Kushnir Petro Ivanovych, b. 1912

—You said that you had dvadtsiatypiatytysiachnyky (“Twenty-Five Thousanders”) in your village? Were they the ones that set up the kolhosp or did the local residents take part as well? Komsomol activists or some other group? Can you describe how it happened?

Petro Ivanovych: Evictions went on like this: the goal was not to destroy the man, but his property; to turn it into collective property. People did not join the kolhosp for a reason. Consider someone who had four horses. Or another man in our village Syrotiuk who had sixty hectares of land. He didn’t say, “Look, I think I have too much land.” My cousin was married to Syrotiuk’s son, and she didn’t want to consider us relatives because we had a family of eight and only four hectares of land.

—Was Syrotiuk a kurkul?

Petro Ivanovych: Yes, he was. He didn’t want to join the kolhosp, so the authorities decided to confiscate his land.

—Perhaps he had a large family?

Petro Ivanovych: His wife, three children, and an old man. And sixty hectares. He didn’t work the land himself; other people worked there. He leased it to other people to make hay.

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—Were some people from your village exiled to Siberia? Did they come back?

Petro Ivanovych: Some were exiled. They were not punished too severely or driven to death. Those who accepted the system stayed. We had some younger men—Sashko Yehorychiv and Sashko Lavrynenkiv—whom the local Komsomol activists told to go and work in industry. “Here you’d be considered kurkuli, and there you could be respectable working people. No one will bother you. You will work; you just have to renounce your property.” They went to work in the factories, but others were exiled. Those who had served their sentence, came back. Some came back here, and most of them came back to Moscow or Tula, in the cities. Here’s an example of kulaky from our village Bilousenky; Nastia from their family lived here. They were exiled. Then they came back and went to live in Moscow and were given excellent apartments there, as is right and proper.

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—How many homesteads were there in your kolhosp in 1929?

Petro Ivanovych: In the village, we had 360 homesteads.

—How many of them joined the kolhosp?

Petro Ivanovych: In 1929, only nineteen joined. In 1930, the people saw how mass collectivization looked and all were suggested to join. Some of the people joined the kolhosp willingly, and the other ones were not sure. Some were also under the influence of anti-kolhosp activism.

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—Did the people in your village join the kolhosp voluntarily, because they were forced to, or out of conviction?

Petro Ivanovych: First, most people joined out of conviction that they had to. Then the poor ones went because of the need—they didn’t have enough land. The land and the tools had to be collectivized so people could work together. The rich ones were not in a hurry to join the kolhospy and were persuading the poor ones not to join either. But everything changed quickly. It was not forced but mandatory. They introduced collectivization. It was hard in the beginning as people were harming collectivization.

—How did they harm it?

Petro Ivanovych: By not joining the kolhsop. Those were the richer ones and those from the poor ones who were persuaded by the rich.

—In what way did they cause harm though?

Petro Ivanovych: They campaigned against the kolhosp, saying they would not live in the kolhosp.

—Any practical actions on their end?

Petro Ivanovych: Some caused harm.

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—How many Twenty-Five Thousanders were assigned to your village?

Petro Ivanovych: Three. Later on, students from higher education institutions were tasked with this.

—From what towns did they come?

Petro Ivanovych: For instance, two were from an institute in Kyiv. They rented rooms from us.

—What did these students do?

Petro Ivanovych: They would give talks about what a kolhosp was, how it worked, and why it was set up. They provided information, that sort of thing.

—How was this done? Were those lectures?

Petro Ivanovych: In every kutok [corner] of the village there was a so-called village reading room. The people would come there for such meetings.

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Petro Ivanovych: During this time, they sent the so-called “Twenty-Five Thousanders” [urban activists] and they were responsible for setting up the kolhosp. We had a famine in 1932 and 1933 because the fields were not sown. Not everyone had the necessary attitude to work.  They thought maybe it was temporary.

—So, the kolhosp fields were not sown?

Petro Ivanovych: Right, the kolhosp fields. Then in 1934 they started sowing once again and in 1935 there was a harvest. In 1936–1937 they recovered  to the pre-famine level: a landowner used to harvest 1,600 kg from a desiatyna that he owned, and he would harvest from the kolhosp land as much. In 1938 there was enough grain and potatoes in the kolhosp. Prior to 1938, the pay was administered at the end of the year and the days worked were marked in the register. During a meeting of agrarian leaders of the oblast [region] in 1938 (I attended it), it was agreed to draft instructions to pay people according to their productivity. This document was drafted, and from the year 1938 people have been paid according to their productivity: whoever worked harder and produced more earned more. Labor was encouraged. If you exceeded the goals, you got an extra percentage of the wages. I, for instance, worked in the pigsty, and all the time…

—Was this before the war?

Petro Ivanovych: Yes, before the war.

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—After collectivization, who was the highest authority in the village?

Petro Ivanovych: The head of the village council. After the kolhosp was introduced, we had workers’ representatives for three or four years. The heads of the kolhospy were appointed right away. At first, we had a local head of the kolhosp when our kolhosp was small, for just about twenty-five households. When the full-on collectivization began, they sent us Kumeiko as the head of the kolhosp. He was smart, I must say. He was from the working class and came here with his family.

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—Was there any punishment for people who didn’t come to the meetings?

Petro Ivanovych: Nothing at all. The people knew when the meetings were announced, and we lived in harmony. The kolhosp workers were on good terms with the kolhosp administration.

—So, there was no punishment for people who didn’t attend the meetings?

Petro Ivanovych: No. Those who were interested went to the meetings, and the old folks didn’t. Some would go to meetings if they fell on a holiday. Decisions about various issues were made during these meetings.

—Were the meetings held often?

Petro Ivanovych: No, as needed. The general meeting was held three times a year. Some other ones were held to discuss administrative issues. There were also meetings on May 1, March 8, the October holidays, and the New Year. This is when the best workers got awards and the bad ones were mentioned.

—Did this start from the first days of the kolhosp?

Petro Ivanovych: Yes, yes.

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—When you lived in this neighborhood [kutok], what was it called?

Petro Ivanovych: Sira.

—Is it still called that?

Petro Ivanovych: Yes.

—Did the names like “the first brigade” or “the second brigade” appear after the kolhospy?

Petro Ivanovych: The streets got their names long ago. When you enter the village, you have Reshetylovka. Further on was a store and then Nyzhcha. The street with the willow trees was called Zhabokriukovka; the one that leads here was called Husarka (people used to raise geese here). Our neighborhood was called Sira, meaning that “siriaky” [likely name of a family, Siriak] lived here. The neighborhood close to the village was called Selo, and the part at the edge of the village was called Verbovka.

—Why Verbovka? Is this because of the willow trees?

Petro Ivanovych: Yes, willow trees grew there.

—Did the brigade-based names exist alongside or were they introduced after the kolhospy?

Petro Ivanovych: The “brigades” appeared after the kolhosp. They split the village into ten parts—ten brigades. From here to there was one brigade. This, for example, was the fourth brigade. It was densely populated. The fourth brigade was from here to the store in Horobia including Tylhonova street.

—Does this mean that the people worked in the same brigade or was this a tentative division?

Petro Ivanovych: This was how it was divided. Land was divided into fields and then into brigades. Each brigade had a plan of what to sow—the amount of tobacco, for example—and the brigade would work in that field together. There were ten brigades and ten brigade leaders. Toward the end, this number decreased to three brigades, and now we have just one brigade.  [due to de-population of the village over time].

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—Was there a general assembly (zbory) in the kolhosp?

Petro Ivanovych: Yes, it was mandatory.

—Was everyone under obligation to attend it? Where was the assembly held?

Petro Ivanovych: In the club.

—Did everyone attend or were people forced to go?

Petro Ivanovych: No.

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—When was the church closed down?

Petro Ivanovych: I think it was closed down in 1928–1929, and then in 1934, right, 1935, 1936, and 1937—they took it apart and made a club. In 1937, we already had a club.

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—You said the startsi used to come to your village. Do you remember what year it was?

Petro Ivanovych: I remember this was between the 1920s and the 1930s.

—Where did they come from?

Petro Ivanovych: They were often asked this question. Some were from Salne. It’s a very poor, wretched village nearby. Then there was Petrivka—a landowner’s village [ekonomia], also poor. Some people lived like this just to survive. They’d get a piece of bread or some flour from people.

—Did some startsi play musical instruments or sing?

Petro Ivanovych: Yes. There were some disabled folks or the blind ones. They would go around with their harmonia or the barrel organ. Some would come into a house to sing.

—Did they sing without instrumental accompaniment?

Petro Ivanovych: Yes, without. The poor ones would cross themselves and ask for alms or say a prayer. Most would just come in and say, “Please give me anything you can.”

—Did the blind people come?

Petro Ivanovych: Yes, they would go around with the blind.

—Did some of them sing?

Petro Ivanovych: Yes.

—Was there anyone who played the bandura or the lira (hurdy-gurdy)?

Petro Ivanovych: Rarely. Most of the startsi at the time were the ones that sang or played harmonia like the blind ones did on the trains. He would go through the train cars or sit in a train car and play; people gave him money. The ones that came to villages were the ones who had their legs or the blind with their guides.

—Who were the guides: children, women, or men?

Petro Ivanovych: Mostly boys, but I don’t know if they were their children or not.

—Were there such startsi in your village?

Petro Ivanovych: Startsi? No, there were none in our village. There were poor people who went around asking for alms, for example—but you don’t know them—Halia Sukhenko and Olia Sukhenko. They lived at Vdovenkova’s. Their father died in the war. Their mother was old with three children and a small plot of land. They didn’t have any horses or cows and were poor. They used to wear rags. The boy and the girl (siblings) came to the meadow here when I was grazing the cow. We made a fire. Then they brought a few potatoes and put them in the fire. When the potatoes were ready, they ate them with such appetite that they smeared their faces. They were dressed in rags and had these smeared faces—poor people. They didn’t go home, so I took them to our place where we had a warm cellar with hay inside. I went to our house and asked my mother for some milk and bread. I came out and fed them and let them stay in the cellar. These were the little startsi of the village, and the conditions they lived in.

—How did village residents treat these people back then?

Petro Ivanovych: Some who were poor themselves gave them something, and some rich ones—like the one who lived here… I told you about the relatives of the old woman Domakha—would tell the starets, “Go ask the Committee of Poor Peasants!”