Document 21

Leter to VtsIK from A. P. Nikishin on starvation in Middle Volga Krai, 1932

RGAE, v. 7486s, op. 1, d. 236, l. 33. Typed copy.

. . . in the fall of 1930 the land was all plowed and the following spring sown, and the harvest OK, a good one. The time came to gather the grain, the collective farm workers reaped the harvest without any hitches . . . , but it came time to deliver to the state and all the grain was taken away. Even leaving a big percent of the grain wouldn't be enough to sow our land. Collective farm workers began to come to the board for their share. They were refused, there was no grain. . . . And at the end they stopped giving out shares to almost all of the collective farm workers. And at the present time collective farm workers with small children are perishing from hunger. They don't eat sometimes for a week and don't see a piece of bread for several days. People have begun to swell up because of hunger. Collective farm workers with great effort manage to get hold of some money, abandon their families and small children, and themselves go into hiding. And all the males have departed, despite the fact that in the near future the spring planting is coming. Horse power has almost all died, for 360 householders eighty horses were left, and those any day now are as good as dead. And collective farm workers, each expects to die any day now from hunger, and it's even worse for the poor independent peasants. The crops were taken away and everybody can barely move on their legs. . . . The same story in several kolkhozes of the raion, and this situation threatens to devastate the spring sowing campaign.