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The 25,000 against the bureaucracy
Upon arrival, the 25,000 immediately had to fight against the bureaucracy of the local apparatus and against the excesses committed during the collectivization.
`Regardless of their position, the 25,000ers were unanimous in their criticism of district-level organs participating in collectivization .... The workers claimed that it was the district organs which were responsible for the race for percentages in collectivization.'
398403
Ibid. , p. 103.
Zakharov, one of the 25,000, wrote that no preparatory work had been done among the peasants. Consequently, they were not prepared for collectivization.
399404
Ibid.
Many complained of the illegal acts and of the brutality of rural cadres. Makovskaya attacked `the bureaucratic attitude of the cadres towards the peasants', and she said that the functionaries spoke of collectivization `with revolver in hand'.
400405
Ibid. , p. 109.
Baryshev affirmed that a great number of middle peasants had been `dekulakized'. Naumov allied himself with the peasants attacking the Party cadres who `appropriated for themselves the goods confiscated from the kulaks'. Viola concluded that the 25,000ers `viewed rural officials as crude, undisciplined, often corrupt, and, in not a few cases, as agents or representatives of socially dangerous class aliens'.
401406
Ibid. , p. 141.
By opposing the bureaucrats and their excesses, they succeeded in winning the confidence of the peasant masses.
402407
Ibid. , p. 135.
These details are important, since these workers can be considered to have been direct envoys from Stalin. It was precisely the `Stalinists' who fought bureaucracy and excesses most consistently and who defended a correct line for collectivization.
Fri Aug 25 09:03:42 PDT 1995