Execution by Hunger (19 page)

Driven by hunger, people ate everything and anything: even food that had already rotted—potatoes, beets, and other root vegetables that pigs normally refused to eat. They even ate weeds, the leaves and bark of trees, insects, frogs, and snails. Nor did they shy away from eating the meat of diseased horses and cattle. Often that meat was already decaying and those who ate it died of food poisoning.

W
E COULDN'T help feeling that we were pawns in some lethal game. Each of our moves to escape death met with an official countermove; each of our measures to avert it was opposed with official countermeasures. In their opposition and retaliation against us, the officials often resorted to actions that would have been ridiculous but for their unbelievable sadism.

One of these which I still vividly remember was the campaign for the delivery of dog and cat skins to the state. Spring was already being heralded by nightingales singing in the flowering orchards. But this year it did not bring the usual joy to our people, for starvation had reached its culmination point. Since anything edible was being consumed by the villagers, dogs and cats had become a very desirable commodity. One such spring day we heard gunshots reverberating some distance from us. The sounds were coming from the east, and as the shooting approached closer, it was accompanied by the loud barking, whining, and yelping of dogs. At the same time, we heard some men shouting and laughing. This sounded very strange at a time when all the people in the village were downcast and silent. Suddenly, shots rang out in our own backyard, somewhere behind the barn, followed by the sound of a dog yelping and whining. We immediately recognized our dog, Latka. I ran out, and as I came to the place, I saw our Latka lying on the ground in a pool of blood, dead. Three gunmen stood beside her, looking down at her, talking and laughing. I broke out crying and tried to pet my dead dog. But my lamentations made no impression on the killers. One of them pushed me aside, took our Latka by her tail, and dragged her to the main road where a horse-driven cart already loaded with the bodies of other dogs and cats waited. Then all three of them mounted the cart and drove away. After a while, we heard the sounds of more shouting in the distance, and of animals crying out in their death throes.

Soon we had an explanation for this seemingly senseless slaughter of pets. Our village had received an order to deliver a certain quota of dog and cat skins. The requisition was addressed to the village hunters, even though not a single shotgun was left in our village after the confiscation of all guns. So, the problem now was how to fulfill this new quota? Help came from an unexpected quarter: the Thousanders! They benevolently decided to do the dog and cat hunting for us, although no one had asked them. Thus our village became the hunting ground for the Thousanders. All nine of them came to our village carrying their own shotguns, in addition to their revolvers, which we knew they always carried. The Thousanders started their hunting season without asking our permission or even informing us of their intentions. Beginning at the eastern end of the village and moving west, they systematically and indiscriminately shot each dog and cat they saw.

The carcasses of the poor dead animals were dumped in the main yard of the collective farm. But skinning them proved to be more difficult than killing them: it was a slow process because there were not many qualified skinners. The piles of carcasses were guarded by two men appointed by Comrade Thousander personally. It was rumored that he was concerned about the possibility of our starving villagers stealing them one by one. A week or more passed, and the carcasses still had not been skinned. The piles began decaying and emitting a foul smell. Finally, we heard that Comrade Thousander personally ordered and supervised the distribution of the carcasses to those who wanted them!! The carcasses were distributed in a matter of hours. Hunger is the best relish indeed, as the proverb says. The question remained as to what this campaign and its consequences meant to all involved. Did the government really need the skins of the dogs and cats? It might have. Yet, the officials were not in a hurry, it seemed, to skin the dead animals. Could it not have been a part of the general plan to starve the farmers into a complete submission to the government? The fact that the Thousanders came to our village armed with shotguns indicated that this campaign of dog and cat killings was planned and prepared ahead of time. Was the extermination of dogs and cats perhaps a means of depriving the starving farmers of one last possible source of food?

One day, at the beginning of 1932, an alarming piece of news spread: “They are killing the nightingales!” In Ukraine, the nightingale is a national symbol. A nightingale conjures up an image of the Ukrainian village with its orchards, fields, and whitewashed houses. Each village household claims one or two nightingale families in its orchard as its own. We used to listen to the singing of nightingales in our village like city folk listen to concerts. Nobody, not even mischievous boys, chasing other birds, would ever harm the nightingales. A legend handed down between generations of villagers asserted that the death of a nightingale would bring calamity to the household or estate in which the nightingale had died, or (if such a crime were conceivable) been killed.

But hunger is merciless, and it made the starving people merciless to any creature, including nightingales. Disregarding the legend, starving wretches started hunting nightingales together with other birds. Their nests were plundered of their eggs and their broods.

Like the dogs and cats, the nightingales also became prey of the Thousanders, even though this time there wasn't any official campaign for them.

In the twilight hours or at dawn, we now heard shotgun blasts instead of the singing of the nightingales. In their hunt for the nightingales, just as in their extermination of our dogs and cats, the Thousanders were thorough and systematic. This time, they started in the village center. We heard that they split into two groups: one moved westward; the other eastward. In a few days they reached our place, and I had a chance to see them in action. They would stealthily and noiselessly approach a tree in which a nightingale was singing and wait for the appropriate moment. Then one of them would aim at his target and fire. There usually wasn't a miss; they were skilled marksmen. For each successful shot the lucky hunter would be congratulated by his companions.

We watched this senseless nightingale hunt with feelings of helpless outrage. We could find some justification if a villager, half-demented by hunger, resorted to killing the beloved birds in his great despair. But there was no excuse for killing them in such a cruel, well-organized manner, and with such lightheartedness, as if for sport or target practice. In seeking an explanation for this newest exploit of the Thousanders, some villagers thought that it was an act of revenge of these city dwellers against us villagers. But then the question arose, revenge for what? We didn't feel guilty of anything against them or the government which they represented. No matter how we tried, we could not understand what was going on.

One factor was clear: the song of the nightingales was very effectively silenced, and it took quite some time until the nightingales reappeared in our village, much to our great silent rejoicing.

T
HE FIRST half of June 1932 brought us some relief, and deaths from starvation became less frequent. The early fruits and berries began ripening, and many of the vegetables we grew were ready for consumption. Those who did not have their own gardens and orchards stole from others whatever and whenever they could. At night they would descend on the gardens like swarms of locusts, pilfering everything in sight: green onions; young potatoes; half-grown root vegetables such as carrots, beets, and parsley; strawberries and fruits. Soon, many gardens were completely devastated by them.

Thefts, burglaries, and robberies that were seldom heard of in our region became common occurrences now. A murder or suicide ceased to be a sensational event. Lawlessness was the result of the complete reorganization of communal life and the dissolution of human relationships. The local government, which was supposed to care for law and order became, in the hands of a few Communists, the instrument of our oppression and was either unable or unwilling to give us the protection that as citizens we ought to have had.

For instance, we heard that two brothers, Fedir and Vasil, good friends of mine, were beaten to death and thrown into an abandoned well. It was rumored that they were killed by their neighbor for stealing a cooked meal from his house. Another boy was beaten to death for stealing strawberries from someone's garden. A young woman met with the same fate for stealing vegetables. In all these and similar cases, no investigations ever took place, no trials were ever held, and no penalties were ever inflicted on those who were responsible.

The kolhosp crop was not safe from the starving farmers either. As soon as night fell, the kolhosp vegetable fields would be swarming with villagers, ravenously hungry. They grabbed everything they could find in the darkness. They dug up potatoes; pulled out young cabbage-heads and root vegetables. This was the time when the heads of grain began to fill out. They became great hunger quenchers for the starving people who flocked to the wheat fields, broke off the heads of wheat, and often ate them right then and there. The wheat heads were also taken home and dried; their grain, even though green and not yet ripe, was used to cook gruel and porridge. Those who worked in the kolhosp fields endeavored surreptitiously to get hold of some vegetables or a few heads of grain to take home and feed to their children and their nonworking family members. But this soon proved to be an unreliable source of food. Comrade Thousander eventually put an end to it: he organized a brigade of “Communist vigilantes” and entrusted them with guarding the kolhosp fields. The vigilantes had been recruited from among the Communist activists, the Komsomol, and also from the schoolchildren. Years later I came across the following statistics provided by Pavel Postyshev, Ukraine's Moscow-appointed ruler at that time:

The vigilantes guarded the kolhosp fields day and night. Each worker was not only closely watched in the field, but also bodily searched at the end of each day. This was done on the explicit order of Comrade Thousander who was afraid that the collective farmers might have succeeded in hiding some vegetables or heads of grain under their clothing, even after having been watched so industriously.

Furthermore, to safeguard the 1932 crop against the starving farmers, the Party and government had passed several strict laws. In compliance with these laws, watchtowers were erected in and around the wheat, potato, and vegetable fields. These were the same kind of towers that can be seen in prisons. They were manned by guards armed with shotguns. Many a starving farmer who was seen foraging for food near or inside the fields, fell victim to trigger-happy youthful vigilantes and guards. If some starving person was caught alive while searching for food there, he was severely punished. If he was convicted of theft of “socialist property,” no matter how negligible the amount might have been, he was evicted from his house and banished to a labor camp somewhere in northern Russia.

One of the cruelest laws of all was enacted on August 7, 1932. This law decreed that all kolhosp and cooperative property such as the crops in the fields, community surpluses and storehouses, livestock, warehouses, stores, and so forth, were hereupon to be considered as state owned. The protection of such property from theft was to be enforced in every possible way. The penalties for theft were execution by firing squad, and confiscation of all property of the guilty one. The alternative sentence was no less than ten years of penal servitude in a labor camp, as well as confiscation of property. There could be no amnesty for these so-called felons, convicted of theft from the kolhosp.

This law, as already mentioned, was aimed at the starving farmers. No other interpretation is possible. Only those poor, hungry wretches in quest of food were driven and forced by hunger to steal from the communal, and now state-owned, property. And the state, instead of providing them with food, at least with some meager rations, forced them to steal that “forbidden fruit” and thus become criminals. Not only petty thievery of a potato or a couple of heads of grain from the communal fields was considered a grave offense against the state: it was considered a great crime to even glean the already harvested fields, to fish in the rivers, or to pick up some dry branches in the forest for firewood. After the passage of this law, everything was considered socialist, state-owned property, and thus everything was protected by law.

T
HE long-awaited harvest of 1932 finally arrived. Its beginning was loudly heralded by endless political speeches.

Sometime in the middle of July, we witnessed the arrival of a combine and two harvesters and, the next day, a small military unit in two trucks. The trucks were parked next to the harvesting machines, and the military found accommodations in the school building. We soon learned that these military people were prohibited from leaving the school premises or associating with us. Sentries were standing around the premises day and night. During the time the military stayed in the village—about two months—we never saw them in the streets or talking to villagers.

The soldiers were followed by a group of students and a group of laborers. The students came from the Teachers' College, the only institution of higher learning in the county seat. The laborers were from the machine-building factory there. This was the plant, as we often heard, under whose patronage our kolhosp had been formed. These two newly arrived groups were lodged in what had been the parochial school before the church was destroyed. These newcomers were also completely isolated from us.

It was announced that the next Sunday (which was a workday at that time), the wheat harvest campaign would be officially inaugurated. Early in the morning on that day, all the kolhosp members had to appear in the village square. We also heard the rumor that during the inauguration, a hot meal would be distributed. That did the trick! When we arrived, the square was already overflowing with people, even though the day had just dawned, and the sun was barely over the horizon. People in the kolhosp worked not by the clock, but by the sun: from sunrise to sunset.

Just as during the May Day celebration, kettles were hanging over the fire in the center of the square. Around the fire stood a few Thousanders with shotguns slung over their shoulders. A little farther from them were the soldiers in their two trucks. A group of students, and a group of laborers stood separately on either side of the combine. All these official representatives and participants looked solemn. They tried to avoid looking at us, the ragged and hungry collective farmers.

We all stood at some distance from the kettles, quietly, with our eyes fixed on the boiling and steaming porridge inside them. This time, no one lay on the ground weak or dying, as it had been during the May Day celebration. Those people had died already. In and around the square this time stood the ones who were the fittest survivors of the rigors of hunger. They managed to survive by not shying away from eating anything edible and organic, no matter how distasteful, unpalatable, and revolting it was.

Comrade Thousander mounted the combine to start what was inevitable at such occasions: the political speech. This time, however, it was surprisingly short. Nevertheless, he took some time reminding us that only collective farmers had the opportunity to celebrate the beginning of harvest in such a well-organized, dignified way. Talking about the harvesting machines and the combine on which he was standing, he took the opportunity to boast that only the farmers of the Soviet Union could afford to have such advanced agricultural machinery. Finally, he urged us to be thankful to the Communist regime for the soldiers, the students and the laborers, who had been sent to give us a helping hand in harvesting the new crop. Of course, he failed to mention why all this additional help was needed. He did announce that the collective farmers would receive two pounds of bread and two hot meals daily throughout the harvest season. He concluded his speech with the slogans “Long Live the Communist Party” and “Long Live the Collective Farms” and after that, he invited all of us to receive our rations of the hot porridge.

This time the crowds lined up in a well-organized manner and proceeded silently towards the food. Most of the farmers shuffled forward with bowed heads and avoided the eyes of those who were ladling the porridge into their containers. They felt humiliated for being fed like beggars in the presence of all the newcomers from the city.

It took quite a while to feed the large crowd. Comrade Thousander grew impatient and gave the order to move to the fields while many still thronged around the kettles. The first thing to be set in motion was the combine. A red flag was hoisted onto it, and banners were attached to both of its sides. Their slogans proclaimed the farmers' enthusiasm for being able to deliver so promptly their grain quota to the state. The engine of the combine was started, and it began to move forward slowly. It was huge and impressive. At some time, and under other circumstances, the novelty of seeing such a huge machine in motion would have attracted much attention from the villagers. This time, however, the hungry people were more preoccupied with their porridge. Many people, after licking the rest of the porridge from their bowls, hoped to get a second serving.

Meanwhile, the military trucks began moving, following the combine. Next came the harvesters and after them, in a long column, the horse-drawn kolhosp carts, about two dozen of them, with city laborers and farmers. The cavalcade was followed by the rest of the farmers on foot, some of them still finishing up their food.

It was obvious that all aspects of the harvest campaign—its opening with a celebration, the march to the field, and even the beginning of reaping itself—had been planned and carried out with military precision. As soon as the procession reached the wheat field, the combine turned off the road to the left, and started its job of cutting and threshing the grain. The military men jumped off their trucks and rushed to their assigned places. The trucks lined up so as to catch the threshed grain pouring from the combine.

On the other side of the road, the horse-driven harvesters also went into action simultaneously. The women following the harvesters quickly and skillfully bound the reaped wheat into sheaves, while the men picked and loaded the sheaves onto their carts and brought them to the threshing machine operated by the students and laborers from the city.

At the beginning, everything went smoothly as planned, but then, in spite of all the careful planning, trouble began.

According to the regulations concerning the delivery quota, the new crop of grain had to be taken straight from the threshing machines to the main collecting points, in our case, to the railroad stations. In no time at all, the first military truck was filled with grain and immediately left for the station. The second truck was soon also filled with grain before the first had a chance to return. There was no other choice but to use the ordinary carts for transporting the grain, even though these carts were not suitable for the task. Comrade Livshitz had promised the county Party organization to dispatch a “Red Column” transport with as much grain as possible and as promptly as possible. He had to keep his promise. The grain delivery plan had to be fulfilled on time. So he ordered the carts filled with grain, disregarding the losses that might be incurred. The carts, piled high with grain, lined up in a column on the road, red flags decorating them, and their sides plastered with placards proclaiming that the farmers of our village voluntarily gave this grain to the state. This so-called Red Column first made a detour back to the village and from there went on to the railroad station.

The Red Column also had the task of performing a propaganda stunt: it had to pass through all the neighboring villages on its way, spreading the word that the farmers of our village were happy to deliver the first yield of their new crop of grain to the state.

In the meantime, the operation of the threshing machine had to be completely halted since there were no more horse-drawn carts to carry the sheaves. Seeing this, Comrade Thousander quickly and easily solved the problem. If there were no horses, then people could substitute for them. So, he rushed the students, laborers, and all who were in the field to the harvesters to bring in the sheaves. “Don't just stand there,” he shouted. “You and you—move, and fast!” And move they did. As soon as the sheaves were ready, they would be grabbed and dragged to the thresher. One could see the people with their bundles of sheaves of ripe and dry wheat scurrying like ants for more than half a mile to the threshing machine. Needless to say, much grain was lost on the way.

Thus began the harvest of 1932 in our village. The next day, two more trucks arrived from the
MTS
, and the harvesting proceeded more or less without trouble. The state delivery quota was the first priority, and no one dared even mention the needs of the local farmers.

From the very start of the harvest to the end, not a single pound of wheat had been distributed to the village inhabitants. Nothing was left for them. We were told that all the grain had to be transported to the railroad stations. We also learned that there it had been dumped on the ground, covered with tarpaulins, and left to rot.