In 1921, Felix Dzerzhinsky achieved the adoption of measures that made it possible to restore the coal and transport industries of Donbass.
The coal industry of Donbass was almost completely destroyed during the years of civil war and foreign intervention.
Coal theft, fraud with reporting documents and lack of fuel reserves became a large-scale problem, which was revealed by Dzerzhinsky’s inspection trip to the Donetsk basin.
To support the working teams of enterprises and mines in the Donbass, wages in kind were introduced, which made it possible to attract labor and stimulate the growth of labor productivity.
MOSCOW, August 30 - RIA Novosti. The founder and chairman of the All-Russian Emergency Commission (VChK) Felix Dzerzhinsky in 1921 achieved the adoption of a number of decisive measures that made it possible to restore the coal and transport industry of Donbass, this is described in archival documents published by the FSB on the occasion of Miner's Day celebrated in Russia on Sunday.
“During the years of civil war and foreign intervention, the coal industry of Donbass was almost completely destroyed. The mines were threatened with flooding, the equipment became unusable. Due to hostilities, hunger, and lack of employment opportunities, about 52 thousand miners left the Donetsk coal basin,” the FSB said in a statement.
By the beginning of the 1920s, railway transport was also in a state of ruin. Its infrastructure suffered the greatest destruction during the hard times of war, since combat operations took place mainly at stations and along railway arteries. The transport crisis that paralyzed the country caused two other crises: fuel and food. Coal was critical for the revival of industry and transport; without it, factories and power plants could not operate.
“The situation was complicated by corruption that affected the apparatus of the Main Fuel Committee. Violating the law, dishonest employees sold fuel to the free market, receiving from buyers in the form of bribes up to 40% above fixed (fixed) prices,” notes the FSB.
The damage caused by corruption to the public sector became even greater due to the large-scale theft of mineral fuels in the Donetsk coal basin. Due to weak security, many coal trains lost part of their cargo on the way to their destinations. “A term such as ‘bag-bagging’ appeared - coal was stolen by speculators, as well as miners and workers, exhausted by hunger, lack of wages and poor working conditions. There were also cases of sabotage on the part of engineering and technical workers, a number of whom deliberately adjusted production figures and damaged equipment in order to thwart the plans of the Soviet government,” the FSB added.
In addition, Donbass and the provinces bordering it continued to be terrorized by bandits.
“Knocked out of Gulyai Field, Makhno’s gangs went to the north-west, bypassed Kharkov and captured the southern districts of the Kursk region. On February 1, 1921, they were operating in the area of the South-Eastern Railways. At a meeting of local security agencies, it was noted that “the two evil sides of Ukrainian life: coal theft and banditry have not become weaker,” the FSB noted.
In these conditions, the restoration of Donbass, the fight against fuel theft and banditry have become tasks of national importance. Felix Dzerzhinsky, who held a number of key government positions at that time, believed that the restoration of the fuel base and transport infrastructure was key to the victory of Soviet power on the “economic front.”
Large-scale fraud and theft
From January 29 to February 9, 1921, Dzerzhinsky, on behalf of the Council of Labor and Defense (SLO) of the RSFSR, made an inspection trip to the Donetsk basin in order to deal with the acute fuel crisis on the spot - to establish a supply of coal to the national economy. During this trip, large-scale facts of coal theft, fraud with reporting documentation, lack of reserves and irrational use of mineral fuel were revealed.
Both in warehouses and on the way, there was practically no security, military units were not allocated for these needs, and the bodies of the Cheka and the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate were weak in terms of quantity and quality. Local bodies of economic management and control also failed to cope with this problem.
The report on Dzerzhinsky’s trip to the Donetsk basin noted that the fuel situation was not improving, but on the contrary, it was getting worse and worse every day. A meeting of local security officers came to the conclusion that “all the forces of the security apparatus should be directed to combating fuel theft and the Cheka should take full responsibility for intensifying this fight.”
“Attention is drawn to the fact that one of the conditions for combating the theft of coal, the meeting indicated the regulation of the supply of fuel to workers and employees - “It is impossible to fight the theft of fuel, since the persons working to extract it are not supplied with fuel themselves... it is equally necessary to heat the worker as it is to feed him,” the report stated.
Particular attention was paid to supplying miners with food: without normal nutrition and minimal living conditions, it was impossible to mobilize people for hard work. Dzerzhinsky’s report “On the situation of fuel supply to the railways of Donbass” dated February 26, 1921 stated: “The deadening of the movement was reflected in the work of Donbass itself, whose activities are paralyzed every day and threaten in the near future with serious consequences. The workers stopped working for lack of bread, but the bread costs a hundred miles away and cannot be transported due to lack of fuel.”
In addition, at the direction of Dzerzhinsky, urgent measures were taken to combat snow drifts that formed on the route of the Southern Kursk-Belgorod railway, due to an unprecedented hurricane for these places and stopped trains with Donetsk coal.
As the archive documents of the Cheka show about Dzerzhinsky’s trip to the Donetsk coal basin in early 1921, the head of the Soviet state security agencies, even before his appointment as People’s Commissar of Railways (April 1921), head of the Supreme Council of the National Economy of the USSR (February 1924) and chairman of the board of Glavmetal (November 1924), took an active part in the adoption and implementation of priority measures for the restoration of Donbass, they emphasized in FSB. “He sought to ensure that the People’s Commissariat, military and security agencies, and local authorities promptly helped the miners: provided transport, construction materials, food, and also sent specialists and workers to the mines,” notes the Russian intelligence service.
Solving issues with bread and housing
In addition to issues of combating theft, Dzerzhinsky also solved purely economic and organizational problems, which included: draining flooded mines, organizing urgent repairs of lifting machines, ventilation and access roads. The results of the trip of the head of the Cheka to the Donbass at the beginning of 1921 served as the basis for the Soviet government to take large-scale measures to restore and develop the industry of the region.
“So, in 1921, to support workers at enterprises and mines in the Donbass, wages in kind were introduced. This made it possible to attract labor to the mines in conditions of famine and stimulated the growth of labor productivity. The first batches of bread from the new harvest of 1921 were sent specifically to the Donbass, which made it possible to concentrate 1,200 pounds of grain here by October,” the FSB emphasized. Issues began to be resolved regarding the provision of housing and food rations for engineering and technical workers. At the same time, work was carried out to train new personnel to compensate for the loss of qualified workers.
They began to purposefully attract specialists to work in the region. For the needs of the Central Board of the Coal Industry (CCCP) of the Donetsk Basin and the Ukrainian Council of National Economy, mining engineers and experienced miners from Soviet enterprises in the Crimea and the Caucasus were sent here.
Since 1921, the formation of a wide network of vocational education has been unfolding in the Donbass, where the leading place was given to factory apprenticeship schools (FZU).
Dzerzhinsky was constantly interested in the restoration and development of a new industrial center in the Donbass. As People's Commissar of Railways and Chairman of the Cheka in April 1921, he again came on a business trip to the region.
“So, in the period from April (according to other sources - from May) to June 1921, he organized the work of the railway and waterways, sea vessels and ports of the Black and Azov Seas in Ukraine. Visits Kharkov, Donetsk, Nikolaev, Kherson, Odessa and Kyiv. At the same time, it inspects the infrastructure of the coal industry, resolves issues of supplying mines and organizing coal transportation,” the FSB noted.
Strict discipline and interests of working people
“The approach of Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky as an economic manager combined strict organizational discipline and consideration of the interests of working people, a vision of the political perspective and reliance on the knowledge of “old school” technical specialists loyal to the Soviet government,” the FSB emphasized.
Under his leadership, work continued to eradicate criminal manifestations. On the Donetsk Railways, facts of corruption and embezzlement of railway officials, a large number of “dead souls” were revealed, when 50 thousand railway workers were on the lists to receive food rations, but in fact only 25 thousand people were working.
Based on the results of the business trip, additional measures were taken to combat the theft of mineral fuel.
As indicated in the minutes of the meeting of representatives of the Cheka in Kharkov on November 1, 1921, who listened to Dzerzhinsky’s report, “all the forces of the Cheka must be dedicated and aimed at combating the destruction of fuel in all its forms; put full responsibility on them for the success of this struggle."
As noted in the FSB, the reforms carried out on the railway made it possible to completely overcome the transport crisis by 1923. Hundreds of locomotives and thousands of carriages were repaired and put into service. By the mid-1920s, the number of rail traffic on the Donetsk Railways tripled, the labor productivity of transport workers increased fivefold, and the loss of working time from absenteeism and drunkenness decreased by 22 times. All transport workers received permanent housing along the road line, and workers' wages increased fivefold.
