Russian Farmers’ Rights Defended

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30911, 18 November 1965, Page 24

Russian Farmers’ Rights Defended

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter—Copyright) MOSCOW, Nov. 16. A leading Communist Party journal has thrown its weight behind the right of Russia’s collective farmers to cultivate their own land.

It also warned local farm officials not to interfere with the legitimate development of the peasants’ private plots. “Kommunist,” the party’s theoretical fortnightly magazine, complained of “crude violations of the party and Government instructions on private plots and collective farm trade.”

The article, strongly-worded in favour of the biggest remnant of private enterprise in the Soviet Union, indicated that farmers often face difficulties in exploiting their own land. “Kommunist" said that although compulsory deliveries to the State by collective farmers had been abolished, many local officials illegally enforced sales to the State of meat, milk and other produce. “It is absolutely obvious that these activities of certain local leaders infringe the workers’ interests and oppose the policy of party and Government,” the magazine said. It said that at the present

level of development of the productive forces, support of private plots was an important basis for the Kremlin’s top priority policy of raising living standards.