MOSCOW'S ATTITUDE iSr

The means by which even members of the collective farms
:an be "legally" deprived of their harvest is described by
Pravda of March 17,1934. It reports that on a collective farm
in the district of Shpoliansk the payment for work done was
lot made to the members in kind as it should have been; on
ie contrary, the management calculated the value of the grain
n money and told the men that they might buy grain from the
farm for these amounts. The results according to Pravda, was
ihat the accountants of the Kondratenko collective farm credited
i worker with 737 roubles for 910 working days where his
ictual claim should have amounted to 3*722 kilograms of
jrain and 365 roubles. The difference of 372 roubles was
lowhere near enough to make up the deficiency in grain. The
Pravda report showed in any case how the members of the
:ollective farms can be deprived of their minimum of food by
perfectly legal accounting methods, the bread ration being
jimply calculated at the high official prices.

Other collective farms are dealt with in other ways. There is
i decree in existence ordering that in future no steps shall be
aken to secure supplies to the prikhkbateli, Le. the village
loctors, minor officials and rural intelligentsia in general.
This again is an unpopular category because many of its
nembers belong to the older generation or else support local
lationalism. Rudzutak's account at the Moscow Communist

•evealed. According to the new agrarian statute adopted by the Congress
:very single collectivized village community will in future have the entire
and of the collective farm in question made over to it for all time. This means
hat the privileged collective farms are assured in perpetuity of their present
sxtent and their present membership. New members—i.e. individual
>easants applying for membership—need not be admitted, and these have
10 choice but to form new collective farms under particularly unfavourable
jonditions, the best and most fertile soil having long ago been given away
o the old collective farms. How great is the difference in the situation of the
lifferent collective farms can be seen from the fact that as early as 1924
here were some which distributed 25 kilograms of wheat per working day,
vhile there were others whose figure was no more than i| to 2 kilograms,
rhere can be no doubt that the new statute will bring about new and wide
;lass distinctions among the rural population.