COMMUNAL FARMING THE WEAKEST LINK IN SOVIET’S CASE

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27638, 20 April 1955, Page 12

COMMUNAL FARMING THE WEAKEST LINK IN SOVIET’S CASE

[Specially written for "The Press ']

[By

K. R. BEAUCHAMP)

There was a time long ago when I dreamed of the joys of communal farming. Starry-eyed youth can picture a community based upon the land. The tasks allotted in the rosy dawn and done to the glory of God and the gain of the community; the pleasures and pains of the changing seasons shared with kindred souls —-it all seemed to offer so much more than the lonely life of the isolated farmer or the struggling peasant. Others have felt this call and many attempts to bring communal life to the land have been made. There is today a flourishing community not far from Nelson. But the success of these ventures has seldom lasted beyond a generation; and the experience of age tells me, a little regretfully perhaps, that the farming way of life and. the communal way can never agree for long. I have some first-hand knowledge of one such scheme, for I worked for a year among what were rather derisively known as “the groupies” of Western Australia. About 1925 the government of that State cut up about 1000 farms in the jarrah forest land of the far south-west and settled families, mainly immigrants, in groups of 10 each under a government supervisor. They were to clear their land together, fence it and build their houses. The State provided a cow for every two acres cleared, and some other assistance. The communal element was to wither away as each settler became self-supporting. It was a happy idea—but it did not work. When I went there, about 10 years after it started, many farms had been abandoned. Though a few groups, bound by religious ties or by an outstanding leader, had made some progress, in the main the forest had beaten them. The sequel offers some instruction. The government turned the whole affair over to a private banking concern. Sound business methods, plus plenty of lime and super, transformed the outlook; and my latest information is that the whole area is now farmed by very prosperous individuals.

With these thoughts in my mind, I have been looking at the world’s two vast schemes of communal agriculture with a somewhat jaundiced eye. Russia has been at it for 30 years, and China is just beginning. I think it is not going too far to say that upon the success of failure of the land policy of these two great nations depends the survival of their socialist systems. Though the nature of the problem is different in each country, both are committed to the same solution, based on the gospel of Marx—that all production must be owned and organised by the State. On the face of it, Russia % . bet ter chance of pulling it off than China. Her 200,000,000 people live a and largely undeveloped land. The 600,000,000 Chinese have much less Zand and almost every foot of it has been farmed intensively for some thousands of years. Origins of Marxism In considering this question of communism and farming, it is worth while to §o back and take a look at the origins of the Marxist system. Marx was a Jewish intellectual, with about as much knowledge of the country and the countryman as a city lamppost. Engels was a man of commerce. Theii conception of the proletariat, on whose behalf they laboured so mightily, was supply and solely the city worker. In Marxs later writings certainly there is reference to workers “and peasants,” since that crochety, one-tracx-genius realised dimly that about 90 per cent, of the world’s worxers worked on the land. But whai mattered to any good revolutionary was the 10 per cent.—the ground-down, easily organised, vocal 10 per cent oi the industrial cities.

I put it forward, as a proposition open to argument, that whatever its leaders say about the glories of collective farming, communism still means industrial communism. I believe that the vast farming populations of Russia and China, despite forcible collectivisation, are barely touched and certainly not greatly benefited by the new order. In their 30 years the Russians have done some surprising things, including the winning of- a major war But I suggest that what they have done they have done by the might of the industrial machine; and machines are far more amenable to socialist control than are seasons and weather and soil and, above all, stock. What has come about sb far is this. The control of the cities by the Communist Party gave it the control of government throughout the country. With this went the monolithic power to prescribe the whole course of the education, of all children, town and country. For "education” we should rather read “indoctrination”; for the system is not for drawing out a child’s individuality, as in the decadent West, but rather instilling a set of beliefs and behaviour patterns that will serve the ideals of the party best. This has gone- on for 30 years and Russia is now faced with her 60 per cent, rural population taught to think and \Vork

in terms designed for the 30 per cent, of industrial workers. The question is this: can the communal methods which Russia has learned to apply to her city industries be applied equally well to the business of growing food for 200,000.000 people? It seems to me that certain age-old agricultural needs and experiences have been lost sight of. An industrial enterprise, say, bootmaking, carried on within four walls, needs an assured supply of raw materials. It can be given certain types of boot to produce in certain numbers. A oureaucratic management can run such an industry with enough efficiency to satisfy Russians. We know that under pressure of war the system produced guns, tanks and aircraft of high performance. ... But farming is another matter altogether. Even in favoured parts of the world, how many farmers could say “In the next five years we will produce so many bushels of wheat or seeds so many tons of butterfat and meat" Weather, disease or pests may upset their calculations entirely, even if all the problems of management and supply are solved. The individual farmer, who must be flexible or perish will, if . faced with failure or glut turn to other alternatives and thus' preserve his land and his output. But a bureaucracy, with the extreme centralisation which communism demands, is not flexible. Influence of Weather I have been at some pains to look up the weather statistics of the great central Russian and Russo-Asiatic plains. Here again the need for flexibility and rapid individual judgment is obvious. The rainfall reminds one of Australia’s—anything over 20 inches is most unusual and the yearly average is unreliable, with correspondingly variable yields. Demands by the State upon the produce of each collective are laid down for each five-year plan. The unfortunate manager who strikes a bad five-year cycle may well find himself splitting logs m Siberia! If we may judge from their own papers, the system of machine tractor stations is another sourofe of irritation and loss. With their passion for centralisation the bureaucrats decided that rather than let each collective have its own machinery, these large machine tractor stations should be strategically situated to serve groups of farms. Any New Zealand farmer who gets m a contract baler knows the frustration of seeing his own crop spoil because half a dozen others are before him. At least he is free to scour the country for another baler, or to buy one for himself. But where you are a government official dealing with other officials there are few short cuts; the proper channels must be followed, though the hay spoil. Of course some of the great areas of good soil lend themselves to largescale farming. Large-scale farming works well enough in America and other countries; and it may conceivably be made to work under State management. But extensive grain growing alone will not provide a very high standard of living to 200,000,000 people; nor can you go on growing grain in one place for ever and ever. It is in the care and management of stock that the individual farmer excels, and will always excel. There will be model dairies and model piggeries and egg factories, through which well-meaning fellow travellers will be shepherded. But I cannot picture any reasonable standard of stock breeding or production in which management is bureaucratic and labour consists of a reluctant peasantry well schooled in Marxian dialectics, but increasingly divorced from the individual responsibilities of the land. If I argue that the first cracks in the monolithic State will come because its farming feet are of clay and not of good earth, I do not welcome the prospect of such a crack-up. There is no dictatorship so dangerous to the outside world as a dictatorship that sees failure before it. It is therefore neither the part of politics nor of humanity to stand and watch Russia go from discontent to hunger and from hunger to revolt and so to the dictator’s last card —external war. We must try to understand her problem. A year or so ago farmers were invited to visit Russia. I imagine Federated Farmers, the farmers’ union, did not even consider the possibility of such a waste of time and money. An exchange of visits between Russian and New Zealand farmers would be a waste of neither. Apart from getting a better knowledge and understanding of each other, there is the fact that Russia is an enormous potential customer. If, as I think likely, her population will increase and her farming deteriorate, then she will be a still better customer. Of course the customer may not be right in everything, but I think there is little doubt that he is often going to be hungry. That is where we should come in. Tallis on the highest level have not produced much goodwill. An exchange of visits at the farming level might be much more profitable.