Page 50 - The Chief Culprit

Industrialization and Collectivization y 27

It is understandable that nobody wanted to voluntarily give up the fruits of his labor.
In answer to this, Communists created “food regulation” brigades and entire armies—units
of armed men who took away from the peasants all their reserves. e peasants answered with
armed resistance, but they failed.
In the struggle for bread the Communists won, but they celebrated their victory too
soon. It is possible to take away from the peasant all his bread, his potatoes, to lead away his
cows and to slaughter his pigs; however, it is impossible to force a man to continue working
hard. e Russian peasants stopped growing agricultural products since the Communists
were taking away what they produced. is resulted in the horrible famine of 1920–21.
Lenin was forced to retreat from his rigid politics. Free trade of foodstuffs was allowed;
the gold ruble was introduced. All this was called by the term NEP— New Economic
Policy. ere was nothing new in it. It was good old capitalism. e country was revived
almost immediately. By 1923, there was so much produce that Russia was once again able
to export grain. en, in 1927, Stalin began his industrialization. is process brought on
consequences that were not foreseen by the Communists. e country had huge reserves
of produce, but peasants were in no rush to sell them. e reason was simple: over several
years, hardworking peasants had hoarded significant reserves of gold rubles. ey went to
the shops in search of manufactured products, but there was nothing to buy. Practically all
industrial production in the Soviet Union focused on the military. ere were tanks, air-
planes, parachutes, cannons, shells, cartridges, and machine guns, but no home appliances.
What does a man need cash for, if there is nothing to buy? e peasants once again either
stopped selling products or stopped producing them.
e Communists now faced a dilemma: either direct a part of production to produc-
ing goods for the wealthy peasants to consume or get rid of the wealthiest, meaning the most
hardworking, the smartest. Rather than return to normal human existence and end commu-
nism, Stalin chose to enslave the peasants on collective farms and eliminate private ownership.
In 1928, Stalin began the bloody war against peasants, which was called collectivization.
Units of the Red Army encircled entire regions. ose peasants who produced more
than others were, in the middle of winter, herded together with their families into railroad
cattle cars and transported across thousands of kilometers to Siberia, the Urals, or Kazakhstan,
where they were thrown out into the cold on the bare steppes. is grandiose operation was
initiated on Stalin’s orders and executed by his rising deputy Molotov. Many years later,
Molotov was asked how many people were transported to the wild, uninhabited regions dur-
ing collectivization. He answered: “Stalin said that we relocated ten million. In reality, we
relocated twenty million.” 8
Historical literature and documentary sources offer different numbers of the demo-
graphic losses resulting from the collectivization and starvation of 1932–33. Presently, the
following figures look most justified: 3.5 to 5 million people perished from famine, and
about 3 to 4 million people died at the places of exile as a result of intolerable conditions of
repression and unbearable life. Cannibalism flourished in the country. Stalin, meanwhile,
during these horrible times was selling millions of tons of grain each year to accumulate cur-
9
rency in order to produce weapons in mass quantities.