O. Gavrylenko Legal Policy of the Soviet State in Relation to the Ukrainian Peasantry in 1921-1923

Gradually, step by step Ukrainian historical science is dispelling many myths that have been created over the centuries. This process of demythologisation of the history is not easy, because many facts are considered by researchers to be axioms which need no proof, and when the material refuting certain statements is found to disprove them, radical change of someone’s point of view seems for them to be like sacrilege. But implacable passing of time predetermines evolution of the scientific idea, and the new generation of researchers looks back at a smilingly finally solved problem again and again.

One of such myths, which can still be found in many educational and scientific sources, is the opinion that there is no problem with an issue of introduction of the NEP agricultural tax-in-kind as an alternative to food requisitioning during the period of military communism. Many historians still believe that no sooner had the delegates of the X Congress of the RKP(b) approve the new course and replacement of food requisitioning with tax-in-kind, the peasantry, having realised all benefits of the new policy, immediately started developing the economy and rushed to surrender tax-in-kind to the respective public institutions.

Thus, document analysis allows us to conclude that it was at the beginning of the 1920s, when the Soviet state laid a legal foundation for the system of cruel exploitation of the peasantry and subjection of any forms of dissatisfaction with the policy. From the legal point of view, acts of the Bolshevik government were completely legal, because adoption of the aforementioned legislative acts was within the competence of the highest bodies of state authority.

When studying the issues of the legal policy in relation to the peasantry, the Soviet leaders based themselves neither on reason (but it is unreasonable, purposeless to fail to observe the principles of the economics of the country), nor, what is more, on the notion of fairness. The idea of “the dictatorship of the proletariat” shaded everything.

Key words: legal history; administrative law; financial law; tax law; enforcement activities; principles; justice; Ukraine.  

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