The Communists detested the peasants for two reasons. While Stalin willingly assumed the role of executioner in the drive to destroy the traditional Russian village, it was the early Bolsheviks’ profound loathing for the peasant way of life which paved the way for the use of starvation as the ultimate expression of Soviet power. What further elevates the study is the illumination it casts on Communism’s irreconcilable hostility to the independent farmer. The Harvest of Sorrow ranks as a significant achievement simply by presenting a thoroughly researched account of this neglected story. Even among those who abhor his brutal rule, Stalin is much more likely to be remembered as the man who terrorized his fellow Communists than as the “killer of peasants,” a description which was to seal the doom of the poet who wrote these words, Osip Mandelstam.
Yet this tragic episode has remained obscured in a thick fog of official Soviet lies and the indifference of the West. Altogether, upward of fifteen million people died as a result of the forced collectivization campaign instituted during the early 1930’s. Its subject is one of the most shameful chapters in Soviet history: Stalin’s war against the peasants. The Harvest of Sorrow qualifies as a monumental contribution toward an understanding of the modern totalitarian state.
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