The Policy of the Soviet State Concerning Bulgarian Gardeners (the 20’s – early 30’s of the 20th century)
Abstract
The paper analyzes the policy of the Soviet state concerning Bulgarian gardeners in the 20s – in the early 30s of the 20th century. Bulgarian-gardeners were a specific category of peasantry living near the cities such as Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa, Melitopol, Lugansk, Yuzivka, Yekaterynodar on the territory of the Russian Empire and were engaged in the supply of agricultural products to the abovementioned places. The establishment of Soviet power on the territory of Ukraine negatively influenced the state of the multinational peasantry, including Bulgarian-gardeners. That happened because of the implementation of the War Communism policy, associated with the introduction of a food appropriation system (prodrozkladka) and a prohibition on market trade. But there were cases when the local authorities in certain regions of Ukraine, in particular in Donbas, allowed Bulgarians to work freely on the land. This was due to the fact that the workers of mines and enterprises were extremely suffering from a lack of food. For the support of their activity, the charter of the production, commercial and industrial co-operative of gardeners was adopted. The situation of the Bulgarian peasants changed after the introduction of the New Economic Policy at the 10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) in March 1921. Then, to supply the urban population of Ukraine with agricultural products and improve the material position of producers, the authorities began to adopt appropriate regulations. In particular, on August 7, 1921, a decree «On the Organization of Bulgarian Garden Artels» was issued, signed by the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR Kh. Rakovsky. The decree contributed to the fact that the Bulgarians had got the right to lease the land, to conclude contracts for the supply of products with various trade organizations, in particular, Khatorg, to hire workers. But with the establishment of the policy of nation-wide collectivization, the state and its executive bodies began, through various prohibitions, to facilitate the gradual elimination of Bulgarian-gardeners farms throughout the republic.
