Evening star., 1939-06-25

wholesale change of executive, admin
istrative and technical personnel of a
great business corporation like United
States Steel or General Motors and
their subsidiaries.
''The Soviet government is not pas
sive landlord" he says, interested
merely in getting its share of what the
tenants produce; 1t takes an active part
in the management of its tenant farms
This is a cardinal principle laid down
in 1888 by Stain himself, who feared
that collective farming would not func-
ton efficiently or on the lines desired by
the Kremlin without government super
vision and guidance. No laissez faire,
therefore, but rigid state control, was
to remain the keystone Of Soviet policy
governing collective farming. *''
Soviet Strengthens Control.
"Furthermore-and this is of crucial
importance-the Soviet government has
increasingly supplied the power and ma
chine requirements of agriculture and
thereby strengthened its control over
collective peasant farming, for it owns
all the tractors, combines and other COM
plicated machinery concentrated in over
$500 machine tractor stations"
The wholesale requirements and fire.
quent shifts of officials, Violin says, can
not help but engender instability, con-
fusion and decentralization.
THE numerous difficulties experienced
in the 1887 and 1898 sowing and har-
vesting campaigns and the resulting
heavy crop losses" he asserts, "notwith-
standing increasing mechanization and
greater experience with collective farm
ing, must be attributed to no small ex-
tent of the disorganization caused by
the purge.
1T is true that the purge weeds out
the incompetent, corrupt inefficient off,
cial, the devotee of red tape and arbi-
trary acts against the peasants, who is
frequent target of attack by the Soviet
press. For, even if no readable evidence
Of deliberate official sabotage has been
forthcoming it has been plentiful with
respect to bungling, arbitrariness and in
efficiency, both before and after the
purge. Not only was the incompetent
official eliminated, however, but the
purge often blindly punished the inno-
cent with the guilty"
Wholesale Expulsion of Families.
The effect of the purges on the COL
lective farms, Violin reports, resulted in
wholesale expulsions of peasant families,
apparently against organic law govern
ing collective farming.
THE Kremlin itself revealed this sit
uation," he writes, when in the spring
Of 1888 it spoke with voice of thunder
concerning the iniquitous treatment suf-
fered by the peasants at the hands of the
local agents. In the province OF Sverd-
losk formerly Ekaterinburg) 1882 fami-
lies were expelled from collective farms
! during the second half of 1897. In Novo-
sibirsk Province during the same period
5,705 families were expelled and in North
Caucasus 5000 during 1887 and early
1898.
THE organic law governing collective
farming, the so-called model charter
proclaimed by the government in Feb
ruary 1925, and hailed as the Magma
Charta of collectivized peasant democ-
racy, provided member should be
expelled only as measure Of last re-
sort and by the decision of a general
meeting of the collective at which two
thirds OF the members were present.
Violations Of this and other provisions
Of the charter were frequently reported
in the Soviet press, which, however,
uio ak, DIT
in the 1937-39 expulsion epidemic the
charter was apparently forgotten.
What end, If any, did the purge serve?
Unfortunately the curtain over the
Russian countryside has not been lifted
sufficiently to enable any one to answer
these questions with finality, but enough
Is known to venture some tentative
generalizations.
Few Village Communists.
First of all, the purge was not directed
primarily against village Communists
for the simple reason that there are very
few of them. According to the report
of Andrew at the 18th Party Congress,
only $4,000 out of the 243 900 collectives
had party organizations with total
membership of 153, 900, or less than 10 per
cent of the whole membership of the
Communist party in the Soviet Union.
Gases could be cited, like that of the
peasant expelled for religious conviction
and long beard which give the i'm
preston that the purge was conducted in
a haphazard and sometimes even sragi-
comical fashion, and to considerable
extent, under the prevailing conditions,
this may be true. There also were re-
ported a number Of instances Of peasants
being expelled because they stood up
for their legal rights and privileges.
One of the many was q peasant named
Golyshev, who, it was said, always ac-
lively fought against violations Of the
charter of his collective farm and was
expelled for breaking down discipline.
What his fellow peasants thought Of
him can be seen from the fact that, when
he was later readmitted to the collective,
they elected him chairman.
Economic reasons, however, are clear
ly discernible in another important cate
| cory Of widespread Illegal expulsions,
s