Russia. To-day, in view of the enormous task that lies before us in respect of the transformation of agricultural methods, and in view of the urgent need for increasing productivity in the rural districts, we cannot fail to be peculiarly aware of this lack. The mobilisation of expert agricultural knowledge is practically equivalent to the socialisation of such knowledge, and in truth it can be best and most purposively administered by the State.
The imperialist war made it impossible for Russia to import agricultural machinery. The native production of such machinery has never been equal to the demand. Many machines, and among them the best and the most complicated, have hitherto been imported from Germany, Sweden, and the United States of America. Furthermore, owing to the lack of metals, the scarcity of fuel, and many other causes, the native production of agricultural machinery has fallen to a minimum. All this has led to a serious dearth of farming implements. In view of the enormous demand for machinery and tools, and in view of the scanty supply of these requisites accessible to the proletarian State, it has become a matter of extreme importance that we should rightly distribute such implements as we have and should ensure their most advantageous utilisation. But as long as private ownership in agricultural implements exists, their proper utilisation remains impossible, seeing that for considerable periods the machines lie idle; their owner is not using them at the very times when for lack of them his neighbours cannot plough their fields or cannot gather in the crops.
In order that we may render assistance to those strata of the rural population which suffer most from lack of implements, and in order that we may guarantee that the implements shall be fully utilised, we must see to it that we do not supply machinery and tools for permanent use by private owners, but we must ensure that they shall be kept at lending stations where they will be available for all who need them. In other words, the machinery and tools intended for the use of the peasantry and