Document 106

Letter from Malov to Krest'ianskaia Gazeta on kolkhoz labor in Komi ASSR, 21 November 1938

RGAE, f. 396, op. 10, d. 4, ll-196-196ob. Original manuscript.

May Day Kolkhoz

The May Day Kolkhoz, whose territory comprises the villages of Vampy, Kuispel' and Mishko Ivan, is situated on the Pechora River 100 km below the city of Troitsk in Komi ASSR. What can the aforesaid kolkhoz boast? As for achievements--there aren't any here. The kolkhoz farmers here have no concept of socialist competition, about fulfilling assignments or about production norms in general. The kolkhoz farmers' cultural level is low, there is no reading room, and besides, nobody is interested in this, although the raion leaders are well aware of this, and of everything else. Apparently they don't pay attention either.

Hence the consequences. Drunkenness and carousing are flourishing in the villages, and you can say that the entire village drinks from old to young, which especially is striking to somebody passing through. There is no discipline, brigade leaders do not listen to the kolkhoz chairman, and there is constant wrangling and swearing. Not a single assignment gets fulfilled. During the busiest time for a kolkhoz the haymaking and harvest campaign no more than three or four kolkhoz farmers went out to work. The hay was left under the snow thirty five percent of it unmowed. The kolkhoz did not allocate haymaking fields to independent peasants and livestock was not provided with hay. Some of the potatoes were left in the field without being dug up. In spite of the good summer, the grain harvest is smaller than last year's, for the reason that the kolkhoz did not take fertilizers into the fields. There are no buildings for grain threshing and the grain is threshed the old-fashioned way, in the winter out in the open. The kolkhoz has just one New Ideal haymaking machine, and more than once during the summer it broke down and had to be repaired. They finished mowing, it snowed, and the mower has been lying and rusting under the snow for two months already, there is nobody to take it away. It is strange that the leaders riding by have seen all this more than once, but they don't take any measures--the machine is still there.

The kolkhoz facilities have fallen apart: there are not enough sleighs or horse collars, and the ones we have look pathetic, there is nobody to fix and repair them because no kolkhoz farmer is in charge of it.

On 15 November the following outrageous incident occurred: the woman who tends the livestock took ill, and sixteen milking cows and other animals were left unfed for three days and the cows unmilked and only on the fourth day the sick woman came out on crutches to feed the livestock and milk the cows, and this was right before the eyes of the kolkhoz board in the village of Vampy. Neither brigade leader V. Mezentsev nor bookkeeper V. Yudin was able to give instructions to replace the sick woman, and kolkhoz farmer Pyotr Yudin bluntly said, the Tatar didn't feed the livestock for three days and they still survived, and it's the same with us. No doubt about P. Yudin's personality, he is an old Psalm reader, a former White bandit, his personality is a clear indicator of his deeds, but what is surprising is that Kalinovsky, the chairman of the Savinoborsky Village Soviet, still nominated him as a candidate for chairman of the kolkhoz. If you look at the output by the kolkhoz farmers, it is also a pathetic picture [Space was left for output figures in labordays, but there are no figures.]. The rest of the days were frittered away on drunkenness and absenteeism. All this attests to an unhealthy atmosphere on the May Day Kolkhoz and the proper person must set about revitalizing the kolkhoz.

I confirm the above facts in full with my signature:

Malov