TERROR IN THE COUNTRYSIDE

Lev Kopelev, TERROR IN THE COUNTRYSIDE

Thesis: Lev Kopalev describes his experiences liquidating the kulaks as part of Stalin's efforts to reform the Soviet economy.

Certain feelings characterized the effort:

Widespread belief in Stalin and his maxim, "The struggle for grain was the struggle for socialism"

Insistence on taking all assets away from the kulaks, including personal possessions

Belief in the "religion" of scientific socialism

"The works of Marx, Engles, and Lenin were accepted as holy writ, and Stalin was the infallible high priest"

For Kopelev, this interest quickly faded into disillusionment with the Stalinist doctrine. He begins to be concerned about all the problems that are being inflicted on the poor

Yevgeny Yevtushenko - Literature as Propaganda

Yevtushenko writes about Stalin’s control over the arts in 1930s Russia, lamenting that socialist realism destroyed creativity.

· Stalin’s control of the arts meant that all artists were encouraged (but really coerced) into creating idealistic images of communism as their only work – “the apotheosis of this trend was a movie which in its grand finale showed thousands of collective farmers having a gargantuan feast against the background of a new power station.”

· Stalin was able to convince even wise and intelligent people to surrender their creativity to fantastic communist propaganda, through his charm and his connection with the revered Lenin

· The focus in the arts on communism and industry dehumanized art, as the classic artistic themes we think of – love, nature, life – were nonexistent or at least inaccessible to the general public

· Interest in the arts died among the general population

“Communism was to serve man, whereas under Stalin it appeared that man served communism”

Liquidation of the Kulaks

Thesis: As Joseph Stalin sought to eliminate the Kulaks, he portrayed them as the enemy of the government's efforts to eliminate harmful capitalist practices and claimed his alternative system of collectivization would be able to mitigate the harmful effects of removing the Kulaks.

x- Kulaks refused to surrender private plots and personal earnings

x- Stalin foments a class struggle between the Kulaks and less successful peasants by arguing these collectivization goals are an effort to fight against capital

x- Stalin argues that the Kulaks must be eliminated in order to ensure the success of the fight against capitalist elements of the countryside and bring about prosperity

x- Stalin points out such an attack on the Kulaks ears ago would have been foolish adventurism, but the establishment of collective farms changes this decision calculus.

x- Stalin argues the present day material base makes them immune from the harms of striking against the Kulaks

x-Must eliminate the Kulaks as a class- only way to substitute their output for one of collective farms. Kulaks do not belong on the collective farms, they are its sworn enemies

Joseph Stalin: “The Hard Line,” “Liquidation of the Kulaks”

“The Hard Line” - Main Idea: Russia must modernize quickly or fall behind and be taken advantage of.

• Tempo of modernization must not be reduced but increased
• Old Russia suffered due to its backwardness
• Nekrassov on Old Russia: “You are poor and abundant, mighty and impotent, Mother Russia.”
• The jungle law of capitalism means that if a country is backwards it is taken advantage of.
• Lenin said, “Either perish, or overtake and outstrip the advanced capitalist countries.”
• Stalin admits that russia is fifty to one hundred years behind the advanced countries. He draws the hard line: “Me must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they crush us.”

“Liquidation of the Kulaks” - Main Idea: Kulaks must be eliminated to make way for the goal of collectivism.

• Notes characteristic features of the work during the past year of 1929
• the party and soviet government have developed an offensive on the whole front against the capitalist elements in the countryside (Kulaks)
• this offensive has brought about and is bringing about positive results
• Admits that Russia could not have successfully taken on such an offensive 3-5 years previous
• Wishes to substitute for their output, the output of the collective farms and state farms
• States the goal of solid collectivization
• States that the Kulak is the sworn enemy of the collective farm movement

"Terror in the Countryside" Kopelev

“Terror in the Countryside” Kopelev

Thesis: As a former liquidator of the kulaks, Kopelev turned against participation in collectivization and became a tolerant person, who was given a jail sentence for anti-state crime (keeping a Russian soldier from raping and pillaging).

· “Struggle for grain was the struggle for socialism”

· he was fighting against kulak sabotage for grain which was needed by country for the 5 year plan

· They would take away food and livestock and valuables and surpluses of clothing and money stashed away and gold, silver, and currency

· The children began screaming, choking, and coughing like their mother at the collective farmers

· The men were impassive, half-mad and having daring ferocity

· He was performing his rev duty

· The only true religion was religion of scientific socialism; the party became his church

· His great goal was the triumph of Communism

o To lie,, steal, destroy thousands and millions of ppl, all considered hinderers of their work

o He was convinced he was accomplishing great and necessary transformation of countryside

o In 1933, he saw ppl dying from hunger and he cursed those who sent him to take away peasants’ grain in the winter

· They dismissed the concepts of conscience, honor, humaneness as idealistic prejudices

Khrushchev - Secret Speech

Khrushchev in his secret speech revealed some of the evils behind Stalin's power

• Stalin was intolerable to anyone who opposed his ideas and demanded for complete obedience of the people in accordance to his ideas
• Stalin veered away from passive methods such as persuasion
• Lots of corruption and many people fell to despotism
• "Stalin originated the conce't of "enemy of the people"
• "Stalin used extremem methods and mass repessions at a time when the revolution was already victorious"
• Lenin, unlike stalin, used severe methods only in the most necessary cases

TORTSKY AROUSES THE PEOPLE- N.N. Sukhanov

Trotsky was one of the main leaders of the the Revolution of 1917, and uses his rhetoric and ability as an orator to excite the crowd and evokes great feeling and emotion in them in this passage.

-Trotsky was the chairman of was elected chairman of the Petrograd soviet after being exiled twice.

-Trotsky organized the Military-Revolutionary Committee and was one of the most integral players in the Bolshevik movement.

-Trotsky's just ideals and speech against the bourgeois arouse the working classes in the audience.

"This, actually, was already an insurrection. Things had started..."

A.O. AVDIENKO, THE CULT OF STALIN

Thesis: In Avdienko’s Cult of Stalin, the author deifies the accomplishments of Stalin and holds him in the highest regard.

I. All of Russia will regard this period as momentous

a. All will remember Stalin as a great leader

b. Avdienko praises Stalin for his leadership

II. Avdienko is educated

a. Has a wife, family

III. Avdienko reveres Stalin’s every action

Miron Dolot - Execution by Hunger

Miron Dolot witnessed the horrors of famine within his own country of Ukraine and later left for the West. He wrote The Hidden Holocaust years later to recall his past observations. Here are some points from the excerpts.

· 1932 - the battle for bread

· BASIC OVERVIEW: The Communist government began taking food from the starving farmers for the “greater good”, and it forced a mass famine from lack of crops

· In this year (1932) famine broke out and brought endless amounts of beggars

· People were roaming the forest for food and the riverbanks were crowded with hungry citizens in search of some nutrition

· Every farmer would go into the city looking for work, but since the city itself was already in economic ruin, the government made it illegal to hire farmers for any work in order not to make the job market too stagnant

· Deaths from starvation became a daily occurrence. The bodies starved were just deposited in a large common grave

· At the end of May, The Party (Communist Gov’t) had mobilized 112,000 members to secure a swift and smooth harvest, but it soon became clear that the nine who had come to Dolot’s village would hold tyrannical power

· The quota the government asked for in grain was just unrealistic for the farmers

· In January 1933, Dolot and his mother set out from the city to the town – everywhere on the side of the roads were frozen corpses

· Farmers were found dead having collapsed in their endless search for more potatoes

· A friend of Dolot’s mother, named Solomia was expelled from her collective farm because she had a child, her husband had already died and she could not keep up her quota. From there she went seeking a job but could never get one, and eventually she committed suicide in her Ukrainian national uniform.

· In March of 1933, the famine hit its worst point, as people locked themselves inside and neighbors became enemies

· The first rumors of actual cannibalism were related to the mysterious and sudden disappearances of people in the village

· One woman had killed herself after eating her three year old daughter, another arrested for killing her two children

Khrushchev's Secret Speech

Thesis: In a secret speech to the Party Congress three years after Stalin's death, Khrushchev attacked Stalin, revealing some of the awful crimes that had been committed during his rule.

• Stalin was brutal toward everything that opposed him and contrary to his concepts


• Stalin did not use persuasion and co-operation with the people, but imposed his ideas and demanded absolute submission of the people to his way.


• Many prominent party members, honest and dedicated to Communism, fell victim to his despotism.


• His concept "enemy of the people" rendered it unneccessary that any kind of ideological errors of a man engaged in controversy be proven.


• "Confessions" were acquired through physical pressures on the accused.


• Glaring violations of revolutionary legality


• Large quantity of materials from the secret police revealed fabrication of cases, leading to deaths of innocent victims.


• Lenin used severe methods only in the most necessary cases, but Stalin used it when the Communist state was already strong.


• Stalin used repression and physical annihilation instead of mobilizing the masses.


• The False Accusations and slaughter of Comrade Eikhe, who refused to confess to any crime, is a great example of glaring violation of Soviet power and false condemnation.

Arthur Koestler: “I Was Ripe to be Converted”

Rob Edwards

Arthur Koestler: “I Was Ripe to be Converted”

• The economic misery of the Depression led many people to find a new hope in communism

• Seduced by soviet propaganda, many intellectuals saw the Soviet Union as a champion of peace and social justice

• A faith is not acquired by reasoning, or acquired at all for that matter. Rather, it is an idea the grows like a tree

• He became converted to the communist party because he was “ripe for it” and lived in a disintegrating society thirsting for faith.

• He didn't just become a communist over night though

• It all started in 1914 when he witnessed his father's financial and emotional demise through those crushing times

• He torturously acquired a social conscience through penny-pinching his whole life, and learning to detest the obviously rich people

• Horrified when he learns of the extreme measures that fat capitalists go to to increase their own profit, including burning crops to keep prices up, even though people are starving

• Déclassé people didn't want to admit their own ruin, many found comfort with the Nazi party and blaming their problems on the Jews

• Many intellectuals like Koestler were ripe for conversion to communism because of the rapid moral disintegration in the society around themselves

• After studying Marx and Engels, many of these intelligentsia were captivated by the promises of communism

"The Breakdown Of Military Discipline"

Excerpts from a Russian Army Intelligence Report in 1917:

Northern Front:

• Lack of confidence in the officers
• Bolshevik ideas are spreading rapidly throughout the camp which add to a desire for peace
• Officer regulation is seen as counter-revolutionary
• Many soldiers are faking sick and going to hospitals

12th Army:

• The provisional government is being criticized especially Kerensky
• Readers of moderate newspapers are seen as counter-revolutionary
• Whole regiments are refusing to carry out military orders

Western Front:

• Soldiers are attempting to fraternize with Germans which they believe is a sure way to attain peace
• Soldiers stormed an armory and stole the equipment in an act of rebellion

Southwestern Front:

• Lack of supplies is disintegrating the troops
• Soldiers are leading armed invasions of country estates
• Soldiers will demoralize during winter

“I was ripe to be converted”

Arthur Koestler

“I was ripe to be converted”

Thesis: Arthur Koestler describes his conversion to Communism as a not only a political idea that he decided to favor but as an entire new way of thinking caused by his own struggles in life with capitalism.

· Arthur Koestler, born in Budapest of Jewish ancestry and educated in Vienna

o Worked as newspaper correspondent for leading Berlin newspaper chain

o Joined communist party in 1931

o He broke with the party in 1988 because of Stalin’s liquidations

· In the passage written by Arthur Koestler he recounts the attraction communism held for him, written 1949

o Arthur describes his conversion to communism as a long process that began in his childhood and produced by his disintegrating society

o Arthur then describes the fall his family had to endure from middle-class prominence to financial ruin as a result of the first world war and capitalistic economy that forced him to become the only financial support for his family

o Explains his dislike for the rich as not because his jealous because the rich don’t have a guilty conscience

o Arthur now describe his own guilt further, the guilt he feels for his family providing for him at a young age things they could not afford and the guilt he feels for those around him who are poorer than himself.

o At this point in his personal conflict Arthur says he was ripe to learn of the food burned during depression years to keep food prices up and gives us the quote; “Woe to the shepherds who feed themselves, but feed not their flocks.”

o Arthur describes the polarization, which occurred as a result of the disintegration of the middle class strata into the Right or Left.

o Arthur again states he was ripe to be converted as a result of his previous history to left.

o Arthur describes the state of Germany as it was becoming Nazi Germany could only be stopped by Communism

o Describes his conversion experience as magical and very much like a religious conversion.

Lenin, "The Call to Power"

Thesis: In powerful words meant to play on the emotions of the common Russians Lenin tells the people that they must rise up now and that the only way to change the path of Russia is through armed uprising.

I. Lenin says the Russian situation is critical

a. “Everything now hangs by a thread”

b. The problems of Russia will not be solved by government but rather by actions of the people

II. Lenin says the question over who will step into power is irrelevant

a. Simply says to let the Bolshevik organization to take over everything, most especially the army…

III. Makes promises that through the uprising help will come to the peasants (esp. food)

Finally, Lenin tells the people that history will never forgive them if they sit around doing nothing to help the cause of Russia

Army Intelligence Report- Breakdown of Military Discipline

Thesis: The spread of Bolshevik ideas among the Russian army in the summer of 1917 has led to widespread discontent and general defiance of the war forced upon them by their superiors.

• In the Northern Front, there is a complete lack of confidence in the officers and other commanding personnel.


• Soldiers believe they cannot be punished for what they do.


• They desire peace at any price.


• Any attempt by the officers to regulate the life of the army is seen as counter-revolution.


• Large numbers of soldiers are feigning sickness to leave the front


• Refuse to carry out orders, call Kerensky a traitor.


• In the Western Front, war weariness, malnutrition, mistrust of officers has contributed to defeatist agitation and refusals to carry out orders.


• Some try to fraternize with the Germans


• Soldiers are listening to Bolshevik newspapers, that cry out against the Provisional Government.


• On October 1, 8,000 soldiers refused to go to the front and demanded to be sent home. They then stormed the armory and assaulted the Assistant Commisar


• In the Southwestern Front, disintegration is in full swing. Bolshevik influence is increasing due to general disintegration, absence of strong power, and the lack of supplies and equipment.


• Peace at any price and under any condition, every order is met with hostility.


• Soldiers are organizing raids on country estates


• Courts are paralyzed because of the attitude of the soldiers, there is nothing to enforce order.


• Supplies must be given by the winter campaign, or the army will completely disintegrate and will be destroyed.

V. I. Lenin: “The Call to Power”

Rob Edwards

V. I. Lenin: “The Call to Power”

• Speech by Lenin on Oct. 24 encouraging immediate action

• He says that to delay the uprising at all would prove fatal

• Russia is faced with problems that can't be solved by conferences or congresses, but only by the struggle of the armed masses

• At present, it isn't important who will take power, because that will be dealt with later by the Revolutionary Military Committee

• All that matters at the current time is the that the government must be overthrown immediately

• All power must be taken from the hands of Kerensky and Co. immediately

• History will not forgive revolutionaries for procrastinating, when their chance of success lessens with every passing moment

• The government is tottering, and must be given the death blow swiftly and without mercy

Trotsky Arouses the People

N.N. Sukhanov

Trotsky Arouses the People

Thesis: Sukenov as an eyewitness of Leon Trotsky speech arousing the people explains how the Leon seems to have manipulated the people into revolutionary frenzy.

· N.N. Sukhanov an eyewitness to Leon Trotsky’s speech

o The Menshevik (Social Democrat Moderate) leader

o In the his book The Russian Revolution

· Leon Trotsky

o Elected chairman of the Petrograd Soviet

o Masterminded the Military-Revolutionary Committee, the Bolshevik strike force

· Leon Trotsky’s rousing speech at the People’s House

o The audience was about 3,000 primarily workers and soldiers, but more than a few typically lower middle-class men.

o Trotsky heats up the atmosphere with a extraordinary depiction of the trenches and that the Soviet regime would end the stuffing in these trenches.

o The Soviets would also give land and heal internal disorder

o He went further to say that the Soviet Government will give it all the country has to the poor and the men in the trenches and that the bourgeois should give up its excess for the men in the trenches and the working man

o Sukhanov describes the mood of the audience as bordering on ecstasy

o Sukhanov also asks if these people had been penetrated by a consciousness of political occasion, under the influence of the political agitation of a socialist.

o Sukhabov finishes by explaining this same mood in the audience was being felt all over Petersburg and the insurrection had already begun.