AFTER FINISHING the reading of the resolution, Comrade Representative raised his head and slowly scanned the hall. Then he drank some water, and repeated the previous gesture with his handkerchief.
The assembly was deathly still, all eyes watching him.
“There are things which are difficult to explain,” he began haltingly, after looking at the paper he held in his hands. “What I am about to tell you is such a thing.”
Then, stuttering, stammering, and often correcting himself, he told us that neither the Party as a whole, nor the Party representatives individually, could be held guilty for the forcible collectivization and for the terror that reigned in the villages throughout Ukraine. No, the Communist Party could not be blamed for these crimes, for it never advocated force or violence.
This statement of his sounded like a sarcastic remark or a bad joke. However, we had learned to take such statements in stride.
He continued: “The real culprits who distorted the Party line and brought so much suffering to your village were the Jews. Yes, it was the Jews who did it; not our dear Communist Party.”
This was only the beginning. After some moments of hesitation, he went on explaining that the Jews, generation after generation, had been brought up in the belief that the Ukrainians were anti-Semites, and responsible for terrible and violent atrocities against them. This the Jews could not forgive nor forget. They know how to take revenge. It is a well-known fact, he continued, that the Jews, using the Communist Party as a springboard for their ambitions, have penetrated all branches of central and local governments, especially such branches as security and justice. Our local GPU, he pointed out, was entirely in their hands. They have been using these official positions for their own benefit. The Communist Party, announcing the policy of total collectivization and liquidation of kurkuls, had entrusted the local governments and special Party representatives such as Thousanders with almost unlimited power. The Jews took advantage of this power to take revenge against Ukrainians. They became overzealous in expropriating the grain from farmers, and causing starvation in Ukrainian villages. More than that, they pinned the labels “kurkul” and “enemy of the people” on the majority of the farmers without any justification and had them exiled to concentration camps or locked up in prisons.
What the representative had said we could not easily ignore. Such revelations and accusations were totally unprecedented. We had never heard such anti-Jewish rhetoric before from anybody, let alone official Party representatives. But, here, the official representative of the county Party organization openly declared that the Jews were to be blamed for every horror that had gone on in our village since the beginning of collectivization. His attempt to whitewash the Communist Party of all wrongdoings was something we expected. After all, he himself was a Party member! But why blame the Jews? This tactic was hard to fathom. Comrade Zeitlin might have been of Jewish origin, although we never knew for sure. But he was no worse than any other Party member or non-Party activist. Besides, he and others like him were just carrying out the Party’s orders and instructions, acting on behalf of the Party. And why should only Comrade Zeitlin be held responsible for the acts of violence committed in our village?
There was something else. Antidiscrimination laws strictly prohibited anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union. Thanks to those laws, Jews were able to occupy key positions in the Party and government. Anti-Semitism was a punishable offense. The slightest derogatory remark or even a joke that might have been construed as such could have brought severe punishment. Yet, now the representative of the county Party organization was officially propagating anti-Semitism. Why? He seemed to be actually inciting a pogrom against the Jews. Was he acting on his own initiative, or on behalf of the Party?
The old axiom “Divide and rule” seemed to be one of the motives behind his speech. The representative also might have had a traditional Russian slogan in his mind: “Kill the Jews and save Russia.” There is no doubt that he wanted to make Jews the scapegoats for the crimes committed by the Communist Party during the collectivization and to incite the farmers against them, in this way diverting their attention away from the real problems and actual culprits.
But the Party representative had no success with such tactics in our village. His anti-Jewish rhetoric encountered our disdainful silence. Later we learned that he traveled with his anti-Jewish speech throughout all the villages of the county. But wherever he went, despite his efforts, he failed to provoke any pogroms.
Comrade Representative finished his speech, collected his notes, rushed to the exit with eyes cast down, and disappeared without a backward glance. We never saw him again. The member of the village soviet took his place at the rostrum.
What happened next was a spontaneous riot.
“We have had enough of you!” somebody yelled as the member of the village soviet tried to say something.
“Away with you!” someone else shouted angrily. “We have been listening to you for too long!”
The member of the village soviet desperately wanted to speak, and he started to yell at the top of his voice, waving his arms over his head, but the shouting did not stop. As a last resort, he grabbed the drinking glass and started ringing it with his pencil, but his voice and the ringing were both drowned out in angry swearing and cursing by the enraged crowd.
Suddenly a young man ran to the stage. The frightened and bewildered member of the village soviet, with his arms outstretched in a defensive position, backed up to the side stage door and disappeared outside.
“You heard what Comrade Representative said,” the young man shouted. “We have been duped. Let’s get our horses and cows out of that stinking collective farm before it’s too late!”
“Let’s do it now!” echoed the crowd.
“Right now!”
The young man jumped down from the stage and ran to the exit, and like stampeding cattle the audience rushed after him. Windows were broken, and children climbed out of them. Others used the stage side door to flee.
Once outside, they were in a great hurry to reach their destination.
“Hurry!” a man urged his wife. “Hurry up, or someone may take our cow!”
And they started running.
“How about our wagon?” a woman asked. “How shall we find it in this darkness?”
Others expressed similar worries:
“It’s so dark outside! How can we recognize our horse and cow?”
“Run!” a man’s voice urged.
“Let’s go there quickly!”
And they ran as fast as they could, struggling in the deep snow, by way of shortcuts through orchards to the main road.
When my mother and I managed to extricate ourselves from the crowd stuck in the doorway, I noticed numerous houses burning in the village center. Flames rising high into the night sky were casting red reflections on the snow. Somebody shouted that our Hundred was on fire. I looked around and saw the flames engulfing the house which we had left just minutes ago.
The village was in an uproar. We could hear angry voices everywhere. Men and women were shouting, arguing. Now and then someone would be heard yelling and swearing. Some women were crying; others laughing out of sheer despair. Even the dogs, aroused by the noisy commotion, were barking furiously. From time to time, shots rang out through all this tumult. Who was shooting, no one could tell.
I was following my mother. It was difficult for her to run. She would often fall and almost completely disappear in the deep snow. But again she would struggle to her feet and try to run, and would fall again. She too was in a hurry. She was anxious to find our cow, horse, and wagon before someone else got them.
As we were approaching the village center, we met the first rioters who were returning home with their spoils: their own cows and horses. But not all of them were satisfied and happy. Those who could not reclaim all their belongings were even crying. Some of them had found their horses, but not their cows, and vice versa. Others found their horse equipment, but not their wagons. An elderly couple, who could only find their wagon, were trying to pull it themselves, but the wagon was too heavy for them. They stopped in the middle of the road, waiting for someone to help them. The old woman cried bitterly, telling everyone who would listen that they could find neither their horse nor their cow. But the majority who had found their precious possessions were quietly passing by and proceeding to their homes, as if they were afraid of losing them again.
We finally reached the collective farm. First we ran to the cattle barn. We knew where our cow was. Since the time we were forced to sign up for the collective farm, more than a month ago, we had visited her almost daily. Mother would often collect some scraps of food and secretly sneak into the barn and watch our cow munch contentedly on whatever she would give her. She would cry each time she visited the barn. Our cow meant much to us. Her milk was the main nourishment that kept us alive during the past few years. Without it, we would not have had much hope for survival.
Fortunately, we found our cow in her place. I left Mother to guard her while I rushed to the stable. But there I had no luck; our horse was gone. Then I ran to the yard where I knew our wagon had been, but it too was missing. There was no use wasting my time trying to find them, so I ran back. Hurriedly we headed home with our cow, thankful to at least have her back with us, but saddened by the loss of our horse and wagon.
Early next morning, we were awakened by the noise of heavy shooting somewhere in the village. It sounded as if a real battle was being waged there. Even artillery guns roared from time to time just as had happened a few weeks ago, when the guns were deployed in the fields north of the village, and the shells were flying over our heads, landing somewhere in the Tiasmyn River.
But even the shooting could not prevent my brother and me from going back to the collective farm to continue our search for our horse and wagon. We left home and, after dodging the main road, soon reached the church ruins. It was as far as we could dare to go. From behind the ruins, we noticed a few military vehicles in place in the square. Soldiers were patrolling the square and the streets. We could see guards at the village store and at the post office, and we could hear rifle shots far away on the outskirts of the village. We also noticed bodies lying in the blood-stained snow.
We did not know what actually had transpired in the village center during the night, but we were sickened by what we saw, and certainly not eager to pursue our initial undertaking. We decided to head back home as fast as we could.
Upon our arrival, there was nothing left for us as a family to do but to wait for what might happen next. We, the villagers, found ourselves in a very precarious and dangerous situation. We had just ruined the collective farm; some buildings were destroyed; and the greater part of our farm animals and implements were reposessed by the villagers. By our rioting, we had demonstrated our unwillingness to be members of the collective farm, and yet we had no assurance that we had won the battle. And we were still not sure if the Party representative had really meant what he had said last night at the meeting. Did he say it just to distract us from what he really had in mind? If so, what was it? There must have been a reason for everything he said.
There was also something else that bothered and worried us a great deal: were we still members of the collective farm after all that had happened? None of us, as far as I knew, had formally requested to have our membership discontinued. In that case, what was our status now? Would the Communist Party leave us alone now?
While we all waited anxiously for something to happen, news started spreading. More than twenty farmers had been shot to death in the morning following the riot. They were slaughtered while trying to take back their animals and farm implements.
The other tragic news was that another twenty people had been arrested the same morning. The young man who had actually started the riot in our Hundred was among them. All the wives, children, and other family members of the killed and arrested villagers were evicted from their homes and banished from the village on the same day. They were taken by military vehicles to the railroad station where the county Party and government officials and a train were ready and waiting for them.
A week or more passed after the riot with no further official reaction to what had happened. The all-important question of whether we were still considered members of the collective farm kept nagging us more and more. The uncertainty of what was ahead almost drove us to despair. It was a matter of life or death for us. This was the time when our farmers used to start spring sowing and planting. Now the majority of them could not do that because of the simple reason that they owned no land. On joining the collective farm, their land was collectivized and pronounced “socialist property,” and as such, it was protected by the state law. During the riot, some of the villagers were able to reclaim their animals and their implements, if they were found intact. But how could they reclaim their land? There simply was no way; the land was no longer theirs. They could work that land, but there was no guarantee that they could harvest the crop. There was no guarantee that they would even live long enough to reap the harvest. In the middle of April, about two weeks after the riot, we were finally summoned to a village general meeting, which took place in the church. During the night of the riot, someone had tried to restore it: the altar and the icons, much to our great surprise, had been saved, and were put in their original places. The Communist decorations and propaganda articles had been thrown out. The night of the meeting, however, it was a theater and propaganda center again. Red was the dominant color. A red flag was installed in place of the altar. Wherever one looked, the slogan “Death to kurkuls” could be seen. Portraits of Communist leaders hung in the place of the holy pictures again.
The meeting hall was already full when Mother and I arrived. No one spoke. The people looked haggard and worried; their faces showed exhaustion, malnutrition, and weary indifference. Everyone seemed gloomy and serious, and indeed, there was good reason for it. They knew that their future would be decided at this meeting.
Soon the officials arrived. Most of them were strangers to us. Some of them looked urban: well dressed and well fed. They were, no doubt, intellectuals. Some, obviously, were workers from factories, but the rest—the majority of them—were peasants like us: haggard, dressed in rags, and hopelessly sad. Utter silence fell in the hall as they entered. The member of the village soviet who conducted the last meeting in our Hundred and who had survived the riot appeared on the podium and announced that the new Thousander would speak.
“Here is our new Thousander, Comrade Cherepin!” he shouted.
At this time, Comrade Cherepin was already standing at the rostrum, slowly measuring the audience with an indifferent look. He was a short, broad-shouldered man, whose bald head and spectacles made him look professorial. His outward appearance was deceptive, however, as we later learned. Eventually, we came to know him as a sadist who would not hesitate to expropriate the last pound of grain from us, or throw a baby out a window into the snow.
His speech was typical of what was expected from a Communist official addressing a rural audience: his voice was quiet, his tone patronizing, and his language simple. Like the speakers before him, he discussed all the revolutions in the world history, which didn’t mean a thing to us. He made references to all the founders of Communism; he described the miserable life in the capitalist countries abroad; and finally, he proclaimed that Paradise was to be found only in the Soviet Union.
“Where else in the world do farmers have free meetings like this one?” he asked. “Nowhere!” he answered his own question quickly. “Only you have this privilege because you live in the Soviet Union!”
He stopped abruptly, as if he had run out of words. Then he changed his voice to a lower key, and continued:
“Some unpleasant things have happened in this village. Are we really to assume that they were done with your approval?”
“No!” he replied, after a pause, during which he seemed to think about something.
“Not all of you approved of what had happened! What happened was the work of enemies of the people—the kurkuls. Yes, indeed, the kurkuls have done this!”
Comrade Cherepin’s Ukrainian was intelligible if his strange accent was disregarded. Nevertheless, it was difficult for us to follow the thread of his thoughts. He asked rhetorical questions and he was evasive; he spoke about what had happened without actually saying what did happen. Of course, we knew what he was speaking about, but we wondered why he didn’t name the things specifically.
After a while, he became more specific. He told us that because we let the kurkuls influence us, and because we had done what we did, we had lost the right to live! Yes, those who oppose the Communists have no place in this world, but we still had a chance to prove ourselves worthy of living in the Communist society by joining the collective farm. With this statement, he referred to those who had not yet joined. Those who had misappropriated “socialist property,” i.e., taken their animals and implements from the collective farm, should admit their grave mistake and return it all immediately. Those of us who were seriously thinking about leaving the collective farm for good should send a written request to the Board of Managers. He also informed us that only horses and agricultural implements would be collectivized. Members of the collective farm would have the right to retain their dwellings, their cows and small animals such as hogs, goats, sheep, and fowl as their own possessions.
And finally he gave us his warning: “Let it be known once and for all that if anyone raises his hand against the Communist Party and the Soviet Government, his fate is certain death!”
But that was not the end of the meeting. Comrade Cherepin, upon finishing his speech, had one of his propagandists read Stalin’s new article, “Reply to Comrade Collective Farmers,” dated April 3, 1930.
According to this article, the permission given to farmers to leave the collective farms was not the sign of abandoning the policy of collectivization. It was merely a matter of tactics. He maintained that, like a shooting war, the war against the class enemies could not be successfully waged without firmly securing the positions already gained, regrouping the forces, providing the front with reserves, and bringing up the rear. Stalin stated that “only dead souls leave the collective farms” also, that those leaving the collective farms are hostile to Communist ideology; but that not all those leaving the collective farms are hostile or dead souls. They are farmers whom the Communist Party failed to convince in the righteousness of the Communist cause “but whom we will, no doubt, convince tomorrow.”
Stalin also announced in this article that the government decided to exempt all the collectivized draft animals from taxation for a period of two years. Cows and small animals such as hogs, goats, sheep and fowl were also exempt from taxation regardless of whether they were in a collective farm or in private possession of collective farmers. That meant that those who had planned to withdraw from the collective farm should think twice before they did it.
The meeting broke up shortly before midnight. It was raining outside and very cold. On the way home, we made the decision to remain in the collective farm. There was no other choice.
Contrary to our expectations and the promises given by the Party representative at that meeting, no serious changes for the better took place in our lives after the riot. The forcible collectivization was renewed and intensified, and the taxation in kind and money continued with new zeal and vigor.
Our village was completely collectivized sometime at the beginning of 1931. But this early completion of collectivization did not mean that our villagers accepted the system of collectivized agriculture willingly. They never did. Our village was half ruined; more than one third of our entire population was physically exterminated or banished from the village. Any food we had was confiscated. By the end of 1931 we faced mass starvation. There was no way to survive but to stay in the collective farm where we had been promised some food for our daily work.
Yet the struggle of the farmers against collectivization did not terminate with our forced joining of the collectives. On the contrary, we became even more stubborn in the following years. During the harvest of 1930 and 1931, the government used the newly organized collective farms to expropriate as much of the grain and other agricultural products as it wanted. There was talk in our village that more than three quarters of the total crop of 1931 had been taken by the government. We heard that in some neighboring villages the whole crop had been taken. It was easily done, without any opposition. There was no bargaining over the price. It was the government who set the prices, not the farmers.
As one would expect under such circumstances, our villagers had no interest in working in the collective farm. Consequently, the crop acreage was greatly reduced, and besides that, a large portion of the crops—both grain and vegetable—went unharvested.
The fate of those animals who found themselves in the collective farms was not to be envied either. The Communist officials expropriated them without first preparing a proper place to house them, or enough forage to feed them. Consequently, many of them died from lack of food and gross neglect.
Besides this, small animals like pigs, sheep, and goats, as well as fowl, were stolen, or found their way to the dinner tables of the almighty Communist officials.
The horses especially were in a sorry predicament at that time. Communist propaganda did its best to convince everybody that horses would soon be replaced by tractors. Thus the horses suddenly became unwanted at the collective farm as useless eaters. It seemed that in the fall of 1930, nobody knew what to do with them. Finally, somebody made the decision to free them from the confines of the collective farm which could not feed or care for them. They were turned loose in the open fields and woods to roam and search for food. Soon a disease struck. The combination of sickness and lack of proper care caused the death of hundreds of horses in our village. The pattern was the same throughout Ukraine. Carcasses dotted the fields and woods. This tremendous loss posed a serious problem for the officials of the collective farms, for horsepower still determined agricultural production.