Essential Distinctions Between Town and Country under Socialism, the material-production and socio-economic distinctions between town and country, and between industry and agriculture that are attributable to the first phase of the communist mode of production. In the initial period of the socialist reconstruction of society, the rural areas lag far behind the urban development of productive forces, and trail in the development of social character of labour, and in material, cultural standards and the quality of everyday life. This was the consequence of centuries of oppression by exploiters from the cities: merchants, usurers, bankers, commercial and industrial capitalists, let alone the landlords. Socialism eliminates the contrast between town and country inherent in all prior class socio-economic formations. Relations of comradely cooperation and socialist mutual assistance among working people freed from exploitation emerge and grow between the working people in the urban and rural areas, and the unity of the vital economic and political interests of the working class and peasantry is reinforced. However, socialism is not in a position to immediately overcome the traditional lag in rural development behind urban, or of agriculture behind industry, which results in significant socio-economic distinctions between them lingering for a rather lengthy period of time. The domination in town of the higher 125 form of socialist ownership of the means of production represented by state socialist property (belonging to all the people) is unchallenged. The process of socialist transformation of a multitude of scattered private peasant households into large collective enterprises results in the appearance and development of collective farm-and- cooperative property, whose futher development proceeds under a determining influence of public ownership. Collective farm-and- cooperative property and cooperative enterprises differ from property of the whole people and state enterprises by their lower level of socialisation of production, by the kind of economic turnover of the produce, and by certain peculiarities in the rumuneration for labour, production organisation and management. Despite the accelerated development of the material and technical base of agriculture, the equipment to labour ratio in agriculture is still below that of industry. There are still appreciable differences in the levels of general education and professional and technical qualifications of the industrial workers and the workers at agricultural cooperatives, and in cultural amenities in urban and rural areas. Under developed socialism there is a gradual obliteration of the material, production, social and economic differences between town and country, between industry and agriculture, and between the working class and the cooperated (collective farm) peasantry. Specialisation and concentration of agricultural production is being intensified on the basis of inter-enterprise cooperation, and agro-industrial integration is gaining momentum (see Intergration, Agro-Industrial, under Socialism). As the material and technical base of communism is created, the material and technical level of agricultural production is coming closer to that of industry. Being built in rural areas are industrial-type enterprises for the primary treatment and processing of agricultural produce, as well as allied enterprises of the light and food industries operating on a seasonal basis making it possible to more effectively and amply utilise rural labour resources. The availability of machinery and equipment for agricultural production has been greatly increased, achievements of the scientific and technological revolution are being introduced, and professional rural personnel are growing in number. All this is contributing to the successful solution of the problem of placing agricultural production on an industrial footing, and to turning agricultural labour into a variety of industrial labour. The USSR is consistently working on a programme of turning agricultural labour into a variety of industrial labour, of building in the rural areas a network of educational institutions, centres of culture, health care, retail trade, public catering, service and municipal facilities, and transforming settlements and villages into modern townships. The incomes of collective farms and collective farmers have grown considerably, and the material and cultural standards of the rural population have been greatly improved. The process of convergence of the two forms of socialist ownership and the two types of socialist enterprises now underway will end with their merging and the formation of a single type of ownership of the means of production by the whole people. As a consequence, socio-economic differences between town and country will disappear, class distinctions between the workers and peasants will be removed, and a classless society will emerge. Only slight distinctions between town and country will remain arising from the natural conditions of life and labour. Greater social homogeneity via eliminating class differences, the essential distinctions between town and country, and between mental and physical labour is an important social objective of the Soviet state and proclaimed by the USSR Constitution.