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The passport system of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was an organisational framework of the single national civil registration system based upon identification documents, and managed in accordance with the laws by ministries and other governmental bodies authorised by the Constitution of the USSR in the sphere of internal affairs.


1917–1932

The foundations of the passport system of the
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War ...
, inherited by the
Russian Republic The Russian Republic,. referred to as the Russian Democratic Federal Republic. in the 1918 Constitution, was a short-lived state which controlled, ''de jure'', the territory of the former Russian Empire after its proclamation by the Rus ...
in March 1917 for eight months, were thrown into confusion by the
October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mom ...
, which dismantled all the state apparatus, including the police as one of the key elements of this system. The assertion that in the first post-revolutionary years an internal passport system did not exist at all, neither in the
RSFSR The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
nor in the
USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nati ...
(established 29 December 1922), is only partially true: old passports were not made null and void as an instrument of identification. However, by 1917 certain sections of the adult population had no passports at all: many peasants, soldiers and officers, prisoners, etc.


Personal Identification

"Metrika" (russian: метрика), an excerpt from the birth registration books (russian: Метрическая книга) was a kind of identity document available to everybody. On 18 December 1917 the Sovnarkom issued the
decree A decree is a legal proclamation, usually issued by a head of state (such as the president of a republic or a monarch), according to certain procedures (usually established in a constitution). It has the force of law. The particular term used ...
which laid the legal and institutional framework for the organisation of registration and statistics of the three major type of life events: birth, marriage/divorce, and death. Once run by the church, all this paperwork was transferred to the state authorities. As it was before the revolution, the "metriks" records (both in the books and in the excerpts given to the parents) contained such critical identification information as: date and place of birth, name and sex of a child, full names of his parents (if known). By default, a child inherited a surname of his or her father (if known), mother (if single); however both parents were not limited in their choice. Unlike the pre-revolutionary "metriks", civilian documents of new Soviet authorities said nothing of parents' religion. Also, due to the non-clerical status of the birth registration, information about "''vospriemniki''" (godfather and godmother) also disappeared from this document. The system originates in the Decree of the
VTsIK The All-Russian Central Executive Committee ( rus, Всероссийский Центральный Исполнительный Комитет, Vserossiysky Centralny Ispolnitelny Komitet, VTsIK) was the highest legislative, administrative and r ...
and
RSFSR The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
Sovnarkom ''About Personal Identity Cards'' issued on 20 June 1923, which abolished all previously-existing travel and residence permit documents (but allowed various documents for personal identification). Urban population had to obtain ID cards at the local ''
militsiya ''Militsiya'' ( rus, милиция, , mʲɪˈlʲitsɨjə) was the name of the police forces in the Soviet Union (until 1991) and in several Eastern Bloc countries (1945–1992), as well as in the non-aligned SFR Yugoslavia (1945–1992). The ...
'' departments; rural residents were serviced by ''
volost Volost ( rus, во́лость, p=ˈvoləsʲtʲ; ) was a traditional administrative subdivision in Eastern Europe. In earlier East Slavic history, '' volost'' was a name for the territory ruled by the knyaz, a principality; either as an absolute ...
''
ispolkom The Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, commonly known as the Ispolkom (russian: исполком, исполнительный комитет, literally " executive committee") was a self-appointed executive committee of the Petrograd So ...
s (executive governmental offices). The ID cards were valid for three years and could have a photo pasted on. Neither photos nor ID cards were obligatory. The system of residential registration existed, but any personal documents were valid for this purpose and the registration, although known as ''"propiska"'' was not associated with the residential permit of the later '' propiska'' system. The '' Small Soviet Encyclopedia'' released in May 1930 seems to be the last encyclopedical source which fixed the early post-revolutionary
nihilistic Nihilism (; ) is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning. The term was popularized by Iva ...
treatment of the passport system as a tool of the so-called "
police state A police state describes a state where its government institutions exercise an extreme level of control over civil society and liberties. There is typically little or no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the ...
" where it provides "police supervision and taxation system". Stating that the whole concept of the "passport system" is unknown to the Soviet system of rights, the author insists that the passport system is also burdensome to the contemporary bourgeois (i.e. non-socialist) states which tend to simplify or even abolish this system. Soviet passports did not identify gender, although patronymics are gendered. In the early days they recorded "social origin" and "social position". They recorded nationality, which might include what in other contexts would be regarded as ethnicity, such as Jewish or Crimean Tatar. If both parents had the same this was that of the children. If it differed the child could choose which nationality to adopt at the age of 16. Children were normally listed in the passport of their mother. Men's passport might include liability for child support.


1933–1991

On 27 December 1932 the USSR Central Executive Committee and Sovnarkom issued the decree ''About establishment of the Unified Passport System within the USSR and the Obligatory ''Propiska'' of Passports''. The declared purposes were the improvement of population bookkeeping in various urban settlements and "the removal of persons not engaged in industrial or other socially-useful work from towns and the cleansing of towns from hiding ''
kulak Kulak (; russian: кула́к, r=kulák, p=kʊˈlak, a=Ru-кулак.ogg; plural: кулаки́, ''kulakí'', 'fist' or 'tight-fisted'), also kurkul () or golchomag (, plural: ), was the term which was used to describe peasants who owned ove ...
s'', criminals and other antisocial elements". "Hiding kulaks" referred to fugitive landowners who tried to escape
collectivization Collective farming and communal farming are various types of, "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member- ...
. "Removal" usually resulted in some form of
forced labour Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...
. Passports were introduced for urban residents,
sovkhoz A sovkhoz ( rus, совхо́з, p=sɐfˈxos, a=ru-sovkhoz.ogg, abbreviated from ''советское хозяйство'', "sovetskoye khozyaystvo (sovkhoz)"; ) was a form of state-owned farm in the Soviet Union. It is usually contrasted wit ...
niks and workers of ''novostroykas''.A novostroyka ( ru , новостройка) was a major construction-site of a new town, plant, railway station, etc. According to the
1926 Soviet Census The 1926 Soviet Census took place in December 1926. It was an important tool in the state-building of the USSR, provided the government with important ethnographic information, and helped in the transformation from Imperial Russian society to ...
82% of the population in the Soviet Union lived in rural areas.
Kolkhoz A kolkhoz ( rus, колхо́з, a=ru-kolkhoz.ogg, p=kɐlˈxos) was a form of collective farm in the Soviet Union. Kolkhozes existed along with state farms or sovkhoz., a contraction of советское хозяйство, soviet ownership or ...
niks and individual peasants did not have passports and could not move into towns without permission. Permissions were controlled by chairpersons of collective farms or by rural councils. Repeated violations of the passport régime counted as a criminal offence. Passports were issued by the
People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs People's, branded as ''People's Viennaline'' until May 2018, and legally ''Altenrhein Luftfahrt GmbH'', is an Austrian airline headquartered in Vienna. It operates scheduled and charter passenger flights mainly from its base at St. Gallen-Alten ...
(Soviet law-enforcement) and until the 1970s had a green cover. The implementation of the passport system was based on the USSR Sovnarkom decree dated April 22, 1933 ''About the Issue of Passports to the USSR Citizens in the territory of the USSR''. The document declared that all citizens at least sixteen years old residing in cities, towns, and urban workers' settlements, as well as those residing within of
Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
or
Leningrad Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
, within of
Kharkiv Kharkiv ( uk, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest city and municipality in Ukraine.
,
Kyiv Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe. Ky ...
,
Minsk Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach (Berezina), Svislach and the now subterranean Nyamiha, Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative stat ...
,
Rostov-on-Don Rostov-on-Don ( rus, Ростов-на-Дону, r=Rostov-na-Donu, p=rɐˈstof nə dɐˈnu) is a port city and the administrative centre of Rostov Oblast and the Southern Federal District of Russia. It lies in the southeastern part of the Eas ...
, or
Vladivostok Vladivostok ( rus, Владивосто́к, a=Владивосток.ogg, p=vɫədʲɪvɐˈstok) is the largest city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai, Russia. The city is located around the Golden Horn Bay on the Sea of Japan, ...
or within the hundred-kilometre zone along the western border of the USSR were required to have a passport with ''propiska''. Within these areas passports were the only valid personal identification document. From 1937 onwards, all passports had a photo
headshot A head shot or headshot is a modern (usually digital) portrait in which the focus is on the person. The term is applied usually for professional profile images on social media, images used on online dating profiles, the 'about us page' of a cor ...
of the bearer. Historian
Stephen Kotkin Stephen Mark Kotkin (born February 17, 1959) is an American historian, academic, and author. He is currently the John P. Birkelund '52 Professor in History and International Affairs at Princeton University, where he is also co-director of the pro ...
argues that the sealing of the Ukrainian borders (caused by the internal passport system) aimed to prevent the spread of
famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompan ...
-related diseases. On 10 September 1940 the USSR Sovnarkom decreed the ''Passport Statute'' (russian: Положение о паспортах, translit= Položenye o pasportakh). It enabled special regulations concerning the ''propiska'' in the capital cities of the different republics, ''
krai A krai or kray (; russian: край, , ''kraya'') is one of the types of federal subjects of modern Russia, and was a type of geographical administrative division in the Russian Empire and the Russian SFSR. Etymologically, the word is relat ...
s'', and
oblast An oblast (; ; Cyrillic (in most languages, including Russian and Ukrainian): , Bulgarian: ) is a type of administrative division of Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Ukraine, as well as the Soviet Union and the Kingdo ...
s, in state border areas, and at important railroad junctions. On 21 October 1953 the
USSR Council of Ministers The Council of Ministers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( rus, Совет министров СССР, r=Sovet Ministrov SSSR, p=sɐˈvʲet mʲɪˈnʲistrəf ɛsɛsɛˈsɛr; sometimes abbreviated to ''Sovmin'' or referred to as the '' ...
decreed a new ''Passport Statute''. It made passports obligatory for all citizens older than sixteen years in all non-rural settlements. Rural residents could not leave their place of residence for more than thirty days, and even for this leave a permit from a ''
selsoviet Selsoviet ( be, сельсавет, r=sieĺsaviet, tr. ''sieĺsaviet''; rus, сельсовет, p=ˈsʲelʲsɐˈvʲɛt, r=selsovet; uk, сільрада, silrada) is a shortened name for a rural council and for the area governed by such a cou ...
'' was required. The notion of "temporary propiska" was introduced, in addition to the regular or "permanent" one. A temporary ''propiska'' was issued for work-related reasons and for study away from home. After the First Congress of Collective Farm Workers in the summer of 1969, the Council of Ministers of the USSR relieved rural residents from procedural difficulties in obtaining a Soviet passport. On 28 August 1974 the USSR Council of Ministers issued a new ''Statute of the Passport System in the USSR'' and new rules of ''propiska''.Постановление Совета Министров СССР от 28.08.1974 № 677
/ref> The latter rules remained in effect until 23 October 1995. However "blanket passportisation" started only in 1976 and had finished by 1981.


See also

*
Soviet Union passport The Soviet passport was an identity document issued pursuant to the laws of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) for citizens of the USSR. For the general purposes of identity certification, Soviet passports contained such data as name ...
*
Russian passport The Russian passport (russian: Заграничный паспорт гражданина Российской Федерации, Zagranichnyy pasport grazhdanina Rossiyskoy Federatsii, Transborder passport of a citizen of the Russian Federati ...
* Internal Passport of Russia * Propiska in the Soviet Union


Notes


References


Further reading

* * * * {{Soviet Union topics Soviet internal politics Foreign relations of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...