Descendant of Aaron-Part 2. Holodomor

Alexander Vild

Historical novel based on actual facts

Chapter 1.Yakov Andreyevich.

Translated from russian by author
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          "A nation that forgets its past has no future."
         
         
   Sokolovka, thanks to the skillful management of Pan Bzhozovsky or Berezovskiy (as the Ukrainians themselves
called him), was a very favorable place of residence for local villagers. People lived in abundance. Each
family had a cow, a large vegetable garden and a garden. Thanks to this, the villagers and Pan Berezovskiy
continued to maintain their former relations almost until the end of the 1920s. Pan Berezovskiy resigned when
the organization of collective farms began. Well, as always, on time, otherwise he would have simply been shot
as an enemy of the revolution. The Bolsheviks did it well.

   The Bolsheviks associated the building of socialism with the transfer of the peasantry to the path of
collective production. At the XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1927, a course
for cooperation in agriculture was proclaimed. (17)

   Rumors of collectivization reached Sokolovka and went around it. None of the hardworking owners even wanted
to hear about this nonsense. Only drunks and loafers consoled themselves with the thought of profit at
someone else's expense.
 
   By this time, Andrey and Dina's son was growing up, and Dina was again pregnant. Both worked hard,
but they have enough for living.

   I. Stalin called 1929 "the year of the great turning point" - "the decisive offensive of socialism on the
capitalist elements of town and country." Total collectivization began in the country.

   In 1930, the family of Andrey and Dina was replenished with another child. Jacob was born, he was already
the third in a family. The eldest was Mikhail, after him Dina gave birth to a daughter, Lyudmila. Yakov was
born on January 30th. January 1930 was not like all previous years, with their severe January frosts and heavy
snowfalls. It was a surprisingly warm winter that year. The air temperature has risen above zero Celsius
(32 Fahrenheit). There were incessant raining. The roads were washed out, the mud was impassable, it was
impossible to drive the cart. Andrey saddled two horses and rode on horseback to Zhabokrich to bring the rabbi
to the newborn baby. The horses were kneading the mud with difficulty. Rabbi fulfilled everything that was
supposed to be done according to Jewish custom. They sat down at the table and drank kosher wine. "Lykhaim,
let him bring you nakhys", - blessed Rabbi Yakov. (18)

   Time passed. All family members worked hard, including children. Each had their own responsibilities.
Together they managed the household, were thrifty and economical. The boys tended the cows, Lyudmila helped her
 mother around the house.
 
   
The Bolsheviks needed hard currency to keep afloat an economy that had been brought up to speed. Since the West
willingly bought grain from the Soviet Union, almost all of the harvest was taken from the Ukrainian peasants.
However, the war for bread turned into a war with the Ukrainians. For they resisted grain procurements.
To punish the disobedient, they took away everything edible.

   In the course of collectivization, the Bolsheviks faced the question of the fate of wealthy peasants. The
basis of their well-being was the work of all family members and  thrift. This part of the peasants was most
strongly tied to the land and did not want to part with it. It was in relation to this category of the peasantry
that a policy of peasantization began to be pursued: taxation was increased, land lease was limited, it
was forbidden to use hired labor, to buy agricultural machines, implements; selective "dispossession" began.

   In the early 1930s the government began terror against the peasants. The liquidation of prosperous farms was
accompanied by the confiscation of property and the expulsion to the North and Siberia of peasants who did not
want to join collective farms. (17)

   The time has come for the residents of Sokolovka to make their choice. And there was practically no choice:
either the Solovki or the state farm. The choice fell on the state farm. Dina and the children were in tears,
stroking a cow and horses. Andrey looked sternly at their frightened and anxious faces and said: "What is for
people, so is for us. We will live!"

   The Ukrainians were reluctant to go to the collective farm.
The real reason for the Holodomor was the Bolsheviks' reprisals against the recalcitrant peasantry - people
resisted universal collectivization and lived according to Bolshevik laws, for which they began to starve to
death. The same thing, but on a smaller scale, happened in Russia itself, as well as in other republics of the
USSR - in the villages cordoned off by troops, the very peasants died of hunger who could tell the Soviet
government that it was not a people’s at all, but even worse exploiters, than tsarism.