“As the currently accessible records confirm, the forced collectivization of the countryside was nothing less than a war waged by the Soviet state against an entire nation of smallholder farmers. In total, more than 2 million peasants were deported, and this number amounted to 1,800,000 in the period of1930-1931 alone. Six million farmers died of starvation, hundreds of thousands of them during the deportation. These few numbers show the magnitude of this human tragedy, this great ‘rush’ on the peasantry. The war was by no means confined to the winter of 1929-1930 but lasted at least into the mid-thirties and was at its peak during the years 1932-1933 when there was a terrible famine that was deliberately brought about by the authorities to break the resistance of the peasantry. The violence against the peasants gave the rulers the opportunity to try methods that would later be used against other social groups. In this respect, violence constitutes a decisive phase in the development of Stalinist terror.” Source: “Black Book of Communism: Crimes, terror, oppression” (De Arbeiderspers) 1997, page 199 (Dutch edition)
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