THE CATASTROPHE 91
migration") was not proceeding in a panic-stricken manner,
but quite regularly.
Mr. Denny tells us of one particular party of Apostolovo
refugees—a smallish group of emigrants who had come
into the Apostolovo district because they were attracted by
the previous year's record crop. He mentions that, unlike the
permanent dwellers in the region, they had no grain reserves,
had nothing to lose, and packed up their scanty belongings in
the hope of finding better things in more distant fields. This
time they were going to Western Siberia, where the current
harvest was good but the harvesters were inefficient. He
observes that they might spend their whole lives looking for a
good harvest and that they would always be a year too late.
If credence may be attached to reports which reached
Warsaw about events in Central Asia during this period, there
were regular battles between the peasants and the Govern-
ment troops during the grain-collecting campaign. The accounts
say that hundreds were killed and wounded in the fighting
between Red troops and local Mohammedans who opposed
the removal of the grain by State officials. After the fight-
ing, representatives of the various villages, including several
Mohammedan clerics, were executed by a special detachment
of the Ogpu. Only then was it possible to deprive the peasants
of the yield of the harvest "according to plan."
The Kremlin was compelled during this period also to
sacrifice the vital interests of the agricultural population to
those of the workmen and privileged classes. An example is
to be found in a wireless debate (pereklitschka), which took
place on December 24, 1934. This was one of those conver-
sations between Moscow and individual local officials on the
local food supply situation which for a time took place almost
every night* One of Stalin's most trusted assistants, Comrade
Jakovliev, was^talkingto Koporovsky, the representative of the
Soviet officials at Minsk. The latter said that no mare than 30
per cent of bread requirements were covered up to January I,