Boris Boguslavskiy

This is my father Boris Boguslavskiy in his office in Kharkov in 1931. In summer 1928 my father went to Kharkov region as a collectivization officer. He fell ill with typhoid there and was brought to Kharkov unconscious. My grandmother Zlata contracted typhoid from him. It took a lot of effort to nurse them back to health. It took my father a long time to recover from what he saw in the villages - the forced removal of bread from farmers, the expropriation of kulak property and the deportation of those that opposed the authorities to Siberia. It was awful for him to have to participate in these processes. He had to because he was a member of the party and believed what the party was doing to be right. Later my father held a number of official posts. My father Boris Boguslavskiy, after recovering from typhoid, was the director of a factory that processed raw materials for the manufacturing of felt, wool and other fabrics. The factory was located in a neighborhood of Kharkov called Bavaria for some reason. The collective of employees of the factory corresponded with German communists that even visited Kharkov. My father had a picture taken of him and Wilhelm Pieck. This was before 1933 when the fascists came to power in Germany. Around 1936 my father finished a special course for political officers of the Red army and was waiting for a job assignment as a commissar of a division in the Far East. There was a delay.