Execution by Hunger

Execution by Hunger: The Hidden Holocaust by Miron Dolot, W. W. Norton & Company, 1987. 

Holodomor

This book is a memoir by a Ukrainian peasant who endured Stalin’s forced collectivization of agriculture in the Ukraine in the early 1930s, which lead to a man-made famine that Ukrainians call the Holodomor. The author’s father had been murdered by the Communists in 1919, because he was head of the village and a holdover from the pre-Communist system. The Communists returned to the author’s Ukrainian village in December 1929 and installed a telephone line between the village and the county center. In January 1930, the Communist Party removed the pastor from the local church and replaced him with a Party member.  

Collectivization of Agriculture

Most of the Party officials sent in to collectivize the villages were city dwellers. The villagers were required to attend a meeting, where they were asked to join the new village collective farm. They were told that they could not leave the building until they agreed to join. However, the local officials finally relented and let people who needed to urinate go out under escort. The Communists developed a procedure to achieve unanimity. The officials would propose a resolution and then ask whether there were any objections. Since everyone was afraid to speak out, the officials would report to their superiors that the resolution passed unanimously. When a peasant joined the collective farm, his farm land , implements and animals now belonged to the collective. The Communists organized the village along military lines. The households belonging to a collective farm were divided into brigades.  

Farm Animals

Many peasants sold or traded their farm animals before they joined the collective farm, because when they joined, they were required to turn over all their farm animals without receiving compensation in return. If they were not able to find a buyer, they often slaughtered their animals. The farm animals that were turned over to the collective often died, because since they belonged to no particular individual, no one bothered to take care of them.

The Tractor

Another tactic was bribery. The village did not have a tractor. The officials brought in a tractor and told the villagers that if they joined the collective, they would be given access to tractors. The official said that the poor, exploited peasants of the capitalist countries did not have tractors. However, the young author looked at the tailpipe of the tractor and saw the word “International”, not in Cyrillic letters, but in Latin letters. 

The Zhlob

Promoting Ukrainian nationalism was a crime. Ridiculing a Party official was also a crime. One fellow was put on trial for calling an official a zhlob.

The Kulaks

Even many peasants who did all the work in the farm themselves and who employed no one, were labelled kulaks and exploiters of the poor. The Party authorities also labeled as kulaks those peasants who just worked harder. One one occasion the author’s home was searched for any objects of value that they might be hiding for their three uncles, who had been labeled kulaks. The local officials accused an old shopkeeper of hoarding. They searched his house and finally found his money inside the boots he was wearing. They confiscated it.

Hoarding

In the inverted mentality of the Communists, it is not stealing, but rather keeping your property to yourself that is the crime, a crime they call hoarding. The Communist officials treated failing to meet your grain harvest quota as sabotage. 

Punishing the Honest

Many people were surprised that they were arrested, even though they had been honest, hard working and loyal all their lives. They naively believed that the authorities did not punish the innocent. The author’s brother was arrested for protecting their mother from the assault of a drunken local official. He was sent to work as a slave laborer building the canal between the Baltic and the White Sea. 

Komsomol

The Komsomol (Young Communist League) was made up of 14-26 year olds. The Pioneers were made up of children 8-14 years old. They were both training grounds for future Communist Party leaders. Pioneers were taught that betraying your parents and reporting them to the authorities was a patriotic act. One child in eastern Russia, Pavlik Morozov, was promoted as a national hero and role model for turning in his parents for hoarding food from the state.

Blaming the Jews

On March 15, 1930, the newspaper Pravda published an official resolution that the Party had been over zealous in its collectivization campaign. A Communist Party official visited many villages, including the author’s and gave a speech blaming the Jews for the excesses of the forced collectivization campaign.

Confiscatory Taxation

The Communists often subjected the Ukrainian peasants to taxes that were so high, that even after the Communists had seized all of the peasant’s money, food and animals, the peasants still owed more, and were put into prison for not paying their taxes.

Grain Requisitions

In 1932, with almost all the peasants collectivized, the main focus of the Communist Party turned to trying to take the harvest away from the collective farms. They would give some of the harvest back to those peasants who were cooperative with the Communist Party. The Communist theory was that the product of your labor belonged to the Party, not to you.

Famine

After the Communists stole most of the food that the peasants grew, the peasants started to starve to death. The peasants started eating dogs, cats and birds, so the Communists went out with shotguns, killing all the dogs, cats and birds that they could find, so that the people would have nothing to eat. The Communist Party erected watchtowers in the farms, to stop the starving villagers from stealing food. Everything was declared to be state property. During the 1932-33 winter, many peasants froze to death due to lack of fuel for their stoves. 

Gold and Silver

Stalin figured out a clever way to acquire the gold and silver of the Ukrainian peasants. In late 1932 and early 1933 the peasants were allowed to bring their gold and silver to the cities to be exchanged for food. 

Cover Up

When a reporter happened across a couple peasants who had died, and was told that there were many more dead bodies nearby, the government official accompanying the reporter became quite upset, fearing that the news of the famine might get out.