The Soviet Passport. Albert Baiburin
Чтение книги онлайн.

Читать онлайн книгу The Soviet Passport - Albert Baiburin страница 30

Название: The Soviet Passport

Автор: Albert Baiburin

Издательство: John Wiley & Sons Limited

Жанр: Историческая литература

Серия:

isbn: 9781509543205

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ the New Economic Policy demanded a different strategy in relation to the ‘labour reserves’. The idea of forcing people to remain at their workplace became a serious impediment to attempts to carry out plans to improve the economy. The plan to exchange the passport (or identity document) for the employment book was abandoned. From now on these two documents, which were so vital in Soviet life, were to develop separately.23

      Article 65 of the Constitution concerned people who had been denied voting rights.24 These people were supposed to receive a passport with a special note under point six above. Only those for whom it was essential to have a passport were issued with one. However, this project, too, was not fulfilled, although a few individual passports were issued.25

      Throughout the country, people continued to use a wide variety of documents as proofs of identity: old residence permits; passport booklets; birth and marriage certificates; work passes; and all sorts of certificates and warrants issued by different departments of the new authorities. In January 1923, this was how the People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs, Alexander Beloborodov, described the situation in a note addressed to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP(B):

      Figure 3: Employment List, issued to Dina Isayevna Zakharina.

      (Source: author’s personal archive.)

      Apparently, the authorities were not ready to take decisive action to bring order to the system of documentation, especially as a year earlier (by the Law of 24 January 1922) all citizens of the Russian Federation were given the right of unrestricted travel across the whole territory of the RSFSR. This right was enshrined in Article 5 of the Civil Code of the RSFSR.27 Nonetheless, a decree was prepared on the introduction of a single identity document for the whole country (known as the RSFSR VTsIK and SNK Decree of 20 July 1923). The previous decree on the introduction of employment books in Moscow and Petrograd was annulled. The new decree opened with an unusual article:

      Government bodies are forbidden to demand that citizens of the RSFSR produce passports or other residence permits which might hinder their right to move or settle within the RSFSR. Note: Passports and other residence permits for Russian citizens within the RSFSR, as well as employment books, which were introduced by the decree of 25 June 1919 of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee and the Soviet of People’s Commissars are annulled from 1 January 1924.28

      In case of necessity, citizens could still receive an identity document, but this had become their right, not their obligation. In order to obtain the certificate, a citizen had to produce one out of a number of possible documents: in cities and smaller towns this could be a stamped or just an old birth certificate, house-management certificate, or proof of residence, work or service; in rural areas it was sufficient to show a birth certificate or certificate from the local soviet proving residence. If it were not possible to produce any documentation, the militia would give out a certificate which was valid for enough time for a replacement document to be issued. Article 21 stated that this should be no longer than three months, but in certain circumstances this could be extended by a further three months. Should all documents have been lost and if it were impossible to obtain a copy, an identity document could be issued on the strength of a court resolution, confirming surname, name, patronymic, date of birth and family status.29

      The identity document was issued either with no end date or for three years, and contained the following details: surname, name, patronymic of the holder; date of birth; place of permanent residence; occupation (main employment); liability for compulsory military service; marital status; and list of children under the age of sixteen who appeared in the parents’ documents. If the recipient so wished, their photograph could be inserted.

      Figure 4: Student’s Certificate from 1918, issued to Ivan Ivanovich Yankovsky by Petrograd University.

      (Source: State Museum of Political History.)