not fond of the word “commune,” and is afraid to use the name even when a commune is perforce created in practice. Generally speaking, the difference between the commune and the artel is that the artel is only a productive union (a cooperative of production); whereas the commune is not only a productive union but likewise a distributive union — a cooperative at once for production, distribution, and consumption.
The number of communes and artels is rapidly increasing in Soviet Russia. Here are the latest figures, those for the autumn of 1919.
The figures show that the tendency towards the formation of communes and artels has the character of a mass movement and that it is progressive. But the figures also show the weak side of these types of union. In the case of the communes in especial, the average size of the area concerned is very small. What we are now considering is not a change from small-scale agriculture to large-scale agriculture, but a change to medium-scale agriculture or to something very little better. Hence the communes are unable to demonstrate either to their members or to the neighbouring population the real advantages of large-scale agriculture. Upon a farm of a few desyatinas, agricultural machinery cannot be utilised to the full extent of its powers; nor is it possible on such a farm to organise a proper rotation of the crops. Even so, the significance of these unions for the purposes of medium-scale agriculture is very great. They realise the advantages of the division of labour. Some of the women are released from housework, and are therefore able to help in the speedier finishing of the land work; on a given area, fewer horses are needed, the work is done in more timely fashion, and the ground is more thoroughly tilled; as a net result, better returns are secured than from the little plots of ordinary peasant agriculture.
The economy of labour power realised by the commune is further displayed by the fact that most of the communes engage in enterprises supplementary to land work. They build mills; undertake various small industries in the home; erect repairing shops; etc.