The Counter-Revolutionary has been translating entries from a 1954 Soviet encyclopedia into English. I asked him to translate an entry on the Kulaks.
Who were the Kulaks? Long-time readers will recall that I wrote about them here as well as here. We also published a submission on them here. The short answer: they were generally poor rural farmers who owned small plots of land. Stalin killed between 5 and 10 million of them in what he called his de-kulakization program. At one point, all it took was being an inconvenience to the regime to be labeled a "filthy blood-sucking Kulak."
The description of the Kulaks from the Soviet encyclopedia is bone-chilling.
Some people have no idea--no idea--how important freedom of speech and the press really are.
Ah yes, the mind-numbing effects of the communist dogma.
"This man makes too much bread AND owns the land. He is evil. He is a detriment to the party. He must be eliminated." 1954 Russia? Hardly. Cuba in all its backward revolutionary glory.
Do you have a source for that quote Val ?
Bobby,
I was not quoting someone directly perse. I took the "bread" idea from the link Dean provided and basically applied it to Cuba because the situation there is the same as in the old Russia. But, if you really want some info on the way the Castro regime deals with similar situations, visit www.cubanet.com.
And, of course, who was really a kulak was determined by one's willingness to join the farming collective...join, you're not a kulak no matter how well off you were (and, hey, you'd probably be placed in charge!), fail to join and you're a kulak, even if you didn't have a pot to piss in....
Of course, what it also shows is the amazing uses hatred and bigotry are put to..."the rich", "kulaks", "white male power structure", "neo-cons"....make your enemies into a group, say that group is sabotaging the good life and then go about destroying the group....
There is an inherent vileness in any sort of political thinking which can be traced back to Marx; how any decent person can become involved in it is beyond me.
Maybe the biggest crime of the Kulaks was that they were successful farmers and even giving up a portion of their grain to the State, they still lived better than the fully collectivized farmers. Here was living, breathing proof to the peasants that collectivization was a failure. The simple answer to this "dichotomy" from the power structure: kill 'em.
Yes, the collective farms--the Kolkhoz--were an abysmal failure. The Kulaks were blamed for this, and then when the Kulaks were gone, "saboteurs" were blamed for it. Eventually, they gave up on them entirely because they never worked.
My mother-in-law from Poland says she remembers the Kolkhozi very well, and how everyone knew there was no food in those places. Every smart person stayed away from them.
Another reason for the abject failure of collectivisation was the mass migration from city to country by zealots. Grain that the Kulaks stored for seed was confiscated by the ignorant townies. The Kulaks were accused of hoarding and sentenced to death. No seed - no harvest the following year, hence mass starvation. I will check out the web link Val - thanks. There is no way I would defend Castros human rights record, but I think your comparison with the depths of Stalinism is wide of the mark.
Val, tried the link and got a travel site - it's a popular destination for Scots these days ! Thanks anyway.
Like the site Dean.
Bobby,
I have three paperback books, written by a former Fidelista, that list the names and details of all the people the Castro regime killed. Granted, Stalin's numbers were much higher, but the two country's populations aren't the same either. I really don't think comparing Castro to Stalin is too much wide of the mark.
Ah yes, those "filthy evil commies" who had the NERVE of trying to make life better for the poor... Perhaps you should actually look into the methods that the kulaks used for getting hold of the land of the poorer peasants before you consider them to be innocent angels.
Not that I'm defending Stalin or his ilk, mind you - anyone who has read a word of Marx knows that the Soviet Union was about as "communist" as the People's Democratic Republic of Korea is "democratic".
Don't just assume that anyone waving a red flag and building statues of Lenin must be a perfect marxist communist. Read The Revolution Betrayed:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1936-rev/
Usually, stalinists try to use silly dogma and paranoia to blind people to the obvious fact that they are about as far from communism as you can possibly get.
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