The Committees of Poor Peasants (Russian: Комитеты Бедноты, komitety bednoty, commonly rendered in English as kombeds) were established during the second half of 1918 as local institutions bringing together impoverished peasants to advance government policy. The committees were primarily in charge of grain requisitioning on behalf of the Soviet state as well as the rural distribution of manufactured goods. The kombeds quickly fell into disrepute among the bulk of the peasantry over the abuses of their members, who were often outsiders to the village and who were paid a commission by the state for all grain obtained. The need of the Bolshevik government to establish closer relations with the peasantry during the Russian Civil War lead to the merger of the Committees of Poor Peasants with the village soviets starting in December 1918.
Famous quotes containing the words committees, poor and/or peasants:
“Cry cry what shall I cry?
The first thing to do is to form the committees:
The consultative councils, the standing committees, select committees and sub-committees.
One secretary will do for several committees.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee,
An’ let poor, damned bodies bee;
I’m sure sma’ pleasure it can gie,
Ev’n to a deil,
To skelp an’ scaud poor dogs like me,
An’ hear us squeel!”
—Robert Burns (1759–1796)
“Suppose that humans happen to be so constructed that they desire the opportunity for freely undertaken productive work. Suppose that they want to be free from the meddling of technocrats and commissars, bankers and tycoons, mad bombers who engage in psychological tests of will with peasants defending their homes, behavioral scientists who can’t tell a pigeon from a poet, or anyone else who tries to wish freedom and dignity out of existence or beat them into oblivion.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)