The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-12-15

Ben Field recently returned
from a study Of conditions in the
U.S.S.R. He attended the Writ
ers Congress and visited many
collectives. He contributed to
Pravda, KOlkhoznik, The Literary
Gazette, and is American CORE
spOndent for the Soviet Peasants
Gazette and the French Voice of
the Peasant" This is the first of
four articles dealing with life
among the farmers and peasants
Of the Soviet Union.
BY BEN FIELD
WHENEVER there is a holiday OF
" celebration in the Soviet Union,
the big square opposite the Peasant
Guest House in Moscow is sure to
be full of flowers and vegetables
from the Stain Collective truck
farm. For May Day, International
Youth Day, Nov, 7, Stain Collective
farm sends out its products, its ma
chinery, even pictures of its best
farm workers. There is compete
ton between this square and COL
lective Farmers Square which is
near the building OF the Peoples
CommisSariat of Agriculture. There
is competition between the Stain
Farm and the Smychka Farm,
whose farmers make Is rubles a
day throughout the year. There is
friendly socialist competition be-
tween the Stain farmers and trac-
tor drivers like Ivan Bashta, who
has recently set a worlds record by
sowing in eight hours 203 acres with
caterpillar tractor and a 5-hole
sowing machine.
The Stain Collective is only
about stones throw from Moscow.
You can spot it on the northern
highway with its flower garden, the
red star and the great head of
Stain made out of flowers. And
here I spend an afternoon with a
correspondent for an English capt.
talist paper and a Russian emigre,
now banker in France.
The English correspondent has
been in Russia before and is en-
thusiastic about the progress on
collective farms in the last two
years. Only she insists that farm
ers in Poland are also well of. It
seems she has not heard of the
armies of pacification sent into the
Polish Ukraine by the Pilsudski
government nor of the 60 Polish
peasants hanged from one village
alone. The ernigre has obviously
been here before. He says nothing,
looks at the earth and then off at
the horizon where a single church
still sticks up a Spire like silver
watch key.
Three of the collective farm peo-
pie show us around. There is the
chief agonomist Lozovoy with his
bright eyes, soft brown beard. His
trouser legs are fastened with bike
clips. He is joined by Chairman of
the Board of Directors Margolin and
by Vice = Chairman zameyetan,
Party member who served through
the World War, the revolution and
the civil war and was sent by the
Party nucleus to help run Stain
farm so that it will be able to sup
ply Moscow workers with food and
flowers.
Stain collective was established
in 1880. Three hundred individual
peasants, the population of seven
su bur b a n villages, pooled their
horses and labor The Moscow City
Council helped by giving the new
collective land. The collective COW
cred 420 hectares of land, 80 of
which were not arabic. In 1881 the
city had to take 40 hectares there
are 2.5 acres to a hectare) paying
the collective for all expenses and
investments. Moscow couldn't help
herself. Her population was rapidly
increasing, she was growing out
powerfully into the country. In
1892 the city was again compelled
to take more land. Now the COL
lective is one-fifth of its former
size.
No Conflict Between City
and Country
But there is no conflict here be-
! tween city and country as you find
under capitalism. The Stain COL
lective farmers are no longer the
peasants of the old days who, like
all suburban farmers are in the
very hot breath and paws of the
greedy capitalist city. In the first
place Moscow gave the collective
much of its land without asking for
a kopek. Then the city paid the
collective for all its expenses and
investments. The city has never
arbitrarily fixed prices at which the
collective had to sell. The city is
run by workers. The collective is
represented on the bureau which
sets prices in Moscow. Members of
the collective themselves help set
and control prices for their own
farm products. And now to cap it
all the Soviet city has helped the
collective by giving it fine farm
about fifteen miles away, the former
estate of Leo Nazov, Baku oil king.
Stain Collective farm is what
bourgeois economists like to call a
Submarginal farm. The land is hilly,
stony, half of it looks like dumps.
In the United States farming such
land drives the poor farmers deeper
and deeper into debt, giving the
hawks of the bankers and insurance