The Village and the Class War

"The blurb on the dust jacket of this important study of collectivization in Estonia in 1947-1949 lauds it for contributing to Baltic history by showing how everyday Estonians also participated as subjects in Stalinist terror. This Anu Mai Kõll indeed does, and very effectively; she also looks at how and why so many ordinary people participated in the brutality. But more important is the book's contribution to the growing historiography of collectivization, particularly collectivization beyond the classic case of the Soviet 1930s."—American Historical Review

"Kõll questions the degree to which the campaign in Estonia was class-driven and implemented by outsiders. Through careful comparison of local evidence from three local soviets in Viljandi, she finds substantial variation in dekulakization, including the criteria used in kulak selection and the numbers of those so identified. Within this context she uncovers both collaboration and a surprising degree of resistance by local leaders and the village population. One of the most interesting discoveries is the numerous letters supporting appeals for reconsideration of those labeled as kulaks, including letters by the very local soviet officials who selected them. The book underscores the impact of German occupation on dekulakization in Estonia. Kõll consistently finds that using Red Army POWs during the German occupation and other behavior which might be interpreted as pro-German led to kulak status. The consequences of living between Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II scarred Estonian society not only during the war, but continued to shape the destinies of Estonians until the collapse of the USSR."—Russian Review

"Focusing on three townships in Estonia's Viljandi County, Anu Mai Kõll demonstrates how the Soviet regime, despite its shortages in manpower and lack of legitimacy among the subject population, attempted to create a new society in rural Estonia. Yet this study is not only about the victims of Soviet power; it is also about the participants in the creation of Estonia's new order. Directly addressing an earlier historiography that has sometimes portrayed dekulakization in ethnic terms (Russians versus Estonians) or as a matter of locals struggling against the imperatives of the center, Kõll demonstrates that while decision makers in Moscow made the choice to persecute local populations, 'the implementation and its consequences were on the other hand strictly local.' Participation was simply the least bad option for local Estonian administrators (many of whom were not members of the Communist Party) who had to consider the fate of their own families and thus needed to demonstrate their loyalty to the new system. For rural Estonians, the late 1940s was a time of confl icting loyalties (victims and participants were often closely related) and unpredictable outcomes. The local community 'was not united against Soviet officials; it was still negotiating the boundaries of the permissible.' According to Kõll, the story of Soviet repression in Estonia was not about evil persons and denouncements; it was about a drawn-out bureaucratic process that 'was carried out through a systematic screening of the entire population with the help of records, archives and local knowledge'. 'The face of evil,' she concludes, 'seemed to be more bureaucratic than personal'."—Slavic Review