Document 11

Letter on "extra-hard assignments" for independent farmers from M. Ye. Boncharnikova, Central Black Earth Oblast, 1932

RGAE, f. 7486s, op. 1, d. 236, l. 40. Typed copy.

The rural commission gave us the extra-hard assignment of [delivering] 150 poods of grain: a hundred poods of winter wheat and fifty poods of spring-sown wheat. I wasn't able to fulfill such an assignment in view of the fact that there are three in my family and we have three plots of land. . . in all fifteen sazhens. I delivered fifteen poods of grain, and that's the most I can do. . . . My husband is an old man of sixty eight, unfit for work, and my boy is twelve, and I'm forty seven. The commission didn't take our circumstances into consideration. They took our horse with its harness, the new harness we purchased and the young horse, our seven sheep, twenty five poods of flour, two fur coats, two homespun coats, twelve arshins of ordinary cloth for leg wraps, one pair of felt leg wrappings, one curried hide, two pair of warm women's boots, one pair of leather men's boots, nine pieces of sun-bleached linen, four warm shawls, two sarafans, two mugs, four knives, two ropes, and so forth. When they came to take all these things, my husband wasn't home. I didn't want to let them take them. They hit me and tied me up, lay me face down and abused me. . . . They left me with nothing to my soul and they also took the seven solid boards that we had ready for our coffins, and one saddle and thirteen hens. I petition . . . to restore my house to me, that is, my hut, and return the property of mine indicated above.