THE ORGANISATION OF AGRICULTURE

The petty-proprietor mentality of the middle peasants, however, inclines them to form an alliance with the rich peasants. An additional impulsion in this direction arises above all because the middle peasants are compelled to divide their superfluous grain with the town workers, or rather to hand over what they do not actually need for their own consumption without any prospect of receiving from the town workers in return the products of urban industry. It is therefore essential that the Communist Party should endeavour to detach the middle peasants from the rich peasants; for the latter are in reality the agents of international capitalism, and are endeavouring to lead the peasantry as a whole into courses which will involve the loss of all that has been gained by the revolution. Furthermore, our party must make it perfectly clear to the middle peasants that only consideration for transient and temporary interests can induce them to make common cause with the rich peasants and with the bourgeoisie; we must show them that their real, permanent, and far-reaching interests, as genuine workers, dictate an alliance with the urban proletariat. Finally, while striving to effect the socialist transformation of agriculture, we must be careful to avoid alienating the middle peasants by ill-considered and premature measures, and must make no attempt to coerce them into forming communes and artels. At the present juncture the principal task of communism in Russia is to bring it to pass that the workers upon their own initiative, and the peasants upon their own initiative, shall destroy the counter-revolution. When that has been achieved, there will no longer remain any