[E]veryone was opposed to joining the kolkhoz, but people were forced to join. If someone resisted, he was punished and everything was taken from him — his land, his animals, everything he had. People were literally herded onto the kolkhoz. . . . We were branded kulaks and dispossessed. They took away our vote because we had this shop and engaged in trade. Then in 1929 forced requisitioning of grain began and they started imposing taxes in kind, procurement quotas, and who did they impose them on? On lishentsy [“deprived ones,” peasants accused of being kulaks], of course. . . . So my father was put in prison for not meeting [quotas]. . . .

They wanted to deport us. But then I guess some chairman must have taken pity on us. . . . Now the poor peasants, or bednota, immediately went after our possessions. They were filled with such hatred. “Why should they have lived so well?” But others were deported in our place [to meet government quotas for dispossession of kulaks in various regions]. . . . We were told that we could settle wherever we wanted, to get going, and everything was taken from us, everything. I remember so well how Mama sat and cried when they took away the cow. Then they took away the horse. . . . They took down the mirror, took away the bed . . . and then said “get out of here.”. . .

No one would take us in any longer. Everybody was afraid that they would be accused of harboring kulaks, that people would say, “Aha, so you’re sympathetic to kulaks. That’s it for you; you’ll be deported too.” I remember how Mother went to her brother, to her own father and mother, to the very spot where she had been married, and even they couldn’t keep her.

Source: Barbara Alpern Engel and Anastasia Posadskaya-Vanderbeck, A Revolution of Their Own (Boulder: Westview Press, 1998), 26–28. Reproduced with permission of WESTVIEW PRESS in the format Republish in a book via Copyright Clearance Center.

I was in various kolkhozes . . . , but everywhere there was only one sight — that of a huge shortage of seed, famine, and extreme emaciation of livestock.

In the kolkhozes which I observed I attempted to learn how much the livestock had diminished in comparison with the years 1927–28. It turns out that kolkhoz Ziuzia has 507 milch cows at present while there were 2000 in 1928. . . .

The situation of the kolkhoz livestock farms is a bad one, primarily because of lack of feed. Milk production has reached extremely low levels of 1, 2 or 3 liters per day instead of the 5–7 liters normal for this region in a high-yield year. . . . The main issue is the fact that almost all of the kolkhozniks’ [residents of the collective farms] livestock is contracted [by the state] and removed. . . . In addition, when this livestock is contracted, the kolkhoznik and individual farmers slaughter off the rest.

The second item concerns the sowing campaign. The situation is such that there is not enough seed in the kolkhozes. There is no way that we will be able to fulfill the plan for grain production. . . . Besides this, horses are quite emaciated, a significant number of them have already died, and in addition, the people do not have provisions.

Third issue — the peasant's attitude. Their attitude is utterly bad in light of the famine and the fact that they are losing their last cows through contracting — as a result the kolkhoznik has neither bread nor milk. I saw all this with my own eyes and am not exaggerating. People are starving, living on food substitutes, they grow weaker, and naturally, under such circumstances, their mood is hostile.

Source: Letter from Feigin to Ordzhonikidze, April 9, 1932, “Revelations from the Russian Archives: Collectivization of Livestock,” Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/aa2feign.html.

I read . . . about the achievements of the collective farms, but that’s all window-dressing. If you look inside the collective farms, then it will surely be the opposite. . . . What really shows how things are is the way the kolkhozniks are leaving the collective farms. . . . If you count the old population that used to be in the [villages], only 50 percent is still there. That fact demonstrates that people are unwilling to live in kolkhoz. . . .

But what explains the kolkhozniks’ departure from the collective farms? I think it is that the kolkhozy and the kolkhozniks are insulted by the government. And this is why: If you compare workers in factories, they live better than kolkhozniks. If you want to prove that — there are kolkhozniks who left the collective farms two years ago and got jobs at factories and enterprises, and they write that now it has become better to live at the mills and factories than in the kolkhozy. There you know how much you earn every day, they write; you can make 15 rubles and more at the factory; you can buy cloth and other goods too, as much as you want; and they write “I live much better here than in the kolkhoz.”

But just let the kolkhoznik try to buy something where he lives — you can’t buy cloth here and the kolkhoznik goes around badly dressed. . . . Now what we have is a pecking order in real life in which the kolkhozniks have missed the boat and you can’t get any lower than the village.

Source: Quoted in Sheila Fitzpatrick, Stalin’s Peasants (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 102.