Collectivization as a national downfall

Document 12
Mariya Dmitrievna Retunskaya (Zubkova)
Born 1910 in the village of Ust-Volchikha, Altay region
Residing in the village of Tutuyas, Miskovsky region, Kemerovo district
Recorded by Yana Polzutko in December, 1999

About the revolution I only recall that at times the reds would come, at others - the whites. And we all would hide in the basements. Before the revolution and collectivization, whoever worked well, was well off.
...Of the holidays, we observed only Easter, Trinity, and St. Peter's Day. No weddings, no birthdays during working time. We observed all fasts. Very strictly, for that matter. Yet after the revolution all churches were destroyed. But people kept icons at home and prayed secretly.
... They expropriated the kulaks, everyone who had even the smallest farm.
... In 1937, they herded detainees from the whole district into our village. Nearly 200 men. Nobody knew why they got them. But all were drowned under the ice. Till the very spring, they did not let anyone get close to the river.
... There was starvation. We worked at the kolkhoz for nothing, that is, for working days. Most of us were illiterate. They cheated us. After harvesting, they gave everything to the state, and nothing was left to the kolkhoz people.
... One could not leave the kolkhoz. We did not have passports. One had to have a transcript from the kolkhoz to get a passport. But nobody would issue it. That was done to keep the workforce in. After the war, in Khruschev's time, they allowed us to keep a cow, one pig, and five sheep. A horse was allowed to the disabled only.

Collectivization as a national downfall

Translation from Bulgarian by Dr. Neli Hadjiyska and Dr. Valentin Hadjiyski

Decree of the Presidium of the West Siberian Territorial Executive Committee (Westsibterexecom) dated May 5, 1931

On the liquidation of the kulaks [richer peasants] as a class
Strictly confidential

For the purpose of involving broader masses of farmhands, poor, and middle peasants in kolkhozes [collective farms]; organizing new kolkhozes, the purge of kulaks, and strengthening of the existing kolkhozes, as well as enhancing the preparation of the second Bolshevik sowing and checking of the anti-kolkhoz sabotage activity of the kulaks -
The Westsibterexecom decrees as follows:
1. To implement, over the period from May 10 through June 10 of this year, expropriation and relocation of the kulak households, with a tentative target of 40,000 households.
2. To put to expropriation and relocation all definitively qualified kulak households and single kulaks from the rural and urban areas of the territory, as well as the kulaks that have penetrated into the kolkhozes, sovkhozes [state farms], industrial enterprises, and the Soviet-cooperative establishments.
...
4. To confiscate from the relocated kulak households:
a) all real estate;
b) productive working animals;
c) workshops, raw and semi-processed material;
d) grain and seeds;
e) valuables and savings.
To prohibit categorically: stripping them of their clothes, seizure of underwear, necessary clothing, misappropriation of kulak possessions, etc. (i.e. cases of marauding and outrages). Upon relocation, the following possessions shall not be subject to confiscation: one horse, a cart with gear, the necessary minimum of agrarian tools (plows, harrows, axes, and spades), household objects, manufactured goods, clothes, shoes (if their number does not exceed the limits of personal consumption), money up to 500 rubles per family.
...
6. The relocation nominees should be carefully examined by the village Soviets with the participation of executives from the regional executive committees; discussed at extended kolkhoz meetings with the farmhands, poor, and middle peasantry; then checked and approved by the special regional five-member panels consisting of: the secretary of the communist party regional committee, the chairman of the regional Soviet executive committee, the plenipotentiary of the OGPU [political police, later: KGB], the chairman of the regional kolkhoz union, and the territory plenipotentiary.
...
8. To entrust the organization and implementation of the relocation of the kulaks to the OGPU organs. To request the OGPU plenipotentiary offices to take all necessary measures for the prevention of counter-revolutionary activity that could transpire in relation to the expropriation and relocation of the kulaks.
9. The relocation of kulak households to be directed to the sparsely populated and unpopulated northern regions of the territory: Kargasogsky, Chayinsky, Kolpashevsky, Zyryansky, Suslovsky, and Novo-Kuskovsky. To approve the relocation destinations designated in the said regions (see annex). To request Comrade Zakovsky and the regional executive committees of the ennumerated regions, while relocating kulak households not to allow any detriment to the interests of the indigenous population.
...
Signed: Deputy Chairman, Westsibterexecom -
I. Zaytsev
Deputy Executive Secretary, Westsibterexecom -
Sirotin
True: Acting Head, Secretariat (classified documents unit), Westsibterexecom -
Yurasov. Signed.

Kaliningrad [Koenigsberg] District State Archive. Catalog.-71. Index.1. Case.1992. Sheets .13-15. Original. Typrescript. Language and orthography of the document are given without changes.

Collectivization as a national downfall

Translation from Bulgarian by Dr. Neli Hadjiyska and Dr. Valentin Hadjiyski