Soviet form rales liberalised

Press, 29 January 1988, Page 26

Soviet form rales liberalised

By

MARY ELLEN

BORTIN NZPA-Reuter Moscow The Soviet Union has drafted new collective farm statutes giving agricultural workers greater scope for private initiative and allowing farms to set up direct trade links with the West. The draft rules, published in the newspaper “Sovetskaya Rossiya,” were expected to be discussed at a national congress of collective farmers, analysts said. They said that the statutes reflected the calls by the Kremlin leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, for reform to boost agricultural output by creating greater incentives for workers on collective farms. “The kolkhoz (collective farm) is a school of communism for the peasantry,” the draft said in a preface. It made clear that there was no intention to weaken the collective farm system which Josef Stalin forcibly created in the early 1930 s at a cost estimated by Western historians at millions of lives. But it restated the principle that membership in a kolkhoz was voluntary. The rules say kolkhoz

workers may use the collective’s farm machinery and pastures for gardening on private plots and private livestock breeding. Previously families were expected to use their own equipment for gardening on private plots. The draft formally authorises use of the “family-contract” system, which allows families to sub-contract work from farm managers with their income tied to results.

In a speech last June, Mr Gorbachev called for extension of the family and team-contract systems, saying that they had proved highly efficient and material rewards were high, and said greater use should be make of private plots. The draft rules give collective farms the right to establish trade links wiht agricultural cooperatives in East-bloc countries and with firms in the West and the developing world.

“Kolkhozes bear full responsibility for their foreign economic links,” the draft says, making clear the State does not intend to bail out lossmaking trade ventures.

The farms have also been given the right to set up food processing plants

on their premises and to make and sell building materials and consumer goods to firms once they have fulfilled their commitments to the State. The rules say kolkhozes have sole responsibility for use of their income and may draft their own one and five-year plans for farm production. Although this was theoretically true in the past, in practice output targets were determined by the State.

Collective farms may rent, sell or lend their equipment and premises to firms or organisations for temporary use. The rules say that they may conclude contracts with individuals, suggesting that hired labour might be possible.

Kolkhoz members who what to leave the farm may do so. This shift in Soviet policy, which has in practice kept collective farm workers tied to the land, was first spelled out last May. But youths who attend agricultural institutes at kolkhoz expense must reimburse thee farm if they want to leave. The rules say that kolkhoz officials must be elected by the collective at regular intervals. The

draft provides for multicandidate elections, another innovation in farm practice.

Reform of Soviet agriculture is expected to be discussed at a forthcoming plenum of the Communist Party’s policymaking Central Committee. Mr Gorbachev has indicated that he is par-

ticularly anxious to tackle chronic food-supply problems.

The new draft rules are likely to come up at a collective farm congress which, according to State television, will be held in March; the first such national event since 1969 and only the fourth in the 70 years of Soviet history.