The Village and the Class War

Anti-Kulak Campaign in Estonia

Description
Table of contents
Reviews

Before collectivization of agriculture in Estonia, “kulaks” (better-off farmers) were persecuted and many of them were finally deported in March 1949. This book is situated on the local level; the aim is to understand what these processes meant from the perspective of the Estonian rural population, a kind of study that has been missing so far.

Analyzes the mechanisms of repression, applying new aspects. Repression was mainly conducted through a bureaucratic process where individual denunciations were not even necessary. The main tool of persecution was a screening of the rural population with the help of records, censuses and local knowledge, in order to identify, or invent, “kulak families”. Moreover, in the Estonian sources, the World War II history of each individual was a crucial part of screenings. The prisoners of war of the Red Army, held in camps in Estonia, played an unexpected part in this campaign. Another result is a so far neglected wave of peaceful resistance as the kulak identifications were challenged in 1947-48. This has not been addressed in the existing literature. The results mainly answer the question “how” this process worked, whereas the question ”why” finds hypothetical responses in the life trajectories of actors.

List of Tables and Graphs
List of Photographs
Preface

1. The Land Question in Estonia
1.1. Agriculture and the First Soviet Year 1940–41
1.2. Nazi Occupation 1941–1944
1.3. Reconstruction of Soviet Estonia
1.4. Estonians Living in the Soviet Union
1.5. Land Reform 1944–45
1.6. The Anti-kulak Campaign, 1947–49
1.7. Deportation
1.8. The Aim of the Book
1.9. Organization of the Book

2. Soviet Repression as a Special Case of State Violence
2.1. Research into Violence in the Soviet System
2.2. Kulaks and Collectivisation in 1929–32
2.3. The Estonian Anti-kulak Campaign
2.4. Comparing Anti-kulak Campaigns in 1929–32 and 1947–49
2.5. Aspects Pursued in this Local Study
2.6. The Soviet Estonian Archives

3. The Anti-kulak Campaign
3.1. Seizing Power
3.2. Local Authorities
3.3. The Land Reform
3.4. Persecution of the Kulaks Begins
3.5. Was there Freedom of Action?
3.6. The Kulak Taxes
3.7. The Exclusion of Kulaks
3.8. From Campaign to Deportation
3.9. Liquidation of the Kulaks
3.10. The Extent of Local Participation

4. Inventing Kulaks
4.1. The Process
4.2. The Voices of Kulaks
4.3. The Appeals
4.4. Retroactive Soviet Law
4.5. Negotiations Concerning Exploitation
4.6. Negotiations Concerning Prisoners of War
4.7. The Political Criteria
4.8. Kulak Strategies
4.9. Negotiation as Participation
4.10. The Result of Negotiations: Kulak Declarations.

5. Participation at the Local Level
5.1. The Local Nomenklatura
5.2. The Cadre Policy
5.3. The Reluctant Henchman
5.4. The Ambitious Bureaucrat
5.5. The Tender Wolf
5.6. Persecute or Perish
5.7. Persecution as a Social Process
5.8. Communist Party and Councils in Viljandi County
5.9. The Security Forces
5.10. Why did Local People Participate?

6. Epilogue of March 1949
6.1. Rapid Collectivisation
6.2. Division of the Spoils
6.3. Stepping Out of Line
6.4. Not on the Deportation List
6.5. A Normal Stalinist Purge
6.6. The Purge of ECP in 1950
6.7. Lessons of the Campaign

7. The Grammar of Terror
7.1. Responsibility and Participation
7.2. Participation and Discourse
7.3. Participation in a Bureaucratic Procedure
7.4. Participants—How did They Get There?
7.5. Openness and Legitimacy
7.6. The Importance of War
7.7. A Grammar of Terror?

Appendixes
Bibliography
Index

Forschungen zur Baltischen Geschichte

"Kõlls Fokus ist neu: Sie beschäftigt sich nicht mit der Kollektivierung an sich, ihren ökonomischen Voraussetzungen und Resultaten, und sie geht auch kaum auf die Deportationen vom März 1949 ein, nach denen bekanntlich die Zahl der Kolchosbauern in die Höhe schnellte. Im Zentrum der Aufmerksamkeit steht der Prozess der Selbstzerfl eischung der dörfl ichen Gesellschaft, der selbst aufgetragen wurde, „Kulaken“ zu identifi zieren – d.h. diejenigen, die als „Feinde“ aus der Gemeinschaft auszuschließen waren. Es geht Kõll somit darum zu zeigen, dass im Gegensatz zur Gewaltgeschichte des Holocaust, in der Opfer und Täter klar voneinander zu scheiden sind, der Prozess der Sowjetisierung bewusst so angelegt war, um eine ähnliche Trennung in „Böse“ und „Gute“ zu verschleiern. Damit sieht Kõll auch einen Gegensatz zur nationalen estnischen Meistererzählung, die nach wie vor davon ausgeht, das „Böse“ sei ausschließlich in äußeren Kräften zu verorten. Kõll macht zwei wesentliche... more

American Historical Review

"The blurb on the dust jacket of this important study of collectivization in Estonia in 1947-1949 lauds it for contributing to Baltic history by showing how everyday Estonians also participated as subjects in Stalinist terror. This Anu Mai Kõll indeed does, and very effectively; she also looks at how and why so many ordinary people participated in the brutality. But more important is the book's contribution to the growing historiography of collectivization, particularly collectivization beyond the classic case of the Soviet 1930s."

Russian Review

"Kõll questions the degree to which the campaign in Estonia was class-driven and implemented by outsiders. Through careful comparison of local evidence from three local soviets in Viljandi, she finds substantial variation in dekulakization, including the criteria used in kulak selection and the numbers of those so identified. Within this context she uncovers both collaboration and a surprising degree of resistance by local leaders and the village population. One of the most interesting discoveries is the numerous letters supporting appeals for reconsideration of those labeled as kulaks, including letters by the very local soviet officials who selected them. The book underscores the impact of German occupation on dekulakization in Estonia. Kõll consistently finds that using Red Army POWs during the German occupation and other behavior which might be interpreted as pro-German led to kulak status. The consequences of living between Germany and the Soviet Union during World War... more

Slavic Review

"Focusing on three townships in Estonia’s Viljandi County, Anu Mai Kõll demonstrates how the Soviet regime, despite its shortages in manpower and lack of legitimacy among the subject population, attempted to create a new society in rural Estonia. Yet this study is not only about the victims of Soviet power; it is also about the participants in the creation of Estonia’s new order. Directly addressing an earlier historiography that has sometimes portrayed dekulakization in ethnic terms (Russians versus Estonians) or as a matter of locals struggling against the imperatives of the center, Kõll demonstrates that while decision makers in Moscow made the choice to persecute local populations, 'the implementation and its consequences were on the other hand strictly local.' Participation was simply the least bad option for local Estonian administrators (many of whom were not members of the Communist Party) who had to consider the fate of their own families and thus needed to... more