Miron Dolot - Execution by Hunger

An ordinary farmer would become an official as soon as he was assigned to a commission, committee, or some type of brigade or group established for an official purpose.

According to the Communist concept, to be a Soviet official was an honor. Refusal to accept this honor would mean disloyalty to the Soviet regime—an intolerable offense. Anyone who refused to accept an official appointment, or who opposed an official’s activity, incurred a severe penalty as a suspected enemy of the people. This policy had been carried out with such rigidity that few dared to refuse an appointment or to show opposition.

In order to be able to demand of his charges the fulfillment of certain obligations to the state, an official had to meet them himself and set an example. Failure would lead to an accusation of refusal to obey Party and government. Since the task of these officials was collectivizing and gathering foodstuffs, they thus had to collectivize themselves and deliver their quotas.

Previously, there had been one authority in the village, the Village Soviet, elected at the village general meeting, which chose the executive committee with its chairman and clerk. At that time, political organizations such as the Communist Party and the Komsomol did not yet play any important roles within the village administrative system, for membership in these organizations was a rarity in our village.

This kind of self-government was, however, abolished with the start of total collectivization. Both the village general meeting and the village soviet lost their power to the Communist Party, the membership of which was increasing rapidly among our villagers. The Communist Party organization, while replacing the village soviet in all its initiative functions, became master of the village by dictating its will to the village general meeting. As a result, the general meeting became merely a puppet for the Communist Party. So it was with the village soviet. Only Party or Komsomol members or persons of unquestionable loyalty to the Party and the government could be elected or appointed to its executive offices.

About the time of the Thousander’s arrival, two institutions were introduced into our village: the Special Section and the Workers and Peasants Inspection. Both became horrors in our lives.

The Special Section was a branch of the GPU, [8] GPU is the abbreviation for Gosudarstvennoe politicheskoe upravlenie, or State Political Administration. It is the name of the Soviet secret police which replaced the Cheka in February 1922. See also Chekist (note 2). In 1923, the GPU was renamed OGPU, which meant United State Political Administration. But the acronym GPU continued to be used popularly even after 1923. OGPU remained a separate institution until 1934 when it was absorbed into the NKVD, the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs. In 1941, the People’s Commissariat for State Security (in Russian, Narodnyi kommissariat gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti) was created, known under the acronym NKGB. Thus state security was divorced from the NKVD, but not for long. With the beginning of the war with Germany in June 1941, state security was returned to the NKVD until 1943. It existed as a separate agency until 1946. When the people’s commissariats were redesignated as ministries, the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs became the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Ministerstvo vnutrennikh del, or MVD as its abbreviation). The People’s Commissariat for State Security became the Ministry of State Security (Ministerstvo gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti, or MGB). Thus the NKVD and NKGB became the MVD and MGB. During the power struggle that followed Stalin’s death, the MVD absorbed the MGB, but then the security service was once more divorced from the MVD. In March 1954, the state security agency emerged as the KGB, which is an acronym for Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti, meaning the Committee for State Security. the political secret police. Officially, the Special Section was represented by only one man who occupied an office in the building of the village soviet, and always wore a full dress GPU uniform. The recruiting that went on behind his doors, and the identity of his secret agents, remained a mystery. However, it was generally believed that one agent was planted in each Hundred to inform the GPU of the activities of each villager in that particular Hundred.

The Workers and Peasants Inspection was a local branch of a commissariat [9] Commissariat was the name given to central government departments, corresponding to ministries, during 1917–1946. In 1946, these People’s Commissariats were renamed ministries. of the same name. Today it is known as the Commission of State Control. It was in charge of checking practices of the government agencies, and the loyalty and efficiency of officials. With the decree of total collectivization, the Party and government delegated the commissariat to control the fulfillment of this policy.

The Workers and Peasants Inspection was also represented in our village by one man. He was an outsider, of course. A commission of five local people was appointed to assist him. He also maintained his own secret agents who spied on the local officials. When he found “discrepancies,” he assumed the role of both arbiter and judge. His decisions were final.

To implement the policy of collectivization, the Party and government mobilized all their central and local forces; namely, the entire Party propaganda machinery, the armed forces, the secret and civil police force, and actually, all institutions and organizations. Such political organizations as the Komsomol, the Pioneers, and Komnezams were the most active and effective forces in the hands of the local communists.

Komsomol is an acronym for the Young Communist League, established in 1918. Young people between fourteen and twenty-six years of age may be members of this organization, which is considered to be the future of the Communist Party, and thus is accorded second place in the Soviet political hierarchy. Directed by the Communists, these youths proved to be most vigorous and effective in our village. Their responsibilities and positions were second only to the Communists themselves. The leader of the Komsomol organization was a Party candidate sent to the village by the county center.

The Pioneers was a political organization for school children between the ages of eight and fourteen. Members of this children’s organization served in double capacity as messengers and agents. The well-known case of Pavlik Morozov serves as an example of how the Communist Party and the government used children in their scheme. The son of a poor farmer, Pavlik lived in a village somewhere beyond the Urals in Siberia. This fourteen-year-old schoolboy became the most celebrated individual in the Soviet Union overnight by denouncing his father and some of his neighbors for hiding food from the state. The accused and his father, were arrested and disappeared without a trace. Pavlik was killed by the enraged villagers, including his uncle. The entire Soviet propaganda machine eulogized him. He became a national hero; his name was given to a multitude of villages, organizations, streets, and military units and his story was prominent in encyclopedias and dictionaries.

Thus, the Party encouraged children, especially those who belonged to the Pioneer organization, to spy on their parents and to denounce them, and anybody else, for that matter, who defied the Party. Such denunciation was considered a heroic deed, the best expression of Soviet patriotism.

Komnezam is an acronym for the Ukrainian Komitet nezamozhnych selian (Committee of Poor Peasants). Such committees were first set up in Russia in the summer of 1918 by the local Party organizations from agricultural laborers and poor farmers, and there they were known by the Russian acronym Kombedy. In Ukraine, on the other hand, these committees, the Komnezams, were introduced in May 1920, when the Communists invaded the Ukraine for the third time. Whereas in Russia the Kombedy were soon dissolved (in November 1918, by the decision of the Fourth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, November 6–9, 1918), in Ukraine, these Committees of Poor Peasants lasted until 1933 and became the most effective instruments of aggressive Communist policy in the Ukrainian countryside. The Komnezam was an important feature of every Ukrainian village. Its purpose was twofold: to introduce the Revolution into the village, and to assist in the enforcement of food deliveries to the state. In Ukraine, the Communists used these committees also as instruments in the collectivization of agriculture. In general, they became known as organs of proletarian dictatorship in the Ukrainian countryside.