Miron Dolot - Execution by Hunger

At about the same time—the end of August—it was rumored that we villagers would no longer be permitted to shop in the village store. One day we were summoned to a Hundred meeting and informed about the new law the government had passed to combat speculation in general consumption goods. Farmers who had not fulfilled their quotas of delivering grain and other produce had no right to buy their commodities in the state-owned stores. In order to buy such commodities one had to show an official certificate from the village soviet proving that its holder had fulfilled all quotas. Since all stores at that time were state owned, and nobody in our village had been able to fulfill the quotas, no one could buy anything. As a result we were deprived of the simplest necessities of civilized life. Most of us could not afford, for instance, the luxury of a kerosene lamp for lighting the house because we could not buy kerosene. We had to eat the little food we had, mainly vegetables, unsalted. We had to bathe ourselves without soap, for we were deprived of the right to buy it. I won’t even mention other staples, such as sugar and so forth, for we had not seen them in our village for two years.

Later on, this law proved to be even harsher than we at first thought. The villagers would go to the neighboring cities where they could buy household goods from black marketeers. The law defined the customers of the black market system as speculators and established prison terms or detention in concentration camps for them of from five to ten years, without the possibility of parole or amnesty. As a consequence, for buying a needle, a spool of thread, a pair of stockings, or a pound of salt on the black market, a villager, if caught, was convicted of speculation and sentenced for up to ten years at hard labor somewhere in the Russian north.

A reprieve finally came. In September 1932 we received an advance payment in kind: a meager ration of 200 grams of grain of wheat per labor day. A month later, we received some potatoes, beets, and onions. This was all the food that was supposed to sustain our lives until the next harvest. Not a single villager who worked in the fields could have accumulated more than 200 labor days. The work norms were so high that it was rare for anyone to receive even a full labor day for twelve or more hours of work during the harvest season. Such a day’s work was credited with only three quarters of a labor day, or even half. Thus for 200 labor days, a family of five received only about eighty pounds of grain, wheat, or rye, or sixteen pounds of grain per person.

It should be noted here that the rural populace in Ukraine depended almost exclusively on bread at that time. Villagers were completely deprived of meat, fat, eggs, and milk products. Nor were there any grocery stores, bakeries, or market stores of any kind in the village. In order to stay alive until the next harvest, we had to have at least two pounds of bread per person daily. Instead we received the equivalent in grain for less than one and a half pounds of bread per person for an entire month. We were promised that we would be getting more grain at the end of the year, but these promises were never kept.

It was the same story with payment in money. At the end of December, the members of the collective farm were paid 25 kopeks (about five cents in American money at that time) per labor day. A family with 200 labor days received 50 rubles as payment for all of 1932. With this money, one could have bought only about three loaves of bread on the black market.

In normal times we lived off of our gardens. They provided us with potatoes, cabbages, beets, beans, carrots, and other vegetables. Our traditional ways of preserving and storing these vegetables gave us enough food to carry us through the entire winter with no great hardship, provided we had plenty of bread. Even in the winter of 1931–1932, with the great scarcity of grain, we somehow managed to survive because of our vegetables. But the year of 1932 had not been normal. That spring we had a massive famine during which the people consumed even the seeds for planting, so there was nothing left with which to plant the vegetable gardens. Most gardens remained overgrown with weeds. The meager allotment of food received from the collective farm as advance payment was soon consumed. With no additional help forthcoming starvation set in.

Famine or no famine, the Bread Procurement Commission continued to work. Sometime in November 1932, we were told that the grain delivery to the state had begun to lag behind schedule. The Government ordered all advance payments of wages in kind stopped; grain which had already been distributed returned and all the seed and forage reserves requisitioned.

This order gave a great impetus to the activities of the Bread Procurement Commission. Previously, grain quotas were met by taxation of villagers according to acreage under cultivation. Since the taxation was too high, the grain reserves had already been used up in previous years. Nevertheless, the government continued to levy new quotas. The village officials were only too willing to comply with the government’s demands, and a new method of collecting the grain from the villagers was introduced. This was known as “pumping the bread out,” a term used by both villagers and officials. The village quota was divided equally among the Hundreds, which divided their quotas among their component Fives, which in their turn divided their quotas among their five householders. Therefore, if a Five’s quota had been two thousand pounds of grain, for example, then its five householders would have to deliver their share of four hundred pounds each.

The village officials worked fast, and they did their job well. At the next meeting, we were told that the village as a whole; that is, all village subunits, all functionaries, all school teachers and pupils, and, of course, all the farmers as individuals, were to compete with one another in the collection of foodstuffs. Consequently, the meetings lasted longer, the functionaries became more aggressive and brutal, and the farmers sank deeper into despair.

But still the collecting of foodstuffs did not advance as quickly as the officials desired. Something drastic had to be done, so in time, the official line of reasoning acquired a new tone: the farmers were now considered too ignorant to understand such a highly patriotic deed as collecting and delivering food to the state. The Party and the government meant well for the farmers, and if they did not appreciate what the Party meant for them—well, that was the farmers’ fault. The farmers were to be treated like children, and that put the Party and the government in the position of parents. The farmers had to follow the Party and the government without asking questions. There was no alternative. And, as unruly children are punished by parents, so would the unruly farmers be punished by the Party and the government.

In accordance with this philosophy, the commission no longer tried to enlighten us in the matter of food collection. There was another way. To put it in official terms, this was “direct contact of officials with the masses of people.” In plain language, it meant that the Bread Procurement Commission was ordered to visit the farmers individually at their homes.

The commission members would go to a certain house and inform the householder about the amount and kind of food he should deliver. If he didn’t have any grain, the commission would proceed with a thorough search for “hidden bread.” Of course, anything found would be confiscated.

The Thousanders and their lieutenants could now do whatever they wanted without regard to the formalities of the law. They could use all their tricks or threats to lure or force the farmers into their traps. Going from house to house, searching, and carrying off everything they wanted satisfied their greed and criminal urges while allowing them successfully to serve the Party and the government.