Present the documents!

Man and his passport in Soviet times are discussed by historian Andrei Suslov and writer Denis Dragunsk

• In the Soviet years, the passport made a dizzying career: from non -recognition as "guns of enslavement of workers" to the construction of it in the rank of "super -domain".
• In early Soviet times, the entire system of control and accounting of the population was destroyed as a result of the abolition of passports.
• After passportization of 1932, only the "socially close" Soviet power received this document, they had a minority of the population.
• In the 30s, the passport stels on the registration, place of work, stay in places of imprisonment.
• The passport is still the most important document of the person living in Russia.

Alexei Yudin: Today we will talk about why the Soviet person needed a passport, how to handle him and how he pushed his owner.

Correspondent: "It is not so easy to make a passport as to make a person. A person can be done anywhere, in two counts and without any reasonable grounds, and go - go try it!" - So say the heroes of Bertold Brecht's play "Configurations."
Invented in Europe in the XV - XVI centuries as a means of combating criminals and tramps, to this day it remains one of the most important documents of the "person and citizen." In Russia, the word "passport", as well as the document itself, has been established only at the beginning of the 18th century, since the time of Peter I.

When the Bolsheviks came to power, the passport system was declared a legacy of the damned royal regime and abuse of the people. As a result, not only passport, but the entire system of control and accounting of the population was destroyed. For a long time, people used old passports, mandates, various certificates, which created confusion and confusion, especially when issuing and accounting for grocery cards. Then the leading position in the hierarchy of documents took work books. And since 1923, identification certificates began to be issued, but they were not mandatory.
To return to the passport system of the Bolsheviks forced a deep food crisis of the early thirties. The mass of rural residents poured into the cities. It took a special mechanism that could sort people to "their" and "strangers", that is, to distinguish from all other those who will receive the right to live in large cities and special passport zones.

According to the new system (from December 27, 1932), a passport did not have the right to receive a number of categories: for example, fists, defectors, workers who arrived without an invitation.

In a short time, the population of Moscow decreased by 578 thousand people, Leningrad by 300 thousand. The whole country was soon divided into zones, in each of which its own special regime acted.

Rural residents began to receive passports only in 1974, and their issuance lasted until the beginning of the 1980s.

The first Soviet passport, for which, apparently, the passport of the Russian Empire was a model, was without photographs, and instead of the column "Religion" was introduced the column "Nationality". Since 1937, photographs appeared in the passport books, special ink began to be used, special mastic for seals and stamps. By the fortieth year, the passport is overgrown with new marks: about work, study, marital status and children, and nationality becomes a hereditary feature and is determined by the nationality of the parents. At the beginning of the seventies, marks and work from the passport disappear and the notifications appear. And during perestroika, passports even made notes on the issuance of food coupons.

Rural residents began to receive passports only in 1974, and their issuance lasted until the beginning of the 1980s

The post -Soviet Russia did not repeat the early experience of Russia Soviet, and on October 1, 1997, a passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation appeared. However, Soviet passports issued indefinitely are acting to this day.

Alexey Yudin: In our studio, a professor at the Department of Russian and General History of the Perm State Humanitarian Pedagogical University Andrei Suslov and the writer Denis Dragunsk .

And what happened to passports in the Russian Empire?

Andrei Suslov: In addition to those documents that could be called a passport, there were others. In the Middle Ages, there were different passers -by, passing letters. The main meaning of these documents was to protect the cities from tramps, and to follow those who must pay taxes: God forbid, they will run away. The commoners were supposed to have passports, otherwise they risked, they could be caught. The noble man did not need this, because his position, even clothes showed that there was nothing to suspect here. This concerned both Europe and the Russian Empire.

Alexey Yudin: Such a situation was on the eve of the revolution. But at the same time there were also foreign passports. A phrase from the available literature of that time: "Georges, give the janitor five rubles, let him straighten us foreign passports, we go to Nice."

Denis Dragunsky

Denis Dragunsky: In Chekhov’s story, “spouse”, the heroine, a frivolous woman, a traitor who wants to go to Nice to her lover, he herself cannot straighten out a foreign passport and asks her husband to go to the police: she is a wife of such and such, and her husband does not object to her trip abroad. In the “White Poodle”, the wonderful story of Kuprin, the old man says: “What if they ask you: and where are you? And I don’t have a patchort.” Father Sergius was also arrested in the final, judged as an passport, when he says that "I have no passport, but I am a servant of God." He was sent seven months to the prison, and then he went to Siberia and began to live in the village.

Alexey Yudin: At the same time, at the ordinary time, the passport was optional paper.

Andrei Suslov: Another curious detail: in Russia and in other countries, the passport at that time was a male document. The wife and children were entered in this men's passport. This also existed with us until the revolution.

Denis Dragunsky: True, women of certain behavior had passports, the so -called tickets: "She walks on the ticket." It was a passport with a portrait, a photograph.

Alexey Yudin: The early Soviet state canceled the passport as an instrument of enslavement of the proletariat. Was it a revolutionary romanticism or some thoughtful state strategy?

Denis Dragunsky: I believe, revolutionary romanticism: to break everything. Of course, there was no state logic in the complete abolition of the passportization of the population.

When we, the children, were forced to teach “Poems about the Soviet passport” Mayakovsky, we did not know that we were talking about a foreign passport. We thought that he shows his passport, and we were not embarrassed by the “red-legged passport”, although our passport was a snake, gray-green (this is 1929). In addition, we began to think that there are the same passports in all countries: an American passport, English, Swedish, Polish ... This is a wonderful poem!

Andrei Suslov: I believe that the abolition of passports was a revolutionary step - we will provide complete freedom! But this comes from the general imperceptibility of the strategy of the leaders of the Bolsheviks, from general unprofessionalism. It was not possible to record in a normal way at that time. There were many documents that people confirmed anything, and the money before the reform of 1922 was different: everything went on-and royal money, and cerens, and social signs.

Alexei Yudin: Money in that chaos retained their value - maybe the old documents retained?

Andrei Suslov: People used completely different documents, could use the certificates entered in 1923, or metric certificates, any documents, including imperial.

Alexey Yudin: Imagine the situation of the same 1922. They say to you: "Present the documents!" You give me paper - and what am I reading in it?

Andrey Suslov: For example, it could be a mandate.

Alexey Yudin: How can I understand that this is your mandate?

Andrei Suslov: You could find my name there, my powers, by whom it was issued. But you will not see the photo there, you will definitely not identify me. If you present an old imperial passport, then signs can be described there: growth, hair color.

Denis Dragunsky: Once in the museum I saw a shop of Chopin, which was issued to him at the entrance to France. It was the size of a newspaper sheet, and there were signs on the side: nose, eyes, teeth, mustache, ears - everything was described, just a huge verbal portrait. And it is written: it was allowed to visit the king to visit such and such cities ... I saw Lenin’s passport with special signs, it was also written there: mustache, beard, bald head.

Alexey Yudin: We see that in the early Soviet years there was still some freedom: what a document is, this is what I am, I use it. But serious changes will come soon. A new turn of our topic is given by historian Irina Karatsuba .

Irina Karatsuba: Initially, passports were introduced for very small categories of the population, one might say, for the minority. These are residents of Leningrad, Moscow, Kharkov with adjacent areas - what was called "regime areas" and "border areas". And two -thirds are the same village, and the majority of the population turned out to be undeniable. The peasants had such a bitter joke: what is the CPS (b)? This is the second serfdom of the Bolsheviks.

Irina Karatsuba

This regime was only tightened. He was tightened in the 30s, because the number of those who were not laid passports increased, or it was not supposed to hire without a passport. The peasants, especially during the Holodomor , tried to escape from the village, but then the state stood up. Then the rules for obtaining passports were tightened: since 1937 - a photograph and so on. The post -Stalinskaya Khrushchev thaw did not affect this. The introduction of passports for collective farmers, for most residents of the country (by then almost half: in the area of 1960–61 the urban and rural population was equal to the USSR) began only from 1974 and spent in fact until 1989. This is to the question of when we had serfdom. It turns out that it was not even canceled by Khrushchev, but Brezhnev, that you and I were only some 30–40, or even 50 years ago, left serfdom with all the relevant consequences. Until now, a passport is one of our main documents.

Alexei Yudin: What is it - the certification of 1932?

Andrei Suslov: 1932 is hunger and chaos. Collectivization occurred, “dispossession”, there were processes that practically attached to the collective farms those who stayed in place, and to special settlements - those who were evicted from there. Hunger in different territories was felt differently, but it was almost everywhere. Hungry people strove in cities where they hoped to find food, although hopes did not always come true. The mass migration of the rural population in the cities exacerbated the problem with food there. Cards were introduced in the cities for workers, distributed to enterprises. The mass fake of coupons began, there was no normal labor account. People made their way into the working canteens due to fake gaps and blat. It was also necessary to somehow deal with this. In addition, fugitives appeared-mostly special settlers: they were considered criminals, they had to somehow be filtered. Old problems with ordinary crime also remained.

Alexey Yudin: All this together gave rise to the reasons why in 1932 the Soviet state introduced passports. What kind of paper was it?

The 1932 passport is a privilege, only "socially close ones" received it

Andrey Suslov: This is a passport book, so far without photos. It indicated the place of birth, registration. The registration appeared in 1925, but it did not have significant importance, it was possible to get a residence permit when using any document. In the passport, this became an extremely strict thing, this registration was placed in passport tables, which obeyed the NKVD, police.

Alexey Yudin: Is the 1932 passport a privilege or punishment?

Andrei Suslov: Of course, the privilege, only "socially close ones" received it. A social status is the innovation of the Soviet passport in comparison with the imperial. Previously, the estate could be indicated there, but the estates were canceled, the estate has changed to a social position, religion - to nationality. But the social status was checked before they issued a passport.

Alexey Yudin: How was he checked before issuing a passport?

Denis Dragunsky: In the work book. There were only a few social provisions - a worker, an employee, a face of a free profession.

Alexey Yudin: That is, there were no intelligentsia as a layer yet?

Denis Dragunsky: Only employees.

Andrei Suslov: The most important when issuing passports was that citizens had to prove themselves to some documents, which they were worthy. Regarding the social situation, a person was supposed to present some documents that showed that he was working at the factory or, for example, serves in the office. 1932–33 is a very randomly developing system. Old documents were used to identify age and place of birth. You could also bring certificates from the registry office, but not everyone had them.

Alexey Yudin: What is "nationality"? The Soviet state then already had some kind of concept of nationalities?

Denis Dragunsky: By that time, some official reduction in the nomenclature of ethnic groups had occurred. For example, according to the report of the Academy of Sciences of 1924–26, ethnic, national groups in the USSR, there were about 140, if not more, including the smallest. But after the report on the adoption of the Constitution, Stalin said that about 60 nations, nationalities and national groups live in the country, that is, less than half of academic representations. This number - about 60 - just fit into the ethnopolitical structure of the Soviet Union: allied and autonomous republics, autonomous regions and districts - it turned out about 45 or 50 different national groups. This hierarchy in 1936 was built in the constitutional concept, everyone was recorded in the Stalin Constitution.

Andrey Suslov

Andrei Suslov: In the 30s, there was no such close attention to the column of nationality as later. Stalin, as we know, was a great specialist in the national question, and even despite the fact that scientists have established a certain number of national groups, people themselves often did not identify themselves at that time. Most people did not really think about what nationality they were. From here, in the first passports, records of the type “Orthodox”, “Jew” and so on could appear, as before. Nationality was not checked by his father or mother, a person could declare himself, that is, the authorities had no desire to identify nationality. Surprisingly, in the 30s, nationality was not yet something initially inherent in the population, as our patriots today believe.

Denis Dragunsky: I once dealt with national, ethno-political problems. Until the end of the 19th century, the majority of the population of Russia and Europe could not answer the question of their nationality. They said: "We are local," "we are here."

Alexey Yudin: From my own experience I can say that some representatives of European peoples still cannot. "Who are you?" - "I am Milanets, I am a Roman." - "Are you Italian?" - "In general, yes."

What did the early passport portrait of a Soviet man include? We saw the count "social origin", "nationality", but the signs, the individuality there was manifested?

Andrey Suslov: In the first passports, we do not see clear identifiers. The main identifier is a residence permit and a place of work. Since it was necessary to cut off your own from strangers, this became the main points for filtering. Aliens, who did not have a residence permit, could not be in cities and in regime territories.

Denis Dragunsky: The famous Soviet Police Ping Pong, which lived almost until the 90s: we will give you a residence permit as soon as you get to work. And at work they say: well, how do we hire you without registration?

Alexey Yudin: And there was some classification of strangers: who are they-strangers of the early Soviet period?

Andrey Suslov: Those who were not considered socially useful in the city.

Denis Dragunsky: The peasants, deprived of electoral and political rights, are the clergy, the children of the nobles, the former "exploiting classes".

Andrey Suslov: Most of the deprivation are wealthy peasants.

Denis Dragunsky: Deprivals were canceled in the Constitution only in 1936.

Alexey Yudin: These strangers could somehow legally establish their lives according to some documents? Did they have any documents?

Andrei Suslov: If they succeeded in some way, legal or illegal, falsifying the documents, to do something, then yes, they could. They did not have a real way to do this, it was necessary to look for loopholes in this system, and many found. Especially in the early 30s, when enterprises were in need of labor, many turned a blind eye to the fact that these people did not have official documents, and they managed to somehow gain a foothold, and then get documents.

Denis Dragunsky: If we take into account that a passport with a photograph appeared only in 1938, it becomes clearer a situation that is often described in the memoirs of Stalinist repressions: a person who was warned of a possible arrest could leave for another city, change his name, say that "my name is that, they robbed me, the documents disappeared." Если это был какой-нибудь промышленный район, Челябинск, Свердловск или Магнитогорск, то его могли спокойно взять на работу просто по личному заявлению. Потом он приходил на завод с целой пачкой документов, его оформляли на работу, и он мог получить паспорт, а там уже и фотографию к нему.

Алексей Юдин: Фотография 1938 года – какая она была? Ее, наверное, делали в каком-то специальном месте?

Денис Драгунский: Фотографию делали в любом месте: три на четыре с уголком для печати. А дальше уже милиционер сравнивал эту фотографию с твоим обличьем.

Андрей Суслов: С 1938 года ответственность была на милиционерах, работавших в паспортных столах: они обязательно удостоверяли своей подписью то, что это правильный документ, там могло быть три подписи – начальника отдела, самой паспортистки…

Алексей Юдин: Как крепилась эта фотография?

Андрей Суслов: Первоначально был спецклей, на который было необходимо ее клеить. Появляются и спецчернила, которыми заполняют паспорта, и спецмастики, которыми ставятся печати. Это защитная полицейская функция.

Есть песня про цыпленка жареного: "Паспорта нету – гони монету"

Денис Драгунский: В советское время была еще одна защитная функция – скобочки у паспорта были обязательно из ржавеющего металла: паспорт побывал в разных переделках, потел, тонул, весь в разводах, а скобочки блестят – не годится. Кроме того, номера паспортов были от 250 000 до 750 000, поэтому если паспорт был номер 180 898 или 956 000, то это был поддельный документ. Еще была защита на печати. Она состояла из двух кругов, и эти круги были не совсем точно параллельны, в одном месте они как бы смыкались, как будто порча на этой печати. Человек, который делал фальшивую печать, исправлял эту ошибку, на чем и прокалывался.

Алексей Юдин: В принципе, это был достаточно защищенный от подделок документ.

Андрей Суслов: Первоначально – еще не очень, но потом появились разные средства: усовершенствовали клей, спецчернила, водяные знаки, фотография стала лучше. Допустим, в паспорте образца 1974 года фотография больше, в 25 лет – новая фотография, в 45 лет – опять новая. Все это эволюционирует, поскольку появляются те, кто подделывает паспорта, а с ними, естественно, соревнуются те, кто их изготавливает.

Денис Драгунский: Как говорил Остап Бендер Кисе Воробьянинову, когда он показывал ему какое-то удостоверение личности: "При нынешнем развитии типографского дела на Западе таких можно наделать сколько угодно". Потом появилась наклейка на фотографию из прозрачной пластиковой бумаги.

Алексей Юдин: Начинается очень непростая история человека под паспортным диктатом. What happened? Вот я достаю и предъявляю паспорт…

Андрей Суслов: Смотрят на фотографию, на прописку, на то, работает человек или он уволен: там была печать о том, что он принят на работу или уволен с работы. Если человек нигде не работает, это уже, конечно, большой вопрос. После запрета абортов появились штампы о том, что человек должен платить алименты.

Алексей Юдин: То есть это штрихи к социальному портрету обладателя паспорта.

Денис Драгунский: Не просто штрихи, а важные реперные точки: что можно или нельзя делать с этим человеком.

Алексей Юдин: А если у меня нет паспорта?

Денис Драгунский: Есть песня про цыпленка жареного: "Паспорта нету – гони монету".

Алексей Юдин: А другой документ у меня мог быть вместо паспорта?

Андрей Суслов: Это могла быть справка от председателя колхоза, что я по какой-то надобности поехал полечиться или еще что-то, мог быть военный билет.

Алексей Юдин: Командировочного удостоверения было достаточно?

Денис Драгунский: Нет, оно действовало вместе с паспортом.

Алексей Юдин: Возьмем самый тяжелый случай: я отбывал срок, только что отпущен.

Андрей Суслов: Там могли быть два документа – справка об освобождении и паспорт, где ставилась отметка о пребывании в местах лишения свободы. Еще одна лампочка: а сидел ли человек когда-то?

Алексей Юдин: Арест, суд, этап, лагеря – что при этом происходит с паспортом?

Денис Драгунский: Он в уполномоченном учреждении.

Алексей Юдин: А если мне повезло выйти на свободу?

Андрей Суслов: Отдавали паспорт со штампом, а дальше нужно было идти в паспортный стол получать паспорт с отметкой.

Денис Драгунский: Восстанавливать прописку.

Алексей Юдин: Прописка утрачивалась?

Денис Драгунский: Это зависело от массы тонкостей. Бывало, что прописка у человека оставалась. Одной моей знакомой старушке чекист сказал на допросе: "На вас написала донос соседка, чтобы получить вашу комнату. Вы очень хорошо вели себя на следствии, поэтому я вам как чекист и коммунист обещаю: фиг она получит вашу комнату. Отсиживайте и возвращайтесь".

Андрей Суслов: Не надо думать, что в более позднее сталинское время идеально работали законы, и все делалось так, как предписывалось. Ничего подобного, сталинское время – это тоже хаос, еще больше, чем брежневское. Там существовал целый ряд неформальных практик, договоренностей, полулегальных и нелегальных путей обхода паспортной системы. Это могло быть связано и с отметками о прописке. Исчезали ненужные записи о социальном происхождении, о судимости, о национальности, что в позднесталинское и последующее время стало особо значимым – иметь более "правильную" национальность.

Денис Драгунский: Человек терял паспорт как бы и по блату получал новый.

Алексей Юдин: И вся эта сложная, драматическая, весьма неоднозначная социальная жизнь в советское время была отражена в паспорте. С Брехта начали, Брехтом и закончим: "Похоже, что человек – специальное приспособление для хранения паспорта". И пока никакого другого варианта нам не предлагается, паспортная жизнь продолжается, поэтому берегите себя.