To implement the policy of collectivization, the Party and government mobilized all their central and local forces; namely, the entire Party propaganda machinery, the armed forces, the secret and civil police force, and actually, all institutions and organizations. Such political organizations as the Komsomol, the Pioneers, and Komnezams were the most active and effective forces in the hands of the local communists.
Komsomol is an acronym for the Young Communist League, established in 1918. Young people between fourteen and twenty-six years of age may be members of this organization, which is considered to be the future of the Communist Party, and thus is accorded second place in the Soviet political hierarchy. Directed by the Communists, these youths proved to be most vigorous and effective in our village. Their responsibilities and positions were second only to the Communists themselves. The leader of the Komsomol organization was a Party candidate sent to the village by the county center.
The Pioneers was a political organization for school children between the ages of eight and fourteen. Members of this children’s organization served in double capacity as messengers and agents. The well-known case of Pavlik Morozov serves as an example of how the Communist Party and the government used children in their scheme. The son of a poor farmer, Pavlik lived in a village somewhere beyond the Urals in Siberia. This fourteen-year-old schoolboy became the most celebrated individual in the Soviet Union overnight by denouncing his father and some of his neighbors for hiding food from the state. The accused and his father, were arrested and disappeared without a trace. Pavlik was killed by the enraged villagers, including his uncle. The entire Soviet propaganda machine eulogized him. He became a national hero; his name was given to a multitude of villages, organizations, streets, and military units and his story was prominent in encyclopedias and dictionaries.
Thus, the Party encouraged children, especially those who belonged to the Pioneer organization, to spy on their parents and to denounce them, and anybody else, for that matter, who defied the Party. Such denunciation was considered a heroic deed, the best expression of Soviet patriotism.
Komnezam is an acronym for the Ukrainian Komitet nezamozhnych selian (Committee of Poor Peasants). Such committees were first set up in Russia in the summer of 1918 by the local Party organizations from agricultural laborers and poor farmers, and there they were known by the Russian acronym Kombedy. In Ukraine, on the other hand, these committees, the Komnezams, were introduced in May 1920, when the Communists invaded the Ukraine for the third time. Whereas in Russia the Kombedy were soon dissolved (in November 1918, by the decision of the Fourth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, November 6–9, 1918), in Ukraine, these Committees of Poor Peasants lasted until 1933 and became the most effective instruments of aggressive Communist policy in the Ukrainian countryside. The Komnezam was an important feature of every Ukrainian village. Its purpose was twofold: to introduce the Revolution into the village, and to assist in the enforcement of food deliveries to the state. In Ukraine, the Communists used these committees also as instruments in the collectivization of agriculture. In general, they became known as organs of proletarian dictatorship in the Ukrainian countryside.
Thus this monstrous machine of collectivization was set in motion. It ground, it pulled, it pushed, and it kicked. It was run by human beings, and it worked on human beings. It was merciless and insatiable. Once it was started, it could not be stopped, and it consumed more and more victims. The Hundreds, Tens, and Fives with their commissions, propagandists, agitators, and executors: the Komsomol, Pioneer, and Komnezam organizations; and the village general meeting, the village soviet, and the village executive committee became cogwheels in an ugly machine, and the Party its skillful operator.
CHAPTER 3
WE FELT the effects of this new administrative machine at the very first meeting of our Hundred. After explaining how the new village administration would work, and praising the Party for introducing such a “flexible and effective” village government, the meeting chairman introduced the speaker, a propagandist assigned to our Hundred. The chairman called him Comrade Professor. As a schoolboy at that time, I had great admiration for men of learning. However, what he said was no different from what we had heard previously; he was repeating phrases from official speeches we had already learned by heart.
At first, Comrade Professor described the injustices that the farmers had suffered at the hands of the rich. The time had come, he said, when the villagers could redress their wrongs. He called on the poor farmers to have no mercy on the kurkuls (kulaks), and, what struck us most, he called on us to destroy them. Killing the rich, he declared, was the only way for poor farmers to attain a better and more prosperous life.
We sat silently, letting the words flow over us. But we could not be completely indifferent to what he was saying. A foreboding of coming disaster overcame us. We had previously heard about collectivization, about dekurkulization, and even about the annihilation of kurkuls as a “social class.” But so far we had not heard about the arbitrary killing of kurkuls. He now talked about killing them as a matter of honor and merit.
After a pause, Comrade Professor began to talk about collectivization. He offered a simple and attractive explanation. The Party and government, he said, wanted to make the life of each farmer easier and more secure. Work on the collective farm would be less arduous and more profitable. There the farmers would be protected from exploitation by the rich farmers, the kurkuls. And, finally, after looking at his notes, he made it clear that the Party and government had decided to collectivize us and there was nothing we could do about it. He added, matter-of-factly, that we should be thankful for it, for what was good for the Party and government was also good for us farmers. He then put his notes in his pocket, drank some water, took a cigarette out of a fine case, and sat down. We remained silent.
Following the propagandist, the chairman of the Hundred rose and declared his wish to join the collective farm. He said that the propagandist’s speech was so clear and so convincing that there was no doubt left in his mind about what was the best future for the farmers, and that he was the happiest man in the world to be among the first to join the collective farm. Then he asked who would follow his example. To our surprise and consternation, there were some who did follow him. A member of the Bread Procurement Commission got up, approached the chairman’s table, and declared his willingness to join the collective farm. Then he threw down the challenge of “socialist competition,” calling on a fellow member of the commission to do likewise. We were still more surprised when the latter approached the table and accepted the challenge and challenged another member; that member in turn challenged another, and so on down the line. After the commission members came the functionaries of Tens and Fives. This was something we had not expected. In a few minutes, more than fifteen households of our Hundred had become members of the hated collective farm.
When the functionaries were enrolled, an ordinary farmer unexpectedly approached the table. He too declared his desire to join the collective farm, and he also called upon his neighbor, Shevchenko, to follow him. But this time the officials were unlucky. Shevchenko hesitated. He mentioned many excuses for not joining the collective farm at that moment: he had to think it over; his wife was ill, and besides, he liked to be completely independent. He insisted he couldn’t do it now, maybe later. The officials pressed him to do it right away and he struggled desperately. Time dragged on. No one was permitted to leave the meeting room.