The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-02-03
This is the third installment of the speech
delivered at the Conference of Marxist
Agraran Research, on December 9th, 1929.
BY J. STAIN.
(Continued)
4. The Town and the Village.

mere EXISTS a preJuQlce winch is cultivated
by the bourgeois economists, relating to the So
called Scissors Ruthless war must be de-
clared against this prejudice, as we'll as against
all other bourgeois theories which, unfortunate
ly. are spread in the Soviet press. l have in
mind the theory that the October Revolution
allegedly gave less to the peasantry than the
February revolution, that in fact the October
revolution gave nothing to the peasantry.
This prejudice was for time circulated in
our press by Soviet" economist. 1t is true
this "Soviet" economist later on abandoned his
theory (Interjection Who was IT'D 1t was
Gromann. This theory was, however, seized
upon and made use of by the Trotzky- Zinoviev
opposition against the Party. Nor one
maintain that it is not current at the present
time in circles of the "Soviet public" That is
a very important question. 1t touches the
problem of the relations between town and
country. 1t touches the problem of annih,sat-
ing the state of contradiction between town
and country. I think, therefore, that it is
worth while for us to deal with this strange
theory.
Is it true that the peasants received nothing
from the October Revolution?
Let us have look at the facts
/ have before me certain table worked out
by the well-known statistician Comrade Men,
chinow. According to this table the land own
no less than 600 millions pools of grain. That
represents very great power which the Ku-
laks at that time had at their disposal. The
village poor and the middle peasants produced
$500 millions pools of grain That was the
situation in the old village, in the pre-reSolu-
tionary village. What alteration has taken
place in the village since the revolution?
l take the figures relating thereto from the
same table. Let us take, for instance, the year
1927. How much did the land owners produce
in this year? 1t is clear that they produced
nothing and in fact could not produce any,
thing, because they were annihilated by the
October Revolution.
it is plain that this must have meant a great
relief for the peasantry. as the peasants have
been freed from the yoke of the land owner.
That is naturally great advantage which the
peasantry have derived from the October Revo-
luton. How much did the kulaks produce in
the year 1927? Six hundred millions pools of
grain as compared with 1000 before the revo-
luton. Thus in the period following the revou-
ton the kulaks have lost more than two-thirds
of their economic power. 1t is obvious that
this was bound to ease the situation of the
village poor and the middle peasants.
And how much did the poor and middle peas
ants produce in the year 1927? Four thousand
millions poors as compared with $500 before
the revolution, that is to say, that after the
October Revolution the poor and middle peas
ants produced and half milliart pools
more grain than in the pre-revolutionary time
These are facts which show that the poor
and middle peasants have received great
benefit from the revolution How one as
sert in the face of these facts that the October
Revolution has not given the peasants any
thing?
But that is not all. The October Revolution
abolished private property in land. did away
with the sale and purchase of land, and in
troduced the naturalization of the land. What
does that mean? That means that the peas
ant has no need first to buy land in order to
produce grain. Formerly he was compelled to
save up for years in order to be able to get
hold of little piece of land; he got into debt,
submitted to extortion, solely in order to get
possession of a piece of land. The sums ex-
pended on the purchase of land naturally went
into the value of the grain produced The
peasant no longer has need to do that now.
He can now produce grain without buying land
Now does that ameliorate the position of the
peasant or not? 1t is clear that it ameli-
crates the position of the peasant.
Moreover, up to recently the peasantry was
compelled to cultivate the soil with the old
stock and implements and by individual labor.
Everyone knows that individual labor, equipped
unsuitable, does not yield that profit which
is necessary in ones own material position,
to develop ones own level of culture and to
get onto the path of socialist construction. To-
day, after the increased development of the
collectivization movement, the peasants have
the possibility of combining their labor with
the labor of their neighbors and uniting in the
collective farms, to cultivate waste land and
woodlands, to obtain machines and tractors and
thereby double or even treble the productivity
of their labor. That means that today the
peasant, by joining the collective farms has
the possibility of producing much more than
formerly with the same expenditure of labor.
That means that grain can be produced much
more cheaply than was the case until only re-
Gently That means, finally, that while the
price Of bread remains the same, the peasant
can obtain much more than he did hitherto
How can one maintain after all this that
the peasant has not gained anything by the
October Revolution?
Is it not clear that people who talk such nom
sense SANDER the Party and the Soviet power?
But what follows from all this?
There follows that the question Of the
"scissors" (the disproportion between the
prices of industrial and Of agricultural pro-
ducts-Ed.), the question of liquidating the
scissors" must today be approached in quite
another manner. That means that the Scissors
will be done away with in the near future if
the collectivization movement grows at the
present rapid rate. 1t follows, therefore, that
the question of the relations between town and