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p Socialism has abolished the age-old antithesis between town and country, and the exploitation of the peasant masses by urban capitalists. It put an end to the backwardness of the countryside, to the hopeless poverty of the peasants and to their lack of rights, which fettered the progressive 270 development of society as a whole and of the peasant in particular.

p Socialism has instituted social ownership in the countryside, transformed the small, scattered husbandries into large collective farms and supplied these farms with modern machinery. After wiping out the exploiting classes socialism changed the social structure of the countryside: all the peasants became toilers in socialist production. The town, which had been the adversary and exploiter of the countryside, became its true friend and ally. The alliance between the workers and the peasantry, which is the foundation of the socialist system, grew stronger, and the working class became the recognised leader of the peasants and the organiser of their new life in a new, socialist society.

p The abolition of the antithesis between town and country is a law of socialism, a law that has been confirmed by practice in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries.

p However, the surmounting of this antithesis does not signify the abolition of the essential distinctions between town and country. These distinctions manifest themselves in the fact that state ownership is supreme in towns and in industry, while in the countryside, in addition to state ownership (state farms and other enterprises) there is co-operative-collective-farm ownership. The town differs from the countryside and outstrips it in the level of the productive forces, technical equipment, the character and division of labour, the standard of living, the cultural level, the communal services, level of transport and communications, and so on.

p Naturally, these distinctions leave their mark on the development of the individual, and place the rural inhabitant at a disadvantage with regard to facilities for enhancing his qualifications and cultural level and improving intellectually and physically, especially as the main achievements of material and spiritual culture are concentrated in the towns. The objective process of the erasure of the essential distinctions between town and country is, therefore, not an end in itself but a means of achieving a higher objective, namely, the creation of equal social conditions for the development of the individual, for turning him into an all-sidedly developed citizen of the new society.

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p The gradual disappearance of these distinctions in the course of communist construction is mirrored in the change in the character of farm labour; the improvement of social relations and, in particular, of the relations of production, and their gradual growth into communist relations; the rise of the cultural level of the countryside and the recasting of its way of life. All these processes are founded 011 the promotion of the productive forces through the utilisation of the latest scientific and technological achievements and on the boosting of labour productivity.

p Comprehensive electrification and chemicalisation, allembracing mechanisation and automation in production, and scientific and technological progress will gradually turn farm labour into a variety of industrial labour. Moreover, the growth of the machine-worker ratio will necessarily bring about a rise of the cultural and technical level and lead to peasants receiving special training. In the long run this will enable the peasant to take his place beside the urban worker in the united ranks of citizens engaged in communist production.

p The old division of labour in the countryside is being surmounted. Formerly the peasant was a jack of all farm trades, and his work was seasonal. Essentially workers’ trades have now appeared in the countryside. The machine operator has become an important figure at the collective farms. In 1963 there were nearly twice as many machine operators at the collective and state farms as in 1940. Many of them have received training in allied trades, and this enables them to change their occupation.

p Specialists trained at institutions of higher learning are playing an increasing role in organising agricultural production. In 1964, for example, agriculture employed 583,000 agronomists, zootechnicians, engineers and other specialists, while two-thirds of the collective-farm chairmen and nearly all the state-farm managers had a higher or secondary education.

p Despite substantial successes there are serious difficulties in agriculture. When we consider these difficulties we must take into account the fact that from tsarist times the Soviet Union inherited an extremely backward, scattered agriculture in which the main implements were the wooden plough and the harrow. Enormous damage was inflicted 272 on agriculture by the nazis, who destroyed or pillaged 98,000 collective farms, 1,876 state farms and 2.890 machine-and-tractor stations, and slaughtered or drove away to Germany tens of millions of head of livestock. Besides these objective reasons, agriculture was adversely affected by subjectivism, by errors in planning, financing and crediting, and by the price policy.

p Much remains to be done to overcome these difficulties and ensure the further upsurge of the collective and state farms. The countryside is still inadequately supplied with machinery. The shortage of tractors, harvester-combines and other machines, including cultivators, harrows and seeders, delays field work and holds up the growth of crop yields. The repair facilities have to be improved and more specialists trained for agriculture. To meet this situation, the March 1965 Plenary Meeting of the C.C. C.P.S.U. and the 23rd Party Congress adopted decisions to expand the material and technical basis of the collective and state farms. Suffice it to say that the plan for 1966-70 calls for the supply to agriculture of 1,790,000 tractors and 1,100,000 lorries. These are truly impressive figures, especially in view of the fact that at the close of 1964 there was a total of 1,565,000 tractors and 956,000 lorries in agriculture.

p The growth of the productive forces is reshaping the relations of production in the countryside—the socialisation level of co-operative-collective-farm ownership is rising and drawing ever closer to state ownership, economic relations are improving both within agriculture itself and between agriculture and industry, and the form of distribution is changing at the collective farms.

p The eradication of the distinctions between town and country and, thereby, between the working class and the collective farmers is giving rise to a population movement from town to country and back. Migration to towns is linked up chiefly with the growth of labour productivity in agriculture. During Soviet years the number of rural workers (annual average) dropped by more than half while agricultural production rose 130 per cent.

p The migration to towns is natural and will continue, but it is not due only to the growth of the machine-man ratio or of labour productivity in the towns. Many rural 273 inhabitants, particularly young people, aspire to move to towns because of the better facilities there for creative work, for obtaining an education, for cultural growth and for recreation.

p This makes the surmounting of the cultural and livingstandard lag in the countryside an important social problem, which must be resolved before social equality can be achieved.

p Socialism has brought a new culture to the countryside, changed its way of life and opened for the peasant the road to education and culture. The general education and technical level of the rural population has grown noticeably. The collective farmers are spending considerably more money on books, magazines and newspapers and on items of cultural use. Many general education schools, clubs and public libraries have been opened in the countryside. For example, the number of clubs in the countryside has increased from 100 in 1913 to 112,300 in 1962, and of cinema installations from 100 in 1914 to 122,300 in 1965. Amateur art activity and sports have become widespread.

p The rural way of life is gradually changing. Town-type houses with modern conveniences and paved streets are no longer rare in the villages. The number of shops is increasing rapidly and there are public catering establishments, children’s institutions, cultural centres and sports facilities. However, much still remains to be done in the way of raising the cultural level, and, in particular, organising everyday life in order to create the conditions for moulding the erudite, politically conscious and all-sidedly developed agricultural worker.

p The five-year economic development plan for 1966-70 marks a major step towards further progress in surmounting the essential distinctions between town and country and consistently raising the material and cultural level of the rural population to that of the towns. The approximate doubling of the basic production assets in agriculture and their substantial renewal will bring the production and technical potentialities of agriculture to the level achieved in industry. A large housing and everyday service programme has been started, and there is to be a considerable rise of the collective farmers’ incomes in cash and kind from the socialised economy.

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p The decisions passed by the 23rd Party Congress call for a creative approach to key social problems, particularly the relationship between town and country and between the working class and the collective farmers. Today it is not only a question of strengthening and enlarging the economic and political foundation of the alliance between the working class and the peasants, but also of promoting cultural co-operation between them, of furthering the cultural growth of the countryside and introducing urban culture into rural life.

When we speak of erasing the essential distinctions between town and country, we must bear in mind the fact that in both town and country the population is heterogeneous. One section of the rural population is linked up with state ownership (workers of slate farms and other state enterprises) and the other is linked up with cooperative-collective-farm ownership (collective farmers). In both these sections there are brain and manual workers. Then again they may be subdivided into specialists and unskilled workers (rank-and-file collective farmers and state-farm workers, the lower echelons of office workers, clerical workers, and so forth). Hence the distinctions among the rural population as regards material security, cultural level and organisation of life must be taken into consideration when the problem of surmounting the essential distinctions between town and country is tackled. Moreover, this problem is closely connected with the problem of surmounting the essential distinctions between mental and physical labour in both town and country.