Document 120

Letter from D. A. Khalatov to Krest'ianskaia Gazeta on abuses on kolkhoz in Orel Oblast, 26 January 1938

RGAE, f. 396, op. 5, d. 110, l. 161. Corrected, certified copy.

Tractor driver Kirill Vasil'evich Lun'kin works at the Zhizdrin MTS. He had to bring his earnings in the kolkhoz: grain and potatoes to his family. The problem was horses. Vasily Lun'kin, the tractor driver's father, couldn't get horses at his May Day Kolkhoz. Then he invited the whole board to his home, served them wine with snacks, as much as they could take in. The drunken board led by Kondrashev decided to give Lun'kin four wagons, but the next day, when he came to get a note authorizing the horses, he was allowed only two horses, and whatever he could not transport, he was told, he could sell on the spot. Lun'kin agreed to that. The offended drayman went to the corral with the note and showed it to the stable boy Zaitsev. Another dead end here. Zaitsev demanded a quarter-bucket of vodka for each horse. That was paid and Lun'kin got two horses. Pyotr Dmitrievich Talalaev, who is serving in the Red Army, visited his wife, then went back. A long time after her husband the Red Army man's wife Yefrosin'ia Ivanovna gave birth, and after she recovered some she was hit by winter. Yefrosin'ia got a document to take a horse and fuel. She went to the stable boy Zaitsev. Like the law, Zaitsev was not shy about asking two quarter-buckets from the Red Army man's wife. . . .