Nevertheless, one thing is clear—there has been a big change of personnel, not only among the upper ranks of the peasantry and the managers of the collective farms but in the Communist party officials. Both here and in the North Caucasus one finds lots of officials who have been on the job only six months or less.

One asks why. They reply rather vaguely, "The management here was not efficient," or "We were sent here," or "There were kulak elements and kulak sentiment in the managers of this or that section and they were removed and we came to replace them."

Then they add proudly:

"But we have done the job—this year we are months ahead of last year in grain deliveries."

I sum up my impressions from this trip and from conversations with scores of peasants and local officials—the collectivisation policy was not generally popular, there was much passive resistance last year, and those who resisted suffered bitterly. So to-day there is no more resistance and those who co-operate with the Kremlin policy have already begun to understand, and get, its benefits.

In short, the mechanisation and collectivisation of Russian agriculture have come to stay and the Kremlin has won its battle.

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September 18.—" Ukraine grain deliveries to the state had been accomplished 66 per cent by September 10—which was the same as the figure reached three months later last year—and we expect the full quota of 5,000,000 tone to be completed by mid-October," said the chief of the Ukrainian communist section of the tractor stations, Alexander Asatkin.

M. Asatkin, with whom I talked Saturday, declared the crop had surpassed the highest expectations as it had reached one ton per acre in some sections, where the collectivists were receiving 15 to 25 kilograms (33 to 55 pounds) per working day., but it is expected to run as high as seven kilograms per working day, which is two and a half times greater than last year.

The "socialised sector" of Ukrainian agriculture this year is 8o per cent of all the cultivated land and it is served by 646 tractor stations with an average of 40 machines each. About 70 per cent of the peasant population is collectivised, but in some sections, especially the southern wheat region, collectivisation has reached 85 and 90 per cent.

M. Asatkin said most positively that the Ukraine’s 33,000,000 population was amply assured of food for the coining year. Open-market prices are expected to drop 50 to 70 per cent when the state deliveries are concluded and the peasants are allowed to sell.

In reply to my question as to whether there had been mass emigration last year, M. Asatkin said, "There undoubtedly was a considerable outward flow from the villages and towns to the Donetz basin, to White Russia and elsewhere, but we, nevertheless, accomplished the sowing programme almost 100 per cent and with the summer months the population tide flowed back."

He admitted that there had been considerable mortality among livestock, which had increased the difficulty of the transportation problem, and he continued, "Despite the greatly augmented production of tractors and automobiles, transportation is one of our chief handicaps. The grain deliveries would have been completed already with better transportation. Delivery points and elevators are literally choked with grain."

That I can affirm from personal observation. M. Asatkin asserted confidently that the Ukraine accepted collectivisation once and for all and that the political section of the tractor stations had been a decisive factor in the struggle.

He, like his colleague with whom I talked at Rostov-on-Don, stressed the fact that the communist agents (politkas) of the tractor stations were less coercive than organisational in their functions.

"The peasants," he said, "now understand that we are really trying to help them improve their methods and lives. Our chief problem, after finishing the autumn sowing, will come during the winter months, in what we call ‘cultural work.’

"That includes everything from propaganda and educational meetings to improvement of radio and telephone transmission, the issuing of newspapers—-each political unit and tractor station has its own newspaper, published about ten times monthly—the bettering of roads, new building, and work among the women and youngsters, whom we consider no less important than the men."

M. Asatkin spoke with genuine enthusiasm, saying that his eight months’ work in the Ukraine had been extraordinarily interesting and had convinced him of the enormous possibilities of the tractor service in developing agriculture and raising the peasants’ living standards.

"Stalin was right," he concluded." We communists were to blame for not organising rural life and work and for thinking the collectives could run themselves on an efficient socialist basis without our control."

"Why didn’t you have political sections sooner?" I asked. "Because there were not enough tractors, for one thing," he replied. "But now we are producing them at a rate that will utterly transform the countryside in two or three years. Economically and culturally it will be the greatest revolution in the history of the world, and I am proud to have had the privilege of playing a responsible part in it."

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September 19.—Summing up the impressions of my ten days’ trip through the North Caucasus and the Ukraine, where I travelled with greater freedom and absence of supervision than had been expected, I repeat the opinion that the decisive engagement in the struggle for rural socialisation has been won by the Kremlin.

The cost in some places has been heavy, but a generally excellent crop is already mitigating conditions to a marked extent. But it still is clear that Soviet administrators must overcome more obstacles before the collective system and mechanisation of agriculture are completely mastered.

"Any Communist party member, local official, or political section commander who thinks the job is done because we had a good harvest and are well ahead with grain deliveries and autumn sowing is a social danger to-day; you might almost call him a traitor," said one of the editors of the Rostov newspaper Molot, and M. Asatkin echoed him.

"One of the things we now must fight the hardest is the spirit of satisfaction and resting on laurels," said the latter. "There is a vast amount of hard work ahead of us to create a collective edifice on proper cultural and technical lines."

Collectivisation may now be said to have been established on a solid foundation, with enormous benefit to the Russian countryside, on the condition that neither this year nor for several years to come will there be talk of extra requisitions or "voluntary super-deliveries" above the fixed programme. Authorities everywhere say there will not be extra demands and admit there were errors which are now corrected.

Because of what super-deliveries meant, successful collectives paid for the mistakes and mismanagement of others. By Soviet law and Communist party decree it is a criminal offence to-day to ask for extra deliveries. In the event of war or a similar great emergency it might be different, but short of such an emergency the extra delivery system is abolished.

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Moscow, December 16, I933.—For the first time in its history the Soviet Union has completed its state grain" collections "before the end of the year—specifically, by December 14, which is two and a half months earlier than ever before. Actually 96 per cent of the collections had been made November 1, and the Crimea performed the unprecedented feat of completing its deliveries by September 1. During August and September, deliveries, reckoned in ten-day periods, ran from three to five times higher than in the same period of last year.

The total of the collections is not stated in to-day’s news, but the writer was informed last September in Kharkov by the chief of the Ukrainian political section of the machine-tractor stations that it would be about 24,500,000 metric tons. As the needs of the urban population, construction camps, and army are abundantly met by 17,500,000 tons, there will be available 7,000,000 tons for reserve or export.

In the latter respect it is noteworthy that the proportion of wheat in this year’s collections is half as large again as that of last year.

Second, it is a triumph for Joseph Stalin’s bold solution a year ago of the collective farm management problem—a step that future historians cannot fail to regard as one of the major namely, the establishment of political sections in the tractor stations, political moves in the Soviet Union’s second decade. I understand that autumn sowing has slightly surpassed the programme, and the plentiful snow of this early winter augurs well for the future.

This year’s special preparation of tested seed for spring sowing, although slightly behind the programme, will undoubtedly be completed by the middle of February, and it can be stated confidently that the "socialised sector" of agriculture—the state and collective farms—which this year furnished 90 per cent of the grain deliveries to the state, will approach the spring sowing with a new spirit of courage and energy under the guidance of the political sections of the tractor stations.

It is significant that the peasant population that fled from grain-producing areas, which suffered last winter from a labour shortage, has flowed back to the villages. The peasant beggars who were a deplorable feature of life twelve months ago in Moscow, Kharkov, and Rostov-onDon, to name only three great cities, have now wholly disappeared.

It is difficult accurately to estimate what percentage of the total crop the grain collections form, as conditions vary in different regions. It probably is between 20 and 25 per cent, which would put the cereal crop at the record figure of 100,000,000 metric tons.

A further factor of great importance is that" free trade" in foodstuffs henceforth will be permitted for the entire country, which must not be considered a new "New Economic Policy" but is undoubtedly a big advance towards the goal, announced by M. Stalin, of" making every collective Bolshevik and every collectivist prosperous."

At the same time there is a serious obstacle to the development of this "free trade" by collectivised and individual farmers in the provinces which have completed their deliveries—namely, a shortage and poor distribution of manufactured goods and other urban products required by the villages. The Soviet Fulfilment Commission, of which Joseph Stalin is a member, recently announced considerable shortcomings in the dispatching of such essentials as salt and flour to rural districts.

The newspaper Economic Ljfe stresses similar weakness in the delivery of manufactured goods. Even in Moscow Province, for instance, only 6,ooo,ooo roubles’ worth of the 20,000,000 in goods supply assigned to the villages has yet reached the local rail station.

It is true that concentration during recent years on heavy industry and capital investment has led to a shortage of consumers’ goods, but their volume has been augmented of late, and their failure to reach the villages must be ascribed to other causes, chiefly poor transportation and distribution.

The transport problem remains to be solved, and freight-car loadings still run 20 to 30 per Cent below the daily schedule. In this respect there is a fruitful field for American enterprise—technical assistance and equipment.

As matters now stand there is a big gap in the Soviet Union between rural and urban producers. Money has little value to the peasant unless he can obtain goods with it, and unless he can do that there is no great stimulus for him to produce foodstuffs above his own needs.

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