Abstract
The vital role of literature in bringing new subjects to public attention was again demonstrated by fiction on the subject of collectivation and the repression of the peasantry published in the years 1987–81 Some outspoken works on this theme had appeared before Gorbachev’s accession,2 but since 1982 there had been a clampdown on further works on collectivization until early 1987, when the publication of Part Two of Boris Mozhaev’s Peasant Men and Women again brought this subject before the reading public.3 The aim of Mozhaev’s novel, set in two fictional villages in Mozhaev’s native Ryazan province, is to register ‘the last months in the life of the peasant community, and the destruction of its thousand-year-old way of life’.4 The controversial nature of Mozhaev’s work, completed in 1980,5 is demonstrated by the fact that even when it finally achieved publication in the USSR, it appeared only in the provincial journal Don, which had a relatively small circulation and was not easily available in the country at large, except in public libraries.6 Moreover, the journal also felt the need to include an introduction by Academician Tikhonov of the Lenin Agricultural Academy, who endorsed Mozhaev’s novel as ‘valuable’ and ‘useful’, confirming that the events depicted are based on fact, and that Mozhaev does not exaggerate the extent of the tragedy.7
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes and References
For discussion in the press and historical journals, see A. Nove, Glasnost in Action: Cultural Renaissance in Russia (London, 1989), pp. 73–81;
R. W. Davies, Soviet History in the Gorbachev Revolution (London, 1989 ), pp. 1–2, 47–58.
M. Alekseyev, Drachuny (M., 1982); for earlier, cautious references, see I. Stadnyuk, Lyudi ne angely (M., 1962 );
V. Tendryakov, Konchina, Moskva, no. 3 (1968). Articles on collectivization by historians such as V. P. Danilov had also appeared before Gorbachev’s accession.
B. Mozhaev, Muzhiki i baby, Don, nos 1–3 (1987);
see also A. Tvardovskii’s Po pravu pamyati, Znamya, no. 2 (1987); NM, no. 3; discussed by E. Sidorov, LG (4 March 1987), p. 4; see above, pp. 43–4.
B. Mozhaev, ‘Ot avtora’, Don, no. 3 (1987), p. 106. The first part of the novel depicted the villages in the NEP period; see B. Mozhaev, Muzhiki i baby (M., 1976). For further discussion of Part I, see D. Gillespie, ‘History, Politics and the Russian Peasant: Boris Mozhaev and the Collectivization of Agriculture’, SEER, vol. 67, no. 2 (April 1989), pp. 183210.
See, for example, M. Alekseyev, LG (25 November 1987 );
Yu. Chernichenko, LG (13 April 1988); extracts from a previously unpublished novel by V. Sosnyura, LG (11 May 1988 );
V. Astaf’ev, KP, (12 May 1988 );
I. Tvardovskii, Yunost’, no. 3 (1988), pp. 10–32.
A. Platonov, Kotlovan, NM, no. 6 (1987); for another classic work on this theme, see Nikolai Klyuev’s poem Pogorel’shchina, NM, no. 7 (1987).
J. Brodsky, ‘Catastrophes in the Air’, in Less than One ( London: Penguin, 1987 ).
On this issue, see I. Klyamkin, NM, no. 11 (1987);
R. Medvedev, Sobesednik, no. 18 (1988).
V. Danilov, ‘Tret’ya volna’, VI, no. 3 (1988), p. 22. See also Danilov’s article in VI KPSS, no. 7 (1987), pp. 144–5 which condemns Mozhaev’s ‘completely stupid conception’ of the mistakes made in the first collectivization drive of 1930, and takes issue with Tikhonov’s introduction.
R. Medvedev, Let History Judge (Oxford, 1989), p. 99.
For the plethora of interpretations of Belov’s work, see V. Pankov (ed.), ‘Kanuny’ Vasiliya Belova. S raznykh tochek zreniya (M., 1991).
A. Turkov, ‘Davnie grozy’, DN, no. 4 (1988).
V. Belov, Vse vperedi, NS, nos 7–8 (1986).
V. Belov, Part I of God velikogo pereloma, NM, no. 3 (1989); translated by D. Gillespie in Soviet Literature, pp. 3–68 (1990); Part 2 was published in NM, nos 3–4 (1991); Part 3 was announced in NS, no. 4 (1993) for publication in the second half of the year. For Belov’s nationalistic statements, see above, p. 23.
For earlier literary references to the famine, see M. Alekseyev, Drachuny (1982);
A. Stadnyuk, Lyudi ne angely (1962).
For further discussion, see R. Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror famine (London, 1986 );
extracts published as R. Conkvest, Zhatva skorbi, in NM, no. 10 (1989); VI, nos I, 4 (1990).
V. Tendryakov, Konchina, Moskva, no. 3 (1968).
Yu. Afanas’ev, LR (17 June 1988); countered by P. Kuznetsov, Pravda, (25 June 1988 ).
V. Tendryakov, Khleb dlya sobaki, NM, no. 3 (1988), p. 19.
V. Tendryakov, Para gnedykh, NM, no. 3 (1988), p. 18, had already cited Roy Medvedev’s figures in Let History Judge, and Stalin’s own statement, reported in Winston Churchill’s The Second World War, that the casualties attendant on collectivization possibly amounted to 10 million people. By 1988 Medvedev’s book had not been published in the USSR, and only parts of Churchill’s memoirs had been translated.
V. Grossman, Vse idet…, Okryabr, no. 6 (1989), chapter 14; see below, pp. 120–2.
Yu. Prokushev, LG (9 March 1988 );
Yu. Maksimov, LG (6 April 1988 );
K. Myalo, ‘Oborvannaya nit’. Krest’yanskaya kul’tura i kul’turnaya revolyutsiya’, NM, no. 8 (1988), pp. 249;
V. Kozhinov, ‘Samaya bol’shaya opasnost’, NS no. I (1989), pp. 141–75.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1995 Rosalind Marsh
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Marsh, R. (1995). Collectivization and the Repression of the Peasantry. In: History and Literature in Contemporary Russia. St Antony’s Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230377790_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230377790_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-39103-5
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-37779-0
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)