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Authors: Miron Dolot
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then all became abruptly quiet.
The farmers gazed straight at the platform. In front of them, on the church ruins, they saw the machine gun. The service men stood watchfully around the square.
The silence was interrupted by the chairman of the village soviet as he called for other speakers. One after another, all the officials on the platform spoke. Even a few farmers took the stand, most of them well-known members of the Komnezam and active supporters of the Communist regime in our village.
But we did not listen any more. We clapped our hands after every speech, though our minds were elsewhere. The officials had made it clear that the villagers had to join the collective farm or be banished to Siberia or other cold Russian regions. They talked about destroying kurkuls as if they were speaking of destroying some agricultural vermin or animal pest. We too were to participate in destroying them, they told us. We were not instructed how, but we were given to understand that any way or means would be justified.
Although I was still a young boy at that time, many questions plagued me after those speeches. Who were those kurkuls? Who could be labeled a kurkul? I asked myself: is my neighbor a kurkul also? And what about my family and relatives? Are we all kurkuls?
Someone shouted, âWhat does kurkul mean?â
The Party Commissar answered: âKurkuls are exploiters of the poor; they are the remnants of the old regime, and they must be liquidated as such. Also those who oppose the policy of the Party and Government will be considered kurkuls. They will also be liquidated.â This explanation suggested that anyone could be labeled a kurkul.
As the winter sun set behind the ruins of the church, Comrade Zeitlin proposed that the villagers send a telegram to the Central Committee of the Communist Party and to the Soviet government, expressing thanks for the prosperous and happy life of the Soviet villagers, and particularly for the introduction of the collective farms. As at the Hundred meeting, there was only one question: âWho is against it?â Since no one dared object, the telegram was approved by acclamation.
When the applause ended, the chairman of the meeting read the inevitable resolution. It stated that the farmers were happy to join the collective farms, and that they had promised the Party and government to complete the collectivization of the village by the first of May. Again, since not a single voice was raised against it, the resolution was adopted, and the meeting adjourned.
CHAPTER 6
T HE CHAIRMAN of the First Hundredâs Bread Procurement Commission was Ivan Khizhniak. He had once been our neighbor. Comrade Khizhniak was about forty, short and heavy, and semiliterate. His face was lined with deep wrinkles, and his thick dirty-blond hair and cold, dull-green eyes half-covered with wrinkled eyelids and bristly eyelashes gave him a porcine look.
This was the man who was in charge of the Bread Procurement Commission in our Hundred. His physical ugliness seemed to shape his mind and his morality. He was cruel, rough, and embittered. His manner of speaking was sarcastic and vulgar, or limited to pat, official phrases. Sometimes he would try to speak in an urbane manner which he had picked up somewhere during his absence from our village, but even then he would insert the foulest profanity into his language.
Comrade Khizhniak was the only known Communist in our village when the October Revolution began. During the Revolution, as chairman of the Committee of Poor Peasants (the Komnezam), he was one of the most eager and active organizers of the local revolutionary government. After the Revolution, he remained a loyal executor of the Communist policy in the village. Indeed, he became a powerful village politician, and as such, he caused the death of many prominent villagers.
Shortly after the Revolution, when one of the frequent Communist policy shifts had gone into effect, he disappeared from
The farmers gazed straight at the platform. In front of them, on the church ruins, they saw the machine gun. The service men stood watchfully around the square.
The silence was interrupted by the chairman of the village soviet as he called for other speakers. One after another, all the officials on the platform spoke. Even a few farmers took the stand, most of them well-known members of the Komnezam and active supporters of the Communist regime in our village.
But we did not listen any more. We clapped our hands after every speech, though our minds were elsewhere. The officials had made it clear that the villagers had to join the collective farm or be banished to Siberia or other cold Russian regions. They talked about destroying kurkuls as if they were speaking of destroying some agricultural vermin or animal pest. We too were to participate in destroying them, they told us. We were not instructed how, but we were given to understand that any way or means would be justified.
Although I was still a young boy at that time, many questions plagued me after those speeches. Who were those kurkuls? Who could be labeled a kurkul? I asked myself: is my neighbor a kurkul also? And what about my family and relatives? Are we all kurkuls?
Someone shouted, âWhat does kurkul mean?â
The Party Commissar answered: âKurkuls are exploiters of the poor; they are the remnants of the old regime, and they must be liquidated as such. Also those who oppose the policy of the Party and Government will be considered kurkuls. They will also be liquidated.â This explanation suggested that anyone could be labeled a kurkul.
As the winter sun set behind the ruins of the church, Comrade Zeitlin proposed that the villagers send a telegram to the Central Committee of the Communist Party and to the Soviet government, expressing thanks for the prosperous and happy life of the Soviet villagers, and particularly for the introduction of the collective farms. As at the Hundred meeting, there was only one question: âWho is against it?â Since no one dared object, the telegram was approved by acclamation.
When the applause ended, the chairman of the meeting read the inevitable resolution. It stated that the farmers were happy to join the collective farms, and that they had promised the Party and government to complete the collectivization of the village by the first of May. Again, since not a single voice was raised against it, the resolution was adopted, and the meeting adjourned.
CHAPTER 6
T HE CHAIRMAN of the First Hundredâs Bread Procurement Commission was Ivan Khizhniak. He had once been our neighbor. Comrade Khizhniak was about forty, short and heavy, and semiliterate. His face was lined with deep wrinkles, and his thick dirty-blond hair and cold, dull-green eyes half-covered with wrinkled eyelids and bristly eyelashes gave him a porcine look.
This was the man who was in charge of the Bread Procurement Commission in our Hundred. His physical ugliness seemed to shape his mind and his morality. He was cruel, rough, and embittered. His manner of speaking was sarcastic and vulgar, or limited to pat, official phrases. Sometimes he would try to speak in an urbane manner which he had picked up somewhere during his absence from our village, but even then he would insert the foulest profanity into his language.
Comrade Khizhniak was the only known Communist in our village when the October Revolution began. During the Revolution, as chairman of the Committee of Poor Peasants (the Komnezam), he was one of the most eager and active organizers of the local revolutionary government. After the Revolution, he remained a loyal executor of the Communist policy in the village. Indeed, he became a powerful village politician, and as such, he caused the death of many prominent villagers.
Shortly after the Revolution, when one of the frequent Communist policy shifts had gone into effect, he disappeared from
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