which are widely distributed throughout the northern provinces and along the upper reaches of the Volga. Artels likewise exist for the early stages of linen manufacture, for the manufacture of raw sugar, for the drying of vegetables, for the compressing of hay. The Soviet Power supports all such undertakings. It is incumbent upon the Communist Party to assist the rural workers to form and extend cooperatives, and to encourage the peasants to improve working methods. At the same time, the party must do its utmost to resist the attempts of small-scale capital to entrench itself in such artels for a struggle against the Soviet Power and against large-scale socialist agriculture.
111. The State Utilisation of abandoned Areas; the Mobilisation of agricultural Experts; Lending Stations; Improvement of the Land; Land Settlements.
The extreme disorganisation of agriculture resulting from the war has thrown large areas out of cultivation. The proletarian State cannot allow these regions to lie waste at the very time when a grave food crisis prevails in the towns and in the less fertile provinces. The Soviet State, therefore, undertakes the cultivation of all waste areas, no matter to whom they may belong. This measure is of especial importance in districts where the civil war has raged, for here in many cases the rich peasants have abandoned their farms and have withdrawn in the company of the retreating enemy. Of no less importance is the State garnering of crops abandoned by the owners, and of crops which the owners are unable to harvest unaided.
Russian agriculture can only be restored from its present disorganised condition by a number of resolute and revolutionary measures. One of these measures is the mobilisation of the labour power of all expert agriculturists, or, in a word, the institution of compulsory service for such persons. There have never been many skilled agriculturists in