Document 121

Letter from V. I. Guliaev to Krest'ianskaia Gazeta on reception of new settlers in Dnepropetrovsk Oblast, 20 June 1937

RGAE, f. 396, op. 10, d. 33, ll. 136-137ob. Original manuscript.

Statement

I, Vasily Ivanovich Guliaev, came to the New Ear of Wheat Kolkhoz from Gor'ky Oblast, and a number of families have also come from other oblasts. When we arrived at the kolkhoz, the kolkhoz board promised the new settlers it would provide them with all food and grain, and with apartments as well. As a result it turned out that the kolkhoz board began to treat the new kolkhoz farmers in a bureaucratic manner, to wit: instead of apartments, the families were housed in stables, as a result of which small children are taking sick and are dying. In addition, the kolkhoz has nursery schools where the children of new settlers are treated in a predatory way, to wit: my wife and I were at work in the steppe about 4 kilometers from the hut, and the children were in nursery school. At twelve noon the nannies released a two-year-old boy by himself, who had to walk home from the nursery school for about a kilometer, which it is unknown how he arrived home and found the way by himself, but when he arrived he could not get into the hut, in view of the fact that it was locked. He sat down in front of the hut and started screaming, i.e. crying. Thanks to the fact that a neighbor heard him crying and took him into her apartment, otherwise the boy could have sat crying in front of the hut until evening. After which the boy is still sick to the present time. And besides that, an eight-month-old boy was allowed to catch a chill at the nursery school and the boy died. And when the children were sick and I went to the head of the kolkhoz and asked him to give me a liter of milk for the sick children, he did not even attent the words [The writer evidently wanted to say "did not agree and did not pay attention to my words."]. And if any new settlers were given an apartment not in a stable, the head of the kolkhoz, having foisted it on kolkhoz farmer Karpukhin for eight hundred rubles after the kolkhoz bought it from the village soviet for two hundred rubles, after which he also put a tenint there, and the head of the kolkhoz told Karpukhin, kick out tenint Cheprov, but he told Cheprov don't leave, i.e. he cauzed trouble between kolkhoz farmers, who go at each other with knives, and a board member is brazen, he is also the business manager, he goes around to the newly arrived kolkhoz farmers, telling them that, if you have money, buy huts from them on the kolkhoz, and if you don't have money, you can be out of the kolkhoz, we don't need you, and the head of the kolkhoz says the same thing. And if [a new settler] comes to the board for food, it does not treat them quite nicely, declaring to the newly arrived kolkhoz farmer that we accepted you not to supply you but for work, so you must buy the grain, as a result of which kolkhoz farmers are hungry are not going out to work, and ten families of newly arrived kolkhoz farmers had to move from the kolkhoz to other kolkhozes. In regards to all this the kolkhoz farmers went to the raion and the village soviet, but there are no improvements on the part of the kolkhoz leadership. There is no accounting on the kolkhoz, labordays are not written down for kolkhoz farmers, and when a kolkhoz farmer wants to ask, he spends weeks going to the board and gets no result.

In addition, the brigade leaders on the kolkhoz abuse the newly arrived kolkhoz farmers, to wit [Omitted is a description of beatings of kolkhoz farmers administered by brigade leader Kalinkin.] brigade leader Kalinkin forces the wives of new settlers into sexual relations, saying to them that you don't go to work, I will write down labordays for you, and if you don't have sexual intercourse with me, then I won't write down labordays for you at all. And it is brigade leader Kalinkin who is not giving a dwelling on the kolkhoz to new settler Aleksandra Guliaeva [Evidently the wife of the letter writer], he comes to her apartment, forces her into sexual intercourse, who stopped staying in the apartment by herself, stating to her husband that I will not live here. And besides that there are other abominations as well.