Sergey Maslov. Peasant patriot
Maslov Sergey Semenovich (1887, Nizhnedevitsk Voronezh Province. - 1965, Czechoslovakia) - agronomist, political leader of the peasant movement in Russia.
S. S. Maslov and his wife.
Born into a peasant family, graduated from a city school 6-class. During the revolution, 1905 participated in the revolutionary movement in Kharkov.
In 1906, he joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party.
After graduating from the agronomical school, S. S. Maslov began his working career in one of the estates of the Sumy district of the Kharkov province. True, in September 1907 was forced to hide under the threat of arrest - after the organization of the peasant strike.
During this period, he acquired both the first party work experience among the peasantry and the experience of organizing consumer and credit societies. S. S. Maslov worked part-time lessons and the publication of articles on agricultural topics.
Having tried to get a job as an agricultural department secretary in the Zhytomyr provincial district council in 1911, S. S. Maslov was forced to hide from the police. Later he worked as a local agronomist, then he left the service. In December of the same year - he was arrested again and spent more than a year in the Kharkov prison. And in 1913, the city of S. S. Maslov refers to the city of Pinega, Arkhangelsk Province. The exile was lucky - in honor of the 300 anniversary of the house of the Romanovs, the term of exile was reduced by a year. Then S. S. Maslov worked in the Vologda Agricultural Society. At the same time he was the editor of the Northern Host journal. It was this period that shaped the thoughts on the direction of the development of the village with S. S. Maslov. In the same period, the closest circle of contacts was formed - well-known Vologda cooperators, mostly members of the Social Revolutionary Party.
Until April 1916, Mr. S. Maslov worked in the Union of Cities - and left after quarrels with his superiors. In search of work, he found himself in the organization of N. V. Tchaikovsky, who provided food aid to the population of the front line, and then his life led him to the Moscow flax association. In February 1917, Mr. S. Maslov was in Vologda - working as an agronomist.
A meeting of the Social Revolutionaries of Moscow, Petrograd and Vologda was held at the apartment of S. S. Maslov at the beginning of February 1917. It was decided to establish a regional party center in Vologda, starting illegal work. And after the February Revolution, on the initiative of S. S. Maslov, an Interim Government Committee was created in Vologda. S. S. Maslov had a chance to participate in the arrest of the governor and the disarmament of the gendarme department.
In April 1917, Mr. S. Maslov - Chairman of the Petrograd Organizing Committee of the All-Russian Congress of Peasant Deputies. The peasant gubernia congress was held by him in late May - early June in Vologda. It is indicative that the work of the 4 congress in May was opened by S. S. Maslov, and was elected a deputy chairman of the congress. 20 May, he became a member of the executive committee of the All-Russian Council of Peasant Deputies. Moreover, 745 votes were cast for S. S. Maslov, while 20 votes were received for V. I. Lenin, 8 for A. M. Gorky, and 7 votes for M. A. Spiridonov.
By September, the 1917 in the province was up to 2 thousand Social Revolutionaries. The party won the election to the Constituent Assembly - and S. S. Maslov was among the deputies elected from the Vologda province.
In the post-October period, the Vologda Socialist-Revolutionaries decided to cooperate with the anti-Bolshevik underground organization, the Union of Russia's Renaissance. The most active activists of the latter are S. S. Maslov and A. F. Dedusenko. The preparation of the anti-Bolshevik uprising began in Vologda, and S. S. Maslov led the military department of the Union.
In early July, S. S. Maslov 1918 left for Arkhangelsk (the “Union of Russian Revival” planned to create an interim government in this city), having managed to “intercept” N. Tchaikovsky, who was going to Siberia to become part of the Directory, convincing the latter arrive in Arkhangelsk, leading the government of the Northern region. S. S. Maslov became Minister of War, and in the fall of 1918, the civil governor of Arkhangelsk. He worked in the Arkhangelsk government 2 of the month (02. 08. - 20. 09. 1918 g.).
Then S. S. Maslov went to Siberia - to establish relations with the Siberian and All-Russian governments. The arrival of S. S. Maslov in Omsk coincided with the overthrow of the Directory by Admiral A. V. Kolchak.
S. A. Maslov refused to cooperate with A. V. Kolchak and his government.
Soon after, counterintelligence began to search for him, and S. S. Maslov tried to go to Vladivostok. I could not get a passport, and he went to Tomsk, where he lived, being in an illegal situation, before 15. 06. 1919
Later he moved across the front in the area of Zlatoust, but when he tried to move into the depths of Russia, he was detained and taken to Ufa.
In Ufa, S. S. Maslov was soon again arrested and sent to Moscow to the VChK under a reinforced convoy. The newspaper "Red North" noted that the "prodigal son" came home - with a knapsack on his back, he secretly crossed the front line, arrived in the city of Ufa and repented of all the sins. Now, as noted, S. S. Maslov is in Moscow, but, probably due to his repentance of political mistakes, he will be released.
Indeed, S. S. Maslov was released after the inquiry - on bail. For punitive bodies, personal recognition was a key factor - S. S. Maslov claimed that he firmly decided to move away from the political struggle, engaging in cultural work.
Having settled in Moscow to work, as early as December 1920, Mr. S. Maslov organizes an illegal political cell - “Peasant Russia” - which included teachers and students of the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy. He was arrested again and released.
Persecution and political plans made S. S. Maslov an emigrant. 18. 08. 1921 r. He left for Poland, arriving in October in Prague.
In emigration, S. S. Maslov ponders the events that took place in Russia, considers the role of the peasantry in the past - as he believed, fundamental. S. S. Maslov - one of the founders of the labor party "Peasant Russia".
In addition to organizational and political activities, S. S. Maslov was engaged in scientific creativity, publicly speaking. In 1923 - 1924 lectured at the Prague Russian People’s University, led the foreign department of the Institute for Russian Studies, the Committee on Practical Problems of Rural Life, and became one of the founders of the Russian Writers' Union and journalists. In the 30-s, repeatedly making reports, traveled to Germany, France, Serbia, Bulgaria.
The key task of the leader of the peasant party is to establish contacts with the USSR.
S. S. Maslov believed that the peasantry and the Cossacks are the basis of the state life of Russia. The peasantry colonized the new territories, completed the army, created most of the national wealth, 2 / 3 taxpayers lived in the village. At the same time, the government (both imperial and communist) saw in the peasantry only a means for the development of the state - not paying attention to the needs of the village and squeezing excessive taxes from the village. The political powerlessness of the village, emphasized S. S. Maslov, is unfair to the peasantry and is dangerous for the state. But the Soviet government will not change its policy towards the peasantry - because by its nature communist government is hostile to the peasant. This is not surprising - after all, the peasant himself and the worker, and the owner, and communism wants to kill any economic independence, and only the need to feed the state makes the Soviet government temporarily tolerate the "petty-bourgeois peasant system." And the power of the peasantry is afraid - by destroying the attempts to unite the latter and splitting the village (the poor, middle peasants, kulaks became the subject of various policies by the authorities). The goal of “Peasant Russia” is to help the peasantry organize itself in order to achieve “people’s rule”.
Protecting state unity, the peasant party called for the introduction of a fair (progressive) tax system, to evenly distribute their burden between the village and the city, to consolidate the land used by each peasant, to promote cooperation, to develop agriculture. In industry, enterprises should be transferred to private owners. In the sphere of foreign policy - to pursue a peace-loving policy aimed at restoring the interests of Russia.
When collectivization began, S. S. Maslov called on his peasant supporters in Russia to actively fight, even to the point of terror. But the Stalinist repressions against the peasants - “the elimination of the kulaks as a class” and the drive of the peasantry into collective farms — led to the fact that during 1930's the party lost its support in the USSR, and its number decreased abroad.
In 1937, Mr. S. Maslov published the book “Collective Farm Russia”, which became his political testament.
The émigré party organization existed until 1939.
After the attack on the Soviet Union of Germany, S. S. Maslov took a patriotic stance and was arrested several times by the Gestapo, hitting the concentration camp at the end of the war. In the concentration camp, S. S. Maslov was released by the Soviet Army, and then re-arrested.
In 1945, he was deported to the USSR, and after his release he returned to Czechoslovakia.
S. S. Maslov tried to be one of the first to rehabilitate the Russian peasantry, dropping from him the accusations of political passivity and social disorganization. Based on the experience of the development of European agriculture, he predicted a powerful rise in the Russian village, a rise in the level of culture and education of rural residents, and a boost in economic activity in the village. S. S. Maslov, as well as other economists of the neo-Narodnik trend, opposed the universalization of industrialism — the latter was clearly manifested in both Marxist and liberal discrimination of the peasantry and agriculture.
On the whole, S. S. Maslov’s forecast for the future of Russia was moderately optimistic, and this man who fought his entire adult life for the social reorganization of society and arrested by the imperial secret service, the White Guard and Czech counterintelligence, the Cheka and the Gestapo, was a true patriot of Russia.
Literature
Maslov S. Socialism and "Peasant Russia" // Bulletin of Peasant Russia. 1925. No. 4-5 (July).
Shprygov A.P. Vologda cooperative S.S. Maslov // History and culture of the Vologda region: 3-I regional scientific-practical conference. Vologda, 1990.
Vinogradov, I. A. // Vologda: local history almanac. 2003. Issue 4 .; Kurenyshev A. A. Peasant organizations of the Russian diaspora // Questions of history. 2008.
Chedurova EM. Development of cooperative principles in national historiography // Tomsk State University Bulletin. 2008. No. 307.
M. Sokolov. Political and Publishing Activities of Sergey Maslov in Emigration in 1921-1924 // Sat. scientific tr. SPb., 2010.
Nikulin A. M. The Russian Peasant through the Eyes of Sergei Semenovich Maslov // Man. 2012. No. 3.
Markov S. А. Secretary General (life and political vicissitudes of Sergey Maslov) // Raising. 2013. No. 3.
Berlov A.V. Views of non-Narodnik scientists of the Russian emigration on the agrarian development of Russia (1920-1930-s) // Space and Time. 2015. No. 1-2.
He is. The ideological foundations of S. S. Maslov's agrarian theory: (scientific thought of Russian emigration 1920-1930-ies) // Bulletin of Samara State University. 2015. No. 1.
He is. Historiography of Russian Agrarian Scientific Thought in Russian Abroad 1920-1930's // Bulletin of Nizhny Novgorod University. N. I. Lobachevsky. 2015. No. 3.
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