39. Suslov, “‘Revolution from Above.’” Better-off peasants rushed to sell their implements, kill off their livestock, and flee, prompting the regime to issue strongly worded orders to prevent self-dekulakization.
40. Popov, “Gosudarstvennyi terror,” 28–9; Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 492; Davies et al., Economic Transformation, 68, Unknown Gulag, 2, 6, 29–32 (GARF, f. 9479, op. 1, d. 89, l. 205; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 120, d. 56, l. 59). Timing varied: Uzbekistan’s dekulakization took place mostly in Aug. and Sept. Pokrovskii, Politbiuro i krest’ianstvo, I: 439–41 (APRF, f. 3, op. 30, d. 195, l. 157–8: Oct. 10, 1931). The state “planned” losses of 5 percent of the special settlers, but mortality was far higher thanks to the state’s unpreparedness for its own policy. Danilov and Krasil’nikov, Spetspereselentsy v Zapadnoi Sibiri, III: 10.
41. Between 1928 and 1931, on the territory of the former Moscow gymnasium no. 3, behind Lubyanka, 2, a new Constructivist edifice was built for the OGPU (Lubyanka, 12), with a distinctive façade and round windows on the top (seventh) floor. It contained 65,000 square feet of office space, a three-story department store, 120 residential apartments, a club, cafeteria, and 1,500-seat cinema. Pogonii, Lubianka, 68. As of July 1934, the OGPU would count 200,125 border guards and internal troops, another 18,000 convoy troops, nearly 200,000 in the regular police or militia, 18,951 in Gulag administration, and 20,125 field couriers, and others, for a total of 514,838—not even including state security (GUGB). Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 477–8 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 32, d. 8, l. 346–7). “Comrades, leave us in peace and don’t interfere with our work,” one exasperated professor at Tomsk University pleaded. Another professor at a technical school in Kiev remarked, “I do not intend ever to drive across a bridge built by an engineer from the workers.” Sevost’ianov et al., “Sovershenno sekretno,” VIII/ii: 1136–75 (TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 8, por. 435, l. 169–241: late May 1930).
42. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 9, l. 138. On Feb. 25, 1931, the politburo resolved by telephone poll to recommend that during the course of six months the OGPU “prepare” kulak settlements for 200,000–300,000 families near Karaganda in northern Kazakhstan. Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 263 (APRF, f. 3, op. 30, d. 149, l. 51). For a time, urgent requests for cheap “kulak” laborers skyrocketed, but sites that had large numbers of the deported often begged not to be sent any more: the ones they had were just dying. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 120, d. 26, l. 37 (Kuznetskstroi); Viola, Unknown Gulag, 4.
43. Solzhenitsyn, Gulag Archipelago, I: 56. See also Khlevniuk, History of the Gulag, 10–12, 16–7.
44. Of the 2 million slated for exile within their own region, a large number of these also fled to the construction sites after their property was confiscated for the collective farms. Zemskov, “‘Kulaktskaia ssylka,’” 3; Danilov and Ivnitskii, Dokumenty svidetel’stvuiut, 46–7. Actual criminals flourished in the tumult, a public order challenge. Shearer, Policing Stalin’s Socialism, 289.
45. Zelenin, Stalinskaia ‘revoliutsiia sverkhu,’ 52–3 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 120, f. d. 26, l. 77–85: June 26, 1931). On Oct. 12, 1931, Yagoda would report to Stalin on the completion of kulak operations in regions of wholesale collectivization. As of Jan. 1, 1932, the OGPU reported that 1.3 million people were in special settlements. Berelowitch and Danilov, Sovetskaia derevnia glazami VChK-OGPU-NKVD, III/i: 774 (TsA FSB, f. 2, op. 10, d. 379, l. 93); Khaustov et al., Lubianka: Stalin i VChK, 267 (APRF, f. 3, op. 30, d. 195, l. 163); Pokrovskii, Politbiuro i krest’ianstvo, I: 442; Davies and Wheatcroft, Years of Hunger, 47 (GARF, f. 9479, op. 1, d. 89, l. 206); Viola, Unknown Gulag, 6 (GARF, f. 9479, op. 1, d. 89, l. 205; d. 949, l. 75–9).
46. A Central Committee circular of Jan. 20, 1931, had directed local party organizations to conduct mass agitation to prepare for the spring sowing campaign, expedite the flow of households into collective farms via creation of initiative groups, dispatch workers who could repair tools and equipment, and prevent distribution of the harvest according to the number of souls, as in the previous year, but instead according to the amount of work accomplished. Partiinoe stroitel’stvo, 1931, no. 2: 61–2; Kollektivizatsiia sel’skogo khoziaistva, 354–6.
