of NEP the impossibility to market the surplus, and to get the equivalent in 
goods is similarly a hindrance to the development of agricultural product- 
ion”’*). No wonder, therefore, that since the Soviet Government under the 
new conditions of NEP, using new and more “delicate” methods (Com- 
munism in gloves!) was driving the peasants into au economic cul-de-sac, 
similar phenomena of passive economic self-defence of the peasantry began 
to manifest themselves anew, both in the way of curtailment of the peasants’ 
production for external market, and in the way of transition to the system 
of self-supply as regards commodities which the peasants used to buy on the 
market. 
In order to realise of what an incredible extent the peasants are being 
robbed in Soviet Russia under the NEP, it is sufficient to consider the 
following figures published by a certain K. Rosental in the influential 
official organ of the Communist party “The Bolshevic”**). Pointing out 
in the first place that, in spite of all efforts and promises, retail prices of 
goods sold to the villages are continually rising, Rosental at the same time 
shows how, alongside with this rise in selling prices, all the buying prices 
which the State pays to the farmer are falling. Thus, on December 1, 
1926 the “Corn Product” (“Khleboproduct”) paid for rye 63.4 per cent. 
only of what it paid on July 1, 1925; wheat was paid on December 1, 
1926, 76.8 per cent., oats, 48.7 per cent.; barley, 84.1 per cent as against 
the prices paid on July 1, 1925. Rosental gives further a striking com- 
parison between the distribution of national income before the revolution, 
in 1913, and during the last four years of the Soviet regime. In 1913 
agriculture received 58.1 per cent. of the total national income. In 1923-24 
this relation underwent a sharp change: agriculture (that is, practically, 
the population, for only in agriculture the economic activity of the Russia 
population is free and unfettered!) was receiving only 29.2 per cent., and 
the industry (i. e. the Socialist Treasury, for the industry, being nationalised, 
is in the hands of the Soviet Government) — A4/.7 per cent. Later on the 
share of agriculture underwent a further decrease reaching in 1926-27, 
25.7 per cent., whilst the share of industry went on increasing, reaching 
51.7 per cent. 
That is how the peasant is being robbed under the NEP Communism 
in gloves! 
Let us now see what are the real land conditions in Russia under the 
NEP, and under the formal working of the Land Code, as characterised 
above. In the first place let us dwell on the manifestations of the Com- 
munist tendency, and more particularly on the “sovkhos’es” and ‘kol- 
—— tt 
*) On the agrarian front. 1926. Vol. III, p. 103. 
*¥\ “The Bolshevic”. 1027. No. 5. Article of K. Rosental: “Sore points”. 
36