166. Dubbed 25,000ers and “the best sons of the fatherland,” they were celebrated in the Vladimir Mayakovsky march “Onward 25!/Onward 25!” and Mikhail Sholokhov’s novel, Virgin Soil Upturned. Rabochaia gazeta, Jan. 28, 1930; Litsom k derevne, 1930, no. 4: 3; Viola, Best Sons, 65. A regime official would boast that more than 100,000 factory workers had taken part in forcing through regime policy in the countryside as of June 1930. XVI s”ezd VKP (b), 66; Ivnitskii and Ezerskii, “Dvadtsatipiatitysiachniki i ikh rol,’” 462, 489; Selunskaia, Rabochie-dvadtsatipiatitysiachniki, 67, 76–7; Davies, Socialist Offensive, 168, 208, 210–11; Viola, Best Sons, 43. The mobilization officially ended on March 25, 1931: Savel’ev and Poskrebyshev, Direktivy VKP (b), 844.
167. Viola, Best Sons, 2 (citing Trud, Feb. 2, 1930).
168. Viola, Best Sons, 63 (citing GARF, f. 5470, op. 14, d. 204, l. 47).
169. Carr wrote that “policy determined class.” Carr, Socialism in One Country, I: 99.
170. “O meropriiatiiakh po ukrepleniiu sotsialisticheskogo pereustroistva sel’skogo khoziaistva v raionakh sploshnoi kollektivizatsii i po bor’be s kulachestvom: postanovlenie TsIK i SNK ot 1 fevralia 1930 g.”: http://www.defree.ru/publications/p01/p40.htm#0724.
171. Fainsod, Smolensk under Soviet Rule, 245. “All properties were seized, including women’s cut hair, children’s shirts, bowls for syringing, tea cups, spoons, and bed linen,” one report in Perm noted. “Confiscated kulak belongings were used as a dowry during some marriages.” Suslov, “‘Revolution from Above,’” citing PermGANI, f. 2, op. 7, d. 124, l. 112–5: not before March 2, 1930.
172. Hughes, “Capturing the Russian Peasantry,” 99, citing GANO corpus 2, f. 2, op. 2–1, d. 3506, l. 2; op. 2, d. 366, l. 189–98.
173. Sevost’ianov et al., “Sovershenno sekretno,” VIII/i: 746–63 (TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 8, d. 53, l. 31–79: April 29, 1930), 764–71 (d. 655, l. 500–9: May 14, 1930).
174. Viola, Peasant Rebels, 117 (citing GARF, f. 5469, op. 9, d. 398, l. 23). In Smolensk province, as elsewhere, party members were warned “to stay away from the windows” at work, and not to walk village streets at night. Fainsod, Smolensk under Soviet Rule, 241.
175. One published account has only fifty 25,000ers being killed or seriously wounded, an improbably small number. Selunskaia, Rabochie-dvadtsatipiatitysiachniki, 145 (no citation).
176. Fainsod, Smolensk under Soviet Rule, 245.
177. Reports also were going to Stalin tracing speculation among European diplomats about a possible Soviet attack against a weak Romania. He wrote on the reports: “to my archive.” RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 184, l. 53–93; Khaustov et al., Glazami razvedki, 312–3 (l. 77–8: Feb. 11, 1930), 315–6 (l. 86–7: March 3, 1930).
178. For 1930, the OGPU would register 13,754 “group anti-Soviet protests” and 13,794 “terrorist acts,” about half against property. But a mere 176 actions were qualified as full-fledged “uprisings” and another 44 as involving arms. The police recorded around 5,000 cases of leaflets or anonymous declarations. These numbers are likely not comprehensive, but they indicate something less than civil war. Danilov, Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, II: 787–808 (TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 8, d. 679, l. 36–72 March 15, 1931). See also Viola, Peasant Rebels, 100–31. For the civil war argument, see Graziosi, Stalinism, 5–64. The secret police had recorded sixty-three riots and spontaneous localized rebellions over the two years 1926–27. Berelowitch and Danilov, Sovetskaia derevnia glazami VChK-OGPU-NKVD, I: 18 (TsA FSB, sekretno-politicheskii otdel OGPU, dokladnaia zapiska 1930: 32).
179. Vasil’ev, “Krest’iane vosstaniia” (quoting declassified local archives without citation); Vasil’ev and Viola, Kollektivizatsiia i krest’ianskoe soprotivlenie, 213–5 (TsGAOO Ukrainy, f. 1, op. 20, d. 3154, l. 39–40), 215–6 (l. 42–3), 21620 (l. 48–53); Danilov et al., Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, II: 279, 324.
180. Sochinenii, XII: 188 (Feb. 9, 1930). On Soviet war fears, see also the telegram from Litvinov to Alexander Arosyev, Feb. 28, 1930: DVP SSSR, XIII: 118. Stalin had been cognizant not to aggravate tense relations with Poland (which had once ruled Ukraine), anxious that the Poles might take advantage of Soviet troubles. German-Soviet relations were on a knife’s edge as well. Ken and Rusapov, Zapadnoe prigranich’e, 173–5 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 8, l. 53: Jan. 25, 1930), 538–43 (op. 162, d. 8, l. 114: March 11, 1930).
