by Miron Dolot
I also met the father of a school friend there. I called him “Uncle Petro”. In the village he was known by his last name, Shost. I was not surprised to see him in the jail because he was one of the farmers in our village who had refused to join the collective farm.
Shost was poor, and in a way he typified the Ukrainian farmers of that day. He owned about fifteen acres of black land, two plowhorses, a cow, one or two pigs, and perhaps a dozen fowl—chickens, ducks, and geese. His farm buildings were quite rundown, and his house was old. The interior was divided into two sections: one was used for storing grain and farm produce, and the other part served as living quarters. This consisted of only two rooms: the front room was a combined living room, kitchen, dining room, and washroom. The other room was a bedroom where the whole family slept. The furniture was crude and primitive. There was a bench along one wall, and a table with a couple of homemade chairs stood in a corner. Icons were hung on the east wall, and on the front wall were the family photographs.
Seldom was a real bed to be found in a farmer’s quarters, and this was true of Shost’s. The sleeping space for his family was a wide wooden bench and the oven top. The floor was clay; the roof was thatched; and the interior was whitewashed.
Shost never hired help, for his farm was only big enough to support his family. In the years when his harvest was small, he would do other work to earn enough to see his family through the winter. He would journey to nearby towns and work on the roads or do other jobs, eating and sleeping with the other laborers in hovels in order to stretch his small wages and buy more food for his family.
With the coming of spring, he always returned to his beloved land. He believed in the land as he believed in God. Day and night he labored in the field and found happiness in watching his crops grow. One way or another he kept bread on the table.
He was an honorable man, and like all Ukrainian farmers, he had great self-respect and an intense love of freedom, both inherited from the Cossacks.
When the Communist government started the collectivization of the villages, Shost showed himself to be a strong and obstinate man. He refused to join the collective farm. For generations, his land had been the property of the family of Shost, and he intended to give it to his son when old age forced him away from his plow. Then eventually, his grandson would own the land, and so on, as it had always been.
The Shosts had survived many wars and foreign occupations on the same piece of land. They had grown up on the land and went out into the world, sometimes never to return, but they always thought of this farm as their home. Asking farmer Shost for his land was like asking for his very life.
To break his spirit, the village officials and the collective farm organizers hesitated at nothing. The most powerful weapon in their hands was the tax. They levied taxes payable in kind and money. Every time Shost thought he had paid all that was required, more items were taxed, and more of the produce of his land was taken from him.
Finally, the day came when he had no more money or grain. His horses were taken, then his cow, and then his implements. Shost resisted, a broken man, but not a beaten one. One day, men in uniform came and arrested him. He had been declared a kurkul and, of course, labeled an “enemy of the people.”
Now he was in jail. He asked me to continue my friendship with his son, Ivan, if I should be freed from jail. He believed I would be freed because I was still a minor. In case something happened to his wife, he begged for my mother to take care of Ivan and his daughter Varka. Those were his last words to me. Then I heard his heavy breathing and sobbing.
It was already dark when we heard the clattering of keys and then the voice of a militiaman calling the names of those who had received food from home. Only then did I realize another tragic aspect of prison life.
When I had spoken of being hungry, I was told by my fellow prisoners that there wasn’t any chance of getting food unless somebody brought it from home. I was also informed that there was no regulation with regard to food or other comforts of the prisoners. The food and the sleeping commodities were the concern of the prisoners themselves. If someone had a family, he had the hope that he would receive his daily meal; but those who were alone were left at the mercy of their fellow prisoners. It was a time of famine in the village. The only food available to the villagers, and thus to the prisoners, was vegetables and fruit.
When the militiaman finished calling out names, and locked the door, leaving the cell in darkness, I could sense that not all the inmates had received their supper. I didn’t receive mine, but I did not expect it, for I knew that my mother had not yet heard of my imprisonment.
Fortunately, I was not in the jail long. Sometime after midnight, I was awakened, and ordered to leave the jail. My mother was waiting for me outside. On the way home, she told me that when I failed to appear at home after sundown, she had become alarmed and decided to search for me. She found my whereabouts easily, but it wasn’t that easy to find Comrade Mayevsky, who had ordered my arrest. She finally found him in the company of a young woman, and asked for my release. He refused to listen to her, constantly repeating that there was no difference between a minor and an adult “enemy of the people.” But, after my mother’s persistence, he finally agreed to write a note to the village militia authorizing my release. Mother thought he had done it only to show his mistress the power he had in the village.
I told Mother about the murder of Vasylyk and, after some discussion, we decided that early the next morning, my brother and I would look for his body and bury it properly.
It was extremely dangerous for us to do this. Vasylyk had been the son of a kurkul, and the political atmosphere was such that anyone who associated with people of this group was treated like a kurkul himself.
But Mother disregarded the danger for us all. Vasylyk had to be buried in a decent way, no matter what might happen to us.
Long before daylight, Mother awakened us and gave us her final instructions. And, as we were about to leave the house, she placed a piece of paper in my pocket. She told me that it was a prayer, and that I was to read it over Vasylyk’s grave after burying him. She warned me that I had to destroy it as soon as I had read it, for it was a dangerous piece of evidence. Then she kissed us and we left the house on our sad mission.
As we approached the place where Vasylyk had died, a beautiful day dawned. The eastern horizon became red, and the sun emerged like a huge ball of fire. The wheat fields were silent, except for the morning song of the quails.
It did not take us long to find his body. It was lying not far from the road in the midst of the tall wheat. The ground around him was stained with blood, and flies, ants, and other insects were swarming on and around his body. We immediately started digging. It was a difficult job for two young and hungry boys to dig a grave in the hard ground, but we finally managed to do it. We dug the grave slantwise, so we could roll the corpse into it with a minimum of effort. On the bottom of the grave we spread some straw. Then we wrapped the body in a blanket we had brought from home, and slid it into the hole in the ground. We quickly covered the body and hole with earth; made a cross from wooden strips Mother had provided; read the prayer she had given me; and then, after destroying the piece of paper, wended our way back home with heavy hearts.
CHAPTER 17
THE YEAR 1932 witnessed the last battle of collectivization: the battle for bread, or to be more specific, for the crop of 1932. On the one side was the Communist government; on the other, the starving farmers. The government forces resorted to any means in getting as many agricultural products from the countryside as possible, without regard to the consequences. The farmers, already on the verge of starvation, desperately tried to keep what food they had left, and, in spite of government efforts to the contrary, tried to stay alive.
It may be of help to the reader to remember that up to the end of 1931, the Communists fought their war against the farmers under the guise of fighting against “the kurkuls as a social class.” But by 1932, the situat
ion had already changed: the so-called kurkuls had already been physically liquidated, and collectivization had been completed except for a small number of farmers who were still clinging to their freedom. Thus, the battle now was fought between the Communist forces and the collective farmers; the Collectivization Campaign now changed into the Grain Collection Campaign.
The long and cold winter of 1931–1932 was slowly giving way to spring. By April, the snow had already melted away, and the weather became damp and drizzly. Often a heavy fog would descend upon our village, as if attempting to cover and hide the misery of our existence. Then cold winds would chase away the fog and bring cold torrential rains in their place.
Around this time the plight of the villagers became desperate. This was the memorable spring of 1932 when the famine broke out, and the first deaths from hunger began to occur. I remember the endless procession of beggars on roads and paths, going from house to house. They were in different stages of starvation, dirty and ragged. With outstretched hands, they begged for food, any food: a potato, a beet, or at least a kernel of corn. Those were the first victims of starvation: destitute men and women; poor widows and orphaned children who had no chance of surviving the terrible ordeal.
Some starving farmers still tried to earn their food by doing chores in or outside the village. One could see these sullen, emaciated men walking from house to house with an ax, or a shovel, in search of work. Perhaps someone might hire them to dig up the garden, or chop some firewood. They would do it for a couple of potatoes. But not many of us had a couple of potatoes to spare.
Crowds of starving wretches could be seen scattered all over the potato fields. They were looking for potatoes left over from last year’s harvest. No matter what shape the potatoes were in, whether frozen or rotten, they were still edible. Others were roaming the forest in search of food; the riverbanks were crowded too; there was much new greenery around: young shoots of reed or other river plants. One might catch something, anything, in the water to eat.
But the majority of those who looked for help would go to the cities as they used to do before. It was always easier to find some work there, either gardening, cleaning backyards, or sweeping streets. But now, times had changed. It was illegal to hire farmers for any work. The purpose of the prohibition was twofold: it was done not only to stop the flow of labor from the collective farms, but also, and primarily, to prevent the farmers from receiving food rations in the cities.
There were some villagers who saw their salvation in the cities’ marketplaces. There they brought for sale their best clothes, from prerevolutionary times, their family heirlooms, handicrafts, women’s jewelry which had been passed on from generation to generation, homemade shirts, towels, tablecloths—all embroidered with traditional Ukrainian designs—handwoven Ukrainian rugs, and other valuables. These they sold for next to nothing, or bartered them for something edible. But many of the hungry villagers didn’t go to the marketplaces with the intention of selling or bartering something; they had nothing to sell, and no money to buy anything. These public places were their last resort for finding some food. They became permanent residents there. I saw many such villagers when I went there occasionally for my mother. They wandered in the midst of the market crowds with outstretched hands, with tearful eyes, begging passers-by not to let them die. But most of the time the city dwellers would hurry past them, with eyes downcast, as if afraid or ashamed to even look at them. Soon, these starving beggars became such an everyday sight that the city people became used to them, and no longer paid any attention to them. The rejected hungry multitudes turned to scavenging. They would go over garbage and trash, taking anything that had been discarded: corncobs, apple cores, fruit peelings, even bones. At night, the hungry and starving slept right in the marketplaces under tables and benches, in bushes, or backyards.
Some of them would be mugged or even murdered during the night; others would be picked up by the militiamen on night duty, loaded onto trucks, taken out beyond the city limits, and dumped somewhere to fend for themselves, with strict orders not to return to the city. Yet many of them would return in spite of the danger; others would dejectedly go back to their villages, resigning themselves to death; some were in such a weakened state that they died where the militia had dumped them.
Many of the doomed tried to save themselves by going to the railroad stations and railroad tracks. Those who had something valuable to sell came there with their wares in the hopes of finding buyers among the travelers. Others came empty handed, just to beg for a piece of bread or a morsel of food. But one could also still find a few bold souls who came to the station intending to travel to some more distant cities, usually in Russia, where there was no famine. However, such an undertaking was a very difficult and risky one. Train tickets were sold only to those who had written permission from the collective farm. It stated that its bearer was permitted to travel to a certain destination. The GPU men and the militiamen were constantly checking travelers’ documents. Even those who were returning from Russia to Ukraine with legal travel documents were searched. Any food found in their baggage was confiscated.
By this time our village was in economic ruin. Poverty was universal. We had never been rich, it is true, but economically, we had always been completely self-sufficient and had never gone hungry for so long. Now starving, we were facing the spring of 1932 with great anxiety for there was no hope of relief from the outside. Deaths from starvation became daily occurrences. There was always some burial in the village cemetery. One could see strange funeral processions: children pulling homemade handwagons with the bodies of their dead parents in them or the parents carting the bodies of their children. There were no coffins; no burial ceremonies performed by priests. The bodies of the starved were just deposited in a large common grave, one upon the other; that was all there was to it. Individual graves were not allowed, even if someone were still physically able to dig one. This strange ordinance originated with Comrade Thousander who was supposed to have said: “There is nothing wrong with a common grave,” implying that the Soviet man who lives and works in a collective can also be buried in a collective grave.
Looking back to those events now, it seems to me that I lived in some kind of a wicked fantasy world. All the events which I witnessed and experienced then and which I am now describing, seem unreal to me because of their cruelty and unspeakable horror. It is simply too difficult to associate all those happenings with real life in a normal human society.
I shall never forget the celebration of May Day in our village in 1932. May Day is an important Communist holiday, and the village administration would not miss it. On this day the Spring Sowing Campaign was to be launched officially, even though spring sowing and planting had been going on since the beginning of April.
Our collective farm specialized in growing potatoes, tomatoes, cabbage, onions, and other vegetables which required much care and many workers. On the eve of May Day, to attract attention to the launching of the Spring Campaign, the collective farm administration made a special announcement: A hot meal was to be distributed from an outdoor kitchen in the village square to the participants of the celebration, which was to take place in the morning. After the celebration and their meal, the collective farmers were to go straight to their field work.
I came to the square with our school. It was an established custom that the village school, which in my village was a nine-year school, was the focal point of such celebrations. We had to sing and recite poems, play games, and show everyone that we were very happy. It took quite an effort on our teacher’s part to explain to us each time how to look happy, and it was particularly difficult for us to imitate “happy youngsters” this year. Many of our schoolmates had already died, and many others were sick from starvation and could not participate in the celebration. Nevertheless, nobody could ignore the Communist holidays. We students had to participate like everyone else, and we had to smile and laugh whether we wanted to or not.
On the way to the
square, we had to sing the songs we had learned for this occasion. We also carried a huge red flag and the usual Communist slogans such as “Long Live the Communist Party,” “Long Live the Soviet Regime!” and “We thank the Communist Party for Our Happy and Prosperous Life!”
The first thing I noticed upon reaching the square were some kettles hanging over the fire. Around these kettles was a cordon of militia deputies guarding them like some treasure. All of the militia were armed with shotguns. The village administrators stood close to the kettles, which were being tended by several women. The huge crowds of hungry participants were kept at some distance from the kettles by a row of tractors.
The scene I saw in the square is impossible to forget. There were literally hundreds of emaciated people staring at one focal point: the kettles steaming with hot food. Some of the onlookers stood on their own, others were so weak that they had to be supported by relatives or friends. Many others could only lie on the ground. The crowds were strangely quiet and orderly but tense with expectation, waiting for something to happen.
When Comrade Thousander mounted a tractor to begin the celebration with one of his usual harangues, all the protruding eyes that had been fixed on the steaming kettles and the smoke from the fires turned to him. He started by congratulating all of us on the holiday. Then he reminded us that in celebrating May Day, we must (and he emphasized must) show solidarity with all proletarians, whatever that meant. At the end of his long speech, he announced that with the celebration of the May Day, the collective farm began its Spring Sowing Campaign. The best way to celebrate these two great patriotic events, he admonished, was to take part in the socialist competition for speedy fulfillment of one’s work norms in the field.