Our hostess said:

 

“Oh, it is terrible!  We used to have three cows, two horses, sheep, and ten chickens: now look around the dvor [farmyard] is empty, and we only have two chickens. Now we only get half a litre of milk a day.  We used to have as much as we liked; one cow used to give fifteen litres a day.  That is why my children look so pale and ill.  How can it get better when we have no land and no cows?”

 

Our friend the president came in to say goodnight to us, and, of course, stayed to talk.

“There were forty Kulak families in this village." he told us, “and we’ve sent them all away [proudly].  We sent the last man only a month ago.  We exiled the entire families of these people because we must dig out the Kulak spirit by the roots!  They go to Solovki or Siberia to cut wood, or work on the railways.  In six years, when they have justified themselves, they will be allowed to come back.  We leave the very old ones, ninety years and over, here, because they are not a danger to the Soviet power. Thus we have liquidated the Kulak!

 

“In June and July we had a campaign against illiteracy; there were a lot of illiterates.  We have liquidated the illiterates and now there is none at all.”