The Soviet regime’s dekulakization and collectivization campaigns of the 1920s and early 1930s proved to be one of the most repressive and violent periods in the history of the USSR. Millions of peasants were forced onto collective farms; many of those who were not collectivized were disenfranchised, disposed of their property, and later arrested, imprisoned, exiled or murdered.  Thousands of Mennonites in Ukraine were involved in this process — not only as victims of collectivization and dekulakization, but also as agents of the state and the repression that divided communities and families. In this virtual event, Colin P. Neufeldt examined the variegated and complex roles that Mennonites played in this very tumultuous and destructive period of Soviet history.

Colin Neufeldt is a professor of history at Concordia University of Edmonton, where his research focus is Mennonites in Soviet Ukraine. His publications include The Public and Private Lives of Mennonite Kolkhoz Chairmen in the Khortytsia and Molochansk German National Raĭony in Ukraine (1928–1934). Colin is also a practicing barrister and solicitor.

Sponsored by the Paul Toews Professorship Fund and the Centre for Transnational Mennonite Studies.