THE COLLECTIVE FARM
By LEON KIRIL
Tsarist Russia the peasants were divided into two broad classes, those who farmed communal land as members of a village une or Mir, and the peasant proprietors who owned freehold s. These were less than 12 per cent, of the whole. Both ses were, by western standards, poor and ignorant. Their hods were primitive and extravagant of labour, and their existence based on a natural economy in which they looked to their own for most of the necessities of life, selling only a meagre surplus buy those goods, such as window-glass, cotton-print, tea and • , which they were incapable of producing themselves. It is v fair, however, to note that considerable progress was made ing the last ten years of the old regime in extending education improving the condition of the peasants, but with a rural popula- of some Ito million not much impression could be made in a short period.
The Soviet Government allowed the peasants to carry on much their old ways until about 1929, for conditions were not yet ripe collectivisation. In 1930, however, an energetic campaign to per- the peasants to enter collective farms was opened, and by 35 the great majority of peasant farms and the peasants themselves • been collectivised. Even the best friends of the Soviet regime not attempt to deny that the Government resorted to ruthless and tal methods, the scars from which are still visible. But it is ually undeniable that the old type of peasant farm had become an chronism M the new Russia ; it was like keeping to horse-drawn Sins in a town with electric power, central heating and all modern Pprovements.
The concentration of agriculture into large-scale farming enter- nses was necessary for a variety of reasons, among the chief of iem the inability of small-scale farming fully to use and profit by leehanisation and science. The rapidly increasing heavy industry Nuked a market for its output of tractors: machines, motor-lorries, ri.in order to provide further capital for the expansion of the amnion industry. There was also the need of producing more )od to support the rapidly growing urban and industrial population ad. to economise labour on the land in order to release workers r Industry. The Soviet Government might have followed its industrial policy ad created large State farms in which- the peasants would be rallnyed as wage-earners. Instead, and probably wisely, it decided I base agriculture on the co-operative principle. Collective farms m theory co-operative enterprises in which the members enjoy It democratic right of controlling policy and management. In tactice, however, their free choice is strictly limited by the necessity [conforming to the general plan as drawn up by the Government, luuh to a great extent prescribes what crops are to be produced and What proportions. The farm-president, too, is in practice a trunee of the party, appointed as much to see that Government utructions and orders are properly carried out as to supervise the lemal administration of the farm. His loyalty is, in fact, divided
between the State and the members of the farm, and one of his principal duties is to see that the farm fulfils its obligations to the State in handing over the due quantities of produce. For this the State pays a fixed price, considerably below the price obtainable by the sale of the remaining surplus. Hence it is to the interest of the members to keep deliveries to the State to a minimum and to sell as much as possible on the open market. Some presidents, in order to curry favour with the political bosses, try to increase deliveries to the State, thus lowering the revenue of the farm. ...
The remuneration of the members takes the form of a distribu- tion in kind and money of the remaining surpluses after the farm has met all its financial dues and obligations in kind. The dividend amounts in the aggregate to about half the total money-income and about 25 per cent, of the grain crop. And each member's share depends on the number of " labour-days " he has earned during the year. A " labour-day " is not synonymous with a day's work ; it is rather a unit-task, such as area ploughed or dug, so many cows milked, &c. On an average one day's work is equivalent to about
"labour-days," but the number of " labour-days " earned by the individual depends on his skill and energy ; thus the principle of piece-work or payment by results is maintained.
Collective farms vary greatly in size ; the average in the agricul- tural regions of European Russia is about 2,000 acres, with zoo or more active workers. The greater part of the tillage is performed by the tractors and machines of the machine-tractor station's, whieh are State enterprises ; for it was found more economic in every way to concentrate the valuable machinery in special institutions than to distribute it among the collective farms. As a rule, the farms own only horse-drawn machines and implements and the necessary draught-animals for subsidiary cultivation and work unsuited to tractors. The machine-tractor stations in payment receive a certain percentage of the crops produced through the agency of their machines.
Such is a general outline of the structure of the average collective farm. Of more human interest is the life and condition of the members. The original discontent and suspicion of the Govern- ment's agricultural policy has largely evaporated, though among the ,older people there is still some hankering after the old days of private ownership and economic freedom. The discipline of the collective farm is often distasteful. But the younger members, having had no experience of the joys and tribulations of the inde- pendent farmer, are on the whole content with conditions as they are. Probably few of them would be capable in any case of running a farm on their own initiative, for the tendency is to specialise in some particular branch of agriculture or animal husbandry. In fact, the younger peasants are rapidly being transformed into a rural pro- letariat with ideals and a point of view more like those of the indus- trial worker than of the old-fashioned peasant. It is unquestionable that farming in the collective farms is becoming more of a precise science than an art. Many now possess their own little laboratories where experts breed insects to combat and destroy insect-pests, try out different combinations of fertilisers, experiment with cross- breeding of plants and do other interesting things, which they will show and describe with pride to interested visitors.
It is only natural that the foreigner sees the more prosperous and best organised farms ; for those in the neighbourhood of large towns and accessible are for that reason apt to be more up-to-date and efficient than those in the remote "black-blocks." My personal experiences, therefore, must be assumed to be rather favourable. However, what is outstanding today will be the commonplace of to- morrow, and by no means all the farms I have visited were special propaganda institutions. Generally speaking, it is the president or one of the higher officials who shows one round, and there is no doubt that the ordinary workers stand in some awe of him. They do not often volunteer a remark, and, of course, never contradict anything the official may say ; but there is no question of servility and, if one succeeds in finding a worker alone and having a chat with him or her, one of the first things one will discover is the pride they take in their own homestead, their private garden-plot and their own cow, pig and fowls. The average private property amounts to about if acres of land, one cow, one sow and any quantity of poultry. From these the household obtains a very considerable part of its subsistence, for the remuneration for working on the farm is not large. The reason for this is the vast expenditure of the State on research institutions, agricultural education and the construction of factories to manufacture an ever-increasing flow of improved machinery, which eventually will raise the standard of rural living to a height impossible to the small peasant farmer, but for which the agricultural community must first find the means.
Though the labour discipline enforced, the somewhat arbitrary powers enjoyed by the president and the officials, and the rigid limitation of private enterprise and initiative may seem to render the ordinary- farm-members little different from hired agricultural labour, their outlook is definitely not that of the wage-earner. They regard themselves, obviously, as collective owners of the land and all that goes with it, and this binds them together in a community of interest quite different from hired labourers with no sense of ownership. It is this sense of proprietorship and unity that has inspired the Russian peasants to supreme efforts to defend their land against the aggressor, not a little to the latter's surprise and disgust. For there is no doubt that the Germans, misled by those well acquainted with the country, and who should have known better, genuinely believed that they had only to promise to dissolve the collective farms and restore private enterprise to win the peasants over to their own side.
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