important exception. The common land of the village is no longer divided up into strips, but is cooperatively farmed. Each small farm has its own vegetable garden; every peasant retains his own private property; but the machines and the horses work for a definite period on behalf of the whole village.
The regulations concerning the socialisation of the land which have been approved by the Central Executive Committee, provide likewise for this most primitive stage of collective agriculture. The advantages of such a form of union consist in the complete freedom of activity which is preserved for each peasant apart from the actual process of labour, so that every peasant can readily enter into such a union without risking the loss of his independence. But, in addition, cooperative farming entails quite a number of advantages: it puts an end to the division of the individual smallholder’s land into long strips which are often widely separated one from another, and this reform renders the introduction of a many-field system possible; agricultural implements and machinery can be adequately utilised: there can be a more effective division of labour for the aid of households which lack workers, implements, cattle, etc.
Cooperative farming is the very first stage of collective agriculture; and we can therefore naturally expect that in so far as collective agriculture as yet exists, it will chiefly be in this form. The data relating to the 1919 season show that cooperative farming is already becoming established in quite a number of districts. Large areas have been divided into tithings and farmed cooperatively. In some cases part of the common land of the village has been cooperatively farmed in this way.
110. Agricultural Cooperation.
Even before the revolution, cooperation for the full utilisation of the various agricultural products was widely diffused among the peasants. To this category belong the dairy-farming artels (cheese-making and butter-churning)