Tag #146877 - Interview #92395 (Igor Lerner)

In the beginning of 1930s authorities started struggle against homebrewing. [Brewing relies on the conversion of sugars into ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide by yeast through fermentation. In the USSR it was considered an administrative offence.] It was the beginning of struggle against kulaks [3]. Soviet representatives used to say ‘The citizens starve, and you spend grain for brewing.’ I remember well that from the city there came sailors girt about with cartridge belts. They used to come to our house and say to my father ‘Munchik (they called him Munchik for some reason), show us who is engaged in homebrewing here? Who has got a lot of bread?’ You see, my father was one of the activists, therefore all hooch stills deforced from its owners were stored in our yard. In the hooch stills the sailors found some raw stuff, managed to finish the process, bottled the brew and forced my Mom to butcher and grill a ram. You understand that those sailors spent their time very well.

Later struggle against homebrewing gradually transformed to subtraction of peasants’ grain. Peasants tried to hide grain underground, but in vain. Sailors came again and again. Father invented the following trick: he put me (a child) upon a bag of wheat and instructed me the following way: ‘When they start taking the bag away, cry loudly and don’t give it away!’ Sailors tried to pull the bag out from under me, I cried and held on to it. The sailors said to father ‘We know you to be a conscientious person, you understand that we cannot fight against the child, give us your grain in an amicable way.’ Father gave them MY bag, and they left very pleased (they did not search any more). In 1932-1933 authorities took away ALL grain they found: they did left grain neither for eating, nor for the following sowing. Therefore I am sure that that terrible starvation in Ukraine was caused not by natural phenomena (i.e. bad harvest), but by the communist party line.