Execution by Hunger Read Online Free PDF Page B

village by one man. He was an outsider, of course. A commission of five local people was appointed to assist him. He also maintained his own secret agents who spied on the local officials. When he found “discrepancies,” he assumed the role of both arbiter and judge. His decisions were final.
    To implement the policy of collectivization, the Party and government mobilized all their central and local forces; namely, the entire Party propaganda machinery, the armed forces, the secret and civil police force, and actually, all institutions and organizations. Such political organizations as the Komsomol, the Pioneers, and Komnezams were the most active and effective forces in the hands of the local communists.
    Komsomol is an acronym for the Young Communist League, established in 1918. Young people between fourteen and twenty-six years of age may be members of this organization, which is considered to be the future of the Communist Party, and thus is accorded second place in the Soviet political hierarchy. Directed by the Communists, these youths proved to be most vigorous and effective in our village. Their responsibilities and positions were second only to the Communists themselves. The leader of the Komsomol organization was a Party candidate sent to the village by the county center.
    The Pioneers was a political organization for school children between the ages of eight and fourteen. Members of this children’s organization served in double capacity as messengers and agents. The well-known case of Pavlik Morozov serves as an example of how the Communist Party and the government used children in their scheme. The son of a poor farmer, Pavlik lived in a village somewhere beyond the Urals in Siberia. This fourteen-year-old schoolboy became the most celebrated individual in the Soviet Union overnight by denouncing his father and some of his neighbors for hiding food from the state. The accused and his father, were arrested and disappeared without a trace. Pavlik was killed by the enraged villagers, including his uncle. The entire Soviet propaganda machine eulogized him. He became a national hero; his name was given to a multitude of villages, organizations, streets, and military units and his story was prominent in encyclopedias and dictionaries.
    Thus, the Party encouraged children, especially those who belonged to the Pioneer organization, to spy on their parents and to denounce them, and anybody else, for that matter, who defied the Party. Such denunciation was considered a heroic deed, the best expression of Soviet patriotism.
    Komnezam is an acronym for the Ukrainian Komitet nezamozhnych selian (Committee of Poor Peasants). Such committees were first set up in Russia in the summer of 1918 by the local Party organizations from agricultural laborers and poor farmers, and there they were known by the Russian acronym Kombedy. In Ukraine, on the other hand, these committees, the Komnezams, were introduced in May 1920, when the Communists invaded the Ukraine for the third time. Whereas in Russia the Kombedy were soon dissolved (in November 1918, by the decision of the Fourth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, November 6–9, 1918), in Ukraine, these Committees of Poor Peasants lasted until 1933 and became the most effective instruments of aggressive Communist policy in the Ukrainian countryside. The Komnezam was an important feature of every Ukrainian village. Its purpose was twofold: to introduce the Revolution into the village, and to assist in the enforcement of food deliveries to the state. In Ukraine, the Communists used these committees also as instruments in the collectivization of agriculture. In general, they became known as organs of proletarian dictatorship in the Ukrainian countryside.
    Thus this monstrous machine of collectivization was set in motion. It ground, it pulled, it pushed, and it kicked. It was run by human beings, and it worked on human beings. It was merciless and insatiable. Once it was