Suddenly a voice called from the back: “Join it! We don’t want to stay here all night long!” That was a good chance for Shevchenko to get off the hook.
“If you are that eager, come here and sign it yourself!” he shouted back and quickly went to his place, disregarding the chairman’s order to stay where he was.
The chairman at first insisted that Shevchenko return to the official table. Then he angrily urged all who were present at the meeting to come up and sign for the collective farm. But we remained adamant. No one moved.
The officials were not discouraged by our silent opposition. They seemed to have been well instructed in what to do in such a case. As the farmers continued to keep their silence, and the situation was becoming embarrassing, Comrade Professor offered a suggestion. He thought it would be appropriate to celebrate such a “highly patriotic and happy occasion” by sending telegrams to the Central Committee of the Communist Party, to the Soviet government, and to Comrade Stalin. And, without waiting for our consent, Comrade Professor produced a piece of paper out of his pocket and started to read. This was a telegram which stated that, after having attentively listened to the “highly patriotic and educational” speech of the district representative,[10] and after having realized what advantages a socialist agricultural system had over that of an individual one, the farmers of the First Hundred (it was our good fortune to belong to the First Hundred, and we were often called upon by officials to prove ourselves worthy of being Number One) solemnly promised to achieve one hundred percent collectivization by the first of May.
This was a ridiculous promise, as far as we were concerned, but none of us dared to criticize the telegram. It was adopted unanimously.
The chairman then returned to his previous business. He tried to smile this time.
“Well, since we agreed upon, and promised to achieve, a hundred percent collectivization,” he said casually, “there is no point in wasting time, eh?”
He waved his pencil and paper over his head.
“Come and sign up, eh?”
We all stayed in our places.
“Come on! It’s late,” he urged us. “The sooner you sign in, the sooner you go home.”
No one moved. All sat silently. The chairman, bewildered and nervous, whispered something in the propagandist’s ear. The latter got up briskly and reminded us, as if we were kindergarten children, that it was not nice to break a promise, especially one given to Comrade Stalin. Since we had promised to join the collective farm, we had to do it now. But his fatherly admonishment did not move us. We kept our silence. This irritated the officials, especially the chairman. A moment after the propagandist finished his admonishment, the chairman rushed from behind the table, grabbed the first man before him, and shook him hard.
“You…you, enemy of the people!” he shouted, his voice choking with rage. “What are you waiting for? Maybe Petliura?” Petliura had been a Ukrainian leader during the war for independence a decade before. All his followers were later persecuted in one way or another, and now the label “Petliura” meant death. But the farmer remained calm.
“Take it easy,” the farmer said composedly. “The telegram says that we must join the collective farm by May first, doesn’t it? It’s February now, isn’t it? Why hurry?”
This seemed to have disarmed the chairman completely. He had not expected this turn of events, nor had any of us. Probably every farmer in the house was trying to find some way out of the trap set by the telegram, and here was the solution. We still had plenty of time!
The chairman hesitated for a second or two, then he took his hands from the man’s shoulders, and went back to the table. There he conferred with the propagandist. As we watched them talking, we saw the propagandist take a paper out of his pocket and correct something on it. It was obvious that they were preparing some other trick.
“Before this meeting adjourns,” started the propagandist, “it is only appropriate that we adopt a resolution.” Then he started reading from the paper he held in his hand. The resolution was quite similar to the telegram, but with one difference: the word “May” was replaced by the word “immediately.”
“Those who are against this resolution, raise your hands,” announced the chairman. The officials knew that not many would vote for it. On the other hand, they were sure that no one would dare vote against it. As expected, no hand rose against it. Then, the chairman announced that the resolution had been accepted by all members of the First Hundred. Immediately he raised his pencil and paper again.
“Who’s next?” he asked, pushing the pencil and paper to the opposite edge of the table.
Silence. The farmers stared ahead, unmoving. The chairman, drumming on the table with his fingers, looked down. Two militiamen stood at the doorway, barring the way out.
The silence was interrupted by Comrade Professor. He got up and glowered at the audience.
“What does this mean?” he hissed. “Is this a silent rebellion?” And then, after a deliberate pause, he told us that the Communist Party had given us an opportunity to join the collective farm voluntarily, but we, ignorant farmers, had misused this chance and had stubbornly defied the Party’s policy. We had to join the collective farm now! If we did not, we would be considered “enemies of the people” who would be exterminated as a “social class.” Having said this, he sat down.
It made no sense to us, for the words “voluntarily” and “must” did not mesh. We knew he meant what he said, however. Still, no one responded to his threats.
Both of them, propagandist and chairman, seemed exhausted. They looked at us in silence. We were silent also.
This state of affairs could not last for long. With so many people packed in a small room, something was bound to happen, and soon it did. A man asked to leave the room. The chairman said no, he could not leave the room as long as he refused to join the collective farm. For that matter, no one could leave the room. Only those individuals who had already joined the collective farm could go out. The propagandist whispered something in the chairman’s ear, then announced:
“Yes, all those comrades who have already joined the collective farm must go home!”
We noticed that he said: “must go,” not “may go.” All the functionaries, except for the progagandist and the chairman, started to leave the room. Some of them did it reluctantly, for as we knew, they did not want to be different from the rest of us.
The man who had asked to go outside still stood like a schoolboy before the teacher.
“But I must go!” he insisted. It was obvious he had to go to relieve his bladder.
“Take him outside, and bring him back immediately!” the chairman ordered one of the two militiamen.
So the man left the room under escort, like a prisoner, leaving us behind with the embarrassing thought that he would have to do his business under the watchful eyes of a Party man. Then, like mischievous schoolboys, other farmers asked to go outside. We were curious to see how the chairman would solve this problem with just one militiaman left.
“Nobody is going outside!” he shouted. “And that’s that!” Some brave souls tried to insist on their right to answer the call of nature without official interference, but the chairman said those wanting to go outside were “enemies of the people” who wanted to undermine the meeting.
Having overcome this “toilet rebellion,” the chairman and propagandist again conferred with one another.
“Whoever is for the Soviet regime and collectivization, raise your hands,” the chairman ordered.
The farmers hesitated.
“You mean you are against the Soviet regime?” the propagandist hissed. “Isn’t that an open rebellion? You mean, you would dare to do that?”
10
A Party representative was the one who represented the Communist Party. But this designation does not express the true meaning of this title. It should be understood as “Party Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Representative,” one with unlimited and arbitrary power to command, control, and demand.