But the vast majority of members of the brigades that searched villages for food in 1932–3 were not outsiders. Nor were they motivated by hatred of Ukrainian peasants, because they were Ukrainian peasants themselves. More importantly, they were the neighbours of the people whose food they stole: local collective farm bosses, members of the village council, teachers and doctors, civil servants, Komsomol leaders, former members of the “poor peasants’ committees” from 1919, former participants in de-kulakization. As in other historic genocides, they were persuaded to kill people whom they knew
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