Resettlement

RESSETLEMENT, resettlement movement, the movement of agricultural population due to various socio-economic reasons within the borders of a state for the purpose of settling in new uninhabited or sparsely populated lands. The development of resettlement was a characteristic feature of tsarist Russia, in which conditions agrarian overpopulation was very great; parallel to this, only the movement of population in the 19th century from the eastern states of the USA to the western ones can be compared. In his research 'The Development of Capitalism in Russia,' Lenin notes that 'the development of capitalism in depth in the old, long-populated territory is delayed due to the colonization of the outskirts... If Russian capitalism had nowhere to expand beyond the territory already occupied at the beginning of the post-reform period, then the contradiction between large capitalist industry and archaic institutions in rural life would have led to the complete abolition of these institutions, to the complete clearing of the way for agricultural capitalism in Russia. But the possibility of seeking and finding a market in the colonizable outskirts (for the manufacturer), the possibility of moving to new land (for the peasant) weakens the acuteness of this contradiction' (Chapter V). On the other hand, 'the development of the resettlement movement gives a tremendous impetus to the disintegration of the peasantry, and especially of the agricultural peasantry. It is known that resettlers are mainly peasants from agricultural provinces (emigration from industrial provinces is completely negligible) and moreover precisely from the densely populated central provinces, where labor services (which delay the disintegration of the peasantry) are most developed. This is in the first place. And secondly, from the areas of resettlement mainly peasants of medium means remain, while on their homeland mainly the extreme groups of the peasantry remain. Thus, the restriction of resettlement has a tremendous delaying effect on the disintegration of the peasantry' (ibid., Chapter II, Vol. XIII). The tsarist government, which relied in its power on the landlords, by all means restrained the resettlement of peasants until 1905, seeking to ensure cheap labor for processing the landlords' fields and submissive tenants who paid exorbitant rent for the land leased to them. The agrarian unrest of 1905-06 forced the government to sharply change its policy in the resettlement question under the influence of landlords frightened by the pogroms of their estates. The landlord Third Duma forced to intensify resettlement to Siberia. But if earlier plots for resettlement were taken at the expense of unceremoniously taking away from the Kirghiz the lands on which they roamed, then the movement of a huge mass of resettlers in 1907-08 caught the Resettlement Administration unprepared, which had not prepared a sufficient number of suitable plots. Many of the resettlers had to return back. The imperialist and civil wars greatly reduced, almost eliminated the resettlement movement. It received new development and was organized on completely different principles starting from 1925, when the government of the USSR recognized it as necessary to take measures for the broad development of resettlement affairs, but already for the purposes of a) using vacant lands and settling areas having economic and political importance for the Union; b) unloading resettlement areas and c) bringing into the channel of spontaneous resettlement movement. The development of collectivization, mechanization of agriculture, broad cultural measures, on the one hand, the rapid growth of industrialization of the USSR on the other, pose new tasks for the resettlement business, directing it to the path of developing new areas and using the newly discovered wealth of the country. If in tsarist Russia the resettlement business was often accompanied by the oppression and expulsion of the indigenous population of national minorities from their ancestral lands (in the North Caucasus, in Siberia), then in the USSR the Soviet national policy was also reflected in the resettlement question. The great political importance is the resettlement of the declassed Jewish poor from the declining shtetls and small towns of the Ukrainian SSR and Byelorussian SSR, which at the same time has enormous socio-hygienic health-improving significance. Since the October Revolution until 1930 (inclusive), about 45,000 Jewish families have been settled on the land. This means that about 225,000 people without qualifications, without provision with earnings and prospects for the future, thanks to the measures and care of the Soviet power, have been torn from the chains of poverty in which they were suffocating in their shtetls, and have turned to agricultural labor. During this time, dozens of Jewish rural councils and 4 independent Jewish districts have been organized: Kalinindorfsky, Stalindorfsky and Novo-Zlatopolsky in Ukraine and Fridorfsky in Crimea and the Birobidzhan Autonomous Region in the Far Eastern Krai. In connection with the powerful kolkhoz movement that has covered the entire country, the number of kolkhozes on Jewish land funds is constantly growing, and at the present time the resettlement farms are collectivized by 75%.

I. Strashun. At the present time (since 1930), resettlement is carried out exclusively in accordance with the all-Union plan and with the economic interests of the Union as a whole, is carried out in an organized manner (by entire collectives-kolkhozes) and to lands that have been previously surveyed and prepared in terms of roads, water supply, etc., and is accomplished with the material support of the state. Resettlement is now linked to the plan for road and industrial construction and at the same time is accompanied by measures aimed at cultural-domestic service for the settlers (housing, hospitals, schools, etc.). The leadership of all resettlement affairs is concentrated in the NKZem of the USSR, working with the assistance of other interested People's Commissariats (NKPS, NKZdr., VSNKh, etc.) on the basis of special agreements. The most important places of departure are the Ukrainian SSR, the Byelorussian SSR, and the main streams of resettlement movement are directed along the following railway lines: 1) Kharkov-Likhi-Balashov-Penza-Syzran, 2) Kiev-Voronezh-Kozlov-Penza-Syzran, 3) Gomel-Bryansk-Vyazma-Penza-Syzran, 4) Smolensk-Vyazma-Tula-Penza-Syzran. All these main and a number of other secondary resettlement streams flow into one powerful channel (Syzran-Samara-Chelyabinsk-Omsk and further east), into which another large northern stream (Moscow-Yaroslavl-Vyatka-Sverdlovsk-Tyumen-Omsk) also flows, collecting the streams from the northern half of the RSFSR. Waterways play only an auxiliary role in places of settlement (mainly in Siberia and the Far Eastern Krai). In order to ensure the sanitary aspect of resettlement affairs, health authorities take constant organizational and direct participation in this matter to eliminate possible harmful factors. This includes above all the possibility of introducing various infections, particularly children's diseases, and therefore the need for particularly careful implementation of all anti-epidemic measures and then equally thorough sanitary supervision during the journey, especially sanitary improvement measures at places of settlement. The corresponding sanitary measures should consist of the following: at places of departure, settlers must undergo mandatory medical examination and selection. Patients with acute infectious diseases, infectious skin diseases, infectious stages of syphilis and trachoma must be temporarily detained until their recovery and not allowed to resettle. All settlers must be given preventive vaccinations (against smallpox in any case, against other infections-in the presence of corresponding epidemics). Before boarding the cars at places of departure, settlers must undergo sanitary processing. At places of initial concentration before departure, sanitary talks must be conducted with them regarding hygienic behavior during the journey and at the place of settlement, and they must be informed of the sanitary peculiarities of their journey and future life in the new place. Due to the length of the journey, settlers must be provided with as many conveniences as possible for transportation - through trains with accelerated movement, comfortable cars, easily accessible for cleaning and disinfection and satisfying the basic requirements of lighting, heating, water supply and removal of waste (by agreement of NKZem with NKPS, settlers should be provided with class cars instead of the previous boxcars in each accelerated train). During the journey, settlers must be provided with the possibility of receiving hot food at least once a day (at least 700-800 calories, not counting bread), for which there should be a network of food supply points (at a distance of 250-300 km depending on the speed of the trains) and sufficient amount of boiling water and boiled water. During the journey, at certain intervals (8-10 days), a complete sanitary processing must be carried out. It is necessary to ensure the provision of first aid during the journey and systematic medical and sanitary supervision 1) of the health of settlers and their nutrition, 2) of the sanitary condition of the cars, 3) of the waiting rooms at stations, toilets and resettlement barracks at places of disembarkation, and 4) of the sanitary condition of railway tracks on the territory of stations. Special attention should be paid to the identification of infectious patients and their isolation. The above-mentioned sanitary supervision and medical assistance are carried out along with the general network of medical-sanitary institutions (transport and territorial) located along the route of the settlers, as well as in special resettlement medical-sanitary institutions-observation points and isolation-passing points, which have at their disposal: a medical outpatient clinic, a passing-type bathhouse, a barber shop, a laundry, a disinfection chamber, a stationary facility for isolating patients until their diagnosis is clarified and until they are directed to the appropriate hospitals, a dormitory for relatives waiting for the recovery of their patients removed from the train, a room for passengers during the sanitary processing of cars, a reserve of cleaned cars to replace contaminated ones, a kitchen and dining room, a museum or sanitary corner. (The arrangement and equipment of isolation points-see Isolation-passing points.) To prevent possible childhood morbidity among settlers, in addition to the general measures listed, a number of additional measures are necessary, such as: a network of children's consultations at stations, a sufficient number of visiting nurses, a network of milk stations, 'mother and child' rooms (experience of the Northern Station in Moscow), stalls or shelves 'mother and child' in kiosks with child care items, availability of sanitary-educational literature. It is also necessary to provide settlers with obstetric assistance, since cases of childbirth in resettlement trains are not uncommon due to women's unwillingness to lag behind the family traveling in the train. When transporting settlers in large groups, it is advisable to accompany them with medical personnel with special isolation cars, cars for mothers with children (experience of the Kursk Railway) and a mobile children's consultation, included in the composition of resettlement trains. Experiments carried out in this regard on the Omsk and other railways have given very good results. It is also advisable to accompany resettlement trains with kitchen cars and bathhouses. In places of settlement, sanitary supervision must take necessary measures when selecting territory for settlement, when planning settlements, developing housing types, developing housing construction plans, developing a network of medical-sanitary institutions (outpatient clinics, general and infectious hospitals, consultations, children's nurseries), domestic institutions (bathhouses, laundries, etc.), sanitary-educational and general cultural-educational institutions (sanpros houses, museums, kindergartens, schools, etc.), installations for water supply and waste disposal. Current sanitary supervision (network of sanitary doctors and sanitary institutions-sanitary stations, disinfection chambers, laboratories, etc.) should place the care of settlers in the first place of its work.-Detailed instructions regarding the service of settlers during the journey by NKPS and NKZem authorities are provided by special rules and instructions contained in tariff collections No. 261 and 272 (publ. NKPS), and medical-sanitary service-by a special instruction of NKZdr., NKPS and NKZem, published in 'Voprosy Zdravookhraneniya' No. 7 for 1928. In 1930, a further radical reorganization of resettlement affairs was carried out, which will undoubtedly also reflect in a new improvement of its sanitary aspect. The unorganized 'free flow' has significantly decreased, the 'reverse movement' of settlers has disappeared, transportation in boxcars and freight cars with its heavy sanitary conditions has disappeared, the long (sometimes up to 1¹/₂ months) journey has been replaced by 8-10-day movement in an accelerated train, children's feeding through milk stations has been introduced, adult nutrition has been improved, a preliminary medical examination of all planned settlers has been established, settlement has been established instead of the former wastelands in previously prepared places with previously arranged housing, water supply, etc.