p The March Plenum of the Central Committee opens the broadest prospects before our collective and state farms. The older of you will probably remember the 1930s, and how we delivered the grain, brought the seeds for sowing from Millerovo in ox-drawn carts, how we crippled the oxen’s legs on those impassable roads in spring, and how afterwards we were expected to use those same oxen for the ploughing and the sowing. This has now receded into the remote past. There were plenty of hardships in farming, plenty of unsettled problems, and plenty of mistakes. Everything seems to have been cleared up now. From here on it’s up to us.

p Last year I went to the German Democratic Republic on the invitation of the Government of the GDR, and was shown round two farms there. Both these farms rank high in the republic. The one which is managed by Comrade Wulf, member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, is a very large, mechanised enterprise, from which one 122 can learn a lot. The other is a less prosperous farm, and the lands on which it is located are not very fertile. The soil is as sandy as it is here, outside Veshenskaya. So they mainly go in for stock-raising.

p This year our German friends will come for a stay with us in Veshensky district. Both Comrade Wulf and Lother Koch, the chairman of the second farm, are coming. I expect they’ll bring their best workers along.

p We’re hospitable people, and we’ll give them a hearty welcome.

p You tell me that your Party organisation will make a good infantry company. You have close on a hundred full members and thirty candidate members. That’s a huge force. Add the Komsomol members to this number, and then with a strength like that you’ll be able to move mountains!

p The prospects are clear enough. Our tasks are pretty clear, too. Your farm is well-equipped with machines. Oh well, the two or three lorries which Comrade Maksayev has spoken about should not present much of a problem, and I think we’ll procure them. Machines are not all I have in mind just now. In this respect you have never been denied help. I think that this year will be a turning point for this district, for many farms, in fact for all the farms in the Soviet Union. Because the decisions adopted by the Plenum are very sound with full account taken of both our possibilities and our requirements. For instance, it’s a wonderful idea to raise the purchase prices. It’s perfectly natural, of course, that we must first of all endeavour to fulfil the plan which apparently will not be too burdensome. In order to replenish the collective farm coffers, you must make an effort to sell the state some produce over and above plan. ...

p Allow me to express my confidence in you and my best wishes for a successful conclusion of the whole cycle of farming jobs, and above all else I wish you good spring sowing. Spring is almost on us, there’s very little time left. I’m sure you understand this better than I do as you are immediately involved. Certainly, you’ll have to sweat a bit and go short on sleep. But you must do everything to finish the sowing within the shortest possible space of time and on a high level of efficiency too.

1965