To Comrades Yevdokimov, Messing, Prokofiev, Blagonravov, and Comrade Boky

The kulak problem is now so pressing, given the exacerbated situation (ongoing class struggle as agriculture is restructured) in the countryside, that it is necessary immediately to plan a whole host of measures to totally purge the countryside of the kulak element.

The kulaks must be destroyed as a class. With the wholesale collectivization of the countryside, as kulaks are thrown out of collectives, he (the kulak) understands perfectly well that he will perish with collectivization and therefore he renders more and more brutal and fierce resistance, as we see already, [ranging] from insurrectionary plots and counterrevolutionary kulak organizations to arson and terror. They will and are already burning grain, murdering activists and government officials. Unless we strike quickly and decisively, as we did during the grain procurements, by the time of the spring sowing campaign we will face a whole series of uprisings and a disruption of the campaign. By March-April, we must deal with the kulak, breaking his back once and for all. Apart from economic measures that we must also plan (which ones), it is imperative above all to devise measures of a repressive administrative nature, for instance: SOU [OGPU Secret Operations Administration] must work out oblasts from which kulak riffraff should be immediately exiled, arrested, and put in camps. This is the approach: (1) the especially inveterate ones go to camps, the family is exiled; (2) a kulak who conducts antisoviet agitation is banished to another locality, etc. This is a rough approximation. It is important to take account of the number with families and the exile locales, areas of the Far North and desolate places in Kazakhstan and other areas. It is essential to designate [the places of exile].

Please give me a brief summary by 14 January: 1. How many people have been arrested altogether in six months, i.e., since the beginning of grain procurements, by all authorities. 2. What the most dangerous areas are with regard to the level of activity (i.e., where people should be removed from first). 3. How many organizations, and which ones, we have liquidated during this span of time or for the year. 4. Comrade Boky, please tell me: (a) how many people can be taken into existing camps; (b) where new camps can be opened (besides Vaigach Island); (c) is it not feasible to set up, rather than a camp, an organized settlement where they (kulaks) can be voluntarily set up to work, without guards, and they can be given food and clothing during the initial period. They could be used not only to develop natural resources but also for agricultural work—plowing the land, etc.

We must approach the question of utilization from all sides, estimating the amount of money both for resettlement and for the setting up of camps. First we should expand to the limit those already operating, then open new ones, and organize and utilize the labor of exiles with their families. As a rule, all kulaks are to be exiled with their families.

I ask each of you to think through a whole host of measures for this operation. Please drop by to discuss this matter at about noon tomorrow.

Please do not pass on this memorandum to anybody or any place.