One Sunday morning, when the time came to start the liturgy, none other than Bondar appeared at the altar. Without the slightest hesitation, he announced that he was our rightful priest. As if trying to avoid questions and protestations, he immediately started singing some verses in his powerful bass voice. We never received any explanation.
Later that day we learned that our old priest was gone. We never found out what happened to him; we could only guess that he had been taken away by the secret police during the night.
This all happened before the church was destroyed. There was an attempt by the church elders to find out what was going on, but all in vain. Bondar kept silent, and so did the village officials. Soon, some church elders and other active villagers began to disappear. Then the villagers started to pass the news to each other that, in confession, the new priest was very much interested in the political opinions of the penitents. It suddenly struck us that the new priest was a secret police stooge and provocateur. Bondar’s survival of the Propaganda Brigade’s assault on the church strengthened our suspicions. As we recalled, no one could find him on that fateful day. We had no doubt in our minds that he had received instructions and a warning from his bosses in advance.
After the Propaganda Brigade left the village and the ruined church behind, Bondar’s disguise was dropped. He openly associated with the Party and government officials and with their political line. This explained why he neither protested the destruction of our church, nor tried to reopen it or provide for religious services in some other way. He started to appear wherever Comrade Zeitlin and other Party officials were. He spoke at every political rally like one of their officials. Interestingly, he continued growing his beautiful beard and long hair. Indeed, he still looked like a priest.
We soon learned that Comrade Zeitlin and other officials called him Saint—Comrade Saint. The villagers, on the other hand, had their own name for him. They called him Judas—Comrade Judas.
The brigade stayed with us almost one week. We had not been allowed to leave the village all this time except for working in the fields. In the evenings, we had to stay at home, listening to the propagandists.
On Friday, the brigade left in the direction of a neighboring village, where cannon rumbling could be heard.
But we were not relieved. The army, and later the Propaganda Brigade, had now shown us the nature of Party policy. The message was clear: the Party and government had ordered compulsory collectivization, and that was what would be done.
So the trap had snapped shut, and we realized that there was no way out. Hastily introduced measures were now pulling the villagers deeper into the new system.
When the last columns of the Propaganda Brigade had left the village square, we thought we would be left alone for a while. We were tired, and confused, and deafened by the noise. We were all greatly concerned about the collectivization of our farms. Without his own land, a farmer could have neither material security nor freedom. In the course of just a few weeks so many incomprehensible and frightening events had passed. Multitudes of people had tramped through our yards and had eaten our food without asking, and our beloved church had been destroyed. We were terrified. We felt that something horrible was approaching, and we saw no escape.
The next Saturday, the last Saturday in February, less than a week after the departure of the Propaganda Brigade, more strangers arrived in our village. These were GPU men, a small detachment of security troops, and many militiamen. Patrols walked everywhere, even in the most remote corners of our village. The greatest shock came when we saw a heavy machine gun set up in the ruins of the church, manned by three soldiers. A few other machine guns were posted around the square.
We discovered that we were being carefully guarded. A sentry was posted on every main road which led out of the village. His duty was to keep track of everyone leaving or entering the village. Those sentries checked not only peoples’ identities, but also their belongings. Everyone had to give detailed information concerning his destination and reason for leaving the village.
We took the cruelty and lawlessness in stride. We were prepared to be arrested without a warrant, or to be deprived of our property. We were used to unjust taxes and extortions under various pretexts. But we did not expect such a measure of control over our everyday routines.
On that same Saturday afternoon, the village was alerted by messengers who ran from house to house, summoning the farmers to a meeting which was to take place the next day. All heads of households were ordered to appear on the village square. There was no choice.
In the middle of the square was the raised platform on which the propagandists had danced a week ago. This was the place for the speakers and officials. Portraits of the Party and government dignitaries were displayed on the platform. Party slogans hung below the pictures.
Around the platform stood armed sentries. From the ruins of the church, the machine gun faced us. Heavily armed soldiers walked around the square. And in the middle of the square, the farmers stood, huddled together, silent but restless, for it was very cold.
At the appointed time, the officials appeared on the platform. The schoolchildren started to sing the anthem. The teacher conducting them urged the farmers to join in the singing, but they remained silent.
As soon as the last words of the anthem faded away, the chairman of the village soviet opened the meeting and introduced the officials from the county government.
Three commissars stood on the platform. They were the commissar of GPU, the commissar of the county Party organization (whom we had met when he commanded the Propaganda Brigade), and the commissar of the MTS.[12] The village functionaries also stood on the tribune. The Thousander, Comrade Zeitlin, the chairman of the village soviet, and the leaders of the Komnezam and the Komsomol stood close behind the county commissars.
After the introductions, the chairman of the village soviet announced that the Party commissar was to make a speech.
Comrade Commissar started his speech with all the pomp of a typical Communist orator. He took a place at the front of the tribune, coughed into his fist, drank some water from the glass handed to him by Comrade Zeitlin, glanced indifferently at the gathered farmers, and started.
It was the typical speech we had come to expect from a Communist official. He quoted all the fathers of Communism, and spoke about every revolution that had occurred since Adam and Eve. He described the miserable life the farmers in foreign countries led, and how savagely they were exploited by the “imperialistic sharks.”
Then he changed his tone of voice, and spoke of the happy life in the Soviet Union. Paradise existed in the Soviet Union; a paradise on earth.
“Could a meeting such as this take place somewhere else, in the capitalist countries?” he asked plaintively. “No,” he hurriedly answered his own question. “No! There is no freedom there, and the farmers like you,” he pointed to us with both his hands, “the farmers like you don’t have this privilege. They don’t have their own meetings….”
His rhetorical hysteria continued. Several times he repeated himself. Only after naming all the parts of the world, and after using all his profanity to describe “the imperialistic sharks,” did he finish his speech, calling on the farmers to join the collective farms, and warning that there were many kurkuls among us.
“Kurkuls are our enemy,” he shouted, “and we must exterminate them as a social class. There should be no place for the sharks among the harmless fish,” he added. Then he described the kurkuls as an evil tool of capitalists who were preparing an attack on the Soviet Union.
12
MTS is an abbreviation for Machine and Tractor Stations, a state enterprise which, until 1958, supplied all machine works for collective farms. For their services, MTS received payments in kind. Since January 1933, when the political sections were established, MTS became the main force behind the expropriation of agricultural products from farmers.