The Gulag Archipelago: Part 6, Chapter 2: The Peasant Plague Summary & Analysis

Solzhenitsyn details the brutal and tragic history of the Soviet dekulakization campaign and the forced deportations of peasants. The campaign, which began in 1929, led to widespread suffering and death as millions of peasants were branded as "kulaks" and stripped of their property, forcibly exiled, or killed. The Soviet regime specifically targeted industrious and independent peasants, the backbone of rural Russian society, in a violent attempt to push collectivization and crush resistance. Villagers who managed to build a modest life for themselves were punished harshly, and entire families were uprooted and sent to desolate, uninhabitable places, often without basic supplies or food.

Solzhenitsyn describes the inhumane treatment these peasants endured during their forced relocation in detail. Families, including children, were loaded onto carts or sledges in freezing conditions and transported to remote areas where survival was nearly impossible. The settlements chosen for them lacked water and arable land, making subsistence farming unfeasible. Peasants died en masse from starvation and exposure, with no hope of aid or rescue. The regime’s cruelty extended to forbidding local residents from helping the exiles, ensuring they were left to die. Despite the harsh conditions, some exiles survived through sheer resilience and built up communities. Yet even these isolated communities were eventually discovered and accused of anti-Soviet activities.