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When was the passport system introduced? Creation of the passport system in the USSR

The first rudiments of the passport system in Russia began to appear in the Time of Troubles in the form of "travel letters", introduced mainly for police purposes. The passport system finally took shape only in the era of the reign of Peter I. Persons who did not have a passport or a “traveling letter” were recognized as “unkind people” or even “outright thieves”. The passport system limited the movement of the population, since no one could change their place of residence without the permission of the relevant authorities.

After the October Revolution, passports within the country were abolished as one of the manifestations of the political backwardness and despotism of the tsarist government. Law of January 24, 1922All citizens of the Russian Federation were granted the right to free movement throughout the territory of the RSFSR. The right of free movement and settlement was also confirmed in the Civil Code of the RSFSR (Article 5). And Article 1 of the Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of July 20, 1923 “On Identity Cards” forbade requiring citizens of the RSFSR to present passports and other residence permits that hinder their right to move and settle on the territory of the RSFSR. All these documents, as well as work books, were annulled. Citizens, if necessary, could obtain an identity card, but this was their right, but not an obligation.

The tightening of the political regime in the late 20's - early 30's. led to the desire of the authorities to strengthen control over the movement of the population, which led to the restoration of the passport system.

On December 27, 1932, in Moscow, the Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR M.I. Kalinin, the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR V.M. Molotov and the Secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR A.S. SSR and obligatory registration of passports. Simultaneously with the decision of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, the Main Directorate of the Workers' and Peasants' Militia under the OGPU of the USSR was formed, which was entrusted with the functions of introducing a unified passport system throughout the Soviet Union, registration of passports and for direct management of these works.

The regulation on passports established that "all citizens of the USSR aged 16 and over, permanently residing in cities, workers' settlements, working in transport, in state farms and in new buildings, are required to have passports." Now the entire territory of the country and its population were divided into two unequal parts: the one where the passport system was introduced, and the one where it did not exist. In passportized areas, the passport was the only document "identifying the owner." All previous certificates that previously served as a residence permit were cancelled.

Mandatory registration of passports with the police was introduced "no later than 24 hours upon arrival at a new place of residence." An extract also became obligatory - for everyone who left "outside the boundaries of this locality completely or for a period of more than two months"; for everyone leaving their former place of residence, exchanging passports; prisoners; arrested, held in custody for more than two months. Violation of the order of the passport system could henceforth lead to administrative and even criminal liability.

Lit .: Lyubarsky K. Passport system and registration system in Russia // Ros. bul. on human rights. 1994. Issue. 2. S. 14-24; Popov V. Passport system of Soviet serfdom // Novy Mir. 1996. No. 6; The same [Electronic resource]. URL:http://magazines.russ.ru/novyi_mi/1996/6/popov.html; 70th anniversary of the Soviet passport [Electronic resource] // Demoscope Weekly. 2002. 16-31 Dec. (No. 93/94). URL:http://www.demoscope.ru/weekly/2002/093/arxiv01.php; FMS of Russia: history of creation [Electronic resource] // Federal Migration Service. 2013 URL:http://www.fms.gov.ru/about/history/.

December 27, 1932 Decree of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR No. 1917 "On the establishment of a unified passport system for the USSR and the mandatory registration of passports."

The internal Soviet passport was invented in the 16th year of Soviet power with deliberately criminal goals.

Few people remember this today.

At the end of December 1932, the USSR government issued a decree "On the establishment of a unified passport system for the USSR and the mandatory registration of passports." In January 1933, the passportization of the population and the measures arising from it began. And the events were serious. The country was divided into two parts - in some territories the passport system was introduced, in others it was not. The population was divided accordingly. Passports were received by "citizens of the USSR permanently residing in cities, workers' settlements, working in transport, in state farms and new buildings." Those who received passports were required to register within 24 hours.

In the first six months - from January to June 1933 - passportization was carried out with the obligatory registration of passports of Moscow, Leningrad (including a hundred-kilometer zone around them) and Kharkov (with a fifty-kilometer zone). These territories were declared regime. All other certificates and residence permits that existed before that lost their validity in the regime territories.

The year 1932, which ended with the introduction of passports, was terrible. The first five-year plan ended with catastrophic results for the population. The standard of living fell sharply. There is famine all over the country, not only in Ukraine, where millions die of starvation. Bread at an affordable price can only be obtained by cards, and only those who work have cards. Agriculture is deliberately destroyed by collectivization. Some peasants - dispossessed - are forcibly transported to the construction sites of the five-year plan. Others flee to the cities themselves, fleeing hunger. At the same time, the government sells grain abroad to finance the construction and purchase of equipment for military plants (one Stalingrad tractor, that is, tank, plant cost 40 million dollars paid to the Americans). The experiment on the use of prisoners in the construction of the Belomor Canal was successfully completed. The scale of the economic use of prisoners is growing, and their number is growing accordingly, but this method cannot solve all problems.

The government is faced with the task of stopping unplanned movements around the country of the population, which is considered solely as a labor force. First, it is necessary to secure in the countryside that part of the peasantry which is necessary for the production of foodstuffs. Secondly, to ensure the possibility of freely transferring surplus labor from the countryside and from the cities to the five-year plan construction sites located in remote places, where few people of their own free will wanted to go. Thirdly, the central cities should be cleared of socially unfavorable and useless elements. In general, it was necessary to provide the planning authorities with the opportunity to manipulate large masses of the population in order to solve economic problems. And for this it was necessary to divide the population into groups convenient for manipulation. This problem was solved by the introduction of the passport system.
***
The meaning of the internal passport went far beyond a simple identity card. Here is what was said about this in the strictly secret minutes of the meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks dated November 15, 1932:

"... About the passport system and unloading cities from unnecessary elements.
In terms of unloading Moscow and Leningrad and other large urban centers of the USSR from superfluous institutions not connected with production and work, as well as from kulak, criminal and other antisocial elements hiding in the cities, it is necessary to recognize as necessary:

1. Introduce a unified passport system for the USSR with the abolition of all other types of certificates issued by this or that organization and which until now gave the right to registration in cities.
2. Organize, primarily in Moscow and Leningrad, an apparatus for recording and registering the population and regulating entry and exit.

At the same meeting of the Politburo, it was decided to organize a special commission, which was called just that - the PB Commission on the passport system and unloading cities from unnecessary elements. Chairman - V.A. Balitsky.

The passport indicated the social origin of the owner, for which a complex classification was developed - "worker", "collective farmer", "single-owner peasant", "employee", "student", "writer", "artist", "artist", "sculptor" ", "handicraftsman", "pensioner", "dependent", "without certain occupations". The passport was also marked with a job offer. Thus, representatives of the authorities had the opportunity to determine from the passport how to treat its owner.

The "nationality" column looked relatively innocent and rather meaningless in comparison with the "social status" column, especially since it was filled in from the words of the passport holder. But if the fate that the ethnic deportations that overwhelmed the USSR in the next few years were planned by Stalin even then, it is clear that its only meaning is repressive.

In January 1933, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR approved the "Instruction on the issuance of passports." In the secret section of the Instruction, restrictions were established on the issuance of passports and residence permits in sensitive areas for the following groups: "not engaged in socially useful labor at work" (with the exception of disabled people and pensioners), "kulaks" and "dispossessed" "escaped" from the villages, even if they worked in enterprises or institutions, "defectors from abroad" who arrived from other places after January 1, 1931 "without an invitation to work", if they do not have certain occupations or often change jobs (are "flyers" ) or "were fired for disorganizing production." The last point covered those who fled the village before the start of "complete collectivization." In addition, “disenfranchised people” (people deprived of voting rights, in particular “kulaks” and nobles), private merchants, clergymen, former prisoners and exiles, as well as family members of all the listed groups of citizens, did not receive passports, and therefore registration.

The violinist of the Vakhtangov Theater Yuri Elagin recalls this time in this way: “Our family was ranked among alien and class-hostile elements for two reasons - as a family of former factory owners, i.e. capitalists and exploiters, and, secondly, because my father was an engineer with a pre-revolutionary education, i.e. belonged to a part of the Russian intelligentsia, highly suspicious and unreliable from the Soviet point of view.The first result of all this was that we were deprived of voting rights in the summer of 1929. We became "disenfranchised". "deprived" among Soviet citizens is a category of inferior citizens of the lowest rank. Their position in Soviet society ... resembled the position of Jews in Hitler's Germany. Public service and the profession of intellectual labor were closed to them. Higher education was not even a dream. the first candidates for concentration camps and prisons.In addition, in many details of everyday life they constantly felt humiliated the backbone of his social position. I remember what a heavy impression it made on me that shortly after we were deprived of voting rights, a fitter came to our apartment ... and took away our telephone set. “The disenfranchised are not supposed to have a telephone,” he said briefly and expressively ...
Yuri Yelagin himself was lucky. As an "artist", he was included in the Soviet elite, received a passport and retained his Moscow residence permit. But his father did not receive a passport in 1933, was expelled from Moscow, arrested and died in the camp two years later. According to Yelagin, about a million people were then deported from Moscow.

And here is the data from the secret certificate of the Office of the Workers 'and Peasants' Militia under the OGPU to the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Molotov dated August 27, 1933 "On the results of passportization of the cities of Moscow and Leningrad." From January 1, 1932 to January 1, 1933 The population of Moscow increased by 528,300 people. and reached 3,663,300 people. The population of Leningrad increased during this time by 124,262 people (reached 2,360,777 people).

As a result of passportization, in the first 8 months of 1933 the population of Moscow decreased by 214,000 people, and that of Leningrad by 476,182 people. In Moscow, 65,904 people were denied passports. In Leningrad - 79,261 people. The reference clarifies that the given figures "do not take into account the declassed local and newcomer element and the kulaks who escaped from the village, who lived in an illegal position ..."

Among those who were refused - 41% arrived without an invitation to work and lived in Moscow for more than 2 years. "Dispossessed" - 20%. The rest are convicted, "disenfranchised", etc.

But not all Muscovites applied for a passport. The certificate states: “Citizens who received a notice of refusal to issue passports after the expiration of the 10-day period established by law were mainly removed from Moscow and Leningrad. However, this does not resolve the issue of removing passportless ones. When passportization was announced, they, knowing that they would definitely be denied a passport, did not appear at all at the passport checkpoints and took refuge in attics, basements, sheds, gardens, etc.

In order to successfully maintain the passport regime .... special passport offices have been organized, which have their own inspection and secret information in the houses. Passport offices carry out rounds, round-ups, inspections of house administrations, barracks for seasonal workers, places of accumulation of suspicious elements, illegal shelters...

These operational measures detained unpassported:
in Moscow - 85,937 people.
in Leningrad - 4,766 people,
sent by way of extrajudicial repression to camps and labor settlements. The bulk of the detainees were fugitives from the Central Chernozem Region and Ukraine, who were engaged in theft and begging in Moscow.
It was only the beginning of the most terrible decade in the history of the USSR.

On December 27, 1932, a unified passport system was established by the Decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR No. 57/1917. Simultaneously with the decision of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, the Main Directorate of the Workers' and Peasants' Militia was formed under the OGPU of the USSR, which was entrusted with the functions of introducing a unified passport system throughout the Soviet Union, registration of passports and direct management of this matter.

On the establishment of a unified passport system for the USSR and the mandatory registration of passports

In order to better account for the population of cities, workers' settlements and new buildings and unload these populated areas from people who are not connected with production and work in institutions or schools and are not engaged in socially useful work (with the exception of disabled people and pensioners), as well as in order to clean up these populated areas places from hiding kulak, criminal and other anti-social elements, the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR DECIDE:

1. Establish a unified passport system for the USSR on the basis of the regulation on passports.
2. Introduce a unified passport system with mandatory registration throughout the USSR during 1933, covering primarily the population of Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov, Kyiv, Odessa, Minsk, Rostov-on-Don, Vladivostok ...
4. Instruct the governments of the Union republics to bring their legislation into line with the present resolution and the regulations on passports.

Chairman of the CEC of the USSR M. Kalinin Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR V. Molotov (Scriabin) Secretary of the CEC of the USSR A. Yenukidze

Collection of laws and orders of the workers' and peasants' government of the USSR, published by the Office of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and STO. M., 1932. Det. 1. N 84. Art. 516. S. 821-822. 279

Russian history. 1917 - 1940. Reader / Comp. V.A. Mazur and others;
edited by M.E. Glavatsky. Yekaterinburg, 1993

Passport system and propiska system in Russia

On June 25, 1993, President B. Yeltsin signed the law "On the right of citizens of the Russian Federation to freedom of movement, choice of place of stay and residence within the Russian Federation" adopted by the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation. Article 1 of this law proclaims:
"In accordance with the Constitution of the Russian Federation and international acts on human rights, every citizen of the Russian Federation has the right to freedom of movement, choice of place of stay and residence within the Russian Federation.
Restriction of the right of citizens of the Russian Federation to freedom of movement, choice of place of stay and residence within the Russian Federation is allowed only on the basis of the law.
Persons who are not citizens of the Russian Federation and legally located on its territory have the right to freedom of movement, choice of place of residence within the Russian Federation in accordance with the Constitution and laws of the Russian Federation and international treaties of the Russian Federation.
This means that the Russian Federation is canceling the propiska regime that existed for such a long time, which was in sharp contradiction to the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ratified by the Soviet Union (Article 12).
More precisely, propiska - registration at the place of residence - as in most European countries, is preserved, but now it is not permissive, but notifying in nature: "Registration or lack thereof cannot serve as a basis for restricting or a condition for the exercise of the rights and freedoms of citizens provided for by the constitution of the Russian Federation , the laws of the Russian Federation, the constitutions and laws of the republics within the Russian Federation" (Article 3).
No one has the right to refuse to register a citizen at a place of residence freely chosen by him. Such a refusal a citizen, in accordance with Article 9 of the Law, has the right to appeal in court:
"Actions or inaction of state and other bodies, enterprises, institutions, organizations, officials and other legal entities and individuals affecting the right of citizens of the Russian Federation to freedom of movement, choice of place of stay and residence within the Russian Federation may be appealed by citizens to a higher subordination to an authority higher in the order of subordination to an official or directly to the court.
This law was to come into force on October 1, 1993. Since no legislation repealing this has been published, it must be assumed that this law has been in force since October 1, 1993.
Of course, certain restrictions on the operation of the Law were established as a result of the introduction of a state of emergency in Moscow from 7 to 18 October 1993. However, it was precisely about limiting the operation of the law in a certain territory and for a limited time. With the termination of the state of emergency decree, these restrictions automatically ceased to apply.
In fact, however, this Law does not operate in the Russian Federation. On the whole territory of Russia, as before, the police authorities continue to demand from citizens the fulfillment of permissive registration rules.
The situation has become especially aggravated in Moscow, where Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov signed a decree on putting into effect "Temporary regulations on a special procedure for the stay in the city of Moscow - the capital of the Russian Federation of citizens permanently residing outside Russia."
According to this order, which consisted of 27 points, from November 15, a “special stay regime” was introduced in the city: all citizens of neighboring countries who arrived in the capital for more than a day are required to register and pay a fee at the rate of 10% of the Russian minimum wage. Those who evade registration were promised a fine of 3-5 minimum salaries, a second fine of 50 salaries and expulsion from Moscow - either at their own expense or at the expense of the capital's police department.
Similar measures were introduced by the mayor of St. Petersburg A. Sobchak and the administration of a number of other administrative units. All these orders were in conflict not only with the federal law on freedom of movement, but also with Art. 27 of the new Constitution of the Russian Federation (at the time of the publication of the mayors' decrees, it still existed in the form of a draft, but a month remained before the vote on this Constitution):
"Everyone who is legally on the territory of the Russian Federation has the right to move freely, choose the place of stay and residence."
Since citizens of the CIS are subject to an agreement providing for visa-free entry into Russia, the orders of both mayors are not only illegal, but also unconstitutional.
It remains to be hoped that with the restoration of normal law and order in the Russian Federation after December 12, 1993, the law "On the right to freedom of movement, choice of place of stay and residence" will freely begin to operate throughout the country.
In the meantime, it is useful to take a look at the history of Russian passportization and restrictions on the freedom of movement of Russian citizens.

Passport and legitimation systems

The "merit" of the invention of the passport system belongs to Germany, where it originated in the 15th century. It was necessary to somehow separate honest travelers - merchants and artisans from the huge number of vagabonds, robbers and beggars who wandered around Europe. This purpose was served by a special document - a passport, which, of course, a tramp could not have. As time went on, states more and more discovered the conveniences created by passports. In the 17th century military passports (Militrpass) appeared to prevent desertion, plague passports (Pestpass) for travelers from plague-ridden countries, special passports for Jews, artisan apprentices, etc.
The passport system reached its apogee in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, especially in France, where it was introduced during the era of the revolution. It was with the strengthening of the passport system that the concept of a "police state" arose, in which passports are used both to control the movement of citizens and to supervise the "unreliable."
It took the European states less than a century to understand that the passport system is not a boon, but a brake on development, primarily economic development. Therefore, already in the middle of the XIX century. restrictions on the passport system begin to loosen, and then are completely abolished. In 1850, at the Dresden Conference, passport rules were drastically simplified on the territory of the German states, and in 1859 Austria joined this agreement. In 1865 and 1867, passport restrictions in Germany were practically abolished. Passport restrictions were also abolished in stages in Denmark - in 1862 and 1875, in Spain - in 1862 and 1878, in Italy - in 1865 and 1873. The further development of almost all other European states went in the same direction.
Thus, in the 19th century (and in England even earlier), the so-called legitimation system arose in European states to replace the passport one, according to which the obligation of a citizen to have any particular type of document was not established, but if necessary, his identity can be verified in any way. . Under the legitimation system, possession of a passport is a right, not an obligation (it becomes an obligation only when a citizen travels abroad).
The United States has never had a passport system, let alone a propiska. US citizens only know a foreign passport. Inside the country, the identity of a citizen can be certified by any document, most often a driver's license. This is a classic example of a legitimation system.

Passport system in pre-revolutionary Russia

The first rudiments of the passport system in Russia began to appear in the Time of Troubles - in the form of "travel letters", introduced mainly for police purposes. However, the true creator of this system in Russia was Peter I, who by decree of October 30, 1719 introduced "traveling letters" as a general rule in connection with the recruitment duty and poll tax established by him. Persons who did not have a passport or a "traveling letter" were recognized as "unkind people" or even "outright thieves." In 1763, passports also received fiscal significance as a means of collecting passport fees (1 ruble 45 kopecks was charged for an annual passport - a considerable amount at that time).
The bondage of the passport system, which had only become more complicated and "improved" since the time of Peter the Great, was felt more and more difficult, especially after the abolition of serfdom and other reforms of Alexander II. However, only on June 3, 1884, at the initiative of the State Council, a new "Regulation on residence permits" was adopted. It somewhat eased the limitations of the passport system.
At the place of residence, no one was required to have a passport, and sampling it was necessary only when traveling further than 50 versts and longer than 6 months (an exception was made only for factory and factory workers and residents of areas declared under a state of emergency or enhanced protection ; passports were absolutely obligatory for them). Although in practice it was not difficult to obtain a passport to leave, the very need to ask for prior permission to leave and the fundamental possibility of refusal was, of course, burdensome and humiliating. In 1897, this "Regulation" was extended to the entire Russian Empire, except for Poland and Finland.
It was this undoubtedly undemocratic "Regulation" that provoked sharp criticism from V. Lenin. In the article "To the rural poor" (1903) he wrote:
“The Social Democrats demand for the people complete freedom of movement and industry. What does this mean: freedom of movement? .. This means that passports should be destroyed in Russia too (in other states there have been no passports for a long time), that not a single constable, not a single Zemstvo the chief did not dare to prevent any peasant from settling and working wherever he pleased.The Russian peasant is still so enslaved as an official that he cannot freely transfer to the city, cannot freely leave for new lands.The minister orders that the governors should not allow unauthorized migrations: the governor is better than the peasant The peasant knows where the peasant is to go! The peasant is a small child, and without his superiors he does not dare to move! Isn't this serfdom? Isn't this a desecration of the people?.."
Significant changes towards liberalization were made to the passport system only after the 1905 revolution. A decree of October 8, 1906 abolished a number of restrictions that existed for peasants and other persons of the former taxable estates. The place of permanent residence for them was considered not the place of registration, but the place where they live. It became possible to choose this place freely.

Legitimation period in the RSFSR and the USSR

The human right to freely choose a place of residence is one of the fundamental ones and should be recognized as a natural right. This right is enshrined in Article 13, paragraph 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in Article 12, paragraph 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which entered into force in 1976 and, therefore, had the status of law on the territory of the Soviet Union. In the latter document, this right is formulated as follows: "Everyone who is lawfully in the territory of a state shall, within that territory, have the right to free movement and freedom to choose his place of residence."
It would be futile, however, to look for any Soviet legislative act that would, if not guarantee, then at least declare this right. There was no right to freely choose a place of residence in the last Constitution of the USSR of October 7, 1977, where even the “right to enjoy the achievements of culture” was not forgotten, although this Constitution was adopted after the entry into force of the aforementioned Pact and had to be agreed with it.
Moreover, there was no mention of this right in previous Soviet constitutions: the Constitution of the USSR of December 5, 1936 and the Constitution of the RSFSR of July 10, 1918. In the Constitution of the USSR of January 31, 1924, there is no section at all on any rights of citizens, although, for example, an entire chapter is devoted to the activities of the OGPU (not even an article!).
Such forgetfulness of the Soviet constitutions, of course, is not accidental. Let us see how the above-cited demand of the "Social-Democrats"-Leninists to grant "the people complete freedom of movement and trade" was carried out in practice.
Immediately after the establishment of Soviet power, the passport system was abolished, but very soon the first attempt was made to restore it. The Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of June 25, 1919 introduced mandatory "Labor Books", which, without being called that, were actually passports. This was part of the policy of combating the so-called "labor desertion", inevitable in conditions of complete devastation and famine on the territory of the RSFSR. The IX Congress of the RCP(b), held in March-April 1920, frankly explained this policy in its resolution:
“In view of the fact that a significant part of the workers, in search of better conditions for food ... leave enterprises on their own, move from place to place ... the congress sees one of the urgent tasks of the Soviet government ... sees in a planned, systematic, persistent, severe struggle against labor desertion, in particular, by publishing penal deserter lists, creating penal work teams from deserters and, finally, confining them to a concentration camp.
Labor books were a particularly powerful means of attaching workers to the place also because they were the only ones that gave the right to receive ration cards at the place of work, without which it was simply impossible to live.
The end of the civil war and the transition to the New Economic Policy could not but lead to an easing of the situation. Under the conditions of rigid attachment of the labor force to enterprises, the implementation of the New Economic Policy would have been impossible. Therefore, starting from 1922, there was a sharp change in the attitude of the Soviet authorities towards the passport system, which made it possible to think that the program requirements declared by Lenin were really taken seriously.
By the law of January 24, 1922, all citizens of the Russian Federation were granted the right to free movement throughout the entire territory of the RSFSR. The right of free movement and settlement was also confirmed in Article 5 of the Civil Code of the RSFSR. From here, the transition to the legitimation system was quite natural, which was done by the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of July 20, 1923 "On Identity Cards". Article 1 of this decree forbade requiring citizens of the RSFSR to present mandatory passports and other residence permits that hinder their right to move and settle on the territory of the RSFSR. All these documents, as well as work books, were annulled. Citizens, if necessary, could obtain an identity card, but this was their right, but not an obligation. No one could force a citizen to receive such a certificate.
The provisions of the decree of 1923 were specified in the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of April 27, 1925 "On the registration of citizens in urban settlements" and in the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR of December 18, 1927. According to these decrees, both propiska, that is, registration with the authorities at the place of residence, and any other official act could be made upon presentation of a document of any kind: a paybook from the place of service, a trade union card, an act of birth or marriage, etc. P. Although the system of registration at the place of residence (propiska) existed, however, the very multiplicity of documents suitable for this excluded the possibility of using a propiska to attach a citizen to a specific place of residence. Thus, the legitimation system, it would seem, triumphed on the territory of the USSR, and the Small Soviet Encyclopedia of 1930 could rightfully write in the article "Passport":
"A PASSPORT is a special document for certifying the identity and the right of its bearer to leave the place of permanent residence. The passport system was the most important tool of police influence and tax policy in the so-called police state ... Soviet law does not know the passport system."

Introduction to the USSR of the passport system

However, the "legitimation" period in Soviet history turned out to be as short as the NEP period. Started at the turn of the 20s and 30s. industrialization and mass forced collectivization of the countryside were carried out with great resistance from the people. The peasantry, which fled from the devastated and starving villages to the cities, put up a particularly strong resistance. The planned measures could be carried out only by the actual introduction of forced labor, which is impossible under the legitimation system. Therefore, on December 27, 1932, 20 years after the writing of Lenin's words quoted above, the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR issued a decree introducing the passport system and the mandatory registration of passports in the USSR. The decree was signed by M. Kalinin, V. Molotov and A. Yenukidze.
The police nature of the introduced system was already clear from the very text of the resolution, where the reasons for introducing the passport system were explained as follows:
"In order to better account for the population of cities, workers' settlements, new buildings and unload these populated areas from persons not connected with production and work in institutions and schools and not engaged in socially useful labor ... as well as in order to clear these populated areas from hiding kulak, criminal and other anti-social elements...".
The “kulak elements hiding in the cities” are the “fugitive” peasants, and the “unloading” of the cities from those “not engaged in socially useful labor” is forced assignment to places where there is an acute shortage of labor.
The main feature of the passport system in 1932 was that passports were introduced only for residents of cities, workers' settlements, state farms and new buildings. Collective farmers were deprived of their passports, and this circumstance immediately put them in the position of being attached to their place of residence, to their collective farm. They could not leave for the city and live there without a passport: according to paragraph 11 of the resolution on passports, such "passportless" persons are subject to a fine of up to 100 rubles and "removal by order of the police." Repeated violation entailed criminal liability. Introduced on July 1, 1934 in the Criminal Code of the RSFSR of 1926, Article 192a provided for imprisonment for up to two years.
Thus, for the collective farmer, the restriction of freedom of residence became absolute. Without a passport, he could not only choose where to live, but even leave the place where he was caught by the passport system. "Without a passport", he could easily be detained anywhere, even in a transport taking him away from the village.
The position of the "passportized" city dwellers was somewhat better, but not by much. They could move around the country, but the choice of a permanent place of residence was limited by the need for registration, and the passport became the only valid document for this. Upon arrival at the chosen place of residence, even if the address was changed within the same locality, the passport had to be submitted for registration within 24 hours. A registered passport was also required when applying for a job. Thus, the propiska mechanism became a powerful tool for regulating the resettlement of citizens across the territory of the USSR. By allowing or denying propiska, one can effectively influence the choice of place of residence. Living without a residence permit was punishable by a fine, and in case of relapse - by corrective labor for up to 6 months (the already mentioned article 192a of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR).
At the same time, the possibilities of monitoring citizens have also increased tremendously, the mechanism of police investigation has been dramatically facilitated: a system of "all-Union search" has emerged through a network of "passport desks" - special information centers created in settlements. The state was preparing for the "great terror".
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia of 1939, "forgetting" that the small encyclopedia had been writing 9 years before, already stated quite frankly:
"PASSPORT SYSTEM, the procedure for administrative accounting, control and regulation of the movement of the population through the introduction of passports for the latter. Soviet legislation, unlike bourgeois legislation, never veiled the class essence of its PS, using the latter in accordance with the conditions of the class struggle and with the tasks of the dictatorship working class at different stages of building socialism.
The passport system began to be introduced from Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov, Kyiv, Minsk, Rostov-on-Don, Vladivostok, and during 1933 it was extended to the entire territory of the USSR. In subsequent years, it was repeatedly supplemented and improved, most significantly in 1940.

Fixing at the place of work

However, even such a passport system did not provide workers and employees with the same strong fixation as for collective farmers. Undesirable "fluidity" of personnel was preserved. Therefore, in the same 1940, the passport system was supplemented by a whole series of legislative acts that fixed workers and employees also at the place of work.
The Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of June 26, 1940 prohibited the unauthorized departure of workers and employees from state, cooperative and public enterprises, as well as the unauthorized transfer from one enterprise or institution to another. For unauthorized leaving, criminal punishment was established: from 2 to 4 years in prison. To create mutual responsibility, directors of enterprises and heads of institutions who hired such an "arbitrarily left" employee were also brought to justice.
A month later, on July 17, 1940, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council, criminal liability for unauthorized leaving work was also extended to MTS tractor drivers and combiners. The decree of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces of October 19, 1940 established the criminal liability of engineers, technicians, craftsmen and skilled workers for refusing to obey the decision of the administration to transfer them from one enterprise to another: now these categories of persons could at any time be forcibly relocated to any place and put for any job (within their qualifications). In the last days of the same year, on December 28, the Decree of the PVS of the USSR attached their students to the schools of the FZO, vocational and railway schools, establishing imprisonment for a labor colony for up to 1 year for unauthorized leaving the school. Even a childish trick - to behave badly so that the director himself expelled you - did not help. For such behavior, 1 year of a labor colony was also provided.
Now the anchorage was complete. Practically no one in the USSR could choose at will either the place of residence or the place of work (remember Lenin's "movement and crafts"). The only exceptions were a few persons of "free" professions and the party and state elite (although, perhaps, for them, the consolidation was sometimes even more complete: through party discipline).
These decrees were by no means dead. Judicial statistics have not been published, but according to various unofficial estimates, the number of those convicted under these decrees ranges from 8 to 22 million people. Even if the minimum figure is correct, the number is still impressive.
It is worth noting especially the following detail: according to the approval of the first of this series of decrees, the initiative to adopt a law fixing the workers belongs to the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions - an organization that was supposed to guard the interests of the workers.
Criminal liability for unauthorized leaving work was abolished only 16 years later, by the Decree of the USSR PVS of April 25, 1956, although after the death of I. Stalin, the laws listed above were practically little applied. However, the recurrence of the application of these laws is known in connection with the forcible direction of citizens to the virgin lands.

Passport system after Stalin's death

If attachment to a place through such a peculiar system of "labor legislation" weakened after the death of I. Stalin, then there were no fundamental changes in relation to the passport system. The new "Regulations on Passports" was approved by the Council of Ministers of the USSR by a resolution of October 21, 1953, but in all its main features it confirmed the already established passport system, differing from it only in details.
The list of areas where citizens were required to have passports was somewhat expanded. In addition to cities, district centers and urban-type settlements, passports were introduced throughout the territory of the Baltic republics, the Moscow region, a number of districts of the Leningrad region and in the border regions of the USSR. Residents of most rural areas were still deprived of passports and could not leave their place of residence for more than 30 days without them. But even for a short-term departure, for example, a business trip, it was necessary to obtain a special certificate from the village council.
For passportized citizens, the propiska regime was retained. All persons who changed their place of residence at least temporarily, for a period of more than 3 days, were subject to registration. The concept of temporary registration was introduced (while maintaining a permanent one at the place of residence). In all cases, the passport had to be submitted for registration within a day and registered in cities no later than 3 days from the date of arrival, and in rural areas - no later than 7 days. It was possible to register permanently only if there was a stamp on an extract from the previous place of residence.
An important new restriction was the introduction into the text of the "Regulations" of the so-called "sanitary norm", when a necessary condition for registration was the presence in a given dwelling of a certain minimum of living space for each tenant. This norm was different in different cities. So, in the RSFSR and in a number of other republics, it was equal to 9 square meters. m., in Georgia and Azerbaijan - 12 sq. m., in Ukraine - 13.65 sq. m. There were differences within one republic. So, in Vilnius, the norm was increased compared to the whole of Lithuania and amounted to 12 square meters. m. In Moscow, on the contrary, the norm was lowered: 7 sq. m. m. If the area was below the specified norms, registration was not allowed.
It is curious that for a residence permit and for registering a citizen for "improvement of living space" the norms were different. So, a citizen could ask for a new living space in Moscow only if each tenant had no more than 5 square meters. m., in Leningrad - 4.5 sq. m., in Kyiv - 4 sq. m.
In conditions of a chronic shortage of living space, the "sanitary norm" has become an effective tool for regulating the distribution of the population. There was always a shortage of housing, and it was very easy to refuse a residence permit. Persons who were denied registration were required to leave the settlement within three days. This was announced to them in the police on receipt.
Of course, criminal liability for violation of the passport regime was also retained. Article 192a of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR has not changed. Administrative penalties were also introduced for officials for hiring persons without a residence permit (a fine of up to 10 rubles), building managers, dormitory commandants, homeowners, etc. for permitting residence without a residence permit (a fine of up to 100 rubles, and in Moscow - up to 200 rubles), etc. All these persons, in case of repeated violations, were also subject to Article 192a of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR.
Later, with the introduction of new criminal codes (in 1959-1962 in different republics), the punishment for violation of the passport regime was changed. Living without a passport or without a residence permit has now become punishable by imprisonment for up to 1 year, or by corrective labor for the same period, or by a fine. At the same time, at least three violations of passport rules became a necessary condition (for the first and second times, violations were punished by an administrative fine). Some mitigation was expressed in the fact that persons condoning violations of the passport regime, from now on, began to be subjected only to an administratively imposed fine. Criminal responsibility for them was abolished.
Since charges of this kind were easy to fabricate criminal cases, they were often used to prosecute dissidents, and especially former political prisoners, whose legal position was particularly vulnerable. Among the most famous examples, one can point to the conviction of Anatoly Marchenko for 2 years in camps in 1968 and Iosif Begun for 3 years of exile in 1978. The first was arrested immediately after he wrote an open letter in support of the Prague Spring, the second - near the building where Yu. Orlov was being tried. Both of these former political prisoners were formally convicted of violating the passport regime.

"Regional Cities"

In addition to the main provisions contained in the "Regulations on Passports", numerous other decrees were adopted restricting the freedom of settlement. The concept of so-called regime cities appeared, where registration was regulated especially strictly. These included Moscow, Leningrad, the capitals of the Union republics, large industrial and port centers (Kharkov, Sverdlovsk, Odessa, etc.). A decision was adopted to stop the construction of new factories and factories in these cities in order, in addition to administrative measures, to reduce the pull of the population to large centers. But the main regulatory method was still administrative restrictions.
In Moscow, for example, the executive committee of the Moscow City Council adopted on March 23, 1956, a month after the XX Congress of the CPSU, Resolution No. 16/1 on strengthening the passport regime in Moscow. Two years later, in June 1958, a new resolution was adopted on the same subject. It demanded from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to strengthen the criminal prosecution of violators of the passport regime, to identify and deport them to Moscow, canceling their registration, persons "avoiding socially useful work", not to allow, even inside Moscow, to live outside the place of permanent registration, etc. . The Ministry of Defense was required not to send demobilized servicemen to Moscow. From the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education of the USSR - to distribute to Moscow young specialists only from among those already living in Moscow. A number of other measures were also envisaged.
Similar resolutions were adopted in other cities. On June 25, 1964, the special status of Moscow was secured even by a special resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 585, on the basis of which the "Regulations on registration and discharge of the population in Moscow" were approved.
Secret instructions sent in pursuance of these decrees to the bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in charge of registration practically forbade the registration of new persons in sensitive cities. However, since the course of natural development of these cities soon led to a mismatch between the demand and supply of labor, a system of "propiska limits" was introduced. Individual enterprises received the right to register in a given city (for example, in Moscow) a certain number of persons during the year within the established quota. The vast majority of these were enterprises of the military industry or simply of military importance, but there were also funny exceptions to this pattern. So, in Moscow, they began to register construction workers due to the lack of workers at the construction sites of the capital. The windshield wipers were another unexpected exception. Looking ahead, we note that during the perestroika period, they tried to cancel the system of "limits" (without canceling the restrictions on registration themselves). The result was predictable: "limits" slowly appeared again, first for Metrostroy, and then for other organizations.
The transfer of Moscow and other large cities to the category of "regime" quickly led to a pathological distortion of the structure of the labor force, not only in these centers themselves, but also in the periphery, where there were no such restrictions. Muscovites-specialists, especially young specialists - graduates of universities, began to try by any means to stay in Moscow, realizing that once they left, they would not return there again. Article 306 of the Civil Code established that when a person leaves the place of permanent registration for a period of more than 6 months, he automatically loses the right to this registration (with the exception of cases of the so-called "reservation" of the area when traveling abroad or recruiting to the regions of the Far North). As a result, the periphery began to quickly feel the lack of qualified specialists who could come there, if they were not shackled by the fear of losing Moscow or another major center forever.
The purpose of the introduction of the system of "regime cities" was, apparently, primarily the strategic dispersal of the population, preventing the emergence of megacities. The second goal was to deal with the severe urban housing crisis. The third - last but not least - was to control undesirable elements in the "showcase" cities frequented by foreigners.
Such control was first introduced back in the Stalin period, in the 1930s, when unpublished instructions imposed restrictions on persons who had served a sentence under the infamous article 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (and, in some cases, on members of their families), as well as on those who had served their sentences. for serious crimes (even if not political ones). However, the main object to which these instructions were directed were still the victims of Article 58. The concept of the 101st or 105th kilometer, still preserved in the Russian language, arose (remember, in Akhmatova’s “Poem without a Hero”: “stops”): closer than this distance to Moscow and other large centers, the mentioned persons were forbidden to settle. Since, nevertheless, a natural craving for relatives who remained in the cities, and simply for cultural centers, encouraged people to settle as close as possible to them, soon entire belts formed around Moscow, Leningrad and other cities, inhabited by former camp inmates, who at that time in the USSR numbered millions.
Those released from the camps received passports like all other citizens, and it was necessary to somehow separate them from the general row in order to control their resettlement. This was done using a cipher system. The passport had a two-letter series and a numerical number. The letters of the series constituted a special cipher, well known to employees of passport offices and personnel departments of enterprises, although the owner of the passport himself did not know anything (the cipher system was secret). By the cipher it was possible to judge not only whether the owner of the passport was imprisoned or not, but also the reason for the detention (political, economic, criminal article, etc.).
Instructions from the 50s expanded and improved the system of control over unwanted elements. New categories of citizens were assigned to their number, among them the so-called "parasites" occupied a special place.

"Reforms" of the 70s

In this form, the passport system and the propiska system existed until the 70s. In 1970, a small loophole arose for non-certified collective farmers assigned to the land. In the "Instructions on the procedure for registration and discharge of citizens by the executive committees of rural and settlement Soviets of Working People's Deputies" adopted this year, approved by order of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, an outwardly insignificant reservation was made: "As an exception, it is allowed to issue passports to residents of rural areas working at enterprises and institutions , as well as citizens who, due to the nature of the work performed, require identification documents.
This stipulation began to be used by all those - especially young people - who, by any means, were ready to flee from the devastated villages to the more or less well-off cities. But only in 1974 did the phased legal abolition of serfdom in the USSR begin.
The new "Regulations on the Passport System in the USSR" was approved by the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR dated August 28, 1974 No. 677. Its most significant difference from all previous resolutions is that passports began to be issued to all citizens of the USSR from the age of 16, for the first time including villagers and collective farmers. Full certification began, however, only on January 1, 1976 and ended on December 31, 1981. In six years, 50 million passports were issued in rural areas.
Thus, the collective farmers were at least equalized in rights with the inhabitants of the cities. However, the new "Regulations on Passports" left the registration regime itself practically unchanged. The terms have become a little more liberal. So, when settling for a period of less than 1.5 months, it became possible to live without a residence permit, but with a mandatory entry in the house book (which was carried out in the USSR for each residential building). The difference here was that such a recording did not require special permission from the authorities. The deadline for submitting documents for registration has increased from 1 to 3 days. Persons who were denied registration now had to leave this settlement not in 3, but in 7 days.
Everything else remained unchanged, including criminal liability for violation of propiska rules. The “Regulations” also for the first time openly recorded the previously existing instructions on the special regime of border regions: for registration in them, it became necessary to obtain special permission from the Ministry of Internal Affairs even before entering this region. This, however, was practiced earlier, but was not announced in the open press.
Simultaneously with the new "Regulations on the passport system", the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a resolution "On some rules for the registration of citizens" (No. 678 of August 28, 1974). The first four paragraphs of this resolution were published, the next six were marked "not for publication".
In the published part of the resolution, the main point was the first paragraph, which somewhat softens the restrictions on registration. In this part, the decree allowed registration in cities and urban-type settlements of a whole category of citizens, regardless of whether the area satisfies the sanitary norm or not. So, it was allowed to register a husband to his wife and vice versa, children to parents and vice versa, brothers and sisters - to each other, demobilized from the army - to the living space where they lived before being drafted into the army, who served their sentence - to the living space where they lived until arrest, etc. These easings were dictated by the need to eliminate at least the most barbaric restrictions that led time after time to the direct destruction of family ties. Such mitigating clauses have already had to be introduced retroactively even in the text of the previous, 1953, "Regulations on Passports" (Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 1347 of December 3, 1959). Here they were introduced into the main text from the very beginning.

Cleaning up "junk items"

However, the main point of the unpublished part, point 5, immediately established exemptions from this "liberal" resolution, excluding, in particular, the possibility for former political prisoners to return to their former place of residence if, for one reason or another, it should be cleared of "undesirable elements":
"Establish that persons recognized by the court as especially dangerous recidivists, and persons who have served a sentence of imprisonment or exile for especially dangerous state crimes, banditry, actions that disrupt the work of correctional labor institutions, riots, violation of the rules on foreign exchange transactions under aggravating circumstances , embezzlement of state and public property on an especially large scale, robbery under aggravating circumstances, premeditated murder under aggravating circumstances, rape committed by a group of persons or entailing especially grave consequences, as well as rape of a minor, encroachment on the life of a police officer or people's combatant, dissemination of knowingly false fabrications discrediting the Soviet state and social system are not subject to registration until the expiration or removal in accordance with the established procedure of a criminal record in cities, regions and localities, the list of which is determined by decisions of the Government of the USSR.
It is noteworthy that this paragraph covered not only the so-called "especially dangerous state criminals", but also persons who had served their sentences under Article 190-1 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (before this decision, such restrictions were not formally imposed on them).
The list of places closed to former political prisoners, of course, was not published. It is known, however, that it included Moscow and the Moscow region, Leningrad and a number of districts of the Leningrad region, the capitals of the Union republics and a number of large industrial centers, the border regions of the USSR and, apparently, a number of other areas that were not clearly defined (as far as one can judge in practice, the decision to ban the residence of former political prisoners could be taken by local authorities).
This decree confirmed and finally consolidated the formally existing and earlier practice of expelling dissidents from large cultural centers in order to reduce their influence, and also to prevent their possible contacts with foreign citizens, who, in turn, could not visit the deep regions of the USSR without special permission. The expulsion of dissidents from large centers who left families and friends there also became an important tool for extrajudicial repression.
The ban on propiska in Moscow and other large cities for those released from prison continued later. Moreover, new restrictions were introduced for this category of persons. So, in August 1985, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a new resolution (No. 736) on amendments and additions to the already mentioned old resolution of 1964 on registration in Moscow (No. 585). In it, in paragraph 27, it was stated: "The following are not subject to registration in Moscow: a) citizens who have served imprisonment, exile or expulsion for crimes provided for in articles ..." Next came the list of articles of the Criminal Code, sharply expanded compared to that which is given above. Moreover, it became impossible for former prisoners not only to live in Moscow, but even to visit it: “Persons who, in accordance with clause 27 of this Decree, are not subject to registration in Moscow, are allowed to enter Moscow if there are good reasons for a period of not more than 3 days, if they have a residence permit in another locality. The conditions and procedure for issuing permission to enter the city of Moscow for these persons is determined by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR. "
More than 60,000 people have fallen under passport restrictions since the publication of this decree in Moscow. But Moscow is just one of the cities closed to former prisoners. The same (or slightly relaxed) restrictions were introduced in more than 70 cities and towns of the country.

End of residency?

The first mitigation in this regard was made on February 10, 1988, when the Moscow Council adopted a resolution according to which persons who had served a term of imprisonment "for serious crimes", if they were convicted for the first time, could now be registered in Moscow with their spouses or parents. Then mitigations began without prior notice, in connection with the increasingly developing paralysis of power in the country. Although the ban on visiting Moscow by former convicts was not lifted, no one in Moscow caught them anymore, and many even lived permanently without a residence permit. All this ended with the adoption by the Council of Ministers of the USSR on September 8, 1990 of Resolution No. 907 "On the invalidation of certain decisions of the Government of the USSR on the issues of registration of citizens", which removed all restrictions on registration at the former place of residence for those returning from places of detention.
Later, several cosmetic indulgences were made in the Moscow residence permit regime. On January 11, 1990, the Council of Ministers of the USSR allowed the registration in Moscow of retired military personnel, if they had housing in the capital before being drafted. In the aforementioned Decree No. 907, as many as 30 restrictive decisions of previous years on registration in Moscow and other cities were canceled. Secrecy was removed from by-laws on propiska (after the Constitutional Supervision Committee prepared an opinion "On the non-compliance of prohibitions on the publication of rules on propiska with the provisions of the international Covenants on Human Rights").
On October 26, 1990, the conclusion of the Committee for Constitutional Supervision of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR finally appeared. The conclusion admitted that "the registration function of propiska does not contradict the laws of the USSR and generally recognized international norms, but its permitting procedure prevents citizens from exercising their fundamental rights - freedom of movement, work and education." At the same time, as Committee member Mikhail Piskotin emphasized, it was not possible to immediately abolish the propiska institution as a whole because of the huge shortage of housing in the country. The transition from the permissive to the registration order of registration, according to M. Piskotin, was to take place "in stages, as the housing and labor markets are formed."
This market formed faster than the members of the Committee on Constitutional Oversight expected. Formally not abolished, propiska quickly began to die off de facto. The police actually lost the ability to exercise control over the propiska regime. The new market relations no longer needed this.
The process finally ended with a formal act - the adoption of the Law on Freedom of Movement. It remains to be hoped that the current convulsive measures of the city authorities and other resistance of local municipal authorities are only the latest relapses of the totalitarian regime.
Citizens of the Russian Federation are advised not to comply with unconstitutional decisions on the propiska regime of any municipal authorities. In cases of conflict, it is necessary to go to court.
According to Article 18 of the new Constitution of the Russian Federation, "the rights and freedoms of man and citizen are directly applicable." They must be directly defended by the court.

Additional material

In 1974, it was finally decided to issue passports to rural residents of the USSR, although it was forbidden, however, to take them to work in cities. Vlast' columnist Yevgeny Zhirnov restored the history of the Soviet leadership's struggle to preserve serfdom, which was abolished a century earlier.

"There is a need for more accurate (passport) registration of citizens"

When Soviet schoolchildren learned poems about the "red-skinned passport", many of them were reminded by Mayakovsky's lines that their parents, with all their desire, cannot receive a "duplicate of priceless cargo", because he was not legally entitled to the villagers. And also about the fact that, when planning to leave their native village somewhere farther than the regional center, each collective farmer was obliged to acquire a certificate from the village council proving his identity, which was valid for no more than thirty days.

And that they gave it only with the permission of the chairman of the collective farm, so that the peasant enrolled in his ranks for life would not think of leaving the collective farm of his own free will.

Some villagers, especially those who had numerous urban relatives, were ashamed of their disadvantaged position. And others did not even think about the injustice of Soviet laws, because they never left their native village and the fields surrounding it in their entire lives.

Under the new, revolutionary government The police decided to simplify their lives by total registration of citizens.

Indeed, after the end of the Civil War and the introduction of a new economic policy, not only the revival of private business and trade began, but also the mass movement of citizens seeking a better life.

However, market relations also implied the existence of a labor market with a freely moving labor force. Therefore, the proposal of the NKVD in the Council of People's Commissars met without much enthusiasm. In January 1923, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Alexander Beloborodov complained to the Central Committee of the RCP (b):

“From the beginning of 1922, the N.K.V.D. faced the question of the need to change the existing procedure for residence permits.

The Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of June 28-19 determined only the introduction of work books in the cities of Petrograd and Moscow, and in other parts of the Republic no documents were introduced by this decree and only indirectly indicated (Article 3 of this decree) the existence of a passport, according to upon presentation of which the workbook was issued.

With the introduction of N.E.P. the meaning of issuing workbooks in Moscow and Petrograd disappeared, and at the same time, in connection with the establishment of private trade and private production, the need arose for more accurate accounting of the urban population, and, consequently, the need to introduce a procedure in which accounting could be fully ensured.

In addition, the practice of decentralized issuance of documents in the field has shown that these documents were issued extremely diverse both in essence and in form, and the issued certificates are so simple that it is not difficult to falsify them, which, in turn, makes the work of the search authorities and the police extremely difficult.

Taking into account all the above, the NKVD developed a draft regulation, which, after agreement with the departments concerned, on February 23, 22, was submitted to the Council of People's Commissars for approval. At the meeting of the Small Council of People's Commissars on May 26, 22, the introduction of a single residence permit in the RSFSR was recognized as inappropriate.

After long ordeals through the authorities, the issue of passports reached the highest legislative body - the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, but even there it was rejected. But Beloborodov insisted:

"The need for an established document - an identity card is so great that on the ground they have already begun to resolve the issue in their own way. Projects have been developed by Petrograd, Moscow, the Turk-Republic, Ukraine, the Karelian Commune, the Crimean Republic and a number of provinces. Admission of various types of identity cards for individual provinces, regions, it will extremely complicate the work of administrative bodies and create many inconveniences for the population.

The Central Committee also did not immediately come to a consensus. But in the end they decided that control was more important than market principles, and from January 1, they banned pre-revolutionary documents, as well as any other papers used to confirm identity, including work books. Instead, they introduced a single identity card of a citizen of the USSR.

"The number of detainees was very significant"

However, in reality, the certification was not carried out, and it all came down to certificates of the established form from house administrations, with the help of which it was not possible to establish real control over the movements of citizens .

Politburo Commission, in 1932 considering the issue of passportization of the country, stated:

“The procedure established by the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of June 20, 1923, modified by the decree of July 18, 1927, was so imperfect that the following provision has now been created.

Identification is not required, except in "cases prescribed by law", but such cases are not specified in the law itself.

Any document up to the certificates issued by the building management is an identity card.

The same documents are sufficient both for registration and for obtaining a ration card, which provides the most favorable ground for abuse, since house administrations, on the basis of the documents issued by them, carry out registration and issue cards themselves.

Finally, by a decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of November 10, 1930, the right to issue identity cards was granted to the village councils and the mandatory publication of the loss of documents was abolished. This law actually annulled the documentation of the population in the USSR."

The issue of passports arose in 1932 not by chance.

After the complete collectivization of agriculture, a mass exodus of peasants to the cities began. which exacerbated the growing food difficulties from year to year. And just for cleansing cities, primarily Moscow and Leningrad, a new passport system was intended from this alien element.

A single identity document was introduced in cities declared sensitive, and passportization served at the same time as a way to clear them of runaway peasants.

Passports , truth, did not issue not only to them, but also to enemies of the Soviet government, disenfranchised, repeatedly convicted criminals, as well as all suspicious and socially alien elements. The refusal to issue a passport meant automatic eviction from the regime city, and in the first four months of 1933, when the passportization of the two capitals took place, in Moscow the population decline was 214,700 people, and in Leningrad - 476,182.

During the campaign, as usual, there were numerous mistakes and excesses. Thus, the Politburo pointed out to the police that old people whose children received passports should also be given them, even though they belonged to the propertied and ruling classes before the revolution. And to support anti-religious work, they were allowed to passport former clergymen who voluntarily renounced their rank.

In the three largest cities of the country, including the then capital of Ukraine Kharkiv, after passportization, not only the criminal situation improved, but also there were fewer eaters.

And the supply of the passportized population, although not too significantly, has improved. What the heads of other large cities of the country, as well as the regions and districts surrounding them, could not help but pay attention to. Following Moscow, passportization was carried out in a hundred-verst zone around the capital . And already in February 1933 the list of cities where priority certification was carried out included, for example, Magnitogorsk, which is under construction.

In 1935, the head of the NKVD Genrikh Yagoda and the USSR prosecutor Andrei Vyshinsky reported to the Central Committee and the Council of People's Commissars on the creation of extrajudicial "troikas" for violators of the passport regime:

"In order to quickly clear the cities that fall under Article 10 of the law on passports from criminal and declassed elements, as well as malicious violators of the Regulations on Passports, the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor's Office of the USSR Union on January 10, 1935 ordered the formation of special troikas on the ground for resolution of cases of this category. This measure was dictated by the fact that the number of detainees in these cases was very significant, and the consideration of these cases in Moscow at the Special Conference led to an excessive delay in the consideration of these cases and to an overload of places of pre-trial detention.

On the document, Stalin wrote a resolution: "The 'quickest' purge is dangerous. We must purge gradually and thoroughly, without jolts and excessive administrative enthusiasm. It would be necessary to set a year's deadline for the end of purges." By 1937, the NKVD considered the comprehensive cleansing of cities completed and reported to the Council of People's Commissars:

"1. In the USSR, passports were issued to the population of cities, workers' settlements, district centers, new buildings, MTS locations, as well as all settlements within a 100-kilometer strip around the cities. Moscow, Leningrad, a 50-kilometer strip around Kyiv and Kharkov; 100-kilometer Western European, Eastern (Eastern Siberia) and Far Eastern border strip; esplanade zone of the DVK and Sakhalin Island and workers and employees (with their families) of water and rail transport.

2. In other rural non-certified areas, passports are issued only to the population leaving for otkhodnichestvo, for study, for treatment, and for other reasons.

Actually, this was the second in order, but the main purpose of certification.

The rural population, left without documents, could not leave their native places, since violators of the passport regime were expected by "troikas" and imprisonment.

And it was absolutely impossible to get a certificate to leave for work in the city without the consent of the collective farm board. .

So the peasants, as in the days of serfdom, were tightly tied to their homes and had to fill the bins of their homeland for the miserable distribution of grain for workdays or even for free, since they simply had no other choice left.

Passports were given only to peasants in the border forbidden zones (these peasants in 1937 included collective farmers from the Transcaucasian and Central Asian republics), as well as to residents of rural areas of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia annexed to the USSR.

"Such an order is not justified"

In subsequent years, the passport system only tightened. Restrictions were introduced on residence in sensitive cities for all non-working elements, with the exception of pensioners, the disabled and dependents of workers, which in fact meant the automatic deprivation of registration and eviction from the city of any person who lost his job and did not have working relatives.

There was also a practice of securing hard work by withdrawing passports.

For example, since 1940, passports were confiscated from miners in personnel departments, instead of them special certificates were issued, the owners of which could neither get a new job, nor leave their places of residence..

Naturally, the people looked for loopholes in the laws and tried to break free.

The main way to leave the native collective farm was recruitment for even harder work - logging, peat mining, construction in remote northern regions.

If a distribution order for labor force descended from above, the chairmen of the collective farms could only pull the bagpipes and delay the issuance of permits.

True, the recruited passport was issued only for the duration of the contract, for a maximum of a year. After that, the former collective farmer, by hook or by crook, tried to extend the contract, and then move into the category of permanent employees of his new enterprise.

Another effective way to obtain a passport was the early sending of children to study in factory schools and technical schools.

Everyone living on its territory was voluntarily-compulsorily enrolled in the collective farm, starting from the age of sixteen. . And the trick was that the teenager went to study at the age of 14-15, and already there, in the city, he received a passport.

However, for many years military service remained the most reliable means of getting rid of collective-farm bondage. Having paid their patriotic duty to their homeland, the rural guys went in droves to factories, construction sites, to the police, remained in long-term service, just not to return home to the collective farm . Moreover, their parents supported them in every possible way.

It would seem that the end of the collective farm yoke should have come after the death of Stalin and the coming to power of Khrushchev, who loves and understands the peasantry.

But "dear Nikita Sergeevich" did absolutely nothing to change the passport regime in the countryside, apparently realizing that, having freedom of movement, the peasants will stop working for pennies.

Nothing has changed after the removal of Khrushchev and the transfer of power to the triumvirate - Brezhnev, Kosygin and Podgorny. After all, the country still needed a lot of cheap bread, and getting it differently, how exploiting the peasants, they have long forgotten how .

That is why in 1967 the proposal of the first deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the main person responsible for agriculture, Dmitry Polyansky, was met with hostility by the first persons of the country.

“According to the current legislation,” Polyansky wrote, “ the issuance of passports in our country applies only to persons living in cities, regional centers and urban-type settlements (aged 16 years and older).

Those who live in rural areas are not entitled to this basic identity document of a Soviet citizen.

Such an order is currently not justified in any way, especially since on the territory of the Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian SSRs, the Moscow and Kaliningrad regions, some districts of the Kazakh SSR, the Leningrad region, the Krasnodar and Stavropol Territories and in the border zone, passports are issued to everyone living there, regardless of whether they are city dwellers or country dwellers.

In addition, according to established practice, passports are also issued to citizens living in rural areas if they work in industrial enterprises, institutions and organizations or in transport, as well as materially responsible workers in collective farms and state farms.

According to the Ministry of Public Order of the USSR, the number of persons now living in rural areas and not entitled to a passport reaches almost 58 million people (aged 16 years and older); this is 37 percent of all citizens of the USSR.

The absence of passports for these citizens creates significant difficulties for them in exercising labor, family and property rights, enrolling in studies, receiving various types of postal items, purchasing goods on credit, registering in hotels, etc.

One of the main reasons for the inexpediency of issuing passports to citizens living in rural areas was the desire to restrain the mechanical growth of the urban population.

However, the passportization of the entire population carried out in the Union republics and regions indicated above showed that the fears that existed in this regard were unfounded; it did not cause an additional influx of people from the countryside to the city.

In addition, such an influx can be regulated even if rural residents have passports. The current procedure for passportization, which infringes on the rights of Soviet citizens living in the countryside, causes them legitimate dissatisfaction. They rightly believe that such an order means, for a significant part of the population, unjustified discrimination, which must be put an end to."

When voting on the Poliansky resolution proposed by the Politburo, its most venerable members - Brezhnev and Suslov - did not support the project, and the no less influential Kosygin suggested discussing the issue further. And after the emergence of disagreements, according to Brezhnev's routine, any problem was removed from consideration for an indefinite period.

However, the question arose again two years later, in 1969, and it was raised by the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR Nikolai Shchelokov, who, like his predecessor Beloborodov, was faced with the need to organize an accurate head count of all citizens of the country.

After all, if the police kept a photograph for every passportized citizen of the country along with his data, then it was not possible to identify the guest performers from the villages who committed the crimes. Shchelokov, however, tried to present the matter as if it were about issuing new passports to the whole country, in the course of which injustice against the peasants could also be eliminated.

“The publication of a new Regulation on the passport system in the USSR,” said the note of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Central Committee of the CPSU, “is also caused by the need for a different approach to solving a number of issues related to the passport system in connection with the adoption of new criminal and civil legislation.

In addition, at present, according to the existing Regulations, only residents of urban areas have passports, the rural population does not have them, which creates great difficulties for rural residents (when receiving postal items, purchasing goods on credit, traveling abroad on tourist vouchers, etc.) .).

The changes that have taken place in the country, the growth in the welfare of the rural population and the strengthening of the economic base of collective farms have prepared the conditions for the issuance of passports to the rural population, which will lead to the elimination of differences in the legal status of citizens of the USSR in terms of documenting them with passports.

At the same time, the current passports, made according to samples approved back in the thirties, are morally obsolete, their appearance and quality cause fair complaints from the workers.

Shchelokov was part of Brezhnev's inner circle and could count on success. However, now Podgorny, who voted for Polyansky's project, spoke out sharply against it: "This measure is untimely and far-fetched." And the issue of certification of collective farmers again hung in the air.

It wasn't until 1973 that things got off the ground. . Shchelokov again sent a note to the Politburo about the need to change the passport system, which was supported by all the leaders of the KGB, the prosecutor's office and the justice authorities. It might seem that for the only time in the history of the USSR, Soviet law enforcement agencies protected the rights of Soviet citizens. But it only seemed. The recall of the department of administrative bodies of the Central Committee of the CPSU, which oversaw the army, the KGB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the prosecutor's office and the judiciary, said:

"According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, there is a need to solve a number of issues of the passport system in the country in a new way. In particular, it is proposed to passportize not only urban, but also the entire rural population who currently do not have passports. This applies to 62.6 million people in rural areas over the age of 16, which is 36 percent of the total population of this age. It is assumed that the certification of rural residents will improve the organization of population registration and will contribute to a more successful identification of antisocial elements. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that the implementation of this measure may affect the processes of migration of the rural population to cities in some areas.

The Politburo Commission, created to prepare the passport reform, took into account the interests of all parties, worked slowly and prepared its proposals only in the next year, 1974:

“We would consider it necessary to adopt a new Regulation on the passport system in the USSR, since the current Regulation on Passports, approved in 1953, is largely outdated and some of the rules established by it require revision ... The project provides for issuing passports to the entire population. This will create more favorable conditions for exercise by citizens of their rights and will contribute to a more complete account of the movement of the population. At the same time, for collective farmers, the existing procedure for hiring them for work at enterprises and construction sites, i.e., if there are certificates of vacation by the collective farm boards, is available.

As a result, the collective farmers did not get anything but the opportunity to get a "red-skinned passport" out of their trousers.

But at the conference on security and cooperation in Europe, which took place in the same year in Helsinki in 1974, where the issue of human rights in the USSR was debated quite sharply, no one could reproach Brezhnev that he had sixty million people deprived of freedom of movement. And the fact that they both worked under serfdom and continued to work for a pittance remained a minor detail.

Evgeny Zhirnov

According to the decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, passports began to be issued to all villagers only in 1976-81.

DECISION of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of August 28, 1974 N 677 "ON APPROVAL OF THE REGULATIONS ON THE PASSPORT SYSTEM IN THE USSR"
Publication source: "Code of Laws of the USSR", v. 10, p. 315, 1990, "SP USSR", 1974, N 19, Art. 109
Note to the document: ConsultantPlus: note.
When applying the document, we recommend additional verification of its status, taking into account the current legislation of the Russian Federation
Document name: DECISION of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of 28.08.1974 N 677 "ON APPROVAL OF THE REGULATIONS ON THE PASSPORT SYSTEM IN THE USSR"

In 1974, rural residents, finally, were prohibited, however, from hiring them in cities. Vlast' columnist Yevgeny Zhirnov restored the history of the Soviet leadership's struggle to preserve serfdom, which was abolished a century earlier.

"There is a need for more accurate (passport) registration of citizens"

When Soviet schoolchildren learned poems about the "red-skinned passport", many of them were reminded by Mayakovsky's lines that their parents, with all their desire, cannot receive a "duplicate priceless cargo", since the villagers were not supposed to by law. And also about the fact that when planning to leave their native village somewhere farther than the regional center, each collective farmer was obliged to acquire an identity document a certificate from the village council, valid for no more than thirty days .

We thank the Rubicon Consalting Law Company, which is engaged in the registration of TOV in Kyiv, for assistance in publishing materials on our website.

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Some villagers, especially those who had numerous urban relatives, were ashamed of their disadvantaged position. And others did not even think about the injustice of Soviet laws, because they never left their native village and the fields surrounding it in their entire lives. However, like many generations of their ancestors. After all, it was precisely this attachment to the native lands that Peter I sought when three centuries ago he introduced passports unknown before. The reformer tsar, with their help, tried to create a full-fledged tax and recruitment system, as well as to eradicate loitering on. However, it was not so much about the universal registration of the subjects of the empire, but about the total restriction of freedom of movement. Even with the permission of their own master, having written permission from him, the peasants could not move more than thirty miles from their native village. And for more distant travels, it was required to straighten a passport on a form, for which, since Catherine's time, it was also required to pay a lot of money.

Later, representatives of other classes of Russian society, including the nobility, also lost their freedom of movement. But still the main restrictions concerned the peasants. Even after the abolition of serfdom, without the consent of the rural society, which confirmed that the applicant for a passport had neither arrears in taxes, nor arrears in duties, it was impossible to obtain a passport. And for all classes there was a registration of passports and residence permits in the police, similar to the familiar modern registration. Passports, it is true, were quite easily forged, and in many cases their registration was almost legally evaded. But still, the registration of the townsfolk greatly facilitated the control over them and all the detective work of the police.

So there was nothing surprising in the fact that under the new, revolutionary government, she decided to simplify her life by total accounting of citizens. Indeed, after the end and introduction of the new economic policy, not only the revival of private business and trade began, but also the mass movement of citizens seeking a better life. However, market relations also implied the existence of a freely moving labor force. Therefore, the Council of People's Commissars met without much enthusiasm. In January 1923 People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Alexander Beloborodov complained to the Central Committee of the RCP (b):

“From the beginning of 1922, the N.K.V.D. faced the question of the need to change the existing procedure for residence permits. Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and Council of People's Commissars of June 28-19 determined only introduction of work books in the cities of Petrograd and Moscow, and in the rest of the Republic, no documents were introduced by this decree and only indirectly indicated (Article 3 of this decree) the existence of a passport, upon presentation of which a work book was issued. With the introduction of N.E.P. the meaning of issuing workbooks in Moscow and Petrograd disappeared, and at the same time, in connection with the establishment of private trade and private production, the need arose for more accurate accounting of the urban population, and, consequently, the need to introduce a procedure in which accounting could be fully ensured.

Besides, practice of decentralized issuance of documents on the ground showed that these documents were issued extremely diverse both in essence and in form, and the issued certificates are so simple that it is not difficult to falsify them, which, in turn, makes the work of the search authorities extremely difficult and. Taking into account all the above, the draft provision, which, after agreement with the departments concerned, on February 23, 22 was submitted to the Council of People's Commissars for approval. At the meeting of the Small Council of People's Commissars on May 26, 22, the introduction of a single residence permit in the RSFSR was recognized as inappropriate.

After long ordeals through the authorities, the issue of passports reached the highest legislative body - the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, but even there it was rejected. But Beloborodov insisted:

"The number of detainees was very significant"

However, in reality, passportization was not carried out and everything was reduced to certificates of the established form from house administrations, with the help of which it was not possible to establish real control over the movements of citizens. The Politburo commission, which considered the issue of passportization of the country in 1932, stated:

"The order established Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of June 20, 1923, modified Decree of July 18, 1927, was so imperfect that at this time the following position has been created. Identification is not required, except in "cases prescribed by law", but such cases are not specified in the law itself. Any document up to the certificates issued by the building management is an identity card. The same documents are sufficient both for registration and for obtaining a ration card, which provides the most favorable ground for abuse, since house administrations, on the basis of the documents issued by them, carry out registration and issue cards themselves. Finally, Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of 10.XI.1930 The right to issue identity cards was granted to the village councils and the mandatory publication of the loss of documents was abolished. This law actually annulled the documentation of the population in the USSR."

The issue of passports arose in 1932 not by chance. After the economy, a mass exodus of peasants to the cities began, which aggravated the food difficulties that were growing from year to year. And it was precisely to clear the cities, primarily Moscow and Leningrad, of this alien element that the new passport system was intended. A single identity document was introduced in cities declared sensitive, and passportization served at the same time as a way to clear them of fugitive peasants. True, passports were not issued not only to them, but also to enemies of the Soviet regime, deprived of their rights, repeatedly convicted criminals, as well as to all suspicious and socially alien elements. Refusal to issue a passport meant automatic eviction from a sensitive city, and for the first four months of 1933 when the passportization of the two capitals took place, in Moscow, the population decline was 214,700 people, and in Leningrad, 476,182.

In the three largest cities of the country, including the then capital of Ukraine Kharkov, after passportization, not only the criminal situation improved, but there were also fewer eaters.

In the three largest cities of the country, including the then capital of Ukraine Kharkov, after passportization, not only the criminal situation improved, but there were also fewer eaters. And the supply of the passportized population, although not too significantly, has improved. What the heads of other large cities of the country, as well as the regions and districts surrounding them, could not help but pay attention to. Following Moscow passportization was carried out in a hundred-verst zone around the capital. And already to the list of cities, where priority certification was carried out, included, for example, the Magnitogorsk.

As the list of regime towns and localities expanded, so did the opposition of the population. Citizens of the USSR, left without passports, acquired fake certificates, changed their biographies and surnames, and moved to places where passportization was just ahead and they could try their luck again. And many came to regime cities, lived there illegally and earned their livelihood by working at home on orders from various artels. So even after the end of passportization, the cleaning of sensitive cities did not stop. In 1935, the head of the NKVD Genrikh Yagoda and the USSR prosecutor Andrei Vyshinsky reported to the Central Committee and the Council of People's Commissars on the creation of extrajudicial "troikas" for violators of the passport regime:

"1. In the USSR, passports were issued to the population of cities, workers' settlements, district centers, new buildings, MTS locations, as well as all settlements within a 100-kilometer strip around the cities of Moscow, Leningrad, a 50-kilometer strip around Kyiv and Kharkov; 100 -kilometer West European, Eastern (East. Siberia) and Far Eastern border strip, esplanade zone of the Far East and Sakhalin Island and workers and employees (with families) of water and railway transport.

2. In other rural non-certified areas, passports are issued only to the population leaving for otkhodnichestvo, for study, for treatment, and for other reasons.

Actually, this was the second in order, but the main purpose of certification. The rural population, left without documents, could not leave their native places, since violators of the passport regime were expected by "troikas" and imprisonment. And it was absolutely impossible to get a certificate to leave for work in the city without the consent of the collective farm board. So the peasants, as in the days of serfdom, were tightly tied to their homes and had to fill the bins of their homeland for the miserable distribution of grain for workdays or even for free, since they simply had no other choice left.

"Such an order is not justified"

In subsequent years, the passport system only tightened. Restrictions were introduced on living in sensitive cities for all non-working elements, with the exception of pensioners, the disabled and dependents of workers, which in fact meant the automatic deprivation of registration and eviction from the city of any person who lost his job and did not have working relatives. Appeared and the practice of securing hard work by withdrawing passports. For example, since 1940, passports were confiscated from miners in personnel departments, issuing instead of them special certificates, the owners of which could neither get a new job, nor leave the places of residence determined by them.

Naturally, the people looked for loopholes in the laws and tried to break free. The main way to leave the native collective farm was recruitment for even harder work.- logging, peat development, construction in remote northern areas. If a distribution order for labor force descended from above, the chairmen of the collective farms could only pull the bagpipes and delay the issuance of permits. True, the recruited passport was issued only for the duration of the contract, for a maximum of a year. After that, the former collective farmer, by hook or by crook, tried to extend the contract, and then move into the category of permanent employees of his new enterprise.

Another effective way to obtain a passport was early sending of children to study in factory schools and technical schools. Everyone living on its territory was voluntarily-compulsorily enrolled in the collective farm, starting from the age of sixteen. And the trick was that the teenager went to study at the age of 14-15, and already there, in the city, he received a passport.

However the most reliable means of getting rid of collective farm bondage for many years was military service. Having paid their patriotic duty to their homeland, the rural guys went in droves to factories, construction sites, to the police, remained in long-term service, just not to return home to the collective farm. Moreover, their parents supported them in every possible way.

It would seem that the end of the collective farm yoke was to come after the death of Stalin and the coming to power of a loving and understanding peasantry. But "dear Nikita Sergeevich" did absolutely nothing to change the passport regime in the countryside, apparently realizing that, having gained freedom of movement, the peasants would stop working for pennies. and after the transition of power to the triumvirate - , Kosygin and Podgorny. After all, the country still needed a lot of cheap bread, and they had long forgotten how to get it otherwise than by exploiting the peasants. That is why in 1967 the proposal of the first deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the chief responsible for agriculture Dmitry Polyansky the first persons of the country were greeted with hostility.

“According to the current legislation,” Polyansky wrote, “the issuance of passports in our country applies only to persons living in cities, regional centers and urban-type settlements (aged 16 years and older). Those who live in rural areas do not have the right to receive this basic document proving the identity of a Soviet citizen.This procedure is currently not justified in any way, especially since in the territory of the Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian SSRs, the Moscow and Kaliningrad regions, some regions of the Kazakh SSR, the Leningrad region, the Krasnodar and Stavropol territories and in the border zone, passports are issued to all residents there, regardless of whether they are urban or rural residents.In addition, according to established practice, passports are also issued to citizens living in rural areas if they work in industrial enterprises, institutions and organizations or in transport, and also materially responsible workers in collective farms and state farms. m of the Ministry of Public Order of the USSR, the number of people now living in rural areas and not entitled to a passport reaches almost 58 million people(aged 16 and over); this amounts to 37 percent of all citizens of the USSR. The absence of passports for these citizens creates significant difficulties for them in exercising labor, family and property rights, enrolling in studies, receiving various types of postal items, purchasing goods on credit, registering in hotels, etc. One of the main reasons for the inexpediency of issuing passports citizens living in rural areas, was the desire to contain the mechanical growth of the urban population. However, the passportization of the entire population carried out in the Union republics and regions indicated above showed that the fears that existed in this regard were unfounded; it did not cause an additional influx of people from the countryside to the city. In addition, such an influx can be regulated even if rural residents have passports. The current procedure for passportization, which infringes on the rights of Soviet citizens living in the countryside, causes them legitimate discontent. They rightly believe that such an order means for a significant part of the population unjustified discrimination that needs to end."

When voting on the Poliansky resolution proposed by the Politburo, its most venerable members - and Suslov - did not support the project, and the no less influential Kosygin suggested discussing the issue further. And after the emergence of disagreements, according to Brezhnev's routine, any problem was removed from consideration for an indefinite period.

However, the question arose again two years later, in 1969, and raised it USSR Nikolai Shchelokov, faced, like his predecessor Beloborodov, with the need to organize an accurate head count of all citizens of the country. After all, if the police kept a photograph for every passportized citizen of the country along with his data, then it was not possible to identify the guest performers from the villages who committed the crimes. Shchelokov, however, tried to present the matter as if it were about issuing new passports to the whole country, in the course of which injustice against the peasants could also be eliminated.

“The publication of a new Regulation on the passport system in the USSR,” said the note of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Central Committee, “is also caused by the need for a different approach to solving a number of issues related to the passport system in connection with the adoption of new criminal and civil laws. In addition, at this time according to the existing Regulations, only residents of urban areas have passports, the rural population does not have them, which creates great difficulties for rural residents (when receiving postal items, purchasing goods on credit, traveling abroad on tourist vouchers, etc.). changes, the growth of the welfare of the rural population and the strengthening of the economic base of collective farms prepared the conditions for the issuance of passports to the rural population, which will lead to the elimination of differences in the legal status of citizens of the USSR in terms of documenting their passports. thirties, obsolete, their appearance and quality nature provokes fair criticism of the working people".

It was only in 1973 that things got off the ground. Shchelokov again sent a note to the Politburo about the need to change the passport system, which was supported by all the leaders of the KGB, the prosecutor's office and the justice authorities. It might seem that for the only time in the history of the USSR, the Soviets defended the rights of Soviet citizens. But it only seemed. The recall of the department of administrative bodies of the Central Committee, which oversaw the army, the KGB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the prosecutor's office and the judiciary, said:

"According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, there is a need to re-solve a number of issues of the passport system in the country. In particular, it is proposed to passportize not only the urban, but also the entire rural population, which currently does not have passports. This applies 62.6 million rural residents over the age of 16, which is 36 percent to the total population of that age. It is assumed that the certification of rural residents will improve the organization of population registration and will contribute to a more successful identification of antisocial elements. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that the implementation of this measure may affect the processes of migration of the rural population to cities in some areas.

The Politburo Commission, created to prepare the passport reform, took into account the interests of all parties, worked slowly and prepared its proposals only in the next year, 1974:

“We would consider it necessary to adopt a new Regulation on the Passport System in the USSR, since the current Regulation on Passports, approved in 1953, is largely outdated and some of the rules established by it require revision ... The project is for the entire population. This will create more favorable conditions for citizens to exercise their rights and will contribute to a more complete account of the movement of the population. At the same time, the existing procedure for hiring them for work at enterprises and construction sites is preserved for collective farmers, that is, if they have certificates of vacation from the boards of collective farms ".

As a result, the collective farmers did not get anything but the opportunity to get a "red-skinned passport" out of their trousers. But at the conference on security and cooperation in Europe, which took place in the same year in Helsinki in 1974, where the issue of human rights in the USSR was debated quite sharply, no one could reproach Brezhnev that he had sixty million people deprived of freedom of movement. And the fact that they both worked under serfdom and continued to work for a pittance remained a minor detail.

Evgeny Zhirnov

According to the decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, passports began to be issued to all villagers only in 1976-81.

http://www.pravoteka.ru/pst/749/374141.html
Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of August 28, 1974 N 677
"On approval of the regulations on the passport system in the USSR"

The Council of Ministers of the USSR decides:

1. Approve the attached Regulations on the passport system in the USSR, a sample passport of a citizen of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics *) and a description of the passport.

Enact the Regulations on the Passport System in the USSR, with the exception of paragraphs 1-3, 5, 9-18, concerning the issuance of new passports, from July 1, 1975 and in full from January 1976.

Instructions on the procedure for applying the Regulations on the Passport System in the USSR are issued by the USSR.

In the period from July 1, 1975 to January 1, 1976, issue old-style passports to citizens in accordance with the Regulations on Passports approved by the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of October 21, 1953, taking into account its subsequent additions and changes.

Establish that prior to the exchange of old-style passports for new-style passports, the passports previously issued to them shall remain valid. At the same time, ten-year and five-year old-style passports, the validity of which will expire after July 1, 1975, are considered valid without an official extension of their validity until they are exchanged for new-style passports.

Citizens living in rural areas who have not been issued passports before, when leaving for another area for a long period, passports are issued, and when leaving for a period of up to one and a half months, as well as in a sanatorium, rest home, at meetings, on business trips or when they are temporarily involved in sowing, harvesting and other work, certificates are issued by the executive committees of rural, township Soviets of Workers' Deputies, certificates proving their identity and the purpose of departure. The form of the certificate is established by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR.

3. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, with the participation of the interested ministries, departments of the USSR and the Councils of Ministers of the Union republics, should develop and approve measures to ensure that work is carried out to issue passports of a new sample within the established time limits.

The Councils of Ministers of the Union and Autonomous Republics and the executive committees of local Soviets of Working People's Deputies to assist the internal affairs bodies in organizing and carrying out work related to the issuance of new passports, and to take measures to improve the accommodation of passport service workers, as well as to create the necessary conditions for them to serve population.

4. To oblige the ministries and departments of the USSR and the Councils of Ministers of the Union republics to take additional measures to ensure that subordinate enterprises, organizations and institutions comply with the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR of February 25, 1960 N 231 "On measures to eliminate clerical and bureaucratic perversions in the registration of workers to work and resolve the household needs of citizens" and to eliminate the existing cases of requirements from citizens of various kinds of certificates, when the necessary data can be confirmed by presenting a passport or other documents.

Chairman
Council of Ministers of the USSR
A. Kosygin

Business manager
Council of Ministers of the USSR
M.Smirtyukov

Position
about the passport system in the USSR
(approved by resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of August 28, 1974 N 677)
(as amended January 28, 1983, August 15, 1990)

I. General provisions

1. The passport of a citizen of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is the main identity document of a Soviet citizen.

All Soviet citizens who have reached the age of 16 are required to have a passport of a citizen of the USSR.

Without these passports, Soviet citizens who have arrived for temporary residence in the USSR and permanently reside abroad also live.

Identity documents are identity cards and military tickets issued by the command of military units and military institutions.

Documents certifying the identity of Soviet citizens who arrived for temporary residence in the USSR and permanently reside abroad are their general civil foreign passports.

Foreign citizens and stateless persons reside on the territory of the USSR on the basis of documents established by the legislation of the USSR.

See the text of the paragraph in the previous edition
…

http://ussr.consultant.ru/doc1619.html

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"There is a need for more accurate (passport) registration of citizens"

After long ordeals through the authorities, the issue of passports reached the highest legislative body - the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, but even there it was rejected. But Beloborodov insisted:

"The number of detainees was very significant"

"Such an order is not justified"

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