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p The possibility of bringing together and then merging state and co-operalive-collective-tarm ownership into a single people’s ownership lies in these forms of ownership themselves, in their socialist social nature. Insofar as state ownership is more socialised than co-opcrative-collcctive-i’arm ownership and inasmuch as it 266 creates more possibilities for stale planning, the task is gradually to raise the socialisation level of co-operativecollective-farm ownership to that of state ownership. This is the only possible way to merge these two forms of ownership into a single people’s ownership.

p The drawing together of these two forms of socialist ownership is already taking place in the U.S.S.R., an expression of which is, primarily, the steady growth of the non-distributable assets of the collective farms. For example, in 1958, these assets were valued at 24,200 million rubles, and in 1965 at 35,000 million rubles. They form the foundation of collective-farm production, consisting of machines and equipment, production premises, draught and productive livestock, and so forth. Essentially, they come close to state ownership, especially as their principal portion—tractors and other farm machinery—are created not by the collective farmers but by workers. With the growth of these funds an increasing place in them will be occupied by tractors and other farm machinery.

p The rise of the socialisation level of co-operativecollective-farm ownership is also expressed in the enlargement of the collective farms, which is taking place through the growth of collective farms and the amalgamation of small collective farms into large units. In 1940 there were 235,500 collective farms in the Soviet Union; by 1964 their number dropped to only 37,600. Naturally, the bigger units have larger non-distributable assets than the small economies. These funds increase as a result of the growth of collective-farm cash incomes, from which they are deducted, and of greater assistance to the collective farmers by the socialist state.

p Inter-collective-farm relations and co-operation are expanding. Co-operation takes the shape of joint building and operation of power stations, irrigation projects, roads, enterprises processing, storing and transporting farm produce, and building materials plants. At the close of 1963 there were 569 associations engaged in building and assembly work, 501 associations for the production of building materials and hundreds of other inter-collective-farm enterprises. The development of inter-collective-farm relations shows the rise in the socialisation level of cooperative-collective-farm ownership and, thereby, its 267 steady approach to the point of integration with public ownership.

p The expanding relations between the collective farms and the state are another indication that the two forms of ownership are merging. These relations are promoted in the most diverse spheres: electric power supply to the collective farms from state-ow^rned power stations, the joint building of factories, roads and irrigation works, the planting of forest shelter belts, and so on. The expansion of intercollective-farm relations and also of the relations between the collective farms and the state is an objective process issuing from the growth of agricultural production, and the appearance of problems which the collective farms cannot tackle by themselves.

p The drawing together of the two forms of ownership does not mean that co-operative-collective-farm ownership has outlived its day and should be at once abolished. On the contrary, it provides scope for increasing agricultural output, and the Party and the government are therefore taking steps to make the utmost, effective use of the possibilities offered by this form of ownership.

p State ownership expands still further in the process of building communism. This is mirrored by the growth of the basic production assets of the economy, the further concentration and specialisation of industries, the development of the division of labour, and so on.

p The drawing together of state and co-operative-collective-farm ownership and the erasure of the distinctions between them are removing the essential distinctions between the working class and the collective farmers in spheres such as the role played by them in the social organisation of labour and also the size of the share of the social wealth possessed by them, and the mode of receiving it. Indeed, in proportion to the development of socialist society, farm labour gradually becomes a variety of industrial labour, which means that the essential distinctions between the nature of the production functions and labour of the worker and the collective farmer are disappearing. Correspondingly, the collective farmer is changing spiritually; he is becoming more organised and plays a steadily increasing role in social and political affairs. At the collective farms the forms of distribution 268 arc improving, and guaranteed payment for labour, modelled on the wage system at state enterprises, is being introduced for collective farmers. Along with payment in cash and in kind, social forms of satisfying people’s requirements—upkeep of children at kindergartens and nursery schools, tuition at schools, and health and cultural services—are becoming more and more widespread at the collective farms. A considerable portion of these expenses is borne by the state. A pension scheme has been started for collective farmers.

p When we speak of the eradication of the essential distinctions between the working class and the collective farmers, we must bear in mind that the internal structure of both these classes is heterogeneous. Among the workers, as among collective farmers, there are skilled and unskilled workers, people with a high level and people with an inadequate level of political consciousness, highly educated, cultured people, and people with less education and inadequate culture. There is a marked difference between the collective farms themselves in the level of socialisation, technical equipment and efficiency: there are advanced, economically strong collective farms, and lagging, weak ones in the same way as there are advanced and lagging industrial enterprises. The surmounting of the essential distinctions between the working class and the collective farmers is thus also linked up with the surmounting of the distinctions within these classes, with the achievement of inner-class homogeneity and with the evening out of the level of development and efficiency in the work of different state and co-operative enterprises, with the turning of all of them into highly efficient, advanced enterprises. Class and inner-class distinctions are eradicated on the basis of the growth of production and social ownership and scientific and technical progress.

p Thus, one of the principal ways of surmounting the essential distinctions between the working class and the collective farmers is to bring together and then integrate state and co-operative-collective-farm oxvnership.

p It should not be imagined that the merging of these two forms of ownership is a simple and rapid progress requiring solely administrative interference, say the 269 promulgation of a decree changing collective farms into state farms and, as though by the wave of a magic wand, turning the collective farmer into a worker. As was noted at the 23rd Congress of the C.P.S.U., there had been cases of collective farms unjustifiably turned into state farms. Those responsible for this ignored, firstly, the fact that co-operative-collective-farm ownership had not by a long shot exhausted all its possibilities and that it fully conformed with the present requirements of agricultural development and, secondly, that before collective-farm ownership could be turned into public ownership there had to be a real rise of the level of socialisation of production, a growth of the material and technical basis of the collective farms, higher labour productivity and improved labour organisation, large-scale application of science to farming, and so forth. All this requires time, investments and dedicated labour. The prerequisites are created in the course of the growth of collective-farm output.

p Moreover, the simple act of turning the collective farmer into a state-farm employee does not make him a worker. For a long time to come he will remain a collective farmer by his mental outlook, organisation, culture, way of life, and so forth. Time, effort and education arc needed to remake the collective farmers’ way of life and thinking.

The erasure of class distinctions will not mean that all social distinctions will have disappeared or that complete social equality will have been attained. Within the system of state and co-operative-collective-farm ownership there live and work intellectuals, who, due to their position, differ substantially from people engaged in physical work. For that reason the abolition of class distinctions is linked up not only with the erasure of the distinctions between the forms of ownership but also with the eradication of the distinctions between town and country and between physical and mental work.