Of enormous importance to the peasants at this juncture is the provision of possibilities for the repair of agricultural implements. In view of the present iron famine, it is impossible for the small private workshops to undertake the necessary repairs. The State alone is in a position to organise the matter upon a sufficiently extensive scale, in part by enlarging the activities of the repairing shops on the soviet farms, and in part by covering the countryside with a network of shops especially instituted for the repair of agricultural implements.
Huge areas of peasant land now unfitted for cultivation are perfectly capable of being transformed into excellent arable. The necessary improvements are neglected to-day, partly because the work is beyond the means of any village community, and partly because the peasants are not acquainted with modern methods of land improvement. In this matter, therefore, the proletarian State can be of the utmost assistance to the peasants. Notwithstanding the civil war, in many districts excellent work is already being done along these lines.
During the decade 1901 to 1910, the yield per desyatina in various countries was as follows:
Thus despite the fact that the Russian soil is much richer than that of western lands, our country is the last in the list as regards productivity. Per desyatina, Russia grows three and a half times less oats than Denmark and Belgium; four times less wheat than Denmark, and three times less than Germany and England; three times less rye than Belgium. Even in Turkey, the yield per desyatina is twice as great as the yield in Russia.
It is necessary to point out that the yield of our peasant farms is yet lower than that given in the above table, for the table records averages, and therefore includes the high productivity of the private landlords’ estates, where the yield was from one-fifth greater to two and a half times greater than the yield of the peasant farms.