Evening star., 1932-07-31

to sell fixed quantities Of foodstuffs to
the government each year at almost
nominal fixed prices. Thus the Soviets
returned. in but a slight disguise, to
the method of the reQuisitions, which
had been abandoned since 1921. To
enforce these grain collections thouS-
ands of officials, often accompanied by
troops, were sent out to villages.
Collective Farm Plans.
Simultaneous with this still more
important article of the rural socialism
program was being energetically en-
forced; with both words and bayonets
peasants were urged voluntarily" to
form collective farms by pooling their
landholdings and cattle. Communists
always had advocated collective farm
ing, but the hurry and violence with
which they now pushed the COLLECTIVE
zation drive" were different. Closely
watched and managed in collective
farms by reliable Communists, peasants
would lose their economic independence
entirely; and it would be infinitely
easier for the government to collect
grain from such large, closely knit units
than from scattered individuals.
Finally. as finishing touch, Stain
decreed the determination of kulaks
(well-to-do peasants) as q class To
Communists, kulaks were the last bull
wark of bourgeois individualism in Rus
sia and the chief instigators of the
grain sabotage" Of 1928; hence they
now were dispoSSeSSed and evicted by
hundreds of thousands and their prop
erty was turned over to collective farms.
Feeling that mortal blow was being
A@ f1NAfr fw,I
stubbornly resisted Stains offensive
In the Fall and Winter of 1929-1930
the Russian countryside was plunged
into chaos. At night, in some locah-
ties, the sky and the sinewy dirt roads
were tinged with purple reflections of
fires, and scattered rifle shots could be
heard. Peasants hid or burned their
grain mot to be robbed Of it,; they
smashed the tractors sent to collective
farms, derailed trains and with their
spades split the heads of grain COL
lectors.
Many Are Executed.
OF course the Soviets pitilessly re-
taliated with many executions. And
as the Winter of 1930-31 approached
the peasants resistance was broken. It
Uoo q NOAl1k4CIC AoAACA4bAJy
SubmiSSively, in enormous crowds, they
docked to collective farms. Soon 60
per cent of them were collectivized
Thus, in the War for Gain, Stain
won the first round; rural socialism
was established
But why did he, in May, 1892, after
but three years of its application, con-
siderably amend it by readmitting the
peasant to the free market?
First of all, since having killed Cor
virtually killed. the free trade Of 1929,
the Soviet government took upon it
self the responsible task of distribut-
ing the foodstuffs on ration cards to
the city population. And it proved to
be absolutely unable to do this salts
factorily
During these years millions of tons
OF grains, vegetables and meat wreSted
from peasants by the government have
been unaccountably lost, due to the
disorder of the Soviet administration.
Soviet papers have constantly an
nounced that, at such-and- such an
"open-air concentration point" food
stuffs delivered by peasants had been
lying for weeks, until they had COM
pletely rotted in the mud, rain and
snow; that, near Krasnodar of Khar-
kov, so many thousands of COWS and
swine, jammed into freight cars, were
marooned on badly disorganized Soviet
railroads and perished without water
and fodder.
Chronically Empty Co-operatives.
Thus, although more than adequate
quantities of products have been levied
from villages, queues of city dwellers
always have stood before chronically
empty or half empty co-operatives.
The government has been unable to
feed properly even the industrial work.
men, this aristocracy of the Soviet
Union. Even Soviet statistics, usually
so inflated with optimism, show that
in the years of the five-year plan the
consumption by workmen of meats, fats,
sugar, white bread, etc, has decreased
by % per cent.
1t is, then, to this state Of affairs
that the recent restoration of private
trade is in part due. As the Soviet
government euphemistically explains it
in its DEGREES, it wished ito make the
supply of the city proletariat with food
stuffs still better than it was; it is
hoped that with the temperance Of
the peasant at the bazaars the prices
of the free market will drop.
Yet the chief cause Of the present
reform lies elsewhere.
After their Victory In 1923, the So
viets literally bled the countryside
white by squeezing out of it unrea-
sonably great quantities Of foodstuffs.
In 1881, for instance, they collected
from peasants 80 per cent of their total
grain crops, up to 80 per cent Of "spe-
cial cultures" s(beets, sunhower seed,
etc., and an adequate amount of cat
tie. Peasants were left not only with
out any surpluses, but often even with
not enough food to support themselves.
This led to a twofold result. First Of
all, definitely ruined and often UNDER
nourished. the peasant found himself
physically unable properly to cultivate
his land And. in the second place, he
sank into complete indifference and
apathy. What is the use Of working"
CONTINUED on Third Page.)