i8o	HUMAN LIFE IN RUSSIA
the "reliable collective farm peasants/' to expel the former and
to leave them to starve^ but to help and save the latter and
carry out the full agricultural programme with their aid.1
These statements are based on reports published in the Soviet
press. As an example I may quote events in Western Siberia
as reported by the political departments of that region.1 A
report of the political section of the motor and tractor stations
furnishes unique evidence of what is going on not only in
those parts but all over the Soviet Union. It begins by stating
that the political sections in Western Siberia were simply
following instructions given by the Central Committee of the
Communist Party. The work done by these sections consisted
and still consists in purging the collective farms of elements
belonging to other classes. In 1933,7,494 persons were expelled
from the collective farms of the sixty-three motor and tractor
stations as belonging to this category. Of the heads of the
collective farms from 40 to 50 per cent were expelled. The
report went on to say that there were still collective farms
which were "defiled by anti-social elements, and that the work
of cleansing them continues."
What does this statement mean? It reveals the methodical
work being done to free the collective farms from the burden
of undesirable elements and to transfer the thousands thus
expelled into other categories, where they are left to their fate.
Everything is done, on the other hand, to assure the subsistence
and future of the remaining docile members, and measures
in that sense are continually to be read of in the Soviet press.
Reports are often published vehemently reproving officials
who fail to treat the collective farm workers as they ought to
be treated. Further, a distinction is made between the collec-
tive farms as such, Le* between the privileged show collective
farms and the rest.2
1 Cf. Provdas March n, 1934.
1 By a resolution adopted at the Moscow Congress of collective farm
representatives (March 1935) the distinction between the old, i.e. the "show**
collective farms and the non-privileged collective farms is very clearly