Boon of Housekeeping

Zealous in following Joseph Stalin's clear directives, Bolshevik henchmen expect as part of the system to be publicly blamed by the Dictator for his occasional mistakes, then zealously follow his "new directives." Last week in the tall-towered Kremlin the 1935 spring directives for collective farms were taken on the chin by Comrade Yakov Yakovlev, the Party's Director of Agriculture.

The Dictator's words of blame as related by Comrade Yakovlev himself after he left the Kremlin: "The policy of squeezing the peasants* will not do. It is wrong. If you want to succeed, under present conditions, you must think not only of the collectives but also of the individual interests of farmers."

From anyone except the Dictator this would have sounded like flat treason and "deviation from the Party line," which has always been to consider first the collective interest. Continued Comrade Stalin's new and contrariwise directive as announced by Comrade Yakovlev: "It is better to admit openly and honestly that there should be private housekeeping on collective farms--small but private. . . . As long as family and children exist, these interests must not be neglected."

To 100,000,000 peasants this forecast that the boon of private housekeeping will soon be conferred brought joy. Another mistake, according to Stalin via Yakovlev, has been the Dictator's attempt to stamp out all private cultivation whatever by peasants on collective farms. Forecast was a uniform system for Soviet peasants, now forcibly 80% collectivized, under which each family will enjoy not only private housekeeping but the further boon of tilling for its own private enjoyment between one and three acres.

As heretofore, Soviet peasants will do most of their work for the State on its collectives, will sell what they raise to State collectors at the State's prices, usually about one-sixth of the current free market price.

* Hitherto the No. 1 agricultural policy of Stalin.

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