Red Bread: Collectivization in a Russian Village

by Maurice Hindus, Ronald Grigor Suny (Foreword)

First published in 1931 and long out of print, Red Bread is Russian-born journalist Maurice Hindus's account of his return to his native village in 1929-30 to see for himself how Stalin's collectivization campaign was transforming the lives of the peasants among whom he had grown up in prerevolutionary times. This warm and human narrative conveys in personal and immediate terms his peasant neighbors' responses to being forced out of a centuries-old way of life and into the unfamiliar social setting and industrialized large-scale agriculture of the kolkhoz. Convinced that collectivized farming would bring Russian agriculture and the Russian peasant into the modern age, Hindus was nonetheless deeply troubled by the huge social cost and personal suffering inflicted by Stalin's ruthless campaign. Red Bread contributes an invaluable grassroots perspective on the era's dynamism and despair to the current discussion of the Soviet historical experience in the Soviet Union and the West.

Genres: History, Russia, Nonfiction

392 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1988

Reviews

[Scott Callahan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting for its on-the-ground perspective. This is supposed to be nonfiction, but many of the events and conversations seem too fantastic to be real. Still worth reading though.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish I'd been able to take my time and absorb this book but I was on a deadline. It's a collection of observations and stories from a man travelling through the Soviet Union during Stalin's five year plan. As he interviews and interacts with people within and without the Kolhuz, he paints an interesting portrait of how people felt towards collectivization. I believe the book is out of print, but I have a copy that anyone can borrow.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sympathetic contemporary examination of Soviet collectivization. An interesting artifact from before the time of the fracturing of the Left.

[Rob · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read as part of college curriculum.