Execution by Hunger (10 page)

No one would have dared to utter such words before; now they could be heard everywhere. The villagers were ready to fight and even kill if necessary. Indeed, a few days later, we saw two fires a distance away at the other end of the village. Later we learned that the headquarters of the Seventh Hundred had burned to the ground. Then the news spread that the villagers were storming the homes of the activists and village officials. We also heard that somebody had attempted to burn down the building of the village soviet; that windows had been smashed in the village club (the propaganda center); and that the telephone connection with the county center had been cut off. More than a kilometer of telephone wire was missing.

Then one night, the first murder occurred. Somebody ambushed Comrade Judas and beat him to death. Curious, as teenagers are, I ran to the place where his body had been discovered. It was still there. He was lying in a shallow gutter at the village main road. His priestly beard was singed, and his face was badly burned. The chasuble he always used to wear was missing. On a piece of newspaper attached to his chest, scrawled in slanting capitals, were the words: “
A CUR'S DEATH FOR A CUR
!” Finally, at the end of March 1930, we received summons to a Hundred meeting. The meeting hall was decorated in the usual way. The red banner hung on the front wall. From the ceiling was suspended a red streamer with the slogan: “Death to the enemies of the people!” The rostrum beneath it and the official table were draped in red cloth.

At the appointed time, a stranger appeared at the door with one of the members of the village soviet. The talking and the noise subsided. The village soviet member took a piece of paper from his breast pocket, walked up to the improvised speakers' rostrum, and called for silence.

“Before we proceed with the agenda,” he read slowly, “I want to introduce to you our Party representative, Comrade Rymarenko.”

The audience showed its contempt. A man burst out laughing. Some women began to giggle. But the disruptions didn't last long, and the audience soon quieted down.

The representative was shocked by such a greeting and visibly irritated. He stared around as if seeking assistance. Then he made a gesture of resignation with his arms.

“This is how you welcome your Party representative?” he asked in a low voice. He paused for a short time, looking down at his boots, as if trying to figure out what to do with the offenders. Then he pulled himself together and gave us a warning in a cold and brittle voice:

“As a Party representative, I will not have the Communist Party held up to ridicule.” He stopped for a moment, holding the audience's attention with his hypnotic stare. “Laughter and giggling,” he continued, “are among the well-known ways the enemies of the people disrupt constructive meetings of Soviet patriots….”

These were familiar words, but we were not ready for them at that particular evening gathering. We had come to the meeting determined to stand up for our rights; to witness the defeat of the local Party functionaries; and to hear the proclamation of a new policy—anything but collectivization! Instead, we met a completely unknown individual—a stranger who bullied us even before we found out who he was. That was too much for us. Spontaneously, pandemonium broke out: everybody began talking and shouting at the top of their voices; I also heard heavy stomping of feet somewhere behind me.

But the representative seemed caught off guard only for a moment by this outburst. He just stood behind the table, playing nervously with his pencil. After staring at the table for a moment, he raised his head and his commanding voice cut through the hubbub.

“I've had enough of you!” he bellowed. His nervous tension had disappeared, and his voice rang out with self-assurance: “I'm acting here on the direct orders of the county Party organization. Anyone who opposes this meeting is against the Party policy. Anyone who insults me insults the Party, for I'm the Party's representative here, whether you like it or not!” His words were as sharp as a razor.

We got the message. A breathless and oppressive quiet fell over the audience. It was a terrifying moment for all of us. Our hope for change was quashed.

To end the embarrassing situation, the member of the village soviet hurriedly proceeded with the formal aspects of the meeting. He asked the audience to elect the chairman and secretary of the meeting, as was general practice. However, no one seemed to be anxious for this honor. All kept silent, as if conspiring to do so, and no one named any candidate to chair and conduct the meeting. This was an unforeseen and tense state of affairs.

The representative stood in front of the audience and continued toying with his pencil. From time to time he would glance indignantly at the member of the village soviet as if reproaching him for his inability to control the people. Seeing that the situation was becoming more critical, he stepped forward. As before, he threw his hands up into the air (this gesture seemed to be his trademark), then he fixed his piercing eyes upon us and remarked casually in a low voice: “People who are against me always regret it sooner or later.” He paused, viewing the audience to see what impression his words were making, and then he continued “That applies to you, too, just in case you wish to disregard the fact that I am a representative of the Communist Party.” Then he added in the same low tone of voice, but emphasizing each word: “Anyone, I repeat, anyone who opposes the Party deserves to be eliminated!”

His words had the desired effect. The stillness was awesome. No one laughed or spoke. Everyone was mute, unable and afraid to utter any protest.

“These people of yours,” he then addressed his companion loudly so that everyone would be able to hear him, “these people are not able, or simply don't want to take advantage of the democracy which is being given to them by the Communist Party.”

He paused, expecting a response to his remark, but none came. All were sitting meekly like children in front of a dictatorial father, their attention riveted on him.

Comrade Representative cleared his throat.

“Comrade, proceed with the agenda without any formalities,” he ordered his companion who now had to conduct the meeting himself, without an elected chairman and secretary. This he did. After a moment of hesitation, he announced that Comrade Representative was to make a speech. The latter was already heading toward the rostrum.

As mentioned previously, Comrade Representative was a stranger in the village. We did not know who he was or what his occupation was. But we could tell that he wasn't one of us and that he wasn't a laborer—he was a city dweller, like all other newcomers to our village. He was clean, well fed, and dressed in good taste, as far as I could judge. One could easily sense that he resented us, as if we were to blame that he found himself stuck in our village. As he approached the rostrum and raised his head to address us, I had a chance to better scrutinize his physical appearance, noticing that he had a huge nose, and a mouth with thin lips which he was constantly moving as if finishing a tasty meal.

Judging from his previous bullying tactics, we didn't expect to hear anything pleasant from Comrade Representative's speech. But then, as he began, we just couldn't believe our ears! Was this the same man who had spoken to us just a few minutes before? It was unbelievable! He had changed completely, like a chameleon. His tone had become smooth and warm; his manner modest; and he even smiled from time to time.

At first he talked in very general terms so that sometimes it was difficult for us to understand him. The gist of what he said, as far as I could remember, was that men were fallible creatures and prone to make mistakes easily. Several times he repeated the axioms that to err is human, and that one learns as long as one lives. He asked us to show understanding for those who had erred and to be generous to those in need. This certainly sounded like a church sermon, and we were beginning to realize why. As he continued, we became more and more convinced with each word that the rumors about Stalin's article were true. And, before long, he had told us everything.

“A lot of things have been happening lately,” he recited. “Some of them good; some not so good.”

Thereupon he launched into a lengthy recital of the good things that had happened. He repeated phrases which we knew by heart. Then, changing his tone to a lower key, he went on to expose what he termed were the “not so good.” Here, for the first time, he mentioned Stalin and his article, “Dizziness From Success.” In fact, without much ado, he announced that he was going to read it, and he did. He read it slowly, word for word, as if he were afraid to leave out a single sentence.

We learned, as we listened to Stalin's article, that collectivization was a great success; more than fifty percent of the farmers in the USSR were collectivized. What this meant was that the Five-Year Plan for Collectivization of Agriculture was doubled. But then, to our disbelief, we heard that this success was not success at all for it was achieved by means of distortion of the Party line: the principle of voluntary collectivization had been violated and coercive measures had been applied. As a result, some middle-class and local poor farmers fell into the ranks of kurkuls. Brutal and criminal actions were often employed against them by the Party officials. The farmers were victimized through robbery, expropriation of property, and arrest. A compulsory collectivization of farm dwellings and farm animals such as goats, sheep, hogs, and domestic fowl had been carried out. As a consequence of such extortions, collectivization had been discredited, and farmers were hastily withdrawing from collective farms.

We listened with great attention, for our entire existence depended on those words. Not a single soul dared to move, or to utter a sound.

The representative finished reading at last. Without glancing at us, he took his handkerchief and started wiping the perspiration from his forehead. He did it slowly, as if trying to win time, or to figure out what to do next. Still not looking at us, he announced that he was going to read a resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party. Later I found out that this was published in
Pravda
on March 15, 1930. We learned that the Party resolved to stop the compulsory methods of collectivization; to stop the collectivization of farmers' dwellings and their domestic animals; and to make inquiries into the methods of expropriation of kurkuls.

It was hard for us to believe what we had been hearing. Again, there was much confusion. Was it true what the newspaper and the resolution said? What if this whole thing were a trick; a provocation? This was a distinct possibility. Only yesterday, these Party functionaries had used all the brutal means they knew or could devise to herd us into the collective farms. The Central Committee, we were told, had given orders to collectivize all of us before the first of May, at any price! Some of our villagers had lost their lives refusing to yield to the pressure. Thousands of others were labeled kurkuls, evicted from their houses, and banished to concentration camps far away. The majority of us had joined the collective farms as the only way to save our lives.

Now the Central Committee was telling us that it was a mistake; that the local authorities were to be blamed for these excesses because they acted overzealously and distorted the Party line. Where did the truth lie? Who was ultimately to be blamed for the loss of our freedom; for the thousands of deaths; for the destruction of our way of life?

A
FTER 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.