The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-11-02
Collective Farming in the USSR

of the middle peasants is that when
they join the collective farms they
lose all their inventory and every
thing else goes to the State, while
restitution awaits the peasants.
Finally, those peasants who are
active social workers are absolutely
terrorized. They are threatened
with murder or incendiarism-fre-.
quently carried out-and often cor
rupted by drink or money.
In view of this intensified class
struggle in the Soviet countryside,
it is of the utmost importance to
develop the initiative and activity
of the poor-peasant sections and
strengthen their connections with
the middle peasants. The most i'm
portant object of Soviet rural pol
icy is to- isolate the rich peasantry,
paralyze their influence over the
middle peasantry and to draw the
latter into the work of Socialist
constructor. By taking the poor
peasantry as a firm basis, by in
creasing their class-consciousness,
their social and economic activity,
and maintaining the closest contact
with the middle-peasant masses, the
Communist Party has brought into
being a tremendous social move
ment in the country-a cultural and
economic advancement among the
peasantry that has found its express
sion in the construction of collec-
tive farms. The day-to-day work
of the collective farms is disclos-
ing such persistence in the over
coming of difficulties and such So
cial initiative on the part of the
collective farm population as to
show already that they are begin
ming to outlive the centuries-old
narrowness and torpor of the peas
ant. The building of schools, clubs
and hospitals, the sending of the
children to Workers. Faculties and
Universities, the collection of funds
for these purposes, organized lead
ership in the respective fields of
work-au these things are bring
ing about tremendous changes in
the psychology of the peasantry.
The collective farms are cultural
and social centre. The club, the vii
lage reading-room, the agronomical
consulting station, the schools, the
lying-in hospitals-all take the
place of the "traktir" (inn) and the
church, where the Kulak and the
priest once reigned. The economic
services rendered to the non-col-
lectivized population by the bigger
collective farms makes the latter
into starting points for the economic
elevation of the poor and middle
peasants and for the advance
against capitalist elements in the
countryside. (Such services include
stations for the hire of machinery,
seed-sorting and breeding stations,
while the superior cultivation of the
land and bigger harvests also rep
resent propaganda in fact.)
1t is quite clear that given such
class relations, any wavering in the
attack on the rural capitalist ele-
ments, any deviation from clear
cut class line represents a weaken
ing in the position of the working
class in the countryside. The
decisive repression of the Right
deviation is an essential prerequisite
for the collectivization of rural
economy. A conciliatory attitude
towards Right-wing vacillations
would act as a brake on the So
cialist transformation of the coun-
tryside. A decisive struggle
against these errors is therefore
necessary for the development of
Socialist construction in the
U.S.S.R.