Soviet Move Towards " Collective Villages"
From Our Russian Correspondent
The latest Soviet decree on the reduction of the collective peasants' private allotments has been followed by a renewed campaign against the surviving small farmers.
This is happening mostly in the Northern and North-Western regions where individual farming was more suited to local conditions.
Isvestia (June 17), in an article on the new collective villages, represents the drive in White Russia as a voluntary popular movement. A decision of the Central Communist Party of White Russia to incorporate all individual homesteads in the villages was acclaimed by unanimous approval. 70,000 petitions came in asking for this transfer. and of the 134,000 individual families in White Russia 90.000 are to be collectivised within the year.
Isvestia declares that the isolation of these individual homesteads resulted in the lowering of their cultural level; few could visit theatres and cinemas.