Сейчас на сайте

Сергей Максудов

Расчеловечивание

(Изменение нравственно-этического сознания граждан СССР
в результате коллективизации и голода)

As a result of collectivization, the final stage of which was the artificial famine of 1931-33, not only was the formation of the centralized political, social, and economic pyramid completed, but a new person was created, for whom a few specific characteristics were invented: “sovok” (vernacular) and “mankurt” (Chingiz Aitmatov’s term). This person was passive, would submissively carry out the most absurd instructions from authorities, was ready to work for the lowest of wages or for none at all, neither loved nor valued his labor, was uncertain of himself, feared surprises, broke laws when possible, considered thievery a natural form of the redistribution of property, and felt no sense of self-respect. Natural ethical virtues – humaneness, compassion, love for one’s neighbors, and familial sentiment – were weakened or suppressed by fear and starvation. At the same time, this same person participated in official activities, considering them correct and not realizing the discrepancy between propaganda slogans and the actual state of things: calling unanimous votes for a single candidate “elections,” calling poverty “prosperity,” and so on. Orwell rightly designated this schizophrenic bifurcation of consciousness “Doublethink.”

Рассмотрим  этот печальный результат на  нескольких примерах.

Once N.S Khruschev decided to visit virgin lands (tselinu) in Kazakhstan and Southern Siberia. It was his most cherished project. And time showed that the idea wasn’t  bad,  since the food supply for the population in the USSR after that began to increase. The Khruschev’s train was going through the steppe, Khruschev was looking through the window and at some moment said: Let’s stop here. The train stopped, he got into his car and went to visit the newly organized agricultural settlements. He went to the fields, met the people working there, talked to them, ate borsch and felt very happy, because he could look at the real life not Potemkin villages. In the evening he decided to spend the night in the same place.

As a result, however, at that moment life in the whole country got paralyzed
because at that period in that area the railroad had one track. And hundreds of trains between Moscow and Vladivostok had to stop. The solution of this problem was very simple: Khruschev’s train should have been moved to the next station which was not more than 50 kilometers away. By policy this should have been done by the engineer of the train, but he was waiting for the order. Hundreds of railroad authorities, party bosses and Khruschev’s aides were supposed to give this order but against any common sense nobody did. Lots of thousands of passengers and railroad workers on hundreds of railroad stations were furious and cursed the authorities. And thousands of factories and stores did not get supplies on time.

We ask today: why did not anyone give the order to move the train? At this period there wasn’t any threat of arrest or even loss of job if your did it. It wasn’t fear but the deep-rooted consciousness that nothing depends on you, that you are nothing, a pawn in the game.

В рассказе Александра Яшина «Рычаги» [1] описывается деревенское партийное собрание. Четыре сельских руководителя: животновод, кладовщик, бригадир и бывший фронтовик однорукий председатель колхоза Петр Кузьмич -  сидят за столом в правлении колхоза, не переставая курят и беседуют о жизни в ожидании пятого члена партии, сельской учительницы. Они не довольны тем, что заведующий сельским магазином распределяет дефицитные товары (сахар и мыло) из-под полы, а не выставляет их на продажу. Возмущаются самоуправством районного начальства, в третий раз вернувшего колхозу план посева, заставляя увеличить площади под льном, который плохо растет на колхозных землях.

«Он думает, что партия авторитет потеряет, если он с народом будет разговаривать, как человек, по-простому. Ведь знает, что получаем в колхозе по сто граммов на трудодень,  а твердит одно: с каждым годом растет стоимость трудодня… Нас не только учить – и слушать надо. А то все сверху да сверху. Планы спускали сверху, председателей сверху, урожайность сверху…  Бывает и так: клин не лезет, а дерево виновато, говорят - дерево с гнильцой. Поди-ка не согласись в районе, они тебе дают совет, рекомендацию, а это не совет, а приказ»… [Но вот приходит  учительница, задержавшаяся в школе]. Животновод, он оказался секретарем парторганизации, сказал сухим, строгим и словно бы заговорщическим голосом, каким говорил перед началом собраний секретарь райкома:  «Начнем товарищи, все в сборе?» Сказал он это и будто щелкнул выключателем какого-то чудодейственного механизма: все в избе начало преображаться до неузнаваемости – люди, и вещи, и, кажется, даже воздух… И началось то самое, о чем с такой откровенностью и проницательностью только что говорили между собой члены партийной организации, в том числе и сам секретарь ее, понося казенщину, бюрократизм, буквоедство в делах и речах… Петр Кузьмич говорил недолго:… план севооборота колхоза на следующий год будет исправлен немедленно и безоговорочно согласно указаниям райкома и райисполкома. С этим согласились все выступавшие в прениях. Иначе было нельзя… Петр Кузьмич предложил составление резолюции поручить секретарю. Ты напиши, знаешь как, - шептал он, довольный, что собрание подошло к концу: В обстановке высокого трудового подъема по всему колхозу развертывается… Когда председатель колхоза Кудрявцев и полевод Коноплев шли из конторы по темной и грязной улице, возобновился разговор о жизни, о быте, о работе – тот самый, который шел до собрания… И снова это были чистые, сердечные, прямые люди, люди, а не рычаги». 

Рассказ демонстрирует  подчинение сельского жителя и его соучастие в выполнении решений, абсурдность которых он с одной стороны хорошо понимает, а с другой принимает в качестве естественной и единственно возможной нормы поведения. О том, как в годы коллективизации формировалось это сознание, рассказывает брат знаменитого русского поэта Иван Твардовский [2]. Отец Александра Трифоновича Твардовского, сельский кузнец был сослан вместе с женой и пятью детьми в годы коллективизации в Сибирь. Убедившись, что на новых местах выжить невозможно, Трифон, взяв с собой тринадцатилетнего сына Павла, бежал из ссылки. Иван записал для нас рассказ отца и брата.

«Месяц пути в обход деревень и городов и, наконец, встреча с единственным уцелевшим от репрессий сыном Александром, сыном, ставшим представителем власти. Стоит и смотрит на нас молча. А потом не “Здравствуй, отец”, а – “Как вы здесь оказались?!”

– Шура! Сын мой! – говорю - Гибель же нам там! Голод, болезни, произвол полный!

– Значит, бежали? – спрашивает отрывисто, как бы не своим голосом, и взгляд  его, просто не ему свойственный, так всего меня к земле прижал. Молчу, что там можно было сказать? И пусть бы он даже так, только бы Павлуша этого не видел. Мальчишка же только тем и жил, что надеялся на братское слово, на братскую ласку старшего к младшему, а оно вон как обернулось!

– Помочь могу только в том, чтобы бесплатно доставили вас туда, где были! – так точно и сказал».

Отец от такой «помощи» отказался, не столь политически сознательный дальний родственник отдал ему свою справку (удостоверение, заменявшее сельским жителям паспорт), обосновавшись на Урале, Трифон вывел туда одного за другим всех членов своей семьи. Иван вырос и с оружием в руках защищал родину на фронтах второй мировой войны. Александр Твардовский описал коллективизацию в поэме «Страна Муравия» и стал впоследствии редактором самого либерального в Советском Союзе журнала. Воспоминание о встрече с отцом мучило его, вероятно, всю жизнь.

It is necessary to note that the habits and ethical norms of the Russian rural population at the beginning of the twentieth century were far from our contemporary notions. Patriarchic family life, the difficult legacy of the system of serfdom, and dependence on the community, had up until 1906 kept the peasant on the farm, allowing him neither to sell his land nor to move to the city. World War One led to the arming of 15 million peasants. The revolution returned the armed peasants to the countryside and was accompanied by the annihilation of the landed gentry, the robbing of the kulaks, and the destruction of the patriarchic family and other traditional bases of village life. Finally, there was the ruthless civil war, when “brother took arms against brother.” All of this destroyed the foundations of rural life and the religious traditions of the population. Still, all these unfortunate developments did not affect the essential basis of peasant life: the peasant’s love for the land, his respect for private property, and his belief that his family’s future depended on his own hard work. Collectivization destroyed these core principles of the peasant’s existence, which led to a decline in agricultural production and a change in the rural populace itself. Collectivization was a cruel, bloody war carried out by the government against the village, and the famine of the ‘30s became the deciding battle that ensured victory for the party apparatus.

The truth about this terrible battle was first told by great Russian literature. The works of Andrei Platonov (The Foundation Pit, The Sea of Youth), Vasily Grossman (Forever Flowing, Life and Fate), Alexander Solzhenitsyn (The Gulag Archipelago ­­- the chapter “The Peasant’s Plague”), Lev Kopelev (The Education of a True Believer); the memoirs of people who ended up in the West during the war years, the essays of Soviet writers that appeared during the years of perestroika, the letters of writers to the journal Ogonyok and a multitude of other publications in the USSR and abroad; and finally, the archival documents, starting from the Smolensk archive which ended up in the West, to the archives of Russia and Ukraine that became accessible to scholars in the last 15 years. All these materials announced to the country’s citizens and to the world the tragic events of the “Kolkhoz Revolution.” For us, in the given case, what is important is the impact of that revolution on the social life and ethical convictions of village residents.

THE STAGES OF COLLECTIVIZATION

The first step was the opening of the “grain front” in 1928-29, when the authorities prohibited the purchase of agricultural products and returned to mandatory procurement at fixed prices (with raised quotas for so-called kulaks), prosecuting those who failed to meet the specified quotas. For combat at the “front,” groups of the poor were organized to help the administration in the collection of the agricultural tax.

Another resolution was quite original. It allows rural assemblies to assume the responsibility of delivering the grain to the state and for assigning the extent of each farm's contribution. In the event that individual families did not carry out the decision, the village soviet received the right to impose five times that the normal on them, to inventory and sell off their property, with the obligation of transferring 25 per cent of the income thus received to the funds for the rural poor[3].

На Украине такое постановление было принято правительством и ЦИКом Советов за подписями Г. Петровского и В. Чубаря [4].

This resolution would seem to contain a certain appeal to the obshchina tradition: the collective itself determines taxes within the village. Subsequent actions were, however, devoid of any historical analogy. Society not only does not assume the collective responsibility for paying taxes according to the suggested allotments but, on the contrary, shifts the group, singled out for increased taxation, into the power of the state and, if despite the expectations, that group cannot cope with the taxes, society will receive direct income in the form of 25 per cent of the value of the property acquired. More than anything, this is reminiscent of the morality of cannibals who decided collectively who is to be eaten next based on the degree of nutrition someone might provide.

Many peasants were punished administratively with fines of five times the amount of the agricultural tax. In 1929, in 22 out of of Ukraine’s 41 districts, 33,000 farms were prosecuted and sentenced to have their property confiscated [5]. The figure was probably 1.5-2 times higher for the entire Ukraine, that is, taking the other 19 districts into account. Prosecutions for nonpayment of taxes were widely employed. In 1929 in the Central-Volga krai, approximately 20,000 farms were affected by the above-mentioned articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Republic, and of those about 6,000 had property seized. In the Northern Caucasus the property of 30 to 35,000 kulak farms was confiscated, in part or in full. In Siberia about 13,000 kulak farms were subjected to heavy fines for sabotaging grain procurement and nearly 6,000 kulaks were given sentences. In Kazakhstan about 52,000 people, kulaks and wealthy peasants, were made answerable, fines were exacted and property worth nearly 14,000,000,000 roubles was confiscated. In the Central Asian Republics in 192 9 about 2 9,000 farms were subjected to taxation on an individual basis, including 15,500 farms in Uzbekistan, and 4,323 in TadzhiKistan. Comparing the number of people convicted with information from the complete agricultural census of 1929 on the numbers of kulaks, we can see that practically all the kulaks in the Northern Caucasus and Central Volga regions were subjected to repression, and about half in Siberia, Ukraine, Lower Volga, and Kazakhstan [6].

What was needed was a legal formulation both of the government's right to demand payment of taxes in grain and its right to punish resistance. For that purpose Article 61 of the RSFSR Criminal Code was altered. In the new edition of the article, the administration receives the right to punish those who resist by five times the usual fine and forced labour for a period of up to a year.

This was a terrible blow to the productivity of agriculture. The land was no longer a dear mother, but an evil stepmother. Gaining property through one’s own labor became more dangerous than theft. The villager’s dream of having a profitable farm changed into the complete opposite: the desire to have no crops, horses or land; to be a watchman, a forest ranger, or an unskilled laborer; or – better still – a Komsomolets, a Party member, or a rural administrator.

The second step, the operation to “liquidate kulaks as a class,” meant the intentional removal from the village of the most active and capable part of the rural population. Tens of thousands of men (the first category) were arrested and executed on the spot or sentenced to prison terms. Overall, from 1928 to 1931 300-400 thousand families (1.5-2 million people) were “dekulakized” or had their property seized by the court. Of those, 65-80 thousand families (300-400 thousand people) were taken from the republic and sent to the North [7].

Кулаки, которые не выселялись на север, лишались имущества, но не принимались в колхозы. Они становились своего рода неприкасаемыми.  Эта, казалось бы, самая легкая мера была не просто разрушением сельского уклада жизни, но ставила людей на грань жизни и смерти. Вот типичная картина того времени, описанная женой знаменитого поэта Надеждой Яковлевной Мандельштам, оказавшейся вместе с мужем в ссылке в Воронеже.

«Под вечер мы выехали на поляну, где торчала еле заметная землянка. Впервые за день директор проявил прыть: вместе с шофером и тремя рабочими, ехавшими с нами в кузове, он выскочил из машины, бросился к землянке, залез на крышу и поднял пляс. Рабочие в шесть рук принялись разносить землянку ломами, а директор с шофером долбили крышу ногами… Первой поддалась крыша, что-то грохнуло, и из землянки начали гуськом выползать люди с вещами. Одна из женщин вынесла прялку, другая швейную машину… Последней из землянки вышла женщина – там ютились старики, женщины и дети – в таком же ослепительном белом сарафане, как другие, а на руках у нее сидел заморыш, живой трупик, безволосый, с морщинистыми, с зеленоватыми отростками вместо рук. (Он всегда стоит у меня в глазах, как символ – чего? Жизни, действительности, реальности и всеобщей, в том числе и моей, жестокости)… Закончив работу, директор сел в кузов рядом с нами и пустился в объяснения: мужья либо сосланы, либо разбрелись по городам в поисках работы, а бабы «отсиживаются» на совхозной земле… Он директор действует по закону и по приказу – иначе с него спросится. Мы молчали – возражать было бесполезно: он знал, что делает… На женщин и стариков, ютившихся в землянке, не выписали ордеров – скорее всего потому, что план (по числу ссылаемых голов) оказался выполненным, а не то (и чаще) перевыполненным… Если заморыш выживет, его возьмут в солдаты, на завод или он пойдет руководить в партийный аппарат… Приспособят заморыша, как приспособили меня» [8].

В этой зарисовке мы видим, что крестьянская семья не просто ограблена, осталась без земли, средств производства, у нее отнят дом и ее пытаются лишить места под солнцем в буквальном смысле этого слова. Людям, изгоняемым из землянки, нет места на родной земле. Они покорно подчиняются насилию и рассказчица надеется, что они выживут и власть включит их в свою новую систему полезной для государства деятельности, как «приспособила» и саму Надежду Яковлевну. Директор, представитель власти, испытывает при этом некоторое чувство неловкости, объясняя свое поведение распоряжениями сверху. Рабочие, послушно и энергично выполняют приказ, зарабатывая себе тем самым право на существование. И Надежда Мандельштам замечает, что они с мужем также являются соучастниками преступления, поскольку молчат, понимая, что протесты не помогут, а их положение заметно ухудшат.

Всего на Украине в 1928-31 годах было раскулачено или потеряло имущество через суд более 300 тысяч семей (1.5 млн. чел.) В том числе вывезено из республики на север 63 тысяч семей (350 тысяч человек) [9]

The third step was the “organization” of collective farms, which meant the confiscation from peasants of arable land, horses, agricultural implements, and most domestic livestock, and the transformation of peasants into workers, devoid of initiative and only carrying out the orders of the authorities.

Использование урожая также перестает быть прерогативой сельского жителя. Эти условия, намного более тяжелые, чем во времена крепостного права, подрывали всю систему сельской жизни, а жестокие меры организации колхозов, демонстрировали крестьянину его полную беззащитность и беспомощность. Писатель Михаил Шолохов с ужасом писал своей знакомой в Москву в 1929 году, когда коллективизация еще только начиналась:

«Жмут на кулака, а середняк уже раздавлен. Беднота голодает. Имущество, вплоть до самоваров и полостей, продают в Хоперском округе у самого истого середняка, зачастую даже маломощного. Народ звереет, настроение подавленное, на будущий год посевной клин катастрофически уменьшится… Один парень – казак хутора Скулядного, ушедший в 1919 году добровольцем в Красную армию, прослуживший в ней 6 лет, красный командир – два года, до 1927 года работал председателем сельсовета. У него продали все, вплоть до семейного хлеба и курей. Забрали тягло, одежду, самовар, оставили только стены дома… А что творилось в апреле-мае! Конфискованный скот гиб на станичных базах, кобылы жеребились, и жеребят пожирали свиньи (скот весь был на одних базах), и все это на глазах у тех, кто ночи не досыпал, ходил и глядел за кобылицами» [10].    

The overall number of villagers who actively participated in dekulakization and collectivization was not too large. In Ukraine, 7,762 committees for assisting collectivization were active. These included party workers (39,00 members and candidates), Komsomoltsy (180,000), members of groups of the poor (250-280 thousand), and the rural administration. Overall, this represented no more than 2-3% of the population. But they pursued their own selfish interests, furthering their careers through the establishment of control over the rural population. All party members and many Komsomoltsy were armed with pistols. And most importantly, they were backed by powerful forces: the Party-administrative apparatus, the courts, the omnipotent and omniscient OGPU, and the Red Army. Thus, any attempt at active resistance was mercilessly suppressed.

For the peasant there remained one last line of defense from the authorities’ violence: he refused to work hard. This was not sabotage; as a rule, peasants came to work, but they did not put all possible effort into the achievement of results. And agricultural production in the country was maintained during this time by precisely this extraordinary physical effort, unthinkable by modern standards, from each member of each peasant family. This was a distinctive case of work-to-rule. Various observers describe this phenomenon: casual visitors (for example, the future general and future dissident Pyotr Grigorenko), tourists, and representatives of the Central Committee.

«A huge steppe settlement of 2,000 households in Khersonshchina, Arkhangelka, at the height of harvest time, was lifeless. One thresher was working, a single shift of eight people. The remaining mass of workers – men, women, and adolescents – were sitting, lying about, and reclining in the cool air.

“Grain is lying in swathes, and here and there is still standing. It’s spoiled, and the grain in swathes is rotting.”

“Well obviously it’s rotting,” I was answered with complete apathy» [11].

Григоренко вторят английские путешественники Сидней и Беатриса Вебб [12]: 

«Целые деревни на Кубани, так же как и на Украине, угрюмо уклонялись от сева и уборки или обрабатывали лишь крошечную часть своего поля, так что к концу года у них не было семян, а часто даже и хлеба для себя. В других случаях крестьяне потихоньку потрошили созревающую пшеницу, то есть выщелущивали зерно или даже срезали колосья и откладывали в индивидуальный запас то, что было бесстыдно похищено из общественной собственности с полей». 

A similar picture was painted by Kossior at the plenum of the Central Committee of the Comunist Party of Ukraine in January of 1933:

Let us take the very best kolkhoz, numbering 300-500 workers and let us see how many people there are working during the busiest times of field labor. In the majority of cases, half; in the very best case, two thirds.

Kossior reported that according the data gathered from the inspection of 1300 kolkhozy, in 1932 10% of collective farmers were not credited with a single workday and 29% were credited with fewer than fifty [13].

REDUCED TO OBEDIENCE

The authorities were able to suppress this passive resistance, which was extremely dangerous to them, only with the help of the terrible famine of 1931-33. This was the fourth and most tragic stage of collectivization. The Marxist slogan, “He who does not work shall not eat” was brought to life in its literal sense. For the peasant, this was a struggle for survival. in the course of which he tried to survive and to save his family, but at the same time was transformed losing many of his humane qualities: kindness, love for his neighbor, self-reliance, and the ability to stand up for his rights. Hunger proved to be the most powerful and effective weapon. Practically the entire rural population was affected by it. Even the activists, who not long before had been helping the authorities to herd the peasants into kolkhozy, even those who went around to homes and collected the last crumbs of food from the starving, did not receive adequate rations. There were only two tiny groups of citizens who did not starve, and these were found at opposite ends of the social ladder: the top leaders of the country (during this time they came to be known as the nomenklatura, as their provisioning was carried out with a specially numbered list) and cannibals. Incidentally, moral or ethical values could not be attributed to either group.

Pitirim Sorokin, a Harvard professor of sociology, examined the consequences of the effects of famine on man on a grand historical scale in the book Hunger as a Factor in Human Affairs, written in Russia from 1918-21 and first published in the USА in 1975. He showed that starvation has an effect on the entire physiology of a person, first of all on his intellectual and psychic functions. A person’s mental activity is distorted, the memory weakens, difficulty in concentrating appears, thoughts grow increasingly dependent on external influences, the number of mental disorders increases, the personality is destroyed and the person becomes detached from his life:

With protracted starvation, the function of the highest centers of consciousness is weakened, the person ceases to realize the danger of many occurrences, cannot take measures to cope with them, etc. “Reason is blurred,” and there develops a semi-delirious state, apathy, inertia, listlessness, and an indifferent attitude toward everything. The will to live weakens, and finally, the person dies, often without complaint or resistance [14]. 

The scene the scholar describes was witnessed in those years across the entire country. Here is the description of a resident of southern Odessa:

The first starving people appeared in the city in autumn. They inaudibly sat as families around the warm asphalt furnaces, behind the rightful owners – vagrant children – and silently stared into the fire. They all had the same eyes – the elderly, the women, the nursing children. No one cried. The vagrant children would steal something at the port or at the Privoz market, and at times would tear bread from the hands of helpless women. These ones would sit motionless, doomed, before falling onto a new asphalt road. Their places were taken by others. It was pointless to beg for anything. With a ration card, the mother of scientists would receive a pound of black bread for those working, a pound and a half of millet per month, and three or four dried fish [15].

One after another, passive and unable to do anything, the victims of the famine died. Next to them, the vagrant children actively fought for life. Around them, the big coastal city was apathetic to the starving and apprehensive of the vagrants. And many such examples could be cited of the weakening of vital functions, the carrying out of any orders of any authorities, passivity, and obedience. Passivity became the habitual state of the villager of the grain-growing region, where famine struck. The most extreme version of this passivity was a total daze, the inability to return to a functioning condition or even to ask for charity. But in the majority of cases the weakening of centers of resistance led to the acceptance of the new reality, to submission. Moreover, this particular condition of the ordinary villager determined his behavior in the subsequent years. The peasant no longer resisted, avoided his assigned work, or tried to conceal grain (it’s true that the crop no longer belonged to him). He learned to tighten his belt and decrease his family’s consumption. He learned to provide himself with food from the insignificant space of his domestic plot. Therefore, when the authorities seized an ever greater portion of the grain harvest, even during poor harvests years such as 1936, catastrophe did not strike.

Other psychological changes included the fear of hunger and apprehensions of unexpected changes. I have found a generation of people who treat any kind of food with surprising caution and who are physically unable to throw away any leftover food. Theft became the sole possible form of resistance and of asserting one’s personal requirements, the sole means of resistance to the state’s violence. This was coupled with a total lack of respect for the law.

Петр Постышев, присланный на Украину для укрепления партийного руководства республики, подвел под пассивную покорность  сельского жителя принципиальное государственное обоснование. Во первых, крестьянам нельзя доверять:

«Возьмем сегодня средний колхоз. Это тысяча-две гектар пашни, плюс молочное хозяйство, птицеферма, плюс сотни различных сельскохозяйственных машин, плюс сотни голов рабочего скота и т.д. Все это требует пристального надзора, внимания, учета, планирования. А в колхозе сотни людей и в них при тщательном рассмотрении еще существует множество различных связей разными нитями с раскулаченными кулаками и другими антисоветскими элементами».

Во-вторых, колхозники темные, необразованные и неопытные люди, не способные к самостоятельной эффективной хозяйственной работе.

«Эти сотни рабочих рук и объединенные материально-технические ресурсы нужно организовать, расставить по отдельным работам так, чтобы полностью обеспечить государство и чтобы себе хватило хлеба на весь сельскохозяйственный год, да еще отложить для дальнейшего развития сельского хозяйства.  Это все требует большого хозяйственного опыта. У самих колхозников в настоящее время нет, да и не откуда было этому опыту появиться у вчерашнего бедняка или середняка, который с трудом управлялся со своим мелким индивидуальным хозяйством [16]. Вот колхозник и рассчитывает и имеет право рассчитывать и требовать от нас, чтобы мы его организовали и мы им руководили в налаживании и развитии колхозного производства. Это мы партия и рабочий класс позвали его к колхозной жизни. Не может быть такого положения, чтобы наше руководство ограничивалось тем, что провели организацию колхоза, выбрали председателя, и дальше работайте товарищи колхозники как знаете» [17].  

BITTERNESS

If Sorokin’s first thesis shows how weakening, decline, and submission take place, then his second demonstrates the other side of the psychological and emotional changes – bitterness, and stronger still, “brutality.” Under the effects of hunger, a change occurs in traditional norms of behavior and the conditioned reflexes of social relations cease to operate. Hunger, as a rule, begins to define a person’s actions, suppressing or weakening the sense of self-preservation and love for one’s relatives and children. The devout ignore religious dietary proscriptions. Respect for private property is diminished, and crime grows. Group self-defense weakens and friendly relations disappear; egoism grows and humanity disappears. In my work I have cited numerous examples of the total downfall of people under the influence of hunger: murders by parents of their children and by children of their parents; known cases and rumors of cannibalism. I think it is possible here to restrict oneself to less dramatic and probably more typical stories.

In 1933, my grandfather tragically died of starvation. At the time, we were living in Donbass, in Stalino, and during that year 15 relatives came to live with us. It’s terrible to remember that time: bloated, starving people… My father asked my aunts why they hadn’t brought the old man. Aunt Varya said, “He’s in bad shape, he wouldn’t have made it…” “But you made it, so he would have made it.” We began, when possible, to save up and send parcels. But my grandfather was too week to go to the post office and asked his daugher-in-law Stepanida to pick up the parcels. She took them and fed her family, all of whom remained alive; my grandfather did not. (Lyudmila Chernichenko) [18].

The grandfather died because his daughter, saving her family, did not bring him with her, and his daughter-in-law stole food from the parcels the son sent his father. The behavior of these people violated the rules of behavior for self-respecting people. Their psyches were traumatized by the fear of starvation and therefore they did not observe the elementary ethical norms of their society. People’s actions doomed other people to death by starvation. I. M. Khmil’kovsky (Cherkassy) recalls with bitterness his own participation in this phenomenon:

It was February of 1933. The director of the school in Stepanki where I studied, Fyodor Ivanovich Chigirik called me and a schoolgirl named Anastasia Borovaya into his office.

“You will go tonight to the house of Makar Khandus’. A committee is gathering there which will work by night to procure grain. You will represent this school on that committee.”

Three men headed by Makar and the two of us youths went into a little home where a very old man lived with his wife and their grandson, who was three or four years old. The boy’s parents had gone God knows where. Makar immediately and quite rudely ordered the old man to give up his grain. The old man replied that he had none. It turned out that there actually was no grain. Then, the members of the committee went off into the barn and found a hidden store of rye – about twenty kilograms.

The old man fell to his knees and began to plead, “My sons, stop this. The boy will die from hunger.”

They took the grain away on sleds at three in the morning. The old man, his wife, and their grandson soon died from hunger. Every kilogram of bread was confiscated [19].

The important change, which affected not only the starving but also the organizers of the famine, was the loss of humanity in relations with other people. Mercy and the traditional Christian love for man were lost. At the same time, traditional morality, the sense of responsibility, and concern about condemnation from one’s acquaintances were also lost.

Этому в большой степени способствовала пропаганда в печати. Она  изображала кулаков злобными коварными врагами, не заслуживающими никакого снисхождения. И во многих случаях местные власти так с ними и поступали. Инструктор обкома Западной области еще в самом начале кампании, в октябре 1929 года доносил начальству:

«Мне пришлось крепко повоевать сегодня на тройке. Отдельные ребята, вдаваясь в детали, скатываются к осторожности: “не взять больше”, ”не обидеть”, а это уже пахнет сам понимаешь чем. Сам секретарь райкома Шкляров, давая сегодня политическую установку наступления на кулака, впал в филантропию. Его установка нажимать, но оставлять на посев, на прокорм семьи, детей подсчитывать, излишки. Это, по сути дела говоря, забота о кулаке, а не нажим на него. Я так это здесь и формулировал, и говорил «когда наступаешь – не жалей, не думай о голодных кулацких детях, в классовой борьбе филантропия – зло». Нужен нажим сейчас на кулака самый беспощадный» [20]. 

 Михаил Шолохов в письме к Сталину рассказывает о положении на Дону  в конце компании раскулачивания, когда удар обрушивался на людей, уже поработавших в колхозе, но по тем или иным причинам изгнанных оттуда:

«Было официально и строжайше воспрещено остальным колхозникам пускать в свои дома ночевать или греться выселенных… Им надлежало жить в сараях, в погребах, на улицах, в садах. Население было предупреждено: кто пустит выселенную семью – будет сам выселен с семьей. И выселяли только за то, что какой-нибудь колхозник, тронутый ревом замерзших детишек, пускал своего выселенного соседа погреться. 1090 семей при 20-градусном морозе из-за дня в день круглые сутки  жили на улице. Днем как тени они слонялись около своих замкнутых домов, а по ночам искали убежища от холода в сараях и на мякинниках. Но по закону, установленному крайкомом, им там нельзя было ночевать! Председатели сельских советов и секретари ячеек посылали по улицам патрули, которые шарили по сараям… Я видел такое, чего нельзя забыть до смерти:  в хут. Волоховском Лебяженского колхоза ночью, на лютом ветру, на морозе, когда даже собаки прячутся от холода, семьи, выкинутые из домов, жгли на проулках костры и сидели возле огня. Детей заворачивали в лохмотья и клали на оттаявшую от огня землю. Сплошной детский крик стоял над проулками. Да разве же можно так издеваться над людьми?.. в начале февраля по пути в Вешенскую приехал секретарь крайкома Зимин… Первый вопрос, который он задал присутствовавшему на бюро секретарю Чукаринской ячейки: «Сколько у тебя выселенных из домов?» «Сорок восемь хозяйств». «Где они ночуют?» Секретарь ячейки засмеялся, потом ответил, что ночуют мол, где придется. Зимин ему на это сказал: «А должны ночевать не у родственников, не в помещениях, а на улице! После этого по району взяли линию еще круче. И выселенные стали замерзать. В Базковском колхозе выселили женщину с грудным ребенком. Всю ночь ходила она по хутору и проcила, чтобы ее пустили с ребенком погреться. Не пустили, боясь, как бы самих не выселили. Под утро ребенок замерз на руках у матери». [21]

Для сельского актива, комсомольцев, коммунистов и люмпенизированной части деревни коллективизация была тяжелой и изнурительной работой, а раскулачивание стало заманчивым и увлекательным занятием, подлинным праздником. Самые низкие инстинкты: корысть, жестокость, зависть – получили законную возможность для их реализации. В архивах и сборниках документов рассказывается о многих тысячах случаев так называемых, перегибов, чудовищных зверствах, насилии, издевательствах над людьми, напоминающих еврейские погромы и эпизоды Варфоломеевой ночи. Женщины и дети рыдали, старики не могли стронуться с места, мужчины бросались с вилами на встречу вооруженным грабителям.

Вот председатель исполкома партии Курсавского района  сообщает секретарю ЦК Северо-Кавказского края Шеболдаеву о проверке колхоза Пролетарский труд:

«Руководящая головка колхоза занималась систематическими избиениями колхозников, привязывали их цепями, сажали под пол, стягали кнутом, угрозы расстрелом, пьянство, дискредитация колхозного строя и т.д... Гражданка Лобова в июне месяце с.г. похитила чайное блюдце колосков ячменя с колхозного поля, Демьяненко вместо того, чтобы передать это дело в органы расследования на предмет привлечения к уголовной ответственности , то он принял свои собственные административные меры, посадил гражданку Лобову и ее несовершеннолетнюю дочь в сырой подвал, где держал полтора суток. После этого стал отправлять их к инспектору милиции, стал наносить побои в голову кулаком. От побоев гражданка Лобова свалилась с ног и была в течение одного часа без сознания» [22].

Об утрате милосердия и росте жестокости свидетельствует рассказ P. D. Gumenyuk, who survived the famine as a ten-year-old boy in the village of Mitlintsi in Vinnitsiya Oblast’[23]. This village was plagued by a certain Bab-Yazh, who was said to be able to smell out not only food but also gold and silver. The family’s strategy for defending themselves was as follows. The most valuable possession, a half-sack of wheat given to the mother for her work at the kolkhoz, was hidden in a chest of clothes. In the cellar, they dug two holes in for potatoes and beets, concealing one as well as they could and leaving the other more noticeable. They bolted the door, and regardless of any threats, let no one in. For some time, this strategy worked. But one day, when Petro, having returned from school and carefully looked all around and not seen any brigades anywhere, knocked on the door, Bab-Yazh appeared from nowhere and burst into the hut before Petro. He quickly found the wheat, then discovered the first hole, took the best of the clothing and contented himself with that. A month later, the second hole with the potatoes was discovered anyway. Each village had its own Bab-Yazh of varying cruelty and skill. One activist who during a search found a pot of porridge in an oven poured it on the floor and stomped on it with his boots. In another case, members of a brigade took turns urinating into a tub of pickled cucumbers and cabbage that had not been declared for confiscation. It is not surprising that hatred for these expropriators was intense. One of the women who worked at a cemetery tells how one of her fellow workers attacked a corpse and beat it with a shovel when she recognized it as the body of a village activist who had taken the last morsel of bread from her starving children. Peasants were afraid to light their ovens. Someone who saw smoke coming from a chimney would think that food was being prepared and come to search the house. The state gained little from these searches – after all, if not everyone then at least the “robbers” had to be fed – but the impact on the population was huge. It was made clear to the peasants that the authorities could do whatever they pleased.

Jealousy and animosity grew not only toward figures of authority, but also toward neighbors and fellow villagers. There were many, especially children, who could not defend themselves from thievery. Those who were caught stealing food were as a rule beaten to death. Selyanin Temeshko, having caught a woman who was digging up his potato bed, brutally kicked her for some time then jammed a large barn key into her mouth in an attempt to break out her teeth. The woman died a few days later  [24]. But even more merciless than those defending what was theirs were the people who took from strangers, robbing them on the highway.

This sea of cruelty poured onto the country affected not only ordinary villagers, but also a set of mid-level administrators and the country’s Party leadership. A special order prohibited any early harvest and a widow, the mother of six children swollen with hunger, who cut a few stalks of grain from a garden, was sentenced three and a half years in a labor colony, where she died after three weeks. The crime was verified by the head of the village council, the kolkhoz chairman, and an agronomist. They ground the sheaths of wheat, weighed them, and then in two weeks, when the wheat had ripened, repeated the operation. The work of the state officials, each of whom ate on that day five times as much bread as the unfortunate widow who was trying to feed her children, justified their actions. They proved that if it weren’t for the woman’s misdeed, the harvest would have been greater by 100 grams of grain.

The most cynical and ruthless people were those in the upper echelons of power, including a majority of the leaders of the most victimized territories: Ukraine, the North Caucasus, the Volga region, and Kazakhstan. This is apparent from a multitude of official documents, speeches, and letters. Stalin accused local leaders of sabotage through the squandering of grain on public rations, after which Ukrainian peasants were no longer fed during the time they worked in the field. When Terekhov, the secretary of the Kharkov regional committee, informed Stalin of the mass starvation in Ukraine, Stalin ridiculed him, calling him a teller of fairy tales and advising him to go work for the Writer’s Union. Two weeks later Terekhov was removed from his post [25].

Pitirim Sorokin asserts that mass hunger leads to social changes in the composition of the population. The primary change is the early death of the honest elements of society – those who don’t rob, who themselves suffer from robbery, and who are exposed to risk when they struggle against unjust acts in relation to other people. Natural selection occurs; speculators and robbers survive while idealists perish. Deceit and violence become the society’s norms of behavior, and it is extremely difficult for honest people to survive in such a situation. Even people engaged in intellectual work are threatened; in Sorokin’s opinion, in a place where everyone has become jackals and predators, religious and academic life become deformed. In the general sense, this is correct, and what happened in the country in the ‘30s affirms the professor Sorrokin’s pessimistic reflections. However, it must be noted that there were more than a few people who did not give in to the physiological instincts triggered by hunger, who struggled against violence with the means they had available, who helped the starving, and who experienced compassion and a sense of guilt for the unfortunate.

REMAINING HUMAN

Множество руководителей самого различного уровня пытались как-то помочь голодающим, нарушали предписания высших властей, говоря словами тех лет «проявляли мягкотелость». Их за это сурово наказывали, снимали с работы и даже арестовывали. Первым заметил приближающуюся катастрофу заместитель наркома финансов, занимавшийся заготовками, Моисей Фрумкин. В июне 1928 года он написал письмо в ЦК, протестуя против принудительного изъятия зерна и нажима на «кулака», предсказывая (абсолютно точно) к каким катастрофическим последствиям это приведет. В 1972 году Молотов рассказывал писателю Ф. Чуеву:

«Он доказывал, что борьба против кулачества ведет к деградации сельского хозяйства …  Написал он в ЦК: посевные площади сокращаются, урожай падает, товарного хлеба стало меньше, страна останется без хлеба, а вы настраиваете против кулаков, толкаете страну в пропасть. Это очень определенный человек, Фрумкин. Хорошо его знал. Честный человек, прямо нападал, открыто на ЦК. Открыто писал, что не допускает от коллективизации, критикует, кого хотите, и съезд партии и Сталина. Его точка зрения гуманна, более гуманна. Но если стать на нее, мы бы войну не выиграли». 

Фрумкин был решительно осужден, как правый уклонист, враг коллективизации и впоследствии уничтожен.

Враги – защитники кулака  или недостаточно ретивые исполнители приказов вскоре обнаружились во всех уголках страны, на всех уровнях руководства. За семь месяцев 1932 года было снято с занимаемых должностей 237 секретаря райкомов Украины, 249 председателей исполкомов, 158 руководителей контрольных комиссий. (Всего на Украине было 582 района). Было исключено из партии 27 тысяч коммунистов. В марте 1933 года было расстреляно 35 руководителей Народного комиссариата земледелия Украины, а еще 40 были осуждены. Г. Петровский, председатель ВУЦИК рассказывал на партийной конференции летом 1932 года: «Спрашиваешь секретаря, давно вы здесь? Говорит, месяца 2-3, а председатель, 3-4 месяца. Такая же текучка и в колхозах» [26]. 

Одним из многих попытавшихся как-то облегчить положение обреченного на голод крестьянства и подвергнутый за это репрессиям был первый муж моей матери Андрей Куксин. Выходец из шахтерской семьи, доцент кафедры марксизма-ленинизма Ростовского университета, как член партии он был послан летом 1933 года  в станицу на хлебозаготовки. С собой онвзял, подышать свежим воздухом, мою двухлетнюю сестру  и ее и мою бабушку. В детстве я несколько раз слышал страшный рассказ бабушки об этой поездке. Когда после приезда она  разожгла во дворе таганок, чтобы приготовить обед, со всей станицы собрались вокруг нее дети — худые, с выпирающими ребрами, раздутыми животами. Стояли и молча, как завороженные, смотрели на чудо — жарящиеся на сковородке картофельные оладьи. Она не могла накормить голодных детей, но ощущение ужаса и беспомощности осталось в ней навсегда. Рассказывала бабушка и о своих опасениях за жизнь сестры, по селу ползли страшные слухи о людоедстве. Андрей Куксин написал в ростовский обком партии письмо, протестуя против хлебозаготовок в голодающей станице. Он был арестован, осужден за искривление линии партии, сослан и в 1937 году расстрелян [27].

Конечно, отзывчивость и доброта сохранялась не только и не столько в верхнем и среднем социальных слоях, но и среди обычных людей.

An agronomist traveling on the train from Shepetovka to Baku describes how at the Grebenka station, two peasants and their children boarded his car. A little boy, about four years old, whose mother was holding him in her lap, began to whine, “Mama, I want to eat…” The woman looked at the child with a gaze full of pain, untied her sack, took from it something black and baked like flatbread, broke off small pieces, and gave them to the children. The passengers began to stir, rummaging in their bags and suitcases to get out whatever they had.

“Look, Mama, bread!” cried the little girl when someone held out a thick slice of the standard sticky bread that was given out as rations. The children instantly flung themselves on it, wanting to grab it for themselves, and to eat… only to eat. Their eyes burned like those of hungry little beasts. This continued for one short moment. Passengers brought food from all ends of the train car, and the next minute the children were eating greedily and looking covetously at that which had been brought to them.

Neither mother could contain herself, and both burst into tears. The children began to cry next, and then all the women in the car. The men turned aside, wiping away tears. Something had burst, and psychic relief set in. That which each had been thinking to himself passed over everyone and took hold of the entire car» [28].

The women in that story were lucky. They found a kind-hearted railroad man, who bought them tickets despite their not having a pass from the village council. But thousands and thousands of peasants left their homes on foot, not daring to rely on the railroad. They walked, fell, got up, walked fell, and could not get up again.

Many people had great sympathy for the starving, but had practically no way to help them. Here is a story from the poet Sosyura, who lived in the writers’s cooperative “Slovo” (“The Word”):

Sometimes they would go around to the apartments of our building “Slovo,” but they were already unable to climb to the upper floors. I lived on the second floor, and when they came to me I was only able to share bread with them, since we had nothing else. We only ate once a day ourselves, and did everything possible to allow our son to eat three times a day. They were skinny and yellow like wax, and barely moved their fever-parched lips: “Maybe a little meat…” But where could I get that?

And there the half-dim eyes of these suffering people of mine gazed with heavy reproach into my tearful soul, and their sorrow painfully stuck to it, and in 1934 there flared up a hypomaniacal flame.

We stood half-starving at the window of our writer’s dining room, on the first floor of our wing of “Slovo,” and the wife of one famous writer, who had miraculously stayed alive after terrible torture at an unknown distant place, stood over us on the stairway and said to us with mocking haughtiness, “we feed our puppies with such scraps.” I came to hate her for that phrase, and when she was repressed I thought, “That kurkul’ka had it coming!” [29]

We see here widely varied forms of the influence these terrible events had on people. The starving, passively submitting to their fate. The cruel writer’s wife, reveling in the fact that she had ended up in a higher station and allowing herself to mock hungry people. And the author himself, who despite all his sympathy for the suffering remained a Soviet writer. The passage cited here was at the time rejected by the censor and thrown out of the author’s published novel, The Third Company.

The compassion and readiness and to help at the same time helplessness and inability to change the situation were experienced by people in different parts of the unfortunate country. Here is a story told by prisoner I. Solonevich who worked in labor camp on Baltic-Belomor-Channel construction. In  1934  prisoners in  the  region  of  the  Belomor&te-Baltic Canal used to give their leftover food to the children from neighboring village. One time the collected leftovers froze, and the owner of the pan decided to throw them  away,  Solonevich wrote:

I took the pan and went out of the tent. It was almost night. A piercing freezing wind howled in the telegraph wires and lashed fine snow against your eyes. There was no one by the flock of children who hung around here at meal time had already left.  Suddenly a vague figure  rushed  toward me  from behind  a   snowdrift and a child’s voice hoarse and sick-sounding squealed:

Please, maybe there something’s left, give me some!.. It was a little girl who was probably around eleven. Under her disheveled clocks her eyes gleamed  with hunger’s glint. And her little voice automatically, out of habit without expression continued to squeal:

“Mister, give me something!” 

“But it’s all frozen.”

“Was it cabbage soup?”

“It was.”

“Da

Doesn’t matter, just give me some. Right now I’ll warm up it right away it’ll melt. Just give me some.

The little girl’s voice rang with anxiety greed and the fear of a refusal. My mind wasn’t working quickly and I stood there undecided.  The little girl almost tore the pan out of my hands. Then she flung open her torn coat, under which she wore nothing, her sharp bare ribs protruding. She pressed the pan to her bare little body, as it were her child, wrapped her scant, torn coat tightly around her and sat down in the snow. I was so stupefied that I did not even try to find an explanation for what this little girl was intending to do. My mind flashed with associations about a child which by some miracle still was alive in her shriveled little body. I went into the tent to get another dish for my daily kasha.

In the life of every person there are moments of great humiliation. I experienced such  moment   when,   crawling under  the  plank beds   looking for a dish, I realized  that this little girl was intending to use the warmth of her famished body to melt that frozen, disgusting swinish food, but food nevertheless, and that her skeleton not have  enough warmth even to melt small part of this slab. I hit my head very hard against same kind of cross piece under the plank bed and  stunned by heat, disgust, and rage, I ran out of the tent. The little girl was still sitting on the same spot, and her lower jaw trembled with a slight frequent quiver.

“Mister, don't take it away!"-she squealed.

I grabbed her and the pan and grabbed her to the tent. Mad thoughts flashed through my head. I remember saying something, but words reeked of the madhouse. In hysterics, she tore free of my hands and ran to the door out of the tent. I grabbed her and sat her down on the plank bed. Feverishly,   with trembling  hands, I  began groping a long the shelves, under the bed I found some leftovers, a half-ration of bread, and the new as a little something else. The little girl did not wait for me to hand all this, to her. Convulsively she grabbed a bit of bread and began to cram it into her mouth. Her dirty little face streamed with the tears of a fear that had not yet been calmed. I stood in front of her crushed full of great repugnance for everything in the world, myself include”.

Нередко уполномоченные и местные руководители, понимая, что они ничего не могут сделать, чтобы изменить ситуацию, а обращение к властям с протестами бесполезно, чувствуя сострадание и вину, кончали жизнь самоубийством. Примером может служить Александр Кузьмич Шевченко рабочий, партиец Иваново-Вознесенской области, 25 тысячник, посланный для организации колхозов в  Холмский район  Западной области. Прибыл 8 февраля 1930 года. Покончил с собой  19 февраля. Партийный следователь Мазурмович в своем отчете записал:

«У тов. Шевченко как у члена партии в его собственных записках обнаружено явно упадническое настроение и неустойка перед стоящими трудностями по работе в деревне… он вел себя в последнее ненормально, как-то проявлял себя нервным, не спокойным и все время при моменте описи имущества входящих в поселковое товарищество гражданам тов. Шевченко проявлял крайнюю жалость и растерянность к ним. Оружие у тов. Шевченко было по разрешению ГПУ тов. Вайнера».

К отчету приложено предсмертное письмо Александра Шевченко:

«Товарищи. Простите за этот поступок, пока больше не мог ничего сделать, так как выходу нет, я не трус и не робок, достоинства рабочего я не замарал. Но когда я окунулся в деревню, то я вижу, что здесь другое, что нам говорили этого нет в деревне Шевченко» [30].

Suicide, both as a form of protest against the appalling conditions and as an acknowledgment of their own powerlessness, began to occur among Party leaders and administrators of various levels, from Skrypnyk to the chairman of the executive committee of the Kotel'novksy region of Poltava Oblast', Petro Baratoshevsky. The latter wrote the following note before his death:

“I no longer have the strength to so shamefully bully my own people. It is better to die.”

Suicide, feeble protests, and flight from one’s home – all of these pitiful attempts at resistance underlined the power and ruthlessness of the authorities. Facing a choice between submission and death, the peasant capitulated and chose submission [31].

CONCLUSION

One more precise observation of Sorokin’s proves true: “Famine leads to forceful Statism, which consists of 1) limitless intervention by authority, surveillance, and regulation, 2) a destroyed capacity for autonomy, and 3) equalizing despotism.” Perhaps only the third point of this statement from the famous sociologist is not confirmed by the situation from 1931-33. The famine marked the beginning of the process that established the considerable inequality of the Soviet period. At first, there was inequality between the city and the countryside, then inequality between those who got provisions ration cards and those who got no provisions at all, then the formation of the nomenklatura who were provided special rations and had access to private distributors. In absolute terms, these distinctions were not so great, but in relative terms they had huge significance, and in some cases meant the difference between life and death.

There are, however, a few more distinctions between the famine of 1931-33 and other famous historical events of this sort.

1. The absence of any help. Neither the state, nor society, nor foreign countries, nor residents of the more fortunate regions provided any help to the starving. The reason for this was country’s residents’ lack of any supplies or surplus goods, and the government’s efforts to keep the fact of the famine a secret.

2. The measures taken by the authorities which led to a worsening of the situation of those starving, such as the prohibition of trade, the writing of the blacklist, the collection of a tax on meat fifteen months in advance, the terrible punishments for collecting substitute rations from state or kolkhoz land, the prohibition on harvesting in advance of the official schedule (even from peasants’ private plots), and the prohibition against slaughtering one’s own livestock.

3. The total seizure from villagers of land and working livestock and the strict limits on possession of domestic animals.

4. The peasant’s lack of any certainty regarding the future and the ability to improve one’s condition through one’s own efforts. The peasant had formerly remained on his own land in his own surroundings and could expect that by applying a certain amount of effort he would have a good harvest the following year. He could count on the help of his neighbors. Now, all decisions were made by forces from outside the village.

This set of measures, which formed the kolkhoz-style village, created a situation of total despair. The main motive for humane behavior – the hope that one’s own efforts could bring about change for the better – was destroyed. No hope remained. As a result, in the place of traditional rural labor there appeared shirking, haphazard fulfillment of any task, apathy, and alcoholism. Passivity, fear, and irresponsibility became the norm. The peasant lost his love for his land, his love of labor, his sense of pride in his work, and then, his ability to work skillfully and diligently gradually slipped away.

But the most important characteristic of this “new” resident was passive submission, the obedient carrying out of orders from the authorities, no matter how terrible or absurd they might be. Chingiz Aitmatov called a person in this state a mankurt. He writes that in the East in olden times a tightly squeezing band would be put on the head of a prisoner of war. The usual emotional reactions of a person who underwent this monstrous pain over the course of several months would atrophy. He was transformed into an automaton, a mankurt, prepared to kill his own father at his master’s order. In the years of collectivization, famine became such a band, transforming man into mankurt. The mass passivity and bitterness of a huge portion of the population made possible the terror of 1936-38. Deliverance from mankurtism turned out to be a hard process, drawn out over several generations.