Execution by Hunger (5 page)

One decade separated us from the Revolution and the Civil War. Most of our villagers had been affected by those events: many had lost their relatives or parents; others had returned home from the fighting crippled. But at least they had all received land. We asked ourselves if the Party really wanted us to give up our land, go to a collective farm, and work like city proletarians. Wasn't the Revolution for us, the poor farmers? Could it be possible that the Party had decided to return to the large estates? There still was at least one hope; the propagandist had told us that collectivization was voluntary. We were happy on our little farms, and we wanted nothing else but to be left alone. We wouldn't join the collective farm for any price.

We wondered why the members of the commission and the rest of the officials had joined the collective farm in such a hurry. It turned out that the day before the meeting, our Thousander, Comrade Zeitlin, had called all the functionaries of the village to a secret meeting. Giving them instructions about collectivization, he ordered them to declare their willingness to join the collective farm at the Hundred meeting with no hesitation. As the overwhelming majority of those functionaries were farmers, there was strong opposition to the Thousander's order. Comrade Zeitlin had a solution to this problem. He proposed a pretended joining of the collective farm by the functionaries. Those who were still not ready to join the collective farm would be registered on a special list which later would be destroyed. This was to set an example for the rest of the villagers. Whether they agreed with this plan gladly or not, we did not know. After that meeting at which we had seen the functionaries accepted as collective farm members, Comrade Zeitlin refused to admit that he had suggested a fake registration. On the next day, the collective farmers visited their houses and took away horses, cows, and whatever else could be taken to the collective farm. In one night, Comrade Zeitlin collectivized almost twenty percent of our villagers, and also turned some of those farmer-functionaries into ferocious executors of the Party policy in the village. Having lost their own farms, they could only cling to what they had left, their official position, and so they exercised their newfound power whenever possible.

O
NE FEBRUARY morning in 1930, we heard an artillery barrage. Soon the crash of all kinds of weapon fire reverberated through the air. The sound was coming from the fields.

By noon, our village was overrun by regular army units. First, a cavalry detachment bolted through at full gallop. Then a brass band struck up a march on the village square, and the troops poured in.

As the companies marched, one after another, dogs howled and our anxiety increased. Soon we realized that we had become involuntary hosts. Without asking permission, fully armed soldiers entered our homes.

The soldiers were armed with propaganda materials and Party and government instructions for conducting a collectivization campaign. As soon as they were settled, the propaganda activities began but nothing new was said, since the instructions were the same as those presented by the civilian propagandists. The key difference was that the soldiers were more persistent.

The next day, as if in support of the propaganda, the army continued the exercises. But now they were different. Cannon had been placed in the fields within range of our village. Farmers and their families were still sleeping when the big guns began to roar. The whistling shells whipped over our village and exploded in the river on the other side.

Shooting and shouting began within the village. The cavalry again galloped through the streets. Confined to our homes, we were forced to remain spectators.

In the evening, arms were again exchanged for leaflets, and the villagers had to read and listen. And so it was every day: firing over our heads during the day, propaganda reading at night.

This military spectacle lasted about a week. Then, accompanied by band music and shell bursts, the army left in the direction of a neighboring village.

The shooting had not yet faded away when we all became the targets of another bombardment, this time by a so-called propaganda brigade. A few hundred people from neighboring cities marched in orderly columns, like soldiers. The brigade included ordinary industrial workers, students, office clerks, and others who had been taken from their jobs, given instructions concerning the nature of their task, and ordered to join the propaganda brigade.

Just as the entry of the army was intended to show the strength of the government, this brigade had its political purpose. It was supposed to demonstrate unanimity between the village and the city. This was in keeping with the Soviet attempt to do away with differences between city and rural people. Its main purpose, however, was to show the farmers that the policy of collectivization and the confiscation of grain had the support of the industrial populace. Thus, the farmers were to be convinced that their resistance to collectivization would be overcome by the unity of the entire country.

The propagandists, like the soldiers, were assigned to the homes of the farmers without their consent.

Some aspects of this propaganda brigade resembled an annual fair or market or a circus. The brigade started its activities the very moment it arrived in our village—on a Saturday afternoon. A terrible unceasing noise was its trademark.

In the evening, propaganda films were shown in the school buildings and also outdoors. In an improvised theater, a group of dancers twirled on stage, as did a merry-go-round brought by the brigade.

In spite of all these attractions, the villagers were in no hurry to meet the brigade members. Most of them stayed at home. To be sure, the children, the young boys and girls, the members of Komsomol and the Komnezam went to the square, but that was not what the county Party and government officials had in mind. They were interested in the adult farmers; those whom they had orders to collectivize.

Even though the officials might have been disappointed, they were not discouraged. They had to go ahead with their plan no matter how the villagers reacted. And so, within a few hours after their arrival in the village square, the propagandists were knocking at the doors of our homes. Some didn't bother to knock—they just walked in. Armed with all kinds of propaganda materials, they intruded into our houses and told us that individual farming was evil; that the way to paradise was through collective farms. The villagers listened to this new propaganda barrage, but the ready-made quotations, speeches, and explanations failed to convince them. Nothing could yet move them.

The propagandists also had orders to bring the farmers to the square the next Sunday morning. At least one family member had to go. Since there was no choice, many villagers obediently appeared in the square. I went there, too, perhaps more from curiosity than anything else.

When I arrived, there were already many people around. The villagers—men, women, and children—could not hide their anxiety. They were nervous, tired, and gloomy. The fast-talking city dwellers, the propagandists, tried to mingle with the villagers. With smiles and airs of simplicity, they approached us and even tried to joke with us. However, there was no response from us and our passivity only increased their hostility.

The atmosphere in the square then became tense. Suddenly, we heard the heavy din of a machine. The din almost immediately subsided into a smooth clanking, and soon we saw its source.

“A tractor!” somebody shouted. “Look over there! A tractor is coming!” Everyone turned toward the store, and there we saw it for the first time. It moved slowly from behind the village store in our direction. A tractor was a thing unknown in our village, although we recognized it from pictures we had seen. It was quite an impressive show, and the officials knew it.

The machine moved ahead. A big red flag was flying on its front. The driver, holding the steering wheel with both hands, looked straight ahead. He became an instant hero to the young boys and girls watching him.

On arriving at an apparently previously prescribed place, the tractor stopped, and became silent. Village and county officials appeared as if from nowhere, gathered around the tractor, and the county Party commissar
¹¹
took his place on it. A hush came over the villagers as he began speaking.

What the commissar said was again repetitious. He declared that the governments of the capitalist countries did not care for poor farmers; farmers all over the world in the capitalist countries were being ruthlessly exploited; the farmers in those countries were working with primitive implements. Only in the Soviet Union were farmers taken care of: they were happy; they were embarking on the socialist way of production (he said this as if it were an accepted fact); and they were supplied with the best agricultural machinery.

“Look here,” he said, pointing with both hands at the tractor. “Where else, but in the Soviet Union, do poor farmers like you have tractors of their own? Nowhere! Only you have this advantage!”

I was standing close to the tractor and, bored with the speech, I began to examine it as well as I could from my place. On the tractor's exhaust pipe, I noticed the trademark “International,” cast in Latin characters.

“O
NLY YOU, in our beloved country, have tractors, the mighty machines that will work for you…. But the enemies of the people are conspiring against our beloved Party and people's government,” the commissar shouted. He raised his hands. And, as if on cue, the church bells began to ring. The bells pealed more and more loudly. The crowd grew silent. All looked at the church.

No one knew who gave the signal or order, but when the Comrade Commissar raised his hands to point at the church, saying that the ringing of the bells was purposely instigated by the enemies of the people in order to sabotage his speech, the propagandists broke loose. The entire assemblage stirred with agitation. A voice near the tractor shouted:

“Down with the church!”

Another voice seconded this, and then it was repeated from one end of the square to the other.

“Down with the church! Down with the church! Down with the church!”

Suddenly posters appeared around the square, painted in white on red cloth. The posters read: “Down with the Church!” “Long live the Collective Farms!” “Long live the Communist Party!”

“Let's go!” a voice roared.

“Let's go!” some other voice seconded.

Shouting “hurrah,” like soldiers before hand-to-hand combat, the crowd ran toward the church in a stampede. Arriving there, they threw stones, bottles, and sticks, smashing windows and doors.

Long ladders appeared at the church wall, and dozens of propagandists quickly reached the cupolas. Then long ropes were tied around the crosses. And, amid shouting, laughter, and cursing, the propagandists yanked on the ropes until the crosses fell, smashing the roof. Then the bells were taken down, and the cupolas destroyed.

While this was happening on the roof, another group of propagandists was working inside the church. The interior was demolished. What had been a beautiful church, the pride of our village for many years, was reduced to ruins within a few minutes.

The villagers were unable to defend their place of worship. When the stampede started, some of them went home, but the majority of them stood silent, with bared heads lowered, and prayed.

We realized that this political orgy actually had been carefully planned and executed. The tractor was the focal point, and the Party Commissar, no doubt, was in command of the entire operation. We were sure that the pealing of the bells during the commissar's speech was a part of the plan, for a propagandist rang them. We realized that the slogans had been carefully composed, and the posters painted long before being brought to our village.

The church, or what was left of it, was converted into a village theater. That very evening the propagandists danced on the place where the altar had stood.

No one knew where our priest had been during the attack on the church. It was Sunday morning, and he should have been there, but he wasn't. Later we learned that he had actually been a collaborator of the propaganda brigade. His name was Ivan Bondar.

Bondar possessed that talent of assessing situations and using them to his advantage. Only the previous year, he had served in the church as deacon. He was tall and handsome, with a powerful voice. He could read and write, and was considered an educated man. Many of the villagers thought he would be a good priest. No doubt he himself had hopes of becoming a priest some day, for he even started to grow his hair long, a privilege reserved for Orthodox clergy. Then came collectivization, and the government stepped up the campaign against the church. Bondar suddenly disappeared from the village.

There was speculation about his disappearance. Some thought that he had been abducted by the secret police. Others thought that he had sensed the coming danger and had disappeared to some faraway region, leaving his family in the village. But shortly before the coming of the Propaganda Brigade, he reappeared in our village with long hair and pretensions of being a holy man.

One Sunday morning, when the time came to start the liturgy, none other than Bondar appeared at the altar. Without the slightest hesitation, he announced that he was our rightful priest. As if trying to avoid questions and protestations, he immediately started singing some verses in his powerful bass voice. We never received any explanation.

Later that day we learned that our old priest was gone. We never found out what happened to him; we could only guess that he had been taken away by the secret police during the night.

This all happened before the church was destroyed. There was an attempt by the church elders to find out what was going on, but all in vain. Bondar kept silent, and so did the village officials. Soon, some church elders and other active villagers began to disappear. Then the villagers started to pass the news to each other that, in confession, the new priest was very much interested in the political opinions of the penitents. It suddenly struck us that the new priest was a secret police stooge and provocateur. Bondar's survival of the Propaganda Brigade's assault on the church strengthened our suspicions. As we recalled, no one could find him on that fateful day. We had no doubt in our minds that he had received instructions and a warning from his bosses in advance.

After the Propaganda Brigade left the village and the ruined church behind, Bondar's disguise was dropped. He openly associated with the Party and government officials and with their political line. This explained why he neither protested the destruction of our church, nor tried to reopen it or provide for religious services in some other way. He started to appear wherever Comrade Zeitlin and other Party officials were. He spoke at every political rally like one of their officials. Interestingly, he continued growing his beautiful beard and long hair. Indeed, he still looked like a priest.

We soon learned that Comrade Zeitlin and other officials called him Saint—Comrade Saint. The villagers, on the other hand, had their own name for him. They called him Judas—Comrade Judas.

 

The brigade stayed with us almost one week. We had not been allowed to leave the village all this time except for working in the fields. In the evenings, we had to stay at home, listening to the propagandists.

On Friday, the brigade left in the direction of a neighboring village, where cannon rumbling could be heard.

But we were not relieved. The army, and later the Propaganda Brigade, had now shown us the nature of Party policy. The message was clear: the Party and government had ordered compulsory collectivization, and that was what would be done.

So the trap had snapped shut, and we realized that there was no way out. Hastily introduced measures were now pulling the villagers deeper into the new system.

When the last columns of the Propaganda Brigade had left the village square, we thought we would be left alone for a while. We were tired, and confused, and deafened by the noise. We were all greatly concerned about the collectivization of our farms. Without his own land, a farmer could have neither material security nor freedom. In the course of just a few weeks so many incomprehensible and frightening events had passed. Multitudes of people had tramped through our yards and had eaten our food without asking, and our beloved church had been destroyed. We were terrified. We felt that something horrible was approaching, and we saw no escape.

The next Saturday, the last Saturday in February, less than a week after the departure of the Propaganda Brigade, more strangers arrived in our village. These were GPU men, a small detachment of security troops, and many militiamen. Patrols walked everywhere, even in the most remote corners of our village. The greatest shock came when we saw a heavy machine gun set up in the ruins of the church, manned by three soldiers. A few other machine guns were posted around the square.

We discovered that we were being carefully guarded. A sentry was posted on every main road which led out of the village. His duty was to keep track of everyone leaving or entering the village. Those sentries checked not only peoples' identities, but also their belongings. Everyone had to give detailed information concerning his destination and reason for leaving the village.

We took the cruelty and lawlessness in stride. We were prepared to be arrested without a warrant, or to be deprived of our property. We were used to unjust taxes and extortions under various pretexts. But we did not expect such a measure of control over our everyday routines.

On that same Saturday afternoon, the village was alerted by messengers who ran from house to house, summoning the farmers to a meeting which was to take place the next day. All heads of households were ordered to appear on the village square. There was no choice.

In the middle of the square was the raised platform on which the propagandists had danced a week ago. This was the place for the speakers and officials. Portraits of the Party and government dignitaries were displayed on the platform. Party slogans hung below the pictures.

Around the platform stood armed sentries. From the ruins of the church, the machine gun faced us. Heavily armed soldiers walked around the square. And in the middle of the square, the farmers stood, huddled together, silent but restless, for it was very cold.

At the appointed time, the officials appeared on the platform. The schoolchildren started to sing the anthem. The teacher conducting them urged the farmers to join in the singing, but they remained silent.

As soon as the last words of the anthem faded away, the chairman of the village soviet opened the meeting and introduced the officials from the county government.

Three commissars stood on the platform. They were the commissar of
GPU
, the commissar of the county Party organization (whom we had met when he commanded the Propaganda Brigade), and the commissar of the
MTS
.
¹²
The village functionaries also stood on the tribune. The Thousander, Comrade Zeitlin, the chairman of the village soviet, and the leaders of the Komnezam and the Komsomol stood close behind the county commissars.

After the introductions, the chairman of the village soviet announced that the Party commissar was to make a speech.

Comrade Commissar started his speech with all the pomp of a typical Communist orator. He took a place at the front of the tribune, coughed into his fist, drank some water from the glass handed to him by Comrade Zeitlin, glanced indifferently at the gathered farmers, and started.

It was the typical speech we had come to expect from a Communist official. He quoted all the fathers of Communism, and spoke about every revolution that had occurred since Adam and Eve. He described the miserable life the farmers in foreign countries led, and how savagely they were exploited by the “imperialistic sharks.”

Then he changed his tone of voice, and spoke of the happy life in the Soviet Union. Paradise existed in the Soviet Union; a paradise on earth.

“Could a meeting such as this take place somewhere else, in the capitalist countries?” he asked plaintively. “No,” he hurriedly answered his own question. “No! There is no freedom there, and the farmers like you,” he pointed to us with both his hands, “the farmers like you don't have this privilege. They don't have their own meetings….”

His rhetorical hysteria continued. Several times he repeated himself. Only after naming all the parts of the world, and after using all his profanity to describe “the imperialistic sharks,” did he finish his speech, calling on the farmers to join the collective farms, and warning that there were many kurkuls among us.

“Kurkuls are our enemy,” he shouted, “and we must exterminate them as a social class. There should be no place for the sharks among the harmless fish,” he added. Then he described the kurkuls as an evil tool of capitalists who were preparing an attack on the Soviet Union.

“Damn them all!” he shouted, finishing his propaganda harangue. “Damn every single kurkul! Damn every member of their families!”

After he had cried out these slogans, the officials on the tribune, the soldiers, the militiamen, and the children responded to his speech with long and loud applause.

But the farmers just glanced at each other and did not applaud. Clapping of the hands as an expression of excitement and satisfaction was a novel city custom, but we were farmers so we refrained from this show of enthusiasm.

Seeing this indifference, the officials seemed to be confused, but the situation was saved by the commissar of the
GPU
. As soon as the applause was over, he took the speaker's place. He spoke in short, clear sentences.

“Comrades,” he started, sending his cold look out upon the farmers. “Comrades, it was a great pleasure to hear such a beautiful and truthful speech from our dear Comrade Commissar. But it is a horrible thing to see that these highly patriotic words of our beloved commissar are ignored and boycotted by the enemies of the people.”

The farmers glanced at each other with apprehension. The commissar, after a deliberate pause, continued:

“What has happened now is the best proof of the presence of the enemy of the people among us. Comrade Commissar spoke in behalf of our beloved Communist Party and our people's government. He spoke in behalf of our great leader, Comrade—”

An explosion of applause interrupted him. He stopped. The applause grew louder. The farmers also applauded more energetically this time. They understood him very well. As soon as it was quiet again, the commissar continued:

“Comrades, the words of the commissar were the words of the Party—” Somebody started to applaud again, but the commissar ignored it, and went on: “But, comrades, you met those words with silence, and thus, with opposition.” He paused for a moment.

“To me, as your
GPU
commissar, it means that among you are those who act like the enemy of the people—kurkuls—that capitalist element to whom those words are not sympathetic and who would be willing to strangle Comrade Commissar rather than greet him with joyous applause.”

Checking the effect of his words on his listeners, he stopped for a few minutes, looking at the audience. Then, speaking through his teeth, he gave a warning: