SOVIET PROBLEM

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4534, 9 February 1942, Page 6

SOVIET PROBLEM

FOOD FOR THE PEOPLE “A FARMING FORCE ” (By a Special Correspondent of “The Sydney Morning Herald ”) KUIBISHEV, January 15. Russia will face a severe agricultural problem this spring. The whole population will have to exert great efforts if the soil is to yield sufficient to feed the nation. Official newspapers hammer home daily the individual citizen’s responsibility to take part in the national effort, and it will be touch-and-go whether the job can be done.. Because the Government tackled the problem early, creating a highly-or-ganised farming force, I think it will be done. A reserve army is being created which is expected to be as faithful to duty as the fighting army. School boys and school girls will assist the farmers in spring in elementary tasks. Youths from high schools and universities will drive tractors and combines. Children will

... ‘...ub. plots. AU are under..iir.g intensive training- so that when sowing starts in about three months they will be ready. Workers in the cities will supplement rural production with cultivation of garden plots under “a dig for victory ’’ campaign. The All-Union Council of Trade Unions, supreme trade union authority in the Soviet Union, will supervise and direct these efforts. From a map it will be seen that the Germans still hold huge areas of rich agricultural land- Even tremendous Russia cannot take such a blow without wincing. MACHINE SHORTAGE Many of the men and machines used in the recent Russian offensive came from the farms. I have been on a number of farms and seen few young faces. They are mostly peopled now with old men and women and children. In the recaptured areas, some of which I. have visited, the destruction has not been exaggerated in official reports. Some farms in these areas may be prepared for production with intense effort, but it will take longer than months before output is restored to normal. So the situation confronting . the Soviet is: The area of agricultural land is smaller, and the reservoir of men and machines has been severely

.1 nined. They hope substantially to solve the problem of man-power by training youths and by more expert direction of available farm labotir. They will attack the problem of machines by throwing greater responsibility on the technical experts at machine and tractor stations to devise and improvise and see the machines give maximum results. They propose to offset the loss of land by every collective and State farm planting a greater area this season than ever before. Substantial difficulties will be met, but measures to overcome these include compulsory farm courses for teachers, and reclamation and rejuvenation of machines discarded before the war. Machine experts were told they had to devise means of giving the farms necessary machines, with no excuses accepted, and the experts, with the ingeniousness of the Russian technician, are achieving mechanical miracles with the resources at their disposal. REORGANISING SCHEDULES Bv reorganising the schedules to which the machines operate on a number of farms and giving greater care to the machines than in peace time, the Russians will probably overcome much of the machine shortage. A propaganda drive includes a special appeal to farm workers to make greater efforts than ever before and to improve their methods. This will help to compensate for the labour shortage between sowing and harvest, when supplementary labour is not available. Local Soviets are daily reminded by press and radio of their obligation to assist and direct farmers in accumulation of knowledge, which might improve their capacity, and to stimulate the enthusiasm of the workers. References are now frequent to rewards given to Stakhanovite farm workers. To-day, for example, it is announced that Maria Lukyanoba has been rewarded with a gift of five small pigs for having induced pigs under her charge to produce large families and raise them without loss. Five pigs, incidentally, are merely a bonus—the real reward is the notable place she has assumed in the estimation of her fellows, for “ Stakhanovite ” means an expert worker of the highest standard. As an example of the propaganda with which the public is being impressed, a recent issue of “ Izvestia ” says: “ Great problems stand before us in 1942. The enemy has temporarily occupied a number of agricultural regions. We must, we can, compensate for these temporary losses. It is the duty of every citizen to cooperate.” Simultaneously, the Volga Labour Commune publishes a review of operations of machines and tractor

stations in the Volga region, in which it claims that because the work has been organised on a war footing better results have been achieved in repair and overhaul than ever be-