ABSTRACT
Pavlik Morozov and his ancestors were pioneers in the old, nonpolitical sense of the word settlers of virgin land, people prepared to suffer hardships for the sake of a better life for themselves and their children. The Soviet press was historically unprecedented, not only in that a whole family was made into a political terrorist organization but also in that the main audience for which the trial was intended were children and adolescents. Fifteen years after the revolution, the family, particularly the rural family, resisted the political demands of the Bolsheviks; instead it asserted and defended itself. A son-informer undermined the family from the inside. Annihilation of private property and destruction of the family became the single focus of the Josef Stalin era. To some degree the verdict of the court in Tavda explains the real reasons for the repression associated with collectivization. The Kremlin had believed that collectivization would prevent a food crisis.
