Evening star., 1938-05-22
Russia's Bread Box Sows Crops
Anew, Aiming at 1887 Record
Prosperous and Apparently Contented Under
Collective System, Ukraine Hopes to Escape
From Hitler's Designs

of each brigade and of each member Is
planned with elaborate bookkeeping on the
basis of work day" This is a fixed
unit of production, a norm of accomplish
ment in plowing, harvesting. repairing ma
chinery or any other of the activities Of
big farm. A good worker can usually &C
complsh more than this norm day. and
the average number of work days" credi-
tied to each member of the farm last year
was 375.
State Debts Paid First.
At the end of each crop year. the farm
must pay its debts to the state for use of
tractors and other machinery. for seed or
for loans. The farm has perpetual lease
on its land and pays no rent. Taxes are
small. In the past the Vassiliev farm has
regularly invested Is per cent of it's income
in capital construction and set aside per
cent for cultural work
The balance of the income is divided
among the members according to the num-
Der of work days each has accumulated
on the books The value in cash and in
produce of each work day" has become an
index of efficiency and the basis of socialist
competition" between different collective
farms.
In 1886 the members of the Vassiliev
farm received for each work day 2.6
pounds of grain, % pounds of potatoes, %
pounds of straw and ruble Is kopecks in
cash. Last year the figures were ST. pounds
of grain, IT'S pounds of potatoes. 33 pounds
OF straw 3,3 pounds of hay and l ruble So
kopecks in cash.
Side Profits Permitted
With each worker having averaged 275
work days" in 1887, his direct cash in
come from the farm was only $40 rubles
tsll4 at the official rate of exchange).
Nearly every peasant made considerably
more than this sum by sale of the produce
he also earned on the "work-day' basis
and by sale of what he could grow on his
individual allotment of land
At the Vassiliev Farm complaints of the
members, which are aired at general meet
ings five or six times year, center on their
failure to get electricity and their demands
for more straw with which to re-thatch
their houses. In other farms excessive
which held down cash payments to the
farmers, led to a sharp reproof from the
Communist party's Central Committee.
Ploughing back profits into new construc-
ton, it is now admitted led many peasants
to concentrate on their private holdings
of land at the expense of the collective
farm
Cow for Each Family.
These individual holdings, at the Vas
siliev Farm, are limited to one and half
family has its own COW. housed separately
from the "a COWS owned by the farm itself.
The farm owns two trucks which the
members may use, paying for running ex-
penses to transport their private produce
to the markets in Kiev.
The success of the Vassiiev farm like the
relative success of Soviet collectivization
as a national policy, appears to be based
solidly on self-interest According to the
peasants themselves, work has become
steadily less hard and its rewards bigger.
This has been accomplished with good
harvests, except in 1886, and even in that
year the Ukraine suffered less from the
drought than the central and Volga re-
gions. Only serious crop failure or
major war, it now seems likely, will shake
the slowly but steadily increasing stability
with which collective farms have taken
root in the Ukraine.
(Copyright 93s, by New York Herald Tribune.