Having to reckon with the fact that small-scale peasant farming will continue to exist for many years to come, the Russian Communist Party endeavours to promote a series of measures tending to increase the productivity of peasant agriculture. Among such measures may be enumerated: (1) the regularisation of peasant tillage (the abolition of the strip system of culture, etc.); (2) the supply of better seed and of artificial manures to the peasants; (3) the improvement of the breed of the peasants’ live stock; (4) the general diffusion of expert agricultural knowledge; (5) expert agricultural assistance to the peasants; (6) repair of the peasants’ agricultural implements at the soviet repairing shops; (7) the foundation of lending stations, experimental stations, demonstration fields, etc.; (8) the improvement of peasant lands.[§112.]
The chasm between town and country is at all times one of the main causes of the backwardness of the rural districts, both as regards farming methods and as regards mental culture. But, in a profoundly critical epoch like the present, this cleavage involves