at the end of the park, at the site of the battle of 1812, disappeared. There is a big highway there.
A shell hit an apartment near the Nikitsky Gate. 1917 In just a few years, the new government managed to fully realize its main revolutionary slogan, namely, to make all people equal. Aristocrats and cooks, actresses and laundresses, maids of honor and peasant women - all of them suddenly found themselves in similar conditions. It was the equality of "undressed people, the equality of the poor." Gone overnight were chops and grocery stores with marble counters, starched collars and snow-white aprons, posh mansions with a staff of servants, "pretty" latrines and electricity, spacious apartments with tiled stoves and hot water.
“... Exhibitions of paintings, high-profile premieres in theaters and scandalous trials in court, purchases of paintings, fascination with antiquities, trips all night to Samarkand, to gypsies” - all this began to seem like fairy tales, an ephemeral dream, a dream - “a dream of a forgotten life." But in reality there was raw bread with straw and clay for a quarter of a pound a day, nettle cabbage soup and carrot tea, “canteens” with barley porridge and shooting on the streets, icy rooms with walls green from dampness and tin light bulbs, communal apartments with bedbugs and cockroaches - hunger, suffering and constant fear. Borders were erased, ties were torn, landmarks disappeared. Poets sold old shoes; actresses wept over their swollen and hardened hands; girls in fur short coats and hats waved their pickaxes as they were doing their snow duty.
The inhabitants of the "island of the former", those girls, girls and women who were discussed, had a different fate. Someone managed to emigrate from the Soviet Union and live to a ripe old age, someone died of starvation, someone managed to merge into Soviet reality and become part of the new world. However, in those “terrible days” in question, in the days of irrevocable collapse and general agony, they all felt lost, deprived of support and hope for the future.
“Almost a year has passed since then. I hardly take up the pen; no strength, no desire to write. But I want to end this notebook, not with a diary, but with two or three words. I will no longer write a diary. Everything that inspired me, that I believed, that I loved, for which I was ready to meekly give up both life and happiness - all this was destroyed without a trace. Russia perished, trampled in the mud, brutalized, having lost her sense of honor, love for humanity, she lies spat upon by everyone, in the abyss.
Z.V. Arapova, daughter of Prince V.D. Golitsyna and wife P.A. Arapov, adjutant of General V.I. Gurko
“Everyone remembers these terrible days. You think about everyone with the same anxiety... And there is no faith in anyone's salvation... Everything personal is dissolving now. Nothing is durable. You find rest only in fairy tales and in thoughts. And reality is like a dream… You have to endure and work.”
Zinaida Denisievskaya
"I try to fasten my soul with iron bands."
Zinaida Gippius
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