The article is devoted to the current and littlestudied problem of the activities of the crusades in the Kuznetscom district. With the involvement of documents of the regional archive, the author traces the process of renewal and development of peasant committees of public mutual assistance in the prefarm de reven, determines the role of local party bodies, district and district social welfare departments and district committees of public mutual assistance in organizing the internal life of peasant committees. The categories of recipients of social assistance of the poor peasantry were identified: former Red Army soldiers and Red partisans, disabled and victims of white terror, Red Army families, widows and orphans, Labor soldiers, sick and old who were in material need. The main sources of social power were identified, these are: membership fees; funds of peasant mutual assistance committees, which were replenished by obtaining orphan property, voluntary collection of donations, self-maintenance of their members according to the approved norm from tithing, funds from the sale of crops collected from public farms. Labor assistance to large widows was reduced to you-bringing firewood, hay, spring plowing and other hard work. It was established that in the second half of the 1920s. with the development of free trade, the economic activity of rural mutual assistance societies increased, covering about 50% Crean households, including part of the middle peasants. Their activities became more diverse and were aimed at increasing public supply, organizing joint ventures (mills, rental of agricultural equipment, etc.). The expansion of the possibility of labor cooperation was facilitated by the exemption of peasant committees from taxes and fees, and the provision of loans. The general problem was the extremely unsatisfactory failure by the apparatus of the district and village councils to meet the needs of peasant committees. During the period of mass collectivization, their land and seed funds provided significant material assistance for the economic formation of collective farms.