Soviet migration in the context of passportization in the early 1930s.

Research Article

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to study the traditional phenomenon of seasonal migration from the Russian villages, namely the temporary departure of rural residents from their permanent homes for work. In the 1920s and the first half of the 1930s, it underwent transformation aimed at establishing state control over labor migration, particularly from the village, and organizing the supply of workers to industry. The study shows that throughout the 1920s, the Soviet government attempted to limit the spontaneous movement of the rural population, seeing it as a reason for rising unemployment and worsening socio-economic conditions in cities. To combat unregulated movements within the country and to evenly provide the industry with labor, the state implemented a system of economic recruitment. However, by the late 1920s to 1930s, unemployment was replaced by a “staff shortage”, and the demand for labor first exceeded supply.  This shift required the authorities to introduce new measures to ensure the growing industry had enough workforce. Therefore, before the beginning of the passportization campaign, two channels for hiring workforce from the village remained economic recruitment and seasonal migration, but for peasants who signed contracts with economic authorities, agricultural benefits were introduced to attract them to participate in the seasonal migration. Concurrently, due to the policy pursued by the Bolsheviks in the villages and the onset of famine, the problem of mass outflow of population from villages worsened. This led to disruptions in commodity supply, intensifying the housing crisis, and leading to an increase in criminal activity in cities. Administrative documentation often classified such migrants were also referred to as seasonal migrants, although they were not related to labor migration. In the context of the flight of peasants, the government took measures aimed at keeping village residents in the villages and socially cleansing cities by introducing passports - a kind of filter whose possession granted the right to reside in cities, especially in restricted areas. New documents were not issued to rural residents, which limited their mobility across the country. Now, to leave the village, a peasant was required to provide documents confirming their intention to engage in “socially useful labor” in production, institutions, schools; documents of this kind included a job invitation, a recruitment contract, a certificate from the collective farm's administration about the departure, etc. The introduction of the passport system effectively transformed seasonal migration from a spontaneous labor migration into a system of organized supply for the industrial sector, while mass movement from the village was prohibited under the threat of administrative and repressive measures against violators of the new regime.