This is a history of ‘rotten’ people. Thousands of them returned victorious from fighting against the Germans in World War II to their ‘bad soil’ in Soviet Ukraine from 1945, but had to keep fighting until the end of that decade. Now they were fighting against their own Soviet government, which obstructed them from rebuilding their villages, farms and what remained of their pre-war lives. These people were not wartime collaborators, forced labourers or other ‘traitorous’ Soviet citizens whom officials normally discriminated against and slandered after the war. Numerous works have been published on their experiences. The people whom authorities called ‘rotten’ were decorated war veterans and committed kolkhozniki, whom authorities were supposed to assist in, not obstruct from, rebuilding post-war Soviet society.