Miron Dolot - Execution by Hunger

“You…you, enemy of the people!” he shouted, his voice choking with rage. “What are you waiting for? Maybe Petliura?” Petliura had been a Ukrainian leader during the war for independence a decade before. All his followers were later persecuted in one way or another, and now the label “Petliura” meant death. But the farmer remained calm.

“Take it easy,” the farmer said composedly. “The telegram says that we must join the collective farm by May first, doesn’t it? It’s February now, isn’t it? Why hurry?”

This seemed to have disarmed the chairman completely. He had not expected this turn of events, nor had any of us. Probably every farmer in the house was trying to find some way out of the trap set by the telegram, and here was the solution. We still had plenty of time!

The chairman hesitated for a second or two, then he took his hands from the man’s shoulders, and went back to the table. There he conferred with the propagandist. As we watched them talking, we saw the propagandist take a paper out of his pocket and correct something on it. It was obvious that they were preparing some other trick.

“Before this meeting adjourns,” started the propagandist, “it is only appropriate that we adopt a resolution.” Then he started reading from the paper he held in his hand. The resolution was quite similar to the telegram, but with one difference: the word “May” was replaced by the word “immediately.”

“Those who are against this resolution, raise your hands,” announced the chairman. The officials knew that not many would vote for it. On the other hand, they were sure that no one would dare vote against it. As expected, no hand rose against it. Then, the chairman announced that the resolution had been accepted by all members of the First Hundred. Immediately he raised his pencil and paper again.

“Who’s next?” he asked, pushing the pencil and paper to the opposite edge of the table.

Silence. The farmers stared ahead, unmoving. The chairman, drumming on the table with his fingers, looked down. Two militiamen stood at the doorway, barring the way out.

The silence was interrupted by Comrade Professor. He got up and glowered at the audience.

“What does this mean?” he hissed. “Is this a silent rebellion?” And then, after a deliberate pause, he told us that the Communist Party had given us an opportunity to join the collective farm voluntarily, but we, ignorant farmers, had misused this chance and had stubbornly defied the Party’s policy. We had to join the collective farm now! If we did not, we would be considered “enemies of the people” who would be exterminated as a “social class.” Having said this, he sat down.

It made no sense to us, for the words “voluntarily” and “must” did not mesh. We knew he meant what he said, however. Still, no one responded to his threats.

Both of them, propagandist and chairman, seemed exhausted. They looked at us in silence. We were silent also.

This state of affairs could not last for long. With so many people packed in a small room, something was bound to happen, and soon it did. A man asked to leave the room. The chairman said no, he could not leave the room as long as he refused to join the collective farm. For that matter, no one could leave the room. Only those individuals who had already joined the collective farm could go out. The propagandist whispered something in the chairman’s ear, then announced:

“Yes, all those comrades who have already joined the collective farm must go home!”

We noticed that he said: “must go,” not “may go.” All the functionaries, except for the progagandist and the chairman, started to leave the room. Some of them did it reluctantly, for as we knew, they did not want to be different from the rest of us.

The man who had asked to go outside still stood like a schoolboy before the teacher.

“But I must go!” he insisted. It was obvious he had to go to relieve his bladder.

“Take him outside, and bring him back immediately!” the chairman ordered one of the two militiamen.

So the man left the room under escort, like a prisoner, leaving us behind with the embarrassing thought that he would have to do his business under the watchful eyes of a Party man. Then, like mischievous schoolboys, other farmers asked to go outside. We were curious to see how the chairman would solve this problem with just one militiaman left.

“Nobody is going outside!” he shouted. “And that’s that!” Some brave souls tried to insist on their right to answer the call of nature without official interference, but the chairman said those wanting to go outside were “enemies of the people” who wanted to undermine the meeting.

Having overcome this “toilet rebellion,” the chairman and propagandist again conferred with one another.

“Whoever is for the Soviet regime and collectivization, raise your hands,” the chairman ordered.

The farmers hesitated.

“You mean you are against the Soviet regime?” the propagandist hissed. “Isn’t that an open rebellion? You mean, you would dare to do that?”

Then he repeated the question and changed his order: those who were for the Soviet regime had to move to the left, and those who were against it, to the right.

For a moment, no one moved. Then slowly, one, and then another, and another, got up and moved to the left. The propagandist took a pencil and started to write a list of those who still stood in their places, loudly asking their names. This did the trick. Soon all attempted to move to the left side. This was impossible in the small room, so the propagandist ordered everyone to sit down in their places.

The chairman waved his pencil and paper over his head, saying:

“Now, let’s get it over with! Who’s first?”

No one stirred. The chairman looked angrily at us, and the propagandist stared helplessly. Then a voice from behind filled the vacuum. It was that of an old man, maybe seventy years of age.

“Why such a hurry, comrade-sir?” he shouted. All heads turned towards him, as to a savior. The chairman ordered him to step forward.

“Why such a hurry, comrade-sir?” the old man repeated, after he had reached the official table.

“I am not ‘sir,’” the propagandist interrupted him. “I am ‘comrade.’”

The old man became thoughtful.

“How come? I’ve never seen you in my life! How can you be my comrade?”

Whether the old man was baiting the propagandist or not was not important to us. What bothered us was the question he raised: why did the officials want to destroy, in one evening, a way of life the farmers had so long known?

The chairman and the propagandist answered the old man, using official Party slogans, and ready-made phrases. They replied that we had to join the collective farm immediately because that was what the Party demanded of us.

It was already well past midnight and we were all tired, especially my mother. Probably realizing the futility of continuing the meeting, the officials permitted us to go home, but this was only after the chairman ordered us to come to a meeting the following night.

Thus the new administration was set in motion.

There was still a great deal of mystery about collectivization. Perhaps the collective farms would mean a new kind of serfdom. So far, the only thing clear to us was that we would have to give up our land, which meant life itself to us.

One decade separated us from the Revolution and the Civil War. Most of our villagers had been affected by those events: many had lost their relatives or parents; others had returned home from the fighting crippled. But at least they had all received land. We asked ourselves if the Party really wanted us to give up our land, go to a collective farm, and work like city proletarians. Wasn’t the Revolution for us, the poor farmers? Could it be possible that the Party had decided to return to the large estates? There still was at least one hope; the propagandist had told us that collectivization was voluntary. We were happy on our little farms, and we wanted nothing else but to be left alone. We wouldn’t join the collective farm for any price.