Agriculture

The Soviet leaders realized that it was impossible on the one hand to run industry on a socialized basis with a modern industrial technique, and on the other hand to leave agriculture on the basis of private property with primitive methods. To permit agriculture to remain on that basis would be to threaten the success of the socialization of industry. The current tendency to collectivization of agriculture and the creation of the large farm has moved almost as inevitably as a Greek drama. The Soviets thereupon decided to eliminate private operation of farms, first, to increase the productivity of the land, second, to break down the capitalist character of the ownership, and third, to make it possible to plan production in agriculture as in industry. To accomplish the mechanization of agriculture the Soviet government proposed to extend credits of more than one billion rubles to the collectives in 1931.